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COLUMBIA -- The Croatan Pee Dee, based in Orangeburg, will reportedly withdraw its petition for state recognition after the Native American State Recognition Committee raised serious doubts as to whether the group is a legitimate tribal community
Members of the Native American State Recognition Committee met June 9 at the South Carolina Commission for Minority Affairs in Columbia to review petitions for recognition of three Native American entities -- the Croatan Pee Dee, based in Orangeburg; the Piedmont American Indian Association-Lower Eastern Cherokee Nation of South Carolina, based in Simpsonville; and the Marlboro, Chesterfield and Darlington County Pee Dee Tribe, based in the Upstate.
Janie Davis, executive director, announced that recent revisions to the current regulations that govern the state recognition process were signed into law by Governor Sanford last week but would not go into effect until they are posted on June 23.
The issue at hand was the proposed wording of the revisions included that, "splinter groups, political factions, communities or groups that separate from the main body of a currently state acknowledged tribe or who claim the same ancestors, history, genealogy, institutions, establishments, or other primary characteristics of a currently recognized tribe, may not be acknowledged under these regulations."
Because Davis acknowledged that the regulation revisions did not take effect until June 23, the committee agreed to go ahead with the review of all three petitions presented.
The committee had serious concerns with the petition of the Croatan Indian Tribe of Orangeburg.
Davis insisted that "there is no such history documented for this tribal entity in South Carolina."
Dr. Will Goins said the group claimed linkage to the Waccamaw Indians but asked, "Why are they not members of the Waccamaw?" The committee also found that the group was claiming ancestry from the Lumbee Indians of North Carolina.
Goins noted that the terms Cape Fear, Croatan and Pee Dee are often synonymous with the same people, but the term Croatan was actually a misnomer. He said the Croatan's historian further confused their actual identity because she wrote, "They're correct name is Hatteras."
Goins, a Cherokee Indian himself, took particular offense to the writings of the Croatan historian.
"She claims that these Croatan Indians created the Cherokee Path to Charleston. That is the most appalling thing of all. This is revisionist history." he said.
In concurring with Goins' findings, Dr. Johnathan Leader, South Carolina state archaeologist, said, "I can't tell if they're Waccamaw, Lumbee or Beaver Creek. At the moment, I don't know who I'm looking at or who they are." He added that the Croatan had included references to at least "six groups" but that "none of them were from Orangeburg."
Another committee member, Dr. Blair Rudes, associate professor at UNC-Charlotte, said, "I clearly need verification of who they are."
Davis noted that "the process of state recognition, especially at the tribal level, you must paint the picture; you can't just put documents and expect us to figure it out." In analyzing the "linkage of ancestors" criteria for the Croatan petition, she said that in regards to one document that, "I had seen this document before in the Beaver Creek (petition). We're already starting to see the duplication and use of the same history."
The problem that the committee kept noting was that the petition claimed that members of the Croatan group were descended from a Lazarus Chavis who lived in the 1700s. But this is the same Lazarus Chavis who is the ancestor of the Beaver Creek Indians of Salley, a group that has already received state recognition as a Native American Tribe.
Goins, who has worked on other tribal petitions on a national level, said, "Just because a document reads that someone is Croatan, it doesn't mean they're Indian. I couldn't make the linkage to the current tribe or community. None of these documents tell me how they're related to Lazarus and his progenitor.
He noted that in recent years, several groups in South Carolina had received large grants from the federal Administration for Native Americans in order to "hire genealogists. But I don't know who they hired. They must have taken their money."
Ven Thompson, a review committee member who is also a member of the state recognized Waccamaw Tribe of South Carolina, said Croatan, Mulatto and other terms were historically used as "race" classifications in the Carolinas, but not necessarily to denote "an Indian."
"It's not a tribal community," Rudes said. "How do you do a history on something that's not a tribe."
Leader said, "I have no doubt they're Indian, but not Croatan. Croatan in this document is a racial epithet and not a tribe."
He said the Croatan petition was, "a great statement for North Carolina, but not for South Carolina."
The Croatan group's petition has "serious flaws and shortcomings," Davis said.
Because of the proposed revisions to the state recognition regulations that will take effect later this month, she added, "I'm not sure they'll be able to submit under the new regulations."
During a brief break in the meeting, Davis met privately with Ricky "Running Wolf" Bruner, chief of the Croatan Tribe. Upon calling the meeting back to order, Davis announced that the Croatan Tribe would be withdrawing their petition.
Bruner could not be reached for comment.
T&D Correspondent Keith A. Pounds can be reached by e-mail at Keithpounds@sc.rr.com.