![]() Arch Goins and family, Melungeons from Graysville, Tennessee, c. 1920s | |
Regions with significant populations | |
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Newman Ridge and Johnson, Kentucky |
Melungeons (/məˈlʌndʒənz/ mə-LUN-jənz) are an ethnicity from the Southeastern United States who descend from Europeans, Native American, and sub-Saharan Africans brought to America as indentured servants and later as slaves. Historically, the Melungeons were associated with settlements in the Cumberland Gap area of central Appalachia, which includes portions of East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and eastern Kentucky. Tri-racial describes populations who claim to be of mixed European, African and Native American ancestry. Although there is no consensus on how many such groups exist, estimates range as high as 200,000.[1]
Definition
The term "Melungeon" is an exonym that is used to describe a specific and distinct group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas or American Indians by journalists, government officials, researchers, and even social groups today.
Origins
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/A_Typical_Malungeon.jpg/220px-A_Typical_Malungeon.jpg)
Will Allen Dromgoole had an artist depict "A Typical Melungeon", Calloway Collins circa 1890 whom she interviewed along with the other folks living on Newman Ridge to accompany her pieces published, printed and circulated all over the United States on the time she spent with the Gowens and Collins families on Newman Ridge.[2]
In 1894, the US Department of the Interior, in its "Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed," under the section "Tennessee" noted that: "The Civilized (self-supporting) Indians of Tennessee, counted in the general census number 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 each), 93. In a number of states, small groups of people, preferring the freedom of the woods or the seashore to the confinement of labor in civilization, have become in some degree distinct from their neighbors, perpetrating their qualities and absorbing into their number those of like minded disposition, without preserving any clear racial lines. Such are the remnants called Indians in some states where pure-blooded Indian can hardly longer be found. In Tennessee there is such a group, popularly known as the Melungeans, in addition to those still known as Cherokees. The name seems to have been given to them by early French settlers, who recognized their mixed origin and applied to them the name of Malangeans or Malungeans, a corruption of the French word "melange" which means mixed. (See letter of Hamilton McMillan of North Carolina)"[3]
Popular culture
The ancestry, culture, and identity of people who are may or may not be "Melungeons" has been a highly popular subject in American pop culture. During the age of Yellow Journalism in the late 19th century is when the term "Melungeon" started to circulate and be reproduced in print throughout the U.S. circa 1890 when the journalist Will Allen Dromgoole wrote several articles on the Melungeons in the 1890s. [2]
Scholars and commentators have long speculated on who should be included under the term "Melungeon." Contemporary authors, along with historical journalists and census takers identify differing lists of surnames to be included as families associated with "Melungeons"[4][5]
In December 1943, Virginia State Registrar of Vital Statistics, Walter Ashby Plecker, 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 specific surnames by county, including "Lee, Smyth and Wise: Collins, Gibson, (Gipson), Moore, Goins, Ramsey, Delph, Bunch, Freeman, Mise, Barlow, Bolden (Bolin), Mullins, Hawkins (chiefly Tennessee Melungeons)". (Lee County, Virginia borders Hancock County, Tennessee.) He directed the offices to reclassify members of certain families as black, which caused the loss for numerous families of documentation in records that showed their continued identification as Native American.[5]
Different researchers have developed their own lists of the surnames of core Melungeon families. Generally, specific lines within families have to be traced to document such identity. For example, DeMarce (1992) listed Hale as a Melungeon surname.[6]
Edward Price's 1950 dissertation at UC Berkeley titled Mixed-Blood Populations of the Eastern United States as to Origins, Localizations, and Persistence (1950) stated that children of European and free black unions had also intermarried with persons of alleged Native American ancestry.[citation needed]
The 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" ...[7]
In 1999, the 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.[8] However, Everett revised that theory after he has 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, has any proven connection to the Melungeon families of eastern Tennessee.[9]
N. Brent Kennedy, a self proclaimed Melungeon, wrote a book on his claimed Melungeon roots, The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People (1994). He identified Abraham Lincoln and Elvis Presley as Melungeons.[10] He also believed that there were pre-Columbian Welsh and Phoenicians/Carthaginians in North America but dismissed them as related as he thought that Melungeons do not look Welsh and the time span from any Phoenicians in North America to today, which he calculated at 2500 years, would probably not allowed any of their physical appearance to survive.[11]
In the late 20th century,researchers such as Brent Kennedy suggested that the Melungeons' ethnic identity may include ancestors who were Turks and Sephardi (Iberian) Jews.[citation needed] The writers David Beers Quinn and Ivor Noel Hume theorize that the Melungeons were descended from Sephardi Jews who fled the Inquisition and came as sailors to North America. They also say that Francis Drake did not repatriate all of the Turks he saved from the sack of Cartagena, but some came to the colonies.[12] However, Janet Crain notes that there is no written documentation to support that theory.[13]
In 2005-2011, researchers Roberta J. Estes, Jack H. Goins, Penny Ferguson, and Janet Lewis Crain began the "Melungeon Core Y-DNA Group" on FTDNA.com. They interpreted these results in their (2011) paper titled "Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population"[4], shows that ancestry of the sample is primarily European and African, and one person having a Native American paternal haplotype. Roberta J. Estes, Jack H. Goins, Penny Ferguson, and Janet Lewis Crain in their 2011 summary "Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population" stated 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.[4] In 2011, Roberta Estes, Jack H. Goins, Penny Ferguson, and Janet Lewis Crain founders of the Melungeon DNA Project reported that the Melungeon lines had likely originated in the unions of black and white indentured servants living in Virginia in the mid-1600s before slavery became widespread in the United States.[4] They concluded that as laws to prevent the mixing of races were put into place, those family groups intermarried with one another. Creating an endogamous group, they migrated together, sometimes along with white neighbors, from western Virginia through the Piedmont frontier of North Carolina, before they settled primarily in the mountains of East Tennessee.[14] In addition, the Melungeon DNA Project has documented multiracial ancestry, primarily European and African, for numerous people identified as Melungeon, which affirms the evidence from written documentation. Note: Jack Goins, a self identified Melungeon descendant and researcher, states that the Melungeons claimed to be both Indian and Portuguese. He made his rounds circa 2012 to discuss his step great great grand dad, George Washington Goins [citation needed] The surnames Gibson and Collins appear frequently, and as a result genealogist such as Roberta J. Estes, Jack H. Goins, Penny Ferguson, Janet Lewis Crain, have referred to these surnames as "core Melungeon surnames"[4].
Researchers have defined people as "Melungeon" when they have noted early multiracial family heritage. Most modern-day researchers of Appalachian families note that the appearance of what they have called a "Melungeon" or "Melungeon Descended" person are generally European American in appearance and often (though not always) have dark hair and eyes and a swarthy or olive complexion.[15] Descriptions of Melungeons have varied widely over time but also have remained persistent in their observations of "the other".
Aricles continue to be written on these families [16]
Evidence
In about 1767, some of the ancestors of the some of the so called Melungeon people began to reach the frontier New River area, where they are listed in the 1780s on tax lists of Montgomery County, Virginia [citation needed]. From there they migrated south in the Appalachian Range to Wilkes County, North Carolina, where some are listed as "white" on the 1790 census [citation needed]. They resided in a part that became Ashe County, where they are designated as "other free" in 1800.[citation needed]
The Collins and Gibson families (identified as Melungeon ancestors) were recorded in 1813 as members of the Stony Creek Primitive Baptist Church in Scott County, Virginia.[citation needed] They appear to have been treated as social equals of the white members. [citation needed] The earliest documented use of the term "Melungeon" is found in the minutes of that church (see Etymology below).
From the Virginia and North Carolina frontiers, the families migrated west into frontier Tennessee and Kentucky.[citation needed] The earliest known Melungeon in what is now northeast Tennessee was Millington Collins, who executed a deed in Hawkins County in 1802.[citation needed] However, there is some evidence that Vardy Collins and Shep Gibson had settled in Hawkins (what is now Hancock County) by 1790.[15] Several Collins and Gibson households were listed in Floyd County, Kentucky in the 1820 census, where they were classified as "free persons of color." [citation needed] In the 1830 censuses of Hawkins and neighboring Grainger County, Tennessee, the Collins and Gibson families are listed as "free-colored."[citation needed]
By 1830, the Melungeon community in Hawkins County numbered 330 people in 55 families. In adjoining Grainger County, there were 130 people in 24 families. According to Edward Price, "Because of them, Hawkins County had more free colored persons in the 1830 census than any other county in Tennessee except Davidson (which includes Nashville) and more free colored families named Collins than any other county in the United States."[17] Melungeon families have also been traced in Ashe County, in northwestern North Carolina.[17]
Racial classifications
Contemporary accounts documented that 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" but almost never as "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]
In November 10, 1935, The Nevada State Journal on page 6 wrote: "Melungeons are a distinct race of people living in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. They are about the color of mulattoes but have straight hair. "[18]
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 Nineteenth Century America.[19]
Notoriety
The families known as "Melungeons" in the 19th century were generally well integrated into the communities in which they lived, but they may still have been affected by racism. Records show that on the whole, they enjoyed the same rights as whites.[citation needed] For example, they held property, voted, and served in the army. Some, such as the Gibsons, owned slaves as early as the 18th century.[citation needed]
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Mahala-mullins-cabin-porch-tn1.jpg/210px-Mahala-mullins-cabin-porch-tn1.jpg)
Mahala "Big Haley" Mullins was a famous moonshiner who was wanted by the law. She lived on the Newman Ridge overlooking the town of present day Sneedville, Tennessee
Etymology
There are many hypotheses about the etymology of the term Melungeon. Linguists and many researchers believe that it may have been derived from the French mélange, meaning mixture, or perhaps [nous] mélangeons meaning "[we] mix/mingle". That etymology is also found in several dictionaries. There were numerous French Huguenot immigrants in Virginia from 1700, and the French language could have contributed a term.
A different explanation traces the word to malungu (or malungo), a Luso-African word from Angola, meaning "shipmate" and derived from the Kimbundu word ma'luno, meaning "companion" or "friend."[20][21] The word, spelled as Melungo and Mulungo, has been found in numerous Portuguese records. It is said to be a derogatory word that was used by Africans for people of Portuguese or other white ancestry. If so, the word was likely brought to America through people of African ancestry.[22]
Kennedy (1994) speculates that the word derives from the Turkish melun can (from Arabic mal`un jinn ملعون جنّ), which purportedly means "damned soul." He suggests that at the time, that was a term used by Turks for Muslims who had been captured and enslaved aboard Spanish galleons.[23]
Some writers try to connect the term Melungeon to an ethnic origin of people designated by that term, but there is no basis for that assumption. Those who use the term "Melungeon" are usually outside of that particular cultural background will usually not refer to their own background as such, instead preferring to go into their actual pedigrees. It appears the name arose as an endonym that neighboring English speaking settlers would commonly refer this tribe as.
On October 7, 1840, the polemical Brownlow's Whig, of Jonesborough, Tennessee, published an article entitled "Negro Speaking!" The publisher referred to a rival Democratic politician with a party in Sullivan County as "an impudent Malungeon from Washington City a scoundrel who is half Negro and half Indian," [sic] then as a "free negroe". In that and related articles, he does not identify the Democrat by name.[24]
Modern identity
The term Melungeon was historically considered an insult, a label applied to Appalachians who were by appearance or reputation of mixed-race ancestry. In southwest Virginia, the term Ramp was similarly applied to people of mixed race . That term has never shed its pejorative character.[25]
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.[26] Several other uses of the term in the print media, from the mid-19th to the early 20th centuries, have been collected at the Melungeon Heritage Association Website.[26] The spelling of the term varied widely, as was common for words and names at the time. Eventually, the form "Melungeon" became standard.
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).
With the advent of the internet, many people are researching family history and the number of people self-identifying as having Melungeon ancestry has increased rapidly, according to Kennedy.[27][page needed] Some individuals have begun to self-identify as Melungeons after they had read about the group on a website and discovered their surname on the expanding list of "Melungeon-associated" surnames. Others believe that they have certain "characteristic" physical traits or conditions or assume that a multiracial heritage means they are Melungeon.
For example, some Melungeons are allegedly identifiable by shovel-shaped incisors, a dental feature more commonly found among Native Americans and Northeast Asians, but not restricted to these peoples.[28] After an unsubstantiated hypothesis, popularized by N. Brent Kennedy, that Melungeons are of Turkish origin, some people have identified as having an enlarged external occipital protuberance, dubbed an "Anatolian bump".[27][29]
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.[30]
The Ridgetop Shawnee Tribe of Indians in Kentucky, which is neither federally recognized or state recognized as an Indian tribe, claims that most families in its area who are commonly identified as Melungeon are of partial Native American descent. The organization says their ancestors migrated to the region in the late 18th and the early-to-mid-19th centuries. Most of these families claimed the Ridgetop Shawnee heritage to explain their dark skin and Indian features and to avoid racial persecution. In 2010, the Kentucky General Assembly passed resolutions that acknowledged the civic contributions of the Ridgetop Shawnee Tribe of Indians to the state.[31][32]
In a 2022 joint-resolution made No. 138, is the matter of extending state recognition the Wolf Creek Cherokee Tribe of Virginia[33]
Similar groups
The following are other Native American groups that at one time were classified as Indian. Some identify as Native American and have received state recognition, as have six tribes in Virginia.
- Delaware
- Nantitoke-Moors (and in Maryland)[34] Nanticoke groups in Delaware and New Jersey (where they are intermarried with Lenape) have received state recognition. Most had left the area in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
- Florida
- Dominickers of Holmes County in the Florida Panhandle
- Indiana
- Ben-Ishmael Tribe, pejoratively called "Grasshopper Gypsies"
- Louisiana
- Redbones (and in Texas)
- Maryland
- Piscataway Indian Nation, formerly also known as We-Sorts, one of three Piscataway-related groups recognized as Native American tribes by the state
- New Jersey and New York
- Ramapough Mountain Indians (aka "Jackson Whites") of the Ramapo Mountains, recognized by both New Jersey and New York as Native Americans
- North Carolina
- Coree or "Faircloth" Indians of Carteret County
- Haliwa-Saponi, recognized by the state as Native American
- Lumbee, recognized by the state as Native American
- Person County Indians, aka "Cubans and Portuguese"
- Ohio
- South Carolina
- Red Bones (NB: distinct from the Gulf States Redbones)
- Turks
- Brass Ankles
- Virginia
- Monacan Indians (a.k.a. "Issues") of Amherst and Rockbridge counties, recognized by state of Virginia and the federal government (2018) as a Native American tribe, along with five other Virginia tribes
- West Virginia
- Chestnut Ridge people of Barbour County (also known as Mayles or, pejoratively, "Guineas")
See also
- Melungeon DNA Project
- List of topics related to the African diaspora
- Vardy Community School
- Mulatto
- Pardo
References
- ^ Ball, Donald B.; Kessler, John S. (May 20, 2000). North from the Mountains: The Carmel Melungeons of Ohio. Paper presented at Melungeon Heritage Association Third Union. University of Virginia's College at Wise, Virginia. Archived from the original on August 19, 2007. Retrieved March 14, 2008.
- ^ a b Pezzullo, Joanne. "Calloway Collins". The Historical Melungeons. Retrieved 12 June 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.
- ^ a b c d e Journal: www.jogg.info Originally Published: Volume 7, Number 1 (Fall 2011) reference Number: 71.006, MELUNGEONS, A MULTI-ETHNIC POPULATION Author(s): Roberta J. Estes, Jack H. Goins, Penny Ferguson, Janet Lewis Crain
- ^ a b 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.
- ^ DeMarce, Virginia E. (1992). "Verry Slitly Mixt': Tri-Racial Isolate Families of the Upper South – A Genealogical Study", National Genealogical Society Quarterly 80 (March 1992): pp. 5–35, Historical-Melungeons
- ^ 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.
- ^ EVERETT, C. S. (1999). "Melungeon History and Myth". Appalachian Journal. 26 (4): 358–409. ISSN 0090-3779. JSTOR 40933999. Retrieved April 19, 2022.
- ^ Henige, David; Wilson, Darlene (1998). "Brent Kennedy's "Melungeons"". Appalachian Journal. 25 (3): 270–298. ISSN 0090-3779. JSTOR 40933900. Retrieved April 19, 2022.
- ^ Quinn, David Beers (1985). Set Fair for Roanoke. p. 343. ISBN 9780807841235.
- ^ "Myth of Drake Dropping off Passengers". Historical Melungeons.
- ^ Travis Loller (AP), "'A whole lot of people upset by this study': DNA & the truth about Appalachia’s Melungeons", Associated Press, 8 March 2021, accessed 11 March 2021
- ^ a b Price, Shirley (January 8, 1968). "The Melungeons Are Coming Out in the Open". Kingsport Times-News. Archived from the original on October 22, 2009. Retrieved April 9, 2008.
- ^ Lister, Richard (July 3, 2009). "Lost people of Appalachia". BBC News Online. Retrieved July 7, 2012.
- ^ a b Price, Edward T. (June 1953). "A Geographic Analysis of White-Negro-Indian Racial Mixtures in Eastern United States". Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 43 (2): 138–155. doi:10.1080/00045605309352109. Retrieved February 18, 2013.
- ^ "Melungeons". Nevada State Journal. November 10, 1935. p. 6. Archived from the original on October 28, 2009.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Hashaw, Tim (July/August 2001) Tim Hashaw, "Malungu: The African Origin of the American Melungeons", Eclectica Magazine
- ^ Hashaw, Tim (2007). The Birth of Black America: The First African Americans and the Pursuit of Freedom at Jamestown. New York: Basic Books.
- ^ Quote: "In view of the explanations offered by the Melungo (white man)," The chief replied, "this affair is at an end. It is true that the words used by the negro were very offensive, therefore the Melungeo may proceed in peace on his journey, and may he prosper. On your return, if you desire to pass through the lands where I am chieftain, you have my kraals at your command, and I shall be very happy to receive you, because I see that the Melungo is a Oanuna (brave man)." Melungo Diocleciano Fernandes das Neves, A Hunting Expedition to the Transvaal, 1879, p. 28
- ^ Kennedy (1994)
- ^ Melanie Sovine, "The Mysterious Melungeons: A Critique of the Mythical Image", 1982, at Historical Association of Melungeons; accessed June 15, 2011
- ^ Sovine, Melanie L. "The Mysterious Melungeons: a Critique of the Mythical Image." University of KY PHD dissertation, 1982
- ^ a b "Melungeon Heritage Association Website". Melungeon.org. Retrieved August 21, 2013.
- ^ a b 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.
- ^ "Yuji Mizoguchi, "Shovelling: A Statistical Analysis of Its Morphology", U. of Tokyo, Bulletin No.26, Feb 1985". Um.u-tokyo.ac.jp. Retrieved August 21, 2013.
- ^ Kennedy, Melungeons, p. 102. Quote: "I came to believe the long-discounted Melungeon claim to be of Portuguese – and even Moorish and Turkish – origin. The 'Mediterranean look' of my own family ..."
- ^ ""Learning About Familial Mediterranean Fever", National Human Genome Research Institute". Genome.gov. November 17, 2011. Retrieved August 21, 2013.
- ^ "Kentucky General Assembly 2010 Regular Session HJR-16". kentucky.gov, updated 9-2-2010.
- ^ "Kentucky General Assembly 2009 Regular Session HJR-15". kentucky.gov, updated 5-2-2009.
Note: The resolutions were not an official recognition of tribal status.
- ^ "HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 138 Offered January 20, 2022 Extending state recognition to the Wolf Creek Cherokee Tribe of Virginia". LIS Virginia's Legislative Information System. Patrons-- McQuinn, Adams, D.M., Carr, Clark, Hope, Keam, Kory, Maldonado, Plum, Rasoul, Reid, Roem, Shin, Simon, Simonds and Watts. Retrieved 12 Jun 2023.
- ^ Delaware's Forgotten Folk – The Story of the Moors and Nanticokes, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press
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
- DeMarce, Virginia E. (1993). "Looking at Legends – Lumbee and Melungeon: Applied Genealogy and the Origins of Tri-Racial Isolate Settlements." National Genealogical Society Quarterly 81 (March 1993): 24–45, scanned online, Historical-Melungeons
- Forbes, Jack D. (1993). Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples. University of Illinois Press.
- Goins, Jack H. (2000). Melungeons: And Other Pioneer Families, Blountville, Tennessee: Continuity Press.
- 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.
- 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
- 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
- "The Graysville Melungeons", Tennessee Anthropologist, November 1979, hosted at Rootsweb
- 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 From Louis Gates Jr's "Finding your Roots."
- "kindness our heroine shows Melungeon outcast Pearl (Erika Coleman)" from AC-T review of Big-Stone-Gap film. Accessed 6/8/2016