Mixed-race group from the South Central Appalachian region of the United States
Ethnic group
Melungeon United States (East Tennessee , Southwest Virginia ,[ 1] [ 2] North Carolina , and Kentucky [ 2] )Southern American English , historically African languages , Spanish , Portuguese , and Indigenous languages of the Americas .Predominately Protestant Christianity , historically Traditional African religions with historical minorities of Judaism , Islam , Indian religions . Lumbee , Atlantic Creole , Turks of South Carolina , Chestnut Ridge people , White Southerners , Black Southerners , Native Americans , Dominickers , Redbone (ethnicity) , Mulatto , Coloureds , Griqua people , Basters , Métis , Black Indians in the United States , Garifuna
Melungeon ( mə-LUN -jən ) (sometimes also spelled Malungean, Melangean, Melungean, Melungin [ 3] ) was a slur [ 4] historically applied to individuals and families of mixed-race ancestry with roots in colonial Virginia , Maryland , and North Carolina primarily descended from free people of color and white settlers .[ 5] [ 6] [ 7] [ 8] In modern times, the term has been reclaimed by descendants of these families, especially in southern Appalachia .[ 9] [ 10] [ 11] Despite this mixed heritage, many modern Melungeons pass as white, as did many of their ancestors.[ 12] [ 13] [ 14] [ 15] [ 16]
The Weaver family are one of the many Melungeon families descended from South Asian indentured servants on Virginia plantations. Their paternal ancestors fled and settled in free mixed-race communities in North Carolina .[ 17]
Most of the modern population have an estimated 1-2% non-European DNA, though jumping up to 20% or more in some groups, such as the Lumbee.[ 18] [ 19] [ 20] Despite non-European DNA being in the minority for these groups, the impact of the one-drop rule either did, or had the potential to, label them as non-white . This redesignation resulted in some individuals being sterilized by state governments , most notably in Virginia .[ 21] [ 22] [ 23]
Many groups have historically been referred to as Melungeon, including: the Melungeons of Newman's Ridge ,[ 24] the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina ,[ 25] [ 26] the Chestnut Ridge people ,[ 27] and the Carmel Indians .[ 28]
Free people of color in colonial Virginia were predominately of African and European descent, however many families also had varying amounts of Native American and East Indian ancestry.[ 29] [ 30] [ 31] [ 32] [ 33] [ 34]
Some modern researchers believe that early Atlantic Creole slaves, descended from or acculturated by Iberian lançados [ 35] and Sephardi Jews fleeing the Inquisition ,[ 36] [ 37] [ 38] [ 39] [ 40] were one of the pre-cursor populations to these groups.[ 41] [ 42] [ 43] Many creoles, once in British America , were able to obtain their freedom and many married into local white families .[ 44] [ 45] [ 46] [ 47] [ 48]
In the general U.S. census , Melungeon people were enumerated as of the races to which they most resembled.[ 49]
^ Cite error: The named reference loller2
was invoked but never defined (see the help page ).
^ a b Cite error: The named reference neal
was invoked but never defined (see the help page ).
^ "1894 Report of the U.S. Department of the Interior, in its Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed" (PDF) . www2.census.gov . Department of the Interior. Retrieved 12 June 2023 .
^ Gibson, Toby D. (2013). "The Melungeons of Newman's Ridge: An Insider's Perspective" . Appalachian Heritage . 41 (4): 59–66. ISSN 2692-9287 .
^ "Melungeons | NCpedia" . www.ncpedia.org . Retrieved 2024-05-23 .
^ Schrift, Melissa (2013-04-01). "Becoming Melungeon" . University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters .
^ Press, The Associated Press | The Associated (2012-05-24). "DNA finds origin of Appalachia's Melungeons: African men, white women" . The Denver Post . Retrieved 2024-05-23 .
^ "Dancing Revolution: Bodies, Space, and Sound in American Cultural History 2018059613, 2019013274, 9780252051234, 9780252042393, 9780252084188" . ebin.pub . 2021-07-11. Retrieved 2024-05-23 .
^ Loller, Travis. " 'A whole lot of people upset by this study': DNA & the truth about Appalachia's Melungeons" . The News Leader . Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ Rust, Randal. "Melungeons" . Tennessee Encyclopedia . Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ "FAQ" . Melungeon Heritage Association . Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ Wolfe, Brendan. "Racial Integrity Laws (1924–1930)" . Encyclopedia Virginia . Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ Philipkoski, Kristen. "Melungeon Secret Solved, Sort Of" . Wired . ISSN 1059-1028 . Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ "Projects | Passing: Flexibility in Race and Gender | Experimental Study Group" . MIT OpenCourseWare . Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ Schroeder, Joan Vannorsdall (2009-02-01). "First Union: The Melungeons Revisited" . Blue Ridge Country . Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ Billingsley, Carolyn Earle (2004). Winkler, Wayne (ed.). "Melungeons: A Study in Racial Complexity—A Review Essay" . The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society . 102 (2): 207–223. ISSN 0023-0243 .
^ "Walden-Webster" . freeafricanamericans.com . Retrieved 2024-08-16 .
^ "Learn About Hidden African DNA & Ancestry" . 23andMe Blog . 2023-09-30. Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ "Melungeon DNA Study - Genetic Evidence – Access Genealogy" . 2014-08-06. Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ "Discussion: Cumbos as Lumbee" . Cumbo Family Website . 2016-05-18. Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ Talbot, Tori. "Walter Ashby Plecker (1861–1947)" . Encyclopedia Virginia . Retrieved 2024-08-23 .
^ "The Racial Integrity Act, 1924: An Attack on Indigenous Identity (U.S. National Park Service)" . www.nps.gov . Retrieved 2024-08-23 .
^ Winkler, Wayne (2004). Walking Toward the Sunset: The Melungeons of Appalachia . Mercer University Press. ISBN 978-0-86554-919-7 .
^ "Mystery of Newman's Ridge" . historical-melungeons.com . Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ "Review" . historical-melungeons.com . Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ Anonymous (2022-05-12). "Are They Kin to the 'Lost Colony'?" . Digital Scholarship and Initiatives . Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ Joanne Johnson Smith & Florence Kennedy Barnett, "The Guineas of West Virginia: A Transcript of A Presentation at First Union" Archived 2007-09-28 at the Wayback Machine , 25 July 1997; Wise, Virginia
^ Gazette, Times (2020-06-23). "Highland Co.'s lost tribe" . The Times Gazette . Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ "Mitsawokett: "Self-Identification" " . nativeamericansofdelawarestate.com . Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ Heinegg, Paul. "Freedom in the Archives: Free African Americans in Colonial America" . Commonplace . Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ "LISTSERV - VA-HIST Archives - LISTLVA.LIB.VA.US" . listlva.lib.va.us . Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ Siekman, Henry Louis Gates Jr and NEHGS Researcher Meaghan (2016-06-24). "Am I Related to Free People of Color in NC?" . The Root . Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ "O Say Can You See: Early Washington, D.C., Law & Family" . earlywashingtondc.org . Retrieved 2024-08-14 .
^ Arora, Anupama; Kaur, Rajender (2017). "Writing India in Early American Women's Fiction" . Early American Literature . 52 (2): 363–388. ISSN 0012-8163 .
^ Foner, Eric (8 June 2018). "Ira Berlin, 1941–2018" . The Nation .
^ O'Neill, Brian Juan (2017). "Review of Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, Havik, Philip J., and Malyn Newitt, eds". Africa Today . 63 (4): 84–90. doi :10.2979/africatoday.63.4.05 . hdl :10071/14918 . JSTOR 10.2979/africatoday.63.4.05 .
^ "African blacks and Mulattos in the 17th-Century Amsterdam Portuguese Jewish community" . www.asser.nl . Retrieved 2024-05-27 .
^ Mark, Peter; Horta, José da Silva (2013). The Forgotten Diaspora: Jewish Communities in West Africa and the Making of the Atlantic World . Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-66746-4 . [page needed ]
^ Schorsch, Jonathan (2019). "Revisiting Blackness, Slavery, and Jewishness in the Early Modern Sephardic Atlantic". A Letter's Importance: The Spelling of Daka(h) (Deut. 23:2) and the Broadening of Western Sephardic Rabbinic Culture . doi :10.1163/9789004392489_022 . ISBN 978-90-04-39248-9 .
^ Kananoja, Kalle (2013). Mariana Pequena, a black Angolan jew in early eighteenth-century Rio de Janeiro (Report). hdl :1814/27607 .
^ Mozingo, Joe (2012). The Fiddler on Pantico Run: An African Warrior, His White Descendants, A Search for Family . Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4516-2761-9 . [page needed ]
^ Berlin, Ira (1996). "From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African- American Society in Mainland North America". The William and Mary Quarterly . 53 (2): 251–288. doi :10.2307/2947401 . JSTOR 2947401 .
^ Bartl, Renate (2018). American tri-racials: African-Native contact, multi-ethnic Native American Nations, and the ethnogenesis of tri-racial groups in North America (Thesis). Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. doi :10.5282/edoc.26874 .
^ Berlin, Ira (2017). "From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African-American Society in Mainland North America". Critical Readings on Global Slavery (4 vols.) . pp. 1216–1262. doi :10.1163/9789004346611_039 . ISBN 978-90-04-34661-1 .
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^ "1894 Report of the U.S. Department of the Interior, in its Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed" (PDF) . www2.census.gov . Department of the Interior. Retrieved 4 Sep 2023 .