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==History==
==History==
According to the Cherokee “Clan Mother” Amanda F. Allen, some of the core families represented in the tribe today with Cherokee roots are those with the surnames, Oglesby, Allen, Jones, Poole, Adair, Sizemore, Thompson, Butler, Nicholson, Martin, and Stare.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Goins |first1=William Moreau |title=About Us |url=http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022003230/http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 October 2016 |accessdate=21 October 2019 |date=22 October 2016}}</ref> The Butlers, Wattses, Vanns, Rosses, Galphins, and McIntoshes are said to be related to the prominent Bushyhead family.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Goins |first1=William Moreau |title=About Us |url=http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022003230/http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 October 2016 |accessdate=21 October 2019 |date=22 October 2016}}</ref> After many years of intermarrying within this small community most of these families became related.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Goins |first1=William Moreau |title=About Us |url=http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022003230/http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 October 2016 |accessdate=21 October 2019 |date=22 October 2016}}</ref> This was in part due to the isolation of the community and in keeping with strict miscegenation laws that prohibited “free people of color” from marrying European or African people.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Goins |first1=William Moreau |title=About Us |url=http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022003230/http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 October 2016 |accessdate=21 October 2019 |date=22 October 2016}}</ref> In early times, since these families lived in rural communities, as was common across the state, most of them were farmers.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Goins |first1=William Moreau |title=About Us |url=http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022003230/http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 October 2016 |accessdate=21 October 2019 |date=22 October 2016}}</ref> Consequently, one clan took to gathering during the final weekend of September in thanksgiving to the harvest of that season.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Goins |first1=William Moreau |title=About Us |url=http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022003230/http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 October 2016 |accessdate=21 October 2019 |date=22 October 2016}}</ref> This was in keeping with the Cherokee Fall Festival tradition, which is held the first week of October for the same reason.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Goins |first1=William Moreau |title=About Us |url=http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022003230/http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 October 2016 |accessdate=21 October 2019 |date=22 October 2016}}</ref> There are approximately seven hundred Cherokee descendants descended from these families enrolled in the ECSIUT.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Goins |first1=William Moreau |title=About Us |url=http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022003230/http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 October 2016 |accessdate=21 October 2019 |date=22 October 2016}}</ref> Most of these individuals had ancestors who resided in numerous Cherokee Lower Villages prominent throughout history, which include, Brasstown, Crane Creek, Chatuga, Chauga, Cheowee, Coweeshee, Echay, Esseneca, Estanaley, Estatoe, Oustestee, Keowee, Noyowee, Oconee, Socony, Qualhatchie, Sugartown, Tomassee, Toxaway, and the Tugaloo village.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Goins |first1=William Moreau |title=About Us |url=http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022003230/http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 October 2016 |accessdate=21 October 2019 |date=22 October 2016}}</ref>
According to the ECSIUT, the group traces its history back to several families that were classified as “free people of color” by the United State Census despite the fact that they were ethnic Native Americans and still practiced and passed down traditions of their culture.<ref>{{cite web |title=State Recognized Groups |url=https://www.nativesouthcarolina.org/communities/state-recognized-groups#Tribes-11 |website=NASCA |publisher=Native American South Carolina Archive |accessdate=15 August 2020}}</ref> These families were descendants of Cherokee that lived within the Cherokee Lower Villages that once existed in the upcountry of South Carolina such and at the time were still living along the Tugaloo River.<ref>{{cite web |title=State Recognized Groups |url=https://www.nativesouthcarolina.org/communities/state-recognized-groups#Tribes-11 |website=NASCA |publisher=Native American South Carolina Archive |accessdate=15 August 2020}}</ref> Surnames carried by these individuals included Allens, Adairs, Nicholsons, and Martins. Descendants in the ECSIUT today also trace their heritage back to individuals with the surnames, Sizemore, Butler, Oglesby/Ogilvy, and Thompson.<ref>{{cite web |title=State Recognized Groups |url=https://www.nativesouthcarolina.org/communities/state-recognized-groups#Tribes-11 |website=NASCA |publisher=Native American South Carolina Archive |accessdate=15 August 2020}}</ref> By 1884, these families had separated from the Chuaga and Old West Minister churches in their area and formed their own congregation called the Cross Roads Baptist Church and not long after built a school adjacent to the church.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Goins |first1=William Moreau |title=About Us |url=http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022003230/http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 October 2016 |accessdate=21 October 2019 |date=22 October 2016}}</ref> The church became a gathering center for the descendants and many modern members of this group can find ancestors buried in the churchyard.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Goins |first1=William Moreau |title=About Us |url=http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022003230/http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 October 2016 |accessdate=21 October 2019 |date=22 October 2016}}</ref> It has been observed that the markers used in the yard are similar to those found in the “Cherokee Graveyard” in Wallhaha, South Carolina. <ref>{{cite web |last1=Goins |first1=William Moreau |title=About Us |url=http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022003230/http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 October 2016 |accessdate=21 October 2019 |date=22 October 2016}}</ref>
Today, members of the ECSIUT can trace their heritage to the aforementioned families in South Carolina or other ancestors that were identified as Cherokee on the east coast. <ref>{{cite web |last1=Goins |first1=William Moreau |title=Enrollment |url= http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/enrollment.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022002307/http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/enrollment.html|url-status=dead |archive-date=22 October 2016 |accessdate=15 August 2020 |date=22 October 2016}}</ref> Membership is also open to individuals of multi-tribal ancestry.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Goins |first1=William Moreau |title=Enrollment |url= http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/enrollment.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022002307/http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/enrollment.html|url-status=dead |archive-date=22 October 2016 |accessdate=15 August 2020 |date=22 October 2016}}</ref> Individuals within the ECSIUT today are of diverse ethnic backgrounds and do not represent a singular ethnic culture as historic tribes once did. Though many members seek to represent, preserve, and educate others about their respective ancestor's traditions and history.

Some members of the ECSIUT trace descent from historically mixed Siouan communities such as the "Smiling Indians" of [[Sumter County, South Carolina]]. This group was largely studied by amateur anthropologist James McDonald Furman in the late 19th century who took to calling members of the community [[Redbone (ethnicity)|“Redbones”]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Britt |first1=Morris F. |title=Implosion |date=Jul 29, 2017 |publisher=Lulu.com |isbn=9781387132256 |pages=447}}</ref> Furman helped establish a “Redbone Celebration” on October 23, 1895 in order to promote and instill Indian pride and identity.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Britt |first1=Morris F. |title=Implosion |date=Jul 29, 2017 |publisher=Lulu.com |isbn=9781387132256 |pages=447}}</ref> In 1896, after making a list of families that attended the Bethesda Baptist Church in [[Privateer, South Carolina]] he was able to conclude that there were an estimated seventy or eighty mixed race families living within Sumter, most of which bearing the surnames Chavis, Epps, Gibbes, Goins, and Smiling.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Britt |first1=Morris F. |title=Implosion |date=Jul 29, 2017 |publisher=Lulu.com |isbn=9781387132256 |pages=450}}</ref> Furman discovered that most of the Smiling Indians were descended from two patriarchs. The first is a man named Thomas Gibbes, who owned a nine hundred and thirty one acre plantation in Sumter.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Britt |first1=Morris F. |title=Implosion |date=Jul 29, 2017 |publisher=Lulu.com |isbn=9781387132256 |pages=386}}</ref> It is assumed to be most likely that his family were the remnants of coastal tribes, especially the [[Ittiwan people|Etiwan]] which occupied part of the William Gibbs plantation near [[Charleston, South Carolina]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Britt |first1=Morris F. |title=Implosion |date=Jul 29, 2017 |publisher=Lulu.com |isbn=9781387132256 |pages=386}}</ref> The second patriarch of the Smiling Indians is noted to have been Jerry Goins alongside his wife Edie.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Britt |first1=Morris F. |title=Implosion |date=Jul 29, 2017 |publisher=Lulu.com |isbn=9781387132256 |pages=450}}</ref> Edie was noted to have been a "mixed blood Indian woman" and a fortune teller.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Britt |first1=Morris F. |title=Implosion |date=Jul 29, 2017 |publisher=Lulu.com |isbn=9781387132256 |pages=450}}</ref> At the turn of the twentieth century many of these families relocated to [[Robeson County, North Carolina]] and assimilated with the [[Lumbee]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Britt |first1=Morris F. |title=Implosion |date=Jul 29, 2017 |publisher=Lulu.com |isbn=9781387132256 |pages=386}}</ref> By no later than the mid-1920s the remaining families in South Carolina migrated to [[Williamsburg County, South Carolina]] and were referred to broadly as the Goins Community while others with the surname Chavis were noted to live in [[Orangeburg County, South Carolina]] at the same time by Wes Taukchiray.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Taukchiray |first1=Wes |title=The Smiling Indians; Goins community; the Chavis Indians.Unpublished manuscript |date=1975}}</ref> Williamsburg was previously home to the [[Winyaw|Winyah tribe]] and the [[Cape Fear Indians|Cape Fear]] are noted to have been relocated there by 1715 by Chapman J. Milling in ''Red Carolinians''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Chapman |first1=James Milling |title=Red Carolinians |date=1969 |publisher=University of South Carolina Press |isbn=0872491803 |page=226 |edition=2nd}}</ref> This seems to be evidence that the communities were migrating to places where other Native descended people lived. Presumably around this same time or slightly before, some families began to commingle with Cherokee descendants due to [[Anti-miscegenation|miscegenation laws]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Goins |first1=William Moreau |title=About Us |url=http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022003230/http://cherokeeofsouthcarolina.com/about.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 October 2016 |accessdate=21 October 2019 |date=22 October 2016}}</ref>

However, despite these laws, as time further passed, many families pressured by restrictions placed upon them in the [[Jim Crow Laws|Jim Crow era]] ultimately began to disperse and intermarry into predominately European or African communities in the state as was common among most mixed Native American communities in South Carolina during the twentieth century as Brewton Berry notes in ''The Mestizos of South Carolina''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Berry |first1=Brewton |title=The Mestizos of South Carolina |journal=American Journal of Sociology |date=July 1945 |volume=51 |issue=1 |page=41 |jstor=2771573 }}</ref> For this reason, individuals within the ECSIUT today are of diverse ethnic backgrounds and do not represent a singular ethnic culture as historic tribes once did. Though many members seek to represent, preserve, and educate others about their respective ancestor's traditions and history.


==References==
==References==

Revision as of 13:59, 15 August 2020

Eastern Cherokee, Southern Iroquois and United Tribes of South Carolina
Total population
400
Regions with significant populations
 United States ( South Carolina)
Languages
English, Cherokee, formerly Tuscarora, and Catawban languages
Religion
Christianity, Traditional Indigenous
Related ethnic groups
Cherokee, Tuscarora, Cheraw, Lumbee, Winyah, Cape Fear and other Siouan peoples

The Eastern Cherokee, Southern Iroquois and United Tribes of South Carolina, Inc. or ECSIUT is a state-recognized Native American Indian group in the state of South Carolina under the SC Code Section 1-31-40 (A) (7)(10), Statutory Authority Chapter 139 (100-111) and obtained this status on February 17, 2005.[1] The ECSIUT is organized to promote interest in scholarly research as well as foster accurate documentation of genealogical, biographical, and historical records surrounding the Cherokee and other Native American tribes originating in South Carolina. For twenty years the ESCIUT hosted an annual Native American film festival in Columbia, South Carolina which gave exposure to indigenous film makers.[2]

Government

According to South Carolina law, Native American Indian groups are defined as "a number of individuals assembled together, which have different characteristics, interests and behaviors that do not denote a separate ethnic and cultural heritage today, as they once did. This group is composed of both Native American Indians and other ethnic races. They are not all related to one another by blood. A tribal council and governmental authority unique to Native American Indians govern them."[3] The ECSIUT was formerly headquartered in Richland County, South Carolina and led by the late Native American activist, Dr. William Moreau Goins, who founded the group and served as Chief and CEO up until his passing in November 2017.[4] In April of 2020, it was announced that the ECSIUT had elected archaeologist Lamar Nelson as their new Chief and CEO.[5] Nelson previously served on the board of the ECSIUT and is well known within the state for having aimed to preserve and educate the public about Native American history and lifeways since the early 1990s. The group is presently headquartered out of Spartanburg, South Carolina and is aiming to bring back the annual the film festival and continue work on other projects.

History

According to the ECSIUT, the group traces its history back to several families that were classified as “free people of color” by the United State Census despite the fact that they were ethnic Native Americans and still practiced and passed down traditions of their culture.[6] These families were descendants of Cherokee that lived within the Cherokee Lower Villages that once existed in the upcountry of South Carolina such and at the time were still living along the Tugaloo River.[7] Surnames carried by these individuals included Allens, Adairs, Nicholsons, and Martins. Descendants in the ECSIUT today also trace their heritage back to individuals with the surnames, Sizemore, Butler, Oglesby/Ogilvy, and Thompson.[8] By 1884, these families had separated from the Chuaga and Old West Minister churches in their area and formed their own congregation called the Cross Roads Baptist Church and not long after built a school adjacent to the church.[9] The church became a gathering center for the descendants and many modern members of this group can find ancestors buried in the churchyard.[10] It has been observed that the markers used in the yard are similar to those found in the “Cherokee Graveyard” in Wallhaha, South Carolina. [11] Today, members of the ECSIUT can trace their heritage to the aforementioned families in South Carolina or other ancestors that were identified as Cherokee on the east coast. [12] Membership is also open to individuals of multi-tribal ancestry.[13] Individuals within the ECSIUT today are of diverse ethnic backgrounds and do not represent a singular ethnic culture as historic tribes once did. Though many members seek to represent, preserve, and educate others about their respective ancestor's traditions and history.

References

  1. ^ "South Carolina's Recognized Native American Indian Entities | Commission for Minority Affairs". cma.sc.gov. Retrieved 21 October 2019.
  2. ^ "20th Annual Native American Indigenous Film Festival of Southeast". onecolumbiasc. Retrieved 21 October 2019.
  3. ^ "139102. Definitions." Chapter 139. Commission for Minority Affairs. Article I. State Recognition of Native American Indian Entities. (Statutory Authority: S. C. Code Section 13140(A)(10)). Page 2. Retrieved 21 October 2019.
  4. ^ "Obituary of Dr. William Moreau Goins". legacy.com. Retrieved 21 October 2019.
  5. ^ "New tribal leader". www.pagelandprogressive.com. Retrieved 18 April 2020.
  6. ^ "State Recognized Groups". NASCA. Native American South Carolina Archive. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  7. ^ "State Recognized Groups". NASCA. Native American South Carolina Archive. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  8. ^ "State Recognized Groups". NASCA. Native American South Carolina Archive. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  9. ^ Goins, William Moreau (22 October 2016). "About Us". Archived from the original on 22 October 2016. Retrieved 21 October 2019.
  10. ^ Goins, William Moreau (22 October 2016). "About Us". Archived from the original on 22 October 2016. Retrieved 21 October 2019.
  11. ^ Goins, William Moreau (22 October 2016). "About Us". Archived from the original on 22 October 2016. Retrieved 21 October 2019.
  12. ^ Goins, William Moreau (22 October 2016). "Enrollment". Archived from the original on 22 October 2016. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  13. ^ Goins, William Moreau (22 October 2016). "Enrollment". Archived from the original on 22 October 2016. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
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