Different regions of America have always included many different groups of people. As America has become more diverse in the last century, a question can be posed: Has America always had multiracial groups of people? An unexpected answer to this quandary exists in the southern United States in the Appalachian Mountains with the Melungeons. Roy Williams explains.

An image entitled "A typical malungeon", published in August 1890 in the Nashville Sunday American. It is based on a drawing by Will Allen Dromgoole, available here. — An image entitled "A typical malungeon", published in August 1890 in the *Nashville Sunday American*. It is based on a drawing by Will Allen Dromgoole, available here.

Within the Appalachian Mountains, from the mountainous regions of Tennessee and Virginia, to parts of Kentucky, there has traditionally been a group of people known as the Melungeons. The origins and ethnicity of the Melungeons are a point of debate; however there are multiple documents and cultural similarities that can be used to determine who the Melungeons most likely are.

The debate regarding the origin of the Melungeon people is an old one and can be seen in the testimony of Captain Lewis Jarvis regarding his encounters with Melungeon people in his writing in the Hancock County News in 1903, “Much has been said and written about the inhabitants of Newman’s Ridge and Blackwater in Hancock County, Tenn. They have been derisively dubbed with the name “Melungeons” by the local white people who have lived here with them. It is not a traditional name or tribe of Indians. Some have said these people were here when the white people first explored this country. Others say they are a lost tribe of Indians having no date of their existence here, traditionally or otherwise.” (Jarvis 1903)

Origins

The term Melungeon is a point of debate having similar relations in multiple languages but no definitive origin. In French, the word Mélange refers to mixture giving the context of a mixed racial group. Older words such as Melan in Greek refer to one who has dark skin. The Turkish also have a term known as melun that can mean cursed soul. Whether these words have any relation to the modern term Melungeon is a point of debate and can only further stoke the mystery of who the Melungeon people of Appalachia are.

Physical descriptions of the Melungeon people generally characterize them as dark olive-skinned people with straight dark hair and a large variety of eye colors. These descriptions and their status as a mysterious group of people who largely stayed isolated among themselves have sparked many theories as to the possible ethnicity of the Melungeon people. Many have theorized that the Melungeons were mixed race children of Native American and European descent. Still some point to the Melungeons as having Middle Eastern ancestry explaining their darker appearance, describing them as closer to Turkish people. Others have pointed to similarities in the African American community that can be compared to the physical attributes of the Melungeon people. In this regard, a theory has been postulated that points to the Jamestown hypothesis. The Jamestown hypothesis argues that the Melungeon people are the result of unions between European and African indentured servants that lived in close proximity. These unions created children who were neither African or European and therefore became social rejects of the larger European society. With the issues of social isolation and racial prejudice, these mixed-race people moved to the Appalachian Mountains to live in isolation.

Another theory argues that the Melungeons are neither Native American nor African American but the descendants of shipwrecked Portuguese sailors who began living in the Appalachian Mountains. Another theory that also points to a European origin is the concept that the Melungeons were the result of Desoto’s soldiers’ sexual encounters with Native American women during their travels through the Appalachian Mountains. These theories fail to recognize the recent DNA evidence which presents the Melungeons as a largely multi-racial people with ethnic differences between families. Recent DNA evidence points to ethnic origins ranging from Native American, African, European, and Middle Eastern heritages. The improvements in genetic testing have allowed scholars and genealogists a greater understanding in their knowledge about the Melungeon people.

Melungeons in History

While the current genealogical research allows scholars a greater understanding of who the Melungeon people are, there are still many complex narratives revolving around their history. While the Melungeons were certainly a multi-racial group of people they retained many rights that were not normally prevalent at the time in the United States. Most Melungeons had the right to vote as well as the right to military service. Most Melungeon records show that people who were known as Melungeon were ‘Free Persons of Color’ or FPCs. In this regard, Melungeons retained enough European ancestry to still participate in many institutions of the United States but still be treated with racial scorn and remain isolated from broader social acceptance. While the Melungeon people faced social isolation due to their non-white heritage, they rarely faced legal penalties for it. However, in 1924 the Virginia Racial Integrity Act did legally designate anyone in the state of Virginia as White or not, requiring doctors to fill out identification forms of race. As stated in The Racial Integrity “Act, 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, That the State Registrar of Vital Statistics may as soon as practicable after the taking effect of this act, prepare a form whereon the racial composition of any individual, as Caucasian, negro, Mongolian, American Indian, Asiatic Indian, Malay, or any mixture thereof, or any other non-Caucasic strains, and if there be any mixture, then the racial composition of the parents and other ancestors, in so far as ascertainable, so as to show in what generation such mixture occurred, may be certified by such individual, which form shall be known as a registration certificate.”(State of Virginia 1924) The Virginia Racial Integrity Act also made the intermarrying of races, known as miscegenation, a felony, directly targeting multiracial communities.

In 2005 the Melungeon DNA project was started to understand the question of the genetic origin of the Melungeon people. The study consisted of testing multiple people who had confirmed Melungeon ancestors. The results pointed to a conclusion that male ancestors had African genetic origins and female ancestors had European genetic origins. Only one tested subject had Native American genetic origins. While the Melungeon DNA project certainly proves that the Melungeon people were a multiracial ethnic group it fails to account for the many other people who are descended from Melungeon ancestry but remain ignorant to their history. With greater testing and advances in DNA research a broader conclusion will be established in understanding some of the missing links in the Melungeon people’s genetic history.

Forgotten culture?

Oddly enough, much of the isolated culture of the Melungeon people has largely been forgotten due to assimilation in broader American society. Most of the people who would be considered Melungeon would never have used that term in identifying one another as it could have amounted to a racial slur used by suspicious neighbors pointing out the oddity of their dark skinned enigmatic mountain cohabitants. The technological revolution of the 1990s has allowed many who had forgotten their heritage to rediscover the truth of their origins and boldly remember their Melungeon ancestors. While DNA evidence may try to pin down and determine the exact genetic makeup of the Melungeon people that remain, a definitive conclusion can never be made as the Melungeon group of people seemed to include a broad swath of multiracial people who represented a group that worked as a catch all for those that weren’t White and desired to live in isolation away from the social failures of a society that valued racial purity above community. The research going forward in understanding the mystery of the Melungeon people will only be answered in full by their descendants who have forgotten their ancestry.

Finally, some common Melungeon last names include: Bowling (Bolin), Bunch, Chavis (Chavez), Collins, Epps, Evans, Fields, Francisco, Gibson, Gill, Goins, Goodman, Minor, Mise, Moore, Mullins, Osborn(e), Phipps, Reeves (Rives, Rieves, Reeves, Reaves), Ridley (Riddle), Rodrigues, Stowers, Vanover, Williams, and Wise.

Now, you can read Roy’s past article on the Armenian Genocide of 1914-23 here.