Melungeon

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Melungeons

Goins family, Melungeons from Graysville, Tennessee, c. 1920s
Regions with significant populations
United States (East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia,[1][2] and Kentucky[2])
Languages
Appalachian English
Religion
Protestant Christianity (Baptist; Pentecostal)[citation needed]

Melungeons (/məˈlʌndʒənz/ mə-LUN-jənz) (sometimes also spelled Malungeans, Melangeans, Melungeans, Melungins^[3]) are a group of people from Appalachia who predominantly descend from northern or central Europeans and sub-Saharan Africans. Their ancestors were likely brought to Virginia as indentured servants in the mid-17th century.^[1]

According to the 1894 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, 31; Monroe county, 12; Polk county, 10; other counties (8 or less in each), 93. The Melangeans or Melungeons in Hawkins County claim to be Cherokees of mixed blood (white, Indian, and negro), their blood being derived, as they assert, from English and Portuguese stock. They trace their descent from primarily to 2 Indians (Cherokees) known, one of them as Collins and the other as Gibson, who settled in the mountains of Tennessee where their descendants are now found about the time of the admission of the state into the union (1796). In the general census, these Melungeons were enumerated as of the races which they most resembled."^[4]