Our Story

       The Cheraw people, also known as the Saraw or Saura, are a Siouan-speaking nation of Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States.1 Prior to the 17th Century, the Cheraw were a numerous and prosperous people. In the 16th century, Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto first encountered Cheraw villages in North Carolina. Their villages were adjacent to those of

the Pedee and Catawba peoples.2

       In the 17th century, the Cheraw were warring for their homelands with Iroquoian-speaking indians, like the Cherokee and Tuscarora, and were being ejected from their lands in what is now Virginia and North Carolina. This led to Cheraw migrations into other areas of North Carolina and South Carolina.

Early European contact with the Cheraw was also disastrous, as it is believed that European disease began to decimate the population. “Post-1670s, every Saura village has an incredibly large number of burials for that village,” says Richard Seybert, an archaeologist for the University of North Carolina. “The Indians had no natural resistance to the diseases that the Europeans brought here. It appears that once they came into contact with these people, they were dying off in huge numbers.”3

Such disasters caused the Cheraw to continue their desperate migration and re-settlement. Some Cheraw joined the Catawba Tribe, some the Keyauwee Tribe, and some moved further into South Carolina. A 1715 South Carolina census numbered the Saura at 510 people.

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                 “Lower Saura Town”; North Carolina Historical Marker J-44;

Image Courtesy of the North Carolina

Office of Archives and History

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       In the 18th century, the Cheraw also had trouble with the White settlers of the Carolinas. In 1715, the Yamasee Tribe formed a coalition of South Carolina Indians and attacked Charleston colonists in reaction to slavery and abusive trade practices.4 South Carolina governor Charles Craven organized for an Indian war and requested help from North Carolina and Virginia. North Carolina governor Charles Eden formed a military force from the Tuscarora Indian warriors and White Commanders and sent them to South Carolina; they first attacked the Waccamaw and Cape Fear Indians on their march south. The South Carolina forces planned on meeting with the North Carolina Forces to help with attacks on the Cheraw and Catawba, but had to turn back to protect Charles Towne from an attack by the Yamasee and the Santee in the South. The area known as the “High Hills of Santee” was abandoned by the Santee Indians and many of their people were enslaved.5 This war was carried on until the defeat of the coalition and expulsion of the Yamasee Indians from South Carolina in 1716.6

By 1718 it appears that the Cheraw were at peace with the South Carolinians, living in small groups near the many estuaries of the Pee Dee River. During this time, the ancestors of the Sumter Tribe of Cheraw Indians arrived in the High Hills of the Santee.7 Some came from neighboring Cheraw villages like Indian Town (Seen on following map) in South Carolina and others from Cheraw villages like “Turkey Town” near the Catawba Indians in the border region of North Carolina and from along the Lumbee River region of North Carolina.

 

 

 

 

 

A New and Accurate Map of the Province of South Carolina in

North America, The Universal Magazine,

Volume 44, June 1779, p 281

 

 

 

 

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      In 1767, General Thomas Sumter, a noted friend of Native Americans, moved to the High Hills of Santee in what is Sumter County today.

The High Hills Cheraw were befriended by General Sumter. When the Revolutionary war broke out, the General recruited form the local Indians who fought for him as soldiers and scouts.8 9 Thomas Sebastion Sumter, a direct descendant of the General, writing about two of the most notable Ancestors of the Tribe, Joseph Benenhaley and Mr. Scott, wrote, “General Sumter, after the Revolutionary War, gave the two old soldiers a piece of land near his home at Stateburg, where they lived and he cared for them during his lifetime.”10

       The exact time and reason is unknown, but The Cheraw people in Sumter started to be called “Turks.” It has been speculated that the name came from certain key ancestor migrations from the Cheraw village “Turkey Town.” Other evidence suggests that it the name came a little later and was due to the Moors Sundry Act. In 1790; The State of South Carolina enacted the law to protect subjects of the free citizens of Morocco from legal treatment used for Black people and slaves. It is believed that at this time, the Cheraw people of High Hills adopted the identity of “Turks” 11 so that they could use this law to enjoy more privileges not afforded to them normally because of their race. This may have worked effectively, allowing Turks to be free of slavery, own property, vote, join political parties, serve as jurists, and join the military. Whatever the origin, the monicker has caused much confusion:

      In 1858, A Sumter County tax collector sought clarification on the Turks by writing to the South Carolina Committee on the Colored Population inquiring as to whether the "descendants of Egyptians and Indians" who resided in Sumter should be taxed under the bracket of "Free Blacks, mulattoes and mestizos, or as whites."12

In 1898, during the executive committee meeting of the local Democratic Party, the race of a member of the clan was brought up as a reason for expulsion, to which Colonel Scarborough, a ranking member of the committee, asserted of his own knowledge that the man was a Turk and that any number of men could be found to make affidavit that he should be allowed to participate.13

      In 1963, a member of the Turkish Parliament, Muhittin Güven, having read an article in the New York Times14 mentioning the “Turkish children of Sumter,” decided to arrange a visit through the US State Department. He met the leader of the clan (called “King Turk” by the local officials) and had dinner with him at the Long Branch Church, but did not find the American to be particularly “Turkish.”15

 

 

Julius Benenhaley, MP Muhittin Güven, and Kenan Taspinar;

Sumter Daily Item; August 31 1963; p 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

       General Thomas Sumter also personally shielded the clan from racist law and local discrimination. 16 Colonel James D. Blanding, A civil war veteran recounted a time when he witnessed such intervention from the General - He told of a day when two “Turks” were being denied the right to perform jury duty. General Sumter was sent for, and when he arrived at the court, placed his pistol on a table, strode over to the Indians and shook their hands. This act was enough for those in attendance who had doubted the men were of a sufficient status, and they were subsequently allowed to serve.17 Unfortunately, when General Thomas Sumter died, his protection died with him.

      This monicker, “Turks,” persists even today, even though the Turks have never held any Moroccan or Ottoman “Turk” traditions nor have they ever practiced the Islamic religion. In fact, the tribal Ancestors have been recorded as Christians since very early in the 18th century, long before the enactment of The Moors and Sundry Act. One notable Turk ancestor, born as an Indian indentured servant, had each of his children christened in an Anglican Church in Virginia from 1733 to 1739.18 In the High Hills of Santee, the Turks were amongst the first to attended the High Hills Baptist Church. Turks sat on one side of the aisle, White people on the other, and Negroes in the gallery. 19 At the end of the nineteenth century, they were asked by the Baptist Association to leave and form their own church, 20 as the Negroes had done earlier.21 Dr. Joseph H. Mitchell, a White man and first Minister of the Turk church, wrote in 1943, “The Turks were reluctant to withdraw from the High Hills Church lest they be deprived of all fraternal relations with other churches of the association. They were assured, however, that they would be received into the association and be accorded the same privileges as the other churches. With this assurance, they constituted the Long Branch Church in 1904."22

 

 

Long Branch Baptist Church leadership burns the

church mortgage c.1953; Photo from the private

collection of Myrtle Sylvia Amerson Benenhaley

 

 

 

 

     

 

 

 

      The Cheraw of Sumter also had to attend segregated schools separate from both the Whites and the Negroes. There were originally two such schools: Benenhaley No. 1 and Benenhaley No. 11.23 Though named “Benenhaley” for one of the family surnames, all Turks were required to attend. In 1916, it was suggested that the two schools be combined to form one school24 which became the Dalzell School25 – a school just for Turks. This school had three white teachers26, but did not teach grades higher than 8th grade – a severe impediment to higher learning.

 

 

 

Turk children and their teacher in front of the

Dalzell School circa 1953; Photo from the private

collection of Elaine Oxendine Miller

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        In 1961, after several years of litigating in Federal Court, the Turks won the right to attend White schools.27

In the late 20th century, as segregation became a thing of the past, and as attitudes about race became softer, The Turks, the people of the Cheraw Tribe, began to mix with the other citizens of Sumter. Shaw AFB, built on land that once belonged to the Turks28, brought Americans from all over the nation who had no prejudice against these swarthy people and many married Turks. Slowly the identity began to be lost, blended away and forgotten.

In 2013, the Sumter Tribe of Cheraw Indians was formally recognized by State of South Carolina.29 Today, the tribe works with the state and other tribes to improve the lives of its people. It also holds gatherings, and teaches its history in the hopes to remind the community of their unique past, and perhaps to inspire some to carry on with this effort for future generations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tribal Leaders and Members of the Sumter Tribe of Cheraw Indians on the day of SC recognition

 

For more information, please contact the Sumter Tribe of Cheraw Indians:

1895 Lewis Road

Sumter, SC 29154

Phone: 803-968-7736

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