A house RESOLUTION

 

To recognize and honor the city of Georgetown, South Carolina, as a designated site of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Routes of Enslaved Peoples: Resistance, Liberty, and Heritage Project.

 

Whereas, the year 2026 marks the five-hundred-year anniversary of the first African arrivals to Winyah Bay in the Village of Georgetown, with Spanish explorer Lucas Vazquez de Allyon; and

 

Whereas, for more than five hundred years, approximately twelve million Africans were forcibly carried across the Atlantic Ocean in the largest forced migration in human history; and

 

Whereas, during the ocean voyages known as the Middle Passage, an estimated two million perished-lost to violence, disease, and despair; their names were largely unrecorded; and

 

Whereas, those who survived brought with them the languages, technologies, cultures, and agricultural knowledge of Africa's Rice Coast and surrounding regions, wisdom that would shape the Americas; and

 

Whereas, among the transatlantic documented vessels arriving to the port of Georgetown are Warwick in 1737, with eight captives, Endeavor in 1738, with thirty captives, Susanna in 1767, with thirteen captives, Peggy in 1770, with one hundred forty-four captives, and Betsy in 1784, with nineteen captives; and

 

Whereas, a Steering Committee of Georgetown, community members headed by Ron Daise, Beatrice Rodrigues, Marilyn L. Hemingway, Effson Bryant, and Mary Rice Crenshaw, was established in August 2025 to develop and install an exemplary Port Marker in Georgetown under the guidance of the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project; and

 

Whereas, a Middle Passage Marker will be erected on sacred ground in Georgetown on October 24, 2026, honoring those who endured, remembering those who did not, and memorializing the cultural legacy of the Gullah Geechee people. Now, therefore,

 

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives:

 

That the members of the South Carolina House of Representatives, by this resolution, recognize and honor the city of Georgetown, South Carolina, as a designated site of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Routes of Enslaved Peoples: Resistance, Liberty, and Heritage Project.

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