Marsh Tacky Races: A South Carolina Christmas Tradition

Marsh Tacky photo by Anthony Surbeck/WikiMedia Commons
One of the oldest breeds of horses in the United States today lives on the islands off the coast of South Carolina.
The Marsh Tacky was brought to this country by Spanish explorers in the 16th century. They were left on the islands and the isolation there has allowed the breed to survive. The “tacky” in the name Marsh Tacky refers to how common the horse once was in the lowland swamps of South Carolina.
Today, however, the Marsh Tacky is far from common. The breed is considered endangered, with fewer than 300 Marsh Tackies alive today.
Similar to the Marsh Tacky, the Gullah community in the coastal region of South Carolina is also vanishing. The Gullah are descendants of primarily Angolan slaves and speak their own unique language. Similar to the Marsh Tacky, the Gullah would have disappeared many years ago if not for the isolation of the islands they inhabited. And the Gullah and the Marsh Tacky are not strangers.
The Gullah have used Marsh Tackies for hundreds of years, primarily as workhorses in fields and gardens.
The horses are accustomed to the humidity and terrain in the swamps, which made them useful as beasts of burden. It also allowed the Marsh Tacky to help defend the area in the American Revolutionary War and the Civil War and patrol the beaches during World War II. But when these unusual animals weren’t pulling plows or carrying soldiers, the Gullah would race them.
For generations the Gullah held a special kind of Christmas festival to celebrate not only the holiday, but also the end of the year and the planting season. People would ride Marsh Tackies from house to house on Christmas day, gathering one another and leading a procession through the town to the beaches of Hilton Head Island, where the horses were pitted against one another in a race. The winner of the race won no prize other than a year’s worth of bragging rights for owning the fastest Tacky on the island.
The Christmas races faded away about 50 years ago, but recently were revived on Hilton Head Island as part of a yearly Gullah cultural celebration.
Today, the fate of the Marsh Tacky race is in jeopardy. Disagreements over which horses are sufficiently pure-bred enough to race and the loss of sponsors has led to the race changing locations, and in 2015 it may not happen at all. This year, the race was held on Daufuskie Island, a challenging venue as Daufuskie doesn’t have any bridges. The only way for both humans and horses to get there is by boat!
The Gullah people speak a language that is a combination of English and various African languages but isn’t spoken anywhere else in the world. The squat, low-necked Marsh Tacky is only found in South Carolina. The Gullah racing Marsh Tackies on the beach might not be your family’s idea of an ideal Christmas, but it’s a tradition that is born and bred right here in the USA … as American as apple pie.

Photo by Anthony Surbeck/WikiMedia Commons