South Carolina’s Turkish People by Glen Browder (.ePUB)
File Size: 5 MB
South Carolina’s Turkish People: A History and Ethnology by Glen Browder
Requirements: .ePUB reader, 5 MB
Overview: The story of misunderstood immigrants and their struggle to gain recognition and acceptance in the rural South
Despite its reputation as a melting pot of ethnicities and races, the United States has a well-documented history of immigrants who have struggled through isolation, segregation, discrimination, oppression, and assimilation. South Carolina is home to one such group―known historically and derisively as “the Turks”―which can trace its oral history back to Joseph Benenhaley, an Ottoman refugee from Old World conflict. According to its traditional narrative, Benenhaley served with Gen. Thomas Sumter in the Revolutionary War. His dark-hued descendants lived insular lives in rural Sumter County for the next two centuries, and only in recent decades have they enjoyed the full blessings of the American experience.
Early scholars ignored the Turkish tale and labeled these people “tri-racial isolates” and later writers disparaged them as “so-called Turks.” But members of the group persisted in claiming Turkish descent and living reclusively for generations. Now, in South Carolina’s Turkish People, Terri Ann Ognibene and Glen Browder confirm the group’s traditional narrative through exhaustive original research and oral interviews.
Genre: Non-Fiction > History
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