Numbers: Estimated to be upwards of 5,000.

Organization: Family groups only. Family names are Casalony, Cisco, De Groat, De Vries, Mann, Van Dunk, etc.

Environment and Economy: These are mainly a hill people of the Ramapo Hills. They raise a few crops at favorable spots and do hunting. Many have migrated to the lowlands and to industrial and mining areas.

Physique: In some areas apparently pure white types are found while in others negroid types dominate. Inn still other areas Indian mixed types seem to predominate. Albinism and deformities have been indicated.

In-Marriage: Due to environmental limitations this has been marked.

Religion: Protestant in the main. Presbyterians have had a mission among these people.

Schools: In New jersey, white schools have been attended. No data on New York. Tend to concentrate in a few schools.

Military Draft Status: No data.

Voting and Civil Rights: No data.

Relief: No data.

Cultural Peculiarities: Dialectic peculiarities, home-made utensils, folklore.

Social Status: Regarded as “colored” by white neighbors.

History: Traditionally derived from Tuscarora and Munsee Indians, Hessians, English, Negroes from West Indies, etc. First described by Speck in 1911.

Donoghue, Frank L. “Jackson Whites Tribal Reserve Broken By War,” New York Journal American (March 24, 1942), pp. 226-229.

Frazier, E. Franklin, The Negro Family in the United States (Chicag, 1940), pp. 226-229.

“The Jackson Whites,” Eugenical News, XVI, No. 12 (Dec., 1931), p. 218.

“Native Sons,” Letters, Time, Inc. Vol. II, No. 15 (July 22, 1935), p. 1-2.

The Negro in New Jersey. Report of a Survey by the Interracial Committee of the New Jersey Conference on Social Work in Cooperation with the State department of institutions and Agencies (Dec., 1932), p. 22.

Speck, Frank G. “The Jackson Whites,” The Southern Workman (Feb., 1911) pp. 104-107.

Storms, J. G. Origin of the Jackson Whites of the Ramapo Mountains (Park Ridge, N.J., 1936), MSS.

Swital, Chet. “In the Ramapos.” Letters. Time, Inc. Vol. II, No. 15 (July 22, 1935), pp. 1-2.

Terhune, Albert Payson. treasure (New York, 1926).

“Twelve toes race of People Bred in North Jersey’s ‘Lost Colony,’” Philadelphia Record, June 6, 1940, p. 1.

U. S. Federal Writers Project. New jersey: a Guide to the Present and Past. (New York, 1939), pp. 124, 505.

U. S. Writers Program, New Jersey. Bergen County Panorama (Hackensack, New Jersey, 1941), pp. 179-180, 305.

“Who are the Jackson Whites?” The Pathfinder (Sept. 5, 1931), p. 20.

Numbers: Estimated to run from 5,000 to 10,000. Birthrate high.

Organization: Family groups only. Original family names were Collins, Gibson or Gipson, Goins, Mullins or Mellons. Other names mentioned are Bolen, Denhan, Freeman, Gann, Gorvens, Graham, Noel, Piniore, Sexton,Wright.

Environment and Economy: Originally pioneer cultivators in the Appalachian Valley lowlands they were said to be driven to the ridge by the white settlers. Newman’s Ridge, Clinch Mountain, Copper Ridge, and the Cumberland Range in eastern Tennessee were their chief habitats. Their means of living originally included hunting, fishing, ginseng root gathering, herb gathering, charcoal burning, and in the very earliest times river boat carriage and cattle driving.

Physique: Characteristics range between Indian, white, and occasional negroid types. Stoic endurance of out-of-doors life notable.

In-Marriage: Considerable intermarriage with whites in recent times. Originally married only within the group.

Religion: .Presbyterians have had missions among them for many years at Vardy and Sycamore (Sneedville P. O.) in Tennessee. Some are Baptists. Hymns peculiar to mountain folk sung.

Schools: Attend white schools in Franklin, Marion, and Rhea counties in Tennessee after winning lawsuits regarding their racial classification. In southwest Virginia attend white school when they go at all. Most are said to be illiterate.

Military Draft Status: Illiteracy is said to be a bar to their military service in some places.

Voting and Civil Rights: Disfranchised in Tennessee by Constitution of 1834. Have voted since the Civil War. Republican in politics.

Relief: Were given food and clothing in Virginia during the Depression of the 1930’s.

Cultural Peculiarities: Magic and folklore said to be important. Funeral rites formerly involved building a small house over a fresh grave.

Social Status: Said to approximate the white level in many areas today.

History: Several theories or origin. Some derive from the Croatans, some from Portuguese, Negro, and Indian ancestry. Appeared in east Tennessee shortly after the American revolution. First modern notice under the name “Melungeon” in 1889.

Aswell, Jas. R., E. E. Miller, et. al. God Bless the Devil: Liar’s Bench tales (Chapel Hill, N. C., 1940), pp. 207-243.

Ball, Mrs. Bonnie S. America’s Mysterious race. Read vol. 16 (May 1944), pp. 64-67.

Ball, Mrs. Bonnie S. “Mystery Men of the Mountains,” Negro Digest 3 (Jan., 1945), pp. 64-67.

Ball, Mrs. Bonnie S. “Virginia’s Mystery race,” Virginia State Highway Bulletin 2, no. 6 (April 1945), pp. 5-7.

Ball, Mrs. Bonnie S. “Who Are the Melungeon?” Southern Literary Messenger 3, no. 2 (June 1945), pp. 5-7.

Burnett, Swan M. “A Note on the Melungeon,” American Anthropologist 2 (Oct., 1889), pp. 347-349.

Caldwell, Joshua W. Studies in the Constitutional History of Tennessee. 2nd ed. (Cincinnati, 1907), pp. 115, 185, 213.

Century Dictionary and Encyclopedia. (New York, 1906), “Melungeon” defined, vol. 5, p. 3702.

Converse, Paul D. “The Melungeons,” Southern Collegian (Dec., 1912), pp. 59-69.

Converse, Paul D. “The Melungeons,” Dictionary of American History (New York, 1940), pp. 371-372.

Crawford, Bruce. “Letters to the editor.” Coalfield Progress (Norton, Va. July 11, 1940).

Crawford, Bruce. “Hills of Home” (fiction), Southern Literary Messenger, 2,no. 5 (May 1940) pp. 302-313.

Dromgoole, Miss Will Allen. “The Malungeons,” The Arena, 3 (March 1891), pp. 470-479.

Dromgoole, Miss Will Allen. “The Malungeon Tree and Its Branches,” The Arena, 3 (May, 1891), pp. 745-775.

Hale, W. T. and Merritt, D. L. A History of Tennessee and Tennesseeans (2 vols,. Chicago, 1913), 1, chapt. 16, “The Melungeons of East Tennessee,” pp. 179-196.

Haun, Mildred. The Hawk’s Done Gone. (New York, 1940), pp. 15-16, 145-166.

Heiskell, Mrs. Eliza N. “Strange People of East Tennessee, “ Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock, Jan. 14, 1912), p. 11, cols. 3-7.

Journal of the Convention of the State of Tennessee convened for the purpose of amending the Constitution thereof. Held at Nashville (Nashville, Tenn., 1834), pp. 88-89.

King, Lucy S. V. Article in the Nashville American, 98th Anniversary Number, 37, no. 12717 (Nashville, June 26, 1910).

“Melungeons, The” Boston Traveller (April 13, 1889), p. 6, cols. 5, 6.

Moore, J. T. and Foster, A. P., eds. Tennessee, the Volunteer State, 1769-1923 (5 vols,, Chicago, 1923), I, pp. 790-791.

Mynders, A. D. “Next to the News” Chattanooga Times (June 17, 1945), Sect. 2, p. 10. col. 3.

Report on Indians Taxed and Indians not Taxed in the United States at the 11th Census, 1890 (Wash. D.C., Dep’t of the Interior, Census Office, 1894), p. 391

Shepherd, Judge Lewis. Romantic Account of the Celebrated Melungeon Case. Reproduced typewritten copy of article inChattanooga Times, 1914. Said to be part of a small book of memoirs of the author.

United States Writers Project. Tennessee, a guide to the State (New York, 1939), “Melungeons in Oakdale, Tennessee,” p. 362.

Weeks, S. B. “Lost Colony of Roanoke,” Papers of the American Historical Association, 5 (1891), footnote pp. 132-133.

Wilson, Goodridge. “The Southwest Corner,” Roanoke Times (Feb. 25, 1934).

Wilson, Samuel T. The Southern Mountaineers (New York, 1906), p. 11

Numbers: Moors about 500 in Delaware, Nanticokes about 700.

Organizations: Nanticokes are incorporated. Moors have no organization other than the family. Moor family names are Carney or Corney, Carter, Carver, Cioker, Dean, Durham, Hansley or Hansor, Hughes, Morgan, Mosley, Munce, Reed,.Ridgeway, Sammon, and Seeny. Nanticoke family names are Bumberry, Burke, Burton, Clarke, Cormeans, Coursey, Davis, Drain, Hansor, Harmon, Hill, Jackson, Johnson, Kimmey, Layton, Miller, Morris, Moseley, Newton, Norwood, Reed, Ridgeway, Rogers, Sockum, Street, Thomas, Thompson, Walker, and Wright.

Environment and Economy: Originally both groups may have been swamp hunters and fishers. Now are truck farmers.

Physique: Indian, white, and negro types occur. Drooped eyelids inherited in the family strain.

In-Marriage: Customary.

Religion: Protestants. Some sections among Nanticokes have own churches.

Schools: Moors attend colored schools. Nanticokes have own school with teacher paid by the state.

Military Draft Status: No data.

Voting and Civil Rights: No data.

Cultural peculiarities: Utensils and implements formerly made locally by the Nanticokes. These people also have their own medicine and folklore.

Relief: Not needed apparently.

Social Status: Uncertain.

History: Nanticokes first noticed about 1889, Moors about 1895.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edit., 1910-11, v. 7, p. 948, article “Delaware.”

Fisher, George P. “The So-Called Moors of Delaware,” Milford (Del.) , June 15, 1895.

Frazier, E. Franklin. The Negro Family in the United States (Chicago, 1940), pp. 229-231.

Negro in New Jersey, The. Trenton 1932. Section on Moors, p. 21.

Speck, Frank G. Indians of the Eastern Shore of Maryland (1922), n.p.

Weslager, C. A. Delaware’s Forgotten Folk (New York, 1943).

Numbers: Considerably over 3,000 and with a tendency to rapid increase.

Organization: Family groups and settlements. There are a limited number of French family names.

Environment and Economy: The coastal groups are farmers, sugar cane workers, cattle raisers, hunters and fishers. Those on the inland prairies are farmers raising corn and other crops. The groups at Slidell north of Lake Pontchartrain seem to merge gradually into the Cajans of southern Mississippi.

Physique: Mixed French, Indian, Anglo-Saxon, and Negro.

In-Marriage: Tendency to marry within the group has long been marked.

Religion: Mainly Roman Catholic. Some Baptists.

Schools: Colored or special.

Miltiary Draft: No data on classification by color.

Voting and Civil Rights: No data.

Relief: No data.

Cultural Peculiarities: Many old Indian customs and traits preserved.

Social Status: Once treated as full social equals by the French, they have long since fallen into the status of Mulattoes in some parts, of Indians in other places.

History: Derive from early border conflicts of authority and the banishment of mixed race persons from Texas. Intermarriage of French and Indians a marked feature of colonial period.

Shugg, Roger W. Origin of the Class Struggle in Louisiana (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1939), pp. 43-45.

U.S. Writers Program of the WPA, Louisiana, a Guide to the State (1941), pp. 80, 638.

Numbers:Evidence available seems to indicate from 3,000 to 5,000. They have a high birth rate.

Organization: None beyond family groups. Family names are Butler, Harley, Linkins, Mason, Newman, Proctor, Queen, Savoy, Swan, and Thompson.

Environment and Economy: Are primarily tenant farmers or small landowners growing tobacco and other crops. Near the city they are truck farmers and in town are artisans, petty traders, and repairmen. Originally located near the Zekiah and other swamps many are still excellent fishermen.

Physique: Characteristically white and Indian with occasional marked Negroid types. Albinism, short teeth, hereditary deafness, and nervous disorders occur in some strains.

In-Marriage: A marked characteristic for many years.

Religion: Manly Roman Catholic as are the whites and Negroes who adjoin them.

Schools: Attend negro schools but in one or two neighborhoods a majority of school attendance is made up of children from this group.

Military Draft Status: Some are classified as white, others as Negroes.

Voting and Civil Rights: – Appear to have voted freely for a long period. Formerly Democrats they have tended to be Republican for the last 50 years.

Relief: Not much given to them.

Cultural Peculiarities: Folk medicines and herbalism, animal nicknames, annual festival on August 15th.

Social Status: Somewhat above that of the Negro but below the white.

History: Appear to be in part descended from several small Indian tribes of colonial times. The name originated about 1890. Romantic legends of Spanish shipwrecked sailors, French-Canadian traders, etc. Family names connected with the “free colored” or “free mulatto” names of 1790.

Dodsen, Linda S. and Woolley, Jane. “Community Organization in Charles County, Maryland,” Md. Agric. Exp. Sta. Bull. No. A21 (College Park, Maryland, Jan. 1943), p. 297 et al.

Footner, Hulbert. Maryland and the Eastern Shore (New York, 1942), p. 357.

Gilbert, Wm. H. Jr. “The Wesorts of Southern Maryland, An Outcasted Group,” Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, 35, no. 8 (Aug. 15, 1945), pp. 237-246

Hodge, F. W. 35th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1913-14 (Wash. D. C., 1921), p. 17.

Maynard, Theodore. The Story of American Catholicism (New York, 1941), p. 76.

Semmes, Raphael. Captains and Mariners of Early Maryland (Baltimore, 1937), p. 303.

Warner, Eugene. “Upper Marlboro is Proud of Its Old Charming Homes,” Washington Times-Herald (Aug. 28, 1939), p. 11.

White, Roxana. “They Stand Alone: The Wesorts of Charles County,” The Sun (Baltiimore, Nov. 12, 1939), sec. 1, p. 2.

Massachusetts: Mashpee, Pequot, Wampanoag
Rhode Island: Narragansetts
Connecticut: Mohegan, Pequot
New York: Shinnecock, Poosepatuck
Virginia: Adamstown Indians, Chickahominy, Issues, Mattapony, Nansemond, Rappahannock, Skeetertown Indians, etc.
North Carolina: Machepunga
Alabama: Creeks
Mississippi: Choctaw
Louisiana: Houma, Chitimacha, Choctaw, Coushatta

These groups, together with those already scetched in this memorandum would, if thoroughly studied, provide the answer to a number of questions. For one thing they should demonstrate how detribalization affects Indians and what becomes of Indians presumably “freed” from the supervision of the Federal Government or never really under its jurisdiction. These examples show how outcast or pariah peoples come into existence and provide a ready parallel to the Untouchables of India and the Eta of Japan.

It is extremely urgent that a program be devised as soon as possible for the assimilation and betterment of the condition of these native American backward minorities. It is true that much good work along those lines has already been done religious bodies and private agents but the real solution of the problem must await public recognition and government. A local, State, and Federal policy will have to be developed after the public conscience has been awakened to the need. And this awakening rests on a thorough investigation and widespread public knowledge concerning these groups.

A strange product of the mingling of races which followed the British entry into North America survives in the presence of a number of localized strains of peoples of mixed ancestry. Presumed to be part white with varying proportions of Indian and Negro blood, ** they are recognized as of intermediate social status, sharing lot with neither white nor colored, and enjoying neither the governmental protection nor the tribal tie of the typical Indian descendants. A high degree of endogamy results from this special status, and their recognition is crystallized in the unusual group names applied to them by the country people.

A few of the Melungeons of today resemble Indians, but more are impossible to distinguish from white mountaineers. A caste distinction persists to a considerable degree, though the Melungeons are not segregated in schools. Melungeons are found in some numbers in Lee, Scott, and Wise County, Virginia, Letcher County, Kentucky, and in Graysville, Tennessee, and occasionally on and west of the Cumberland Plateau. In these more distant localities they are not always identified as Melungeons, but bear the characteristic surnames. Historical records do not supply proof for their likely relationship to the Hancock County group, and some of these other settlements are also very old. The name of Goins is particularly associated with Melungeons living south and west of Hancock County.

The Redbones probably number 3000 or more. They are not segregated in schools, though several rural areas and two or three villages are predominantly Redbone in population. Many of the Redbones have drifted into the towns to take various jobs in recent: years. In spite of the absence of any official recognition or rigid segregation, the Redbones form what is essentially a caste; and they are homogeneous in economic class, the small subsistence farm or labor in forest or mill providing the livelihood.
The term Redbone suggests Indian blood, which is reported to have been evident among some of the older Redbones. The status the Redbones hold and the appearance of many of the Redbones today suggest an admixture of Negro blood. No one is called a Redbone to his face, but the term is universally understood in southwest Louisiana, and the members of a Redbone family will be so tagged as long as they continue to live in the area.

Into this frontier came a free colored man named Reed, said to have been a mulatto from Jamaica; he married a slave woman, also a mulatto, whose freedom he later purchased, (18) and the two operated a cattle-penning center in conjunction with an inn along the road into Mississippi. The Reeds had eight children, 56 grandchildren, and at least 202 great grandchildren; (19) by today the eighth and ninth generation has appeared, and the descent of the Reeds is innumerable. A free colored couple named Byrd, who probably came into the area a little later, are known to have produced 119 great grandchildren, and a Weaver family traced back to two family heads has been equally prolific.

About half of the population of over 2000 Cajans in Mobile and Washington Counties in Alabama bear the names of Weaver, Reid, and Byrd. The descendants of these families were not numerous until after the Civil War, but their previous status of freedom and their mixed race may account for their subsequent separation from the other Negroes. Certainly their rapid growth in numbers and their intermarriage of one family with another help to explain the recognition by the white population which ultimately resulted in borrowing (with a slight rnodification in spelling) the term Cajan from Louisiana to identify them.
Today the Cajans live in a clearly circumscribed rural area of the pine forests containing about 175 square miles. Their children attend special schools provided by the counties. Perhaps another 2000 Cajans have managed to slip into towns or cities where they are not actively thrown with the core of the group.

The Cajans have not only survived, but have steadily grown in this area of change and instability. After the cattlegrazers came the lumber and railroad camps. Geronimo’s Indians were detained at nearby Mt. Vernon in 1890. (20) Each of these transient groups and many others may have contributed blood to the Cajans.

The exhaustion of the forests has left the slim leavings to the Cajans. Many of them are squatters on large landholdings; most of them work in the forest industries, lumbering, turpentining, hauling logs, operating sawmills. Increasing population in an area of depleted resources cannot continue indefinitely. Some of the Cajans leave the region and pass as white in distant localities; these are usually the lighter-skinned. A conservatism tends to hold most of them near home. The emigration has not kept up with the growth by reproduction, but it probably balances occasional intermarriage with whites to keep most of the residual Cajan population moderately dark-skinned.

Several surnames belong almost exclusively to Guineas in this area, but nearly half the group are named Mayle (formerly spelled Mail, Male, etc.). (25) There are several traditions of Indian blood among the Guineas, but the records confirm only the “colored” and mulatto mixtures. The records of the Guineas’ ancestors all trace back to Virginia (then including West Virginia); they were in the western part of the state well before 1800. The mixed-bloods seem to have reached this area from several different directions before their increase to the present population. The Mayles, and perhaps other Guinea families came from Hampshire County, where they may have been people of some means. Just when the Mayle family became mixed-blooded is not clear, but it evidently occurred before 1810, when they had already started moving westward into the Plateau. The census evidence indicates that all of the Mayles of the Guinea group, numbering over 700 in Barbour and Taylor Counties, are either actual or legal descendants of one man. Most of the Guinea settlement in Taylor County has developed from Barbour County in the last two generations, and more recently the Guineas have settled in some numbers in several Ohio cities and in Detroit.

The Nanticoke leaders have recently tried to revive their Indian birthright through the formation of the Nanticoke Indian Association. In spite of the fact that their economy has made use of a surprising number of Indian culture traits, (28) there is little evidence at hand to connect them directly with the aborigines of Delaware. Their claim to Indian status seems neither stronger nor weaker than that of several other mixed-blood groups.

The early history of the Jackson Whites is obscure, and no hypotheses or theories (31) seem to find much confirmation in records. The people seem to have supported themselves on the mountain during the nineteenth century by farming and producing forest products such as charcoal, baskets, barrel staves, brooms, and wooden tools. (32) Missionary work on the mountain and increased job opportunities in the lowlands have made the Jackson Whites a part of modern society. Most of them have moved into the lowland towns and taken jobs in the shops and mills. Segregation in a colored grade school in one of the New York communities was ended in 1947. Traditions among the Jackson Whites themselves indicate either a very diverse ethnic background or a complete confusion over the actual truth.

The groups may have formed around the small lowland Indian tribes as nuclei, picking up both white and Negro blood. (34) Characteristic names are recognized in each locality, but certain names tend to be common in several counties, sometimes linking the South Carolina groups with Croatans and other larger groups. The South Carolina mixed-bloods, on the whole, are said to be making gains toward white status. A number of group names–e.g., Brass Ankles, Redbones; Redlegs, Buckheads, Turks–are applied locally to these peoples. Their social differentiation seems to be a pattern of long standing in South Carolina.

North Carolina is also prominent on the map of mixed-bloods. Its school directory lists 27 Indian schools. (35) Goins is the chief surname among a scattering of alleged mixed-bloods in Surry, Stokes, and Rockingham Counties, North Carolina, and adjoining Patrick County, Virginia. Though one Indian school is maintained for these people, they have, in at least one case, won suit for admission to white schools. Usually they attend white schools and are distinguished only socially by their neighbors. Their total number is at least several hundred. The compact land ownership around Gointown in Rockingham County suggests it as being of longest standing as a center for this strain; land records carry them back in that part of the county to its formation in 1786. A similar situation occurs in Moore County in southern North Carolina with the difference that the Goinses and their associates are classed as Negro, but mix little with other Negroes.

Magoffin County in the Kentucky Mountains has a small mixed-blood population considered to be of Indian mixture. (36) They are noted in the county as mountain farmers with large families whom they are able to maintain without apparent means of support. The people have been in the county as long as records have been maintained. Their surnames have all been associated with Melungeons in the records, though some of the early Magoffin County mixed-bloods were themselves born in Virginia and North Carolina. A colony of the Magoffin County group planted itself near Carmel, Ohio, about the time of the Civil War. At the very edge of the Appalachians, they built their shacks in the hills where they obtained shelter, wood, game, and ginseng, providing farm labor at times on the more fertile plains. Some of the group are now rooted in Carmel, but close contact is yet maintained with relatives in Magoffin County.

Ohio has a second small group living in the rich Corn Belt land of Darks County. Admittedly part Negro, members of this group are descended from ancestors who began settlement there by 1822. A number of families, all of whom came from the southeast, apparently found here an escape from the anomalous position of the free Negro in the slave states. The colony is fairly prosperous although the farms are somewhat smaller than the average about them; subdivision through inheritance probably accounts for this condition.

Other small mixed-blood groups are indicated on the map in Figure 1.

The mixed-blood groups are not closely associated with particular physical refuge areas in most cases; more broadly, however, Figure1 shows that most of them live in the Coastal Plain and Appalachian Provinces–areas generally marginal in soil fertility and irregular in utility, accessibility and settlement. Though typically, but not entirely, a Southern phenomenon, mixed-blood groups are not typical of the old Cotton Belt, but rather outline its edges. Borders of some nature seem to be favorite locations. The Redbones near the old Texas border, the Jackson Whites, Issues, and Carmel groups near borders between hills and plains, the Cajans on the old Spanish frontier, and many groups near state boundaries may be locationally related to the meeting of two worlds.
The conservative nature of these groups is evidenced by the fact that the boys who saw service during the second World War, usually in white units, have regularly returned to their homes. One stream of mixed-bloods does leave the focal areas to pass as white in cities and elsewhere, ultimately losing touch completely with the original group. The home areas often present limited opportunity in the economic niches open to the mixed-bloods. Some expand in a real extent, some in replacing white groups, but generally their populations are restricted, and their increase as identifiable mixed-bloods does not approach their actual reproductive growth.

Many of the mixed-blood groups seem unrelated or unimportantly related one to the other. Perhaps they represent similar responses to similar social conditions, each in a different area. The records of the surnames and birthplaces, however, tie a number of the groups together: the Croatans and many small groups of the Carolinas and Virginia; the Melungeons; the Redbones; the mixed-bloods of Magoffin County; and the two small groups mentioned in Ohio.

Though certain facts concerning the origin of these peoples have been traced, the questions of who they were and why they displayed this unusual clannishness have hardly been touched. The relationships mentioned suggest the hypothesis of a colonial mixed-blood society having origin in Virginia and the Carolinas, consisting of a number of localized concentrations as well as floaters who served to maintain or effect both blood and social ties between the sedentary groups. Though the early groups certainly grew by accretion, chance colonization of a few members of this society in a new location may have been the necessary condition for a new localization of the same type. They seem to have moved westward into and across the Appalachians with the general stream of population. It is difficult to trace specific parenthood of one group by another, but numerous interrelationships are indicated by the records.

It is another class of people, however, that engages the attention of this article – a class more numerous than the Indians remaining in the East, more obscure than those in the West, less assured than the white man or the Negro who regards his link of Indian descent as a touch of the heroic or romantic. The reference is to population groups of presumed triracial descent. Such isolates, bequeathed of intermingled Indian, white, and Negro ancestry, are as old as the nation itself and include not less than 77,000 persons. They live today in more than 100 counties of at least 17 Eastern States with settlements ranging in size from less than 50 persons to more than 20,000. Their existence has furnished material for the writings of local historians, folklorists, journalists, and novelists. Occasionally, they have come to the attention of cultural anthropologists, sociologists, and – here and there – a geographer or educator. Attention to the triracial isolates by geneticists is largely confined to the last three years, however. It is the object of this discussion to describe the nature, location, and status of such Indian-white-Negro groups in Eastern States and to indicate the potential interest they hold for the field of human genetics.1

Although the precise origin of these groups is unknown in most instances, they seem to have formed through miscegenation between Indians, whites, and Negroes – slave or free – in the Colonial and early Federal periods. In places the offspring of such unions – many of which were illegitimate under the law – tended to marry among themselves. Within a generation or so this practice created a distinctly new racial element in society, living apart from other faces. The forces differed from place to place. Some groups subsequently dispersed or were assimilated during the 19th century. Some waxed in numbers, others waned. Most have persisted to the present day.

A majority of the triracial isolates originated in the Atlantic Coastal Plain. Their members were among the early pioneers in the Appalachian Plateaus and the Tennessee River Valley. Many left the South and moved to Northern States such as Ohio and Indiana, especially when restrictive measures were passed against free nonwhite people in Southern States during the 1830’s. Thus it happens that the majority of the groups in the Trans-Appalachian States are related to others remaining in the South Atlantic States, although contact between them has lapsed.2 None of the Northern groups seem to have colonized to the west, however.

The habitat of the mixed-blood people has been typically rural and geographically isolated. It is difficult to find such a settlement that is not associated with a swamp, a hollow, an inaccessible ridge, or the back country of a sandy flatwoods.3 Many modern developments have helped reduce their isolation, but this isolation factor appears to have been of major importance in fostering and perpetuating the existence of the groups. Legal disputes over their racial status for purposes of school attendance, vital statistics registration, and other public matters have been numerous in Southern and Border states. In many groups educational attainment is low, income is inadequate, and reliance on public welfare programs is high. The incidence of illegitimacy, common-law marriage, petty larceny, and other socially disapproved practices has been frequent enough in certain locations to type the racial hybrids unfavorably in the public mind.

The racial status of the triracial people varies greatly, both as conceived in the minds of the people themselves and in the eyes of their white or Negro neighbors. Occasionally they occupy no more than a peculiar status among the Negro population. Some are regarded as a separate race, known either as Indian or by a local colloquial name. Where such is the case in Southern States, they often have their own segregated schools. In North Carolina, where they are most numerous, this practice extends to a separate State college. Other groups have achieved a measure of acceptance as white. It seems impossible to reconstruct for each community the circumstances that have determined the present status. Physical appearance and local traditions of origin may well be the most important.

It is well to make clear that the designation of these groups as triracial is often the conclusion of the investigator rather than a reflection of public opinion in the area concerned. In general all local informants will agree that the mixed population is partly white. (Blue eyes are commonly in evidence to validate this.) The white informant will insist that the mixed-blood people are partly Negro. Perhaps he will agree that they are partly Indian, perhaps not. The mixed-blood individual will usually insist – with vehemence, if necessary – that there is no Negro ancestry in his family (although he may not make this claim for all other families in the settlement) but that he is partly Indian. In a minority of communities unmistakable elements of Indian culture have between found. Presence of Negro ancestry may or may not be evident in some families from the occurrence of Negro hair forms or facial features. If evident, it tends to jeopardize claims of the group to non-Negro status. In sum, the groups described are with few exceptions considered only of white and Indian descent by their members but are regarded to be partly Negro by neighboring whites or Negroes.4 Investigators frequently report the opinion of elderly persons that the average skin color of younger members of triracial isolates is lighter than that of earlier generations. This is not surprising in view of the fact that in most groups social relations with Negroes are discouraged and marriage to a Negro may result in ostracism. Relationships with white persons entail no such group displeasure.

Characterization of the triracial groups has its limitations, for thy have emerged over a large geographic area under varying cultural conditions. With the usual footnote that there are exceptions, it can be said that they are a highly inbred class of people. It is this feature that most warrants the interest of students of human heredity.

The conditions of social and physical isolation – both imposed and voluntary – that fostered the emergence of mixed racial communities typically limited the choice of marriage partners within a relatively small number of surnames. Scattered data on marriage records attest to this. In Halifax County, North Carolina, between 1819 and 1860, 14 out of 29 male members of the leading family in a triracial group for whom marriage bonds were filed married females of the same name.5 Of 35 marriages recorded for persons having the key surnames of a mixed-racial community in Cumberland County, New Jersey, 9 were to spouses of the same surname and 17 to spouses of just one other surname.6 In two families of the so -called “Guinea” community of Barbour and Taylor Counties, West Virginia, 102 of 112 marriages from 1856-1931 were to other persons in the racial isolate (about 11 surnames).7

Presumably as a result of such close marrying practices, genetically determined diseases and defects of unusual frequency have been reported among a number of the triracial isolates. The Jackson Whites of New Jersey have long been noted for albinism and polydactylism.8 Some of the Moors of Delaware suffer from microphthalmia9, and hereditary deformities of the joints are reported among the West Virginia mixed bloods.10

The most notable evidences of inbreeding and hereditary difficulties have been reported for an isolate in Southern Maryland termed colloquially, “Wesorts.” These people number about 4,000, including those in Washington, D.C., of whom at least one-fourth bear one surname, with a dozen names accounting for most of the rest of the population. An excellent measure of consanguinity in the group is provided by the fact that at least 90 percent are Roman Catholic and ecclesiastical dispensation is required by that faith for marriages of known first or second cousins. In one major parish over a 104-year period, one sixth of the marriages involving at least one Wesort required such a dispensation.11

The Indian tribes of Southern Maryland left the area before the end of the 17th century, but some Indians of mixed descent, or married to non-Indians, apparently remained. A triracial group evolved. Some knowledge of the original tribal clan structure was handed down, but the triracial people became part of the larger society as a poor farming and laboring element regarded as colored.

Maintenance of racial separateness by the Maryland group is notable for it has been achieved without the assistance of institutionalized aids such as separate schools and churches. By law the children had to attend the “regular” colored schools. The people have attended the same churches as the general population but for a long period sat by custom in a particular section of the church.

The Wesorts are variable in appearance, including substantial variation within sibships. In general, they are somewhat darker than most of the other triracial peoples, and Negroid hair forms and facial features are not uncommon. However, some can pass as white and as a group they are distinctly lighter and more Caucasian than the neighboring Negro population, which itself has a substantial infusion of white ancestry. Some are pointed out as showing Indian characteristics.

In 1945 Gilbert, a cultural anthropologist, reported on the group and mentioned hereditary difficulties ascribed to it.12 About three years ago, the existence of the group as a distinct breeding population and the widespread incidence of hereditary disease within it were first recognized by medical researchers through admissions to Washington hospitals. An intensive survey of the population was subsequently undertaken under the sponsorship of the National Institutes of health and is still in progress. Results reported from this work indicate exceptionally high incidence of dentinogenisis imperfecta and albinism.13 The former is a dental defect, transmitted as a simple dominant gene, which has various manifestations. It is an unsightly affliction and commonly results in the necessity for full artificial dentures in early adulthood. Many other hereditary conditions such as lop ears, polycystic kidneys, deaf mutism, glaucoma, syndactylism, polydactylism, congenital cataracts, convergent and divergent strabismus (nonparalytic eye squint), and hyperstatic bone disease have been found in the group and are being assessed. Two or more of the conditions often occur in the same person. “Due to several centuries of in-marriage, many genetically recessive traits have become manifest and many genetically dominant traits have become concentrated in certain lines of the clan.”14Fertility is high notwithstanding the heavy load of inheritable handicaps. Cohorts of women of recently completed childbearing averaged better than five and one-half children per female beginning life in the cohort.

It may be that the intensity of inbreeding and notable constellation of hereditary effects evident among the Wesort group will be found to represent the extreme example of such conditions in the Indian-white-Negro isolates.15 In any event, it illustrates persuasively the attention which American triracial isolates merit from geneticists, and which, strangely, they have not previously received.

The statistics in Table 1 show the location, size, and racial status in the 1950 Population Census records of nearly all rural and small town triracial groups know to be still in existence. Folk-names for the groups are also given where known. These data were compiled by the writer while employed by the Bureau of the Census, in order to appraise the results of the Bureau’s efforts to introduce consistency into the classification of triracial isolates. In past censuses, variation in the listing of such groups had produced obvious inconsistencies in race statistics from one census to another. In 1950, the Bureau instructed enumerators to “Report persons of mixed white, Negro, and Indian ancestry living in certain communities in the Eastern United States in terms of the name by which they are locally known.”16 Such persons were then to be classified for publication purposes among “other nonwhite races,” that is, other than Negro, American Indian, Chinese, Japanese, or Filipino.

In 116 counties checked, the population of triracial character was estimated at 77,000 persons, on the basis of race entries, enumerators’ notes, and through the use of extensive surname data on th4e groups assembled from a variety of sources. Of this number, 33,000 were enumerated as Indian, 29,000 as white, 14,000 as Negro, and 1,000 under colloquial race names or with the race entry blank. More than 40 percent of the total live in North Carolina. It was not feasible to make the investigation in cities of more than 20,000 inhabitants. Undoubtedly all of the groups have made some contribution to urban migration, but it is the native rural environment that status as a separate race or endogamous group is most common.

Relatively few instances were noted in the 1950 Census records where enumerators employed colloquial race terms, although there was an increase from previous censuses in the use of “Indian” as the race name for triracial people. On reflection, it is not surprising that colloquial terms were not employed more freely by the enumerators. They exist for the great majority of the groups but are usually offensive to the people so-termed. Examples include: Croatan, Brass Ankle, Red Bone, Red leg, Free Jack, Bushwhacker, Dominicker, Guinea, and Issue. Common politeness or self-interest may have led many enumerators to list groups as Indian or white. Field investigations by the writer and others substantiate that certain of the communities have acquired a public status as white or Indian even though they continue to be regarded informally as having some Negro ancestry. In the numerous instances where the racial status of an isolate has not been static – at least as reflected in census records – the direction of change over the years seems invariably to have gone toward a lighter classification. For example, the so-called “Melungeon” people were commonly listed as mulatto prior to the Civil War. In various censuses after the war Melungeons in many counties were classified as Indian. By 1950, all but a very few of them were listed as white and are known to be accepted officially as part of the white population in their local areas.

Fertility rates in the triracial isolates appear to be exceptionally high. Reliable inferences can be drawn on this subject for those Southern groups who were tabulated in the published reports of the 1950 Census as “other nonwhite races.” This population of 33,000 includes the majority of mixed bloods who were listed as Indian or by a colloquial term in the original schedules but few who were listed as white or Negro. The ratio of children under 5 years old per 1,000 rural women 15 to 49 years old among these people was 825 (standardized for age to distribution of total United States women).17 This is nearly double the ratio of 417 for total women in the nation. It also exceeds the high fertility ratios of the rural Spanish-speaking population of the Southwest (755) and the Negro rural-farm population of the South (771). In fact it is the highest fertility ration for 1950 known to the writer for any racial or ethnic group in the United States.

When translated into its potential for yields an estimated generation replacement index of 259 percent per 100 women. In other words, under continuation of fertility and morality conditions current in 1945-1950, the triracial population would increase by over two and one-half times in the course of each generation. Such a rapid increase is no longer containable in the rural homelands of the groups. It portends a wider distribution for them in the future and growing contacts in urban settings with people unacquainted with their curious history. In several large cities to which migration has tended to cluster and form a visible social group, as many immigrant peoples have done before them. However, the clannish aspect of their lives seems ultimately to weaken, and marriage outside the group begins. Meanwhile, as definable population groups of large family size, developed from relatively few family lines, and still practicing close marriage, the triracial groups offer unusual opportunities for the study of genetic diseases and factors affecting the persistence of population isolates.

2. Bureau of the Census, 1953. Nonwhite Population by Race, 1950. United States Census of Population – Special Reports. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office.

3. Craig, H. S. 1934. Cumberland County (New Jersey) Marriages. Privately published.

4. Gilbert, W. H., Jr. 1945. The Wesorts of Southern Maryland: An Outcasted Group. J. Wash. Acad. Sc. 35: 237-246.

5. _____. 1946. Mixed Bloods of the Upper Monongahela Valley, West Virginia. J. Wash. Acad. Sc. 36: 1-13.

6. _____. 1949. Surviving Indian Groups of the Eastern United States. The Smithsonian Report for 1948. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office.

7. Hursey, R. J., Jr., Witkop, C. J., Jr., Miklashek, Doris, and Sackett, L. M. 1956. Dentinogenisis Imperfecta in a Racial Isolate with Multiple Hereditary Defects. Oral Surg., Oral Med., and Oral Path. 9: 641-658.

8. Snedecor, S. T. and Harryman, W. K. Surgical Problems in Hereditary Polydactylism and Syndactylism. 1940. J. Med Soc. New Jersey, XXXVII, 443-449.

9. Weller, George. 1938. The Jackson Whites. New Yorker. 14: No. 31: 29-39.

10. Weslager, C. A. 1945. Delaware’s Forgotten Folk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

2 The most widespread surname among triracial groups has been documented by the writer and others in at least 36 counties of seven states. This is the name Goins and variations thereof.

3 Settlements in Cumberland and Salem Counties, New Jersey, and Darke County, Ohio, are definite exceptions to this generalization.

4 Some groups account for brunette skin coloration by tradition of descent from shipwrecked sailors of Portuguese, Spanish, or Moorish origin. Open acknowledgement of partial Negro descent has been made in a few groups through such means as affiliation with Negro church denominations.

5 Data abstracted for family from State archives.

6 Cumberland County (New Jersey) Marriages, compiled by H. Stanley Craig, 1934.

7 “Mixed Bloods of the Upper Monongahela Valley, West Virginia, ” by William Harlan Gilbert, Jr., Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Vol. 36, No. 1, January 15, 1946, pp. 1-13.

8 “Surgical Problems in Hereditary Polydactylism and Syndactylism,” by Spencer T. Snedecor and William B. Harryman,Journal of the Medical Society of New Jersey, Vol. XXXVII, No. 9, September 1940, pp. 443-449; “The Jackson Whites, ” by George Weller, New Yorker, Vol. 14, No 31, September 17, 1938, pp. 29-39.

9 Delaware’s Forgotten Folk, by C. A. Weslager, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1943, pp. 15-16.

10 “Surviving Indian Groups of the Eastern United States,” by William Harlan Gilbert, Jr. The Smithsonian Report for 1948, Government Printing Office, 1949, pp. 431.

11 Unpublished data furnished to this writer

12 “The Wesorts of Southern Maryland: An Outcasted Group,” by William Harlan Gilbert, Jr., Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Vol. 33, No. 8, August 15, 1945, pp. 237-247.

13 “Dentinogenisis Imperfecta in a Racial Isolate with Multiple Hereditary Defects,” by Rudolph J. Hursey, Jr., Carl J. Witkop, Jr., Doris Miklashek, and Lee M. Sackett, Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, and Oral Pathology, Vol. 9, No. 6, pp. 641-658.

14 Ibid, p. 642.

15 Reconnaissance work in other localities, planned by Dr. Witkop and the writer, may determine whether this is true.

16 Enumerator’s Reference Manual, 1950 Census of the United States, United States Department of Commerce, Washington, D. C., N. D. Page 34.

17 All fertility ratios cited are computed from reports of the 1950 Census of Population. Statistics by age and sex for “other nonwhite races” are found in the Special Report, Nonwhite Population by Race, Government Printing Office, 1953, table 7. In the rural South, persons of triracial description comprise about 97 percent of the “other nonwhite races” population.

In about 1890, a young Tennessee woman asked a state legislator, “Please tell me what is a Melungeon?” “A Melungeon,” said he, “isn’t a nigger, and he isn’t an Indian, and he isn’t a White man. God only knows what he is. I should call him a Democrat, only he always votes the Republican ticket” (Dromgoole 18901: 473).

2 I have used the modern spelling, Melungeon, except where quoting Dromgoole.

3 Information from present day Creoles.

4 Manuscript, North Carolina Legislative Reports (Robeson County).

5 Correspondence files of the Bureau of the Census; see also The Indian Populations of the United States 1937:20

6Various published studies of the research work led by Cark J. Witkop, Jr., of the National Institute of Health.

7 See Charleston Evening Post, various issues beginning September 19, 1969.

8 I refer to groups such as the Pools of Pennsylvania, the Amherst and Rockbridge County Issues, the Shifletts, the Poquoson and Skeetertown groups of Virginia, the Dead Lake Group in Florida, the Cane River Mulattoes and Natchitoches Red Bones of Louisiana, and the Mobile area Creoles.

Bond, Horace Mann, 1931, “Two Racial Islands of Alabama.” American Journal of Sociology 36:552-567.

Dromgoole, Will Allen, 1891, “The Malungeons.” The Arena 3:470-479

Everett, Russell, 1958, “The Speech of the Tri-Racial Group Comprising the Community of Clifton, Louisiana.” Master’s thesis, Louisiana State University.

Free inhabitants, 1860 Census, Florida 1860. National Archives 1:129.

Harte, Thomas J., 1959, “Trends in Mate Selection in a Tri-Racial Isolate.’ Social Forces 37 (3):215-221.

Indian Population of the United States and Alaska 1930, 1937 Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Kaye, Ira, 1963, “The Turks.” New South; June.

Olmstead, Frederic Law, 1959, The Slave States New York: Putnam’s Sons.

Price, Edward T., 1953, “A Geographical Analysis of White-Negro-Indian Racial Mixtures in the Eastern Unites States.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 43(2): 138-155.

Rights, Douglas L., 1947, The American Indian in North Carolina. Durham: Duke University Press.

Thacker vs. Hawk, 1887, Ohio Reports 11:337

Shugg, Roger W., 1936, “Negro Voting in the Antebellum South.” Journal of Negro History 21 (4): 357-384.

By Pam Vallett

“…shiftless, idle, thieving, and defiant of law, distillers of brandy almost to a man…they are not at all like the Tennessee mountaineer either in appearance or characteristics….Their complexion is a reddish brown, totally unlike the mulatto. The men are very tall and straight, with small, sharp eyes, high cheek bones, and straight black hair, worn rather long. The women are small, below the average height, coal black hair and eyes, high cheek bones, and the same red-brown complexion.”

Will Allen Dromgoole, 1891
_______________________________

A sociology professor at the University of Tennessee at Nashville says that the Melungeons of East Tennessee, a people thought for many years to possess unique racial and cultural characteristics, may not be so unique after all.

“People have been asking the wrong question all along,” said C. McCurdy Lipsey, associate professor of sociology at UTN. “Instead of asking, ‘Who are these strange people and where do they come from?’ they should be asking, ‘Are these really a strange people? Do they, in fact, possess unique racial and cultural characteristics?'”

“According to my interpretation of the evidence, they are not and do not.”

Lipsey says the term Melungeon became a derogatory label for all the people who lived on Hancock County’s Newman’s Ridge and Blackwater Valley, and that the basis for the myth which now surrounds them can be traced to the period between 1889 and 1891 when a wealth of material was published about the Melungeons.

“The single most damaging article from among this proliferation of misinformation, and the one most commonly referred to by other writers in the perpetuation of the myth about the Melungeons, was written by a young Tennessee literary figure by the name of Will Allen Dromgoole,” he says.

“Published in The Arena in 1891, it asserted that the records of the constitutional convention of 1834 show that John A. McKinney, a delegate to that convention, used the term Melungeon to refer to free persons of color. In checking the journal of the constitutional convention of 1834, I found the McKinney quotation, but the term Melungeon was not mentioned.”

“Information contained in Dromgoole’s article to support the claim that the Melungeons are a unique racial group can be used to show just the opposite. If the Melungeons had been designated as free persons of color at the constitutional convention of 1834, then, according to the Southern custom which did not permit Negroes to participate as citizens, they would not have been able to own or buy land, receive land grants from the state of Tennessee, or conduct other legal business. While it’s true that some of the people on Newman’s Ridge and Blackwater valley were refused these rights, public records show that by no means were all of them refused.”

In a forthcoming article, Lipsey turns to the history and settlement patterns of the Eastern United States to further support his alternative theory to the existing Melungeon belief. He maintains that by the nineteenth century, there had already been over 300 years of American history which included lost colonies and mixed groups. “The eastern seaboard and the western frontier – that is, Kentucky and Tennessee – provided fertile ground out of which grew romantic stories and ballads, legends, and myths,” explained Lipsey. “Not surprisingly, when Will Allen Dromgoole ‘found’ the Melungeons on Newman’s Ridge, the available and handy myths were tested for their ‘fit’ and the speculators were off and running. What you had, in essence, were legends waiting for groups to explain.”

“Evidence reveals that this was the case of the people who came to settle on Newman’s Ridge. L.M. Jarvis, a long time resident of Hancock County, maintained that the term ‘Melungeon’ was coined in derision during the 1800s and given the Indians on account of their color.”

“Lipsey said other evidence supports his theory. “The reputable History of East Tennessee by Goodspeed, which was published in 1887, before the Dromgoole articles, does not mention the existence of a race of people called the Melungeons, although the author does refer to people with a mixture of white and Indian blood living on Newman’s Ridge.”

Dr. Lipsey first became interested in the Melungeons when he was living in Kingsport during the 1960s.

“I had read an article in the local paper which told about this strange-looking group of people with peculiar habits who lived 75 miles further west in Hancock County.

“Interestingly enough, it subsequently became necessary for me to make monthly trips to Vardy, which is at the foot of Newman’s Ridge in Blackwater Valley. I went there expecting to find a strange- looking, strange-acting group of people. What I found was a people who were, in appearance, general Anglo-Saxon types, the majority being of Scotch and Irish descent.

“This aroused my curiosity. Where had all the information about the Melungeons come from? Why had something so obviously not true – as evidenced by the appearance of the people in and around Vardy – been allowed to be perpetuated?”

“Interviews with persons who are of Melungeon-designated families have been almost impossible to obtain because of the intense resentment to the implications of the term,” said Lipsey. “I have talked with long-time residents of the county about the Melungeons, including the mayor of the county seat in Sneedville, public school teachers and local historians.

“My most significant contact is Bill Grohse, who has lived in Vardy since 1930. Interestingly enough, he fits the description of a Melungeon better than most of the residents of the Ridge. Unfortunately for the proponents of the Melungeon myth, he was born and raised in New York City.

“Bill Grohse has collected a fantastic amount of material on families of Newman’s Ridge which he has shared with me. He has researched court records, conducted library research and done a number of genealogical analyses. The information he has uncovered also supports the theory that the history of the Melungeons is a myth.

“In fact, he married a woman from a Melungeon-designated family whose maiden name was Mizer. He has traced her genealogy back to Germany through Virginia. This has been the case in other genealogical analyses he has conducted. Evidence such as this certainly doesn’t support the theory of a unique racial group.”

In addition to conducting numerous interviews to collect information on the Melungeons, Lipsey has compiled an extensive bibliography. “Compiling a comprehensive bibliography has been no small task,” said Lipsay. “It has required long hours in archives and extensive correspondence with libraries throughout the United States. Much time has been spent reading nineteenth-century newspapers which, whether on my subject or others, are fascinating to read.”

Future research of the Melungeons will include a more thorough investigation into cultural indicators such as architectural structures. Dr. Lipsey thinks such indicators will be the same for both the Ridge and the rest of Appalachia rather than different, which they would need to be to support the present theory of the Melungeons being a unique cultural group.

“The term could easily have made the transition from adjective (a malengine person) to noun (a malengine), especially if applied to readily identifiable persons or groups which, in turn, could provide racial overtones to the word.” A third area of study involves a more thorough investigation of the account by Louis Shepherd of a trial which took place in Chattanooga in 1872.

“In his memoirs, Judge Shepherd recounts the details of an 1872 trial in which he successfully defended a young woman’s right to inherit property with the argument that she was of Melungeon ancestry, not Negro, and that the Melungeons were descendants of the Moors. Further research is needed on this topic in order to clear up many unanswered questions.”

The last phase of Dr. Lipsey’s research will be to publish a book on the myths which have evolved in the east Tennessee area. His research has been partially supported by a grant received during the past year from the UT National Alumni Association. He presented his findings to the Southern Sociology Society in April.

“I am writing a short article for publication in the near future,” said Lipsey. “I don’t think there is any evidence to support the myth that the Melungeons constitute a unique racial group or a unique cultural group. I hope to be able to set the record straight and clear up eighty-seven years of misconception

Material published as part of these proceedings, either on-line or in print, is copyrighted by Informing Science. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice in full and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. To copy in all other cases or to republish or to post on a server or to redistribute to lists requires specific permission from the publisher atPublisher@InformingScience.org

According to the founder of a popular Melungeon Web site, the Internet has proven an effective tool in uncovering some of the mysteries and folklore surrounding the Melungeon community. This Web site receives more than 21,000 hits a month from Melungeons or others interested in the group. The Melungeon community, triggered by recent books, films, and video documentaries, has begun to use the Internet to trace their genealogy. Through the use of oral history interviews, this study examines how Melungeons in Appalachia use the Internet to connect to others within their community and to the world at large.

Keywords : Internet, media, digital divide, Appalachia, rural, oral history, ethnography, sociology, community

Given that the growth of the American “Sunbelt South” has become somewhat of a symbol of U.S. economic progress, I will examine Internet usage in Appalachia, an area of the U.S. that is often overlooked. As Eller (1999, ix) writes, “Always part of the mythical South, Appalachia continues to languish backstage in the American drama, still dressed, in the popular mind at least, in the garments of backwardness, violence, poverty and hopelessness once associated with the South as a whole. No other region of the United States today plays the role ofthe ‘other America’ quite so persistently as Appalachia.”

By using oral histories, my intention is to give an outlet to residents of rural Appalachia. Using their own words, I hope to discover who they think they are and how their use of electronic media has informed their identity and included or excluded them. As participants recalled their histories, I attempted to record their lived/reconstructed/and or perceived past.

Riesman (1950) illustrated the effects of electronic media on our sense of community in his “lonely crowd” theory. His analogy of the individual living in a modern technological society yet existing in seclusion seems to echo the beliefs that electronic media are isolating catalysts on society. This theory is even more poignant given the strong sense of community and family within the Appalachian region. The analysis of this concept—whether the arrival of electronic communication technology into the region disrupted rather than enhanced the sense of community—defines this study.

Therefore, I hope the oral histories collected in this study will contribute to the understanding of the impact the Internet had on the residents of rural Appalachia, especially from a social historical context. I see a great value in a human diary that documents how electronic media affected the lives of rural Appalachians and hope the oral histories used to trace the early adoption of the Internet contribute to a better understanding of how Appalachians, particularly within the Melungeon community, were able to establish communities — both virtually and in real life — regardless of their geographical isolation.

However, in their viewing of the Appalachian community, Banks, Billings, and Tice (1996, 82) suggest that

[T]his account of the effects of history as social trauma bred in the bones of the people of the region is flawed because it constitutes Appalachians solely as “victims” and obscures the potentiality of diverse subjects’ making history…thereby minimizing the possibilities for agency and empowerment.

Such an account leaves unquestioned paradigmatic views of Appalachia that have the effect of either marginalizing and excluding Appalachians as fully human beings or else treating them as a monolithic category.

It is incumbent upon social historians to rethink oppositional terms such as “insider/outsider” and “scholars/activists.” The idea of “apprehend[ing] and inscrib[ing] others in such a way as not to deny or diffuse their claims to subjecthood” should be the goal of all social scientists (Mascia-Lees 1989, 12). It is therefore the intention of this study to allow the participants who were interviewed to express themselves through the use of their own words.

Throughout the interview process, I tried not to rely too heavily on my prepared questions and allowed the interviewee to follow any unexpected path he or she chose to take. Of course, my initial questions did shape the direction in which I felt I could derive the most raw material (memories), and I tried my best to guide participants in the direction which best served my scholarly aim. As the author of this work, I also recognize that I chose the quotes that are included herein.

In A Shared Authority, Frisch (1990) addresses the notion that the interviewer may feel more responsible for the creation of a work; however, the interviewee is the greater partner. It is in the interviewee’s stories that the greatest value of an oral history resides. Furthermore, the interviewee also participates in the interpretation of the stories since he or she constantly analyzes their own motives while recalling them (see Ritchie, 1995).

Some speculate that the Melungeons first settled in the Appalachian Mountains as early as the fifteenth century, of apparent Mediterranean descent. Its members are considered by some to be tri- racial isolates. According to Kennedy (1994), the Melungeon community descends from Turks, Berbers, Moors, Jews, Portuguese, Spaniards and others who arrived on the southeastern seaboard of North America during the period between 1492 and the founding of Jamestown in 1607. Webster (1962, 1122) described the Melungeon as “a member of a dark-skinned people of mixed Caucasian, Negro, and Indian stock, inhabiting the Tennessee mountains.”5 Davis (1963, 16) identified the Melungeons as “dark-skinned, reddish- brown complexioned people [who were] supposed to be of Moorish descent, neither Indian nor Negro, but [who] had fine European features, and claimed to be Portuguese.”

Today, the largest Melungeon communities are primarily in eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina and southwestern Virginia (Kennedy). However, members are found throughout the Appalachian region and beyond. Perhaps some migrated in search of a place where their tri-racial heritage was not suspect. Others may have been seeking employment in the city. As Melungeons begin to reach out to embrace their heritage, many are using the Internet to trace their genealogy.

Ms. Wilson claimed that a large percentage of the people who visit her Web site are expatriates, comprised of those who le ft the community. 6 As Melungeons faced discrimination (often because of their mixed ancestry), many kept to themselves, settled in isolated communities, or migrated to regions where their heritage was not suspect (see Price 1951). Their “mixed blood” led to discrimination that kept many from claiming or celebrating their heritage. Throughout the years, the term Melungeon had taken on a negative connotation.

Recently however, there has been resurgence in the Melungeon community as many have begun to reach out to embrace their diversity. Within the realm of community studies, it is interesting that the Melungeon community is perhaps defined less as a geographic community than as an electronic community.

In May 2000, I attended Third Union in Wise, Virginia, and continued to collect oral histories. In all, eighty-two respondents were interviewed ranging from the age of eighteen to 103.

Even respondents in their early fifties were resistant. Virginia Miller argued:

It’s for the younger generation. For our generation, I think this newfound stuff is just too far beyond us. I think we’re really scared of it, just like the older generation was scared when telephones come out. They were scared to use the telephone right at first, because I know my dad would very seldom touch the telephone if it would ring. You know, he’d have one of us answer it.8

When asked if anyone felt “scared” of other emerging electronic media such as radio or television, Marian Dees replied: “No, because I was young. I was ready for anything.”9 Henry Shaffer reflected:

Well with radio…then we was kids, and we didn’t think of anything ahead. Now this Internet is sort of scary because there is so much that’s going on you just wonder — everybody knows your business. And you transmit, well, all over the world, and well, it’s sort of scary. It’s something that we don’t know anything about and afraid to find out, I guess.10

I got a computer [in 1997] and started putting my genealogy into it. And I got on the Internet, and I put a note on one of the [genealogy] message boards saying I’m looking for this Indian grandmother, her name is Mary Collins. And I got a reply from a girl who lived in California and she said your Collins is in the area of the Melungeons, in the area where the Melungeons were. And I wrote her back and said, “Who the heck are Melungeons?” So she gave me a little brief thing, I went to the library and I found Brent [Kennedy]’s book and I sat down and read the book and it just clicked. I knew immediately that this was where this family belonged, was in this character. So, I began doing more research. I have about seven lines that I think are Melungeon connected….I don’t think I would have found it without the Internet.11

Barbara Langdon tells a similar story of finding an identity on the Net:

Well, when I first started doing research, the first thing I did was get on the Internet. There are several genealogy sites [where] you can post your names you are looking for and dates and regions and all that sort of thing, and I had posted information on my grandfather’s family and within just a couple weeks I had contacts from distant cousins….A cousin I’ve never met told me this family story about how we were Melungeon, and the way he told his story, and the way that his family reacted to being Melungeon was very, very similar to my own experience with being told that we were Indian and the sort of barrier there about, you know. 12

Many respondents with Melungeon links spoke of their families’ acceptance of Native American ancestry while avoiding any mention of African or Melungeon heritage. However, most respondents at the Melungeon Heritage Association gatherings appeared ready to embrace this new identity.

Having never before heard the word Melungeon prior to getting on the Internet, Nancy 13 admits,

It’s interesting because I never really felt that I belonged. I’ve always been kind of a private person….I never felt really comfortable in this group or that group or the other group. It was just not — and when I found the Melungeons and the first time I went to Wise, Virginia, [where First Union was held] I felt like I was coming home. It amazed me, the emotional feeling that I got.14

However, some question the motives of those claiming identity with the group. Speaking of participants on the Melungeon listserv, Madonna Cook warns, “And some of them, are wannabes. They wish they could find something and they don’t, but they’re still so enthralled by the ‘What if? I could be!’ they religiously follow the e- mails looking for a specific new surname that might connect them to the Melungeons.” 15 Today, it seems chic to be the “other” in the United States. Groups that were historically marginalized and persecuted, as was apparently the case within the Melungeon community, now proudly announce their identity.

As respondents found that they might be of Melungeon heritage, many began to use the Internet to further research their identity. As Barbara Langdon said: “I think right now my question that I am trying to answer is, how do we define Melungeon? And, in some ways it’s, you know, it is a self- identifying, uh, let’s see, how do I want to say that? Uh, in a lot of ways, people that are Melungeon are self-identified.” 16 Fitzgerald (1991, 202) tells us: “By defining itself, ethnically or otherwise, a group escapes classification by others.”

Some respondents, like Madonna, were already aware of their Melungeon identity and used the Web sites and Melungeon listserv to research their legacy. “I already knew of the Melungeon connection for my family when I went on- line so I started looking for other people who were researching these same lines to see if they had something that I didn’t have. [I use] the Melungeon list, which has automatic emails coming to you, where they have a lot of discussion about the Melungeons. I was getting like 300 e-mails a day off that one list.”17

Being unmonitored, members of the Melungeon listserv, as Madonna stated, could receive up to 300 postings per day. To those tracing their lineage, the number of postings could be overwhelming. Barbara spoke of trying to keep up.

Just to keep up with what’s happening with the Melungeon research, you know, at first, I was using the Internet, oh gosh, I was on there hours, you know, listening to everybody tell their stories. There are a lot of stories on that listserv. People telling their stories about, you know, why they think they are Melungeon or why they got interested in the Melungeons because of, you know, some story in the family, or they always knew, or they have a history of Black Dutch.18

Often, the same individual would post ten to twenty messages within a twenty- four hour period and the content seemed to become less important than the ritual of posting messages. As Barbara saw it:

I don’t get on the listserv as much anymore because [it is] simply a matter of not everything that is posted counts. Everything that is posted to the listserv comes to you. Nobody reads it, and selects certain [themes] you know, everything comes and sometimes it is more than I can handle. For a while I made a policy that if it was in, if it was something I wanted to read, I read it, otherwise I threw everything away.19

At times, the information conveyed via the listserv was merely chitchat amongst the participants. As a result, it did not necessarily appear to “describe the world but portray[ed] an arena of dramatic forces and action” (Carey, 1989, 21). To a certain extent, the multiple postings of messages on the listserv appeared to be a ritualistic form of communication.

Carey’s notion of communication as ritual may also be applied to the use of electronic media in Appalachia, especially when viewing Internet usage within the Melungeon community. Given that some Melungeons migrated to regions where their heritage was not suspect or simply went in search of job opportunities in larger cities, there has been a resurgence in the Melungeon community as many have begun to reach out to embrace their diversity, largely via the Internet.

As they began to reach out to one another in hopes of forming community via electronic communications technology, the concept of communication as ritual comes to light. Carey (1989) described a ritual view of communication as being directed not toward the extension of messages in space but toward the maintenance of society in time; not the act of imparting information but the representation of shared beliefs….The archetypal case under a ritual view is the sacred ceremony that draws persons together in fellowship and commonality….Under a ritual view, then, news is not information but drama (18-21).

Cleland Thorpe spoke of making a connection with others (from as far away as California) he had met on the listserv. “I talked to people in California and I then talked to people, by e-mail, in Arkansas and Tennessee, up in Ohio and it was just, you know, it’s really weird how we all have so much in common, and it really had to come from our heritage. I mean, it passed on, it had to be.”20 It is important to note that even though many respondents spoke of skimming the Melungeon listserv, most pursued contact with others in the group by e- mail rather than communicating via the listserv.

In joining the Melungeon listserv, I was surprised to receive over 100 messages a day, most of which were more entertaining than informative. Often, the same individual would post ten to twenty messages. This could be viewed as the ritual of connecting to others within the group.

Here, the tie between the words common, community, and communication, as Dewey (1916) saw them, is revealed within the ritual view of communication. Much of the information conveyed via the listserv did not describe the world but portrayed an arena of dramatic forces and action (see Carey, 1989). In The Roots of Modern Media Analysis, Carey (1997) addresses electricity’s arrival in the United States as classless, if not socialist. Similarly, he described the birth of the telegraph as promising the distribution of information everywhere, “simultaneously reducing the economic advantage of the city and bringing the more varied urban culture out to the countryside” (45).21

Today, the egalitarian dreams of the Internet hold similar promise. Habermas (1989) views democracy as representing a social space wherein members of the society can rationally debate issues. The Habermasian view of the public sphere was inspired by the literary movement and revealed itself in salons and coffeehouses where the average citizen could discuss sociopoliticalissues. Although the bourgeois public sphere was marked by gender and class exclusion, Habermas’s ideal public sphere was egalitarian in principle. In looking at Internet usage in Appalachia within the concept of the public sphere, one might look at the Melungeon listserv where issues of gender, age, and race need not necessarily impact the topic being discussed (if the writer chooses not to reveal his or her physical identity). Although most chat rooms offer little more than questions of where the other person is from and how old he or she is, newsgroups and listservs offer any subscriber a chance to express his or her ideas without prejudice from anything other than what is written. However, a person with a lower educational level might be betrayed by improper use of spelling and grammar. As a result, this person might be taken less seriously in virtual groups. Again, technology, such as automatic grammar and spell checking software, can level the playing field, leading to a more egalitarian and accessible electronic public sphere.

The bonds made in cyberspace seemed to create a familiar bond similar to that of a real family which was reinforced when respondents met at the Unions. As Nancy put it, “It amazed me, the emotional feeling that I got. It was just like we were coming to a family reunion.”23

Barbara concurred:

It was sort of strange coming to Wise the first time and not having met these people, but having created a community, an electronic community, I’d had experiences before with having a community and bringing that community together through electronic media, through the Internet. And so I was sort of nervous about what was going to happen since all of us had met on the Internet and had not met each other yet, because people that I didn’t even know were paying attention to what I was saying, you know. “Oh Barb, I’ve been listening, you know I’ve been reading what you’ve been saying on the Internet and I’m so happy to meet you and what do you think about….” You know, it was strange in a very pleasant sort of way, but, it, I didn’t know what to expect, I was a little apprehensive and I wondered if I was nuts and what am I doing going to meet all of these people from the Internet. Yeah. 24

The phrase, “What am I doing going to meet all of these people from the Internet,” suggests that the Internet is an actual place in space rather than an electronic medium. Addressing the metaphor of a digital world, Sproull and Faraj (1996, 143) tell us, “When e- mail is used for group conversations, the network takes on the characteristics of place — like the office coffee pot or the local watering hole.” The bonds made in cyberspace by most respondents I spoke to appeared to last. When speaking of people she has met on the Internet, Barbara admits, “I keep checking the [Melungeon] Web pages to see what’s going on and I keep in contact with, there’s key people, there’s some people that I have long-lasting relationships with now through the Internet that I stay in touch with.”25 Turkle (1996, 3) states that “virtual experience may be so compelling that we believe that within it we’ve achieved more than we have.”

However, a large number of respondents took the cyber- friendship experience to the next level by actually meeting one another at the Unions. In addition to e- mail and the Melungeon listserv, Melungeon Web sites also proved important in getting people interested in the Internet and bringing them together. As Connie Mullins Clark recalled:

About six months after I got my computer [in 1997], this article in the paper was explaining about a picnic about Melungeon heritage. People could send in, over the Internet, they could fill out the form, send it in, and you could be part of the picnic. So, I did that. I went directly to the Web, you know, hooked on the Web site, went in there, filled out my application, printed it off and sent it. So, I have been, since that time, I have worked directly with the Internet, helping with Web pages and working on research with Melungeons…There’s different Web sites now that you can go to and find the Melungeon information, but that’s how I first got started was with Melungeon. I had it [a computer], but to really get involved in the Internet itself was with the
Melungeon connection.26

Respondents often spoke of going to these sites when researching their Melungeon heritage. “I don’t think I would have found out as much information so quickly,” recalls Barbara. “I probably would have given up because when I went to your traditional means of research which was the library, I did a search on the various different databases that are available in your university library and searched the word Melungeon and came up with nothing except, the card catalog in that particular library had Brent Kennedy’s book.”27

It appeared that for some respondents, interest in Melungeon culture was an initial catalyst in early Internet usage. In addition, it brought information about the Melungeon community to those not likely to find it elsewhere. As Tammy Mullins saw it, “I feel like the Internet has really opened up the world to everyone. And also, it’s really opened up the world for Melungeon people because, basically, without the Internet and there are very few books that are written, I mean, where would you be? You wouldn’t know where to start so actually, the Internet really opened up a big space for me to be able to do research.”28

On a recent trip on U.S. Airways, both outgoing and incoming flights were delayed by over an hour because of improper luggage distribution in the cargo bay. Each time this happened, the pilot readily blamed the computer for causing the improper distribution, as if it were the computer and not the luggage handlers that overloaded the cargo bay. “Please bear with us,” pleaded the pilot, “as we try to get the bugs out of our new computer system.” It appeared that the pilot was demonizing the computer.

Similarly, as expressed by some elderly respondents above, the rapid expansion of the Internet appeared to produce an undercurrent of frustration. This may be in response to people’s discomfort with new technology versus personal human interaction. However, as with radio and television’s arrival into rural Appalachia, the Internet appeared to create interaction within the community. In addition to the Melungeon cyber-communities, (which resulted in face-to-face re-Unions), some respondents spoke of how using the Net, even at home alone, allowed one to interact with others in chat rooms. Some compared their experiences on the Net with “the good ol’ days,” when one sat on the front porch and made small talk with the occasional passerby. This is what might be called, “the Internet as electronic front porch.”

Bob Cole explains his point of view:

I think that between TV and air conditioning, people retreat to their homes and tend to isolate themselves inside of the house whereas radio brought you to the porch in the summertime, and the neighbors walked along the street and then the neighbors would stop and listen to the radio and then they’d discuss the news or listen to the programs. So there was a lot of interaction of people and everybody knew everything that was going on in the neighborhood. The Internet, I think, is a technological innovation that tends maybe to counteract the seclusion that was caused by the air conditioning. Well, you start talking to people again. Start communicating with people. You’re able to meet people. It’s kind of like sittin’ on the porch and the neighbors walking up and down the street. You know, they come in, they get in contact. Well, you sit in your house but you get out on the Internet and it’s like a stream of people walking by. You can reach out and interrelate with them like you used to when you sat on the front porch and the neighbors walked up and down the street.29

It’s a toll call and I knew better than to get on the Internet and there’d be a $6 an hour charge the way we wanted to research, it takes a long time sometimes to find just what you’re looking for. There was access to — there was a lady who had set it up as a non-profit thing where you could share an Internet access line but ten or twelve people had to share. I checked into that but I really didn’t want to do that because I figured if we got on there and researched we’d probably take up too much time.32

In addition, the up- front cost of getting on- line (hardware, software and access expenses) was prohibitive for some with fixed or lower incomes. As Marian put it, “It may be cheaper to send an e-mail but the initial cost wasn’t cheap. Sooner or later you’re gonna spend your money on something.”33

Just as access to electricity seemed to have determined how people listened to early radio, limited local Internet access in rural Appalachia inhibited some respondents’ ability to get on the Net. However, as with other electronic media, many respondents I spoke with were eager to embrace the World Wide Web.

The rapid expansion of the Internet seems to suggest that a new era of global communications has been realized. Clyde Pinney, however, seemed to put things in perspective as he compared radio’s inception to that of the Internet’s arrival.

The world of radio opened up a lot more for me than the Internet. I would assume it may not later on as I get into it more. Well, radio was the forerunner of all worldwide communications, and this is just a continuation of what was started even back in the ‘30s. I see this just as an advancement of radio. I got the computer because it was the right thing to do. I guess it’s something that should be done, so we went that way. 34

When Clyde reminisced about the arrival of electronic media technology in rural Appalachia, his comment, “The world of radio opened up a lot more for me than the Internet,” is quite telling.

Respondents each had the benefit of decades of hindsight as they told their stories of how radio and television’s arrival affected their lives. However, Clyde continued his comment on the Internet with, “I would assume it may not later on as I get into it more.” With the Internet being a relatively new technology, which seems to be evolving almost on a daily basis, it appears to be far more difficult to accurately gauge its immediate impact on society.

The Internet has allowed respondents to connect to one another and to the world at large. It has also allowed the Melungeon population to establish themselves as being larger than they had originally seen themselves and perhaps defined less as a geographic community than as an electronic community. In addition, the Internet appeared to precipitate interaction within the community both in cyberspace and at annual re-Unions.

Moreover, the Internet can be used as a powerful tool to unify even the most isolated groups. Its potential as a public forum is especially powerful within a region where getting to a town meeting could require traversing mountainous terrain or traveling great distances, as is the case in much of Appalachia.

Lastly, it is important to note that in looking back at the arrival of other electronic media into this rural area, (such as radio and television) respondents have the benefit of decades of hindsight. However, with the Internet being a relatively new technology, which seems to be evolving almost on a daily basis, it appears to be far more difficult to accurately gauge its immediate impact on society. It is in this direction that I see the need for future research. With the passing of time, respondents may be able to better reflect on how the Internet has affected their lives.

Banks, A., Billings, D. & Tice, K. (1996). Appalachian studies and postmodernism. In Multicultural experiences, multicultural theories, eds. Rogers, M. & Ritzer, G.: 81-90. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Baudino, J. & Kittross, J. (1977). Broadcasting’s oldest stations: An examination of four claimants. Journal of Broadcasting, 21: 61-81.

Carey, J. (1989). Communication as culture: Essays on media and society. Boston: Unwin Hyman.

Carey, J. (1997). The Roots of Modern Media Analysis. In James Carey: A critical reader, eds. Eve Stryker Munson and Catherine A. Warren. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Cattell-Gordon, D. (1990). The Appalachian Inheritance: A Culturally Transmitted Traumatic Stress Syndrome? Journal of Progressive Human Services 1: 41-57.

Crowe, E. (2000). Genealogy online. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Cunningham, R. (1980). Scotch-Irish and others. Appalachian Journal 18, no. 1: 84-90.

Curtis, P. (1996). Mudding: Social phenomena in text -based virtual realities. In Internet dreams: Archetypes, myths, and metaphors, ed. Stefik, M., 265-292. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Davis, L. (1963). The Mystery of the Melungeons. Nashville Tennessean, 22 September, 16.

Deutsch, K. & Foltz, W. (1963). Nation-building. New York: Atherton Press.

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York: The Macmillan Company.

Eller, R. (1999). Foreword to Confronting Appalachian stereotypes, by Dwight, B., et al. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.

Eller, R. (1982). Miners, millhands, and mountaineers: Industrialization of the Appalachian South, 1880-1930. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.

Fisher, S. (1999). Appalachian stepchild. In Confronting Appalachian stereotypes: back talk from an American region. Billings, D., N. Gurney & Ledford, K., eds. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.

Fitzgerald, T. (1991). Media and changing metaphors of ethnicity and identity. Media, culture and society, 13: 193-214.

Frisch, M. (1990). A shared authority: Essays on the craft and meaning of oral and public history. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Habermas, J. (1989). The Public Sphere. In Jurgen Habermas on Society and politics: A reader. ed. Seidman, S. Boston: Beacon Press.

Johnson, S. (1997). Interface culture: How new technology transforms the way we create and communicate. San Francisco: Harper Edge.

Kennedy, B. & Kennedy, R. (1997). The Melungeons: The resurrection of a proud people: An untold story of ethnic cleansing in America. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.

Klotter, J. (1980). The Black South and White Appalachia. Journal of American History 66, no. 4: 832.

Lamb, Terri. 2000. E-genealogy: Finding your family roots online. Indianapolis: Sams.

Maggard, S. (1985). Cultural hegemony: The news media and Appalachia. Appalachian Journal 12, no. 3: 67–83.

Mascia-Lees, F. (1989). The Postmodernist Turn in Anthropology: Cautions from a Feminist Perspective. Signs 15: 12.

Newcomb, H. (1979). Appalachia on television: Region as symbol of American popular culture. Appalachian Journal 7, no. 1: 155-164.

Price, E. (1951). The Melungeons: A mixed-blood strain of the Southern Appalachians. The geographical review 41: 256- 271.

Ritchie, D. (1994). Foreword In Memory and history: Essays on recalling and interpreting experience, eds. Jaclyn. J. & Edwall, G. New York: University Press of America.

Snyder, B. (1982). Image and identity in Appalachia. Appalachian Journal 9, no. 2: 124-133.

Sproull, L. & Faraj, S. (1996). Some consequences of electronic groups. In Internet dreams: Archetypes, myths, and metaphors, ed. Stefik, Mark, 125–134. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Stephens, L. (1972). Media exposure and modernization among the Appalachian poor. Journalism Quarterly 49, no. 2: 247-257.

Turkle, S. (1996). Virtuality and its discontents . The American prospect: 24, Winter: 50-57.

Turner, W. & Cabbell, E. (1985). Blacks in Appalachia. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.

Webster, N. (1962). Webster’s new twentieth century dictionary of the English language, unabridged: Second edition. Cleveland: World Publishing Co.

Williamson, J. (1994). Southern mountaineers in silent films: Plot synopses of movies about moonshining, feuding, and other mountain topics, 1904-1929. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Williamson, J. (1995). Hillbillyland: What the movies did to the mountains and what the mountains did to the movies. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Yarrow, M . (1990). Voices from the coalfields. In Communities in economic crisis: Appalachia and the South, eds. Gaventa, J., Smith, B. & Willingham, A. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.