WHERE ARE YOU GOING? Sallie Ann Robinson returned to

Sa l l ie A n n Robi nson

CHEF, AUTHOR, CULTURAL HISTORIAN

Daufuskie Island in South Carolina is just about 5 miles long and 2½ miles wide and accessible only by boat, so people cruise around on golf car ts or bicycles. On some dirt roads, the live oaks bend toward each other—on hot summer days you can walk in shade underneath the Spanish moss. The air here wraps around you like a hug. This is my bir thplace, and it ’ll be my resting place.

After the Civil War, lots of formerly enslaved people who’d once worked the land on Daufuskie moved back and bought proper t y; they’re known as the Gullah, and I’m one of their descendants. (My parents never used that term at home, though—I was so confused when I was called that for the first time in my teens on the mainland.) In my late 20s, I lef t the island—I lived in Philadelphia and Savannah, raised children, worked as a nurse. I’d come back to see family, but I wasn’t sure if or when I’d return for good.

In my 30s, I was visiting Daufuskie when I heard a boat captain tell his passengers that the Gullah people lived in tree huts, had bones in our noses, and couldn’t speak English. I wasn’t going to let him get away with that, so I star ted doing my own research. I wanted my kids to hear facts, not a made-up story—and cer tainly not one they had to be ashamed about. I hadn’t felt especially connec ted to Gullah culture, but the more I learned, the more I appreciated our traditions. I even published three cookbooks of Gullah recipes and stories.

I moved back to Daufuskie full-time four years ago, at the age of 58. There are only about 20 Gullah people living on the island with me, but I help keep the culture alive through my writing, my work as a tour guide, and food, like the fried crab rice my mother taught me to make. Daufuskie has changed dramatically since I was a kid: fewer longtime residents, bigger houses, a golf course where there used to be tall grasses. But I still feel my ancestors’ spirits all the time. I know they were the ones who guided me back home.