7/19/12 A Brief Overview of the Melungeons melungeons.com ­­ During an active AMBER Alert the ticker automatically changes to a yellow background and provides details of the abduction. ­­ Click Here to Sponsor the Ticker. A Brief Overview of the Melungeons By Wayne Winkler For more than a century, the Melungeons have been the focus of anthropologists, social scientists, and (especially) feature writers for newspapers and magazines. The most common adjective used to describe the Melungeons is “mysterious;” no one seems to know where the Melungeons originated. More significantly, the Melungeons did not fit into any of the racial categories which define an individual or group within American society, they were considered by their neighbors neither white, black, nor Indian. The Melungeons are a group of mixed ethnic ancestry, found primarily in northeastern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, southeastern Kentucky. Similar groups of “mysterious” people, or at least remnants of these groups, are found all along the Atlantic seaboard. While these other groups have no known connection to the Melungeons, they have suffered similar problems due to the difficulty of placing them within an established racial category. Anthropologists called them “racial islands” or “tri­racial isolates.” Several surnames are associated with the Melungeons, including Collins, Gibson, Goins, Mullins, Bowlin. The Melungeons have historically been associated with Newman’s Ridge in Hancock County, Tennessee. Newspapers and magazines have found the Melungeons a fascinating topic since the 1840s, but the Melungeons have resented most of the publicity they have received over the years. Most of the articles on the Melungeons speculated on the legends, folklore, and theories surrounding their ancestry. Some of these legends and theories have suggested descent from Spanish or Portuguese explorers, from the “Lost Colonists” of Roanoke Island, from shipwrecked sailors or pirates of various nationalities, from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, or from ancient Phoenicians or Carthaginians. More recent theories have proposed that the Melungeons descended from Mediterranean or Middle Eastern ancestors. None of these theories originated with the Melungeons themselves. Early accounts reflect the Melungeons’ self­description as “Indians.” Some Melungeons reportedly described themselves a “Portuguese,” or, as many pronounced it, “Portyghee.” Most of their white neighbors considered the Melungeons a mixture of black and Indian, or white, black, and Indian. There is no consistent definition of the word “Melungeon.” Some anthropologists have limited the term to a few families located near Newman’s Ridge, while others have expanded “Melungeon” to include other mixed­race groups in the southeastern United States. At one time, the word was used as a racial epithet against a mulatto, at another time as a political epithet for east Tennessee Republicans. The common usage of the term had an element of socio­economic status attached to it; families who were financially successful were not necessarily considered Melungeon, no matter who their ancestors were. By the early 1960's, newspaper articles predicted the disappearance of the Melungeons; out­ migration and intermarriage with whites had nearly rendered the Melungeons indistinguishable from their white neighbors. However, by the end of that decade, Melungeons in Hancock County were acknowledging and celebrating their heritage with an outdoor drama. By the mid­1990s, a “virtual community” of Melungeons had developed on the Internet. One question which has been examined by nearly every writer on this subject is the origin of the www.melungeons.com/articles/jan2003.htm 1/12 7/19/12 A Brief Overview of the Melungeons One question which has been examined by nearly every writer on this subject is the origin of the name “Melungeon.”1 The most commonly accepted theory is that the word derived from the French mPlange, meaning mixture. A French colony in southwestern Virginia in the late 1700s may have dubbed these people with the plural form of mPlange, which is mPlangeon or mPlangeons, which could conceivably have been corrupted to “Melungeon. Another proposed theory for the origin of “Melungeon” is the Afro­Portuguese term melungo, supposedly meaning “shipmate.” Yet another is the Greek term melan, meaning “black.” Author Brent Kennedy, in arguing a Turkish origin for the Melungeons, maintains that “Melungeon” derives from the Arabic melun jinn and the Turkish melun can, both pronounced similarly to “Melungeon” and both translating to “cursed soul” or “one who has been abandoned by God.” Kennedy maintains that the Melungeons identified themselves by that name.2 Historian C. S. Everett suggests another possible origin for the term: melongena, originally an Italian term related to the more modern melanzane (pronounced meh lun’ zhen eh) which means “eggplant.” The eggplant has a dark skin, and the term was used to describe sub­Saharan Africans.3 Karlton Douglas and Joanne Pezzullo suggest that the word “Melungeon” originated as the old English term “malengin” (singular) or “malengine” (plural). An old copy of Webster’s Dictionary defines “malengine” as “Evil machination; guile; deceit.”4 Douglas and Pezzullo write, “It is well known the people of Appalachia, and Melungeons in particular, used words that were becoming archaic, and not much in use beyond Appalachia.”5 Nearly everyone who has written about the Melungeons agrees that they fiercely resented the name. Even in the mid­20th century, to call a Hancock Countian a Melungeon was to insult him. The stigma attached to the name “Melungeon” leads most researchers to the conclusion that the name was imposed upon the people, that it was not a name they ever used for themselves. Most Melungeons in Hancock County look very much like their “white” neighbors, many of whom are quite swarthy from a lifetime of outdoor work. In 1963, Brewton Berry wrote, “[N]either in their culture nor their economy are they distinguishable from other mountain folk. Among those bearing the telltale surnames are individuals of dark complexion and straight black hair ... But the physical features of most of them suggest no other ancestry than white.”6 Some historic descriptions of Melungeons include They are tall, straight, well­ formed people, of a dark copper color ... but wooly heads and other similar appendages of our negro.7 They are of 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.8 While some of them are swarthy and have high Indian cheekbones, the mountain whites, too, often display these same characteristics. Also, many of the Melungeons have light hair, blue eyes, and fair skin.9 The color of the skin of a full­blooded, pure Melungeon is a much richer brown than an Indian’s skin. It is not the color of a part Indian and part white, for their skin is lighter. The full­blooded, pure Melungeon had more the color of skin of a person from India and Egypt.10 In 1946, William Gilbert presented the first comprehensive survey of tri­racial groups in the U.S. He estimated that there were at least 50,000 persons who were “complex mixtures in varying degrees of white, Indian, and Negro blood.”11 Gilbert listed ten major tri­racial groups with several related groups. These included: 1. Brass Ankles and allied groups in South Carolina, including Red Bones, Red Legs, Turks, Marlboro Blues, and others. www.melungeons.com/articles/jan2003.htm 2/12 7/19/12 A Brief Overview of the Melungeons 2. Cajans and Creoles of Alabama and Mississippi 3. Croatans of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia 4. Guineas of West Virginia and Maryland. (Other names included “West Hill Indians, “ ”Cecil Indians,” and “Guinea niggers.”) 5. Issues of Amherst and Rockingham Counties, Virginia. 6. Jackson Whites of New York and New Jersey. 7. Melungeons of the Southern Appalachians. 8. Moors and Nanticokes of Delaware and New Jersey. 9. Red Bones of Louisiana. 10.Wesorts of southern Maryland.12 In addition to their uncertain ethnic background, Gilbert noted that “These small local groups Native American Indian Hopis seem to develop especially where environmental circumstances such as forbidding swamps or inaccessible 13 and barren mountain country favor their growth.” Gilbert estimated in 1946 that there were 50,000 inhabitants of these “racial islands.” He saw little evidence that these groups were being absorbed by either the white or black communities, and noted, “Their native breeding grounds furnish a seemingly inexhaustible reservoir of population which periodically swarms Native American into cities and industrial areas.” Gilbert did not fear that further investigation of these tri­racials could Indian Chants & “prejudice their social prospects since the vast majority cannot possibly hope to pass as ‘white’ under the Dances present social system.” 14 Legend has it that the Melungeons were in the Hancock County area prior to the arrival of the white settlers. The best evidence, however, places the first Melungeon families in the area at about the same time the first white settlers arrived. As in most other aspects of Melungeon history, legend competes with Dee Brown's documented fact for popular attention. Folktales of the Native American Lewis Jarvis was an attorney in Sneedville, the Hancock County seat.