Waccamaw

Last updated
Waccamaw
Regions with significant populations
US (North Carolina, South Carolina)
Languages
unattested, possibly Catawban Siouan and possibly related to Woccon [1]
Religion
Indigenous religion
Related ethnic groups
Winyaw, [2] Catawba [1]

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. [1] [3]

Contents

Name

The meaning of the name Waccamaw is unknown. Francisco of Chicora, a 16th-century Indian man kidnapped by Spanish colonists, wrote it as Guacaya. [1]

Language

The Waccamaw language was not recorded and remains unattested. The language likely belonged to the Siouan language family. [1] English explorer John Lawson published a 143-word vocabulary of the possibly related Woccon language in 1709. [4]

History

Precontact

Wetlands at Waccamaw State Park Scene fringe wetland Lake Waccamaw State Park ncwetlands KG (3).jpg
Wetlands at Waccamaw State Park

People in the area have built sedentary villages since at least 3,000 to 500 BP [lower-alpha 1] . Maize became a staple crop in the regions. Complex chiefdoms first arose in the area between 1150 to 1200 AD. Tribes neighboring the Waccamaw included the Sewees, Santees, Sampits (Sampa), Winyahs, and Pedees. [5]

16th century

According to ethnographer John R. Swanton, the Waccamaw may have been one of the first mainland groups of Natives visited by the Spanish explorers in the 16th century. Within the second decade of the 16th century, Francisco Gordillo and Pedro de Quexos captured and enslaved several Native Americans, and transported them to the island of Hispaniola where they had a base. Most died within two years, although they were supposed to have been returned to the mainland.

One of the Native men kidnapped by the Spanish in 1521, Francisco de Chicora was baptized and learned Spanish. He worked for Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón. The explorer took him to Spain. Chicora told the court chronicler Peter Martyr about more than 20 Indigenous peoples who lived in present-day South Carolina, among which he mentioned the "Chicora" and the "Duhare". Their tribal territories comprised the northernmost regions. [6]

Swanton believed that Chicora was referring to the peoples who became known as the Waccamaw and the Cape Fear Indians, respectively. [7]

18th century

European contact decimated the Waccamaw. Having no natural immunity to endemic Eurasian infectious diseases, such as smallpox and measles, the Waccamaw, like many southeastern Native peoples, had high mortality rates from the new diseases. The 1715 Carolina colonial census listed their population as 610 total, with 210 men. The 1720 census recorded that they had 100 warriors. [8]

By the early 18th century, the Cheraw, a related Siouan people of the Southeastern Piedmont, tried to recruit the Waccamaw to support the Yamasee and other tribes against English colonists during the Yamasee War in 1715. The Cheraw made peace with the English. [1]

The English colonists founded a trading post in Euaunee, "the Great Bluff," in 1716. The Waccamaw engaged in a brief war against the South Carolina colony in 1720, and 60 Waccamaw men, women, and children were either killed or captured by the colonists as a result. [9]

In 1755, John Evans noted in his journal that Cherokee and Natchez warriors killed some Waccamaw and Pedee "in the white people’s settlements." [8]

19th century

The surviving Waccamaw grew corn for their own use. In the later 19th century, they cultivated tobacco and cotton as commodity crops, on a small scale, as did yeomen among the neighboring African-American freedmen and European-Americans. Waccamaw Siouan people in the late 19th century in North Carolina farmed diverse crops on inherited lands, but agriculture was depressed. They increasingly turned to wage labor by the end of the century. Men collected turpentine from pine trees to supplement their income, while women grew cash crops, including tobacco and cotton, and /or worked as domestic laborers and farm hands. [10]

Population

While the Waccamaw were never populous, the arrival of settlers and their diseases in the 16th century resulted in devastating population loss and dispersal. Anthropologist James Mooney estimated the 1600 population of the "Waccamaw, Winyaw, Hook, &c" at 900 people, while the 1715 census records only one remaining Waccamaw village with a total population of 106 people, 36 of them men. [11]

State-recognized tribes

In 1910, the Waccamaw Siouan Indians, one of eight state-recognized groups in North Carolina, organized a council to oversee community issues. A school funded by Columbus County to serve Waccamaw children opened in 1934. At the time, public education was still racially segregated in the state. Before this, the Waccamaw had been required to send their children to schools for African Americans. [12]

North Carolina recognized the Waccamaw Siouan Tribe of North Carolina in 1971. [13] The community is centered in Bladen and Columbus counties, North Carolina. [3] They have unsuccessfully tried to gain federal recognition. [14] They hold membership on the NC Commission of Indian Affairs as per NCGS 143B-407, and incorporated as a 501(c)(3) organization in 1977. Lumbee Legal Services, Inc., represents the Waccamaw Siouan Tribe in its administrative process for seeking federal recognition. [15] [16] [17]

In 2005 South Carolina recognized the Waccamaw Indian People, [18] a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in Conway, South Carolina. [19] [20] with an office in Aynor, South Carolina.

Both organizations claim to descend from the historic Waccamaw people.

Unrecognized organization

The Waccamaw Sioux Indian Tribe of Farmers Union is an unrecognized tribe based in Clarkton, North Carolina, that incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 2001. [21]

See also

Notes

Related Research Articles

The Lumbee are a Native American people primarily centered in Robeson, Hoke, Cumberland, and Scotland counties in North Carolina.

The Yamasee War was a conflict fought in South Carolina from 1715 to 1717 between British settlers from the Province of Carolina and the Yamasee, who were supported by a number of allied Native American peoples, including the Muscogee, Cherokee, Catawba, Apalachee, Apalachicola, Yuchi, Savannah River Shawnee, Congaree, Waxhaw, Pee Dee, Cape Fear, Cheraw, and others. Some of the Native American groups played a minor role, while others launched attacks throughout South Carolina in an attempt to destroy the colony.

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">Pedee people</span> Indigenous people of the Southeast United States

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, one state-recognized group, and several unrecognized groups claim descent from the historic Pedee people. 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.

The Santee were a historic tribe of Native Americans that once lived in South Carolina within the counties of Clarendon and Orangeburg, along the Santee River. The Santee were a small tribe even during the early eighteenth century and were primarily centered in the area of the present-day town of Santee, South Carolina. Their settlement along the Santee River has since been dammed and is now called Lake Marion. The Santee Indian Organization, a state-recognized tribe within South Carolina claim descent from the historic Santee people but are not presently federally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

<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">Tutelo</span> Historic Indigenous tribe of the Eastern Woodlands

The Tutelo were Native American people living above the Fall Line in present-day Virginia and West Virginia. They spoke a dialect of the Siouan Tutelo language thought to be similar to that of their neighbors, the Monacan and Manahoac nations.

<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."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Croatan</span> Historic Native American tribe

The Croatan were a small Native American ethnic group living in the coastal areas of what is now North Carolina. They might have been a branch of the larger Roanoke people or allied with them.

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.

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 Sissipahaw or Haw were a Native American tribe of North Carolina. They are also variously recorded as Saxahapaw, Sauxpa, Sissipahaus, etc. Their settlements were generally located in the vicinity of modern-day Saxapahaw, North Carolina on the Haw River in Alamance County upstream from Cape Fear. They are possibly first recorded by the Spaniard Vendera in the 16th century as the Sauxpa in South Carolina. Their last mention in history is that the tribe joined the Yamasee against the English colonists in the Yamasee War of 1715. Some scholars speculate that they may have been a branch of the Shakori due to being so closely associated with that tribe but others disagree with this assumption.

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.

Woccon was one of two Catawban languages of what is now the Eastern United States. Together with the Western Siouan languages, they formed the Siouan language family. It is attested only in a vocabulary of 143 words, printed in a 1709 compilation by English colonist John Lawson of Carolina. The Woccon people that Lawson encountered have been considered by scholars to have been a late subdivision of the Waccamaw.

The Sewee or "Islanders" were a Native American tribe that lived in present-day South Carolina in North America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waccamaw Indian People</span> State-recognized tribe in South Carolina, United States

The Waccamaw Indian People is a state-recognized tribe and 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in Conway, South Carolina. The organization was awarded the status of a state-recognized tribe by the South Carolina Commission of Minority Affairs on February 17, 2005 and holds the distinction of being the first state-recognized tribe within South Carolina. The Waccamaw Indian People are not federally recognized as a Native American tribe and are one of two organizations that allege to be descended from the historic Waccamaw, the other being the Waccamaw Siouan Indians, a state-recognized tribe in North Carolina. The two organizations are not affiliated with one another.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Swanton (156), p. 100
  2. ↑ Swanton 102–103
  3. 1 2 Lerch 328
  4. ↑ Mithun, Marianne (2001). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 506. ISBN   9780521298759.
  5. ↑ Proposed Establishment of Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge, Georgetown County, Horry County, and Marion County: Environmental Impact Statement. Vol. 1. United States Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service. April 1997. pp. 92–93.
  6. ↑ "First Descriptions of an Iroquoian People: Spaniards among the Tuscarora before 1522", Dr. Blair Rudes, Coastal Carolina Indians Center, 2004.
  7. ↑ John R. Swanton, "Early History of the Creek Indians and their Neighbors", Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 73 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1922), 32–48
  8. 1 2 Swanton 101
  9. ↑ Swanton 100–101
  10. ↑ Lerch 330
  11. ↑ Swanton 103
  12. ↑ Learch 331
  13. ↑ "Chapter 71A. Indians". North Carolina General Assembly. Retrieved 14 August 2016.
  14. ↑ Learch 330
  15. ↑ See Clarke Beach, "Congress Asked to Recognize Waccamaw Indians in State," Daily Times-News Burlington, N.C., (18 April 1950).
  16. ↑ "Congress Hears of Lost N.C. Tribe," Asheville Citizen, Asheville, N.C. (27 April 1950)
  17. ↑ Ross, American Indians in North Carolina, pp. 137-148
  18. ↑ "Native American Heritage Federal and State Recognized Tribes". State Historical Preservation Office. SC Department of Archives and History. Retrieved 14 August 2016.
  19. ↑ "Waccamaw Indian People The". OpenCorporates. Retrieved 22 January 2022.
  20. ↑ "Waccamaw Indian People". Cause IQ. Retrieved 6 March 2024.
  21. ↑ "Waccamaw Sioux Indian Tribe of Farmers Union, Inc". OpenCorporates. Retrieved 25 April 2024.
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