It was the setting of a mass suicide in 1803 by captive Igbo people who had taken control of the slave ship they were on, and refused to submit to slavery in the United States.

[3][4] The group of 75 enslaved Igbo people were bought by agents of John Couper and Thomas Spalding for forced labor on their plantations in St. Simons Island for $100 each.

[5] The chained enslaved people were packed under the deck of a small vessel named The Schooner York[1][2] to be shipped to the island (other sources say the voyage took place aboard The Morovia[6]).

[8] A letter describing the event written by Savannah slave dealer William Mein states that the Igbo walked into the marsh, where 10 to 12 drowned, while some were "salvaged" by bounty hunters who received $10 a head from Spalding and Couper.

[5] Although for more than two centuries most authorities considered the accounts to be an Afro-American folktale, research since 1980 has verified the factual basis of the legend and its historical content.

As the tale has it, the tribes people disembark from the ship, and as a group, turned around and walked along the water, traveling in the opposite direction from the arrival port.

[4]As Professor Terri L. Snyder notes: The flying African folktale probably has its historical roots in an 1803 collective suicide by newly imported slaves.

A group of Igbo (variously, Ebo or Ibo) captives who had survived the middle passage were sold near Savannah, Georgia, and reloaded onto a small ship bound for St. Simon's Island.

Off the coast of the island, the enslaved cargo, who had "suffered much by mismanagement," "rose" from their confinement in the small vessel, and revolted against the crew, forcing them into the water where they drowned.

[2][6][17] In September 2002, the St. Simons African-American Heritage Coalition organized a two-day commemoration with events related to Igbo history and a procession to the site.

The Glynn Academy Club reached out to the Coastal Georgia Historical Society and local Saint Simons African American Coalition for guidance.

The Gullah Geechee, descendants of enslaved West Africans along the southeastern US coast, passed down the story of the Igbo's suicide through oral tradition.

Many works by prominent African-American authors and artists feature similar stories of water or spiritual flight as symbols of resistance.

Examples include Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, who used the myth of the flying Africans in her novel, Song of Solomon,[4] and Alex Haley, who retells the story in his book Roots.

Other contemporary artists that allude to, or have integrated the complete tale of the Flying Africans in their work, include Joseph Zobel, Maryse Conde, Toni Cade Bambara, and Jamaica Kincaid.

[14] Imagery from the "Love Drought" portion of Beyoncé's visual album Lemonade is said to be inspired by Daughters of the Dust[24]and the story of Igbo Landing.