Acre by acre, land once purchased by newly emancipated slaves and handed down through generations of family, is being divided and sold, often for much less than its worth, as developers continue to create posh resorts and "plantations," such as those found on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. Throughout much of coastal South Carolina and Georgia, descendants of these African American former slaves, known as the Gullah-Geechee, have been fighting to hold onto the property and heritage left to them by their ancestors.

An article in the Chicago Tribune tells the story of Sargent Parker who bought 26 acres of marshland on Warsaw Island, SC, in 1869, six years after becoming a free man. Parker's descendants still live on the island, along with 10,000 other Gullah-Geechee, farming and spending time with family.

"This is our heritage. We were born and raised here and we are not going to come and let anyone come and take it from us," said Henry Aiken, a great, great grandson of Parker, in the Tribune article. "This land is like a million dollars to us. And if one of us hurts, everyone hurts."

At the end of the Civil War, as part of Reconstruction, many African Americans in the South purchased small parcels of land. Much of this land was "bottom land" – too wet to grow anything but rice, considered "mosquito infested" and generally worthless. Now that land is considered "prime real estate," and developers are drooling. Money aside, the family members still living on their ancestors' land are finding it hard to hold on to it - battling as widening highways, golf courses and resort condominiums have replaced family graveyards and farms, and the history, heritage and traditions they've followed for generations.

Land title issues for the Gullah-Geechee people date back to those first land purchases by their African-American ancestors. Because most of them couldn't read or write, many of that first generation didn't leave a written will, and property was handed down verbally, rather than by deed. The Jim Crow laws that followed Emancipation further impeded black people’s access to the legal system. The land continued to be handed down through the family verbally, often for many generations. Legally, however, South Carolina and other states do not honor verbal wills, considering land left by an individual without a written will (those who are "intestate") to be equally owned, by all heirs - known as heirs' property. After several generations, this means that as many as several hundred people might hold partial title to the original plot of land.

According to Will Moredock in the Charleston City Paper, this is a crack in the system -- referred to as "partitioning" -- that the developers use to their advantage, looking for a single heir (often one of 100s who may own joint interest in the land) who is interested in selling their portion. This may be a distant family member who has never lived on the land, paid its taxes, or even set foot on it. When that family member takes the money and signs over his portion of the property, the developers then take the matter to court, arguing "that the property cannot be divided 'without prejudice to the tenants in common.' The judge's 'remedy' is to order a sale of the entire tract at a courthouse partition sale. The family that had owned the property for generations has no recourse and likely no legal counsel and no money to bid on their own land."

Even when the heirs band together, high-end developements built on land sold around them often raises property taxes to a rate they can no longer afford.

According to the Center for Heirs' Property Preservation in North Charleston, near 14 million acres of heirs' land has been lost since the Civil War. Today, a little over a million acres remain. Funded by the Ford Foundation, the Center has provided assistance for thousands of predominantly African American heirs’ property owners to help them resolve land disputes. The National Trust listed the Gullah-Geechee Coast as one of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2004.

The state of South Carolina is finally stepping in too. South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford signed a bill in May aimed at protecting those property owners from being forced to sell. Under the law, families whose land is to be auctioned must be given the opportunity to purchase it at its appraised value before the land can be sold, effectively giving those families a "right of refusal."

It's hard to put a price on family history and heritage. But it happens every day.