Eastern Cherokee, Southern Iroquois, and United Tribes of South Carolina

According to South Carolina law, Native American Indian groups are defined as "a number of individuals assembled together, which have different characteristics, interests and behaviors that do not denote a separate ethnic and cultural heritage today, as they once did. This group is composed of both Native American Indians and other ethnic races. They are not all related to one another by blood. A tribal council and governmental authority unique to Native American Indians govern them."[3] The ECSIUT was formerly headquartered in Richland County, South Carolina and led by the late Native American activist, Dr. William Moreau Goins, who founded the group and served as Chief and CEO up until his passing in November 2017.[4] In April of 2020, it was announced that the ECSIUT had elected archaeologist Lamar Nelson as their new Chief and CEO.[5] Nelson previously served on the board of the ECSIUT and is well known within the state for having aimed to preserve and educate the public about Native American history and lifeways since the early 1990s. The group is presently headquartered out of Spartanburg, South Carolina and is aiming to bring back the annual the film festival and continue work on other projects.

According to the Cherokee “Clan Mother” Amanda F. Allen, some of the core families represented in the tribe today with Cherokee roots are those with the surnames, Oglesby, Allen, Jones, Poole, Adair, Sizemore, Thompson, Butler, Nicholson, Martin, and Stare.[6] The Butlers, Wattses, Vanns, Rosses, Galphins, and McIntoshes are said to be related to the prominent Bushyhead family.[7] After many years of intermarrying within this small community most of these families became related.[8] This was in part due to the isolation of the community and in keeping with strict miscegenation laws that prohibited “free people of color” from marrying European or African people.[9] In early times, since these families lived in rural communities, as was common across the state, most of them were farmers.[10] Consequently, one clan took to gathering during the final weekend of September in thanksgiving to the harvest of that season.[11] This was in keeping with the Cherokee Fall Festival tradition, which is held the first week of October for the same reason.[12] There are approximately seven hundred Cherokee descendants descended from these families enrolled in the ECSIUT.[13] Most of these individuals had ancestors who resided in numerous Cherokee Lower Villages prominent throughout history, which include, Brasstown, Crane Creek, Chatuga, Chauga, Cheowee, Coweeshee, Echay, Esseneca, Estanaley, Estatoe, Oustestee, Keowee, Noyowee, Oconee, Socony, Qualhatchie, Sugartown, Tomassee, Toxaway, and the Tugaloo village.[14]

Some members of the ECSIUT trace descent from historically mixed Siouan communities such as the "Smiling Indians" of Sumter County, South Carolina. This group was largely studied by amateur anthropologist James McDonald Furman in the late 19th century who took to calling members of the community “Redbones”.[15] Furman helped establish a “Redbone Celebration” on October 23, 1895 in order to promote and instill Indian pride and identity.[16] In 1896, after making a list of families that attended the Bethesda Baptist Church in Privateer, South Carolina he was able to conclude that there were an estimated seventy or eighty mixed race families living within Sumter, most of which bearing the surnames Chavis, Epps, Gibbes, Goins, and Smiling.[17] Furman discovered that most of the Smiling Indians were descended from two patriarchs. The first is a man named Thomas Gibbes, who owned a nine hundred and thirty one acre plantation in Sumter.[18] It is assumed to be most likely that his family were the remnants of coastal tribes, especially the Etiwan which occupied part of the William Gibbs plantation near Charleston, South Carolina.[19] The second patriarch of the Smiling Indians is noted to have been Jerry Goins alongside his wife Edie.[20] Edie was noted to have been a "mixed blood Indian woman" and a fortune teller.[21] At the turn of the twentieth century many of these families relocated to Robeson County, North Carolina and assimilated with the Lumbee.[22] By no later than the mid-1920s the remaining families in South Carolina migrated to Williamsburg County, South Carolina and were referred to broadly as the Goins Community while others with the surname Chavis were noted to live in Orangeburg County, South Carolina at the same time by Wes Taukchiray.[23] Williamsburg was previously home to the Winyah tribe and the Cape Fear are noted to have been relocated there by 1715 by Chapman J. Milling in Red Carolinians.[24] This seems to be evidence that the communities were migrating to places where other Native descended people lived. Presumably around this same time or slightly before, some families began to commingle with Cherokee descendants due to miscegenation laws.[25]

However, despite these laws, as time further passed, many families pressured by restrictions placed upon them in the Jim Crow era ultimately began to disperse and intermarry into predominately European or African communities in the state as was common among most mixed Native American communities in South Carolina during the twentieth century as Brewton Berry notes in The Mestizos of South Carolina.[26] For this reason, individuals within the ECSIUT today are of diverse ethnic backgrounds and do not represent a singular ethnic culture as historic tribes once did. Though many members seek to represent, preserve, and educate others about their respective ancestor's traditions and history.