Turks of South Carolina
The Turks of South Carolina also known as Sumter Turks, or Turks of Sumter County, are a group of people who have lived in the general area of Sumter County, South Carolina, since the late 1700s. According to Professor Glen Browder "they have always been a tight-knit and isolated community of people who identified as being of Turkish descent". As of 2018, they number approximately 400 in the town of Dalzell. Misrepresentations of the community. Dr Terri Ann Ognibene, a "Sumter Turk" herself, has discussed the misrepresentations of the community: Early examples of their misrepresentation  date to at least the 19th century. The tax collector of Sumter sent an inquiry dated December 7, 1858 to the South Carolina Committee on the Colored Population, inquiring as to whether the "descendants of Egyptians and Indians" who resided in Sumter should be taxed under the bracket of "Free Blacks, mulattoes and mestizos, or as whites." In the early 20th century some believed that they were of primarily Native American background with some admixture of Turkish. They have been mistakenly connected to a family of "Free Moors" who resided in Charleston (see Free Moors of South Carolina). Assimilation. In  their study on the Sumter Turks, Dr Terri Ann Ognibene and Professor Glen Browder said the following regarding identity and assimilation: History. The "Turk" community traces its history back to an early settler, Joseph Benenhaley (mostly likey originally named "Yusef ben Ali"), from the Ottoman Empire who reputedly served the colonial cause in the American Revolutionary War. He made his way to South Carolina, where he served as a scout for General Thomas Sumter during the American Revolution. The general then gave Benenhaley some land on his plantation to farm and raise a family. A few outsiders married into the  family, but most who identified with the ostracized community and their progeny considered themselves people of Turkish descent. By the mid-20th century, they numbered several hundred persons. In the 1850s and 1860s, several members of the "Turk" community filed affidavits of Indian descent with the Sumter County Clerk of Court claiming they were of Catawba descent. In the late 1880s McDonald Furman, an avid local historian, published numerous articles claiming that their ancestry was "a large amount of Indian blood" and said that the ancestors of the group originated from the "Catawba Indians." The Turks of South Carolina today include  surnames such as Benenhaley, Oxendine, Scott, Hood, Buckner, Lowery, Goins, and Ray. Marriages in the community. The community have generally been "cautious about outside society". Consequently, "few outsiders were accepted in the community, and Turkish people mainly married within their own crowd for generations". Hence, the repetition of family surnames throughout the generations. It is very likely that while there were no forced marriages "there were unwritten societal customs in each group regarding the acceptable parameters of marriage". DNA. DNA reports on living members of the Turkish community who descend from Joseph Benenhaley showed that the genetic profile indicates significant  connections to the Mediterranean-Middle Eastern-North African regions, along with substantial west European admixture and some evidence of Native American linkages. Discrimination. The community's heritage has reflected their long experience of isolation and discrimination in rural South Carolina. Due to segregation policies in the past, there were "Turkish schools, Turkish school buses, and Turkish cinemas in this period."