View source for Melungeon

{{Short description|Mixed-race group from the South Central Appalachian region of the United States}}
{{Infobox ethnic group
| group            = Melungeon
| image            = [[File:Goins.jpg|260px|Arch Goins and family, from [[Graysville, Tennessee]], c. 1920s]]
| image_caption    = Goins family, Melungeons from [[Graysville, Tennessee]], c. 1920s
| image_alt        = 
| image_upright    = 
| total            = <!-- total population worldwide -->
| total_year       = <!-- year of total population -->
| total_source     = <!-- source of total population; may be ''census'' or ''estimate'' -->
| total_ref        = <!-- references supporting total population -->
| genealogy        = 
| regions          = [[United States]] ([[East Tennessee]], [[Southwest Virginia]],<ref name="loller2"/><ref name=neal/> [[North Carolina]], and [[Kentucky]]<ref name=neal/>)
| languages        = [[Southern American English]]
| religions        = Predominantly [[Protestant Christianity]]
| related_groups   = [[Lumbee]], [[Atlantic Creole]], [[Turks of South Carolina]], [[Chestnut Ridge people]], [[White Southerners]], [[Black Southerners]], [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]], [[Dominickers]], [[Redbone (ethnicity)]], [[Mulatto]], [[Coloureds]], [[Griqua people]], [[Basters]], [[Métis]], [[Black Indians in the United States]], [[Garifuna]]
}}
{{African American topics sidebar}}
'''Melungeon''' ({{IPAc-en|m|ə|ˈ|l|ʌ|n|dʒ|ən|}} {{respell|mə|LUN|jən}}) (sometimes also spelled '''Malungean, Melangean, Melungean, Melungin'''<ref name="Tennessee">{{cite web |title=1894 Report of the U.S. Department of the Interior, in its Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed |url=https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1890/volume-10/indians-taxed-not-taxed.pdf |website=www2.census.gov |publisher=Department of the Interior |access-date=6 April 2025}}</ref>) was a [[Racial slur|slur]]<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gibson |first=Toby D. |date=2013 |title=The Melungeons of Newman’s Ridge: An Insider’s Perspective |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/12/article/523673 |journal=Appalachian Heritage |volume=41 |issue=4 |pages=59–66 |issn=2692-9287}}</ref> historically applied to individuals and families of [[Mulatto|mixed-race]] ancestry with roots in [[Colony of Virginia|colonial Virginia]], [[Tennessee]], and [[Province of North Carolina|North Carolina]] who were primarily descended from [[free people of color]] and [[Old Stock Americans|white settlers]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Melungeons {{!}} NCpedia |url=https://www.ncpedia.org/melungeons |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=www.ncpedia.org}}</ref><ref name="Schrift">{{Cite journal |last=Schrift |first=Melissa |date=2013-04-01 |title=Becoming Melungeon |url=https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/unpresssamples/186 |journal=University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |agency=[[Associated Press|AP]] |date=2012-05-24 |title=DNA finds origin of Appalachia’s Melungeons: African men, white women |url=https://www.denverpost.com/2012/05/24/dna-finds-origin-of-appalachias-melungeons-african-men-white-women/ |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=The Denver Post |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-07-11 |title=Dancing Revolution: Bodies, Space, and Sound in American Cultural History 2018059613, 2019013274, 9780252051234, 9780252042393, 9780252084188 |url=https://ebin.pub/dancing-revolution-bodies-space-and-sound-in-american-cultural-history-2018059613-2019013274-9780252051234-9780252042393-9780252084188.html |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=ebin.pub |language=en}}</ref> In the late 20th century, the term was [[Reclaimed term|reclaimed]] by descendants of these families, especially in [[Appalachia|southern Appalachia]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Loller |first=Travis |title='A whole lot of people upset by this study': DNA & the truth about Appalachia’s Melungeons |url=https://www.newsleader.com/story/news/2021/03/08/new-dna-study-melungeons-attempts-separate-truth-fiction/4611383001/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=The News Leader |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Rust |first=Randal |title=Melungeons |url=https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/melungeons/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=Tennessee Encyclopedia |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=FAQ |url=https://melungeon.org/features/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=Melungeon Heritage Association |language=en-US}}</ref> Despite this mixed heritage, many modern Melungeons [[Passing (racial identity)|pass]] as [[White Americans|white]], as did many of their ancestors.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wolfe |first=Brendan |title=Racial Integrity Laws (1924–1930) |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/racial-integrity-laws-1924-1930/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=Encyclopedia Virginia |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Philipkoski |first=Kristen |title=Melungeon Secret Solved, Sort Of |url=https://www.wired.com/2002/06/melungeon-secret-solved-sort-of/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |work=Wired |language=en-US |issn=1059-1028}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Schroeder |first=Joan Vannorsdall |date=2009-02-01 |title=First Union: The Melungeons Revisited |url=https://blueridgecountry.com/archive/favorites/melungeons-revisited/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=Blue Ridge Country |language=en-us}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Billingsley |first=Carolyn Earle |date=2004 |editor-last=Winkler |editor-first=Wayne |title=Melungeons: A Study in Racial Complexity—A Review Essay |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23386286 |journal=The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society |volume=102 |issue=2 |pages=207–223 |issn=0023-0243}}</ref>

Many groups have historically been referred to as Melungeon, including the Melungeons of [[Hancock County, Tennessee|Newman's Ridge]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mystery of Newman's Ridge |url=https://historical-melungeons.com/life.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130212015628/http://historical-melungeons.com/life.html |url-status=usurped |archive-date=February 12, 2013 |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=historical-melungeons.com}}</ref> the [[Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Anonymous |date=2022-05-12 |title=Are They Kin to the ‘Lost Colony’? |url=https://dsi.appstate.edu/projects/lumbee/560 |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=Digital Scholarship and Initiatives |language=en}}</ref> the [[Chestnut Ridge people]],<ref>[http://www.underonesky.org/Guineas.html Joanne Johnson Smith & Florence Kennedy Barnett, "The Guineas of West Virginia:  A Transcript of A Presentation at First Union"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928162100/http://www.underonesky.org/Guineas.html|date=2007-09-28}}, 25 July 1997; Wise, Virginia</ref> and the [[Carmel Indians]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gazette |first=Times |date=2020-06-23 |title=Highland Co.’s lost tribe |url=https://www.timesgazette.com/2020/06/23/highland-co-s-lost-tribe/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=The Times Gazette |language=en-US}}</ref> Free people of color in colonial Virginia were predominantly of [[African Americans|African]] and [[European Americans|European]] descent; however, many families also had varying amounts of [[Native American tribes in Virginia|Native American]] and [[South Asians in Colonial America|East Indian]] ancestry.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mitsawokett: "Self-Identification" |url=https://nativeamericansofdelawarestate.com/Self-Identifcation.htm |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=nativeamericansofdelawarestate.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Siekman |first=Henry Louis Gates Jr and NEHGS Researcher Meaghan |date=2016-06-24 |title=Am I Related to Free People of Color in NC? |url=https://www.theroot.com/am-i-related-to-free-people-of-color-in-nc-1790855783 |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=The Root |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=O Say Can You See: Early Washington, D.C., Law & Family |url=http://earlywashingtondc.org/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=earlywashingtondc.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Arora |first=Anupama |last2=Kaur |first2=Rajender |date=2017 |title=Writing India in Early American Women’s Fiction |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/90009822 |journal=Early American Literature |volume=52 |issue=2 |pages=363–388 |issn=0012-8163}}</ref> Some modern researchers believe that early [[Atlantic Creole]] slaves, descended from or acculturated by Iberian [[lançados]]<ref>{{cite news |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |date=8 June 2018 |title=Ira Berlin, 1941–2018 |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/ira-berlin-1941-2018/ |work=The Nation}}</ref> and [[Sephardic Jews|Sephardi Jews]] fleeing the [[Inquisition]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=O'Neill |first=Brian Juan |date=2017 |title=Review of Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, Havik, Philip J., and Malyn Newitt, eds |journal=Africa Today |volume=63 |issue=4 |pages=84–90 |doi=10.2979/africatoday.63.4.05 |jstor=10.2979/africatoday.63.4.05 |hdl-access=free |hdl=10071/14918}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=African blacks and Mulattos in the 17th-Century Amsterdam Portuguese Jewish community |url=https://www.asser.nl/global-city/news-and-events/african-blacks-and-mulattos-in-the-17th-century-amsterdam-portuguese-jewish-community/ |access-date=2024-05-27 |website=www.asser.nl |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Mark |first1=Peter |title=The Forgotten Diaspora: Jewish Communities in West Africa and the Making of the Atlantic World |last2=Horta |first2=José da Silva |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-66746-4}}{{page needed|date=May 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Schorsch |first1=Jonathan |title=A Letter's Importance: The Spelling of Daka(h) (Deut. 23:2) and the Broadening of Western Sephardic Rabbinic Culture |date=2019 |isbn=978-90-04-39248-9 |chapter=Revisiting Blackness, Slavery, and Jewishness in the Early Modern Sephardic Atlantic |doi=10.1163/9789004392489_022}}</ref><ref>{{cite report |title=Mariana Pequena, a black Angolan jew in early eighteenth-century Rio de Janeiro |last1=Kananoja |first1=Kalle |date=2013 |hdl=1814/27607}}</ref> were one of the pre-cursor populations to these groups.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mozingo |first1=Joe |title=The Fiddler on Pantico Run: An African Warrior, His White Descendants, A Search for Family |date=2012 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-4516-2761-9}}{{page needed|date=May 2024}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Berlin |first=Ira |author-link=Ira Berlin |date=1996 |title=From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African-American Society in Mainland North America |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |volume=53 |issue=2 |pages=251–288 |doi=10.2307/2947401 |jstor=2947401}}</ref><ref>{{cite thesis |last1=Bartl |first1=Renate |title=American tri-racials: African-Native contact, multi-ethnic Native American Nations, and the ethnogenesis of tri-racial groups in North America |date=2018 |publisher=[[Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München]] |doi=10.5282/edoc.26874}}</ref> Many creoles, once in [[British America]], were able to obtain their freedom and many [[Interracial marriage in the United States|married into local white families]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Berlin |first=Ira |author-link=Ira Berlin |title=Critical Readings on Global Slavery (4 vols.) |date=2017 |isbn=978-90-04-34661-1 |pages=1216–1262 |chapter=From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African-American Society in Mainland North America |doi=10.1163/9789004346611_039}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Anti-Amalgamation Law is Passed |url=https://aaregistry.org/story/anti-amalgamation-law-passed/ |access-date=2024-05-27 |website=African American Registry |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Wolfe |first=Brendan |title=Free Blacks in Colonial Virginia |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/free-blacks-in-colonial-virginia/ |access-date=2024-05-27 |website=Encyclopedia Virginia |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Introduction to Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina |url=https://freeafricanamericans.com/introduction.htm |access-date=2024-05-27 |website=freeafricanamericans.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Dodge |first1=David |date=January 1886 |title=The Free Negroes of North Carolina |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1886/01/the-free-negroes-of-north-carolina/522594/ |work=The Atlantic}}</ref>

Despite often being able to pass as white people, Melungeons were affected by the [[one-drop rule]]. The one-drop rule either caused, or had the potential to cause, many Melungeons to be labeled as [[Person of color|non-white]]. Some Melungeons who were labeled as non-white were sterilized by [[State governments of the United States|state governments]], most notably in [[Virginia]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Talbot |first=Tori |title=Walter Ashby Plecker (1861–1947) |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/plecker-walter-ashby-1861-1947/ |access-date=2024-08-23 |website=Encyclopedia Virginia |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Racial Integrity Act, 1924: An Attack on Indigenous Identity (U.S. National Park Service) |url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/racial-integrity-act.htm |access-date=2024-08-23 |website=www.nps.gov |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Winkler |first=Wayne |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/Walking_Toward_the_Sunset.html?id=FiF2AAAAMAAJ |title=Walking Toward the Sunset: The Melungeons of Appalachia |date=2004 |publisher=Mercer University Press |isbn=978-0-86554-919-7 |language=en}}</ref>

==Etymology==
The term ''Melungeon'' likely comes from the French word ''mélange'' ultimately derived from the Latin verb ''miscēre'' ("to mix, mingle, intermingle").<ref name="North Carolina">{{cite web |title=1894 Report of the U.S. Department of the Interior, in its Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed |url=https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1890/volume-10/indians-taxed-not-taxed.pdf|website=www2.census.gov |publisher=Department of the Interior |access-date=6 April 2025}}</ref><ref name="TennesseeDOI" /><ref name="tn_en" /> It was once a derogatory term, but later became used by the Melungeon people as a primary identifier. The Tennessee Encyclopedia states that in the 19th century, "the word 'Melungeon' appears to have been used as an offensive term for nonwhite and/or low socioeconomic class persons by outsiders."<ref name="tn_en" />

The term ''Melungeon'' was historically considered an insult, a label applied to Appalachians who were by appearance or reputation of [[mixed-race]] ancestry. Although initially pejorative in character,<ref name="Sovine">Sovine, Melanie L. "The Mysterious Melungeons: a Critique of the Mythical Image." University of Kentucky Ph.D. dissertation, 1982</ref> this word has been reclaimed by members of the community.<ref name="Frequently Asked Questions.">"Frequently Asked Questions." Melungeon Heritage Association. Retrieved December 2023</ref> The spelling of the term varied widely, as was common for words and names at the time.

===Early uses===
[[File:A Typical Malungeon.jpg|thumb|left|318px|"A Typical Malungeon" (1890) by [[Will Allen Dromgoole]]]]

The earliest historical record of the term ''Melungeon'' dates to 1813. In the minutes of the Stoney Creek Baptist Church in [[Scott County, Virginia]], a woman stated another parishioner made the accusation that "she harbored them Melungins."<ref name="tn_en">{{cite web|last=Toplovich|first=Ann|title=Melungeons|url=https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/melungeons/|website=Tennessee Encyclopedia|publisher=Tennessee Historical Society|access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref> The second oldest written use of the term was in 1840, when a Tennessee politician described "an impudent Melungeon" from what became Washington, D.C., as being "a scoundrel who is half Negro and half Indian."<ref name="tn_en" /> In the 1890s, during the age of [[yellow journalism]], the term "Melungeon" started to circulate and be reproduced in U.S. newspapers, when the journalist [[Will Allen Dromgoole]] wrote several articles on the Melungeons.{{cn|date=March 2025}}

In 1894, the [[US Department of the Interior]], in its "Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed," under the section "Tennessee" noted: <blockquote>In a number of states small groups of people, preferring the freedom of the woods or the seashore to the confinement of regular labor in civilization, have become in some degree distinct from their neighbors, perpetuating their qualities and absorbing into their number those of like disposition, without preserving very clear racial lines. Such are the remnants called Indians in some states where a pure-blooded Indian can hardly longer be found. In Tennessee is such a group, popularly known as Melungeans, in addition to those still known as Cherokees.  The name seems to have been given them by early French settlers, who recognized their mixed origin and applied to them the name Melangeans or Melungeans, a corruption of the French word "melange" which means mixed. (See letter of Hamilton McMillan, under North Carolina.)<ref name="North Carolina"/><ref name="TennesseeDOI"/></blockquote>

==Origins of the Melungeon people==
===Claims and hypotheses===
According to the 1894 [[United States Department of the Interior|Department of Interior]] Report of Indians Taxed and not Taxed within the "Tennessee" report, "The civilized (self-supporting) Indians of Tennessee, counted in the general census numbered 146 (71 males and 75 females) and are distributed as follows: [[Hawkins County, Tennessee|Hawkins county]], 31; [[Monroe County, Tennessee|Monroe county]], 12; [[Polk County, Tennessee|Polk county]], 10; other counties (8 or less in each), 93.  Quoting from the report:<blockquote>The Melungeans or Malungeans, in Hawkins county, claim to be Cherokees of mixed blood (white, Indian, and negro), their white blood being derived, as they assert, from English and Portuguese stock. They trace their descent primarily to 2 Indians (Cherokees) known, one of them as Collins, the other as Gibson, who settled in the mountains of Tennessee, where their descendants are now to be found, about the time of the admission of that state into the Union (1796).</blockquote>

Anthropologist E. Raymond Evans wrote in 1979 regarding Melungeons: "In Graysville, the Melungeons strongly deny their Black heritage and explain their genetic differences by claiming to have had Cherokee grandmothers. Many of the local Whites also claim Cherokee ancestry and appear to accept the Melungeon claim. ..."<ref>Evans, E. Raymond (1979). "The Graysville Melungeons: A Tri-racial People in Lower East Tennessee", ''Tennessee Anthropologist'' IV(1): 1–31.</ref>

[[Jack D. Forbes]] speculated that the Melungeons may have been [[Saponi]]/[[Powhatan]] descendants, although he acknowledges an account from circa 1890 described them as being "free colored" and mulatto people.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Forbes |first1=Jack D. |title=Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples |date=1993 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |location=Champaign, IL |isbn=9780252051005 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5D17DwAAQBAJ&dq=%22A+great+many+declare%22+Forbes&pg=PT240}}</ref>

In 1999, historian C. S. Everett hypothesized that John Collins (recorded as a [[Saponi|Sapony]] Indian who was expelled from [[Orange County, Virginia]] about January 1743), might be the same man as the Melungeon ancestor John Collins, who was classified as a "mulatto" in 1755 North Carolina records.<ref>C. S. Everett, "Melungeon History and Myth," ''Appalachian Journal'' (1999)</ref> However, Everett revised that theory after he discovered evidence that these were two different men named John Collins. Only descendants of the latter man, who was identified as mulatto in the 1755 record in North Carolina, have any proven connection to the Melungeon families of eastern Tennessee.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/Church_Cotanch.htm | title= ''Free African Americans,'' ''op.cit.'', Church and Cotanch Families |publisher=Freeafricanamericans.com |access-date=August 21, 2013}}</ref>{{Promotional source|date=September 2023}}

===Myths===
Dispute regarding the origin of Melungeons families has led to a large number of ahistorical and dubious myths regarding their origins. Some myths involve physical characteristics and genetic diseases that are claimed to indicate Melungeon descent, such as [[shovel-shaped incisors]], an [[Occipital bun|Anatolian bump]], [[Familial Mediterranean fever]], [[polydactyly]], [[dark skin]] with [[Eye color|bright colored eyes]], and [[Zygomatic bone|high cheekbones]].<ref>{{Citation |last=Chresfield |first=Michell |title=Genetics, Health and the Making of America's Triracial Isolates, 1950–80 |date=2022 |work=The Edinburgh Companion to the Politics of American Health |pages=459–475 |editor-last=Halliwell |editor-first=Martin |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/edinburgh-companion-to-the-politics-of-american-health/genetics-health-and-the-making-of-americas-triracial-isolates-195080/3A703AC97FB8D189B8C66834166B392C |access-date=2024-08-14 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-1-4744-5098-0 |editor2-last=Jones |editor2-first=Sophie A.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Loller |first=Travis |title=DNA study pops myths of Appalachia's Melungeons |url=https://www.telegram.com/story/news/state/2012/05/25/dna-study-pops-myths-appalachia/49621497007/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=The Worcester Telegram & Gazette |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name="Schrift" />

Other myths claim that the Melungeons are descendants of lost [[Spanish Empire|Spanish]] colonists, marooned [[Portuguese Empire|Portuguese]] sailors,<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-09-10 |title=The Origins of the Melungeons |url=https://lcgsco.org/the-origins-of-the-melungeons/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=Larimer County Genealogical Society |language=en-US}}</ref> descendants of the [[ancient Israelites]] or [[Phoenicia]]ns,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Melungeons in Virginia |url=http://www.virginiaplaces.org/population/melungeon.html#:~:text=It%20was%20proven%20by%20the,time%20of%20our%20revolutionary%20war, |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=www.virginiaplaces.org}}</ref> [[Romani people|Romani]] slaves, or [[Turkic peoples|Turkish]] settlers.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sassounian |first=Harut |author-link=Harut Sassounian |date=2012-07-25 |title=Sassounian: DNA Study Busts Myth that One Million Appalachians Are of Turkish Descent |url=https://armenianweekly.com/2012/07/25/sassounian-dna-study-busts-myth-that-one-million-appalachians-are-of-turkish-descent/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=The Armenian Weekly |language=en-US}}</ref>

===Genetic testing===
From 2005 to 2011, researchers Roberta J. Estes, Jack H. Goins, Penny Ferguson, and Janet Lewis Crain began the Melungeon Core Y-DNA Group online. They interpreted these results in their (2011) paper titled "Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population",<ref name="jogg">{{cite journal |last1=Estes |first1=Roberta A. |last2=Goins |first2=Jack H. |last3=Ferguson |first3=Penny |last4=Crain |first4=Janet Lewis |title=Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population |journal=Journal of Genetic Genealogy |date=Fall 2011 |volume=7 |issue=1 |url=https://jogg.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/71.006.pdf |access-date=3 July 2023 |ref=71.006}}</ref> which shows that ancestry of the sample is primarily European and African, with one person having a Native American paternal [[haplotype]].

Estes, Goins, Ferguson, and Crain wrote in their 2011 summary "Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population" that the Riddle family is the only Melungeon participant with historical records identifying them as having [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] origins, but their DNA is European. Among the participants, only the Sizemore family is documented as having Native American DNA.<ref name="jogg" /> "Estes and her fellow researchers "theorize that the various Melungeon lines may have sprung from the unions of black and white [[indentured servitude|indentured servants]] living in Virginia in the mid-1600s, before slavery. They conclude that as laws were put in place to penalize the mixing of races, the various family groups could only intermarry with each other, even migrating together from [[Virginia]] through the [[Carolinas]] before settling primarily in the mountains of [[East Tennessee]]."<ref name="loller2">>{{cite news |title=DNA study seeks origin of Melungeons |url=https://www.tampabay.com/incoming/dna-study-seeks-origin-of-melungeons/1231925/ |access-date=30 August 2023 |work=[[Tampa Bay Times]] |agency=[[Associated Press|AP]] |date=May 25, 2012}}</ref>{{void|Fabrickator|comment|This was previously cited as published on 11 March 2021 in the "News Leader" under the title "A whole lot of people upset by this study: DNA & the truth about Appalachia’s Melungeons" at https://www.newsleader.com/story/news/2021/03/08/new-dna-study-melungeons-attempts-separate-truth-fiction/4611383001/; same story was published in the Progress-Index at https://www.progress-index.com/story/news/2021/03/08/new-dna-study-melungeons-attempts-separate-truth-fiction/4611383001/.}}<ref name="jogg" />

==History==
Many [[free people of color]], white-passing or otherwise, served in the [[American Civil War]] on both sides of the conflict. Some served in the [[Confederate States Army|Confederate military]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=CCW |date=2018-09-06 |title=Jacob Bryant: A Documented Lumbee Indian Who Fought in the Confederate Army |url=https://nccivilwarcenter.org/jacob-bryant-a-documented-lumbee-indian-who-fought-in-the-confederate-army/ |access-date=2024-05-27 |website=NC History Center on the Civil War, Emancipation & Reconstruction |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Rheinheimer |first=Kurt |date=2009-01-01 |title=The Melungeons: A New Journey Home |url=https://blueridgecountry.com/articles/melungeons-journey-home/ |access-date=2024-05-27 |website=Blue Ridge Country |language=en-us}}</ref> though others resisted the Confederate government, such as [[Henry Berry Lowry]].<ref>{{cite magazine |date=30 March 1872 |title=The North Carolina Bandits |url=https://cwnc.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/170 |magazine=Harper's Weekly}}</ref>

In the 1894 [[United States census|US census]], Melungeon people were enumerated as of the races to which they most resembled.<ref name="TennesseeDOI">{{cite web |title=1894 Report of the U.S. Department of the Interior, in its Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed |url=https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1890/volume-10/indians-taxed-not-taxed.pdf |access-date=6 April 2025 |website=www2.census.gov |publisher=Department of the Interior}}</ref>

In 1924, Virginia passed the [[Racial Integrity Act]] that codified [[hypodescent]] or the "[[one-drop rule]], suggesting that anyone with any trace of African ancestry was legally Black and would fall under Jim Crow laws designed to limit the freedoms and rights of Black people.<ref>Smith, J. Douglas. “The Campaign for Racial Purity and the Erosion of Paternalism in Virginia, 1922-1930: ‘Nominally White, Biologically Mixed, and Legally Negro.’” The Journal of Southern History, vol. 68, no. 1, 2002, pp. 65–106. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3069691. Accessed 3 Sept. 2023.</ref> [[Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States]] were not declared unconstitutional until the 1967 ''[[Loving v. Virginia]]'' case.<ref>{{cite web |title=Loving v. Virginia |url=https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/loving-v-virginia |website=History Channel |access-date=4 July 2023 |date=14 December 2022}}</ref>

In December 1943, [[Walter Plecker|Walter Ashby Plecker]] of Virginia sent county officials a letter warning against "colored" families trying to pass as "white" or "Indian" in violation of the [[Racial Integrity Act of 1924]]. He identified these as being "chiefly Tennessee Melungeons".<ref name="pleckerletter" /> He directed the offices to reclassify members of certain families as black, causing the loss for numerous families of documentation in records that showed their continued self-identification as being of Native American descent on official forms.<ref name="pleckerletter" /><ref>{{cite book |last1=Schrift |first1=Melissa |title=Becoming Melungeon: Making an Ethnic Identity in the Appalachian South |date=2013 |publisher=[[University of Nebraska Press]] |isbn=978-0-8032-7154-8 |url=https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1185&context=unpresssamples |chapter=Introduction}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The Racial Integrity Act, 1924: An Attack on Indigenous Identity |url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/racial-integrity-act.htm |website=[[National Park Service]] |access-date=25 August 2023 |date=June 21, 2023}}</ref>

In the 20th century, during the [[Jim Crow]] era, some Melungeons attended boarding schools in [[Asheville, North Carolina]], [[Warren Wilson College]], and [[Dorland Institution]] which integrated earlier than other schools in the southern United States.<ref name="neal">{{cite news |last1=Neal |first1=Dale |title=Melungeons explore mysterious mixed-race origins |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/06/24/melungeon-mountaineers-mixed-race/29252839/ |access-date=7 July 2023 |work=USA Today |date=June 24, 2015}}</ref>

==="King of the Melungeons"===
During the [[American Revolution]], there was purportedly a Melungeon "king" or "chief" named Micajah Bunch (1723–1804). Local folklore claims he intermarried with the [[Cherokee]], making the Melungeons a branch of the tribe, though no documentation of this event exists. 
The last male in Micajah's bloodline, Michael Joseph Bullard, died in a swimming accident at the age of 15 in 1991.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Hicks |first1=Mark |title=King of The Melungeons |url=https://www.historical-melungeons.com/bunch1.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130702011230/https://www.historical-melungeons.com/bunch1.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2013-07-02 |access-date=19 April 2025 |publisher=Knoxville Journal |date=17 Aug 1991}}</ref>

===Modern identity===
By the mid-to-late 19th century, the term Melungeon appeared to have been used most frequently to refer to the biracial families of Hancock County and neighboring areas.{{citation needed|date=July 2023}} Several other uses of the term in the print media, from the mid-19th to the early 20th centuries, have been collected by the Melungeon Heritage Association.<ref name=neal/>

Since the mid-1990s, popular interest in the Melungeons has grown tremendously, although many descendants have left the region of historical concentration. The writer [[Bill Bryson]] devoted the better part of a chapter to them in his ''[[The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America|The Lost Continent]]'' (1989). People are increasingly self-identifying as having Melungeon ancestry.<ref name="kennedy">{{cite book |last1=Kennedy |first1=N. Brent |first2=Robyn Vaughan |last2=Kennedy |title=The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People: An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America |publisher=Mercer University Press |location=Macon, GA |year=1997 |edition=2nd |isbn=0-86554-516-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jqhd3tVSJNkC |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref>{{page needed|date=May 2017}}{{better source needed|date=July 2023}} Internet sites promote the anecdotal claim that Melungeons are more prone to certain diseases, such as [[sarcoidosis]] or [[familial Mediterranean fever]]. Academic medical centers have noted that neither of those diseases is confined to a single population.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.genome.gov/12510679 |title="Learning About Familial Mediterranean Fever", National Human Genome Research Institute |publisher=Genome.gov |date=November 17, 2011 |access-date=August 21, 2013}}</ref>

==Culture==
There is no uniquely Melungeon culture, though specific groups have formed into their own [[State-recognized tribes in the United States|tribal entities]] on the basis of ancestral connections to historical [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] communities.<ref>{{cite web |last=Staff |first=Ben Steelman StarNews |title="The Lumbee Indians" -- black, white and shades of red |url=https://www.starnewsonline.com/story/entertainment/books/2018/10/20/the-lumbee-indians-paints-picture-of-diverse-people/9503203007/ |access-date=2024-08-19 |website=Wilmington Star-News |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Rosenzweig |first=Brian |date=2023-03-05 |title=‘I know who I am:’ A Black mother and son’s journey of learning to embrace their mixed-race American Indian identity |url=https://mediahub.unc.edu/i-know-who-i-am-a-black-mother-and-sons-journey-of-learning-to-embrace-their-mixed-race-american-indian-identity/ |access-date=2024-08-19 |website=UNC Media Hub |language=en-US}}</ref>

Due to the lasting impact of [[European colonization of the Americas|colonialism]], the [[Genocide of Native Americans|decimation]] of initial contact [[Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands|tribes]], and the legacy of [[Slavery in the United States|American chattel slavery]], culturally these mixed-race groups resemble their [[White Southerners|white settler]] neighbors in culture, with few exceptions.<ref>{{cite web |title=FAQ |url=https://melungeon.org/features/ |access-date=2024-08-19 |website=Melungeon Heritage Association |language=en-US}}</ref>

==Melungeon families==
Definitions of who is Melungeon differ. Historians and genealogists have tried to identify surnames of different Melungeon families.<ref name="pleckerletter">{{cite web |last1=Plecker |first1=Walter A. |title=Surnames, by Counties and Cities, of Mixed Negroid Virginia Families Striving to Pass as "Indian" or White |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/surnames-by-counties-and-cities-of-mixed-negroid-virginia-families-striving-to-pass-as-indian-or-white-by-walter-a-plecker-ca-1943/ |website=Encyclopedia Virginia: Virginia Humanities |publisher=Library of Virginia |access-date=12 June 2023}}</ref><ref name="jogg" /> In 1943, Virginia State Registrar of Vital Statistics, Walter Ashby Plecker, identified surnames by county: "Lee, Smyth and Wise: Collins, Gibson, (Gipson), Moore, Goins, Ramsey, Delph, Bunch, Freeman, Mise, Barlow, Bolden (Bolin), Mullins, Hawkins (chiefly Tennessee Melungeons)".<ref name="pleckerletter" />

In 1992, [[Virginia DeMarce]] explored and reported the [[Goins (surname)|Goins]] genealogy as a Melungeon surname.<ref>[[Virginia DeMarce|DeMarce, Virginia Easley]]. “‘Verry Slitly Mixt’: Tri-Racial Isolate Families of the Upper South–A Genealogical Study.” National Genealogical Society Quarterly 80.1 (March 1992): [5]-35.aZ</ref> Beginning in the early 19th century, or possibly before, the term Melungeon was applied as a slur to a group of about 40 families along the Tennessee-Virginia border, but it has since become a catch-all phrase for a number of groups of mysterious mixed-race ancestry.<ref name="loller2" /> Through time the term has changed meanings but often referred to any mixed-race person and, at different times, has referred to 200 different communities across the Eastern United States.<ref name="loller2" /> These have included Van Guilders and Clappers of New York and [[Lumbee]]s in North Carolina to [[Creole peoples|Creoles]] in Louisiana.<ref name="loller2" />

==Literature==
{{Unsourced|section|date=January 2025}}
Author [[Jesse Stuart]]'s 1965 novel ''Daughter of the Legend'', set in Tennessee, depicts a love story between a Melungeon girl and a timber cutter from Virginia<ref>{{Cite web |title=Daughter of the Legend |url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77637.Daughter_of_the_Legend |access-date=2025-05-28 |website=Goodreads |language=en}}</ref>, and explores socioeconomic and racial tensions among mountain-dwelling families.

A Melungeon character is the titular protagonist and narrator of [[Barbara Kingsolver]]'s ''[[Demon Copperhead]]'', which was a co-recipient of the 2023 [[Pulitzer Prize for Fiction]]. The novel takes place primarily in [[Lee County, Virginia]] and environs.

A character of Melungeon descent, Pearl Grimes, is pivotal in [[Adriana Trigiani]]'s novel (and the [[romantic comedy]] film derived from that novel) “[[Big Stone Gap (film)|Big Stone Gap]],” which is set in Trigiani's hometown [[Big Stone Gap, Virginia]].

==See also==
* [[Chestnut Ridge people]] of West Virginia
* [[Melungeon Jews]]
* [[Croatan]]
* [[Dominickers]] in the Florida Panhandle
* [[List of topics related to the African diaspora]]
* [[Mulatto]]
* [[Pardo]]
* [[Ramapough Mountain Indians]] ("Jackson Whites")
* [[Redbone (ethnicity)]]
* [[Turks of South Carolina]]
* [[Vardy Community School]]
* [[South Asians in Colonial America]]

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Further reading==
{{Refbegin}}
* Ball, Bonnie (1992). ''The Melungeons: Notes on the Origin of a Race''. Johnson City, Tennessee: Overmountain Press.
* Berry, Brewton (1963). ''Almost White: A Study of Certain Racial Hybrids in the Eastern United States''. New York: Macmillan Press.
* Bible, Jean Patterson (1975). ''Melungeons Yesterday and Today''. Signal Mountain, Tennessee: Mountain Press.
* Brake, Katherine Vande. ''How They Shine: How They Shine: Melungeon Characters in Fiction of Appalachia.'' Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
* Brake, Katherine Vande. ''Through the Back Door: Melungeon Literacies and Twenty-First Century Technologies.'' Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
* Cavender, Anthony P. "The Melungeons of Upper East Tennessee: Persisting Social Identity," ''Tennessee Anthropologist'' 6 (1981): 27–36
* Goins, Jack H. (2000). ''Melungeons: And Other Pioneer Families'', Blountville, Tennessee: Continuity Press.
* Dromgoole, William "Will" Allen (1891). ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20200927105830/http://melungeon.org/2016/10/14/the-malungeon-tree-and-its-four-branches-will-allen-dromgoole-article-1891/ The Malungeon Tree and Its Four Branches]'', Melungeon Heritage Association.
* Hashaw, Tim. ''Children of Perdition: Melungeons and the Struggle of Mixed America''. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
* [http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/ Heinegg, Paul (2005). ''FREE AFRICAN AMERICANS OF VIRGINIA, NORTH CAROLINA, SOUTH CAROLINA, MARYLAND AND DELAWARE Including the family histories of more than 80% of those counted as "all other free persons" in the 1790 and 1800 census''], Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing, 1999–2005. Available in its entirety online.
* Hirschman, Elizabeth. ''Melungeons: The Last Lost Tribe in America.'' Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
* Johnson, Mattie Ruth (1997). ''My Melungeon Heritage: A Story of Life on Newman's Ridge''. Johnson City, Tennessee: Overmountain Press.
* Kennedy, N. Brent (1997) ''The Melungeons: the resurrection of a proud people''. Mercer University Press.
* Kessler, John S. and Donald Ball. ''North From the Mountains: A Folk History of the Carmel Melungeon Settlement, Highland County, Ohio. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
* Langdon, Barbara Tracy (1998). ''The Melungeons: An Annotated Bibliography: References in both Fiction and Nonfiction'', Hemphill, Texas: Dogwood Press.
* {{cite news|last=Lister|first=Richard|title=Lost people of Appalachia|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/384502.stm|work=[[BBC News Online]]|date=July 3, 2009}} 
* McGowan, Kathleen (2003). "Where do we really come from?", ''DISCOVER'' 24 (5, May 2003)
* [[Chris Offutt|Offutt, Chris]]. (1999) "Melungeons", in ''Out of the Woods'', Simon & Schuster.
* Overbay, DruAnna Williams. ''Windows on the Past: The Cultural Heritage of Vardy, Hancock County, Tennessee''. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
* Podber, Jacob. ''The Electronic Front Porch: An Oral History of the Arrival of Modern Media in Rural Appalachia and the Melungeon Community. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
* Price, Henry R. (1966). "Melungeons: The Vanishing Colony of Newman's Ridge." Conference paper. ''American Studies Association of Kentucky and Tennessee''. March 25–26, 1966.
* Reed, John Shelton (1997). [http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/southern_cultures/v003/3.4.reed01.pdf "Mixing in the Mountains"], ''Southern Cultures'' 3 (Winter 1997): 25–36.{{subscription required}}
* Scolnick, Joseph M Jr. and N. Brent Kennedy. (2004). ''From Anatolia to Appalachia: A Turkish American Dialogue''. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
* Vande Brake, Katherine (2001). ''How They Shine: Melungeon Characters in the Fiction of Appalachia'', Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press.
* Williamson, Joel (1980). ''New People: Miscegenation and Mulattoes in the United States'', New York: Free Press.
* Winkler, Wayne. 2019. ''Beyond the sunset: The Melungeon drama, 1969-1976''. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. 
* Winkler, Wayne (2004). "Walking Toward the Sunset: The Melungeons of Appalachia", Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press.
* [https://www.npr.org/2012/07/11/156611575/for-some-people-of-appalachia-complicated-roots Winkler, Wayne and Estes, Roberta (7/11/2012). "For Some People of Appalachia complicated roots"], ''Tell Me More''. National Public Radio. npr.org accessed 12 June 2023
{{Refend}}

==External links==
* [http://www.melungeon.org Melungeon Heritage Association]
* [https://mixedracestudies.org Mixed Race Studies]
* Paul Brodwin, [https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs11013-005-7423-2 ""Bioethics in action" and human population genetics researMacon, GA: Mercer University Press.ch"], ''Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry'', Volume 29, Number 2 (2005), 145–178, DOI: 10.1007/s11013-005-7423-2 [https://web.archive.org/web/20130511180538/http://cfprod.imt.uwm.edu/letsci/anthropology/faculty/upload/bioethics_brodwin-2.pdf PDF], addresses issue of 2002 Melungeon DNA study by Kevin Jones, which is unpublished
* [http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/ Paul Heinegg, ''Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware''], 1999–2005
* [http://dla.acaweb.org/cdm/search/searchterm/%20Melungeons/mode/exact "Melungeons"], Digital Library of Appalachia. Contains numerous photographs and documents related to Melungeons, mostly from 1900 to 1950.
* [https://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/stories/race-ethnicity/a-mystery-people-the-melungeons/ A Mystery People: The Melungeons] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140419121342/http://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/stories/race-ethnicity/a-mystery-people-the-melungeons/|date=2014-04-19}} From Louis Gates Jr.'s "Finding your Roots."

{{Demographics of the United States}}
{{Appalachian people}}{{Multiethnicity}}
{{African American topics}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Ethnic groups in Appalachia]]
[[Category:Free people of color]]
[[Category:History of North Carolina]]
[[Category:History of Tennessee]]
[[Category:History of Virginia]]
[[Category:Multiracial affairs in the United States]]
[[Category:Multiracial ethnic groups in the United States]]
[[Category:Pre-emancipation African-American history]]
[[Category:Society of Appalachia]]
[[Category:Self-identification as Native American in the United States]]