The objective of this article is to explain the characteristics of orality and literacy amid the people of San Andrés Island, and to explore the existing relationships among them. The San Andrés people come from an oral tradition with an African origin, and at the same time, they have a literacy inheritance both from England and from Spain that has defined and characterized their orality and the uses they have given to writing. This article is based on bibliographic documentation and information collected by the author during four months of ethnographic fieldwork in San Andrés Island.