WHAT IS A MELUNGEON?


The term Melungeon was originally used for a group of people living on Newman's Ridge and vicinity, near Sneedville in Hancock County, Tennessee, and their descendants. These are people described as having features like white people but being somewhat darker, sometimes with a gray cast to their skin. They have been there for a long time, some say they were there before the whites started
arriving.
This group originated from mixed race groups along the northern border of North Carolina and neighboring areas of Virginia. These groups were remnants of the Saponi Siouan Indians but were
no longer pure Indian racially. They may have absorbed survivors of several white groups. Brent Kennedy has been investigating the possibility that there was a substantial Mediterranean element from
Moorish, Turkish, Spanish and Portugese seamen abandoned on the Virginia coast by Sir Francis Drake and from Spanish settlements on the Carolina coast. He derives the name Melungeon from a Turkish
word meaning "Lost Soul".

These North Carolina remnants of the Saponi have survived in four scattered groups, the Occaneechi-Saponi (http://www.occaneechi-saponi.org/) (pride-net.com/native_indians/saponi.html)
in Orange and Alamance Counties, the Haliwa-Saponi (www.charweb.org/neighbors/na/haliwa.htm) in Halifax and Warren Counties, the Person County Indians ('Cubans') in Person County, and the Goinstown Indians in Rockingham and Surrey Counties. The Goinstown and Person County Indians are very similar to Melungeons, the Haliwa and Occaneechi are less white and more Indian.
There were movements of mixed-race people, mostly remnants of Algonquian speaking groups of Virginia such as the Powhattan and Pamunkey, into Kentucky and Tennessee somewhat later. Some of these joined the Melungeons and the Goinstown Indians, bringing the name Goins to the groups. Whether this came to the Melungeons through the Goinstown Indians or directly, I don't know, but Goins became very common in both groups. Some of them formed a community in eastern Kentucky, centered on Magoffin and Floyd Counties, and were know for some time as the Magoffin County
People. They have recently taken the name of Melungeon and are the people of the Southeastern Kentucky Melungeon Exchange.

A mixed race group formed in Hamilton, Rhea and Roane Counties of Tennessee. This lowland group has Cherokee (Iroquoian) as the main Indian element. They are known as the Graysville Melungeons,
from the town with the greatest concentration of them.

The same mixed race elements as formed the original Melungeons of Hancock, Hawkins and Grainger Counties in Tennessee also settled on the Sabine River in western Louisiana, where they are
known as Redbones or Louisiana Melungeons.

Mixed race people from South Carolina, probably Brass Ankles, settled on the west side of Dead Lake in the Florida Panhandle in or near Weewahitchka. They became known as Florida Melungeons,
presumably because they reminded someone of Melungeons somewhere else. These people would presumably have Carolina Siouan ancestry, probably Catawba and Cheraw.

All of these groups were originally American Indian, but racially have little Indian in them today. There was a large input of white, which started very early, and included both North European and Mediterranean elements, and which still continues today with intermarriage. There was a significant amount of Black African added to the mix by free mulattos joining the groups at all stages up to the civil war. Since the civil war, mulattos generally stayed in the black communities. Since the children of mulattos and whites had much better disease resistance than Indian children, there was continuous genetic selection in these groups against Indian ancestry. Modern medicine, with antibiotics, has probably finally stabilized this situation. White women with mixed race children frequently joined mixed race groups like the Melungeons, but the extent of their contribution is difficult to document.

Pat Spurlock Elder urges us not to count anyone as Melungeon except the original Saponi derived group, centered on Hancock County, Tennessee, and Wise County, Virginia. As someone of
lowland Graysville Melungeon ancestry, I strongly disagree. So all Melungeons do not have the same origin, and so some groups are older than others, so what? The Carmel Indians of Ohio are a
branch of the Kentucky Melungeons, and were formed as a separate community before the Kentucky group began using the name Melungeon. As far as I am concerned, they are welcome to use the Melungeon name if they wish. The same for the other older groups along the northern border of North Carolina.

To me, a Melungeon is a mixed-race person descended in whole or part from one of the communities which have been called Melungeon. No one is a pure Melungeon in Elder's sense of being descended only from the original dozen or so families who settled in what is now Hancock County between 1780 and 1830. Interbreeding with the surrounding whites has been continuous and the different Melungeon groups have interbred as well. I am sure there are many nominal whites who have more mixed-race
ancestry than many nominal Melungeons, even if most of them are not aware of it. There are many Melungeons by my definition who never heard of the Melungeons and believe they are pure white.

Elder also says that people who lived in or near Melungeon communities and were of similar mixed origin should not be counted as Melungeons unless they were descended from the original founding families. Since Melungeons have no racial definition, no physical anthropological definition such as having flat feet (though many do), the meaning of the word is social, a member of a Melungeon community. Basically, a Melungeon is someone who is considered a Melungeon, whether because
of living in a Melungeon community, because of being known to be of Melungeon or part Melungeon ancestry, because of looking Melungeon in an area where Melungeons are known, or because of self identification as a Melungeon.

What is the racial composition of the Melungeons? No one knows. A study done by Pollitzer on blood antigens taken from Melungeons in Hancock County led him to believe that they are 86% white, 14% black and 0% Indian. Of course, the amounts will vary both from group to group and place to place and from family to family within a community. My guess is that the ranges would be 80 to 99% white, 1 to 20% black, and 0 to 5% Indian. Of course, that white percentage could contain both North European and Mediterranean elements. The one proposed element which I think is completely unsubstantiated and pretty unbelievable is Tzigane ('Gypsy' or "Roma"). But there could even be a very small Indic contribution as it is conceivable that a lost Tzigane would find a home in these mixed communities.

What do and what should Melungeons put for race and for ethnicity on the Census forms, etc.? There are many answers to this one. For race, some put white, as the major component. Some put white and Indian, some put white, black and Indian, some put other. If one checks Indian, there is a place for tribe and one can write in Melungeon. For "other" there is also a a place to write the group, and one can write Melungeon. Since the Office of Management and Budget ruled that there would be no mixed category but that one can indicate being a mixture by checking more than one category, my choice is to
check both Indian and other and write Melungeon in both. For ethnicity, of course, almost everyone who is proud of being Melungeon or part Melungeon writes in Melungeon.

Please see my 1994 book, "Melungeons and Other Mestee Groups" at http://www.geocities.com/mikenassau for more details and history of the Melungeons and other mixed-race groups. Also be sure to see some of the other sites on this subject listed in the Open Directory at dmoz.org/Society/Ethnicity/Melungeon
Click below to see discussion on a definition of Melungeon:
Melungeon Definition

Mike Nassau, gnassau@mindspring.com, March, 2000
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Here are two other views on this question of who the Melungeons are and what is their origin:
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The following was posted to the Melungeon Family Genealogy Forum by Martha Short as general information on the Melungeons. Martha has contributed much to Melungeon studies.

Who or What Are the Melungeons?
Researchers have long struggled with the question of who were the Melungeons and where did they come from? In simple terms, the Melungeons were a group of dark-skinned people with European features found living in the mountains of Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, and West Virginia by explorers as early as the mid-1600's. These people were farmers living in cabins and spoke broken english. They were clearly not Native Americans nor black or white. They practiced Christian religion and when asked who they were they replied that they were 'Portyghee.'
 
No one has proven where the term Melungeon originated, however, it was long speculated to be of French origin meaning melange or mixture. Recent linguistic experts have shown that phrases with similar pronounciation to Melungeon (me-lun-juhn) existed in old Turkish/Arabic meaning cursed soul or one who's luck has run out.

Over the years this mysterious group of people was pushed further west and higher up in the mountains as Scotch, Irish, English, and other settlers moved into the areas where the Melungeons had been living for years. During the struggle for land, the white settlers declared that the Melungeons were "Free Person of Color" or "mulatto." In many cases, this legal designation stripped the Melungeons of many of their rights including the right to vote, to send their children to school, and to defend themselves in a court of law. This led to the new settlers taking the land of the Melungeons.
 
The loss of political rights and land caused many Melungeons to start over in new areas where no one knew them as Melungeons and they could "pass" for white and enjoy legal rights and education for their children. These families denied that they were Melungeons and told people they were "Black Dutch, Black Irish, Black Italian, etc." or Native American, ususally Cherokee, to account for their darker coloring or refused to talk about their ancestors at all. As generations passed, people accepted the stories that grandparents handed down about who their ancestors were and the term Melungeon came to be applied mainly to isolated groups in Hancock Co., TN, and Wise, Lee, and Dickenson Co., VA.
 
It was here that researchers found them in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and began speculating anew on their origins. The most popular theories on the origins of the Melungeons were:
 
1) Survivors from the Lost Colony of Roanoke;
2) Tri-Racial Isolates (isolated groups of white, black, and Native American populations);
3) Survivors from Portuguese shipwrecks;
4) Descendants of the Welsh explorer "Madoc";
5) Descendants of one of the "lost tribes" of Israel; and
6) Descendants of early Carthaginian or Phoenician seamen.
 
Current popular theory suggests that the Melungeons were descendants of Spanish and Portuguese settlers who abandoned the Spanish settlement of Santa Elena in South Carolina during the late 16th century. These settlers eventually mingled with several Native American tribes including
Powhatans, Pamunkeys, Creeks, Catawbas, Yuchis, and Cherokees.
 
They may have also mingled with the survivors of several hundred Moorish and Turkish galley slaves and Portuguese and Spanish prisoners left on Roanoke Island (in modern North Carolina) by Sir Francis Drake in 1586.
 
The final chapter on the Melungeons has not yet been written and the theories have not been proven so we invite you to join us in the search for our ancestors and the origins of the Melungeons. Please feel free to leave your polite queries or comments about Melungeon research or your Melungeon ancestors.
Thanks!

Martha Short, shortfamily@angelfire.com
Melungeon webpage at http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~mtnties/melungeon.html
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The following was written to the Melungeon Genealogy Forum by Nancy Sparks Morrison, who has contributed much to the study of the Melungeons, particularly in regard to hereditary diseases. See the link to her site with medical information at the end of this article.
See her article, "Who Are The Melungeons", at http://members.home.net/sparkys9/melungeon%20two.html.
 
The following was written in response to a posting on the Melungeon Family Genealogy Forum by someone who was attacking Kennedy's work and praising that of DeMarce and Elder.
 
Research on Melungeon Origins
A very interesting but limited and limiting post. You say I am judging on hearsay? How much more so you are judging Dr. Kennedy. You are willing to stop at the ocean as are DeMarce and Elder. IF I had stopped at the ocean I could not have traced my Napier family to 246 AD in Scotland. Nor could I have traced my Remy/Ramey family to France in the 1100s, nor the English Carey family to 1000. One does not stop at the ocean in any other research except for Melungeon research hey? Seems a bit biased to me. I hope someday that I will indeed be able to connect to the actual family/families from which my Melungeon ancestry derives and who lived across the ocean. Until then I will continue to work toward that end.
 
RE: the term MELANGE being the root word of Melungeon? Well, sorry, but languages don't work that way. 'Mixture to mixture' is not a viable step in the study of linguistics. You might want to check with someone really familiar with languages about this. I am not, just an English teacher with a little bit of French studies, but even with that background, I know that Melungeon did not come from melange. It is my understanding that a book is near publication comparing Native American languages with those of several languages in the Middle East and Central Asia. It will be interesting, I think.
 
I have spoken with DeMarce and I have a copy on disc of her work. Even she makes mistakes, genealogically and otherwise. And your choice of words regarding the possibility of a Portuguese in the mix sounds very much like her comment made after the denial of Dr. Kennedy's work and then the publication of the archaeological work showing the Spanish forts on Santa Elena Island, now Parris Island, as well as five outlying forts in what is now present day South Carolina, North Carolina, north Georgia, and east Tennessee. Additionally many of the Spanish and Portuguese newcomers were so-called 'conversos,' that is ethnic Jewish and Moorish people who had converted to Catholicism prior to the Spanish Inquistion.
 
Evidence is also strong (see the work of English historian David Beers Quinn) that in 1586, Sir Francis Drake deposited several hundred Turkish and Moorish sailors, liberated from the Spanish, in present day central America on the coast of North Carolina at Roanoke Island.
 
Ater reading some of this research DeMarce said, well there just might be a very little bit of Portuguese in the mix. The Portuguese were and are the most racially mixed people in the world in and of themselves, so even one Portuguese ancestor brought a lot of different genes into the mix. And I know via the research noted above that there were many more than one.
 
You noted that DeMarce and Elder's work is based on facts. This is funny when you consider that the FACTS stopped in Colonial America, 200 years plus, AFTER the first Melungeon ancestors arrived on our shores and were taken into the many Native American tribes who had no written language to preserve that history. After the first few generations, the story of the 'off-shore others,' became dim and in another few would have been lost forever if not for Dr. Kennedy who had the vision to connect the facts and give us a theory which others are now seriously researching, not ridiculing.
 
You really need to read a little of this information before you judge Dr. Kennedy on hearsay or just from his book. You need to hear him speak as well. He said then, that he was evolving a theory and his own families genealogy. He is not a historian, but a person of vision who came to search his family because of some VERY serious health problems. I am not defining myself as a Melungeon from this one area, nor did he. BUT if I had not found his information, I might not now be living, and so would dozens/hundreds of other descendants be writhing in pain and dying unimaginable deaths with out him.
 
The use of the term Mediterranean is a space saving term. It includes, Spain, and through them Portugal because many if not most of Spain's navy were of Portuguese descent, as well as the normally thought of countries of the Mediterranean along with those countries along the top of N. Africa, Moors, Arabs, Jews and others, including Turks and others of Central Asian ancestry.
 
I find dialogues like this tedious. I doubt that you will learn much from it because you seem so pathetically, and pedantically allied to the 'facts.' But I invite you or anyone else reading this, to come to 3rd Union, to be held May 18-21, in Wise, VA on the campus of the college there. You might find some very interesting information made available to you. Contact Connie Clark, Pesident of the Melungeon Heritage Assoc. at cclark@compunet.net for further information.
I also invite anyone else reading this to write to me personally for information on the health issues of Melungeon descendants, at nmorri3924@aol.com (note there is no *s* in this e-dres.)
Nancy S

THE MELUNGEON HEALTH EDUCATION AND SUPPORT NETWORK:
http://www.melungeonhealth.org
 
 
This article taken from http://www.geocities.com/mikenassau/what.htm
 
 

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