The Pee Dee tribe (also spelled Pedee and Peedee) are a nation of Native Americans of the southeast United States, especially the Low Country of present-day South Carolina. Several tribes are recognized by the state, although none has federal recognition. The Pee Dee River and the Pee Dee region of South Carolina were named for the nation. Scholars are unsure of what language they spoke, although it may have been of the Siouan family, as were the languages of neighboring small tribes.
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Anthropologist Charles Hudson described the prehistoric and protohistoric ancestors of the Pee Dee as a "southern chiefdom" of the southeastern Mississippian culture type.[1] Around 1550 A.D., the historical Pee Dee migrated from the lower Pee Dee River of the Atlantic Coastal Plain to the upper Pee Dee River of the Piedmont. They remained in the Piedmont for about a century.[2]
The Pee Dee allied with other American Indian nations and colonial settlers against the Tuscarora people, an Iroquoian-speaking group, during the Tuscarora War of the early 18th century. The political relationships formed between the Pee Dee and other tribes in the area at this time carried over into the Yamasee War. The Yamasee War of 1715-1717 caused major changes among the southeastern tribes. By some accounts the Pee Dee, along with many other tribes, were "utterly extirpated". But at least some of the survivors found refuge with the Catawba located closer to the South and North Carolina border.[3] Other survivors either remained along the lower Pee Dee River or returned in the years following the Yamasee War.
In 1737, the tribe petitioned South Carolina for a parcel of land to live upon. They, along with the Notchees (also spelled Nochis), were moved to an 100-acre (0.40 km2) reservation provided by James Coachman in 1738. This reservation was in Berkeley County, along the Edisto River.[4]
Conflicts in 1744 led to the Catawba's forcing the Pee Dee off the lands and back into white settlements.[5] South Carolina colonists called Indians living within the European-settled areas as "Settlement Indians". A 1740s list of such tribes included the Pee Dee. In 1752 the Catawba asked South Carolina to encourage the Pee Dee "Settlement Indians" to move north and rejoin the Catawba.[6]
During the American Revolution, a company of Pee Dee men fought for the United States under the American general Francis Marion. Known as the Raccoon Company, their company of riflemen was headed by Captain John Alston.[7] A group of Pee Dee men who had lived on John Coachman's land were under the command of Colonel William Thompson. Many of these men received grants of land as a form of payment following the conclusion of the war.[8]
Following the American Revolution, the Pee Dee tribe was mentioned only once in governmental documents.[5] Members of the remnant tribe began assimilation into the majority white society. This enabled their descendants to avoid removal to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) in the 1830s.
Such assimilation led to a number of issues in the 20th century. During the South's period of racial segregation and classifying all people into a binary society, appearing and identifying as "white" brought people more privileges and freedom. Since many Pee Dee were of mixed ancestry, some began to pass as white to make their daily lives easier. The state classified those of darker complexions as black and made their children attend segregated "black" schools. Some attended one of the few Indian schools around the Neeses and Charleston areas during that time.[9]
Some Pee Dee institutions created during the years of segregation have continued to be maintained to this day. One example is the Rocky Swamp Methodist Church, with a majority Pee Dee congregation. Its members observe a combination of Methodist and Native American Church religions. Many Pee Dee people are buried in its historic cemetery.[10]
No branch of the Pee Dee tribe is officially recognized by the United States Federal government. Several remnant or merged Indian communities have gained recognition by South Carolina as state recognized tribes or groups. Other descendants of the historic tribe have affiliated with several different tribes: members live mostly in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia. These tribes are the following:
The only tribe in South Carolina that has gained federal recognition is the closely related Catawba tribe. It was historically part of the Siouan-language family, as were many of the smaller tribes in the Low Country and Piedmont.
Recently, an ethnography of the Pee Dee in the northern part of South Carolina was completed.[12] This work has been used by the tribal government of the Pee Dee Indian Nation of Upper South Carolina as the basis of documentation needed to obtain federal recognition.[13]
Little is known about what kind of language the historic Pee Dee spoke. Based on a theory proposed by James Mooney in his 1894 Siouan Tribes of the East, and reinforced by John R. Swanton in his 1936 essay "Early History of the Eastern Siouan Tribes", the Pee Dee are surmised to have spoken a Siouan language, specifically an "Eastern" or "Southeastern" Siouan language. However, Mooney's theory had no linguistic evidence. There is tenuous ethnohistoric evidence to support it.[14]