Melungeon ( ) (sometimes also spelled Malungean, Melangean, Melungean, Melungin) is a reclaimed term historically applied to mixed-race individuals and families and their predominately white descendants with roots in colonial Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina who were primarily descended from early European and African interracial relationships. In the late 20th century, the term was reclaimed by descendants of these families, especially in southern Appalachia.
Etymology The term Melungeon likely comes from the French word mélange ultimately derived from the Latin verb miscēre ("to mix, mingle, intermingle"). It was once a derogatory term, but later became used by the Melungeon people 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."
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,Sovine, Melanie L. "The Mysterious Melungeons: a Critique of the Mythical Image." University of Kentucky Ph.D. dissertation, 1982 this word has been reclaimed by members of the community."Frequently Asked Questions." Melungeon Heritage Association. Retrieved December 2023 The spelling of the term varied widely, as was common for words and names at the time.
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." 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." 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.
History
Colonial and Antebellum eras
Free people of color in colonial Virginia were predominantly of African and European descent; however, some families also had Native American and East Indian heritage.
Some modern researchers write that early Atlantic Creole slaves were one of the precursor populations to these groups. Many creoles, once in British America, were able to obtain their freedom and many married into local white families.
Civil War to Nadir of American race relations
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, though others resisted the Confederate government, such as Henry Berry Lowry. As part of the 1st Tennessee Cavalry Regiment in the Battle of Nashville, Harrison Collins was the first Union soldier from Tennessee to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism. 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.)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).
Jim Crow era
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.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 September 3, 2023. Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States were not declared unconstitutional until the 1967 Loving v. Virginia case.
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". 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.
Despite often being able to pass as white people, Melungeons were affected by the one-drop rule. The one-drop rule either caused, or had the potential to cause, many Melungeons to be labeled as non-white. Some Melungeons who were labeled as non-white were sterilized by state governments, most notably in Plecker's Virginia.
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.
Modern 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. ..."Evans, E. Raymond (1979). "The Graysville Melungeons: A Tri-racial People in Lower East Tennessee", Tennessee Anthropologist IV(1): 1–31.
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.
In 1999, historian C. S. Everett hypothesized that John Collins (recorded as a Saponi 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.C. S. Everett, "Melungeon History and Myth," Appalachian Journal (1999) 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.
Identity Due to the binary nature of race in the United States, free people of color could be described as white, black, or mulatto regardless of their exact genetic makeup. This resulted in families being split along racial lines; those of more European appearance and ancestry assimilated into the wider white population, while those with predominately African features and ancestry assimilated into the black population. Historically, some Melungeons passed as white, while others did not. In the modern era, some Melungeons identify as white, while others identify as Black or neither.
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", 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. "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. 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."
Myths 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.
Other myths claim that the Melungeons are descendants of lost Spanish colonists, marooned Portuguese sailors, descendants of the ancient Israelites or Phoenicians, Romani slaves, or Turkish settlers.
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. 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.
Families
Definitions of who is Melungeon differ. Historians and genealogists have tried to identify surnames of different Melungeon families. In 1943, Virginia State Registrar of Vital Statistics, Walter Ashby Plecker, identified surnames by county: "Lee, Smyth and Wise: Collins, Gibson, (Gipson), Moore, Wolffs, Goins, Ramsey, Delph, Bunch, Freeman, Mise, Barlow, Bolden (Bolin), Mullins, Hawkins (chiefly Tennessee Melungeons)".