The Guineas of West Virginia
A Transcript of A Presentation at First Union July 25, 1997, Wise, Virginia
by Joanne Johnson Smith & Florence Kennedy Barnett

This transcript presents many of my direct ancestors.
Surnames discussed are
Dorton/Dolton/Dalton, Croston, Pritchard, Newman and others.

Below is a chart of my own family surnames
from an article
"What are the Common Melungeon and Melungeon-Related Surnames?"
on Martha Short's Melungeon Page
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~mtnties/melungeon.html
There are many links on her site.

She says it is based upon the surnames listed in the Appendix to the second edition of
"The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America"
by N. Brent Kennedy with Robyn Vaughan Kennedy.

Their is not one surname that I don't have in my genealogy.

BOOKS ABOUT MELUNGEONS

Mike Nassau Article below
There are many Links on his url
http://dmoz.org/Society/Ethnicity/Melungeon/
and
http://www.darkfiber.com/blackirish/melungeons.html

 WHAT IS A MELUNGEON?  

  The term Melungeon was originally used for a group of people living on Newman's Ridge and vicinity, near Sneedville in Hancock County, Tennessee, and their descendants.  These are people described as having features like white people but being somewhat darker, sometimes with a gray cast to their skin.  They have been there for a long time, some say they were there before the whites started arriving.      This group originated from mixed race groups along the northern border of North Carolina and neighboring areas of Virginia.  These groups were remnants of the Saponi Siouan Indians but were no longer pure Indian racially.  They may have absorbed survivors of several white groups.  Brent Kennedy has been investigating the possibility that there was a substantial Mediterranean element from Moorish, Turkish, Spanish and Portugese seamen abandoned on the Virginia coast by Sir Francis Drake and from Spanish settlements on the Carolina coast.  He derives the name Melungeon from a Turkish word meaning "Lost Soul".      These North Carolina remnants of the Saponi have survived in four scattered groups, the Occaneechi-Saponi (www.occaneechi-saponi.org/) (pride-net.com/native_indians/saponi.html) in Orange and Alamance Counties, the Haliwa-Saponi  (www.charweb.org/neighbors/na/haliwa.htm) in Halifax and Warren Counties, the Person County Indians ('Cubans') in Person County, and the Goinstown Indians in Rockingham and Surrey Counties.  The Goinstown and Person County Indians are very similar to Melungeons, the Haliwa and Occaneechi are less white and more Indian.       There were movements of mixed-race people, mostly remnants of Algonquian speaking groups of Virginia such as the Powhattan and Pamunkey, into Kentucky and Tennessee somewhat later.  Some of these joined the Melungeons and the Goinstown Indians, bringing the name Goins to the groups.  Whether this came to the Melungeons through the Goinstown Indians or directly, I don't know, but Goins became very common in both groups.  Some of them formed a community in eastern Kentucky, centered on Magoffin and Floyd Counties, and were know for some time as the Magoffin County People.  They have recently taken the name of Melungeon and are the people of the Southeastern Kentucky Melungeon Exchange.      A mixed race group formed in Hamilton, Rhea and Roane Counties of Tennessee.  This lowland group has Cherokee (Iroquoian) as the main Indian element.  They are known as the Graysville Melungeons, from the town with the greatest concentration of them.      The same mixed race elements as formed the original Melungeons of Hancock, Hawkins and Grainger Counties in Tennessee also settled on the Sabine River in western Louisiana, where they are known as Redbones or Louisiana Melungeons.      Mixed race people from South Carolina, probably Brass Ankles, settled on the west side of Dead Lake in the Florida Panhandle in or near Weewahitchka.  They became known as Florida Melungeons, presumably because they reminded someone of Melungeons somewhere else.  These people would presumably have Carolina Siouan ancestry, probably Catawba and Cheraw.       All of these groups were originally American Indian, but racially have little Indian in them today.  There was a large input of white, which started very early, and included both North European and Mediterranean elements, and which still continues today with intermarriage.  There was a significant amount of Black African added to the mix by free mulattos joining the groups at all stages up to the civil war.  Since the civil war, mulattos generally stayed in the black communities.  Since the children of mulattos and whites had much better disease resistance than Indian children, there was continuous genetic selection in these groups against Indian ancestry.  Modern medicine, with antibiotics, has probably finally stabilized this situation. White women with mixed race children frequently joined mixed race groups like the Melungeons, but the extent of their contribution is difficult to document.      Pat Spurlock Elder urges us not to count anyone as Melungeon except the original Saponi derived group, centered on Hancock County, Tennessee, and Wise County, Virginia.  As someone of lowland Graysville Melungeon ancestry, I strongly disagree.  So all Melungeons do not have the same origin, and so some groups are older than others, so what?  The Carmel Indians of Ohio are a branch of the Kentucky Melungeons, and were formed as a separate community before the Kentucky group began using the name Melungeon.  As far as I am concerned, they are welcome to use the Melungeon name if they wish.  The same for the other older groups along the northern border of North Carolina.       To me, a Melungeon is a mixed-race person descended in whole or part from one of the communities which have been called Melungeon.  No one is a pure Melungeon in Elder's sense of being descended only from the original dozen or so families who settled in what is now Hancock County between 1780 and 1830.  Interbreeding with the surrounding whites has been continuous and the different Melungeon groups have interbred as well.  I am sure there are many nominal whites who have more mixed-race ancestry than many nominal Melungeons, even if most of them are not aware of it.  There are many Melungeons by my definition who never heard of the Melungeons and believe they are pure white.      Elder also says that people who lived in or near Melungeon communities and were of similar mixed origin should not be counted as Melungeons unless they were descended from the original founding families.  Since Melungeons have no racial definition, no physical anthropological definition such as having  flat feet (though many do), the meaning of the word is social, a member of a Melungeon community.  Basically, a Melungeon is someone who is considered a Melungeon, whether because of living in a Melungeon community, because of being known to be of Melungeon or part Melungeon ancestry, because of looking Melungeon in an area where Melungeons are known, or because of self identification as a Melungeon.      What is the racial composition of the Melungeons?  No one knows.  A study done by Pollitzer on blood antigens taken from Melungeons in Hancock County led him to believe that they are 86% white, 14% black and 0% Indian.  Of course, the amounts will vary both from group to group and place to place and from family to family within a community.  My guess is that the ranges would be 80 to 99% white, 1 to 20% black, and 0 to 5% Indian.  Of course, that white percentage could contain both North European and Mediterranean elements.  The one proposed element which I think is completely unsubstantiated and pretty unbelievable is Tzigane ('Gypsy' or "Roma").  But there could even be a very small Indic contribution as it is conceivable that a lost Tzigane would find a home in these mixed communities.      What do and what should Melungeons put for race and for ethnicity on the Census forms, etc.?  There are many answers to this one.  For race, some put white, as the major component.  Some put white and Indian, some put white, black and Indian, some put other.  If one checks Indian, there is a place for tribe and one can write in Melungeon.  For "other" there is also a a place to write the group, and one can write Melungeon.  Since the Office of Management and Budget ruled that there would be no mixed category but that one can indicate being a mixture by checking more than one category, my choice is to check both Indian and other and write Melungeon in both.  For ethnicity, of course, almost everyone who is proud of being Melungeon or part Melungeon writes in Melungeon.     Please see my 1994 book, "Melungeons and Other Mestee Groups" at www.geocities.com/mikenassau for more details and history of the Melungeons and other mixed-race groups.  Also be sure to see some of the other sites on this subject listed in the Open Directory at dmoz.org/Society/Ethnicity/Melungeon.   Mike Nassau, gnassau@mindspring.com, March, 2000

Permission from Mike Nassau to use this article was given to Dee Randall.

BRENT KENNEDY'S BOOK
The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People

So who are we? As I quickly discovered, there were varying theories regarding the origins of the Melungeon people, ranging from serious anthropologically based efforts to fantasy-inspired supposition.

The most popular theories are:
1. Surviving descendants of the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke Island who later intermarried with Native Americans. The "Elizabethan English" spoken by the first-encountered Melungeons, as well as their English surnames, have been cited as evidence in support of this theory. Many researchers have argued that, given English surnames and use of the English language, albeit broken English, the Melungeons must be of English origin. However, the "Mediterranean appearance" of so many. Melungeons, as well as their original denial of either an English or Indian heritage argue against a purely Lost Colony and/or English hypothesis.

2. Descendants of the Welsh explorer "Madoc " who supposedly trounced around the Southern Appalachians in the 1100s A.D. There is absolutely nothing to support this theory, except that Madoc may actually have been in the Southern .Appalachians. Certainly the Melungeons do not look Welsh.

3. One of the "lost tribes" of Israel. It is an interesting theory, but there is very little evidence beyond the discovery of a few second-century Hebrew Bar Kokhba coins in Kentucky, coins that could have been lost by later explorers, Jewish settlers, or even planted as a hoax. And although there may be a Jewish ethnic component within the Melungeon population, there is scant evidence to suggest that this component arrived on these shores thousands of years ago.

4. Descendants of early Carthaginian, or perhaps Phoenician, seamen who may have discovered the New World some 2,000 years before the birth of Christ. The Melungeons' physical characteristics mesh almost perfectly with this theory, and old Melungeon legends even give a boost to a previous North African existence. Even the 17th-century French, upon encountering the Melungeons in east Tennessee, thought them to be not Indians but "Moors," and Moors are the descendants of the Carthaginians.

However, it is highly unlikely that such an ancient Atlantic crossing occurred, and, if it did, that the surviving population could have maintained-for no less than 3,500 years-a separate existence, both culturally and genetically, from the Native Americans.

5.Shipwrecked Portuguese sailors. The earliest Melungeons invariably claimed to be Portuguese. and occasionally shipwrecked Portuguese [pronouncing it "Portyghee"]. But a skin darker than the English perceived the Portuguese should possess, as well as the use of both English surnames and Elizabethan English language, have historically been cited as evidence against this theory. Furthermore, it has generally been thought that there was only a minimal Portuguese presence along our southeastern coast, yet another factor arguing against a Portuguese heritage. Nevertheless, even the skeptics have admitted the difficulty in dismissing outright the possible Portuguese link, primarily due to the early, widespread nature of these claims among even the most widely separated Melungeon settlements, and seeming cultural and linguistic evidences.

6. Finally, the theory that the Melungeons are a simple "triracial isolate," in this particular case the progeny of a few 18th-century whites, escaped slaves and Native Americans. While there is undoubtedly some Native American and African influence in at least some, if not all, Melungeon populations, it is far more complex and probably from a much older source than historians have generally recognized. What this theory blatantly overlooks is (1) the sizable Melungeon population that existed prior to 1750 and its wide geographic spread, (2) the very few "escaped slaves" that resided in the Appalachians at that time period. and (3) the strikingly Mediterranean appearance (as opposed to Indian or African) of the earliest known Melungeons. As we shall see, it also ignores much of what we now know to be the history of the Southeast, a history that, once understood, goes a long way toward explaining who the Melungeons really are.

TO TRULY UNDERSTAND the origins of the Melungeons, we must go back in history some 1,283 years. In approximately 711 A D., Muslim armies left Morocco by boat and crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to the southern coast of Spain. Although they were no more than a few thousand hardy Arab and Berber soldiers, these brilliant warriors, driven by their recently acquired religious fervor, quickly conquered Toledo and eventually most of the Iberian Peninsula. Carrying out the will of God (Allah) and the prophet Mohammed, the dark-complexioned Arabs- who served as the officers and tacticians- and their equally dark but more ruddy-complexioned, often blue-eyed Berber soldiers (who made up 80 percent of the army's ranks) went about the business of making Spain an Islamic nation. The Muslim armies succeeded beyond their wildest imagination, effectively controlling most of the Iberian Peninsula for 600 years. Even today, their influence on Spain's and Portugal's architecture, food, arts, music and language is strongly evident.

These conquering warlords had two vulnerable points, however, that led ultimately to their fall from approximately 1150 through the late 1500s. First, they graciously tolerated the religion of their conquered foes, [which] permitted the Iberians both to maintain a separate sense of identity and slowly but surely to rebuild their nanonal fervor for reconquest. [Second] was the discrimination on the part of the Arab officers and leadership toward their more numerous Berber compatriots. After conquering both Spain and Portugal, the Berbers were of little continued use to their Arab sponsors. The best lands were assigned to Arabs, not Berbers, and most real power rested with the Arab minority. Disgruntled, most Berbers took the least desirable, more mountainous lands in northern Spain and Portugal, and fairly duplicated the lives they had known in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco.

The first serious revolt among the Spanish Berbers occurred in 740 A.D., scarcely 20 years after their initial victories as a conquering army. The Berbers became a thorn in the side of Moorish Spain, always rebelling, seldom following orders, and, along with the festering hotbed of Christianity, becoming a serious threat to Arab rule. So the combined flaws of religious toleration and bias against the Berbers led to the eventual collapse of Moorish Spain.

The collapse did not occur overnight. It took centuries and the war was fought on many fronts by such renowned leaders as King Alphonso and his valiant warrior El Cid. Parts of Moorish Spain held out until the late 1500s, but, by about 1200 A D., most of the Islamic control was removed in the "Reconquest." Nearly all Arab leadership fled the Iberian peninsula, but some Arabs and nearly all Berbers remained behind. After all, with their ancestors these people had been in Spain and Portugal for 500 years or longer. They considered themselves Spanish or Portuguese, many had Iberian surnames, and the lands of their origin were distant places they knew very little about. Some 500,000 of them, in fact, lived on the peninsula and were referred to by their native Iberian neighbors as "Mudejars" or "settled" Moors.

Following the Reconquest about 1200 A.D., an uneasy truce was observed, during which time the Spanish and Portuguese Moors did their best to blend in with their Hispanic neighbors. In greater numbers they intermarried, converted to Christianity, adopted Spanish and Portuguese names, kept a low profile, and generally spoke Arabic or Berber only in the home. This worked for a while, but on 11 February 1502, under Ferdinand of Spain, the first throes of the Moorish arm of the Spanish Inquisition began (a decade before, the Inquisition had targeted the Jews and the Moors of Granada). Forced baptisms of the Moors, or 'conversos" as both Muslim and Jewish converts were known, began. The Inquisinon quickly escalated until 1568 when simple political and social pressure became brute force. By 1582, under King Phillip II, thousands of Moors, including many converses, were exiled, with a significant number garroted and burned at the stake. During this same period, the Portuguese kings Joao (John) III, Sabastiao (Sebastian), and Phillip III were engaging in the same anti-Moor activities in Portugal. In fact, Portugal's Inquisition was far more vicious than Spain's. The last execution for heresy did not occur until 1826.

It was a time of great horror and inhumanity, akin to the early American witchhunts, the wholesale slaughter of the Russian kulaks, or the Jewish Holocaust. Streams of escaping or exiled Moors made their way abroad. Large numbers of Christianized Moriscoes were permitted to emigrate to the Canary Islands. Thousands made their way to France (where they became Huguenots and later legitimately emigrated to South Carolina), as well as to Tunisia and Morocco in North Africa. In North Africa the Berbers who had escaped the Inquisition often joined with the Moorish and Turkish pirates of the Barbary (Berber) Coast to wreak havoc on their former oppressors. The Spanish and Portuguese [waged] naval warfare against the unrelenting Moors and the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire well into the 1600s, with both sides filling their galleys with oarsmen captured from each other.

During this time, the Spanish and Portuguese were laying claim to the New World. South America, the Caribbean and Florida were the focus of heavy Spanish and Portuguese colonization, and historians have paid much attention to this vast effort. Less attention, however, has been paid to the substantial settlements by the Spanish in La Florida, or what became Georgia and the Carolinas. One such settlement, a colony consisting of hundreds, if not thousands, of Iberian men, women and children, was Santa Elena, near present-day Beaufort, South Carolina, or possibly on nearby Parris Island. Although most present-day Southeasterners know little, if anything, about the Santa Elena colony, it provided the 16th-century Spanish with a base for their operations in the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee.

In 1566, Captain Juan Pardo, a Spanish officer of Portuguese origin, recruited some 200 soldiers, probably from the mountains of northern Spain and Portugal (the Galician Mountains) and brought them to Santa Elena. Pardo assigned these "soldier-settlers" to a series of four, or perhaps five, forts in northern Georgia, western North Carolina [and] eastern Tennessee. Historian J. G. Hollingsworth suggests, for example, that Pardo left 30 soldiers in a fort in what is now Surry County, North Carolina, part of the old Indian territory of "Xula" (or Joara, as it was called by the Spanish). More intriguing is Hollingsworrh's contention that the Spanish continued to operate a fort and a mine as late as 1670 near present-day Lincolnton, North Carolina.

Then Pardo returned to Spain. Two and a half years later, he again sailed to Santa Elena, this time possibly bringing the wives and children of a number of these soldiers. Santa Elena, after all, was to be a permanent settlement [which] required more than single male soldiers.

What is of great interest here is that if these soldiers were indeed required from either the Galician Mountains or southern Spain, then there is every likelihood that they and their families were of mixed Berber, Jewish and Basque heritage. While they were undoubtedly "conversos' and practicing, believing Catholics (Spain's policy was to send only Catholics to settle new territories), they conceivably could have been less-than-equal citizens in a Spain and Portugal intent on "Reconquest." Even more importantly, they also would have been far easier recruits for resettlement in the New World than the so-called "native" Iberians, or those from more "pure" or wealthier families.

Indeed, in 1568, just one year after their emigration to Santa Elena, the Inquisition against the Moors went into high gear. It is quite possible that these soldiers and their families took advantage of an opportunity to leave before the going got even tougher. That young Christian men of Moorish origin were being recruited for New World service is well known.

Regardless of their ethnic mix, these soldier/settlers, and likely later their families, never returned to Santa Elena proper. There is some evidence from the documents of the Archives of Seville that at least some of these settlers were still holding the forts nearly 20 years later, around the time that Santa Elena finally died. The increasing onslaught of the British and their allied Indians made life very difficult for the Spanish in South Carolina.

In 1587 the remaining settlers [at Santa Elena] burned the village and sailed south to St. Augustine, Florida, where Spanish domination was still intact. However, there is strong evidence that large numbers of the settlers abandoned the colony and escaped into the hinterland, and we know that those stationed at Pardo's outlying forts were certainly left behind. While some previous researchers have concluded- without evidence- that there were no survivors, this would seem highly unlikely. Of course there were survivors! It seems ludicrous to expect that every single Iberian left behind was wiped out. Historians have had no problem in accepting early Anglo survivors among the Indians. So why not Spanish or Portuguese?

FOR SOME TIME I had known of the existence of Muslim "Melungeons" in 16th-century South America, particularly Portuguese Brazil. These people, usually captured in skirmishes with the Portuguese or Spanish in the Mediterranean, had been transported to South America for forced labor. They referred to themselves as "mulango," or, as pronounced in Portuguese, "Muh-lun-zhawn." However, connecting these South American "Mulangos," or Melungeons, with their possible North Amencan counterparts seemed a daunting if not impossible task. That is, [until I learned] that in 1586 Sir Francis Drake had quite possibly deposited large numbers of South American Muslims on Roanoke Island, just off the coast of present-day North Carolina.

According to David Beers Quinn, editor of The Roanoke Voyages, Drake had captured as many as 500 Moors, South American Indians of both sexes, Spanish and Portuguese soldiers, and a small number of Negro slaves during his South American expedition. And apparently the Moors comprised by far the largest proportion of these "prisoners." In actuality, the Moors, who were practicing Muslims, would have considered themselves rescued from their Spanish and Portuguese oppressors. And Drake's plans for these people indicate his recognition of their sentiment. He was considering using them in some fashion against his Spanish adversaries in the Caribbean. Extant records show, in fact, that he had decided to plant them in Cuba as a colony to interfere with further Spanish settlements. However, storms kept Drake from reaching Cuba and his ships instead sailed northward along the American coast.

He arrived at Roanoke Island, just off the North Carolina shores, where large numbers of English soldiers implored him to take them home to England. To make room on his ships for the English garrison on Roanoke Island, it is believed that Drake may (and I emphasize the word may) have deposited most of these captives on the island or the nearby coast. The only record of any of these Moors reaching England is that there were apparent later negotiations to send home from England some 100 ex-galley slaves to the "Turkish dominions." The "Turkish dominions" would certainly indicate "Moors" or "Muslims," and the figure of 100 is substantially less than the total number of onginal captives. In any event, it is highly unlikely that Drake would have executed these people, and later English ships were unable to locate any of them.

And, the genenc makeup of these captives (that is, Iberian, Moorish, and South American Indian) fits perfectly with the known genetic profile of the American Melungeons. It would also explain both the "Melungeon" and "Portyghee" connection offered by our ancesrors, something that a purely Iberian origin does less satisfactorily. Indeed, history records that these South Arnerican "Melungeons" almost invariably spoke Portuguese and on more than one occasion were freed on distant, uninviting shores by their Portuguese captors. One can easily understand the Portuguese and Spanish ranonale for freeing such unwanted 'settlers" on North Amencan shores: it was one more headache for their English adversaries to deal with.

Another fascinating piece of evidence: In September 1671, Thomas Batts, Thomas Wood and Robert Fallen. along with other English explorers left Petersburg, Virginia, under a commission to seek a quicker route to the so-called "South Sea." According to historian Lewis Preston Summers, assisting them on their journey was 'Perachute, a great man of the Appomattox Indians," who served as their guide. The Appomattox were closely related to the Powhatan and Pamunkey tribes, and "Parachute" may well have shared a Moorish/Portuguese heritage (assuming Drake's captives had indeed made their way inland).

But what is of real interest here is that some four days into the trip, near the present-day Virginia town of Brookneal, Thomas Woods sent a tired or injured horse back to Petersburg by a man simply referred to as a "Portugal." Brookneal lies in southcentral Virginia, berween Lynchburg and South Boston, and in the 1670s was populated by the remnants of the Powhatan, Pamunkey and other related "Jamestown" Indian people. Was this so called "Portugal" simply a Powhatan or Pamunkey going by his other heritage? Whatever the case, here we have, in 1671, a reported "Portugal" in the employ of Virginia explorers. And there are many similar stories.

HOW DO WE make sense of all this? Is there a general, understandable theory of who the Melungeons really are? The answer is a resounding Yes!

I contend that the remnants of Joao ("Juan") Pardo's forts, joined by refugees from Santa Elena, and possibly a few stray Dominicans and Jesuits, exiled Moorish French Huguenots and escaped Acadians, along with Drake's and perhaps other freed Moorish and Iberian captives, survived on these shores, combined forces over the ensuing years, moved to the hinterlands, intermarried with various Carolina and Virginia Native Americans, and eventually became the reclusive Melungeons. I as strongly contend that the Moorish element was at least in the beginning the predominant one, explaining why the probably Moorish self-descriptive term "Melungeon" came to be associated with the various populations regardless of their location.

Certainly if Drake's Moors were primarily men, the tendency for their children to adopt the father's heritage would be (1) strong, given the patrilineal tradition of the Moors, [EDITORIAL NOTE: One historian strongly suggests a modification of this assertion.] and (2) as a result of this tendency, would better explain the widespread dissemination of the so-called "Melungeon" heritage. Several hundred Moonsh men could leave quite a genetic and cultural heritage after but one generation, to say nothing of the estimated 14 generations since their arrival. Additionally, the accompanying claim to be "Portyghee" fits with both the South American Moors and the Pardo/Santa Elena components as well. Portuguese or not, it would have been the smartest "politically correct" heritage for either group to claim given the circumstances of the times.

Moreover, the physical resemblance between members of my own family and the Berbers or Turks of today is stunning. I was particularly taken with a recent photo essay in National Geographic, that, excepting the desert attire, could have been a Melungeon family reunion on Stone Mountain (Virginia) or Newman's Ridge (Tennessee). Over the years, additional non-Melungeon admixtures included Scots-Irish, English, German and African. But wherever they migrated, they continued to carry with them the stories of their "Melungeon" and "Portyghee" origins, just as, centuries later, many Americans still proudly proclaim their Irish or German or English roots, despite the countless intermarriages that have transpired since those first immigrations. My own legitimate surname of Kennedy makes me proud to be "Irish," but "Irish" in no way truly describes who I am.

The steadily accumulating evidence is heavily in favor of a mixed Iberian-Moorish-Native American heritage for the "Melungeons." Melungeon given names from the earliest-known encounters are strikingly Mediterranean when compared to their Scorch- Irish neighbors: Louisa, Helena, Navarrh, Salena, Salvadore, Mahala, Alonso. Sylvester, Eulalia. Elvas and Canara were names present among the earliest-known Melungeons.

"Canara," unknown among other Anglo Appalachian families, is especially intriguing. The name "Canaira" (pronounced the same as Canara) has been in my family at least since the 1700s. It is the name of a village in northern Portugal, as well as the surname of a principal Spanish monk assigned to the Southeast during the time of the Santa Elena colony.

The name "Eulalia" (Yulyu or "Yo-leyah") is Arabic for the month of July and also the name of an ancient, well-known church in Spain. "Elves" is the name of a town in eastern Portugal. (Yes. Elvis Presley had North Carolina roots; his family left western North Carolina in the early 1800s.)

We have access to many of the surnames of the Santa Elena colonists, and the resemblance of these names to the most-common and best-known Melungeon surnames is astonishing. [Spanish-Portuguese names such as Bela, Caudillo, Chavez, Lopez and Navarro have clear similarities to Melungeon names such as Bell, Caudill, Chavis, Lopes and Navarrh.]

The location of the first-known Melungeons in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee meshes logically in fact almost perfectly, with the expected location of any survivors of Santa Elena and/or Pardo's outposts. It would also fit remarkably well with a westward sweep of Drake's Moors, a people intent on reaching the safety of the interior. The Melungeons themselves were called the "Mecca Indians" in the late 1700s.

The number of Melungeons apparently present in the late 1700s (estimated at 2,000 in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia alone) would, in order to justify itself, probably need an original population base of at least 200 in the late 1500s. Pardo's surviving soldier-settlers probably equalled, at least originally, that number, and certainly would have with an infusion from Drake's captives and other Iberians thought to have been in the region. A tenfold increase over two centuries, given the rugged lifestyle of the Appalachians, would not be unreasonable. In fact, it may be a gross underestimate.

The word "Melungeon" itself has now been shown to not be so mysterious after all. This 16th-century African-Portuguese (Barber/Moorish) word meaning "white person" had been present in the Appalachians since the Melungeons were first encountered. Later, when being legally declared a 'Melungeon" meant losing one's land and self-esteem, the Melungeons did indeed come to resent the term. But this late-dare resentment was somehow misinterpreted by a few recent historians as proof that the term originated outside the Melungeon community. It did not. It probably came to the New World with those who used it to describe themselves, and its very existence in the southern Appalachians, for at least two and probably more than four centuries, is so revelational that it could be considered a candidate for the "smoking gun" in the search for the identity of the Melungeons.

Portuguese diplomat Louis de Sousa adds that West Africans used the word "mulango" to refer to white people. "They meant Portuguese," says de Sousa, "because Portuguese are the first white people they would have encountered." That the term, originally intended to describe the Portuguese, should come to be used by West and North Africans to describe themselves, is not so puzzling. Just as we Appalachian Melungeons tried to pass as "English," so too did the captured Africans try to pass as "Portuguese," bur using their own word (which for the captives also came to be synonymous with "comrade" or "shipmate").

But even though the word is considered "Afro-Portuguese," it was never an accepted term in standard Portuguese. It was a word used by a disenfranchised class to describe themselves. And it undoubtedly existed in several forms, depending on whether the speaker was Moroccan, Portuguese Berber, Arab, Turkish or West African. The real key may lie within the Berber language. Berber is a significantly different language than either Portuguese or Arabic, and little understood by outsiders. Even the African word may share the same etymological root as the French "meange." But most amazing, "melun can" (pronounced exactly the same as "Melungeon") is an old Turkish/Arabic term meaning "one whose soul has been cursed." And the Moors captured by Drake were undoubtedly Turks. In short, there is little doubt that the term is Mediterranean and probably Middle Eastern.

Recent genetic studies show an undeniable link between the Melungeon people and the Mediterranean. A 1990 reanalysis of blood samples taken in 1969 from 177 Melungeon descendants concludes that the "results are consistent with the Melungeon tradition that they are Portuguese." Among those populations showing no significant differences from the Melungeons were population groups in the Galician area of Spain and Portugal, the Canary Islands, Italy, North Africa, Turkey, Malta and Cyprus. Furthermore, significant genetic relationships also appear to be present between the Melungeons of Tennessee and Virginia and certain Indian populations in South America and Cuba. Perhaps Drake really did leave those people on Roanoke Island! Amazing "coincidences," but perfectly in line with what the first Melungeons had so persistently claimed.

This same 1990 blood-sample analysis also showed a 10 percent similarity to Native Americans-what one would expect from limited intermarriage. Surprisingly, it revealed no significant relationship to sub-Saharan Africans. However, I am personally confident that we possess at least some "black" genetic heritage, and that possibly other Melungeon population groups would show a greater genetic relationship than those in Tennessee and Virginia.

Melungeon descendants show a heavy propensity toward such Mediterranean diseases as thalassemia familial Mediterranean fever, Macharo-Joseph disease and sarcoidosis. We are presently documenting cases of Appalachian Melungeons with both sarcoidosis and thalassemia, and suspect that our findings in this area will greatly impact the medical community's understanding of sarcoidosis among us so-called "Caucasians."

Thalassemia, incidentally, is most common in Portugal, Italy and Greece, and among Americans with Mediterranean heritages. Sarcoidosis is also present among the Portuguese, especially those with a link to the Canary Islands, as well as North Africans.

[Finally], the colonists at Santa Elena included metallurgists and others whose primary task was to reconnoiter for precious metals, and to refine and work them once found. The Moors of Spain, Portugal and North Africa were known for their metalworking, having in fact taught the art to the Iberians. The Melungeons have long been known for their silver-smelting abilities, as well as metalworking in general. My great great grandfather went to prison for counterfeiting "Spanish milled dollars."

WHILE THE Santa Elena/Joao Pardo theory explains a substantial part of our ancestry, it does not explain all of it. The history of the Powhatan/Pamunkey Indians is equally important in gaining a sense of our total roots. In fact, it is likely that the Melungeons are a blend of the Powhatans, the Lumbees and the Santa Elena colonists, with a strong Moorish element present in all three. There is ample evidence, based on surnames. migratory patterns, and heretofore unavailable family genealogies that a substantial admixture occurred in the midto late-1600s between the North Carolina "Melungeons" and the westwardly migrating Powhatans and Pamunkeys. Such a mixing would have been both natural and desirable for population groups fleeing oppression, and particularly so given the probable common Iberian-Moorish-Indian ancestry of both groups.

Neither the Powhatans nor the Pamunkeys were reluctant to intermarry with other cultures. We know from historical records that Jamestown Englishmen early on intermarried with these two tribes? the best known being John Rolfe who married the Powhatan princess Pocahontas (whose Indian name was Matoaka). [Historian] Kirkpatrick Sale indicates that, between 1618 and 1622, the general incidence of intermarriage may have been much higher than historians have heretofore reported, given the amazingly high number of Virginia colonists who, despite meticulous record keeping, remain unaccounted for. Sale comments that "it may be assumed that an embarrassingly high number of good Englishmen decided to become good Indians."

But the British soon turned on the Powhatans and by 1646, of the original 40,000 estimated Powhatan-Pamunkey-Chickahominy people, less than 5,000 remained. By the time of the 1669 Colonial Census, a mere 2,000 were left, most of whom survived as "appendages to White settlements." In 1685 the Powhatans were said to be extinct, but their survivors probably had continued to move westward, intermarrying with other dispossessed people, and carrying with them the English surnames claimed through those early Jamestown intermarriages (for example, Adams, Adkins, Carter, Cook, Green, Hall, Sampson, Swett, Williams, and so forth). And if these decimated Virginia tribes also possessed Iberian and Turkish/Moorish culture and genes, the stage is set for a legitimate source of Moorish-Indian-European "Melungeons."

[Then] as the Scots-Irish increasingly made their way into North Carolina, large numbers of Melungeons were forced to pull up stakes, moving northward through the New River Valley of Virginia into the isolated area now known as Greenbriar County, West Virginia. A few families stopped off in Grayson County, Virginia, and then in the 1780s and 1790s, under extreme pressure from additional Anglo settlers, remnants of both groups returned to the forlorn mountains of eastern Tennessee and extreme southwestern Virginia. To later historians it would seem that the Melungeons were only then arriving in what would become the most famous Melungeon territories of Hancock County, Tennessee, and Lee and Wise Counties, Virginia.

Unfortunately, because of limited historical and genealogical knowledge, some of these historians erroneously concluded that the Melungeons originated at that late date, the theory being that the Melungeons were entirely a late 18th-century, east Tennessee phenomenon, a small, isolated population resulting from some limited intermarriages between whites, blacks and Indians. A 'triracial isolate," if you will. The truth was entirely different, of course.

By far the largest contingency of "true" Iberian settlers (that is, those officially sent by Spain to settle the New World) probably pushed northward from Santa Elena until, after several decades or more, they at last reached northeast Georgia and Ashe, Yancey, Surry, and Allegheny counties, North Carolina. There they remained, mixing with the migrating Powhatan-Moorish people, and other Native Americans, from the early 1600s to the early 1700s.

Tracking the movements of Melungeon families is not easy, even for us Melungeons. Since we moved from region to region, and intermarried with so many diverse cultures, it becomes unmistakably clear that while we are still in many ways different from other Southerners, neither are we any longer exactly like the first Melungeons. Time and population movements change who we are. Ethnicity is a dynamic, ever-changing concept - to "define" it with any certainty may be asking the impossible. And in all honesty, the history of the Melungeons is a strong argument for not attempting to define it at all.

We truly are, at least today, a melange of many peoples, and that is our great strength. We are living proof that people of all colors and races can live together in peace and harmony, and that the resultant blend can be far superior to the individual pasts. And we are further proof that all human beings harbor a racial diversity, known or unknown, that truly ties them to all other human beings. It is an indisputable point. We are all the same.

Excerpted from The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People, by N. Brent Kennedy with Robyn Vaughan Kennedy, published by Mercer University Press, 6316 Peake Road, Macon, Georgia 31210-3960.

Permission from Brent Kennedy to use this excerpt was given to Dee Randall.

THE MELUNGEON HEALTH EDUCATION AND SUPPORT NETWORK:
http://www.melungeonhealth.org
Nancy Sparks Morrison says
"This Melungeon Health Site is dedicated to the health of those Melungeons descendants
who have one or more of the 5 major Mediterranean illnesses
that are inherited through the Melungeon connection.

Tracing Heritage Through disease
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,53256,00.html

FRONTLINE ARTICLE REGARDING GIBSON'S & BLURRING OF RACIAL LINES

OTHER ARTICLES OF INTEREST

Page Updated:
July 21, 2003