A life of the Waccamaw
The life of Harold “Buster” Hatcher, in his own words.
A boy who belonged to neither world. A soldier. The chief who fought to make his people seen — founder of the modern Waccamaw Indian People of Aynor, South Carolina.
A biography of a man, written by a machine.
He was wrong at home because he wasn’t dark enough, wrong at school because he wasn’t white enough — and he spent a lifetime building a place where people who had been accepted nowhere could finally be accepted. This is that life, told the way he lived it.
In his own words
“Why would two Indians name a kid Harold? That don’t make no sense to me! I’d rather have the name Buster. I sound like a clown, but, I like it.”
WPDE, 2018
“Here was all these people that looked like me… it made me feel like I’m home. And that’s the way I feel about the tribe — it’s a place where people that have not been accepted into the full society of this country can be accepted.”
Oral history, 2021
“The state of South Carolina at that time said there were no Indians in South Carolina. So I ended up suing the state, and I won.”
Center for Cultural Preservation, 2014
“I have never lied to you, and never stabbed anyone in the back… Thank you for allowing me to serve. I did my best for you.”
His resignation letter, June 29, 2026 — signed “Chief Retired”
Every word is anchored to the record he left behind — the memoir he typed in his own hand for the Library of Congress, decades of recorded oral histories, and a lifetime of his own writing. The machine only sets it in order; the voice is his, and stays his.
Ten chapters, from the segregated schoolhouse to statewide elder:
The book is being written now. In the meantime, his life and his people already have a home.
Visit the museum Read more in his words