Beaver Creek Indian Tribe

The Beaver Creek Indian Tribe or Beaver Creek Indians is a state-recognized tribe and nonprofit organization headquartered in Salley, South Carolina. The organization was awarded the status of a state-recognized tribe by the South Carolina Commission of Minority Affairs on January 27, 2006. They are not a federally recognized Native American tribe and are one several recognized nonprofit organizations within South Carolina that allege to be descended from the historic Pee Dee. The organization is not to be confused with the Pee Dee Indian Nation of Beaver Creek, a "state-recognized group" recognized by the South Carolina Commission of Minority Affairs in 2007. The tribe claims descent from a band of Pee Dee who settled between the forks of Edisto River in Orangeburg County, South Carolina during the eighteenth century. On January 28, 1998, the organization was first chartered as a nonprofit organization, being originally called the Beaver Creek Band of Pee Dee Indians. The tribe is governed by a chief, vice chief, and tribal council. Every two years the organization holds an election for these positions, each lasting for a term of four years, with the chief in one category and the vice-chief and tribal council in another. Additionally, an elders council provides the tribal council with consultation and advice. While the tribe traditionally inhabited lands near Neeses, South Carolina, the organization today is headquartered in Salley. In 1999, the Pee Dee Indian Nation of Beaver Creek split from the government of the tribe following an administrative disagreement and was later recognized by the South Carolina Commission for Minority Affairs as an independent state-recognized tribal group in 2007. Dating from the American Revolutionary War through to the late twentieth century numerous sources and official government forms documented the ancestors of the Beaver Creek people as being Indian. This greatly assisted the tribe in achieving state recognition in the early 21st century.