Jump to content

Melungeon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Melungeon
Melungeon schoolgirls from Hancock County, Tennessee in front of the Melungeon boarding school in Asheville, North Carolina, c. 1916
Regions with significant populations
United States (East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia,[1][2] North Carolina, and Kentucky[2])
Languages
Southern American English
Religion
Predominately 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, Coloureds, Griqua people, Basters, Métis, Black Indians in the United States, Garifuna

Melungeon (/məˈlʌnən/ mə-LUN-jən) (sometimes also spelled Malungean, Melangean, Melungean, Melungin[3]) was a slur[4] historically applied to individuals and families of mixed-race ancestry with roots in colonial Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina primarily descended from free people of color and white settlers.[5][6][7][8] In modern times, the term has been reclaimed by descendants of these families, especially in southern Appalachia.[9][10][11] Despite this mixed heritage, many modern Melungeons pass as White, as did many of their ancestors.[12][13][14][15][16]

The Weaver family are one of the many Melungeon families descended from South Asian indentured servants on Virginia plantations. Their paternal ancestors fled and settled in free mixed-race communities in North Carolina.[17]

Most of the modern population have an estimated 1-2% non-European DNA, though jumping up to 20% or more in some groups, such as the Lumbee.[18][19][20] Despite non-European DNA being in the minority for these groups, the impact of the one-drop rule either did, or had the potential to, label them as non-white. This redesignation resulted in some individuals being sterilized by state governments, most notably in Virginia.[21][22][23]

Many groups have historically been referred to as Melungeon, including the Melungeons of Newman's Ridge,[24] the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina,[25][26] the Chestnut Ridge people,[27] and the Carmel Indians.[28]

Free people of color in colonial Virginia were predominately of African and European descent; however, many families also had varying amounts of Native American and East Indian ancestry.[29][30][31][32][33][34]

Some modern researchers believe that early Atlantic Creole slaves, descended from or acculturated by Iberian lançados[35] and Sephardi Jews fleeing the Inquisition,[36][37][38][39][40] were one of the pre-cursor populations to these groups.[41][42][43] Many creoles, once in British America, were able to obtain their freedom and many married into local white families.[44][45][46][47][48]

In the general US census, Melungeon people were enumerated as of the races to which they most resembled.[49]

Etymology

[edit]

The term Melungeon likely comes from the French word mélange ultimately derived from the Latin verb miscēre ("to mix, mingle, intermingle").[50][49][51] 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."[51]

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,[52] this word has been reclaimed by members of the community.[53] 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

[edit]
"A Typical Malungeon" (1890) by Will Allen Dromgoole

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."[51] 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."[51] 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.[54]

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.)[50][49]

History

[edit]
Unofficial Melungeon flag designed by a Melungeon descendant

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".[55] 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.[55][56][57]

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]

"King of the Melungeons"

[edit]

During the American Revolution, there was purportedly a Melungeon "king" or "chief" named Micajah Bunch (1723–1804). Local folklore claims he intermarried with the Cherokee, making the Melungeons a branch of the tribe, though no documentation of this event exists.

The last male in Micajah's bloodline, Michael Joseph Bullard, died in a swimming accident at the age of 15 in 1991.[58]

Civil War

[edit]
Angus Chavis was a Lumbee who joined the Confederate Army as a drummer at the age of 15.[59]

Many free people of color, white-passing or otherwise, served in the American Civil War on both sides of the conflict. Some served in the Confederate military,[60][61] though others resisted the Confederate government, such as Henry Berry Lowry.[62]

Culture

[edit]

There is no uniquely Melungeon culture, though specific groups have formed into their own tribal entities on the basis of ancestral connections to historical Native American communities.[63][64]

Due to the lasting impact of colonialism, the decimation of initial contact tribes, and the legacy of American chattel slavery, culturally these mixed-race groups resemble their white settler neighbors in culture, with few exceptions.[65]

Melungeon families

[edit]
Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. is descended from the Chestnut Ridge community of Melungeons.[66]

Definitions of who is Melungeon differ. Historians and genealogists have tried to identify surnames of different Melungeon families.[55][67] 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)".[55]

In 1992, Virginia DeMarce explored and reported the Goins genealogy as a Melungeon surname.[68] 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]

Paul Heinegg's research

[edit]

Award-winning genealogist and engineer[69] Paul Heinegg created a website listing some 1,000 family histories of free people of color, categorized by surname and county. Many families regularly denoted as Melungeon are listed throughout his research, as well as other families listed as being Native American, mulatto, and East Indian. Data is drawn from colonial tax lists and local court from across Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Delaware, and South Carolina.[70]

Claims

[edit]

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. ..."[71]

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.[72] 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.[73][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.[74]

Myths

[edit]

Dispute regarding the origin of Melungeons families has led to a large number of ahistorical and dubious myths regarding their origins. Some myths involve physical characteristics and genetic diseases that are claimed to indicate Melungeon descent, such as shovel-shaped incisors, an Anatolian bump, Familial Mediterranean fever, polydactyly, dark skin with bright colored eyes, and high cheekbones.[75][76][6]

Other myths claim that the Melungeons are descendants of lost Spanish colonists, marooned Portuguese sailors,[77] descendants of the ancient Israelites or Phoenicians,[78] Romani slaves, or Turkish settlers.[79]

Genetic testing

[edit]
The outlaw Sam Bass was part of the Bass family of the mixed-race Lost Creek settlement.[80]

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",[67] 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.[67] "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][67]

Racial laws and court cases

[edit]

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.[81]

Confederate General Randall L. Gibson was the great-grandson of free black Revolutionary War veteran, Gideon Gibson Jr.[82]

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.[83] Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States were not declared unconstitutional until the 1967 Loving v. Virginia case.[84]

Modern identity

[edit]

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.[85][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.[86]

Literature

[edit]

Author Jesse Stuart's 1965 novel Daughter of the Legend, set in Tennessee, depicts a love story between a Melungeon girl and a timber cutter from Virginia, and explores socioeconomic and racial tensions among mountain-dwelling families.

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

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d e >"DNA study seeks origin of Melungeons". Tampa Bay Times. AP. May 25, 2012. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d Neal, Dale (June 24, 2015). "Melungeons explore mysterious mixed-race origins". USA Today. Retrieved 7 July 2023.
  3. ^ "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.
  4. ^ Gibson, Toby D. (2013). "The Melungeons of Newman's Ridge: An Insider's Perspective". Appalachian Heritage. 41 (4): 59–66. ISSN 2692-9287.
  5. ^ "Melungeons | NCpedia". www.ncpedia.org. Retrieved 2024-05-23.
  6. ^ a b Schrift, Melissa (2013-04-01). "Becoming Melungeon". University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters.
  7. ^ "DNA finds origin of Appalachia's Melungeons: African men, white women". The Denver Post. AP. 2012-05-24. Retrieved 2024-05-23.
  8. ^ "Dancing Revolution: Bodies, Space, and Sound in American Cultural History 2018059613, 2019013274, 9780252051234, 9780252042393, 9780252084188". ebin.pub. 2021-07-11. Retrieved 2024-05-23.
  9. ^ Loller, Travis. "'A whole lot of people upset by this study': DNA & the truth about Appalachia's Melungeons". The News Leader. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  10. ^ Rust, Randal. "Melungeons". Tennessee Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  11. ^ "FAQ". Melungeon Heritage Association. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  12. ^ Wolfe, Brendan. "Racial Integrity Laws (1924–1930)". Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  13. ^ Philipkoski, Kristen. "Melungeon Secret Solved, Sort Of". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  14. ^ "Projects | Passing: Flexibility in Race and Gender | Experimental Study Group". MIT OpenCourseWare. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  15. ^ Schroeder, Joan Vannorsdall (2009-02-01). "First Union: The Melungeons Revisited". Blue Ridge Country. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  16. ^ Billingsley, Carolyn Earle (2004). Winkler, Wayne (ed.). "Melungeons: A Study in Racial Complexity—A Review Essay". The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. 102 (2): 207–223. ISSN 0023-0243.
  17. ^ "Walden-Webster". freeafricanamericans.com. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
  18. ^ "Learn About Hidden African DNA & Ancestry". 23andMe Blog. 2023-09-30. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  19. ^ "Melungeon DNA Study - Genetic Evidence – Access Genealogy". 2014-08-06. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  20. ^ "Discussion: Cumbos as Lumbee". Cumbo Family Website. 2016-05-18. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  21. ^ Talbot, Tori. "Walter Ashby Plecker (1861–1947)". Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved 2024-08-23.
  22. ^ "The Racial Integrity Act, 1924: An Attack on Indigenous Identity (U.S. National Park Service)". www.nps.gov. Retrieved 2024-08-23.
  23. ^ Winkler, Wayne (2004). Walking Toward the Sunset: The Melungeons of Appalachia. Mercer University Press. ISBN 978-0-86554-919-7.
  24. ^ "Mystery of Newman's Ridge". historical-melungeons.com. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  25. ^ "Review". historical-melungeons.com. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  26. ^ Anonymous (2022-05-12). "Are They Kin to the 'Lost Colony'?". Digital Scholarship and Initiatives. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  27. ^ Joanne Johnson Smith & Florence Kennedy Barnett, "The Guineas of West Virginia: A Transcript of A Presentation at First Union" Archived 2007-09-28 at the Wayback Machine, 25 July 1997; Wise, Virginia
  28. ^ Gazette, Times (2020-06-23). "Highland Co.'s lost tribe". The Times Gazette. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  29. ^ "Mitsawokett: "Self-Identification"". nativeamericansofdelawarestate.com. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  30. ^ Heinegg, Paul. "Freedom in the Archives: Free African Americans in Colonial America". Commonplace. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  31. ^ "LISTSERV - VA-HIST Archives - LISTLVA.LIB.VA.US". listlva.lib.va.us. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  32. ^ Siekman, Henry Louis Gates Jr and NEHGS Researcher Meaghan (2016-06-24). "Am I Related to Free People of Color in NC?". The Root. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  33. ^ "O Say Can You See: Early Washington, D.C., Law & Family". earlywashingtondc.org. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  34. ^ Arora, Anupama; Kaur, Rajender (2017). "Writing India in Early American Women's Fiction". Early American Literature. 52 (2): 363–388. ISSN 0012-8163.
  35. ^ Foner, Eric (8 June 2018). "Ira Berlin, 1941–2018". The Nation.
  36. ^ 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.
  37. ^ "African blacks and Mulattos in the 17th-Century Amsterdam Portuguese Jewish community". www.asser.nl. Retrieved 2024-05-27.
  38. ^ 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]
  39. ^ 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.
  40. ^ Kananoja, Kalle (2013). Mariana Pequena, a black Angolan jew in early eighteenth-century Rio de Janeiro (Report). hdl:1814/27607.
  41. ^ 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]
  42. ^ 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.
  43. ^ 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.
  44. ^ 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.
  45. ^ "The Anti-Amalgamation Law is Passed". African American Registry. Retrieved 2024-05-27.
  46. ^ Wolfe, Brendan. "Free Blacks in Colonial Virginia". Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved 2024-05-27.
  47. ^ "Introduction to Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina". freeafricanamericans.com. Retrieved 2024-05-27.
  48. ^ Dodge, David (January 1886). "The Free Negroes of North Carolina". The Atlantic.
  49. ^ 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.
  50. ^ 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.
  51. ^ a b c d Toplovich, Ann. "Melungeons". Tennessee Encyclopedia. Tennessee Historical Society. Retrieved 3 July 2023.
  52. ^ Sovine, Melanie L. "The Mysterious Melungeons: a Critique of the Mythical Image." University of Kentucky Ph.D. dissertation, 1982
  53. ^ "Frequently Asked Questions." Melungeon Heritage Association. Retrieved December 2023
  54. ^ Pezzullo, Joanne (10 August 2017). "Calloway Collins". The Historical Melungeons. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
  55. ^ 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.
  56. ^ Schrift, Melissa (2013). "Introduction". Becoming Melungeon: Making an Ethnic Identity in the Appalachian South. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-7154-8.
  57. ^ "The Racial Integrity Act, 1924: An Attack on Indigenous Identity". National Park Service. June 21, 2023. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
  58. ^ "King of The Melungeons". www.historical-melungeons.com. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  59. ^ Chavers, Dr Dean (2018-09-13). "The Life of Angus Chavers, a Confederate POW". ICT News. Retrieved 2024-08-17.
  60. ^ CCW (2018-09-06). "Jacob Bryant: A Documented Lumbee Indian Who Fought in the Confederate Army". NC History Center on the Civil War, Emancipation & Reconstruction. Retrieved 2024-05-27.
  61. ^ Rheinheimer, Kurt (2009-01-01). "The Melungeons: A New Journey Home". Blue Ridge Country. Retrieved 2024-05-27.
  62. ^ "The North Carolina Bandits". Harper's Weekly. 30 March 1872.
  63. ^ Staff, Ben Steelman StarNews. ""The Lumbee Indians" -- black, white and shades of red". Wilmington Star-News. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  64. ^ Rosenzweig, Brian (2023-03-05). "'I know who I am:' A Black mother and son's journey of learning to embrace their mixed-race American Indian identity". UNC Media Hub. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  65. ^ "FAQ". Melungeon Heritage Association. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  66. ^ "Surprise! Finley related to 'Roots' show host". William & Mary. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
  67. ^ 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.
  68. ^ 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
  69. ^ "Paul Heinegg, MSA SC 3520-130118". msa.maryland.gov. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
  70. ^ Heinegg, Paul. "Free African Americans in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware". www.freeafricanamericans.com. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
  71. ^ Evans, E. Raymond (1979). "The Graysville Melungeons: A Tri-racial People in Lower East Tennessee", Tennessee Anthropologist IV(1): 1–31.
  72. ^ C. S. Everett, "Melungeon History and Myth," Appalachian Journal (1999)
  73. ^ "Free African Americans, op.cit., Church and Cotanch Families". Freeafricanamericans.com. Retrieved August 21, 2013.
  74. ^ 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.
  75. ^ Chresfield, Michell (2022), Halliwell, Martin; Jones, Sophie A. (eds.), "Genetics, Health and the Making of America's Triracial Isolates, 1950–80", The Edinburgh Companion to the Politics of American Health, Edinburgh University Press, pp. 459–475, ISBN 978-1-4744-5098-0, retrieved 2024-08-14
  76. ^ Loller, Travis. "DNA study pops myths of Appalachia's Melungeons". The Worcester Telegram & Gazette. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  77. ^ "The Origins of the Melungeons". Larimer County Genealogical Society. 2021-09-10. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  78. ^ "Melungeons in Virginia". www.virginiaplaces.org. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  79. ^ Sassounian, Harut (2012-07-25). "Sassounian: DNA Study Busts Myth that One Million Appalachians Are of Turkish Descent". The Armenian Weekly. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  80. ^ "The Lost Creek Settlement". lost-creek.org. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
  81. ^ 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.
  82. ^ Sharfstein, Daniel J. (2011-05-14). "Black or White?". Opinionator. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
  83. ^ 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.
  84. ^ "Loving v. Virginia". History Channel. 14 December 2022. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  85. ^ 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.
  86. ^ ""Learning About Familial Mediterranean Fever", National Human Genome Research Institute". Genome.gov. November 17, 2011. Retrieved August 21, 2013.

Further reading

[edit]
  • 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
[edit]