Last week, I told you about a brochure I found for a play production in the hills of Northeastern Tennessee called Walk Towards the Sunset. The play had a good, albeit brief, run in Sneedville, Tennessee from 1969 to 1975. The story told the tale of the Melungeons, a disenfranchised group of people of mixed background who endured generations of racial hatred and discrimination during the earliest days of our country. A while back, Weekly View creative director Paula Nicewanger wrote a nice series of articles about the Melungeons, and after finding my little pamphlet, I thought the subject was worth revisiting.
I’m a history guy. I love reading, researching, learning and sharing history. Luckily, for 21st-century historians like me, it’s easy because most of the heavy lifting of history (research) has been done by my forefathers. But it’s different with the Melungeons as most of their history is speculation because nothing was recorded by those early ancestors. Since the group considered themselves outcasts to begin with, they adhered almost exclusively to the spoken word, and oral history passed from family to family. But like a good book, the story of the Melungeons is hard to put down.
A Melungeon in the historical sense is generally defined as someone who was free but thought not to be pure white in an area where being white was viewed with paramount importance. Melungeons today may identify themselves as tri-racial (or multiracial); White, Black or Indian. They can be found anywhere, but most are found in the states of North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri and Florida. Ask ten Melungeons about their ethnic heritage and you’ll likely get ten different answers. When the Melungeons were first discovered in 1784, these dark-skinned, dark-haired people claimed to be Portuguese descendants of shipwrecked sailors. But most historians have concluded that Melungeons, are a “tri-racial isolate” made up of whites, local Native American Indian tribes like the Cherokee, and escaped slaves, but nobody knows for sure.
Even the word Melungeon is up for debate. Some believe it is derived from the Afro-Portuguese word “melungo,” meaning “shipmate” or “companion,” while others believe it comes from the French word “melange” meaning “mixture.” One thing that’s certain is Melungeons were a disenfranchised group largely marginalized by the wealthier whites around them. They settled in isolated communities and hid their backgrounds by saying they were Indian, orphans, or adopted. They changed either the spelling of their surnames or took on new ones. These fabrications deflected the possible discovery of African ancestry and temporarily helped them preserve their right to vote, send their children to school, or marry whom they wanted. Later, it helped some Melungeons escape discrimination. They called themselves black Dutch or black Irish — anything but Melungeon. In fact, Melungeon was considered a racial slur until just a few decades ago.
One theory puts forth that the Melungeon ancestors were Carthaginians who fled from their native land in 146 B.C. when it was destroyed by the Romans. The survivors supposedly crossed the Strait of Gibraltar into Portugal and later emigrated to the Carolinas and eventually into East Tennessee. Possibly the most widely accepted theory of the Melungeon’s origin has been that of the “Lost Colony.” Over 400 years ago, 117 men, women and children sailed from Plymouth, England to America to build a settlement on Roanoke Island. When supply ships returned to Roanoke Island from England 2 years later in 1560, the settlers had all vanished mysteriously. The only clue left behind was the word “CROATOAN” carved into a post.
It was assumed the settlers had fled to the Indian village of Croatan about fifty miles south seeking refuge with the Indians who had been particularly friendly to the previous voyagers. A search for the missing colonists was attempted, but stormy weather forced the ships to sail away to the West Indies. Croatan legend holds that they indeed befriended the English and took them into their tribe. They later moved westward to the Lumber River in North Carolina where they were discovered by the French in 1709. Among them were blue-eyed, fair-haired members who spoke some Elizabethan English words and had surnames corresponding to those of the lost colony. If this is the true story of how the Melungeons came into existence, it still isn’t the complete story. Even before the disappearance of the lost colony, an earlier expedition from England had recorded finding Indians who “were of yellowish color and their hair black for the most part, and yet we saw children that had very fine auburn and chestnut-colored hair,” whom they assumed were probably descendants of earlier shipwrecked European sailors. An irresistible legend distinctly American to be sure.
Yet another theory, perhaps more plausible than the others, suggests that all Melungeons are descendants of the original Angolan servants, who were brought to Virginia in 1619 and are widely regarded as the first African slaves. Although technically not slaves, these early Africans in America were indentured servants pledged to a lifetime of unremitting toil for limited compensation. Many were able to buy their own freedom, become landowners, and sometimes even “allowed” to marry outside of their race. The list of hypotheses goes on and on, and it’s unlikely one will come out the winner, and after all this time the Melungeon riddle is one that not even DNA could solve.
These people have been largely left out of America’s history books. When they were referenced, they were described variously as tall, straight, well-formed people, of a dark copper color, swarthy complexion, with prominent cheek bones, jet black hair, generally straight but at times having a slight tendency to curl, and the men have heavy black beards. Their frames are well built and some of the men are fine specimens of physical manhood. They are seldom fat. Well then, one might well apply these descriptions to Egyptian pharaohs, bronzed Roman gladiators or Greek gods.
Historians grouped Melungeons into 10 regional racial groups. These included: “Brass Ankles, Red Legs, Turks, and Marlboro Blues” in South Carolina. “Cajuns and Creoles” of Alabama and Mississippi. “Croatans” of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. “Guineas” of West Virginia and Maryland. “Issues” of Amherst and Rockingham Counties, Virginia. “Jackson Whites” of New York and New Jersey. “Melungeons” of the Southern Appalachians. “No Moors and Nanticokes” of Delaware and New Jersey. “Red Bones” of Louisiana and “Wesorts” of southern Maryland. Another group that the Melungeons find themselves often associated with is one that is familiar to us all: The Gypsies. But I think that term might better describe the ignorant attitude of the name caller rather than a description of the people.
The question of how they arrived in America, how they banded together in family groups and how they migrated to the mountains of southern Appalachia, may be a question for future historians and genealogists to answer. The white European ancestors of the Melungeons arrived in America with the goal to establish their families in this new land. They accomplished that goal through intermarriage with Indians, Middle Eastern immigrants and African-Americans. It was an idea that proved unpopular on a continent bent on the genocide of the Native American Indian, built on the institution of slavery in the general subjugation of all with a different skin pigmentation.
The Melungeons traditionally stuck together and tended to intermarry to produce, over time, a more uniform mixed population. Eventually, the skin tone faded, the hair straightened and the features became more Angulose and, in general, Melungeons became more assimilated to the general population around them. In short, they became what all Americans aspire to be; a mixture of the best, the brightest, the strongest, the most beautiful. True Americans. Even their names became Anglicized to better fit their mixed heritage. And it’s those names that have become the soil in which modern-day Melungeons plant the roots of their family tree.
For example, a traditional Eastern European surname such as “Braganza” became “Brogan,” “Magoens” became “Goins,” “Colinso” became “Collins,” or “Mollen” became “Mullins.” A few of the surnames associated with the Melungeons include: Adams, Bolen/Bowlen/Bolling/Bowling, Boone, Bowman, Cox/Coxe, Dare, Garland, Harmon, Hendricks/Hendrix, Locklear, Moore, Norris, Orr, Osborn/Osborne, Powell, Sampson, Stevens, Ware, Willis, and Wynn. It should be noted that Weekly View creative director Paula Nicewanger’s maiden name is Collins, so she speaks from a much more personal perspective than I do.
By the early 1960′s, newspaper articles predicted the disappearance of the Melungeons and today the pure Melungeon (if there ever was such a thing) is rare. That is, unless you’re a regular viewer of the cable TV show “Swamp People” in which case you can find several Melungeons per episode. Most modern-day Melungeons look very much like their “white” neighbors. If they happen to live up to the old-fashioned, outdated “swarthy” description of our forefathers, it’s merely a souvenir from a lifetime of outdoor work. Undoubtedly, the Melungeons fiercely resented that name. The negative stigma attached to it leads most researchers to conclude that the name was imposed upon the people, that it was not a name they ever used for themselves. By the 1970s, the stigma of being a Melungeon was disappearing, as were the Melungeons themselves.
By the mid-1990s, a “virtual community” of Melungeons had developed on the Internet. Today, the term “Melungeon” is embraced by a hipper, trendier, prouder, more compassionate populace proud to associate themselves with that handsome, hard-working, tolerant, peaceful race of Americans. A
re you a Melungeon? I suggest that you go shake up that family tree and find out for yourself. Meantime, you might be surprised to learn that there are some very famous names historians count among the Melungeon tribe. Next week, I’ll introduce you to a few of them.
Al Hunter is the author of “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Indiana National Road” and “Haunted Irvington” book series. Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
