The Carmel Indians (pronounced ''Car'-mul'') are a group of

Melungeon Melungeons ( ) 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 associate ...

s who moved from

Magoffin County, Kentucky Magoffin County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2010 census, the population was 13,333. Its county seat is Salyersville. The county was formed in 1860 from adjacent portions of Floyd, Johnson, and Morgan Counties. ...

and lived in Highland County in

Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

. Bryson Gibson and Valentine Collins are ancestors to most of the group. Paternal line descendants of Bryson Gibson and Valentine Collins who participated in the

Melungeon DNA Project The Melungeon DNA Project is a genetic study started in 2005 by the private company Family Tree DNA of people with identified Melungeon ancestors (according to historic records), mostly residing in Hancock County, Tennessee and people with ancestor ...

belong to

Haplogroup E-M2 Haplogroup E-M2 (or E1b1a) is a human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup. It is primarily distributed in sub-Saharan Africa. E-M2 is the predominant subclade in West-Central Africa, Southern Africa and the African Great Lakes, and occurs at moderate fr ...

. They both lived in Kentucky and many of their descendants later moved to Ohio and were referred to as "Carmel Indians." At one time, anthropologists described both groups as among the "little races" and as

tri-racial isolates Melungeons ( ) 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 ...

. Some members of the group claimed American Indian ancestry. This was one way the people could evade some of the racial barriers of

antebellum Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to: United States history * Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States ** Antebellum Georgia ** Antebellum South Carolina ** Antebellum Virginia * Antebellum arc ...

and post-Civil War years. Outsiders called them Indians to explain aspects of the differences between their appearance and that of their mostly European neighbors. They found an adaptive way to evade some of the racial pressures that intensified in some areas after the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polic ...

. In the postwar South, there was a binary division of society into black and white races. As researcher Paul Heinegg (1997) has documented the ancestry of the majority of the Free Negro population can be traced to African Americans free in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography an ...

before the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolu ...

. He has found that most of these free African Americans were

mixed-race Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-eth ...

children of early unions during the colonial period between white women, indentured servant or free, and African men, indentured servant, free, or enslaved. This was before the racial caste had hardened and, on small farms, white and black workers lived near each other and associated. According to the law, children were born into the social status of their mothers, by the principle of ''

partus sequitur ventrem ''Partus sequitur ventrem'' (L. "That which is born follows the womb"; also ''partus'') was a legal doctrine passed in colonial Virginia in 1662 and other English crown colonies in the Americas which defined the legal status of children born t ...

'', adopted in the 17th-century Virginia colony. Since the mothers were white and free, their children were free born. Through the years, some of their descendants continued to marry their cousins of mixed race; some chose ''passing'' as White, and others married within African-American identified families.John S. Kessler and Donald B. Ball, ''North from the Mountains: A Folk History of the Carmel Melungeon Settlement, Highland County, Ohio'', 2001
/ref>

References

{{Appalachian people Mulatto Ethnic groups in Appalachia Ethnic groups in Ohio Highland County, Ohio