"The Geechee Lady"

About the Book

"The Geechee Lady", subtitled, "Grandma and the Secret Castas ", is an adaptation from the poem, "Miss Willamina", written by the same author.

The true story, written in rhythmic pattern, tells of how a wizened older woman, born in 1885 on one of the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina, relates to a much younger female in the 1950s/1960s' setting of Harlem, New York.

Divisive tactics, taught in previous generations to the black slaves by their white "masters", somehow seep their way into the lives of these two people, causing an awkward relationship between the old woman and the young girl.

It is an awkwardness which stems from the most sensitive human-dynamic of that post-slavery era;...a dynamic manifested in myriad ways in regard to skin-tones, hair-types, facial features, and other physical traits...bringing about the creation of a very subtle, yet highly sensitive "caste-system" among people of color.

This caste-system though well-known among all inhabitants of the colonies in the Americas, ...as well as among its European progenitors,...is rarely discussed openly, even nowadays in 2010/2011, as it is still kept "hush-hush" as a topic to be discussed "secretively" behind closed doors.

Therefore, an exciting,"must-see" section of this book, is Part 4-"Grandma and the Secret Castas", which shows copies of 16th and 17th century paintings which still hang today on the walls of the world's greatest museums. These great revolutionary works of art, in a genre called "La pintura de Casta", or "Casta Paintings", depict the lives of the people who represented the original population and who were contributors to the formation of this dominant, and highly-structured Latin-American "caste-system".

This social system, called "Mestizaje", created by the royal monarchy of Spain and Portugal,...(out of their desire to bring some semblance of order to the new colonies in the Americas),,,, originally existed as an accepted form of concubinage in the Portuguese and Spanish colonies of the Americas,... then it caught on,...though not quite as successfully, in the British-owned, 13-original USA colonies, ...and then concurrently in all the English-speaking, Caribbean territorities including Jamaica, Trinidad-Tobago, the Bahamas, Antigua, Barbados, British Honduras, and Bermuda;... in French-speaking Louisiana (USA), and the French-speaking islands of Martinique,Guadalupe, and Haiti;... in the Spanish-speaking islands of Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, ...in Spanish Honduras, and on Roatan Island and Spanish-owned Belize (before it was annexed to the British Empire in the 1800s as British Honduras), ...in the German-speaking / Old-Dutch-speaking islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao. ...in the Portuguese-owned colonies of the Azores, Cape Verde, and Brazil, and also on all the smaller islands, such as Nevis, St. Croix, the French, St Martin and the Dutch, Maarten, Grenada, St. John, St. Thomas, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Monserrat, Tortola, and Dominica, etc.

About the Author

"The Geechee Lady", (subtitled; "Grandma and the Secret Castas", is the author's second book, ...derived from her original poem, Book #1, entitled
"Miss Willamina", ..which is a autobiographical saga, describing cultural rituals that took place during her childhood.

Being born to two Creole parents, ...her mother, a Belize-Creole of Portuguese and "Geechee" descent,...and her father, a Wesort (aka "Chesapeake-Creole"), set the stage for the author's dual function as both, (1) a state-certified teacher of Spanish, and her (2) becoming the founder of the not-for-profit research group, the Creole-Amerindian Genealogical Society, Inc., in 1983.p> African:

Parts 2 and 3 of "Geechee Lady" tell a short story of her 1/8th African lineage, giving a detailed description of the subtle, yet persistently complex hierarchies that exists among people of color.

As the descendants of Barbadians, the "Geechees" were first brought from Africa to the Caribbean by the Portuguese,...then transported by the British to the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina to cultivate the cotton, rice, and sugarcane which grew abundantly in the fields.

In part 4 of the book ("Geechee Lady"), a description is given of the caste system called "mestizaje", the shrouded and hidden way of life which still persists today (2012) as an integral part of the culture of the Cape Verdean-Crioulos in Massachusetts,... among the Wesorts of Maryland & Virginia,... and also among the Creoles of Belize, Louisiana and Latin America. Hispanic:

In her next book (#3), the "Secret Castas", the author celebrates the 1/4th-Hispanic segment of her lineage by translating a rare book she found in Madrid, Spain during December-2010; Indian:

Her 4th book, entitled "Wesort Woman", and subtitled, "Mulindians, aka- Mulatto-Indians",... a comparative-analysis is made of the life-style of her paternal grandmother, Sarah, a woman born (1889) into the Wesort caste;.. the "free-people-of-color" of Charles County, Maryland,... in juxtaposition to the life of her maternal "Geechee-grandmother", Bessie, who was born in the same era (1888), on a South Carolina Sea Island.

The Wesorts of Maryland,...... socially-parallel, and contemporaneous to two other well-known mulatto groups; (1) the "gens de couleur libres" of French-Louisiana, and (2) the Cape Verdean, Portuguese-Creoles of Massachusetts,......has always been given loyal support by the author, in celebration of her father's lineage as they fought for many years, for recognition as an Indian tribe under auspices of Washington. DC's BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs),...... finally achieving state-recognition from the governor of Maryland in January-2012.

It is important to note here, that due to their "tri-racial isolate" classification, the government had been exceedingly slow to grant recognition to any of the tri-racial/mulatto Indian groups,...taking decades to finally grant State-recognition to the Mashantucket-Pequots in 1980s, the Lumbees in 2011, the Shinnecocks in 2010, and now finally, to the Wesort-Piscataways in 2012.

The author points out, that as they now ponder Federal recognition, her paternal people, whom were historically known by the ethnic term, "Wesorts", now largely reject the term, seeking instead to be recognized solely as "Piscataway Indians".

As a "Creole" the author proudly embraces all three bloodlines that run within her veins, (Portuguese, Indian and African),....as in the equation: "EUROPEAN + (optional INDIAN) +AFRICAN = CREOLE", and , as a brown person ...a Portuguese-Crioulo with Indian blood,...the author identifies with all people of the darker races who come in many variations of black, brown, and beige; ..."subjugated souls" whom for centuries have been systemically put down, subjugated, and psychologically oppressed.