Melungeons, Appalachia's lost "race"?

Great Debates
1

Are any of you familiar with the Melungeon people of the Appalachian south, or the debate over their origins?

I may be glossing over some important points, but to sum up the Melungeons. Some people have tried to explain the presence of “Mediterranean” and other non-European traits among white American Southerners of British Isles ancestry by positing a “Melungeon” ethnic group once living in the Appalachians along western Virgina, southern West Virginia, and into East Tennesee.

A few people even cite evidence for an old Melungeon culture predating Anglo-American culture in the area. They point to distinct or unusual metalworking, given names, surnames and placenames which are said to be anglicized names of “Melungeon”.

Tri racial isolates are not an unknown element in the United States, but the Melungeon proponents argue that Melungeon peoples are not merely “part-Indian” whites or the descendants of mixed race people of African-American and Anglo origin but the descendants of Mediterraneans (Turk captives from the Battle of Lepanto brought by Spanish explorers into what is now the Carolinas is one hypothesis used). They explain that there are certain genetic links between Melungeons and various Middle Eastern or North African peoples

Of course, their ideas are based on an assumption that there is no Mediterranean influence among Anglo-Celtic peoples, and that an “exotic” element that was neither Native American or sub-saharan African must have entered the white southern population in early colonial times. Is there any evidence for this happening? Or is the Melungeon phenomenon easily explained by both traits found among native Britons and/or intermarriage among British colonists, Indians and Africans?

There are some British people, in Wales and elsewhere, that have very “Mediterranean” featues (celebrities like Tom Jones, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Bob Hoskins come to mind). Could the Melungeons simply reflect this olive skinned element of the colonial British population?

There are many sites on Melungeons, including these…

http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/Countries/United_States/Society_and_Culture/Cultures_and_Groups/Cultures/American__United_States_/Melungeon/

2

Sounds a bit off-the-wall, but I guess they’ll start popping up everywhere soon and demanding affirmative action etc

This story gives an interesting theory - that they are descended from Turks liberated from the Spanish by Francis Drake. Elvis Presley might have been partly “Melungeon”.

I remember relatives in that region (WVa) talking of a mysterious group of dark-skinned people who turned up in town once a year to buy gunpowder, salt and other things. Apparently they were completely unregistered - no birth certificates, legal marriages, school attendance, etc - and were hardly ever seen at any other time. The assumption was they were descendents of escaped slaves.

3

I have never quite figured out how to successfully do searches here so I am not even going to try but there have been at least a couple of threads on this topic before and I remember doing some reserach for one of them becuse the topic caught my attention because I had seen a documentary on the same topic on PBS shortly before. You might want to do a search as I can hardly remember anything from that time… It was probably around early september of 2000 as I have located an email where I mentioned it and these sites:

http://athena.english.vt.edu/~appalach/essaysM/melung.htm
http://www.dmoz.org/Society/Ethnicity/Melungeon/
http://www.geocities.com/alhnmelungeon/
http://www.melungeonhealth.org/
http://members.aol.com/strat43z/melung.html
http://www.dnet.net/portugal/libby_page.htm
http://www.ukans.edu/heritage/cousin/melungeon.html
http://genforum.genealogy.com/melungeon/

'hope that helps

4

The earlier threads on this topic tended to occur in GQ (and I’m not sure what the debate, here, is, exactly).

The threads have included
Gray hair, sure, but like this? 3-26-2000

Malachions?? 6-06-2000

melungun connundrum 8-21-2000

(and they were mentioned, briefly, in)
Do hillbillies still exist? 5-29-2001

Several of the citations in this thread are also repeated in those threads.

5

Color me deeply skeptical.

(a) Mixed race communities in North America have a history of claiming ‘higher status’ descent, above all to escape ‘black stigma.’ Same thing can be seen elsewhere, where presumably mixed communities, e.g. Swahili coast, disavow their lower status heritage and claim higher status or exotic heritage (e.g., Iranian).
(b) If rigorous, well-designedgenetic testing indicates Med heritage, that tells us precisely nothing about the story, unless some well-defined marker is found to point to Turkic peoples. I am unaware of any such marker and it would require, to my knowledge, intensive study of Med basin populations. Even then, that doesn’t help of necessity given Med basin itself has had important inflows (Africa, Slavic region via slavery) from other areas.
© The Turkish connection makes little to no sense.() An early 16th century North Africa / ‘Moorish’ connection might, but it still strikes me as an immense reach given the more likely and reasonable explanation in re eventually socially unacceptable ‘racial’ mixing around Indians, Europeans and Africans. The folk-etymology by the professor in re Turkish stinks of wishful thinking and also rather illogical.
(d) The structure of the stories and claims strike me as rather similar to the often debunked ‘Black Irish’ connection to ‘Spanish Sailors’ – that is a just-so story to account for a ‘outlying’ physical type. In connection with the history of race consciousness in America, the romanticism surrounding ‘the orient / east’ and disfavor in re African heritages (as a general rule), it strikes me as something to approach with a truckfull of salt. Sailor’s links all seem to have pointed me towards pages which also gave credence to utterly unsupported fallacious tales of ‘Muslims’ from various places (West Africa, Med world), suggesting the quality of ‘scholarship.’
(: Turks are going to be found in the Eastern Med basin, until much later on. Even after Turkish conquests in North Africa, they are a small minority. I can’t see any good explanation of a large number of Turkish, hell even ‘Moorish” [i.e. Muslim North Africans] prisoners in the Americas. Further, Turks are hardly dark skinned in general –I can pass as a Turk— and as I have pointed out ad nauseum, North Africans come in a huge variety of ‘colors.’ It strikes me as an immense stretch to impute ‘Turkish’ or ‘Moorish’ ancestry as a reason for darker skin color a good 300 years later.)

6

I have known Greeks, Cypriots, Sicilians, Turks, Lebanese, Syrians. Spaniards and Portuguese people with red, blond, brown, or black hair; blue, green, brown, hazel or black eyes, and peachy, creamy, olive, tan, or brown skin…with all sorts of hair textures, noses, and lips - so I don’t really think there’s much of a single “Mediterranean Race” anyway. Many of the people I have known with the classic Mediterranean features were Irish, Hungarian, or even Russian.

Anyway, setting aside whether Melungeons are really long lost Ottomans or Sejluks; are they a distinct group (Like the Irish Travellers) or just a ‘type’ like the “Black Irish” - basically any Irish person with black hair and somewhat olive skin?

Speaking of which, Hemlock , your description brought to mind another possibility. Did any of the Irish Travellers migrate to colonial America and retain their folkways? And could there be Roma (Gypsy) people in that area’s history as well?

7

I’ve gotta vote with Collounsbury on this one. I think it’s just a case of mixed-race people with really good motives to hide their true heritage.

If you were part-Cherokee, you lied about your heritage to avoid removal to the West.

If you were part black, you lied about your heritage to avoid the application of restrictive laws that applied to free blacks.

Better to claim “Black Irish” or “Black Dutch” (or “melungeon”) heritage (if you looked “white” enough to get away with it) than to admit your true family history.

Call it the “Bob Barr Syndrome.”

8

The Lumbee tribe of south eastern NC is another mixed heritage group of people. They are currently the largest non resevated tribe in the U.S., the single largest tribe east of the Mississippi and 9th largest overall. The state of NC has recognized the tribe but the federal government never has. The group prefers to indulge in its Native American heritage and rarely acknowledges any African heritage.

9

You mean the darling of Right Wing white supremacist southerners is a _______ ?

10

>> Better to claim “Black Irish” or “Black Dutch” (or “melungeon”) heritage

Hmmm, no, that’s not what the PBS documentary showed. Melungeons were considered as low as you can get and their neighbors shunned them and did not mix with them. That is one reason they remained a distinct group.

11

Maybe they are “shunned,” but it still beats being forcibly removed (as they would have been had they admitted Cherokee ancestry) or severely circumscribed in their freedoms (as they would have been had they admitted any black ancestry). They may be considered “low” but they were still historically accorded “white” legal status, no?

There would still have been plenty of motive for long-forgotten ancestors to conceal Cherokee and/or black ancestry.

The forgotten ancestor lies about his heritage for practical reasons. The lie gets passed down as truth, or else nothing is said at all to the children, and a few generations later no one remembers the truth.

Do you think that no one lied about their Cherokee heritage to avoid removal to Oklahoma? (I actually have an ancestor who did just that. Family history says he was “Black Irish,” but I dug up the truth.) Do you think no one ever lied (for even more obvious reasons) about having a black forebear?

“Passing” is not a recent phenomenon.

12

Possible, I guess. But the people who turned up in this place in WVa were dark-skinned.

I’m skeptical about this. There are dark-skinned folk who live a totally different life out there up in the Monongahela National Forest, if my family are right - and I have no reason to doubt them. But the idea they’re anything exotic is a bit outlandish. Just a bunch of wild descendents of escaped slaves and other outlaws. if you ask me.

(Actually, that’s pretty exotic! But forget the Turkish stuff.)

13

How 'bout a Melungeon perspective?

Seeing as how I’m of Melungeon descent on both sides of my family, I figure I’ve got a little room to speak. I, and the Melungeons I know, hardly call ourselves a race. We are of mixed heritage, of many different races blended together.

I’ve heard about every crackpot theory you can name on our origins – everything from we’re the Lost Tribe of Israel (hah!) to we’re the lost Roanoke colony (hah hah!) to “that bunch of half-breeds wantin’ money” (hmmph). Oddly enough, Melungeons tend to classify ourselves differently than whatever expert of the week wants to call us. We’re Melungeon.

For decades we were pushed aside, denied our rights, denied our identity, because we didn’t fit into neat little racial categories. I can’t speak for all Melungeons, but I don’t want a damn penny of your money or any affirmative action. The suggestion that I would free-load off the government because of an accident of birth makes my blood boil!

As for what we look like, I’m a blue-eyed blonde, but if you asked me what I am, I’d say Melungeon. My father is tall, dark, and swarthy, like many of us, but my mother is as fair as I am, and she’s as much Melungeon as he is. I know people who look like they come from Norway, but they took their first breath as a Melungeon, and they will be Melungeon on their deathbeds! Recently, we’ve had a lot of people who usually identified themselves as black embracing their Melungeon heritage. To say “such-and-such cannot be Melungeon!” is to overlook the fact we are a very diverse people.

To have my existence doubted, to have people debate whether or not such a thing as I am actually exists, to have my heritage described as a lie or a myth or a mistake, hurts me deeply. I’m not “really” this-or-that, I’m not “really” a lie, I’m not “really” a myth, I’m not “really” a legend, and I am not “really” a mistake! What I am is Melungeon!

.:Nichol:.

P.S. I’ve heard the Elvis thing too, but as far as I know, there is no proof. I think people jumped on him 'cause he looked like a stereotypical Melungeon – ignoring the fact Elvis was born a blond! That doesn’t mean he couldn’t possibly be of Melungeon descent, but I’ve seen nothing to convince me that he was.