User:Nativecrusader/sandbox
| Named after | Sumter, SC Cheraw people |
|---|---|
| Formation | January 28, 2013[1][2] |
| Type | state-recognized tribe, nonprofit organization |
| EIN 81-3475516[3] | |
| Purpose | A23: Cultural, Ethnic Awareness[3] |
| Headquarters | Sumter, South Carolina |
| Location | |
Official language | English |
| Leader | Ralph Oxendine[4] |
Formerly called | Sumter Band of Cheraw Indians |
The Sumter Tribe of Cheraw Indians or Sumter Cheraw is a state-recognized tribe and nonprofit organization in South Carolina.[4][2] The state of South Carolina gave the organization the state-recognized tribe designation under the SC Code Section 1-31-40 (A) (7)(10), Statutory Authority Chapter 139 (100-110) in 2013.[5] They are not federally recognized as a Native American tribe and are, along with the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, one of two state-recognized nonprofit organizations in the Carolinas that claim to descend from the historic Cheraw people.[4][6] The organization is based in Sumter County, South Carolina.[4]
Members of the Sumter Cheraw descend from the Turks of Sumter County, an isolated community of people in Dalzell, South Carolina who have identified as being of Turkish descent since the eighteenth century.[7] The Sumter Cheraw's recognition in 2013 was the source of controversy among Turkish descendants, who maintain that their ancestors only ever identified as Turkish and never as Native Americans.[8]
Government
[edit]On January 8, 2007, the government of the Sumter Tribe of Cheraw Indians first formed as a nonprofit organization, originally being called the Sumter Band of Cheraw Indians.[9]
History
[edit]The Sumter Tribe of Cheraw Indians organized in 2006 as the Sumter Band of Cheraw Indians, led by brother and sister, Ralph Oxendine and Mandy Oxendine-Chapman, who, along with a few others, rejected being labeled as Sumter Turks in favor of identifying as Cheraw.[7][10] The group maintains that the Turks of South Carolina originally descended from Native Americans invited to Dalzell, South Carolina by General Thomas Sumter following the American Revolutionary War.[7] Leadership has alternatively alleged that the organization's ancestors resided within Sumter County prior to the arrival of the first Europeans.[11] The organization maintains that General Sumter was instrumental in protecting the identities of the Sumter Cheraw, who would have otherwise been removed from the area as a result of the Indian Removal Act.[12] The Sumter Cheraw maintain that only over time did the group become known as Turks, due to one of the progenitors of the community, Joseph Benenhaley, allegedly being of Turkish descent.[7]
Dr. Brewton Berry, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Ohio State University, wrote in his 1963 book Almost White, that he believed the term "Turk", like many similar racial epithets applied to mixed racial groups in the southeast, was an attempt on the part of local whites to explain the swarthy complexions of their neighbors who they insisted were not of African American descent, but who were still not white.[13][14] Berry expressed doubt in the Turkish origins of the community in Dalzell, writing that local stories of the group being descended from Turkish laborers imported by General Sumter or Turkish pirates stranded on the Carolina coast were, in his opinion, less than convincing.[15] During the late twentieth century, social anthropologist, Alice Bee Kasakoff and ethnohistorian, Wes Taukchiray, maintained that the Sumter Turks were not classifiable as a contemporary indigenous population because the community had not historically or contemporaneously maintained an indigenous identity, with most members considering themselves "white Turk Americans".[16]
References
[edit]- ^ "SUMTER CHERAW INDIANS". OpenCorporates. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
- ^ a b "SUMTER CHERAW INDIANS". businessfilings.sc.gov. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
- ^ a b "Sumter Tribe of Cheraw Indians". CauseIQ. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
- ^ a b c d "South Carolina's Recognized Native American Indian Entities | Commission for Minority Affairs". cma.sc.gov. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
- ^ "Sumter Tribe of Cheraw Indians celebrates heritage with festival". The Sumter Item. Retrieved 4 January 2023.
- ^ "Indian Entities Recognized by and Eligible To Receive Services From the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs". Indian Affairs Bureau. Federal Register. 22 January 2022. pp. 7554–58. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
- ^ a b c d Baker, Robert (28 December 2006). "Tribe seeks recognition: Local Cheraw Indians proud of heritage". The Item. No. Vol. 112, No. 71. newspapers.com. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
{{cite news}}:|issue=has extra text (help) - ^ Fausset, Richard (5 July 2018). "Tracing the Roots of South Carolina's 'Turks,' Before They Melt Away". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
- ^ "Business Name Search - Business Entities Online - S.C. Secretary of State". businessfilings.sc.gov. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
- ^ "Obituary of Scottie Lee Oxendine | Elmore Hill McCreight Funeral Home and Crematory". sumterfunerals.com. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
- ^ Dolan, Mary (13 December 2007). "Sumter Cheraw Indians seek state recognition". The Item. No. Vol 113, No. 59. newspapers.com. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
{{cite news}}:|issue=has extra text (help) - ^ "Society welcomes chief of Sumter Band of Cheraw Indians". The Item. No. Vol. 113, No. 153. newspapers.com. 16 March 2008. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
{{cite news}}:|issue=has extra text (help) - ^ Berry, Brewton (1963). Almost White (1st ed.). New York: The Macmillan Company. p. 39. ISBN 1684225639.
- ^ "Brewton Berry". prabook.com. Retrieved 5 February 2023.
- ^ Berry, Brewton (1945). "The Mestizos of South Carolina". American Journal of Sociology. 51 (1): 38. Retrieved 5 February 2023.
- ^ Paredes, J. Anthony (1992). Indians of the Southeastern United States in the Late 20th Century (1st ed.). Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press. p. 73. ISBN 9780817305345.