“We talk, we listen, and we remember. That’s how we know who we are.”
These words from Vine Deloria, Sr., a Standing Rock Sioux historian, reflect the importance of preserving and sharing the stories of Native peoples whose histories are deeply connected to the places we call home.
Long before European settlement, Native American communities lived throughout what is now the South Carolina Lowcountry, developing societies shaped by the region’s rivers, forests, coastal resources, trade networks, and relationships with neighboring peoples. Daniel Island is part of this much larger Indigenous landscape. The Etiwan were among the Native people historically associated with this area, and their legacy remains visible in local place names, including the historic name Ittywan Island and the Etiwan name still found throughout the community today.
But the Native American story of the Lowcountry did not end with European settlement. Colonization brought profound changes to Indigenous communities through warfare, disease, displacement, enslavement, changing land ownership, and political and economic pressures. Native families and communities adapted, survived, maintained traditions, and continued their relationships with one another and with the lands their ancestors called home. The effects of these historical experiences also extend into the present, influencing contemporary conversations surrounding identity, recognition, cultural preservation, land, representation, education, and the protection of Native history.
In recognition of Native American Heritage Month, the Daniel Island Historical Society welcomes educator, artist, and tribal leader Joshua Shumak of the Wassamasaw Tribe of Varnertown Indians. Shumak will use the history of the Etiwan and Daniel Island as a starting point for exploring the broader story of Native Americans throughout the South Carolina Lowcountry, connecting the region’s Indigenous past with the continuing experiences of Native communities today.
Through history, oral tradition, cultural knowledge, and contemporary perspectives, this program will examine how Native peoples experienced colonization and settlement, how communities preserved their identities through generations of change, and how the consequences of those historical developments continue to shape issues facing South Carolina’s Native communities in the present day.
Join us for an engaging exploration of more than four centuries of Lowcountry history and discover why understanding South Carolina’s Native past is essential to understanding its present.”
A native of Staffordshire, England, John Bartlam is considered America’s first successful creamware potter. And he got his start right here on the Cainhoy Peninsula! A master potter, Bartlam had previously worked for Josiah Wedgwood in England, but left in 1763 to cross the Atlantic, eager to set up his own pottery manufacturing site in the emerging and promising new Carolina colony. By 1765, his operation was officially underway on the banks of the Wando River, near present-day St. Thomas Point on the Cainhoy Peninsula, where he found suitable clay for his efforts.
Join the Daniel Island Historical Society as we welcome archaeologists Martha Zierden, former curator of historic archaeology at the Charleston Museum, and Jeff Sherard, lab director for Brockington & Associates Charleston, to learn more about Bartlam pottery – and what has recently been discovered about his historic endeavors!