Waccamaw Indians – Native Americans in SC

South Carolina SC Native Americans SC Indian Tribes SC Waccamaw Indians

Name, Language – Waccamaw Indians

• Alternate spellings – Waccamawe, Waccamau, Waccomassee, Wacemaus, Waggamaw, Wicomaw, Wigomaw
  

• Possible meanings – ?

• Language family – Siouan

Current Status – Waccamaw Indians

• Active as a state recognized tribe.

• Chartered as a nonprofit organization in October, 1992.
  

Contact Information – Waccamaw Indians

• Waccamaw Indian People
  591 Bluewater Road
  Aynor, SC 29511
  Phone: 843-358-6877
  Email: waccamawchief@gmail.com
  Website
  

  SC Location, Territory – Waccamaw Indians

  • Traditional: Along the Waccamaw River in Georgetown and Horry counties, especially near the area now known as Dog Bluff.
    

    The ancient Waccamaw were river dwellers who lived along the Waccamaw River from North Carolina's Lake Waccamaw to Winyah Bay near Georgetown, South Carolina.
    

  • Today: Headquartered in the city of Conway in Horry County
    

    In May 2004, The Waccamaw Indian People of Conway, South Carolina received twenty acres of land in the tribe's ancestral homeland in the Dog Bluff community near Aynor in Horry County.
    

    The new tribal grounds will house offices, ceremonial grounds, an activity and meeting center, a reconstructed tribal village, a museum, and a trading post.
    

  Population – Waccamaw Indians

  • 1600:  900 – an estimated number – probably included the Winyah and a few other small tribes
    

  • 1715:  610 – six villages

  History – Waccamaw Indians

  • c. 1715 – Received ammunition from the Cheraw, who tried to enlist them to support the Yemassee and other tribes against the English.
    

  • 1720 – Engaged in a brief war against the colonists. Accounts state that 60 Waccamaw men, women, and children were killed or taken captive.
    

  • 1755 – Cherokee and Natchez raiders killed a number of Pee Dee and Waccamaw in white settlements. Many of the remaining Waccamaw may have merged with the Catawba soon thereafter.
    

  Dwellings – Waccamaw Indians

  • ?

  Food – Waccamaw Indians

  • Farming: Both private and communal gardens. Everyone worked in the community garden, including the chiefs, who were seen planting and gathering the crops along with their tribe. Crops included corn, pumpkins, kidney beans, lima beans, squash, melons, gourds, and tobacco.
    

  • Fishing: ?

  • Fowl: chickens, ducks, geese

  • Hunting: ? The Waccamaw were adept at the domestication of animals, including deer. They manufactured cheese from does' milk. Additionally, they kept a variety of chickens, ducks, geese, and other domestic fowl. There were gardens to tend, both . Everyone worked in the community garden, including the chiefs, who were seen planting and gathering the crops along with their tribe. Among their crops were corn, pumpkins, kidney beans, lima beans, squash, melons, gourds and tobacco.
    

  Beliefs and Practices – Waccamaw Indians

  • ?

  Related SC Names – Waccamaw Indians

  • Waccamaw River
  • Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge

  Waccamaw Indian Resources

  • The Dimery Settlement

  • Waccamaw Siouan Unofficial Site - This site houses information for the Waccamaw Siouan tribe of Native Americans which are typically located in the Lake Waccamaw area of Columbus County and Bladen County, south east North Carolina.
    

  • NC Commission of Indian Affairs
    

  • SC Commission for Minority Affairs - Native American Affairs
    

  • Milling, Chapman J. Red Carolinians. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1969.
    

  • Swanton, John R. The Indian Tribes of North America. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1984, pp. 100-101.