[2] Many of the full-time inhabitants of the Hog Hammock community, also known as Hogg Hummock, are African Americans known as Gullah-Geechees, descendants of enslaved West African people brought to the island in the 1700s and 1800s to work on island plantations.

SICARS was founded in 1993 by Sapelo Island resident and non-resident descendants including Cornelia Walker Bailey.

In the 1990s, mainlanders began acquiring parcels of land from the Gullahs to construct vacation homes.

In 2013, a fight over the sudden tax hikes was well underway, with some residents claiming they would be driven from land they had owned for many generations for the benefit of mainlanders who would acquire more of Hog Hammock's homes.

[7] In September 2023 by a 3 to 2 vote, McIntosh County, which is 65 percent white, weakened zoning restrictions, more than doubling the maximum size permissible for Hog Hammock homes.

[8] The commission chair said the island's changing culture is due to Gullahs who sold their land.