Melungeon ( ) (sometimes also spelled Malungean, Melangean, Melungean, Melungin) was a slur historically applied to individuals and families of

mixed-race The term multiracial people refers to people who are mixed with two or more races and the term multi-ethnic people refers to people who are of more than one ethnicities. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mul ...

ancestry with roots in

colonial Virginia The Colony of Virginia was a British Empire, British colonial settlement in North America from 1606 to 1776. The first effort to create an English settlement in the area was chartered in 1584 and established in 1585; the resulting Roanoke Colo ...

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

, and

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

who were primarily descended from

free people of color In the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, free people of color (; ) were primarily people of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not enslaved. However, the term also applied to people born free who we ...

and white settlers. In the late 20th century, the term was reclaimed by descendants of these families, especially in southern Appalachia. Despite this mixed heritage, many modern Melungeons pass as

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, as did many of their ancestors. Many groups have historically been referred to as Melungeon, including the Melungeons of Newman's Ridge, the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, the Chestnut Ridge people, and the Carmel Indians. Free people of color in colonial Virginia were predominantly of African and European descent; however, many families also had varying amounts of Native American and East Indian ancestry. Some modern researchers believe that early Atlantic Creole slaves, descended from or acculturated by Iberian

lançados The ''lançados'' (literally, ''the launched ones'') were settlers and colonizers of Portuguese origin in Senegambia, Cabo Verde, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and other areas on the coast of West Africa. Many were Jews—often New Christians—escaping ...

and

Sephardi Jews Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

fleeing the

Inquisition The Inquisition was a Catholic Inquisitorial system#History, judicial procedure where the Ecclesiastical court, ecclesiastical judges could initiate, investigate and try cases in their jurisdiction. Popularly it became the name for various med ...

, were one of the pre-cursor populations to these groups. Many creoles, once in

British America British America collectively refers to various British colonization of the Americas, colonies of Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and its predecessors states in the Americas prior to the conclusion of the American Revolutionary War in 1 ...

, were able to obtain their freedom and many married into local white families. 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 The term "person of color" (: people of color or persons of color; abbreviated POC) is used to describe any person who is not considered "white". In its current meaning, the term originated in, and is associated with, the United States. From th ...

. Some Melungeons who were labeled as non-white were sterilized by state governments, most notably in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

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

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 In journalism, yellow journalism and the yellow press are American newspapers that use eye-catching headlines and sensationalized exaggerations for increased sales. This term is chiefly used in American English, whereas in the United Kingdom, ...

, 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. 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.)

Origins of the Melungeon people

Claims and hypotheses

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).

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. ..."

Jack D. Forbes Jack Douglas Forbes (January 7, 1934 – February 23, 2011) was an American historian, writer, scholar, and political activist, who specialized in Native Americans of the United States, Native American issues. He is best known for his role in esta ...

speculated that the Melungeons may have been Saponi/

Powhatan Powhatan people () are Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands who belong to member tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy, or Tsenacommacah. They are Algonquian peoples whose historic territories were in eastern Virginia. Their Powh ...

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 Sapony Indian who was expelled from

Orange County, Virginia Orange County is a county (United States), county located in the central Piedmont region of Virginia, Piedmont region of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was ...

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. 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.

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 Shovel-shaped incisors (or, more simply, shovel incisors) are incisors whose Glossary of dentistry, lingual surfaces are scooped as a consequence of lingual marginal ridges, Crown (tooth), crown curvature, or Basal (anatomy), basal Tubercle (ana ...

, an Anatolian bump, Familial Mediterranean fever,

polydactyly Polydactyly is a birth defect that results in extra fingers or toes. The hands are more commonly involved than the feet. Extra fingers may be painful, affect self-esteem, or result in clumsiness. It is associated with at least 39 genetic mut ...

dark skin Dark skin is a type of human skin color that is rich in melanin pigments. People with dark skin are often referred to as black people, although this usage can be ambiguous in some countries where it is also used to specifically refer to differe ...

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

Phoenicia Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...

ns, Romani slaves, or Turkish settlers.

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 A haplotype (haploid genotype) is a group of alleles in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent. Many organisms contain genetic material (DNA) which is inherited from two parents. Normally these organisms have their DNA orga ...

. 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 Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract called an "indenture", may be entered voluntarily for a prepaid lump sum, as payment for some good or ser ...

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

through the

Carolinas The Carolinas, also known simply as Carolina, are the U.S. states of North Carolina and South Carolina considered collectively. They are bordered by Virginia to the north, Tennessee to the west, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the southwes ...

before settling primarily in the mountains of

East Tennessee East Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee defined in state law. Geographically and socioculturally distinct, it comprises approximately the eastern third of the U.S. state of Tennessee. East Tennessee consists of 33 coun ...

.">

History

Many

, white-passing or otherwise, served in the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

on both sides of the conflict. Some served in the Confederate military, though others resisted the Confederate government, such as Henry Berry Lowry. In the 1894 US census, Melungeon people were enumerated as of the races to which they most resembled. In 1924, Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act that codified

hypodescent In societies that regard some races or ethnic groups of people as dominant or superior and others as subordinate or inferior, hypodescent refers to the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union to the subordinate group. The opposite pract ...

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.

Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States In the United States, many U.S. states historically had anti-miscegenation laws which prohibited interracial marriage and, in some states, interracial sexual relations. Some of these laws predated the establishment of the United States, and som ...

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. In the 20th century, during the

Jim Crow The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation, " Jim Crow" being a pejorative term for an African American. The last of the ...

era, some Melungeons attended boarding schools in

Asheville, North Carolina Asheville ( ) is a city in Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. Located at the confluence of the French Broad River, French Broad and Swannanoa River, Swannanoa rivers, it is the county seat of Buncombe County. It is the most populou ...

Warren Wilson College Warren Wilson College (WWC) is a private liberal arts college in Swannanoa, North Carolina. It is known for its curriculum that combines academics, work, and service as every student must complete a required course of study, work an on-campus j ...

, and Dorland Institution which integrated earlier than other schools in the southern United States.

"King of the Melungeons"

During the

American Revolution The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...

, there was purportedly a Melungeon "king" or "chief" named Micajah Bunch (1723–1804). Local folklore claims he intermarried with the

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

, 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.

Modern identity

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. 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. 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 William McGuire Bryson ( ; born 8 December 1951) is an American-British journalist and author. Bryson has written a number of nonfiction books on topics including travel, the English language, and science. Born in the United States, he has be ...

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 Sarcoidosis (; also known as Besnier–Boeck–Schaumann disease) is a disease involving abnormal collections of White blood cell, inflammatory cells that form lumps known as granulomata. The disease usually begins in the lungs, skin, or lymph n ...

or familial Mediterranean fever. Academic medical centers have noted that neither of those diseases is confined to a single population.

Culture

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. Due to the lasting impact of

colonialism Colonialism is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group. Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory. While frequently an Imperialism, imperialist project, colonialism c ...

, the decimation of initial contact

tribes The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...

, and the legacy of American chattel slavery, culturally these mixed-race groups resemble their white settler neighbors in culture, with few exceptions.

Melungeon 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, Goins, Ramsey, Delph, Bunch, Freeman, Mise, Barlow, Bolden (Bolin), Mullins, Hawkins (chiefly Tennessee Melungeons)". In 1992, Virginia DeMarce explored and reported the Goins genealogy as a Melungeon surname. 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. 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. These have included Van Guilders and Clappers of New York and

Lumbee The Lumbee, also known as People of the Dark Water, are a mixed-race community primarily located in Robeson County, North Carolina, which claims to be descended from myriad Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands who once inhabited th ...

s in North Carolina to Creoles in Louisiana.

Literature

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 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during ...

. The novel takes place primarily in Lee County, Virginia and environs. A character of Melungeon descent, Pearl Grimes, is pivotal in Adriana Trigiani's novel (and the

romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a sub-genre of comedy and Romance novel, romance fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount all obstacles. Ro ...

film derived from that novel) “ Big Stone Gap,” which is set in Trigiani's hometown

Big Stone Gap, Virginia Big Stone Gap is a town in Wise County, Virginia, United States. The town was economically centered around the coal industry for much of its early development. The population was 5,254 at the 2020 census. History The community was formerly kn ...

References

External links

Melungeon Heritage Association

Mixed Race Studies
* 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-
PDF
addresses issue of 2002 Melungeon DNA study by Kevin Jones, which is unpublished
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." {{Authority control Ethnic groups in Appalachia Free people of color History of North Carolina History of Tennessee History of Virginia Multiracial affairs in the United States Multiracial ethnic groups in the United States Pre-emancipation African-American history Society of Appalachia Self-identification as Native American in the United States