Federal Recognition — the unfinished fight

Hall exhibit · state-recognized since 2005, still not federal — and what that costs

The Waccamaw Indian People have been recognized by the State of South Carolina since February 17, 2005. The United States government has not recognized them at all. That one gap — between state and federal — is the tribe’s unfinished fight, and Chief Hatcher named its cost until the end.

Two kinds of recognition

State recognition (2005) made the Waccamaw real in the eyes of South Carolina. Federal recognition is a separate, far harder status, granted by the U.S. government, that establishes a nation-to-nation relationship — and unlocks rights the tribe still does not have. As of today the Catawba Indian Nation is the only federally recognized tribe in South Carolina; the Waccamaw are one of the state’s nine state-recognized tribes.

“The only people in this country that are required to be recognized are Native Americans. No other ethnicity, none.” — Chief Hatcher, WMBF, 2023

The impossible bar

Federal acknowledgment asks a tribe to prove continuous existence and descent across centuries — with paperwork that, for a people the state spent generations trying to erase, was never allowed to exist.

“The federal government requires that we be able to show a known Waccamaw today to a known Waccamaw at historic times, which was about 1689… There wasn’t any damn birth certificates from then.” — Chief Hatcher, MyHorryNews, 2018

The cost: ancestors on shelves

The sharpest cost is spiritual and specific. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) — the federal law that lets tribes reclaim their ancestors’ remains — applies only to federally recognized tribes. So the Waccamaw cannot bring their own dead home.

“We have a lot of our people on museum shelves… The federal government owns them, and they won’t work with us because we’re not federal.” — Chief Hatcher, WMBF, 2023

More than 600 sets of ancestral remains are held in South Carolina institutions that the tribe cannot bury. It is the subject of the 2025 documentary “The Right to Bury Our Own.”

The road through Congress

The other path to federal status is an act of Congress. In March 2021, Rep. Tom Rice (SC-7), with Rep. Nancy Mace, introduced H.R. 1942 — the Waccamaw Indian Acknowledgement Act in the 117th Congress. It was referred to committee and died without a vote. The tribe has kept at it — filing a federal recognition petition in 2022 and continuing to press its case with South Carolina’s delegation — but the fight is not won.

“For my people, it would mean that they would actually take their place as honored and known citizens… I don’t think I’ll ever see it personally. But… it would be like acknowledging that my people are valid.” — Chief Hatcher, WBTW, 2023

He did not see it. The work now belongs to the administration that follows him.