Dr. Will Moreau Goins, Chief Executive Officer of ECSIUT (right) shakes hands with state archaeologist Jonathan Leader after the South Carolina Commission for Minority Affairs voted unanimously Thursday to formally recognize the Eastern Cherokee, Southern Iroquois & United Tribes of South Carolina, Inc. as a tribal group in South Carolina.
Barbara Paul, Program Coordinator
Native American /
Dr. Will Moreau Goins, CEO, Eastern Cherokee, Southern Iroquois & United Tribes of South Carolina, Inc.
aka Cherokee Indian Tribe of South Carolina
Photos Courtesy of ECSIUT
State Newspaper
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Native Americans claim birthright
S.C. commission votes to give tribes formal
recognition
Staff Writer
The tears started streaming down Linda Hatcher Atkinson’s face Thursday as a state commission moved to formally recognize the Waccamaws as a Native American tribe in South Carolina.
As the members of the Commission for Minority Affairs voted one by one, tears spread throughout the audience. The last “yes” vote prompted a raucous cheer and hugs all around.
Dozens of people who legally — and in many other ways — had been denied their birthright suddenly had reclaimed it.
“It means, in a sense, freedom,” Atkinson said after the meeting, another round of tears flowing.
“I’m 59 years old. It was so hard to claim what I was growing up. We were called a negative name, and we weren’t allowed to say we were Indians.”
Technically, the recognition doesn’t mean much for the tribes. They don’t get any state funds. But they now legally can label their work as Native American art and can apply for some grants targeted for Native Americans.
Spiritually, it means everything.
“It is the most significant thing South Carolina has done for Native American Indian people in 300 years,” said Dr. Will Moreau Goins, chief executive officer of the Eastern Cherokee, Southern Iroquois and United Tribes of S.C. “For the first time, this state is going to embrace their people who happen to be Indian.”
The commission approved as Native American tribes the Waccamaws, many from the Horry County community of Dimery, and the Pee Dee Tribe of Upper South Carolina, based in the Dillon County community of Little Rock.
The Eastern Cherokees Southern Iroquois and United Tribes of South Carolina, Inc, based in Oconee, Anderson, Pickens, Richland, and Greenville Counties and headquartered in Columbia (a statewide tribal organization), and the Wassamasaw Tribe of Varnertown Indians, based in Berkeley County, were approved as Native American Indian tribal groups.
They were four of six entities that applied in the first round of recognition since the Legislature approved the process last year.
Tribal applications were denied for the Chaloklowa Chickasaw Indian People and the Fields Indian Family-Pine Hill Indians because they didn’t meet standards proving their historical basis. The Chaloklowa Chickasaw plan to reapply for group status immediately, said Chief Vernon Tanner.
Buster Hatcher, the burly chief of the Waccamaw, isn’t the crying type, yet he wiped tears off his cheek several times during the meeting.
For the 365 members of his tribe, “it legitimized who they’ve always been and who they’ve always been told they couldn’t be,” Hatcher said.
The commission members even got caught up in the emotion, several of them tearing up. “I’ll never forget this day for the rest of my life,” said chairman and attorney Jerry Finney,
Before Thursday, the federally recognized Catawbas of the Rock Hill area were the only tribe in the state. Thursday’s decision added about 2,600 people in the state who legally can claim to be Indians.
To earn the state recognition, the various entities had to provide paperwork showing they had enough people with common heritage and a long-standing tribal history. Genealogical records had to go back several generations, back to times when Native Americans had reason to deny their heritage to avoid persecution.
In recent years, South Carolina residents with Native American backgrounds have embraced their heritage. They organized powwows and other events to spotlight their customs. Many already declared their race as Native American on their voter registration cards.
Now, four tribes have state recognition of their heritage.
As Chief Carolyn Chavis Bolton of the Pee Dee Indian Nation said, “I don’t have to prove who I am anymore.”
The Struggle for State Recognition
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American Indians want recognition from Legislature
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Their comments came during the state Minority Affairs Commission's public hearing on the new rules, which the commission will submit to legislators next year.
If the rules are approved, American Indian leaders said they could sell authentic labeled pottery and participate in federal programs for state recognized tribes.
Federal recognition for Indian tribes is difficult for many along the East Coast and elsewhere because they never signed treaties with the U.S. government, said state archaeologist Jonathan Leader.
But state recognition would allow Indians in South Carolina to reap the benefits of federal programs at the departments of Education, Labor and Housing and Urban Development among others, said William Goins of the Eastern Cherokee, Southern Iroquois and United Tribes of South Carolina. It would not, however, allow them to benefit from many services offered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the federal agency that recognizes tribes.
There are roughly 27,000 people in South Carolina who identified themselves as American Indian during the 2000 Census. The Catawba Indian Nation is the only federally recognized tribe in South Carolina.
The state rules also would be a "stepping stone" to additional changes in the way the state treats American Indians, said Waccamaw Chief Harold Hatcher.
The regulations would establish a five-member state recognition committee that would have several criteria to determine whether to recognize an American Indian tribe, group or a special interest organization.
It also would set up an advisory committee to the Minority Affairs Commission, and expected administrative and personnel costs would be $60,000 -- possibly a tough sell in another tight budget year.
Once recognized by the state, the Indians would not be allowed to support any form of gambling and could not sue the state over land disputes, the regulations say.
Cherokee Robert Chastain, who heads the state chapter of the American Indian Movement, said he was concerned Indians might be compromising gambling and land disputes, and the recognition seems like the government was "doing a favor" for the Indians.
"We can't compromise too much," Chastain said. "God knows the Native Americans in this country have compromised themselves almost to extinction."
Everyone who spoke at the meeting was in support of the regulations, but some were concerned about a confidentiality clause that would bar the release of information given to the recognition committee.
That information could be educational for future generations.
"This confidentiality clause restricts access to records held by the Minority Affairs Commission that are presumed to be public record by other state agencies," said Keith Pounds, a Choctaw who publishes an Internet newsletter for South Carolina Indians. "Even at the federal level, the government does not restrict access."
Some were concerned that personal information should remain private. Sensitive material ranged from Social Security numbers to financial information.
There also are some ceremonies and other things unique to American Indian culture that should not be released to the public, said Pee Dee Chief Charles Boone, who fears companies' exploitation of Indian artifacts.
Janie Davis, who heads the Minority Affairs Commission, said she would research the confidentiality issue during the next two weeks to determine whether the rules need to be changed.
Most of the roughly 20 American Indians who showed up for the hearing were just happy the state was making progress toward recognizing American Indians.
James Caulder, a Pee Dee, said before he joined the military, he wasn't recognized in South Carolina as an Indian and still isn't.
"For 24 years in the United States Army I was an American Indian," Caulder said. "And I returned to my home state of South Carolina and reverted back to the same status that I had prior to going into the military."
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