Pedee people

Last updated
Pedee, Pee Dee, or Peedee
Town Creek Indian Mound.JPG
Town Creek Mound, a precontact Pee Dee culture site in North Carolina
Total population
Estimated 600 in 1600 [1]
Regions with significant populations
Flag of the United States.svg  USA
Flag of South Carolina.svg  South Carolina
Languages
Unknown
likely Siouan, [2] possibly Catawban [3]
Related ethnic groups
Catawba

The Pedee people, also Pee Dee and Peedee, were a historic Native American tribe of the Southeastern United States. Historically, their population has been concentrated in the Piedmont of present-day South Carolina. It is believed that in the 17th and 18th centuries, English colonists named the Pee Dee River and the Pee Dee region of South Carolina for the tribe. Today four state-recognized tribes, [4] [5] one state-recognized group, [4] and several unrecognized groups claim descent from the historic Pedee people. [6] [7] [8] Presently none of these organizations are recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, with the Catawba Indian Nation being the only federally recognized tribe within South Carolina. [4]

Contents

Etymology

The precise meaning of the name Pedee is unknown. [1] The name has many variations, having been alternatively spelled as Pee Dee, PeeDee, Peedee, Peedees, Peadea, and Pidee. [9] [10] In early Spanish accounts the name is rendered, Vehidi. [3] There has been contention among historians regarding which orthography is the more proper rendering of the name. [10] Traditionally, there was speculation that an early trader, Patrick Daley, carved his initials, P.D., on trees along a trail within the vicinity of the modern Pee Dee River, leading to the region and river's present name, potentially being imposed also onto the indigenous tribe, however, some scholars and writers have disagreed with this theory. [10] In the early twentieth century, anthropologist Frank Speck suggested that the name might derive from the Catawban word pi'ri, meaning "something good," or pi'here, meaning "smart", "expert", or "capable". [1]

Precontact history

Artists conception of Town Creek Indian Mound during the late Town Creek-early Leak phases circa 1350 CE. Town Creek Mound Aerial HRoe 2019 380px.jpg
Artists conception of Town Creek Indian Mound during the late Town Creek-early Leak phases circa 1350 CE.

The Pee Dee culture is an archaeological culture spanning 1000 to 1500 CE. It is divided into the Teal phase (1000–1200), Town Creek phase (1200–1400), and Leak phase (1400–1500). [11] The Pee Dee were part of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture [12] that developed in the region as early as 980 CE, [13] extending into present-day North Carolina and Tennessee. They participated in a widespread trade network that stretched from Georgia to South Carolina, eastern Tennessee, and the mountain and Piedmont regions of North Carolina.

The Pee Dee culture had developed as a distinct culture by 980 CE [13] and thrived in the Pee Dee River region of present-day North and South Carolina during the pre-Columbian era. As an example, the Town Creek Indian Mound site in western North Carolina was occupied from about 1150 to 1400 CE. [12]

Town Creek Indian Mound in Montgomery County, North Carolina is a proto-historic Pee Dee culture site. [14] Extensive archeological research for 50 years since 1937 at the Town Creek Indian Mound and village site in western North Carolina near the border with South Carolina has provided insights into their culture. [15] The mound and village site has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.

History

Around 1550, the Pedee migrated from the lower Pee Dee River of the Atlantic Coastal Plain to the upper Pee Dee River of the Piedmont and remained there for about a century. They displaced local hill tribes, such as the Saponi, who resettled the region when the Pedee left. [16] Historian Charles M. Hudson believes their migration may have been an effort to avoid Spanish slave raids along South Carolina's coast. These 16th-century Pedee practiced head flattening, as did the neighboring Waxhaw. [17] In 1567, Spanish explorers encountered the village Vehidi on the Pee Dee River, believed to be a Pedee settlement. [18]

In 1600, the population of Pedee people was estimated to be 600. [19] Europeans, mostly from the British Isles, began settling in South Carolina in large numbers in the 17th and early 18th century. The English established a trading post at Euauenee or Saukey in 1716 to trade with the Pedee and Waccamaw. The Winyaw and Algonquian-speaking Cape Fear Indians migrated from the Atlantic Coast up the Pee Dee River to the trading post. [19] [20]

In 1711, the Tuscarora War broke out in North Carolina, [21] and South Carolina tribes joined in the fighting. In 1712, Pedee warriors, along with the Saraw, Saxapahaw, Winyaw, and Cape Fear Indians, served in British Captain John Bull's company [20] to fight alongside the British against the Tuscarora and helped defeat them. As a result, most of the Tuscarora left the area and migrated north, reaching present-day New York and Ontario to join the related Haudenosaunee Confederacy of Iroquois tribes. [21]

In 1715, English mapmakers recorded a Pedee village on the west band of the Pee Dee River's central course. [22]

The political relationships formed between the Pedee and other tribes in the area at this time carried over into their alliances of the Yamasee War. The Yamasee War of 1715–1717 resulted in major changes among the Southeastern tribes. Historian William James Rivers wrote in 1885 that the Pedee along with many other tribes were "utterly extirpated." [23] However, some survivors may have found refuge with the Siouan-speaking Catawba, who were located near the South and North Carolina border. [23]

In 1737, the Pedee tribe petitioned South Carolina for a parcel of land to live upon. They, along with their Natchez cousins were moved to a 100-acre (0.40 km2) parcel provided by James Coachman in 1738.[ citation needed ] This land was in Berkeley County, along the Edisto River.[ citation needed ]

In the 1740s, the Pedee, along with the Sara, Yuchi, Natchez, and Cape Fear Indians, were known as "settlement Indians," by South Carolinian English settlers. [24] Anthropologists James Mooney and John R. Swanton both wrote that in 1744 the Natchez and Pedee attacked and killed several Catawba people, [19] so the Catawba drove them into European settlements. Mooney wrote of the Pedee that, "In 1746 they and the Sara are mentioned as two small tribes, which had been long incorporated with the Catawba. They were restless under the connection, however, and again Governor Glen had to interfere to prevent their separation." [22] Like neighboring tribes during this era, the Pedee owned African-American slaves. [22]

In 1751, at an intertribal conference in Albany, New York, the Pedee were recorded as being a small tribe living among European colonists. [25] In 1752, Catawba envoys encouraged the Pedee to settle with their tribe. [22] Governor John Glen spoke to Catawba leader King Haigler on May 29, 1755, and said South Carolina had "persuaded the Charraws, Waccamaws, and some of the Pedees to join you [the Catawba]." When Cherokee killed Pedee and Waccamaw people in 1755, they were still living in European settlements. [26] This 1755 mention was the second-to-last historical record of the Pedee people [27] until the 20th century.

Swanton wrote, "In 1808 White neighbors remembered when as many as 30 Pedee and Cape Fear Indians lived in their old territories," [28] but "In 1808 the Pedee and Cape Fear tribes were represented by one half-breed woman." [19] [29]

Language

The Pedee language was extinct by the 19th century. No words from the language were recorded, but linguists suspect it may have been an Eastern Siouan language. [19] Late linguist Blair A. Rudes believed Pedee may have been a Catawban dialect. [3]

State-recognized entities

The State of South Carolina has acknowledged four state-recognized tribes, and one state-recognized group, who identify as being Pedee descendants. [4] The state-recognized tribes are:

The one state-recognized group is:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marlboro County, South Carolina</span> County in South Carolina, United States

Marlboro County is a county located in the Pee Dee region on the northern border of the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 census, its population was 26,667. Its county seat is Bennettsville. The Great Pee Dee River runs through it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catawba people</span> Federally-recognized Indian Nation in South Carolina, United States

The Catawba, also known as Issa, Essa or Iswä but most commonly Iswa, are a federally recognized tribe of Native Americans, known as the Catawba Indian Nation. Their current lands are in South Carolina, on the Catawba River, near the city of Rock Hill. Their territory once extended into North Carolina, as well, and they still have legal claim to some parcels of land in that state. They were once considered one of the most powerful Southeastern tribes in the Carolina Piedmont, as well as one of the most powerful tribes in the South as a whole, with other, smaller tribes merging into the Catawba as their post-contact numbers dwindled due to the effects of colonization on the region.

The Waccamaw people were an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, who lived in villages along the Waccamaw and Pee Dee rivers in North and South Carolina in the 18th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natchez people</span> Native American people originally from the Lower Mississippi Valley

The Natchez are a Native American people who originally lived in the Natchez Bluffs area in the Lower Mississippi Valley, near the present-day city of Natchez, Mississippi, in the United States. They spoke a language with no known close relatives, although it may be very distantly related to the Muskogean languages of the Creek Confederacy. An early American geographer noted in his 1797 gazetteer that they were also known as the "Sun Set Indians".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joara</span> Archaeological site in North Carolina, United States of America

Joara was a large Native American settlement, a regional chiefdom of the Mississippian culture, located in what is now Burke County, North Carolina, about 300 miles from the Atlantic coast in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Joara is notable as a significant archaeological and historic site, where Mississippian culture-era and European artifacts have been found, in addition to an earthwork platform mound and remains of a 16th-century Spanish fort.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands</span> Indigenous groups in the US

Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands, Southeastern cultures, or Southeast Indians are an ethnographic classification for Native Americans who have traditionally inhabited the area now part of the Southeastern United States and the northeastern border of Mexico, that share common cultural traits. This classification is a part of the Eastern Woodlands. The concept of a southeastern cultural region was developed by anthropologists, beginning with Otis Mason and Franz Boas in 1887. The boundaries of the region are defined more by shared cultural traits than by geographic distinctions. Because the cultures gradually instead of abruptly shift into Plains, Prairie, or Northeastern Woodlands cultures, scholars do not always agree on the exact limits of the Southeastern Woodland culture region. Shawnee, Powhatan, Waco, Tawakoni, Tonkawa, Karankawa, Quapaw, and Mosopelea are usually seen as marginally southeastern and their traditional lands represent the borders of the cultural region.

The Cape Fear Indians were a small, coastal tribe of Native Americans who lived on the Cape Fear River in North Carolina.

The Winyaw were a Native American tribe living near Winyah Bay, Black River, and the lower course of the Pee Dee River in South Carolina. The Winyaw people disappeared as a distinct entity after 1720 and are thought to have merged with the Waccamaw.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saponi</span> Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands

The Saponi are a Native American tribe historically based in the Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia. They spoke a Siouan language, related to the languages of the Tutelo, Biloxi, and Ofo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waccamaw Siouan Indians</span> State-recognized tribe in North Carolina, United States

Waccamaw Siouan Indians are one of eight state-recognized tribes in North Carolina. Also known as the Waccamaw Siouan Indian Tribe, they are not federally recognized. They are headquartered in Bolton, in Columbus County, and also have members in Bladen County in southeastern North Carolina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheraw</span> Indigenous tribal group of southeastern North America

The Cheraw people, also known as the Saraw or Saura, were a Siouan-speaking tribe of Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, in the Piedmont area of North Carolina near the Sauratown Mountains, east of Pilot Mountain and north of the Yadkin River. They lived in villages near the Catawba River. Their first European and African contact was with the Hernando De Soto Expedition in 1540. The early explorer John Lawson included them in the larger eastern-Siouan confederacy, which he called "the Esaw Nation."

The Wateree were a Native American tribe in the interior of the present-day Carolinas. They probably belonged to the Siouan-Catawba language family. First encountered by the Spanish in 1567 in Western North Carolina, they migrated to the southeast and what developed as South Carolina by 1700, where English colonists noted them.

The Congaree were a historic Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands who once lived within what is now central South Carolina, along the Congaree River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cusabo</span> Group of American Indian tribes

The Cusabo were a group of American Indian tribes who lived along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean in what is now South Carolina, approximately between present-day Charleston and south to the Savannah River, at the time of European colonization. English colonists often referred to them as one of the Settlement Indians of South Carolina, tribes who "settled" among the colonists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Town Creek Indian Mound</span> National Historic Landmark in North Carolina

Town Creek Indian Mound is a prehistoric Native American archaeological site located near present-day Mount Gilead, Montgomery County, North Carolina, in the United States. The site, whose main features are a platform mound with a surrounding village and wooden defensive palisade, was built by the Pee Dee, a South Appalachian Mississippian culture people that developed in the region as early as 980 CE. They thrived in the Pee Dee River region of North and South Carolina during the Pre-Columbian era. The Town Creek site was an important ceremonial site occupied from about 1150—1400 CE. It was abandoned for unknown reasons. It is the only ceremonial mound and village center of the Pee Dee located within North Carolina.

The Waxhaw people were a Native American tribe who historically lived in present-day counties of Lancaster, in South Carolina; and Union and Mecklenburg in North Carolina, around the area of present-day Charlotte.

The Pisgah phase is an archaeological phase of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture in Southeast North America. It is associated with the Appalachian Summit area of southeastern Tennessee, Western North Carolina, and northwestern South Carolina in what is now the United States.

King Yanabe Yalangway was the eractasswa (chief) of the Catawba Indian Nation, sometime around the 1740s. Not much is known about him other than the fact that he preceded King Hagler as chief. His training was evidently under "king" Whitmannetaughehee's leadership.

Francisco de Chicora was the baptismal name given to a Native American kidnapped in 1521, along with 70 others, from near Winyah Bay by Spanish explorer Francisco Gordillo and slave trader Pedro de Quexos, based in Santo Domingo and the first Europeans to reach the area. From analysis of the account by Peter Martyr, court chronicler, the ethnographer John R. Swanton believed that Chicora was from a Catawban group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keyauwee Indians</span>

The Keyauwee Indians were a small North Carolina tribe, native to the area of present day Randolph County, North Carolina. The Keyauwee village was surrounded by palisades and cornfields about thirty miles northeast of the Yadkin River, near present day High Point, North Carolina. The Keyauwee village was vulnerable to attack, so the Keyauwee constantly joined with other tribes for better protection. They joined with the Tutelo, Saponi, Occaneechi, and the Shakori tribes, moving to the Albemarle Sound with the last two for a settlement that would later be foiled. The Keyauwee would move further southward along with the Cheraw and Peedee tribes, close along the border of the two Carolinas, where they conducted deerskin trade with Charleston traders and allied with the Indian neighbors in the Yamassee War. Eventually, their tribe name vanished from historical records, and with time, they were absorbed by the Catawba tribe.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Swanton, John R. (2007). The Indian Tribes of North America. Washington, D.C.: Genealogical Publishing Company. p. 97. ISBN   9780806317304 . Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  2. ↑ Swanton, John Reed (1952). The Indian Tribes of North America. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. p. 97. ISBN   9780874740929.
  3. 1 2 3 Rudes, Blair A.; Blumer, Thomas J.; May, J. Alan (2004). "Catawba and Neighboring Groups". Handbook of North American Indians. 14 Southeast: 317.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 "Federal and State Recognized Native American Entities". The South Caroline Commission for Minority Affairs. Archived from the original on 14 August 2016. Retrieved 12 August 2016.
  5. 1 2 Gordon, Kay (6 January 1983). "The Santees". The Columbia Record. Vol. 86, no. 220. newspapers.com. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  6. ↑ "Native American Heritage Federal and State Recognized Tribes". SC Department of Archives & History. State of South Carolina. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  7. ↑ "South Carolina's Recognized Native American Indian Entities". South Carolina Commission for Minority Affairs. Retrieved 12 August 2021.
  8. ↑ Pounds, Keith A. (12 June 2016). "Not a Tribal Community". T&D. The Times and Democrat. Retrieved 12 August 2016.
  9. ↑ Mooney, James (1894). The Siouan Tribes of the East. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 76–77. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  10. 1 2 3 Neuffer, Claude; Neuffer, Irene (2020). Correct Mispronunciations of South Carolina Names. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. p. 113. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  11. ↑ "The Woodland and Mississippian Periods in North Carolina". The Archaeology of North Carolina. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Research Laborities of Archaeology. 2010. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  12. 1 2 Cunningham, Sarah L (3 May 2010). "Biological and Cultural Stress in a South Appalachian Mississippian Settlement: Town Creek Indian Mound, Mt. Gilead, NC" (PDF). North Carolina State University. Retrieved 2012-04-12.
  13. 1 2 "The Woodland and Mississippian Periods in North Carolina: Southern Piedmont Late Woodland". The Archaeology of North Carolina. Research Laboratories of Archaeology, UNC. Retrieved 24 March 2012.
  14. ↑ "Town Creek Indian Mound: The Pee Dee Culture". North Carolina Historic Sites. NC Department of Cultural Resources. 6 October 2015. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  15. ↑ "Town Creek Indian Mound: An American Indian Legacy" Archived 2015-01-29 at the Wayback Machine , North Carolina Historic Sites, 2012, accessed 22 April 2014
  16. ↑ Hudson (1970), 16–17, 26
  17. ↑ Hudson (1970), 16–17
  18. ↑ Rudes, Blumer, and May, 302
  19. 1 2 3 4 5 Swanton 97
  20. 1 2 Rudes, Blumer, and May 310
  21. 1 2 Rudes, Blumer, and May 308
  22. 1 2 3 4 Mooney 77
  23. 1 2 Hudson (1970), 42
  24. ↑ Hudson (1970), 47
  25. ↑ Hudson (1970), 47-48
  26. ↑ Swanton 101
  27. ↑ Rides, Blumer, and May 311
  28. ↑ Swanton 75
  29. 1 2 3 Kevin Smetana, "Pee Dee Indian nation might get federal recognition", SC Now Morning News, 21 June 2008 (accessed 12 August 2016).
  30. ↑ Holleman, Joey (28 January 2006). "Three S.C. Indian tribes win recognition". The State (Columbia, South Carolina). Vol. 115, no. 38. Newspapers.com. Retrieved 6 January 2023.

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