One characteristic that makes America stand out over other countries is the abundant amount of different races and cultures. Travel to any major city in the country and you are going to find a melting pot of different people from different parts of the world. This has been happening in America since the first settlers came here. Many of those groups settled in the Appalachian area in search for space to farm and raise their families. There has been one group of people that have caused a lot of controversy as to who they are and where they come from. That group of people is the Melungeons. The Melungeons are a group of dark skinned Appalachian residents that primarily live in parts of East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and Northwest North Carolina. Since their first recorded in the late 1600’s, there has been a lot of controversy as to who the Melungeons are. Because of this controversy, it can be said that the Melungeons are the most racially complex group of people.
One of the largest questions that makes this group of people so complex is the question of their origin. Since the first documentation of a Melungeon in Scott County, Virginia, their origin has been a mystery. In order to think about the origin of the Melungeons, we must first think about the different groups of people that came to America during the 16th Century.
Even before the early days of exploration in the Southeast United States, there have been many legends about the natives and what they may look like. During the time of exploration, settlers came from all over Europe looking for new life in America. During this time, there was a lot of “mingling of English, French, Spanish, and other European colonists, free and enslaved Africans, and native Indian tribes on the Atlantic seaboard which resulted in new Americans who were of mixed ethnicity and race” (Toplovich .) Because of this mingling of different races there came about a new “race” of people. They were distinguishable from the natives and thus were considered a “mysterious” group of people roaming around the Appalachian region. They had the features of European settlers, but because of the uncertainty of their race, these people were coined as Mulattoes or Melungeons.
In the early times of America, class and status was primarily focused on race. Essentially, anyone who was not easily recognized as white, Black, or Native American was considered a mix of races. This is where words like mulatto, which is a person of Black and White parents came about. The word Melungeon itself comes from a mix of the French word mélanger, and its Latin root.
As Ann Toplovich notes in her article, “the history of the Melungeons may ultimately be the individual histories of many families, rather than of one people” (Toplovich 1.) This gives the first insight as to the origin of the Melungeons. This implies that the Melungeons were not just one race of people from one origin. They can be considered a mix of a group of mixed race families that overtime kept reproducing.
Other scholars may think differently on the matter of the origin of the Melungeons. One of these scholars is Dr. Brent Kennedy, who was Vice Chancellor of UVA-Wise in the late 1990’s. Dr Kennedy claims that the first settlers in Appalachia, were not only northern Europeans like the French and Spanish, but may have been Ottoman Turks. Portuguese settlers brought Turkish servants with them in the 16th Century explorations of the Americas. Kennedy claims, “ Sir Francis Drake of England unloaded hundreds of other Turks after he liberated them from the Spanish in 1587”(Kennedy 1.) He claims that blood typing has shown close similarities between the Melungeons and the Mediterraneans that settled in Appalachia.
Kennedy’s theory also claims that these people had their land taken from them. This forced them to push inland, which explains their location in the Appalachians. Kennedy claims that those who went inland eventually settled down with Native American women, which explains their location in the Appalachian mountains. Dr. Kennedy also claims that he has found hundreds of words in local Native dialect that have similar meanings to that of Turkish and Arabic. Kennedy also claims that the word Melungeon also claim from the Arabic word “Melun-Jinn”, which means one who is cursed and abandoned by God. This makes sense because these people were not considered first class citizens. The Turks that came to the Americas started out as slaves, which is the lowest class of citizen you can be.
A more recent study of the Melungeons by Roberta Estes from the Journal of Genetic Geneaology proves that both Toplovich and Kennedy’s claims may be wrong. Estes says that a new study gives genetic evidence that the Melungeons are the offspring of a sub-Saharan African man and a European White woman. Estes says that the Melungeons come from the unions of black and white indentured servants living in Virginia in the mid-1600s, before slavery. This is not as exotic as some they were claimed to have been.
It is apparent that Estes’ study claims that the Melungeon ancestry is composed of different races than what they actually claimed to be. But the million dollar question is, if the Melungeons are a mix of African and European, then why did they claim to have Portuguese or Turkish descent? Well, that question can be answered if you consider what was going on in history during the 17th-19th century. During that time, Blacks were considered 2nd class citizens. They were not offered the same privileges and rights as Whites.
During that time, The U. S. government mandated a census to collect data on the population. One of the categories of that census was race. There was a lot of confusion because there were groups of people who classified themselves as Mulatto or Mestizo, which is a person of a European White and Black or Spanish ancestry. It is said that some states classified those groups, as well as Native Americans and Mexicans as free people of color. This was used to distinguish those that were 100% Black from those considered free people of color.
Even if you considered biracial, you were not granted the same privileges as you would if you were 100% white. ’During those times there were laws put into place to penalize the mixing of races. Various family groups could only intermarry with each other. This is exactly what happened to the Melungeons. Once large groups of them came about, they were forced to intermarry and reproduce amongst themselves. In order to gain some rights, it is said that the Melungeons made claims that they were Native American or Portuguese, which were considered free groups of color. These claims were made in order to remain free and retain other privileges that came with being considered white.
Even though they were technically considered “free” they did they get all of the privileges that Whites had. Mike Nassau talks about some of the privileges that Melungeons had. In Tennessee until the 1950’s and 60’s, Melungeons were usually classified as black for marriage, white for voting and Indian for education.
Nassau says that Melungeons would not send their children to black schools because it was considered embarrassing and they knew the their children would not receive the same education as the whites. At the same time, and they were not allowed in the white schools. In Tennessee for example, the Department of Education had “Indian” schools for them. While they were able to receive education through these schools, it was not much help to them.
They would not have black teachers because they weren’t fully Black. White teachers would not teach in their schools, so they had to depend on the few Melungeons who had learned to read at the Presbyterian Mission School in Vardy. None of their teachers had been to high school. This led to almost total illiteracy among Melungeons.
The Melungeons are proud of their ancestry so it is no surprise that after hearing about these findings, there was a lot of outcry from the Melungeon community. Many Melungeon people were surprised to hear that part of the ancestry was Black. Kris Broughton of South Carolina gives a first hand account about a Melungeon man that he knew of while growing up. While working at one of his family’s dry cleaning services, he used to wait on an older customer. Broughton described the man as,” tall and slim, with a distinctive ruddy, dark reddish skin tone, a nose like a hawk’s beak and a shock of almost straight coarse black hair he kept neatly trimmed” (Broughton 1.) He would tell his father, “ he looks Black to me” and instantly his father would reply, “just don’t tell him that.”
It seems like the man that he had interactions would have taken being Black as an insult. In reality, it makes sense as to why the Melungeons would not like to be considered Black. They were able to avoid slavery by claiming to be white. They were able to avoid the Jim Crow laws and having to deal with the separate but equal standard. It is understandable why some people would be angry about the new findings. Their ancestors did have to go through great lengths to hide their actual heritage. While they had some privileges, they still weren’t considered full citizens. Just like the man at the dry cleaners, it is embarrassing to know that your ancestry is something different than what it was claimed to be for so long.
The Melungeons could be the most racially diverse group of people in our country. They went through great lengths to protect their identities and by doing that protect themselves from the rules of the United States government. I myself have a mixed family. It is interesting to see how a group of people from different races had to go through so much so that families like mine could exist. Even with conclusive evidence, people are going are to always question the origin of the Melungeons. I consider them as a group of mixed race families that over time kept reproducing and turned into one of the most diverse and complex racial groups in America.
Works Cited
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Howard, Jacqueline. “Melungeon DNA Study Reveals Ancestry, Upsets ‘A Whole Lot
Of People'” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 17 June 22015.
Estes, Roberta J., Jack H. Goins, Penny Ferguson, and Janet L. Crane. “Melungeons, A
Multiethnic Population.” Www.jogg.info. N.p., July 2011. Web. <http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jogg.info%2F72%2Ffiles%2FEstes.htm>.
Toplovich, Ann. “Melungeons.” Melungeons. N.p., 25 Dec. 2009. Web. 17 June
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“Frequently Asked Questions about Melungeons.” – Melungeon Heritage Association.
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Velez, Denise Oliver. “Slippin’ into Whiteness: Melungeons and Other ‘almost White’
Groups.” Slippin’ into Whiteness: Melungeons and Other ‘almost White’ Groups. N.p., 1 July 2012. Web. 17 June 2015. <http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/01/1104445/-Slippin-into-whiteness-Melungeons-and-other-almost-white-groups>.
Nassau, Mike. “Melungeons and Other Mestee Groups.” www.multiracial.com. N.p.,
22 Oct. 1999. Web. <http%3A%2F%2Fmultiracial.com%2Fsite%2Findex.php%2F2001%2F01%2F01%2Fmelungeons-and-other-mestee-groups%2F>.
Broughton, Kris. “Why Were The Melungeons Surprised By Their African Roots? |
Big Think.” Big Think. N.p., 26 May 2012. Web. 17 June 2015. <http://bigthink.com/Resurgence/why-were-the-melungeons-surprised-by-their-african-roots>.