Two hundred and twenty-three years ago, a group of Igbo captives stood at the edge of Dunbar Creek on St. Simons Island, Georgia, United States of America. They had been stolen from their homeland, shipped across the Atlantic, and sold into slavery. But on that May day in 1803, they refused the final chain of the slave masters. Hands held together, formed as a chain of defiance, they walked into the sea. They drowned, not in despair, but in defiance. They chose freedom in death over bondage in life. That site is remembered today and perhaps forever as Igbo Landing. The landing is not a tale of suicide, as revisionist historians would make us believe; it is the story of an uprising, an act of courage, a collective refusal to accept the dehumanisation of man. The Gullah Geechee people, descendants of Africans who lived along the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina, have kept the memory alive. For them, the Igbo who walked into the water are not victims. They are ancestors who declared, in the only language they had left, that slavery could not claim their souls.

Now, a global and powerful campaign is underway to give those ancestors a befitting funeral. After 223 years, their spirits are being called home. This is not just a cultural gesture. It is an act of justice. A way of saying that the dead who resisted must be honoured as heroes. The campaign has drawn the attention of many. But it took the voice of a Nobel Laureate to give it global resonance. Professor Wole Soyinka, poet, playwright, activist, has lent his influence to the cause. His endorsement has been instrumental in sensitising local, national, and international stakeholders. He has reminded us that history does not die. It waits to be confronted. It waits to be honoured. Soyinka has spent a lifetime warning against silence. He once wrote that the man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny. The Igbo at Dunbar Creek did not keep silent. They acted. They walked into the water rather than be broken. Their bodies sank, but their courage rose.

Why does this matter now? 

This specious bit of our history matters because we live in a time when oppression has become normalised. We scroll past images of war, injustice, and hunger. We endure leaders who loot without shame. We grumble, but rarely resist. Ours is the generation that negotiates with tyranny, that whispers instead of shouting. In that silence, we slowly die. But the Igbo Landing calls us back to a different spirit. A spirit that says some chains cannot be tolerated. That dignity is worth more than survival. That freedom is not given; it is taken, even at the cost of one’s life. The burial planned for these ancestors is not only about laying to rest those who drowned in 1803. It is about reminding us what it means to stand for something. The Gullah Geechee people remember Igbo Landing in their folklore. They tell of the day the water swallowed the captives, but could not swallow their defiance. Some say the Igbo flew back to Africa. It is myth, but also truth. A truth about the unbreakable longing for home.

Memory is often carried in fragments across the African diaspora. In songs, rituals, folklore, proverbs, tales, legends, and stories told in the inglenook fireplace, where exile leans into the warmth of the fire and remembrance holds its vigil. The Igbo Landing is one of such fragments. It connects the Igbo people to their scattered kin in the Americas. It links black struggle across centuries. From the waters of Georgia to the slave rebellions in Haiti. From the civil rights marches to today’s calls for justice. The burial, then, is not only a funeral. It is a bridge between times, eras, epochs, and different temporalities; a bridge anchored by memories that endure for centuries. It is also a challenge. To the Igbo today. To Africans everywhere. To the descendants of slavery who continue to fight systemic racism. The ancestors at Igbo Landing made a choice. They would not live on their knees. Can we say the same for ourselves today?

I do not romanticise death. Don’t get my reading of history wrong. What happened at Dunbar Creek was born of despair as much as of courage. But we must read it rightly. It was resistance. It was refusal. That difference matters. For too long, the story was told as a suicide. A footnote in the history of slavery. But to see it that way is to strip it of its meaning. The captives were not broken souls who gave up. They were proud people who chose the only freedom left open to them. As the burial campaign gains ground around the world, it is important to frame it correctly. This is not an exercise in nostalgia. It is not an Igbo-only memory. It is a global moment. The transatlantic slave trade touched continents. Its wounds shaped the world. The defiance at Igbo Landing belongs to all who resist oppression.

Soyinka’s voice reminds us that silence is complicity. To give these ancestors a funeral now is to break the silence. It is to say: we remember. We acknowledge. We honour. In remembering them, we indict the systems that continue to profit from exploitation today. Think of it: in 1803, the Igbo captives refused the plantations. In 2025, millions still toil under systems that enslave in new forms, whether as human trafficking, forced labour, or crushing poverty. The burial of the Igbo ancestors should not end with a ceremony. It should spark a call to conscience.

And what of our country itself? The land from which they were stolen. How do we honour them here? It is not enough to wave a flag or sing a song. Honour is lived through justice. Through building a society where no one is forced into the kind of despair that drove those captives into the water. The descendants of slavery in America and the Caribbean have kept this memory alive. Our country and its people must not stay absent. The burial must be a moment of reconnection. A reminder that the Atlantic is not only a gulf of separation, but also a bridge of shared history.

The story of Igbo Landing has seeped into culture. Toni Morrison referenced it. Beyoncé evoked it in Lemonade. Poets and musicians draw on its power. Painters after painters have painted great canvases dedicated to the memory of captives who perished in the waters of Dunbar Creek. It is no longer a local black tale. It is now universal. It asks a timeless question: What will you do when faced with chains? This is the question that this generation must answer. It faces chains of corruption, chains of bad governance, and the chains of poverty. Many members of the generation accept them. Some profit from them. Few resist them. But the ancestors at Igbo Landing offer another script. One that tells us resistance is always possible.

The burial after 223 years is more than a ritual. It is a mirror. In it, we see a people who refused to bend. We see a memory that refuses to die. We see ourselves, and the choices we are making. When the Igbo walked into the water, they were saying something that still speaks. They were saying: Our humanity is not for sale. Our dignity is not negotiable. Our freedom is non-negotiable. Today, we need that voice. Not only in Georgia, but in Lagos, in Port Harcourt, in Abuja. Not only in America, but in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean. Wherever people are oppressed, the Igbo Landing must echo. Professor Soyinka has given his voice. Others must give theirs. Governments, communities, individuals. 

The burial must be a global moment of recognition. A time to honour the dead, yes, but also a time to rouse the living. Two hundred and twenty-three years have passed. The waters of Dunbar Creek still flow. But memory flows stronger. It carries with it a lesson that cannot be ignored. We are the heirs of that defiance. The question is whether we will live like heirs. Or die like the silent. The Igbo ancestors of St. Simons Island did not merely walk into the water. They crossed into eternity with their dignity intact. In that moment, they walked not away from life, but into history, leaving behind a legacy carved in defiance. More than two centuries later, their footsteps still echo across the Atlantic, summoning us to listen. They call us not only to remember, but to act, and to grant them, at last, the honour of a burial befitting their courage, even if symbolic. To heed this call is to reconcile with a past that has shaped us all. It is to declare that their sacrifice was not in vain, and that the waters that claimed their bodies cannot silence the truth they spoke through their final act of resistance.

Abdul Mahmud is a human rights attorney in Abuja