Charles Joyner takes readers on a journey back in time, up the Waccamaw River through the Lowcountry of South Carolina, past abandoned rice fields once made productive by the labor of enslaved Africans, past rice mills and forest clearings into the antebellum world of All Saints Parish. In this community, and many others like it, enslaved people created a new language, a new religion—indeed, a new culture—from African traditions and American circumstances.

Joyner recovers an entire lost society and way of life from the letters, diaries, and memoirs of the plantation whites and their guests, from quantitative analysis of census and probate records, and above all from the folklore and oral history of the enslaved Americans. His classic reconstruction of daily life in All Saints Parish is an inspiring testimony to the ingenuity and solidarity of a people.

This anniversary edition of Joyner's landmark study includes a new introduction in which the author recounts his process of writing the book, reflects on its critical and popular reception, and surveys the past three decades of scholarship on the history of enslaved people in the United States.

|Acknowledgments
Introduction
Introduction to the 25th Anniversary Edition
Prologue
Chapter One. "Down by the Riverside"
Chapter Two. "All Dem Rice Field"
Chapter Three. "Sit at the Welcome Table"
Chapter Four. "Off Times"
Chapter Five. "Come by Here, Lord"
Chapter Six. "All De Bes' Story"
Chapter Seven. Gullah: A Creole Language
Chapter Eight. "My Time Up with You"
Epilogue
Notes
Index| Co-winner of the Chicago Folklore Prize. Winner of the Eugene M. Kayden Award, 1985. — Chicago Folklore Prize
Co-winner of the Chicago Folklore Prize. Winner of the Eugene M. Kayden Award, 1985. — Eugene M. Kayden Award
|Charles Joyner (1935-2016) was Burroughs Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Southern History and Culture at Coastal Carolina University, past president of the Southern Historical Association, and the author of Shared Traditions: Southern History and Folk Culture and other works.