Pete unseth (talk | contribs) Undid revision 1196465331 by 128.197.29.246 (talk) the cited source does not differentiate White or Black indentured servants. But a newspaper article about DNA findings is not a reliable source to overturn what the literature on indentured servants tells us Tags: Undo Reverted |
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{{Short description|Mixed-race group from the South Central Appalachian region of the United States}} |
{{Short description|Mixed-race group from the South Central Appalachian region of the United States}} |
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{{Multiple issues|section=| |
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{{Original research|date=July 2023}} |
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{{More citations needed|date=July 2023}} |
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{{Infobox ethnic group |
{{Infobox ethnic group |
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| group = Melungeons |
| group = Melungeons |
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| total_ref = <!-- references supporting total population --> |
| total_ref = <!-- references supporting total population --> |
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| genealogy = |
| genealogy = |
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| regions = [[United States]] ([[East Tennessee]], [[Southwest Virginia]],<ref name="loller2"/><ref name=neal/> and [[Kentucky]]<ref name=neal/>) |
| regions = [[United States]] ([[East Tennessee]], [[Southwest Virginia]],<ref name="loller2"/><ref name=neal/> [[North Carolina]], and [[Kentucky]]<ref name=neal/>) |
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| languages = [[ |
| languages = [[Southern American English]] |
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| religions = [[Protestant Christianity]] |
| religions = [[Protestant Christianity]] |
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| related_groups = [[Lumbee]], [[Atlantic Creole]], [[Turks of South Carolina]], [[Chestnut Ridge people]], [[White Southerners]], [[Black Southerners]], [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]], [[Dominickers]], [[Redbone (ethnicity)]], [[Mulatto]] |
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| related_groups = |
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}} |
}} |
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{{African American topics sidebar}} |
{{African American topics sidebar}} |
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'''Melungeons''' ({{IPAc-en|m|ə|ˈ|l|ʌ|n|dʒ|ən|z}} {{respell|mə|LUN|jənz}}) (sometimes also spelled '''Malungeans, Melangeans, Melungeans, Melungins'''<ref name="Tennessee">{{cite web |title=1894 Report of the U.S. Department of the Interior, in its Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed |url=https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1890/volume-10/1890a_v10-28.pdf |website=www2.census.gov |publisher=Department of the Interior |access-date=12 June 2023}}</ref>) are |
'''Melungeons''' ({{IPAc-en|m|ə|ˈ|l|ʌ|n|dʒ|ən|z}} {{respell|mə|LUN|jənz}}) (sometimes also spelled '''Malungeans, Melangeans, Melungeans, Melungins'''<ref name="Tennessee">{{cite web |title=1894 Report of the U.S. Department of the Interior, in its Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed |url=https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1890/volume-10/1890a_v10-28.pdf |website=www2.census.gov |publisher=Department of the Interior |access-date=12 June 2023}}</ref>) are one of the many tri-racial isolate populations originating in [[Colony of Virginia|colonial Virginia]] primarily descended from [[free people of color]] and [[White settlers in the United States|white settlers]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Melungeons {{!}} NCpedia |url=https://www.ncpedia.org/melungeons |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=www.ncpedia.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Schrift |first=Melissa |date=2013-04-01 |title=Becoming Melungeon |url=https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/unpresssamples/186 |journal=University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Press |first=The Associated Press {{!}} The Associated |date=2012-05-24 |title=DNA finds origin of Appalachia’s Melungeons: African men, white women |url=https://www.denverpost.com/2012/05/24/dna-finds-origin-of-appalachias-melungeons-african-men-white-women/ |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=The Denver Post |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-07-11 |title=Dancing Revolution: Bodies, Space, and Sound in American Cultural History 2018059613, 2019013274, 9780252051234, 9780252042393, 9780252084188 |url=https://ebin.pub/dancing-revolution-bodies-space-and-sound-in-american-cultural-history-2018059613-2019013274-9780252051234-9780252042393-9780252084188.html |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=ebin.pub |language=en}}</ref> |
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Some modern researchers believe that early [[Atlantic Creole]] slaves, descended from or acculturated by Iberian [[lançados]]<ref>{{cite news |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |date=8 June 2018 |title=Ira Berlin, 1941–2018 |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/ira-berlin-1941-2018/ |work=The Nation}}</ref> and [[Sephardic Jews|Sephardi Jews]] fleeing the [[Inquisition]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=O'Neill |first=Brian Juan |date=2017 |title=Review of Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, Havik, Philip J., and Malyn Newitt, eds |journal=Africa Today |volume=63 |issue=4 |pages=84–90 |doi=10.2979/africatoday.63.4.05 |jstor=10.2979/africatoday.63.4.05 |hdl-access=free |hdl=10071/14918}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=African blacks and Mulattos in the 17th-Century Amsterdam Portuguese Jewish community |url=https://www.asser.nl/global-city/news-and-events/african-blacks-and-mulattos-in-the-17th-century-amsterdam-portuguese-jewish-community/ |access-date=2024-05-27 |website=www.asser.nl |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Mark |first1=Peter |title=The Forgotten Diaspora: Jewish Communities in West Africa and the Making of the Atlantic World |last2=Horta |first2=José da Silva |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-66746-4}}{{page needed|date=May 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Schorsch |first1=Jonathan |title=A Letter's Importance: The Spelling of Daka(h) (Deut. 23:2) and the Broadening of Western Sephardic Rabbinic Culture |date=2019 |isbn=978-90-04-39248-9 |chapter=Revisiting Blackness, Slavery, and Jewishness in the Early Modern Sephardic Atlantic |doi=10.1163/9789004392489_022}}</ref><ref>{{cite report |title=Mariana Pequena, a black Angolan jew in early eighteenth-century Rio de Janeiro |last1=Kananoja |first1=Kalle |date=2013 |hdl=1814/27607}}</ref> were one of the pre-cursor populations to these groups.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mozingo |first1=Joe |title=The Fiddler on Pantico Run: An African Warrior, His White Descendants, A Search for Family |date=2012 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-4516-2761-9}}{{page needed|date=May 2024}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Berlin |first=Ira |date=1996 |title=From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African- American Society in Mainland North America |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |volume=53 |issue=2 |pages=251–288 |doi=10.2307/2947401 |jstor=2947401}}</ref><ref>{{cite thesis |last1=Bartl |first1=Renate |title=American tri-racials: African-Native contact, multi-ethnic Native American Nations, and the ethnogenesis of tri-racial groups in North America |date=2018 |publisher=Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München |doi=10.5282/edoc.26874}}</ref> Many creoles, once in [[British America]], were able to obtain their freedom and many [[Interracial marriage in the United States|married into local white families]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Berlin |first1=Ira |title=Critical Readings on Global Slavery (4 vols.) |date=2017 |isbn=978-90-04-34661-1 |pages=1216–1262 |chapter=From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African-American Society in Mainland North America |doi=10.1163/9789004346611_039}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Anti-Amalgamation Law is Passed |url=https://aaregistry.org/story/anti-amalgamation-law-passed/ |access-date=2024-05-27 |website=African American Registry |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Wolfe |first=Brendan |title=Free Blacks in Colonial Virginia |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/free-blacks-in-colonial-virginia/ |access-date=2024-05-27 |website=Encyclopedia Virginia |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Introduction to Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina |url=https://freeafricanamericans.com/introduction.htm |access-date=2024-05-27 |website=freeafricanamericans.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Dodge |first1=David |date=January 1886 |title=The Free Negroes of North Carolina |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1886/01/the-free-negroes-of-north-carolina/522594/ |work=The Atlantic}}</ref> |
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In the general [[United States census|U.S. census]], Melungeon people were enumerated as of the races to which they most resembled.<ref name="TennesseeDOI">{{cite web |title=1894 Report of the U.S. Department of the Interior, in its Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed |url=https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1890/volume-10/1890a_v10-28.pdf |access-date=4 Sep 2023 |website=www2.census.gov |publisher=Department of the Interior}}</ref> |
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==Etymology== |
==Etymology== |
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The term ''Melungeon'' likely comes from the French word ''mélange'' ultimately derived from the Latin verb ''miscēre'' ("to mix, mingle, intermingle").<ref name="North Carolina">{{cite web |title=1894 Report of the U.S. Department of the Interior, in its Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed |url=https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1890/volume-10/1890a_v10-21.pdf|website=www2.census.gov |publisher=Department of the Interior |access-date=4 Sep 2023}}</ref><ref name="TennesseeDOI"/><ref name="tn_en"/> It |
The term ''Melungeon'' likely comes from the French word ''mélange'' ultimately derived from the Latin verb ''miscēre'' ("to mix, mingle, intermingle").<ref name="North Carolina">{{cite web |title=1894 Report of the U.S. Department of the Interior, in its Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed |url=https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1890/volume-10/1890a_v10-21.pdf|website=www2.census.gov |publisher=Department of the Interior |access-date=4 Sep 2023}}</ref><ref name="TennesseeDOI" /><ref name="tn_en" /> It was once a derogatory term, but is used by the Melungeon people today as a primary identifier. The Tennessee Encyclopedia states that in the 19th century, "the word 'Melungeon' appears to have been used as an offensive term for nonwhite and/or low socioeconomic class persons by outsiders."<ref name="tn_en" /> |
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The term ''Melungeon'' was historically considered an insult, a label applied to Appalachians who were by appearance or reputation of [[mixed-race]] ancestry. Although initially pejorative in character,<ref name="Sovine">Sovine, Melanie L. "The Mysterious Melungeons: a Critique of the Mythical Image." University of Kentucky Ph.D. dissertation, 1982</ref> this word has been reclaimed by members of the community.<ref name="Frequently Asked Questions.">"Frequently Asked Questions." Melungeon Heritage Association. Retrieved December 2023</ref> The spelling of the term varied widely, as was common for words and names at the time. |
The term ''Melungeon'' was historically considered an insult, a label applied to Appalachians who were by appearance or reputation of [[mixed-race]] ancestry. Although initially pejorative in character,<ref name="Sovine">Sovine, Melanie L. "The Mysterious Melungeons: a Critique of the Mythical Image." University of Kentucky Ph.D. dissertation, 1982</ref> this word has been reclaimed by members of the community.<ref name="Frequently Asked Questions.">"Frequently Asked Questions." Melungeon Heritage Association. Retrieved December 2023</ref> The spelling of the term varied widely, as was common for words and names at the time. |
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According to the 1894 [[United States Department of the Interior|Department of Interior]] Report of Indians Taxed and not Taxed within the "Tennessee" report, "The civilized (self-supporting) Indians of Tennessee, counted in the general census numbered 146 (71 males and 75 females) and are distributed as follows: [[Hawkins County, Tennessee|Hawkins county]], 31; [[Monroe County, Tennessee|Monroe county]], 12; [[Polk County, Tennessee|Polk county]], 10; other counties (8 or less in each), 93. Quoting from the report:<blockquote>The Melungeans or Malungeans, in Hawkins county, claim to be Cherokees of mixed blood (white, Indian, and negro), their white blood being derived, as they assert, from English and Portuguese stock. They trace their descent primarily to 2 Indians (Cherokees) known, one of them as Collins, the other as Gibson, who settled in the mountains of Tennessee, where their descendants are now to be found, about the time of the admission of that state into the Union (1796).</blockquote> |
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=== Early uses === |
=== Early uses === |
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The earliest historical record of the term ''Melungeon'' dates to 1813. In the minutes of the Stoney Creek Baptist Church in [[Scott County, Virginia]], a woman stated another parishioner made the accusation that "she harbored them Melungins."<ref name="tn_en">{{cite web |last1=Toplovich |first1=Ann |title=Melungeons |url=https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/melungeons/ |website=Tennessee Encyclopedia |publisher=Tennessee Historical Society |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref> The second oldest written use of the term was in 1840, when a Tennessee politician described "an impudent Melungeon" from what became Washington, D.C., as being "a scoundrel who is half Negro and half Indian."<ref name="tn_en" /> In the 1890s, during the age of [[yellow journalism]], the term "Melungeon" started to circulate and be reproduced in U.S. newspapers, when the journalist [[Will Allen Dromgoole]] wrote several articles on the Melungeons.<ref name="Dromgoole">{{cite web |last1=Pezzullo |first1=Joanne |title=Calloway Collins |url=http://the-melungeons.blogspot.com/2017/08/this-sketch-of-calloway-collins.html |website=The Historical Melungeons |date=10 August 2017 |access-date=12 June 2023}}</ref> |
The earliest historical record of the term ''Melungeon'' dates to 1813. In the minutes of the Stoney Creek Baptist Church in [[Scott County, Virginia]], a woman stated another parishioner made the accusation that "she harbored them Melungins."<ref name="tn_en">{{cite web |last1=Toplovich |first1=Ann |title=Melungeons |url=https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/melungeons/ |website=Tennessee Encyclopedia |publisher=Tennessee Historical Society |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref> The second oldest written use of the term was in 1840, when a Tennessee politician described "an impudent Melungeon" from what became Washington, D.C., as being "a scoundrel who is half Negro and half Indian."<ref name="tn_en" /> In the 1890s, during the age of [[yellow journalism]], the term "Melungeon" started to circulate and be reproduced in U.S. newspapers, when the journalist [[Will Allen Dromgoole]] wrote several articles on the Melungeons.<ref name="Dromgoole">{{cite web |last1=Pezzullo |first1=Joanne |title=Calloway Collins |url=http://the-melungeons.blogspot.com/2017/08/this-sketch-of-calloway-collins.html |website=The Historical Melungeons |date=10 August 2017 |access-date=12 June 2023}}</ref> |
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In 1894, the [[US Department of the Interior]], in its "Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed," under the section "Tennessee" noted: |
In 1894, the [[US Department of the Interior]], in its "Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed," under the section "Tennessee" noted: <blockquote>In a number of states small groups of people, preferring the freedom of the woods or the seashore to the confinement of regular labor in civilization, have become in some degree distinct from their neighbors, perpetuating their qualities and absorbing into their number those of like disposition, without preserving very clear racial lines. Such are the remnants called Indians in some states where a pure-blooded Indian can hardly longer be found. In Tennessee is such a group, popularly known as Melungeans, in addition to those still known as Cherokees. The name seems to have been given them by early French settlers, who recognized their mixed origin and applied to them the name Melangeans or Melungeans, a corruption of the French word "melange" which means mixed. (See letter of Hamilton McMillan, under North Carolina.)<ref name="North Carolina"/><ref name="TennesseeDOI"/></blockquote> |
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== History == |
== History == |
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[[File:Mahala-mullins-cabin-porch-tn1.jpg|right|210px|thumb|Porch of the restored Mahala Mullins Cabin, now located in Vardy, Blackwater Creek |
[[File:Mahala-mullins-cabin-porch-tn1.jpg|right|210px|thumb|Porch of the restored Mahala Mullins Cabin, now located in Vardy, Blackwater Creek]] In December 1943, [[Walter Ashby Plecker]] of Virginia sent county officials a letter warning against "colored" families trying to pass as "white" or "Indian" in violation of the [[Racial Integrity Act of 1924]]. He identified these as being "chiefly Tennessee Melungeons".<ref name="pleckerletter" /> He directed the offices to reclassify members of certain families as black, causing the loss for numerous families of documentation in records that showed their continued self-identification as being of [[Native American descent]] on official forms.<ref name="pleckerletter" /><ref>{{cite book |last1=Schrift |first1=Melissa |title=Becoming Melungeon: Making an Ethnic Identity in the Appalachian South |date=2013 |publisher=[[University of Nebraska Press]] |isbn=978-0-8032-7154-8 |url=https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1185&context=unpresssamples |chapter=Introduction}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The Racial Integrity Act, 1924: An Attack on Indigenous Identity |url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/racial-integrity-act.htm |website=[[National Park Service]] |access-date=25 August 2023 |date=June 21, 2023}}</ref> |
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In the 20th century, during the [[Jim Crow]] era, some Melungeons attended boarding schools in [[Asheville, North Carolina]], [[Warren Wilson College]], and [[Dorland Institution]] which integrated earlier than other schools in the southern United States.<ref name="neal">{{cite news |last1=Neal |title=Melungeons explore mysterious mixed-race origins |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/06/24/melungeon-mountaineers-mixed-race/29252839/ |access-date=7 July 2023 |work=USA Today |date=June 24, 2015}}</ref> |
In the 20th century, during the [[Jim Crow]] era, some Melungeons attended boarding schools in [[Asheville, North Carolina]], [[Warren Wilson College]], and [[Dorland Institution]] which integrated earlier than other schools in the southern United States.<ref name="neal">{{cite news |last1=Neal |title=Melungeons explore mysterious mixed-race origins |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/06/24/melungeon-mountaineers-mixed-race/29252839/ |access-date=7 July 2023 |work=USA Today |date=June 24, 2015}}</ref> |
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== Melungeon families == |
== Melungeon families == |
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Definitions of who is Melungeon differ. Historians and genealogists have tried to identify surnames of different Melungeon families.<ref name="pleckerletter">{{cite web |last1=Plecker |first1=Walter A. |title=Surnames, by Counties and Cities, of Mixed Negroid Virginia Families Striving to Pass as "Indian" or White |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/surnames-by-counties-and-cities-of-mixed-negroid-virginia-families-striving-to-pass-as-indian-or-white-by-walter-a-plecker-ca-1943/ |website=Encyclopedia Virginia: Virginia Humanities |publisher=Library of Virginia |access-date=12 June 2023}}</ref><ref name="jogg"/> In 1943, Virginia State Registrar of Vital Statistics, Walter Ashby Plecker identified surnames by county: "Lee, Smyth and Wise: Collins, Gibson, (Gipson), Moore, Goins, Ramsey, Delph, Bunch, Freeman, Mise, Barlow, Bolden (Bolin), Mullins, Hawkins (chiefly Tennessee Melungeons)".<ref name="pleckerletter" /> |
Definitions of who is Melungeon differ. Historians and genealogists have tried to identify surnames of different Melungeon families.<ref name="pleckerletter">{{cite web |last1=Plecker |first1=Walter A. |title=Surnames, by Counties and Cities, of Mixed Negroid Virginia Families Striving to Pass as "Indian" or White |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/surnames-by-counties-and-cities-of-mixed-negroid-virginia-families-striving-to-pass-as-indian-or-white-by-walter-a-plecker-ca-1943/ |website=Encyclopedia Virginia: Virginia Humanities |publisher=Library of Virginia |access-date=12 June 2023}}</ref><ref name="jogg"/> In 1943, Virginia State Registrar of Vital Statistics, Walter Ashby Plecker, identified surnames by county: "Lee, Smyth and Wise: Collins, Gibson, (Gipson), Moore, Goins, Ramsey, Delph, Bunch, Freeman, Mise, Barlow, Bolden (Bolin), Mullins, Hawkins (chiefly Tennessee Melungeons)".<ref name="pleckerletter" /> |
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In 1992, [[Virginia DeMarce]] explored and reported the [[Goins (surname)|Goins]] genealogy as a Melungeon surname.<ref>DeMarce, Virginia Easley. “‘Verry Slitly Mixt’: Tri-Racial Isolate Families of the Upper South–A Genealogical Study.” National Genealogical Society Quarterly 80.1 (March 1992): [5]-35.aZ</ref> Beginning in the early 19th century, or possibly before, the term Melungeon was applied as a slur to a group of about 40 families along the Tennessee-Virginia border, but it has since become a catch-all phrase for a number of groups of mysterious mixed-race ancestry.<ref name="loller2" /> Through time the term has changed meanings but often referred to any mixed-race person and, at different times, has referred to 200 different communities across the Eastern United States.<ref name="loller2" /> These have included |
In 1992, [[Virginia DeMarce]] explored and reported the [[Goins (surname)|Goins]] genealogy as a Melungeon surname.<ref>[[Virginia DeMarce|DeMarce, Virginia Easley]]. “‘Verry Slitly Mixt’: Tri-Racial Isolate Families of the Upper South–A Genealogical Study.” National Genealogical Society Quarterly 80.1 (March 1992): [5]-35.aZ</ref> Beginning in the early 19th century, or possibly before, the term Melungeon was applied as a slur to a group of about 40 families along the Tennessee-Virginia border, but it has since become a catch-all phrase for a number of groups of mysterious mixed-race ancestry.<ref name="loller2" /> Through time the term has changed meanings but often referred to any mixed-race person and, at different times, has referred to 200 different communities across the Eastern United States.<ref name="loller2" /> These have included Van Guilders and Clappers of New York and [[Lumbee]]s in North Carolina to [[Creole peoples|Creoles]] in Louisiana.<ref name="loller2" /> |
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== Claims == |
== Claims == |
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Anthropologist |
Anthropologist E. Raymond Evans wrote in 1979 regarding Melungeons: "In Graysville, the Melungeons strongly deny their Black heritage and explain their genetic differences by claiming to have had Cherokee grandmothers. Many of the local whites also claim Cherokee ancestry and appear to accept the Melungeon claim. ..."<ref>Evans, E. Raymond (1979). "The Graysville Melungeons: A Tri-racial People in Lower East Tennessee", ''Tennessee Anthropologist'' IV(1): 1–31.</ref> |
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In 1999, historian |
In 1999, historian C. S. Everett hypothesized that John Collins (recorded as a [[Saponi|Sapony]] Indian who was expelled from [[Orange County, Virginia]] about January 1743), might be the same man as the Melungeon ancestor John Collins, who was classified as a "mulatto" in 1755 North Carolina records.<ref>C. S. Everett, "Melungeon History and Myth," ''Appalachian Journal'' (1999)</ref> However, Everett revised that theory after he discovered evidence that these were two different men named John Collins. Only descendants of the latter man, who was identified as mulatto in the 1755 record in North Carolina, have any proven connection to the Melungeon families of eastern Tennessee.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/Church_Cotanch.htm | title= ''Free African Americans,'' ''op.cit.'', Church and Cotanch Families |publisher=Freeafricanamericans.com |access-date=August 21, 2013}}</ref>{{Promotional source|date=September 2023}} |
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[[Jack D. Forbes]] speculated that the Melungeons may have been Saponi/[[Powhatan]] descendants, although he acknowledges an account from circa 1890 described them as being "free colored" and mulatto people.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Forbes |first1=Jack D. |title=Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples |date=1993 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |location=Champaign, IL |isbn=9780252051005 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5D17DwAAQBAJ&dq=%22A+great+many+declare%22+Forbes&pg=PT240}}</ref> On May 25, 2012, The Associated Press wrote in an article titled "DNA Study Seeks Origins of Melungeons" to promote Estes et al.'s 2011 paper titled "Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population" and explains that: "For years, varied and wild claims have been made about the origins of a group of dark skinned Appalachian residents once known derisively as the Melungeons. Some speculated they were descended from Portuguese explorers, or perhaps Turkish slaves or Gypsies.<ref name="loller2" /> |
[[Jack D. Forbes]] speculated that the Melungeons may have been [[Saponi]]/[[Powhatan]] descendants, although he acknowledges an account from circa 1890 described them as being "free colored" and mulatto people.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Forbes |first1=Jack D. |title=Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples |date=1993 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |location=Champaign, IL |isbn=9780252051005 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5D17DwAAQBAJ&dq=%22A+great+many+declare%22+Forbes&pg=PT240}}</ref> On May 25, 2012, The Associated Press wrote in an article titled "DNA Study Seeks Origins of Melungeons" to promote Estes et al.'s 2011 paper titled "Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population" and explains that: "For years, varied and wild claims have been made about the origins of a group of dark skinned Appalachian residents once known derisively as the Melungeons. Some speculated they were descended from Portuguese explorers, or perhaps Turkish slaves or [[Romani people|Gypsies]]".<ref name="loller2" /> |
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On June 24, 2015, |
On June 24, 2015, ''USA Today'' published an article by Dale Neal titled "Melungeons Explore Mysterious Mixed Race Origins." According to the article, "Melungeons, the mysterious dark-skinned mountaineers of eastern Tennessee and southwest Virginia and into Kentucky, have sparked myths and theories over the past century. They were whispered to be descendants of shipwrecked Portuguese sailors, or gypsies now known as Roma. Some have speculated on connections with the Lumbee Indians in Robeson County or the [[Roanoke Colony|Lost Colonists]] of the [[Outer Banks]]."<ref name=neal/> |
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== Genetic testing == |
== Genetic testing == |
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From 2005 to 2011, researchers |
From 2005 to 2011, researchers Roberta J. Estes, Jack H. Goins, Penny Ferguson, and Janet Lewis Crain began the Melungeon Core Y-DNA Group online. They interpreted these results in their (2011) paper titled "Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population",<ref name="jogg">{{cite journal |last1=Estes |first1=Roberta A. |last2=Goins |first2=Jack H. |last3=Ferguson |first3=Penny |last4=Crain |first4=Janet Lewis |title=Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population |journal=Journal of Genetic Genealogy |date=Fall 2011 |volume=7 |issue=1 |url=https://jogg.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/71.006.pdf |access-date=3 July 2023 |ref=71.006}}</ref> which shows that ancestry of the sample is primarily European and African, with one person having a Native American paternal [[haplotype]]. |
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Estes, Goins, Ferguson, and Crain wrote in their 2011 summary "Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population" that the Riddle family is the only Melungeon participant with historical records identifying them as having [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] origins, but their DNA is European. Among the participants, only the Sizemore family is documented as having Native American DNA.<ref name="jogg"/> "Estes and her fellow researchers "theorize that the various Melungeon lines may have sprung from the unions of black and white [[indentured servitude|indentured servants]] living in Virginia in the mid-1600s, before slavery. They conclude that as laws were put in place to penalize the mixing of races, the various family groups could only intermarry with each other, even migrating together from [[Virginia]] through the [[Carolinas]] before settling primarily in the mountains of [[East Tennessee]]."<ref name="loller2">>{{cite news |title=DNA study seeks origin of Melungeons |url=https://www.tampabay.com/incoming/dna-study-seeks-origin-of-melungeons/1231925/ |access-date=30 August 2023 |work=[[Tampa Bay Times]] |agency=[[Associated Press|AP]] |date=May 25, 2012}}</ref>{{void|Fabrickator|comment|This was previously cited as published on 11 March 2021 in the "News Leader" under the title "A whole lot of people upset by this study: DNA & the truth about Appalachia’s Melungeons" at https://www.newsleader.com/story/news/2021/03/08/new-dna-study-melungeons-attempts-separate-truth-fiction/4611383001/; same story was published in the Progress-Index at https://www.progress-index.com/story/news/2021/03/08/new-dna-study-melungeons-attempts-separate-truth-fiction/4611383001/.}}<ref name="jogg"/> |
Estes, Goins, Ferguson, and Crain wrote in their 2011 summary "Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population" that the Riddle family is the only Melungeon participant with historical records identifying them as having [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] origins, but their DNA is European. Among the participants, only the Sizemore family is documented as having Native American DNA.<ref name="jogg"/> "Estes and her fellow researchers "theorize that the various Melungeon lines may have sprung from the unions of black and white [[indentured servitude|indentured servants]] living in Virginia in the mid-1600s, before slavery. They conclude that as laws were put in place to penalize the mixing of races, the various family groups could only intermarry with each other, even migrating together from [[Virginia]] through the [[Carolinas]] before settling primarily in the mountains of [[East Tennessee]]."<ref name="loller2">>{{cite news |title=DNA study seeks origin of Melungeons |url=https://www.tampabay.com/incoming/dna-study-seeks-origin-of-melungeons/1231925/ |access-date=30 August 2023 |work=[[Tampa Bay Times]] |agency=[[Associated Press|AP]] |date=May 25, 2012}}</ref>{{void|Fabrickator|comment|This was previously cited as published on 11 March 2021 in the "News Leader" under the title "A whole lot of people upset by this study: DNA & the truth about Appalachia’s Melungeons" at https://www.newsleader.com/story/news/2021/03/08/new-dna-study-melungeons-attempts-separate-truth-fiction/4611383001/; same story was published in the Progress-Index at https://www.progress-index.com/story/news/2021/03/08/new-dna-study-melungeons-attempts-separate-truth-fiction/4611383001/.}}<ref name="jogg"/> |
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== Racial laws and court cases == |
== Racial laws and court cases == |
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Melungeon ancestors were considered by appearance to be mixed race. During the 18th and the early 19th centuries, [[Census Enumerators' Books|census enumerators]] classified them as "mulatto," "other free," or as "free persons of color." Sometimes they were listed as "white" or sometimes as "black" or "negro," |
Melungeon ancestors were considered by appearance to be mixed race. During the 18th and the early 19th centuries, [[Census Enumerators' Books|census enumerators]] classified them as "mulatto," "other free," or as "free persons of color." Sometimes they were listed as "white" or sometimes as "black" or "negro," or even "Indian."{{Citation needed|date=June 2023}} One family described as "Indian" was the Ridley (Riddle) family, as was noted on a 1767 [[Pittsylvania County, Virginia]], tax list.{{Citation needed|date=June 2023}} Another tri-racial family described as “Indian” was the Butler family, as was noted in the 1860 census for [[Whitley County, Kentucky]], with the family patriarch (named Simon Butler), being born in Tennessee around 1776.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}} |
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[[Ariela Gross]] referenced the 1846 ''State v. Solomon, Ezekial, Levi, Andrew, Wiatt, Vardy Collins, Zachariah, Lewis Minor'', Hawkins County Circuit Court Minute Book, 1842–1848, Hawkins County Circuit Court, Hawkins County Courthouse box 31, 32 and the Jacob F. Perkins vs. John R. White, Carter County, July 1855 Abstract of depositions to support her conclusions made about identity and citizenship in 19th-century United States.<ref name="Ariela Gross 2007">{{Cite journal |last=Gross |first=Ariela |date=2007 |title="Of Portuguese Origin": Litigating Identity and Citizenship among the "Little Races" in Nineteenth-Century America |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27641498 |journal=Law and History Review |volume=25 |issue=3 |pages=467–512 |doi=10.1017/S0738248000004259 |jstor=27641498 |s2cid=144084310 |issn=0738-2480}}</ref> |
[[Ariela Gross]] referenced the 1846 ''State v. Solomon, Ezekial, Levi, Andrew, Wiatt, Vardy Collins, Zachariah, Lewis Minor'', Hawkins County Circuit Court Minute Book, 1842–1848, Hawkins County Circuit Court, Hawkins County Courthouse box 31, 32 and the Jacob F. Perkins vs. John R. White, Carter County, July 1855 Abstract of depositions to support her conclusions made about identity and citizenship in 19th-century United States.<ref name="Ariela Gross 2007">{{Cite journal |last=Gross |first=Ariela |author-link=Ariela Gross |date=2007 |title="Of Portuguese Origin": Litigating Identity and Citizenship among the "Little Races" in Nineteenth-Century America |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27641498 |journal=Law and History Review |volume=25 |issue=3 |pages=467–512 |doi=10.1017/S0738248000004259 |jstor=27641498 |s2cid=144084310 |issn=0738-2480}}</ref> |
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In 1924, Virginia passed the [[Racial Integrity Act]] that codified [[hypodescent]] or the "[[one-drop rule]], suggesting that anyone with any trace of African ancestry was legally Black and would fall under Jim Crow laws designed to limit the freedoms and rights of Black people.<ref>Smith, J. Douglas. “The Campaign for Racial Purity and the Erosion of Paternalism in Virginia, 1922-1930: ‘Nominally White, Biologically Mixed, and Legally Negro.’” The Journal of Southern History, vol. 68, no. 1, 2002, pp. 65–106. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3069691. Accessed 3 Sept. 2023.</ref> [[Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States]] were not declared unconstitutional until the 1967 ''[[Loving v. Virginia]]'' case.<ref>{{cite web |title=Loving v. Virginia |url=https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/loving-v-virginia |website=History Channel |access-date=4 July 2023 |date=14 December 2022}}</ref> |
In 1924, Virginia passed the [[Racial Integrity Act]] that codified [[hypodescent]] or the "[[one-drop rule]], suggesting that anyone with any trace of African ancestry was legally Black and would fall under Jim Crow laws designed to limit the freedoms and rights of Black people.<ref>Smith, J. Douglas. “The Campaign for Racial Purity and the Erosion of Paternalism in Virginia, 1922-1930: ‘Nominally White, Biologically Mixed, and Legally Negro.’” The Journal of Southern History, vol. 68, no. 1, 2002, pp. 65–106. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3069691. Accessed 3 Sept. 2023.</ref> [[Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States]] were not declared unconstitutional until the 1967 ''[[Loving v. Virginia]]'' case.<ref>{{cite web |title=Loving v. Virginia |url=https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/loving-v-virginia |website=History Channel |access-date=4 July 2023 |date=14 December 2022}}</ref> |
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* Brake, Katherine Vande. ''How They Shine: How They Shine: Melungeon Characters in Fiction of Appalachia.'' Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. |
* Brake, Katherine Vande. ''How They Shine: How They Shine: Melungeon Characters in Fiction of Appalachia.'' Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. |
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* Brake, Katherine Vande. ''Through the Back Door: Melungeon Literacies and Twenty-First Century Technologies.'' Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. |
* Brake, Katherine Vande. ''Through the Back Door: Melungeon Literacies and Twenty-First Century Technologies.'' Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. |
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* Cavender, Anthony P. "The Melungeons of Upper East Tennessee: Persisting Social Identity," ''Tennessee Anthropologist'' 6 (1981): |
* Cavender, Anthony P. "The Melungeons of Upper East Tennessee: Persisting Social Identity," ''Tennessee Anthropologist'' 6 (1981): 27–36 |
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* Goins, Jack H. (2000). ''Melungeons: And Other Pioneer Families'', Blountville, Tennessee: Continuity Press. |
* Goins, Jack H. (2000). ''Melungeons: And Other Pioneer Families'', Blountville, Tennessee: Continuity Press. |
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* Dromgoole, William "Will" Allen (1891). ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20200927105830/http://melungeon.org/2016/10/14/the-malungeon-tree-and-its-four-branches-will-allen-dromgoole-article-1891/ The Malungeon Tree and Its Four Branches]'', Melungeon Heritage Association. |
* Dromgoole, William "Will" Allen (1891). ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20200927105830/http://melungeon.org/2016/10/14/the-malungeon-tree-and-its-four-branches-will-allen-dromgoole-article-1891/ The Malungeon Tree and Its Four Branches]'', Melungeon Heritage Association. |
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* {{Cite news |last=Lister |first=Richard |title=Lost people of Appalachia |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/384502.stm |work=[[BBC News Online]] |date=July 3, 2009}} |
* {{Cite news |last=Lister |first=Richard |title=Lost people of Appalachia |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/384502.stm |work=[[BBC News Online]] |date=July 3, 2009}} |
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* McGowan, Kathleen (2003). "Where do we really come from?", ''DISCOVER'' 24 (5, May 2003) |
* McGowan, Kathleen (2003). "Where do we really come from?", ''DISCOVER'' 24 (5, May 2003) |
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* Offutt, Chris. (1999) "Melungeons", in ''Out of the Woods'', Simon & Schuster. |
* [[Chris Offutt|Offutt, Chris]]. (1999) "Melungeons", in ''Out of the Woods'', Simon & Schuster. |
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* Overbay, DruAnna Williams. ''Windows on the Past: The Cultural Heritage of Vardy, Hancock County, Tennessee.'' Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. |
* Overbay, DruAnna Williams. ''Windows on the Past: The Cultural Heritage of Vardy, Hancock County, Tennessee.'' Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. |
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* Podber, Jacob. ''The Electronic Front Porch: An Oral History of the Arrival of Modern Media in Rural Appalachia and the Melungeon Community. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. |
* Podber, Jacob. ''The Electronic Front Porch: An Oral History of the Arrival of Modern Media in Rural Appalachia and the Melungeon Community. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. |
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[[Category:Pre-emancipation African-American history]] |
[[Category:Pre-emancipation African-American history]] |
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[[Category:Society of Appalachia]] |
[[Category:Society of Appalachia]] |
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[[Category:Self-identification as Native American in the United States]] |
Revision as of 20:50, 11 June 2024
![]() Goins family, Melungeons from Graysville, Tennessee, c. 1920s | |
Regions with significant populations | |
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United States (East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia,[1][2] North Carolina, and Kentucky[2]) | |
Languages | |
Southern American English | |
Religion | |
Protestant Christianity | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Lumbee, Atlantic Creole, Turks of South Carolina, Chestnut Ridge people, White Southerners, Black Southerners, Native Americans, Dominickers, Redbone (ethnicity), Mulatto |
Part of a series on |
African Americans |
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Melungeons (/məˈlʌndʒənz/ mə-LUN-jənz) (sometimes also spelled Malungeans, Melangeans, Melungeans, Melungins[3]) are one of the many tri-racial isolate populations originating in colonial Virginia primarily descended from free people of color and white settlers.[4][5][6][7]
Some modern researchers believe that early Atlantic Creole slaves, descended from or acculturated by Iberian lançados[8] and Sephardi Jews fleeing the Inquisition,[9][10][11][12][13] were one of the pre-cursor populations to these groups.[14][15][16] Many creoles, once in British America, were able to obtain their freedom and many married into local white families.[17][18][19][20][21]
In the general U.S. census, Melungeon people were enumerated as of the races to which they most resembled.[22]
Etymology
The term Melungeon likely comes from the French word mélange ultimately derived from the Latin verb miscēre ("to mix, mingle, intermingle").[23][22][24] It was once a derogatory term, but is used by the Melungeon people today as a primary identifier. The Tennessee Encyclopedia states that in the 19th century, "the word 'Melungeon' appears to have been used as an offensive term for nonwhite and/or low socioeconomic class persons by outsiders."[24]
The term Melungeon was historically considered an insult, a label applied to Appalachians who were by appearance or reputation of mixed-race ancestry. Although initially pejorative in character,[25] this word has been reclaimed by members of the community.[26] The spelling of the term varied widely, as was common for words and names at the time.
According to the 1894 Department of Interior Report of Indians Taxed and not Taxed within the "Tennessee" report, "The civilized (self-supporting) Indians of Tennessee, counted in the general census numbered 146 (71 males and 75 females) and are distributed as follows: Hawkins county, 31; Monroe county, 12; Polk county, 10; other counties (8 or less in each), 93. Quoting from the report:
The Melungeans or Malungeans, in Hawkins county, claim to be Cherokees of mixed blood (white, Indian, and negro), their white blood being derived, as they assert, from English and Portuguese stock. They trace their descent primarily to 2 Indians (Cherokees) known, one of them as Collins, the other as Gibson, who settled in the mountains of Tennessee, where their descendants are now to be found, about the time of the admission of that state into the Union (1796).
Early uses
The earliest historical record of the term Melungeon dates to 1813. In the minutes of the Stoney Creek Baptist Church in Scott County, Virginia, a woman stated another parishioner made the accusation that "she harbored them Melungins."[24] The second oldest written use of the term was in 1840, when a Tennessee politician described "an impudent Melungeon" from what became Washington, D.C., as being "a scoundrel who is half Negro and half Indian."[24] In the 1890s, during the age of yellow journalism, the term "Melungeon" started to circulate and be reproduced in U.S. newspapers, when the journalist Will Allen Dromgoole wrote several articles on the Melungeons.[27]
In 1894, the US Department of the Interior, in its "Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed," under the section "Tennessee" noted:
In a number of states small groups of people, preferring the freedom of the woods or the seashore to the confinement of regular labor in civilization, have become in some degree distinct from their neighbors, perpetuating their qualities and absorbing into their number those of like disposition, without preserving very clear racial lines. Such are the remnants called Indians in some states where a pure-blooded Indian can hardly longer be found. In Tennessee is such a group, popularly known as Melungeans, in addition to those still known as Cherokees. The name seems to have been given them by early French settlers, who recognized their mixed origin and applied to them the name Melangeans or Melungeans, a corruption of the French word "melange" which means mixed. (See letter of Hamilton McMillan, under North Carolina.)[23][22]
History
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Mahala-mullins-cabin-porch-tn1.jpg/210px-Mahala-mullins-cabin-porch-tn1.jpg)
In December 1943, Walter Ashby Plecker of Virginia sent county officials a letter warning against "colored" families trying to pass as "white" or "Indian" in violation of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. He identified these as being "chiefly Tennessee Melungeons".[28] He directed the offices to reclassify members of certain families as black, causing the loss for numerous families of documentation in records that showed their continued self-identification as being of Native American descent on official forms.[28][29][30]
In the 20th century, during the Jim Crow era, some Melungeons attended boarding schools in Asheville, North Carolina, Warren Wilson College, and Dorland Institution which integrated earlier than other schools in the southern United States.[2]
Melungeon families
Definitions of who is Melungeon differ. Historians and genealogists have tried to identify surnames of different Melungeon families.[28][31] In 1943, Virginia State Registrar of Vital Statistics, Walter Ashby Plecker, identified surnames by county: "Lee, Smyth and Wise: Collins, Gibson, (Gipson), Moore, Goins, Ramsey, Delph, Bunch, Freeman, Mise, Barlow, Bolden (Bolin), Mullins, Hawkins (chiefly Tennessee Melungeons)".[28]
In 1992, Virginia DeMarce explored and reported the Goins genealogy as a Melungeon surname.[32] Beginning in the early 19th century, or possibly before, the term Melungeon was applied as a slur to a group of about 40 families along the Tennessee-Virginia border, but it has since become a catch-all phrase for a number of groups of mysterious mixed-race ancestry.[1] Through time the term has changed meanings but often referred to any mixed-race person and, at different times, has referred to 200 different communities across the Eastern United States.[1] These have included Van Guilders and Clappers of New York and Lumbees in North Carolina to Creoles in Louisiana.[1]
Claims
Anthropologist E. Raymond Evans wrote in 1979 regarding Melungeons: "In Graysville, the Melungeons strongly deny their Black heritage and explain their genetic differences by claiming to have had Cherokee grandmothers. Many of the local whites also claim Cherokee ancestry and appear to accept the Melungeon claim. ..."[33]
In 1999, historian C. S. Everett hypothesized that John Collins (recorded as a Sapony Indian who was expelled from Orange County, Virginia about January 1743), might be the same man as the Melungeon ancestor John Collins, who was classified as a "mulatto" in 1755 North Carolina records.[34] However, Everett revised that theory after he discovered evidence that these were two different men named John Collins. Only descendants of the latter man, who was identified as mulatto in the 1755 record in North Carolina, have any proven connection to the Melungeon families of eastern Tennessee.[35][promotional source?]
Jack D. Forbes speculated that the Melungeons may have been Saponi/Powhatan descendants, although he acknowledges an account from circa 1890 described them as being "free colored" and mulatto people.[36] On May 25, 2012, The Associated Press wrote in an article titled "DNA Study Seeks Origins of Melungeons" to promote Estes et al.'s 2011 paper titled "Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population" and explains that: "For years, varied and wild claims have been made about the origins of a group of dark skinned Appalachian residents once known derisively as the Melungeons. Some speculated they were descended from Portuguese explorers, or perhaps Turkish slaves or Gypsies".[1]
On June 24, 2015, USA Today published an article by Dale Neal titled "Melungeons Explore Mysterious Mixed Race Origins." According to the article, "Melungeons, the mysterious dark-skinned mountaineers of eastern Tennessee and southwest Virginia and into Kentucky, have sparked myths and theories over the past century. They were whispered to be descendants of shipwrecked Portuguese sailors, or gypsies now known as Roma. Some have speculated on connections with the Lumbee Indians in Robeson County or the Lost Colonists of the Outer Banks."[2]
Genetic testing
From 2005 to 2011, researchers Roberta J. Estes, Jack H. Goins, Penny Ferguson, and Janet Lewis Crain began the Melungeon Core Y-DNA Group online. They interpreted these results in their (2011) paper titled "Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population",[31] which shows that ancestry of the sample is primarily European and African, with one person having a Native American paternal haplotype.
Estes, Goins, Ferguson, and Crain wrote in their 2011 summary "Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population" that the Riddle family is the only Melungeon participant with historical records identifying them as having Native American origins, but their DNA is European. Among the participants, only the Sizemore family is documented as having Native American DNA.[31] "Estes and her fellow researchers "theorize that the various Melungeon lines may have sprung from the unions of black and white indentured servants living in Virginia in the mid-1600s, before slavery. They conclude that as laws were put in place to penalize the mixing of races, the various family groups could only intermarry with each other, even migrating together from Virginia through the Carolinas before settling primarily in the mountains of East Tennessee."[1][31]
Racial laws and court cases
Melungeon ancestors were considered by appearance to be mixed race. During the 18th and the early 19th centuries, census enumerators classified them as "mulatto," "other free," or as "free persons of color." Sometimes they were listed as "white" or sometimes as "black" or "negro," or even "Indian."[citation needed] One family described as "Indian" was the Ridley (Riddle) family, as was noted on a 1767 Pittsylvania County, Virginia, tax list.[citation needed] Another tri-racial family described as “Indian” was the Butler family, as was noted in the 1860 census for Whitley County, Kentucky, with the family patriarch (named Simon Butler), being born in Tennessee around 1776.[citation needed]
Ariela Gross referenced the 1846 State v. Solomon, Ezekial, Levi, Andrew, Wiatt, Vardy Collins, Zachariah, Lewis Minor, Hawkins County Circuit Court Minute Book, 1842–1848, Hawkins County Circuit Court, Hawkins County Courthouse box 31, 32 and the Jacob F. Perkins vs. John R. White, Carter County, July 1855 Abstract of depositions to support her conclusions made about identity and citizenship in 19th-century United States.[37]
In 1924, Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act that codified hypodescent or the "one-drop rule, suggesting that anyone with any trace of African ancestry was legally Black and would fall under Jim Crow laws designed to limit the freedoms and rights of Black people.[38] Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States were not declared unconstitutional until the 1967 Loving v. Virginia case.[39]
Modern identity
By the mid-to-late 19th century, the term Melungeon appeared to have been used most frequently to refer to the biracial families of Hancock County and neighboring areas.[citation needed] Several other uses of the term in the print media, from the mid-19th to the early 20th centuries, have been collected by the Melungeon Heritage Association.[2]
Since the mid-1990s, popular interest in the Melungeons has grown tremendously, although many descendants have left the region of historical concentration. The writer Bill Bryson devoted the better part of a chapter to them in his The Lost Continent (1989). People are increasingly self-identifying as having Melungeon ancestry.[40][page needed][better source needed] Internet sites promote the anecdotal claim that Melungeons are more prone to certain diseases, such as sarcoidosis or familial Mediterranean fever. Academic medical centers have noted that neither of those diseases is confined to a single population.[41]
Literature
A Melungeon character is the titular protagonist and narrator of Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead, which was a co-recipient of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The novel takes place primarily in Lee County, Virginia and environs.
See also
- Chestnut Ridge people of West Virginia
- Croatan
- Dominickers in the Florida Panhandle
- List of topics related to the African diaspora
- Mulatto
- Pardo
- Ramapough Mountain Indians ("Jackson Whites")
- Redbone (ethnicity)
- Turks of South Carolina
- Vardy Community School
References
- ^ a b c d e f >"DNA study seeks origin of Melungeons". Tampa Bay Times. AP. May 25, 2012. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
- ^ a b c d e Neal (June 24, 2015). "Melungeons explore mysterious mixed-race origins". USA Today. Retrieved 7 July 2023.
- ^ "1894 Report of the U.S. Department of the Interior, in its Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed" (PDF). www2.census.gov. Department of the Interior. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
- ^ "Melungeons | NCpedia". www.ncpedia.org. Retrieved 2024-05-23.
- ^ Schrift, Melissa (2013-04-01). "Becoming Melungeon". University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters.
- ^ Press, The Associated Press | The Associated (2012-05-24). "DNA finds origin of Appalachia's Melungeons: African men, white women". The Denver Post. Retrieved 2024-05-23.
- ^ "Dancing Revolution: Bodies, Space, and Sound in American Cultural History 2018059613, 2019013274, 9780252051234, 9780252042393, 9780252084188". ebin.pub. 2021-07-11. Retrieved 2024-05-23.
- ^ Foner, Eric (8 June 2018). "Ira Berlin, 1941–2018". The Nation.
- ^ O'Neill, Brian Juan (2017). "Review of Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, Havik, Philip J., and Malyn Newitt, eds". Africa Today. 63 (4): 84–90. doi:10.2979/africatoday.63.4.05. hdl:10071/14918. JSTOR 10.2979/africatoday.63.4.05.
- ^ "African blacks and Mulattos in the 17th-Century Amsterdam Portuguese Jewish community". www.asser.nl. Retrieved 2024-05-27.
- ^ Mark, Peter; Horta, José da Silva (2013). The Forgotten Diaspora: Jewish Communities in West Africa and the Making of the Atlantic World. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-66746-4.[page needed]
- ^ Schorsch, Jonathan (2019). "Revisiting Blackness, Slavery, and Jewishness in the Early Modern Sephardic Atlantic". A Letter's Importance: The Spelling of Daka(h) (Deut. 23:2) and the Broadening of Western Sephardic Rabbinic Culture. doi:10.1163/9789004392489_022. ISBN 978-90-04-39248-9.
- ^ Kananoja, Kalle (2013). Mariana Pequena, a black Angolan jew in early eighteenth-century Rio de Janeiro (Report). hdl:1814/27607.
- ^ Mozingo, Joe (2012). The Fiddler on Pantico Run: An African Warrior, His White Descendants, A Search for Family. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4516-2761-9.[page needed]
- ^ Berlin, Ira (1996). "From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African- American Society in Mainland North America". The William and Mary Quarterly. 53 (2): 251–288. doi:10.2307/2947401. JSTOR 2947401.
- ^ Bartl, Renate (2018). American tri-racials: African-Native contact, multi-ethnic Native American Nations, and the ethnogenesis of tri-racial groups in North America (Thesis). Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. doi:10.5282/edoc.26874.
- ^ Berlin, Ira (2017). "From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African-American Society in Mainland North America". Critical Readings on Global Slavery (4 vols.). pp. 1216–1262. doi:10.1163/9789004346611_039. ISBN 978-90-04-34661-1.
- ^ "The Anti-Amalgamation Law is Passed". African American Registry. Retrieved 2024-05-27.
- ^ Wolfe, Brendan. "Free Blacks in Colonial Virginia". Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved 2024-05-27.
- ^ "Introduction to Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina". freeafricanamericans.com. Retrieved 2024-05-27.
- ^ Dodge, David (January 1886). "The Free Negroes of North Carolina". The Atlantic.
- ^ a b c "1894 Report of the U.S. Department of the Interior, in its Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed" (PDF). www2.census.gov. Department of the Interior. Retrieved 4 Sep 2023.
- ^ a b "1894 Report of the U.S. Department of the Interior, in its Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed" (PDF). www2.census.gov. Department of the Interior. Retrieved 4 Sep 2023.
- ^ a b c d Toplovich, Ann. "Melungeons". Tennessee Encyclopedia. Tennessee Historical Society. Retrieved 3 July 2023.
- ^ Sovine, Melanie L. "The Mysterious Melungeons: a Critique of the Mythical Image." University of Kentucky Ph.D. dissertation, 1982
- ^ "Frequently Asked Questions." Melungeon Heritage Association. Retrieved December 2023
- ^ Pezzullo, Joanne (10 August 2017). "Calloway Collins". The Historical Melungeons. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
- ^ a b c d Plecker, Walter A. "Surnames, by Counties and Cities, of Mixed Negroid Virginia Families Striving to Pass as "Indian" or White". Encyclopedia Virginia: Virginia Humanities. Library of Virginia. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
- ^ Schrift, Melissa (2013). "Introduction". Becoming Melungeon: Making an Ethnic Identity in the Appalachian South. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-7154-8.
- ^ "The Racial Integrity Act, 1924: An Attack on Indigenous Identity". National Park Service. June 21, 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
- ^ a b c d Estes, Roberta A.; Goins, Jack H.; Ferguson, Penny; Crain, Janet Lewis (Fall 2011). "Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population" (PDF). Journal of Genetic Genealogy. 7 (1). Retrieved 3 July 2023.
- ^ DeMarce, Virginia Easley. “‘Verry Slitly Mixt’: Tri-Racial Isolate Families of the Upper South–A Genealogical Study.” National Genealogical Society Quarterly 80.1 (March 1992): [5]-35.aZ
- ^ Evans, E. Raymond (1979). "The Graysville Melungeons: A Tri-racial People in Lower East Tennessee", Tennessee Anthropologist IV(1): 1–31.
- ^ C. S. Everett, "Melungeon History and Myth," Appalachian Journal (1999)
- ^ "Free African Americans, op.cit., Church and Cotanch Families". Freeafricanamericans.com. Retrieved August 21, 2013.
- ^ Forbes, Jack D. (1993). Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252051005.
- ^ Gross, Ariela (2007). ""Of Portuguese Origin": Litigating Identity and Citizenship among the "Little Races" in Nineteenth-Century America". Law and History Review. 25 (3): 467–512. doi:10.1017/S0738248000004259. ISSN 0738-2480. JSTOR 27641498. S2CID 144084310.
- ^ Smith, J. Douglas. “The Campaign for Racial Purity and the Erosion of Paternalism in Virginia, 1922-1930: ‘Nominally White, Biologically Mixed, and Legally Negro.’” The Journal of Southern History, vol. 68, no. 1, 2002, pp. 65–106. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3069691. Accessed 3 Sept. 2023.
- ^ "Loving v. Virginia". History Channel. 14 December 2022. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
- ^ Kennedy, N. Brent; Kennedy, Robyn Vaughan (1997). The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People: An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America (2nd ed.). Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. ISBN 0-86554-516-2 – via Google Books.
- ^ ""Learning About Familial Mediterranean Fever", National Human Genome Research Institute". Genome.gov. November 17, 2011. Retrieved August 21, 2013.
Further reading
- Ball, Bonnie (1992). The Melungeons: Notes on the Origin of a Race' '. Johnson City, Tennessee: Overmountain Press.
- Berry, Brewton (1963). Almost White: A Study of Certain Racial Hybrids in the Eastern United States. New York: Macmillan Press.
- Bible, Jean Patterson (1975). Melungeons Yesterday and Today. Signal Mountain, Tennessee: Mountain Press.
- Brake, Katherine Vande. How They Shine: How They Shine: Melungeon Characters in Fiction of Appalachia. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
- Brake, Katherine Vande. Through the Back Door: Melungeon Literacies and Twenty-First Century Technologies. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
- Cavender, Anthony P. "The Melungeons of Upper East Tennessee: Persisting Social Identity," Tennessee Anthropologist 6 (1981): 27–36
- Goins, Jack H. (2000). Melungeons: And Other Pioneer Families, Blountville, Tennessee: Continuity Press.
- Dromgoole, William "Will" Allen (1891). The Malungeon Tree and Its Four Branches, Melungeon Heritage Association.
- Hashaw, Tim. Children of Perdition: Melungeons and the Struggle of Mixed America. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
- Heinegg, Paul (2005). FREE AFRICAN AMERICANS OF VIRGINIA, NORTH CAROLINA, SOUTH CAROLINA, MARYLAND AND DELAWARE Including the family histories of more than 80% of those counted as "all other free persons" in the 1790 and 1800 census, Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing, 1999–2005. Available in its entirety online.
- Hirschman, Elizabeth. Melungeons: The Last Lost Tribe in America. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
- Johnson, Mattie Ruth (1997). My Melungeon Heritage: A Story of Life on Newman's Ridge. Johnson City, Tennessee: Overmountain Press.
- Kennedy, N. Brent (1997) The Melungeons: the resurrection of a proud people. Mercer University Press.
- Kessler, John S. and Donald Ball. North From the Mountains: A Folk History of the Carmel Melungeon Settlement, Highland County, Ohio. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
- Langdon, Barbara Tracy (1998). The Melungeons: An Annotated Bibliography: References in both Fiction and Nonfiction, Hemphill, Texas: Dogwood Press.
- Lister, Richard (July 3, 2009). "Lost people of Appalachia". BBC News Online.
- McGowan, Kathleen (2003). "Where do we really come from?", DISCOVER 24 (5, May 2003)
- Offutt, Chris. (1999) "Melungeons", in Out of the Woods, Simon & Schuster.
- Overbay, DruAnna Williams. Windows on the Past: The Cultural Heritage of Vardy, Hancock County, Tennessee. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
- Podber, Jacob. The Electronic Front Porch: An Oral History of the Arrival of Modern Media in Rural Appalachia and the Melungeon Community. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
- Price, Henry R. (1966). "Melungeons: The Vanishing Colony of Newman's Ridge." Conference paper. American Studies Association of Kentucky and Tennessee. March 25–26, 1966.
- Reed, John Shelton (1997). "Mixing in the Mountains", Southern Cultures 3 (Winter 1997): 25–36.(subscription required)
- Scolnick, Joseph M Jr. and N. Brent Kennedy. (2004). From Anatolia to Appalachia: A Turkish American Dialogue. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
- Vande Brake, Katherine (2001). How They Shine: Melungeon Characters in the Fiction of Appalachia, Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press.
- Williamson, Joel (1980). New People: Miscegenation and Mulattoes in the United States, New York: Free Press.
- Winkler, Wayne. 2019. Beyond the sunset: The Melungeon drama, 1969-1976. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
- Winkler, Wayne (2004). "Walking Toward the Sunset: The Melungeons of Appalachia", Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press.
- Winkler, Wayne and Estes, Roberta (7/11/2012). "For Some People of Appalachia complicated roots", Tell Me More. National Public Radio. npr.org accessed 12 June 2023
External links
- Melungeon Heritage Association
- Mixed Race Studies
- Paul Brodwin, ""Bioethics in action" and human population genetics researMacon, GA: Mercer University Press.ch", Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, Volume 29, Number 2 (2005), 145–178, DOI: 10.1007/s11013-005-7423-2 PDF, addresses issue of 2002 Melungeon DNA study by Kevin Jones, which is unpublished
- Paul Heinegg, Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware, 1999–2005
- "Melungeons", Digital Library of Appalachia. Contains numerous photographs and documents related to Melungeons, mostly from 1900 to 1950.
- A Mystery People: The Melungeons Archived 2014-04-19 at the Wayback Machine From Louis Gates Jr's "Finding your Roots."