A.D. Powell presentation, 2006

October 15, 2016 Published by: mha

Melungeons and the Mixed Race Experience

A speech given to the Melungeon “Sixth Union” Conference on 9 June 2006

A. D. Powell

One of the many “hidden histories” of the United States has been the story of the massive government effort to deny the existence of mixed-race people and, especially, the multiracial ancestry within the so-called “white race” (or more appropriately, white caste). Most Americans have probably been taught some form of what sociologists call hypodescent – the idea that the offspring of so-called “interracial” unions inevitably increase the population of the nonwhite ancestral group or, if there is more than one nonwhite ancestral group, the population with the lowest social status.

American history books are filled with sad stories of oppression designed to make students cry for the trials and tribulations of blacks, Indians, Mexicans, Asians, etc. Students are often told, at some point, that there is a “one drop rule” in the United States forcing an unwanted and involuntary blackness on even the whitest people with that tainted ancestry. They are NOT told that this so-called rule is openly violated every day by millions of people. They are NOT told about the partial African ancestry in Hispanics and Arabs. And they are most certainly NEVER told about Melungeons, Redbones, Creoles and numerous internal ethnic groups, sub-cultures and individuals who resisted efforts to push them into the lower caste of a binary racial caste system. If students WERE told these things, they would have to conclude that hypodescent can no longer be forced AND, more importantly, that white racial purity does not exist.

Mixed-race people in the U.S. have always found it difficult to fight against government attacks. We are talking about a diverse population composed of isolated groups and individuals. What do you do when a Walter Plecker of Virginia or a Naomi Drake of Louisiana goes on a crusade to subject you to permanent denigration? What do you do when your state legislature passes a law forcing a different (and false) racial and ethnic identity on your family? All too often, individuals and families have been left alone to cope with the terror of state persecution. Should you speak out and try to rally the public to your cause? The shame and stigma of admitting to an officially tainted ancestry usually eliminates that option. In U.S. history, white racial status and honor have been almost synonymous. Non-white status has been associated with a lack of honor.

You have all probably heard of the heroic efforts of Mrs. Susie Guilory Phipps of Louisiana who, in 1982, mounted a legal challenge to Louisiana’s infamous law stating that anyone with more than 1/32 Negro blood was unworthy of the unspoken but very real “honor” of being “white.” Mrs. Phipps took her case to the U.S. Supreme Court which, in 1986, refused to hear her case. However, Louisiana was so embarrassed by the sympathetic press her case generated, that they eliminated the infamous law that started the case in the first place. The question we should ask here is why did Mrs. Phipps have to fight alone? Louisiana’s racist law of racial classification had victimized thousands of people. Similar laws in other states had victimized untold thousands throughout the nation. Why didn’t they rise up or speak out in support of Mrs. Phipps? When individual blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Asian Americans or American Indians are attacked because of their ancestry, we often see their organizations rise up in outrage and proclaim to the media and nation that an injury to one of them is an injury to all. The response of mixed-race people to attacks on other mixed-race people, however, is to hunker down, keep quiet, and hope you’re not noticed. Isn’t this what happened when Walter Plecker went after the Melungeons? When you don’t officially exist, how can you defend yourself? How can you demand justice? Will Melungeons stand up for a future Mrs. Phipps?

In the mid 1990’s, new organizations came into being to proclaim the existence of mixed-race people and state that we actually do have rights and identities that others are bound to respect. There was the Association of Multi-Ethnic Americans (AMEA) and Project RACE (“Reclassify All Children Equally”), which targeted school districts and state and federal statistics gathers who insisted on forcing multiracial children into monoracial official categories. My emphasis here, however, will be on the activist web sites “Interracial Voice” and “The Multiracial Activist.” They have gone far beyond the mandates of other mixed-race activist groups to critique the American culture as a whole, examine and encourage historical research, and reach out to others who suffered under laws of forced hypodescent.

Charles Michael Byrd, the founder of “Interracial Voice,” was born in Abingdon, Virginia (Washington County) in 1952. Perhaps some of you are familiar with the place. His mother was predominately black with Indian and white ancestry. His father was a so-called “pure white.” Imagine the pain of growing up in Jim Crow Virginia! God and your father’s genes have made you white but, officially, you don’t have any white ancestry! By law, you don’t belong to your father’s family or his race. Officially, you are a “Negro” – black ancestry is all you may officially claim. How can you look white and be “really” black? Are you a genetic freak or mutation? If you cannot claim white ancestry, what else can you be? This is the fate that Walter Plecker, Naomi Drake and their spiritual kin wanted to force on your families.

When Charles was young, family members told him that he was “black” but “light-skinned” (“Light-skinned black” is an oxymoron if there ever was one.). Outside of the family, however, the reaction from blacks was “Who’s the white boy?” Being a white person of mixed ancestry with a “light-skinned black” label does NOT make you “black.” It makes you a helpless white upon whom blacks can safely take out their hatred for and resentment against whites in general without fear of group retaliation. It’s worse for females, who are also subjected to intense sexual harassment.

However, like so many others, Charles underwent a psychological reevaluation of his situation. When the schools of Abingdon were integrated, Charles discovered that his white classmates could not believe that he was part black, much less one of the despised “Negroes.” Doesn’t dark always dominate over light? Aren’t we told in countless books and films that the child of a white and non-white always looks like the non-white parent? The reaction of his classmates was curious, since blacks who support the “one drop rule” insist that it is maintains by a collective repugnance that whites have for “black blood.” But many whites don’t know what they are supposed to believe or enforce in regard to black ancestry in otherwise white persons.

When Charles left the South for the Air Force and later New York City, the “one drop rule” looked even more ridiculous. The city was filled with Hispanics whose African ancestry was obvious but who did NOT call themselves “black” and were not forced to do so. He frequently met Italians, Greeks and other so-called pure whites who would have had a hard time using public accommodations in the Jim Crow South. Charles had to conclude that his former identity as a “light-skinned black” had been based on a lie. Charles decided to devote his time to helping other mixed-race people facing the same or similar struggles.

Contrary to “anti-passing” movies like Imitation of Life or The Human Stain, etc., the so-called black life was in fact “living a lie.” Changing one’s racial caste identity is as American as apple pie.

Do you see a connection here to the white Melungeons who discovered that their ancestors were classified as “free colored” during the antebellum period and later “voted with their feet” to reject Plecker’s efforts to turn them into “Negroes”?

James Landrith came to the multiracial movement from a different background. Born into an officially white family, James joined the Marine Corps and there met his African-American wife, Cheryl. James began to notice that a lot of the open hostility to their marriage came from blacks rather than whites and, moreover, it was blacks who insisted that the white ancestry of his sons counted for nothing. He found, after starting his web site, that angry criticism from blacks outnumbered even the expected negative responses from white supremacists.

Both “The Multiracial Activist” and “Interracial Voice,” along with their many writers and contributors, have engaged in strong critiques of American culture in regard to mixed-race people and reached out to other mixed-race groups of the European colonial diaspora – from the U.S. to Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean and South Africa. If any of us stand together, even if only for a little while, the battle will be so much easier. In the name of this solidarity, we reach out to our Melungeon sisters and brothers today.

I am happy to bring you greetings from Charles Michael Byrd and James Landrith. They regret they could not be here for Sixth Union.

Charles Michael Byrd

Even though I’ve never attended a Melungeon function and have never identified as a Melungeon, I have a high level of affinity for this group. Much of this is due to my own triracial background (red, white and black), and having been born and raised in Abingdon, Virginia in Washington County.

Additionally, while the Interracial Voice website was still active, I came to exchange email communiqués with Brent Kennedy and Nancy Sparks Morrison – both of whom wrote Guest Editorials for IV.

Brent Kennedy first emailed me on July 02, 2002. Actually, Brent’s uncle, Doyle Kennedy, forwarded an email exchange between the two of us to Brent. That conversation centered around a book that I self-published earlier that year entitled “Beyond Race: The Bhagavad-gita in Black and White.” I came across Doyle’s email address in a media article about the Melungeons and contacted him, including a promo for the book. The following is Doyle’s response to me:

Do you consider yourself and your ethnic heritage to be Melungeon, which is a mixture of Cherokee, white, black, and/or other, originally (rather, at one point in time) from the North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee area? I had never heard of Melungeon until a few years ago when my nephew, Brent Kennedy wrote his book, “The Melungeons, The Resurrection of a Proud People”, with the subtitle “The Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America.”

After Brent’s research, and after reading his book, I discovered that my mother is almost certainly part Melungeon (including Cherokee), and that many of my relatives have even closer connections to the Melungeons. I then became very interested in the Melungeon heritage and history.

Doyle Kennedy

My response to Doyle:

Hello. It’s good to make your acquaintance. To be frank, I never heard of a Melungeon until about 6 years or so ago. I was born in Abingdon, Virginia which is the county seat of Washington County and is about 15 miles north of the Tennessee border. We knew that society viewed us as “black,” but we also knew we were something else. Every now and then we’d hear the term mulatto. My maternal great-aunt often told me that back in the 20s or 30s the newspapers would use that term in addition to “black” whenever something happened that warranted press coverage — oftentimes, something bad.

I’ve heard of Brent’s work but have not read his book. Anyway, whatever people call themselves, I sense a growing number of individuals beginning to question not only the race notion but the need for tribal affiliation in general. On the other hand, maybe that’s just me 🙂

Charles Michael Byrd

Later that day, I received this from Brent:

My Uncle, Doyle Kennedy, is to be congratulated for making the contact — we’re increasingly on the same wavelength here, my friend. Attached are some links you might enjoy. Also, my most recent statement (which I’m certain parallels your thinking) can be found at: http://www.melungeons.com

Stay in touch — have ordered your book and looking forward to reading it.

My best,

Brent K.

Brent Kennedy, like myself, is a spiritual seeker who knows that true intelligence is being able to discern the difference between that which is temporary – our physical bodies – and that which is permanent – the soul or spiritual spark animating these bodies. At a time when Brent is recovering from a debilitating stroke, my prayers are with him and his family. Whatever the outcome, however, that eternal spark of consciousness that we have all come to associate with the physical form we call Brent Kennedy will be just that – eternal.
In his Amazon.com review of my modest self-publishing effort, Brent wrote:

Charles Michael Byrd is to be congratulated on weaving what every man and woman ought to be doing in terms of “race consciousness” with the greater morality of the Bhagavad-Gita. The Melungeons, a mixed ethnic group, have lived with, and continue to struggle with, the issues presented and discussed so thoughtfully by Mr. Byrd. All human beings – not simply those who consider themselves “mixed-race” — owe the author a debt of gratitude.

I consider Brent Kennedy a brother not only in the struggle to throw off the shackles of forced racial identity but also in the effort to usher in the larger spiritual awareness on this planet. He once told me – in an email that I constantly kick myself in the butt for having misplaced — that he found a translation of the Bhagavad-Gita in his home, and that it must have been his dear mother’s copy. That revelation initially floored me, but, as all things happen for a reason, I came to realize that Brent was not the only spiritual seeker in his family. For those unfamiliar with the text, the Bhagavad-gita is the main source book on yoga, is the essence of India’s Vedic wisdom and is one of the great spiritual and philosophical classics of the world. As I write this, I am also finishing a second more expanded edition of my book for which I intend to find a mainstream publisher. Please wish me success.

I wish to thank A.D. Powell for agreeing to read this to you today, and, perhaps, I can make the journey to next year’s Union. Thank you all.

James Landrith

When I first got involved with the “multiracial movement” in 1996, I had considered myself to be of German, French and English stock solely. I have since learned much more of my familial origins and now know that my Landrith (Landreth) heritage has its origins in Scotland (traced all the way back to 1070), my Lutz and Nye ancestors are of German stock and somewhere lost in time are non-European ancestors that I have been attempting to verify and prove.

So no, I haven’t always known I was Melungeon and I haven’t definitively proven it to my satisfaction either. I had previously thought that I had proven the link via my Lutz family line, but was mistaken. However, I believe I may unfortunately be related via Lutz cousins to Walter Plecker. However, I remain convinced of the Melungeon or Brass Ankles, Black Irish/Dutch or some other MGM population ties due to certain physical characteristics in my European surname family lines and their long-time presence in Virginia (Landreth, Nye, and Lutz branches) since the early 1700s before branching out to Illinois, where I was born.

I possess certain physical characteristics such as: Asian Shovel Teeth, Anatolian bump, sleep disorder, unfortunate keloids, etc. My father, his siblings and my grandfather are of a noticeably darker complexion, have striking black hair and tan quite easily in the sun. In fact, when my father was younger and worked on the railroads in Illinois he would darken up significantly from many hours in the sun. That, combined with his black hair, lead some of my mother’s family to believe he was mulatto. I tend to favor my mother’s Jackson line in phenotype. I am noticeably lighter and have brown hair. When some “multiracial” individuals see my photo online they automatically assume I am solely of European ancestry. Of course, these folks tend to be the ones who endlessly obsess over blood quantum and phenotype.

I believe my great-great-grandmother Minnie May Ehrheart Landrith was of MGM descent via her mother or father. My father, grandfather and great-uncle have all said “we are Cherokee” and named Minnie as the source or claimed she was half-Indian. Minnie’s mother was Matilda Nye and her father was Daniel S. Earheart (Ehrhart, Ehrheart). I have confirmed that Daniel’s father was not the source of my MGM heritage as he came to the U.S. from Germany. Unfortunately, I have been unable to produce a name for Minnie’s grandmother. Of course, her name may have been erased from the family tree out of fear or shame by a prior ancestor if she is the source of my MGM heritage. Either way, I believe that is the link. Of course, as my family spent a long time in Virginia prior to moving Westward, there may be several intermarriages with MGM populations in the family tree that need investigating.

When I first got involved with the “multiracial movement” through IV and Project RACE I was intrigued at the prospect of working toward a goal that would affect my children in a positive way as they are both of multiracial heritage. As I read more on IV, I first learned of the Melungeons and also the Metis, possibly through something you wrote. I then began to read more and search for more Melungeon information online. Far too much of the focus of the “multiracial” movement is biased toward first generation biracial individuals. There are hundreds of years of history of “multiracial” populations in this country that existed before Loving v. Virginia. This realization led me to seek out Melungeon and Metis writers for content on TMA and have since published work by Mike Nassau, Nancy Sparks-Morrison, Tim Hashaw, Jason Adams, Helen Campbell and others.

I admire the fact that so many Melungeons and even Metis, some of whom could very easily blend in with their “white” neighbors are willing to stand up and be counted. They are not afraid to shake their family tree to see what falls out. Their example led me to shed my monoracial identity, and acknowledge my heritage, as fuzzy as some of it may be at present. I believe that in order to move past our nation’s unhealthy obsession with “race”, we will first have to come to grips with our significant “multiracial” national heritage. This, despite the objections of some of the first generation “biracial”-centric organizations, will involve incorporating that long history into the greater “multiracial” movement. The Multiracial Activist is not only about the children growing up in a post-Loving environment. TMA sees all mixes as part of larger picture and recognizes the significant struggles and strifes that older “multiracial” populations have had to endure.

Melungeon Unions (Archive, pre-2012)

Mattie Ruth Johnson presentation, 2005

October 15, 2016 Published by: mha

Ruth’s Four Branches

Presented by Mattie Ruth Johnson

When I first started researching my family history I did not know all the good and bad stories that were out there about us.

Since my ancestors were called Melungeons I became more interested in, what is a Melungeon? We were told as small children we were kin to the Melungeons. Who were they, and, where did they come from? That was my adventure. I wanted to know just who they all were.

As everyone knows by now they were, and are, in all walks of life, and descend from many nationalities here and abroad.

We know there is an English line, Irish, Scotch-Irish, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish, and many different Indian Natives from this country. They weren’t all descendants of the Cherokee’s who descend from the Northern Iroquois Tribe. Die Indians weren’t all brown skinned like the movie westerns portray them.

A lot of these Native Americans married foreigners who were whiter than most Indians, and as the lines come on down became a whiter nation in the United States.
A lot of people will look at me and say, “You don’t look like a Melungeon”. They come in all different shades of color. Most of us have a Melungeon heritage, which to me is a connection to an American Native which seems to have been here before a majority of people showed up in the Carolina’s, Kentucky, and Tennessee from foreign countries.
A few generations back I see dark skinned ancestors with white wife or husband.

I definitely do know that some of my people were descendants of some Cherokees. I have a Gibson line Joseph “Fisher” Gibson who could only speak Cherokee, and his son Keener Gibson had to interpret for him. Keener spoke both English and Cherokee. By the time we get to my great great-grandfather, and my grandparents they all spoke English. My great grand mother here was a Massengill of English heritage, from England.

Another of my 4th generation grandfathers Solomon Collins was said to be highly esteemed and venerable patriarch Later stories surfaced that he crossed into Tennessee because he was afraid the chief would kill him. Don’t know what he did that was so wrong, but he married a Goins and had a large family, and he was referred to as a “thrifty farmer”, and honest. These two ancestral 4th “great-great-grandfathers were Cherokee according to affidavits filed by their grandchildren.

J.G. Rhea in his 80’s wrote a letter in 1918 to his niece Martha Collins that ran the bank in Sneedville, stating that Navarrah “Vardy” Collins was a fine Old Patriarch, said to be of Portuguese Notality (nationality), coming to this country with DeSoto.

He settled on Blackwater near Sneedville and owned Mineral Springs. He sold mineral water, and ran a boarding house, and founded a Church “Vardy Church” He said both Vardy and Solomon Collins were highly respected in their time and both had a fine set of children, and the boys were his churns when he was a young, boy. He goes on to name all the children of both families, stating he visited their homes often.

Vardy’s wife was Margaret Peggy Gibson. She was known as “Spanish Peggy”. There was an invasion of the French and Spanish in the Carolina’s in 1706. Peggy’s father was John Gibson and her grandfathers are said to be Spanish Pirates that came to Tennessee to escape the hangman’s noose. These people were dark skinned like Spaniards and spoke a broken English. There were Scotch-Irish settlers in the area at that time.

This area was first a Territory, then became Virginia, then North Carolina, and then Tennessee.

Then we have the Mullins lines that go back to James “Jim” Mullins, also known as “Hair Lip Jim, and Irish Jim”. Said to be English. One line of Gibson’s I have are from Court County Ireland.

THUS WE HAVE RUTH’S FOUR BRANCHES

There are many more branches. The Natives weren’t all Cherokee. Most of the men joined the wars of the state they lived in. They only wanted to make a living for themselves and their families.

So it was a big surprise when I read the stories that Dromgoole wrote to find out that the people she was writing about good or bad was some of my ancestors. No matter what she said about them be it good or bad I immediately loved, and understood all of them. I came to realize there is good and bad in all our earlier-settlers for they certainly had a different existence back then than we have had the past 100 years. Most of the Melungeons lived to a ripe old age back then.

Many had moonshine stills and this was one way they made a little extra money. Many fights and shootings occurred. They weren’t all bad though. They had large families. So many that a lot had the Christian name of one of their parents attached to their Christian name in order to designate which family they were from. Still today one of my great-grandmothers is known as Cora “Bum” Collins, named so after her father Morgan “Bum” Collins, so she was called “Cora Bum.”

A lot of the earlier groups weee called Colonies, Tribes, Ridgemanites, later clans.

Dromgoole stated that they married outside their clan. What did she expect? They certainly weren’t marrying each other. She stated the English began with the Mullins “Old Jim Mullins”, a trader with the Indians stumbled upon the ridge settlement, fell in with the Ridgemanites and never left. The Mullins became the head of the Ridge People. They were social, good natured and harmless.

When John Sevier was trying to organize the state of Franklin there was living in Eastern Tennessee a colony of dark skinned reddish brown-compexioned people supposed to be of Moorish descent they were listed as “Free Men of Color”. The earlier Cherokee ancestors of mine were listed as “free persons of color” and white. I feel like moonshine took it’s toll on a lot of them causing fights, and killings.

Dromgoole wrote a pretty bad story of the Melungeons she visited in May 1891, for she got mad at them for charging her the enormous fee of 15 cents a day board. She retracted her story in June 1891. So-in a month they turned from bad to pretty good people.

Some were very poor during those times, while others were pretty well off. All of them did not have mattresses and shoes. They had to go barefooted. They did not have buttons and bows. Those days were hard times for them.

Then came poor old Mahala – a daughter of old Solomon Collins that married one of the Mullins boys. She, like a lot of other Melungeons and people on the mountain had plenty of apple orchards to make moonshine. They sold what they could, and would fight to save their stills.

The story goes how she lived in one house that was on the line of Tennessee and Virginia. When law makers came to arrest her she just moved to the other side of the house. As time went on Mahala had medical problems, and grew so large she wasn’t able to go in and out of the house. She was estimated to be about 500 to 600 pounds.

The Hancock County sheriff sent his deputies to arrest Mahala for making moonshine, knowing good and well she was to big to get out of the house. ‘When the deputy filed his report it stated “she was catchable, but not fetchable”. There are stories of taking her to town before she became unable to get out the door. Her sons hitched two horses to a sled, put her on it, and headed down the ridge to town. Her body was,, so large it took up most of the sled.

Some day I would love to try and paint a picture of Aunt Mahala with a fancy dress, and hat with a blanket thrown across her legs WITH A BIG SMILE riding to town. It makes me laugh, she had such a spirit, then again it makes me sad. She is my third
great aunt x 2.

Around 1730-1740 a lot of these people migrated from North Carolina, and Virginia, coming to East Tennessee (Research by Jack Goins). The Melungeons were said to be the friendly Indians who came with the whites as they moved west. This was noted by Lewis M. Jarvis in 1829. Many old records establish their credibility after many years of being classified as anything else. They were classified as white in the 1840 Hancock county census.

People sometimes used the word Melungeon to discredit someone else. I think this is one reason a lot of people back then weren’t as proud of the name as we are today. Their identity has been diluted by generations of marriages with new coiners, and going to other towns to find jobs. This is the way it should be.

Most of the Melungeons lived off the land. They grew their own vegetables, fruits, raised chicken’s, hogs, and when their meat supply was low they went hunting for more. They did not just have small gardens. They had fields of everything, and had unique ways of preserving foods. They were good at drying and canning foods.

This really meant working year in and year out with the exception of Church and school days. The whole family would participate in the fanning, and chores. Things like feeding the animals, milking, churning butter, chopping cords of wood to last year in and year out.

They didn’t have access to plants, factories, or market places like we have today. The stores carried mostly grain, tools, farming supplies with a few commodities like salt, pepper, coffee, or sugar. We did have a dress shop that carried material. People did not have a lot of money to buy things with. Our mother taught us how to sew at a early age making skirts and blouses. Occasionally we got a ready-made dress. After fanners sold their tobacco crops near Christmas time we could afford to buy a few things. You took care of what you had, and learned to appreciate it.

There were ways of making do with everything. Can you imagine no electricity, no running water, or no refrigeration in the house!

Early ancestors’ ways have certainly passed. You carried water from a well or spring. Had coal oil lamps for light at night!, You cooked your meals the day you needed them!

Mattie Ruth Johnson with then-MHA president Wayne Winkler and Claire Winkler, holding a painting by “Aunt Mattie Ruth” – June 2004

Milk was placed in the edge of a spring, or dairy to keep from from spoiling. Dairies were where your can goods were stored and a handy place to take cover if there was an impending cyclone to your area. They are partially built under the edge of a hill partially under the earth. Nice cool place to make kraut. Back then we did not have plastic bags or push button items. We did have brown paper bags everyone called “Pokes”.

At one time doors weren’t locked. My grand mother Mullins said her family kept having cakes and pies disappearing from their screened in back porch till one day she came home and found a bear there eating them. She ran and got inside the toilet and stayed there until the rest of the family came in from the fields.

Melungeons are like everyone else. They came here and there to make a living, and that is what they have done. No matter which line we go up to, everyone has to go up to some line. Whether they are part of the Lost Colony, Lost tribe, Irish, Portuguese, Turkish, Spanish, German, English, French or the many different Indians- it took all of them to make up this country.

In 1998 I went with Dr. Brent Kennedy and a crew of us to visit Turkey. There I met many people that look a lot like a lot of people here. They were some of the most gracious, and generous people I have ever met. We saw one of the 10 wonders of the world, saw where Christians hid out during Biblical times. We got to walk down the original marble stone road that Jesus’ disciples James, and John walked at Efes (Ephesians) from the Bible. As you may know Turkey was originally Asia Minor from the Bible. While sitting on a boat being taken down the Bosphorus some men started asking me questions. Their interpreter told me what they were saying. One man with a tear in his eye said “Please tell Americans that we are not barbaric like some of our neighbors accuse us of being”, “we are good people and we love Americans”. He was right. I told him I would. Little did I know that I was surrounded by doctors and lawyers, and other town officials. They treated us like royalty. Dr. Turan Yazgan and Turker Ozdogan were our leaders. We passed the Ottomon original homes where some of those people were with groups that came to America. Never did I dream that I would be riding down the Bosphorus to the edge of the Black Sea, with one side being Asia, and the other being Europe, and on out in front of us was the Ukraine, the Black Sea was on out in front of that, and that goes out into the Mediterranean Sea where people came this way coining to America.

Before we left we were taken to Cesme’s Melungeon Mountain. Our Melungeon mountain is a little higher, but the feeling you get there touches your heart. To know the waters below this area is where a lot of people there left coining to America, never to return to their homes. The families came here and had vigils waiting for their brothers, husbands, and sons to return, but they never came back. They were called “the lost souls, people of the damned.” The ones who made it to America became Americans.

Now on our little Melungeon mountain sometimes school fights would break out. One teacher denied using snuff which products were certainly not allowed. When confronted by my sister Nellie she flat out denied it, and while Nellie proceeded to get her purse to prove it, she got after her with a switch. At this point my brother Gale intervened. Nellie grabbed her purse, and threw it against the wall and out popped snuff everywhere. There was no denying this now. She had a whole class full of witnesses.

My sister Gene says I have given you a perfect profile of myself. Of course she was referring to me holding her over the little stream of water near our house. In the center area it was a little deeper, about 2 feet. She was forbidden to go there, just sit on the sides and play in the water since she would not adhere to the rule. I held her over the center where the sun shined through large trees with beautiful sun rays, and you could see the heavens. I told her she would fall that far and would fall forever and ever. After she started crying I stopped. Of course this was to protect her. She was only about 2 years old.

We knew from an early age that the Bible was DAD’S WORD.
If you did something you shouldn’t, and he had it in for you. He would say “I’m laying up to give you a good one, which usually never happened, but this would hang over your head. You better have a good back-up. I did! I worked twice as hard, and all I had to do was ASK HIM A QUESTION ABOUT THE BIBLE. I had his undivided attention, and he forgot the threat.

If the Melungeons weren’t the “Great Mixture” before, they certainly are now. People are finding their ancestors all over the country, not just in America.

Foreign people had it rough too. Coming to America and finding a friendly Native to marry gave them a freedom they did not have in some of those foreign countries. A lot of these people help make America. They came here legally and they worked
hard.

The memories of life on Newman’s Ridge will always be precious in my heart. All the people I knew, and my family. Pictures and memories of all of them that I have are places and times I don’t want to fade away.

Time becomes a memory, but your pictures will keep alive those things that are important to you.

The Melungeons have scattered through-out, and most of the older ones have passed on through this world. Take care to preserve your history, and family. The Melungeons have come back strong now.

GOD BLESS THE MELUNGEONS WHOEVER YOU ARE.

Melungeon Unions (Archive, pre-2012)

Sixth Union Presenters

October 15, 2016 Published by: mha

Sixth Union Presenters

LISA ALTHER
Reading from her upcoming book Washed in the Blood: The Search for My Melungeon Ancestors.
Lisa Alther was born in 1944 in Kingsport, Tennessee, where she went to public schools. She was graduated from Wellesley College with a BA in English literature in 1966. After attending the Publishing Procedures Course at Radcliffe College and working for Atheneum Publishers in New York, she moved to Hinesburg, Vermont, where she has lived for thirty years, raising her daughter. She taught Southern Fiction at St. Michael’s College in Winooski, Vermont. Having lived in London and Paris, she currently divides her time between Vermont and New York City. Alther is the author of five novels — Kingflicks, Original Sins, Other Women, Bedrock and Five Minutes in Heaven. Each has appeared on bestseller lists worldwide. The first three novels were featured selections of the Book-of-the-Month Club, and the five novels combined have sold over six million copies

DAVID ARNETT
“The Importance of the Melungeon Community to Turkish-American Relations.”
David L. Arnett retired from the Department of State on November 30, 2005. He was a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister Counselor. Born in Indiana in 1943 as the son of a career Army officer, he lived in both Austria and Japan in the 1950’s. After graduation from Wabash College as an English major in 1965, he spent four years in the Army with service in the Azores and Vietnam. He received his Ph.D. in English from Tulane University in 1973 and entered the Foreign Service in 1974. His Foreign Service career included tours as a Junior Officer in Munich and Hamburg, Cultural Attache in Copenhagen, Press Attache in Ankara, Public Affairs Counselor in Oslo, Deputy Minister Counselor for Public Affairs in Bonn, Counselor for Public Affairs in Ankara, Minister Counselor for Public Affairs in Bonn/Berlin, and Director of the Office of Press and Public Diplomacy (EUR/PPD) in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs at the United States Department of State. He served as the Consul General in Istanbul from July 2002 to August 2005. He is married to the former Vivi Smiler, who is originally from Norway. He speaks Danish, German, Norwegian, and Turkish.

S. J. ARTHUR
“MHA – An Exploration in Ethnicity, Ethics and Endurance”
S. J. Arthur, a native of West Virginia, has long identified with her Appalachian heritage. S. J. holds a Sociology degree from Berea College with emphasis on Appalachian studies. S. J. descends from Melungeons on both sides of her family. S. J., a founding member of the Melungeon Heritage Association, is the current President.

ROBERT BARNES
“What is Knowable is Known, and What is Known is Knowable: A Paradigm for Ancestoral Research”
“Dr. Bob” was born in Alabama and grew up in Harlan County, Kentucky and Florida. He studied at Columbia Bible College, Warren Wilson College, Gordon College and Seminary, Penn State University, and West Virginia University. He received B.A., M.A., and Doctorate of Education degrees. He began tracing his family’s roots in 1990, and subsequently discovered both Cherokee and Melungeon ancestry. Dr. Barnes has authored several papers and is currently preparing two books for publication. One is The Psalms as Worship and History and the other is A History of Pastoral Training and Leadership Development.

ANTHONY CAVENDER
“Finding Self in the Other: A Personal Account of Melungeon Identity.”
Dr. Anthony Cavender is a Professor of Anthropology at East Tennessee State University. He specializes in the study of folk medicine and has done research on folk medical beliefs and practices and folk healers in southern Appalachia, Zimbabwe, and the highlands of Ecuador. He is the author of several articles on folk medicine and a book, Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachian, published in 2004 by the University of North Carolina Press.

W. C. “CLAUDE” COLLINS
“Memories of the Vardy School and Mission”
Claude Collins is a retired educator and school administrator from Sneedville, Tennessee. He is a Vardy School alumnus and also attended Warren Wilson College and the University of Tennessee. He was one of the founding members of the Hancock County Drama Association, which staged the outdoor drama “Walk Toward the Sunset” in Sneedville from 1969 to 1976. During this time, Collins served as a spokesman for the Melungeons to the press and visitors. He is also one of the founding members of the Vardy Community Historical Society, an MHA board member, and the recipient of MHA’s first “Lifetime Achievement Award” in 2002.

PENNY FERGUSON
“The Melungeons in Early Court Documents”
Penny Ferguson, an Appalachian and Melungeon researcher, has been researching Melungeons for 40 years, she visited with William Grohse, and Martha Collins, and many of the older residents in Hancock County, Tennessee (and other areas) over the years. A lifelong resident of eastern Kentucky, with all of her ancestors having lived in eastern KY for 200 years, she finds it a privilege to help research and tell as factually as possible the history and story of central Appalachia.

BILL FIELDS
“Melungeons 101”
Bill Fields was a founding member of the MHA board. He is from Southeast Kentucky (Lesile County) and has done extensive genealogical research into his Appalachian ancestry. For several years he produced Under One Sky, a printed journal featuring research and information concerning Melungeons and other mixed-ethnic people. He still maintains a web site devoted to that topic and maintains an ongoing involvement in a variety of issues of social justice. Bill attended Berea College and, professionally is the program director of a residential facility offering emergency shelter and transitional housing to seniors.

ELOY GALLEGOS
Eloy J. Gallegos is a native of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where his ancestors came to settle the Kingdom of New Mexico in 1598. He is a 1962 graduate of the University of Tennessee, and is married to the former Anne C. Kirk. Prior to 1974, Gallegosa was a research writer for the FBI and a Congressional investigator. Since then, he has devoted his time to the study of early Spanish exploration in America. His books include THE MELUNGEONS: The Spanish Pioneers of the Interior Southeastern United States, JACONA, An Epic Story of the Spanish Southwest, and SANTA ELENA, Spanish Settlements on the Atlantic Seaboard from Florida to Virginia.

JACK GOINS
“The Melungeons in Early Court Documents”
Jack Goins is a researcher and author of Melungeons and Other Pioneer Families. He is also a co-founder of the Friends of Hawkins County Archives Project, which is preserving court records dating back to the late 18th century.

GWENDOLYN HIGDON
“Hypothetical Analogy of the Cradle of the Melungeons”
Gwendolyn Hicks Schroeder Higdon is a graduate of Brigham Young University, B.A. majoring in History. She also holds an Associate Degree and Certification in Genealogy. Gwen has authored and published several genealogical books, some are still available. She is the daughter of the late Gilbert Hicks and Mary Osborne, and is the widow of the late Victor Higdon.

ELIZABETH HIRSCHMANN
“Tracing Sephardic Roots in Specific Melungeon Families”
Beth Caldwell Hirschman is a native of Kingsport, Tennessee. She was born in Colonial Heights, belonged to the Colonial Heights Presbyterian Church and graduated from Dobyns-Bennett High School. She went to the University of Georgia and Georgia State University for her BA, MBA and PHD degrees. She is now a Professor in the Business School at Rutgers University in New Jersey, and the author of several academic articles, papers and books. After stumbling across Brent Kennedy’s book on Melungeons in the Atlanta airport, she discovered that (1) She and Brent are cousins (2) She is descended from Melungeons on both her mother’s and father’s side. She became obsessed with discovering the truth about her background and has spent the past two and one-half years reading around 200 history and religion books, searching through hundreds of genealogies, and gathering DNA from over 20 persons in her own ancestry. Her book Melungeons: The Last Lost Tribe in America was published by Mercer University Press in 2005.

CHERYL HIGDON HOLLOWAY
“Hypothetical Analogy of the Cradle of the Melungeons”
Cheryl Higdon Holloway, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in HPE at Eastern New Mexico University, Portales, New Mexico. She is a graduate of Brigham Young University She received her Doctorate Degree from the University of New Mexico. She is the daughter of the late Victor Higdon and the presenter, Gwendolyn Hicks Higdon. She is married to James Holloway, Ph.D. Superintendent of Portales Public Schools.

MATTIE RUTH JOHNSON
“Ruth’s Four Branches”
Mattie Ruth Johnson is the author of My Melungeon Heritage, which chronicles her childhood on Newman’s Ridge in Hancock County, Tennessee. Her ancestors include many Melungeons and she has done extensive research on her family lines. She currently lives in Kingsport, Tennessee and works as a nurse. She is also an artist who works in oils and watercolors, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Melungeon Heritage Association.She has written many articles on the Melungeons and about her life growing up on Newman’s Ridge back in the forties and fifty’s when times seemed harder, and no one had the availability of modern day things like we have today. She will tell a little about growing up and why and how she came to write My Melungeon Heritage.

TED KLEIN
“An Appalachian Mystery Story”
Ted Klein began his interest in genealogy in the mid-1990’s, after his retirement in 1988 from the Defense Language Institute English Language Center, where he was a specialist in English language training and education for military students from more than 60 allied and friendly nations. He currently teaches English as-a- second language to immigrants for the Adult Education Department of the Austin Community College in Texas. His mother, the late Alma Sioux Scarberry; novelist, newspaperwoman, public relations specialist, etc. was born in Carter County in eastern Kentucky in 1899. Her family were long-time residents of the southern Appalachian mountains of Kentucky, southwestern Virginia and northern Tennessee. Ted’s quest for more information has included some original research on Melungeons and their connections to French-Huguenot refugees, who also came into the southeastern U.S. many years ahead of the Scot-Irish population and others who later dominated the area. He is descended from or related to nine lines of Melungeon families. Ted is a charter member of the Melungeon Heritage Foundation, is a member of the Melungeon Heritage Association and wrote several articles for the Melungeon journal, “Under One Sky.” He attended the first three Melungeon Unions at the University of Virginia at Wise and presented at two of them. Ted taught an applied phonology course at Dumlupinar University June and July of 2001 in Kütahya in central Anatolia in Turkey, one of the likely Melungeon sources.

KATHY LYDAY-LEE
“Creating a College-level Course in Melungia”
Kathy Lyday-Lee is the chair of the Department of English at Elon College in North Carolina, where she has taught Appalachian literature, literature of the Holocaust, linguistics, grammar, and history of the language for 22 years. She has a B.A. and M.A. in English from Tennessee Technological University, and Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of Tennessee. The topic of both her thesis and dissertation was the mountain literature of Will Allen Dromgoole.

APRIL MULLINS MELA
“GRAVEHOUSES: Providing Necroethnic Clues for Cultural Continuity among Mixed Racial Populations in Appalachia Possible Ottoman Admixture Elements”
April Mullins Mela was a licensed Social Worker for more that twenty years before becoming an Anthropologist and focusing on what she describes as Melungeoness research. She studied at Randolph Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia and received Jessie Ball Dupont funding for a summer research project in June 2000.her topic was Exploring Melungeons: Race, and Ethnicity in America. She also produced an interesting social theory paper while at RMWC; its title was Understanding Melungeon Ethnogenesis. She graduated with honors in both Sociology and Anthropology in May 2001 and presented her gravehouse research at the Appalachian Studies Conference in 2002.

PHYLLIS MOREFIELD
“Building Your Family History Through Personal Interviews”
Phyllis Morefield was born in Ironton, Ohio, but as an “army brat” attended school in the U. S. and Europe. She received a BS in Secondary Education from Radford College, where she majored in history and mathematics. While teaching in Arizona, a friend prompted to start her family history, which has led to a 25 year “obsession”. As an amateur genealogist, she enjoys teaching and learning new research methods. Phyllis is a founding board member of the Melungeon Heritage Association and currently serves as treasurer.

JAMES NICKENS
“Strangers in the Indian Nations”
James H. Nickens, M.D., is a retired Native American physician and studies Native American genealogies. He has extensively studied the genealogies of colonial Virginia Indians and relates this to the study of Melungeons.

EVELYN ORR
“The Invention of Melungeon Ethnicity and Some Multi Ethnic Potpourri”
Evelyn Orr is a lay researcher who in 1989 traced a Goings ancestor from Iowa to Southwest Virginia. She discovered The Melungeons of Appalachia, and that a major surname among them was Goins. Served as Chair of Arlee Gowen’s Gowen Research Foundation’s newly formed Melungeon Research Team 1990-1997 until dissolved. She had contact with hundreds of folks, and received a large collection of previous published data on the Multi Ethnic Mystery groups of early Southeast America. Was a member of Dr. Brent Kennedy’s Melungeon Research Committee 1992-1997 until dissolved, and served on the Board of Melungeon Heritage Foundation 1998-99.

DRUANNA OVERBAY
“Memories of the Vardy School and MIssion”
DruAnna Overbay, an English teacher at Jefferson County High School, is the current secretary of the Vardy Community Historical Society, Inc. She is a graduate of the Vardy Community School where her parents Alyce and Drew Williams taught. Her ancestors were instrumental in establishing the Vardy Mission since they donated land to the Presbyterians for the church and the school. She is a direct descendant of Vardemon Collins, who is recognized as a patriarch of the Newman’s Ridge Melungeons and for whom the valley is named. She is also a graduate from Warren Wilson College, the University of Tennessee and Union. She holds an Ed S. degree. She recently compiled the book Windows on the Past, which was published in 2006 by Mercer University Press.

A.D. POWELL
“Melungeons and the Mixed Race Experience”
A.D. Powell has been a writer for both the websites “Interracial Voice” and “The Multiracial Activist.” An amateur historian, she has studied the history of “mixed race” people in the European diaspora for more than 30 years.

FRANK AND MARY SWEET
“The Triumph of the One-Drop Rule.”
“Informal Follow-Up: History and Molecular Anthropology of the Color Line.”
Since retiring as electrical engineer and school librarian, respectively, Frank and Mary Lee Sweet have interpreted living history as a hobby / business under the name “Backintyme.” They don period dress, perform 19th century music (banjo, guitar, percussion), and tell anecdotes from Florida’s past at museums, libraries, private functions, and state and national historic sites. Their website is at http://www.backintyme.com. In support of this activity, Frank has published eleven historical booklets that are currently sold at museum and state park gift shops throughout Florida. Backintyme’s special area of interest is in the origins, and unfolding of North America’s odd “race” notion. Frank earned a Master’s in Civil War Studies from American Military University in Manassas, Virginia in the fall of 2001. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in U.S. history at the University of Florida in Gainesville Florida. His dissertation title is “A Brief History of the One-Drop Rule.”
http://backintyme.com/essay060401.htm

KATHERINE VANDE BRAKE
“Images, Ideologies, and Language: A Scholar Looks at Melungeons’ Use of 21st Century Technologies”
Katie Vande Brake is Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences and Professor of English & Technical Communication at King College in Bristol, Tennessee. Her presentation at Sixth Union is drawn from her doctoral dissertation (Michigan Technological University, 2005) titled “Through the Back Door: Melungeon Literacies and 21st Century Technologies.” Vande Brake is the author of How They Shine: Melungeon Characters in the Fiction of Appalachia, originally published in 2001 and recently issued in paperback. Vande Brake lives in Bristol, Tennessee, and Harbert, Michigan.

TROY WILLIAMS
“Memories of the Vardy School and Mission”
Williams is an alumni of the Vardy School. He and his family moved to Maryland, where he attended high school and college. He is retired from the State of Maryland.

DARLENE WILSON
“On Studying ‘Melungeon’ in Academia – A Decade of Progress”
The 2006 Helen Lewis Lecturer, Darlene Wilson is a nationally recognized historian of Appalachia, race and women. She is the founder of APPALNET, a listserv for the Appalachian studies community, and a founding member of MHA. She has also served as Director of Institutional Advancement and Effectiveness, as well as having been a faculty member for Southeast Community College in Cumberland, KY. A respected author, Wilson’s writing has appeared in numerous books and journals including theJournal of Appalachian Studies.

WAYNE WINKLER
“Melungeons 101”
Wayne Winkler is the director of public radio station WETS-FM in Johnson City, Tennessee, and is the son of a Melungeon father from Hancock County, Tennessee. Winkler produced a nationally distributed radio documentary in 1999 entitled The Melungeons: Sons and Daughters of the Legend. This documentary won a Silver Reel Award from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. Winkler continued his research, resulting in the book Walking Toward the Sunset: The Melungeon of Appalachia, published by Mercer University Press in Spring 2004. Winkler holds a master’s degree in history from East Tennessee State University and is currently the vice-president of the Melungeon Heritage Association.

KAERSTEN COLVIN-WOODRUFF
“The Moors Revisited, A Contemporary Look At Forgotten Folk”
A descendent of the Delaware Moors—a Tri-Racial Isolate community centered around the towns of Cheswold and Millsboro, Delaware, and loosely comparable to the Melungeons. Artist and professor Kaersten Colvin-Woodruff has been teaching Sculpture and Three-Dimensional Design at Clarion University of Pennsylvania since 1994. She graduated with a Master of Fine Art in sculpture from Arizona State University in 1994. In 1991 she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The State University of New York at Purchase. Professor Colvin-Woodruff has exhibited her artwork throughout the United States and South America. She creates mixed media sculptures that reflect an interest in the social factors that have shaped and determined race and identity in Early American culture. In engaging this theme she draws upon her own personal and ancestral history.

Melungeon Unions (Archive, pre-2012)

Sixth Union Photo Gallery

October 15, 2016 Published by: mha

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Melungeon Unions (Archive, pre-2012)

Brent Kennedy presentation, 2004

October 15, 2016 Published by: mha

Ties That Bind

by Brent Kennedy
Presented at Fifth Union
Kingsport, Tennessee
Friday, 18 June 2004

First and foremost, I’d like to dedicate my remarks today to my late Mother, Nancy Hopkins Kennedy, who left this World August 9th, 2002. Like most all mothers she was a truly special lady and we miss her, a whole, whole, lot.

That being said, how many of you have heard me tell the story of my experience some years back with the children at Lincoln Elementary School here in Kingsport? With apologies to those who have heard it before, I’m going to re-tell it today. I’m repeating it for a reason: this little story sums up, at least for me, what the Melungeon odyssey is all about.

It was in 1997, I believe, that I was invited to speak to the combined fourth and fifth grade classes at Lincoln Elementary School. The teachers and students had assembled in the auditorium and I presented the story of the Melungeons, and how my own family fit into the legacy of these so-called “mystery people” of the central Appalachians. I laid out my general beliefs about the Melungeons – beliefs that remain for the most part pretty much the same today as they were then.

Although I simplified it for the children, here, in slightly more adult language, is what I told them.

First, “Melungeon” was, and is, a culture – not a race. However, certain ethnic traits – such as darker skin – undoubtedly helped one along the road to being labeled a “Melungeon.” You could be a Melungeon and have Scots-Irish or English or German heritage just as legitimately as you could have Native American or African or Spanish or Turkish or Portuguese or what have you. Melungeons were not – and never were – simply “this” or “that.”

Second, the Melungeons were a broad based, mixed population with a strong Native American component – and shared common surnames – that moved eastward from the coastal areas. Over time they split off into separate communities, intermarried with other pioneers and developed their own unique histories and ethnic designations.

Third, those groups identifiable today as Melungeons are merely the tip of the iceberg. “Out migration” (that is, leaving home and moving somewhere else) has taken the genes of these earliest pioneers far beyond the Appalachian Mountain range. Melungeon descendants today are to be found throughout this Nation, from its heartland to the mid-west to the Pacific coast. Melungeons, and their kin, helped define who Americans are as a people, even if the vast majority of those who are descended from them have no inkling of their existence.

Fourth, I got into the basics of ethnic characteristics, or what we perceive as ethnic characteristics. I spoke about genetics and physical traits and how science – and our own eyes – could tell us much about who we are and from whence we came. I spoke about visible ethnic traits that we could all see by simply standing in front of a mirror, and I spoke about how these traits could tie us to so-called, “other” people. And how, if provided the information, that almost all of us could quickly discern that “purity of race” is an imaginary and flawed concept.

We talked about epicanthal eyefolds, Asian shovel teeth, and an enhanced external occipital protuberance that provides visible evidence of Asian and central Asian heritage. And how these traits could come from a Native American ancestor, or a Chinese grandmother, or a Turk, or even an Ashkenazi Jew, but all evidence of an Asian ancestry somewhere in our past. And, finally, I spoke of how whites, blacks, Native Americans – and Melungeons – often shared these traits – evidence of an admixture at a level ignored – and even denied – when I was a school boy back in the 1950s and 60s. And I could see these children en masse rubbing the backs of their heads and staring into each other’s eyes with seeming amazement.

And then, I wrapped up my presentation, with a hundred little hands applauding. And, to be honest, unsure of what impact, if any, I’d had.

At that point, the lead teacher asked the children if there were any questions – and there were a few. As I answered their questions, I noticed that far in the back of the auditorium three children kept talking amongst themselves. Finally, one of the teachers walked over, leaned down and spoke quietly to them, reprimanding them for their behavior, I assumed. And then, all of a sudden, these three children – a little “white” boy, a little “black” girl, and a little Korean girl – came bouncing down the aisle of the auditorium, as only children can do, holding hands and smiling from ear to ear.

“These children have something they’d like to announce, Dr. Kennedy,” the teacher said.

And in a moment I will never, ever forget, three little voices proclaimed in unison:

”We’re cousins! We’re cousins!”

Each child – white, black, Korean – had discovered his or her epicanthal folds, enhanced occipital protuberances, and shovel teeth.

Up until that day, these children saw themselves as members of three separate, unrelated “races.” And now, with just a little information, they saw – and delighted in – their newfound kinship.

These children understood the underlying beauty of the Melungeon story. Understood what many adults continue to struggle with; that being, that we ARE all kin. Not just figuratively, but literally. And that if we go back far enough in time – and sometimes it’s a lot less further back than we might imagine – that we stem from the same source. And that’s the real lesson here: that we should be teaching our children to accept and respect others because there really truly are no major differences. Skin color and hair texture and geography of birth are rather insignificant matters when placed against the total backdrop of what it means to be human.

Prejudice continues to be nothing more than self-mutilation.

“We’re cousins!” “We’re cousins!” will be with me for the rest of my life.

As you may have already noticed, my presentation today is different from the usual re-tracing of what we know about the Meungeons and their history. There are enough qualified speakers and enough articles and enough books outlining the theories of how these marvelous people came to be, and I don’t need to repeat it. Suffice it to say that I believe the Melungeons were a multi-cultural, mixed-race/mixed-ethnic population from day one. I believe that Native American, northern European, Mediterranean, African, East Asian and dozens of nationalities come into play, varying to some degree upon each family’s unique history of admixture. Given the historical documents that continue to emerge, there’s no doubt in my mind that England, Spain, Portugal and France, among other nations, were all sending their unwanted human cargo to settle the New World. The first choice for settlers was always someone else’s sons and daughters, with the lower classes and the ethnically and religiously undesirable generally being the first to go. We kid ourselves when we argue otherwise.

All to say, lots and lots of ethnically non-northern Europeans came to these shores and did their best to blend in with the ethnic power structures that were in place. And, for the most part, they succeeded, though in some places the unwanted and the unaccepted became isolated and continued to be just that: unwanted and unaccepted. Social stigmas became attached to thousands of families and those stigmas held fast, in many cases long after the families had, in Darlene Wilson’s words, both legally and physically “whitened up.”

My own family is a prime example. The faces of my relatives – my Mom, my brother, aunts and uncles – belie the official paper trail. In spite of a plethora of northern European surnames, my family, particularly on my Mother’s side, LOOKED Middle Eastern, Native American and African. I was probably less than ten years old when I first began taking note of the inconsistencies. But it all came together on a Saturday afternoon in the fall of 1962 as I sat in the darkened confines of the Coaltown Theatre in Norton, Virginia and watched what was to become a classic film: “Lawrence of Arabia.” The faces of the Arabs and the Berbers and the Turks were NOT exotic to me: they were the faces of my family and it was stunning. I hitch-hiked back to Wise with my now deceased friend and next door neighbor, “Little” Bill Davis, and asked my Mom…why? She had no answers, other than to recount the remembered prejudice that her family – and she personally – had known over the years.

In the forty two years that have passed since that afternoon, I’ve learned a great deal about my “Scots-Irish” family. Yes, we have northern European heritage. And yes, fair skin and blond hair and blue eyes can be found amongst our kin. We’re all speaking English today for a reason: lots of northern Europeans DID come to these shores, and I’m proud of every drop of Celtic blood that runs through my veins. It’s a part of who I am. But the emphasis is on the word, “part.” There are other parts of me, as well. Afterall, if we go back in time just ten generations, each of us has 1024 ancestors. Think about that: 1024 ancestors just ten generations back. How can anyone speak of their racial or ethnic purity? And yet, we do. If I go back even one more generation – i.e., eleven generations – I double the above number of ancestors to 2024. Get my point?

But be that as it may, there is still a lesson to be learned from digging into one’s past, both genealogically and genetically. We need to know from where we came in order to know where we’re going. And, a bit more selfishly, I subscribe to the truism that “that person who fails to remember his or her ancestors, is not likely to be remembered by his or her descendants.” What goes around comes around, as they say. And in my particular case, the search for origins has confirmed in an undeniable, physical way the theoretical lesson presented earlier. DNA, while subject to misuse as is any technology, properly applied can offer marvelous insight into what it means to be human.

For example, with an acceptable level of confidence, I now know via privately obtained DNA sequencing that I have Native American ancestry through three of my four grandparents. The family oral traditions through these three grandparents, unprovable through the official written records, turn out to have a probable basis in fact. I’ve also swabbed the cheeks of about thirty relatives representing a variety of my family lineages. With the result, that I now have mtDNA (maternal) and Y-chromosome (paternal) sequences that place at least some of my direct ancestors in:

Northern Europe (England, Ireland, Scotland)
Extreme Northern Europe (Vikings, as well as the so-called Saami)
Central Europe (Germany, Austria, the Netherlands),
Eastern Europe (the Balkans, Poland, Hungary, Russia)
The Mediterranean (Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Greece and the Aegean, North Africa)
East Africa (Ethiopia, Somalia)
India and Pakistan,
Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.

One mtDNA sequence finds its matches clustered almost exclusively among eastern European (i.e., Ashkenazi) Jews, Lebanese Druze, and Palestinians. Two other mtDNA sequences are classic Native American: haplogroups A and B.

All of which screams to me that, when all is said and done, from an ethnic standpoint, no one really knows who he or she is – other than the fact that we are human beings, comprised of all those who came before us, creations of God, children of Abraham.

So…maybe there’s a reason this “Scots-Irish, Redneck, Appalachian hillbilly can walk through his family graveyards – here in central Appalachia – and see Stars of David on the tombstones of his “German” ancestors. And maybe there’s a reason his brother is constantly “profiled” in today’s world as an Iranian or an Arab. And maybe there’s a reason his Mother looked as if she walked out of the Sahara, while his Father could have played bagpipes in Glasgow, Scotland and never drawn a second glance (other than the fact that his Father had no musical ability whatsoever).

In short, we are bits and pieces of the entire world, with each of us expressing our own “luck of the genetic draw” version of those bits and pieces. We are ALL walking, talking advertisements for the United Nations, even if we don’t know it. We are ONE big human family splintered apart by migrations and time, politics and religion. The mantra of the Melungeon Heritage Association, created by Lisa Savage some years ago, remains as apropos today as it was then: “We Are One People, All Colors.”

So, where to from here?

First, kinship is the key to understanding the Melungeons and their wider history, and by ignoring this kinship we strip these marvelous people of the true impact they’ve had on American culture and history. They were not insignificant. Their lives mattered, or should have – not just to their immediate families, but to this Nation, because they contributed mightily to it. They were more than just a few isolated people on a mountaintop here or there. But accepting their geographic dispersion is a different task than defining them. And, yet, attempting to define them has also proved a necessary, though still, inconclusive undertaking.

For me, the struggle to define “Melungeon” opened a much broader door. I learned that trying to “pin down” or identify a specific or limited ethnic origin for the Melungeons was impossible – because, frankly, none existed. Melungeons have always been a mix of humanity, just like every other human being. One cannot separate the layers of heritage as if unweaving a basket. This beautiful synthesis – the whole being greater than the parts – is what makes us who we are, Melungeon or otherwise. Which means, to some degree, virtually ALL origin theories are correct, with each family bringing its own unique history of admixture to the table. In fact, the only incorrect theories are, in my opinion, those that insist upon one and only one ethnicity that somehow magically “defines” Melungeon.

That’s the conclusion I reached in 1992, wrote about in 1993, and saw published in my book in 1994. I haven’t changed my view on this. For the sake of nostalgia, and for those who may be unfamiliar with my book, here are a few quotes from a decade ago:

From pages 166-169:

Quote #1
“Tracking the movements of Melungeon families is not easy, even for us Melungeons. Since we moved from region to region, and intermarried with so many diverse cultures, it becomes unmistakably clear that while we are still in many ways different from other Southerners, neither are we any longer exactly like the first Melungeons. Time and population movements change who we are. Ethnicity is a dynamic, ever changing concept – to “define” and pin it down with any certainty may be asking the impossible. It is quite slippery, changing in nature and form with each succeeding generation. And in all honesty, the history of the Melungeons is a strong argument for not attempting to define it at all.”

Quote #2
“We truly are, at least today, a mélange of many peoples, and that is our great strength. We are living proof that people of all colors and races can live together in peace and harmony, and that the resultant blend can be far superior to the individual parts. And we are further proof that ALL human beings harbor a racial diversity, known or unknown, that truly ties them to all other human beings. It is an indisputable point. We are all the same.”

Quote #3
“Physically, they remain as they were from the beginning: a diverse group reflecting a mixed ethnic, cultural, and religious heritage. Depending upon the individual, one will see the Jew or the Arab, the Berber or the Spaniard, the African or the Turk, the Moor or the Powhatan or Cherokee Indian, the Scotsman or the German, or occasionally bits and pieces of all these people beautifully blended into one human being. A mosaic of humanity…”

Quote #4
“Whatever the future may hold, regardless of what “truths” may yet be discovered, or what errors in my own work or judgment may later be revealed, I proudly affirm here, and hope that all those with a single drop of Melungeon blood will equally admit, that I am indeed a Melungeon. A Melange, if you will. A mixture of many peoples, and a stronger human being because of it. A child of God, and a brother to all men and women regardless of their creed or color.”

I don’t think I could have made any clearer my early sentiments regarding the ethnic and cultural diversity of our people. And, again for the record, those sentiments haven’t changed. On the contrary, they’ve grown stronger.

I am steadfast in my belief in the broader heritage of Melungeons, but the door has always been open for new research findings and new evidence. This is the way it has to be in the search for truth. I’m also open to criticism and, as many of you know, have certainly had my fair share of it. But that’s okay: it comes with the territory. In the late 1980s and early 90s, not nearly as many people were interested in the Melungeons, and my greatest fear was that too few people would care enough to delve into this intriguing story, and understand the deeper impact it could have on the broader issue of racial and ethnic understanding. I don’t think we have to worry about a lack of interest any longer – and I’ll take all the criticism in the world, seven days a week, in exchange for what we’ve accomplished.

And when I say “we” – let me mention the names of a just a few researchers and spokespeople, Melungeons all, who were standing tall and proud long before I made my way onto the scene. They gave me the incentive and confidence to move forward, and we owe them an enormous debt of gratitude. I apologize in advance for others that I’ve left out, but these directly influenced me. In alphabetical order:

Sharon Bolling
Claude Collins
Scott Collins
Seven Gibson
Jack Goins
Ruth Johnson
R.C. Mullins
Huie Mullins
Willie Mullins
DruAnna Overbay

These folks, and many of their kin, embraced their heritage and were, to trade on a well worn phrase, Melungeon when Melungeon wasn’t cool. Thankfully today, what were once just a few brave souls is now an army. And that army continues to grow, witness those of you here this weekend.

In closing, I thank God every day for letting me be born, and live, and work in this great Nation. As imperfect as our Country has been, and as imperfect as it remains, it is still a Paradise among nations. The mere fact that we can meet here this weekend, and openly discuss its imperfections, is testimony to its greatness. I am proud to be an American and I do not want this sentiment lost in the shuffle of reviewing past injustices.

Here’s to justice and kindness, brotherhood and sisterhood, and to the undeniable fact that:

“We’re cousins! We’re cousins!”

Thank you.

http://www.melungeon.org

http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/Melungeon/2004-05/1084299621

Melungeon Unions (Archive, pre-2012)

Mattie Ruth Johnson, 2004 presentation

October 15, 2016 Published by: mha

ohnson: 6/17/04

Life on Newman’s Ridge

by Mattie Ruth Johnson

Presented at Fifth Union
Kingsport, Tennessee
Thursday, 17 June 2004

Newman’s Ridge

I learned later in life that growing up on Newman’s Ridge was more beautiful that I had imagined as a child. Its beauty, the colorful seasons that came and went. The view, to be able to look our far, far away and see the sunrise and sunset in all their glory. To reach out and feel the moisture of clouds hanging so low.

You could see storms and cyclones long before they came near. If they came our way, and they were severe, you took shelter in the dairy. Dairies are built mostly under the side of a small hill with only the front exposed. This was a safe place to be if the storms were pretty severe.

Sometimes the snows would be so deep we had to dig trenches to the barn and spring. The animals had to be fed morning and night, and we had to have fresh water daily. During those bad days of winter, schools were out and people stayed in their homes and enjoyed playing their musical instruments. Cooking over the fireplace was fun. We popped popcorn and baked potatoes in the ashes, which certainly gave them a better taste than baking them in the oven.

Mattie Ruth Johnson’s family

As we sat around the living room near the fireplace, we told stories, played games, and had Bible readings. There was always plenty of wood for the kitchen stove and fireplace. Sometimes you could buy coal to burn.

Icicles would form off the roof and sometimes be all the way to the floor of the porch. I remember some being a foot wide, and we children enjoyed breaking them, sometimes eating the smaller icicles. If the snow got too heavy on top of the house, Dad had big long poles for him and my brothers to rake it off. We had a tin roof so snow came off pretty easy.

These were fun days, especially when we could make snow cream, and sometimes play in the snow. If you wore a hole in your shoes you only had a piece of cardboard to put in your shoe until Dad had time to put a new sole on it. Our shoes were the heavy brogan shoes. I remember when we came in with wet shoes Mom would put some in the oven and the rest she turned sideways in front of the fireplace to dry out. This dried them, but the next morning your shoes would be hard as a rock. You had your church clothes and school clothes. Church and school clothes were not worn to work or play in.

During the freezing times Mom had special bricks she heated, wrapped in towels, and placed at our feet when we went to bed. If you had warm feet the rest of your body seemed to stay warm. The fireplace and kitchen stove had to warm the whole house and sometimes the bedrooms would be very cold.

In February we burned tobacco beds to plant our seeds in. This kept grass and weeks out. After planting these seed beds a long mesh cloth covered them to protect them from birds and other animals. By April and May (which was planting time) we had plenty of large plants to set out. You saved some good seeds from year to year. To have a good crop of potatoes, they needed to be in the ground by Good Friday. Then came plowing the fields for planting. The ground had already been turned in the fall, and was now ready to be disked and plowed. A drag was used to break up clods of dirt and made your rows good and soft. We grew all kinds of stuff, and in large quantity. We shared in planting, hoeing, and strewing fertilizer. All plants had to be kept weed-free. We also had a large garden near the house.

Mattie Ruth

After many weeks of working the fields and garden they were “laid by.” This was music to our ears, for this meant you did not have to work them any more. By May we children were ready to go barefooted and could hardly wait to get out of those shoes. Of course we were not allowed to go places without shoes.

Back in those days seasons were mostly true to their name. Winter was winter and very cold. You had spring and everything budded out during April and May. A little cold snap (as they would say) did not kill off all your plants and it did not snow in May and kill blossoms on the fruit trees and vines as far as I can remember – not like today where it gets warm early, causing things to bloom, then freezes and kills the blooms. Happens to me every year. In summer we enjoyed all the different fruits of the trees and vines. You could make your jellies and jams galore.

When harvest time came you canned or dries foods for safekeeping, enough to last until the next season. People lived off the land. We did not have grocery stores to buy fruits and vegetables like today; even if they did, people did not have enough money to buy for large families.

Young adults and children of today have no idea of all the labors of living off the land, for as it turned out, with all the brilliant minds everything was invented and modernized to make life easier for us all. Even with all our moderation we easily take things for granted, for people of these generations have had no exposure to working and living without electrical help. Most things we have today people had back in earlier days, but those things were run by hand. On Newman’s Ridge, we did not have refrigeration until 1949, and then things started to change, replacing what you had with electrical items.

Before electricity, we had to take our clothes near the spring, heat the water and scrub them on a wash board, hang them on lines, and then iron them with an old cast iron which had to be heated on the wood-burning kitchen stove. These were important items to have. People walked up and down the Ridge, for only a couple of men around had vehicles, and my Dad was one of them. There were certain days he went to town and people knew those days and he would pick up anyone who was walking. You either walked or rode a horse, sled, or wagon. Most people walking threw a short pole across their shoulder with a tote bag or sack to put what they bought in to carry back. The stick also served as a walking stick like a cane. People never minded walking up and down those ridges.

We weren’t very familiar with deaths, and never dreamed of a death in our immediate family. Suddenly our mother died and everyone was so heartbroken. Our family and friends were so close, but our lives were shattered and would never be the same. We loved and appreciated each other for we were taught this, but even stronger after her death. This took a toll on all of us. We learned to appreciate life and what we had more. Where she walked and lived became sacred to us all.

My father sold the farm and we moved to Kingsport, Tennessee, where we started a new life much different than what we had been accustomed to. In time each of us would have moved away for jobs anyway. My brothers and sisters got jobs, married, had children, and Dad remarried. I left home and moved with the Echerd family to New Jersey. I enjoyed all kinds of Broadway plays and visited lots of sites there while doing some assistant teaching in schools. After about three years we moved back to Kingsport and I started my nursing career. While living in New Jersey so far away I really missed my family and where I grew up, and I knew by then that my nieces and nephews, all living in big homes with paved streets, had no idea about how life was for us only a few years ago. I wanted to write a story about the way things were so I started making notes about everything I could think of, from a sprig of grass to swinging on a grapevine. I put all my notes in a shoe box starting 1960.

I knew the children would not understand all the things we did, like sweeping the yard ands having buckets of water hanging on the porch with a dipper. “What is a dipper,” one niece asked me. “Why do you sweep the yard?” I realized their view and mine were completely different for they thought there was a yard of grass, and how on earth can you sweep that, and why?

When I started writing my story I separated all my notes starting as early as I could remember – what happened when you lived here or there? I put them into five to ten year time period frames – what went on here or there. Suddenly I had too much for a short story. I had also done some research on our families and I knew we were kin to the Melungeons. I found out the people being written about were my relatives and owned a lot of the land all around us, including where we lived at one time. I found out we were right in the middle of a Melungeon colony. I knew by this time up to my fourth generation grandfathers were part of the Melungeon and were owners of a lot of this land. As a child I was told we were kin to the Melungeons.

I started spreading the word for I was so proud of this. Many a time in the beginning I was put down, but endured for I knew these people and most were good-hearted Christian people that would give you the shirt off their backs, or see to it you had food if you did not. That made me want to write about them more.

As I wrote and rewrote to get my stories straight and in order, a friend of mine, Joanne, and English expert, advised me, but I mostly wanted to use old English which was mostly the way people talked back them.

Mattie Ruth Johnson and My Melungeon Heritage

People started saying, “Why don’t you write a book?” I thought, “Book? I don’t know anything about writing a book” until one day a doctor friend of mine said to me, “Aw, you can’t write no book.” Then and there I thought to myself, “If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll show you” and so I did. You don’t need to count your letters and lines like I started out doing. Today the printers have your book edited and the lines don’t always come out like you have them, close, but even better. They keep your pictures and chapters together and do a layout that all fits in. They want to make sure your book is understood by the reader. I have a lifetime of stories yet to tell. I’m collecting notes now for number two book.

You can take everything you write about and make it readable and into a story. For instance, a chicken: they sing, look after and protect their babies, scratch around, holler and cry when their chicken coop is broken into by a fox, snake or other animal. They sneak off and hide their eggs until they hatch babies, hide under bushed when a hawk flies over. They will wait longer than you can to go back to their nest so you won’t find them. The rooster crows to tell you it’s time to get up. There is more to a chicken than just chicken.

Getting a lot of these stories in a book about a way of life that is no more really fulfilled more than the dream I had. I’m no expert. People keep asking me what happened to the little children and the rest of the family. Hopefully someday the rest of the story will emerge.

Melungeon Unions (Archive, pre-2012)

Calvin Beale presentation, 2004

October 15, 2016 Published by: mha

Beale: 6/18/04

Researching Triracial Communities

by Calvin L. Beale
Presented at Fifth Union
Kingsport, Tennessee
Friday, 18 June 2004

I first heard the term “Melungeon” in the late 1940s when I went to work at the Census Bureau as a demographer, a population analyst. One or more officials at the bureau had become aware that there were a number of groups of peole aroiund the eastern and sohern U.S. with distinctive names applied to them (such as Melungeon) who had not been consistently identified with respect to their race in past censuses. Public knowledge of such groups had increased rather recently at that tie by the publication of two pieces by William H. Gilbert, first an article in Social Forces in 1946 on “mixed blood racial islands,” as he termed them, and a report for the Smithsonian Institution in 1949 called “Surviving Indian Groups of the Eastern United States.”

I learned at this time about Gilbert’s work. I was fascinated by it and became acquainted with him. He was an anthropologist who worked on Indian affairs for what is now called the Congressional Research Services, at the Library of Congress. He was a very nice guy, a rather shy-mannered person who had written his Ph.D. dissertation on “marginal” populations in various countries. In his Smithsonian report, Gilbert described briefly each group of people that he knew of in the East and South who had or might have any degree of Indian descent. He listed the counties where they lied and their principal surnames, along with a bibliography of such printed material on them as he had found. The groups ranged from those possessing Indian reservations with Federal recognition, such as the Cherokee in North Carolina, to groups of more indeterminate origin, such as the Melungeons. Some of the latter groups were closer to White society in status, appearance, and outlook; some were closer to Black society, and others regarded themselves as Indian in origin and in some cases had state recognition.

The 1950 Census Project

Some of the people in charge of planning for the 1950 Census decided it would be desirable to identify counties in which such groups were known to live and to reclassify as “other race” all persons who were reported in these counties either as Indian or by any nonstandard racial term, such as “Moor” or “Wesort” or “Turk.” When the census was taken, all of the portfolios containing the schedules from these counties were stamped “Mixed stock,” and the clerks processing those schedules were to record as “other” any racial entries of Indian or of any colloquial term that the census takers had used. Keep in mind that at that time, there was no mail-out, mail-back census. Census takers went door to door and decided for themselves what race to list for each person, although they were free to ask if they wanted to.

In the processing of the 1950 Census, I happened to be assigned to a job in which all Census schedules went through the unit where I worked. So with permission, I asked to go through the schedules for the “Mixed stock” counties after hours and on weekends to see just how the groups that Gilbert had identified were listed racially by the census takers before any recoding. I did this for over a year and also looked through many of the original 19th century census schedules at the National Archives to get a better picture of how the groups had been counted in earlier times.

I had enough material to give a paper on the topic in 1953. In retrospect, the Census Bureau’s procedure in 1950 wound up serving no useful purpose, either statistical or social. I found that its major impact was to transfer to an “all other” racial category about 30,000 persons who were reported as Indian i the Mixed Stock counties, and no tabulations of social and economic data for these populations were ever made. Yet, the great majority of these Indians were the Lumbee and similar groups of North Carolina who were recognized by the State as Indian and had their own Indian schools in the segregated society of that time, including one college.

It would have been one thing to treat as “other” the relatively minor number of people for who colloquial terms were used. In fact, that might have happened anyway without the “mixed stock” rule. But, without any of the notorious racism that had earlier motivated the Virginia Director of Vital Statistics, Walter Plecker, in his campaign to see that no Melungeons and other groups were allowed to register themselves as Indian or White in Virginia, the 1950 Census effort wound up seeming implicitly like an attempt to prevent people in many eastern areas from being recorded as Indian even thought they were locally so recognized. I don’t recall any public commotion or repercussions from this, but the procedure was never used again. Out of 77,000 persons in 17 states whom I estimated were in groups of either real or perceived triracial status, only 1,000 were listed by the census takers with colloquial terms, or “other,” or had their race entry left blank. The colloquial terms that had any usage were Cajan[sic] and Creole (in Alabama), Moor (Delaware), Portuguese (North Carolina), and Turk (South Carolina).

In the processing of the 1950 Census, I happened to be assigned to a job in which all Census schedules went through the unit where I worked. So with permission, I asked to go through the schedules for the “Mixed stock” counties after hours and on weekends to see just how the groups that Gilbert had identified were listed racially by the census takers before any recoding. I did this for over a year and also looked through many of the original 19th century census schedules at the National Archives to get a better picture of how the groups had been counted in earlier times.

I had enough material to give a paper on the topic in 1953. In retrospect, the Census Bureau’s procedure in 1950 wound up serving no useful purpose, either statistical or social. I found that its major impact was to transfer to an “all other” racial category about 30,000 persons who were reported as Indian i the Mixed Stock counties, and no tabulations of social and economic data for these populations were ever made. Yet, the great majority of these Indians were the Lumbee and similar groups of North Carolina who were recognized by the State as Indian and had their own Indian schools in the segregated society of that time, including one college.

It would have been one thing to treat as “other” the relatively minor number of people for who colloquial terms were used. In fact, that might have happened anyway without the “mixed stock” rule. But, without any of the notorious racism that had earlier motivated the Virginia Director of Vital Statistics, Walter Plecker, in his campaign to see that no Melungeons and other groups were allowed to register themselves as Indian or White in Virginia, the 1950 Census effort wound up seeming implicitly like an attempt to prevent people in many eastern areas from being recorded as Indian even thought they were locally so recognized. I don’t recall any public commotion or repercussions from this, but the procedure was never used again. Out of 77,000 persons in 17 states whom I estimated were in groups of either real or perceived triracial status, only 1,000 were listed by the census takers with colloquial terms, or “other,” or had their race entry left blank. The colloquial terms that had any usage were Cajan[sic] and Creole (in Alabama), Moor (Delaware), Portuguese (North Carolina), and Turk (South Carolina).

The Wesorts and the National Institute of Dental Heath

Literally the next day after I read my 1953 paper at a meeting of demographers, I learned that I was losing my job at the Census Bureau in a big layoff. Fortunately, I landed at the Department of Agriculture and am still there. Not long after I arrived, a medical researcher from the National Institute of Dental Health (NIDH) , Dr. Cark Witkop, called the Census Bureau wanting to know if anyone there was familiar with the Maryland “Wesorts” and similar groups. In effect the Census folks had to say, “Well, we did have someone but we just let him go.” They referred Witkop to me. It turned out that a Washington dentist had reported to the dental institute that he was repeatedly seeing patients from Southern Maryland, with a small common set of surnames, who had a serious hereditary dental problem known at dentinogenisis imprefecta. Those affected has short unsightly teeth and often lost all of them to decay when still in their 30s. The Institute decided to do a major research project on the “Wesorts,” as this triracial group was called. I had no special knowledge about them, although Gilbert did, but I was asked to consult with the project to place the Wesorts within the context of the larger existence of other such groups and to provide any leads on possible hereditary health problems in the other groups.

The interest of NIDH stimulated me to continue my research, and since the groups were largely rural people I could justify spending some of my time on the topic at the Department of Agriculture, especially now that there was a practical health aspect to it and another agency asking for assistance. I was able to publish an article in 1957 focused to some extent on hereditary conditions that had arisen in some groups because, over several generations, many marriage partners were related to one another. But the article also gave me an opportunity to publish the results of my work on the 1950 Census, giving my estimates of the number of people in each group and county, and how they were reported on the original census schedules.

Please note that I use the word “estimates,” because in many groups, such as the Melungeons, people were nearly all listed as White rather than as Melungeon or Indian, or in the case of the Wesorts, listed as Black. Since no one in these groups was reported as Melungeon or Wesort, and only a handful as Indian, I made my judgment about numbers on my knowledge of surnames, including how people of certain surnames had been classed in the 19th century censuses, and the extent to which people of core surnames live near of with one another in 1950. I am sure I included some families that would not have been regarded locally as part of this group and excluded others who had, say, Melungeon or Wesort backgrounds, but whose surnames I was unfamiliar with. For example, I had no knowledge at that time of the significance of the Kennedy name in Wise County, or Winkler in Tennessee. For Melungeons, I had the least confidence in the numbers I came up with in southeast Kentucky and southwest Virginia. Deciding to err on the side of caution, I omitted people there who had core surnames but were not near other persons of Melungeon names. Yet I recall receiving a letter later from someone at the university of Kentucky who felt that I had substantially overstated the size of the Melungeon-background population in that State. But given the large number of people who have come forward in recent years to proclaim their Melungeon antecedents, I’m not so sure I exaggerated.

The Haliwa

There was one major emergence in the 1950 Census of people newly asserting a racial status at odds with what White and Black society has assigned to it previously. That was the group that has become known as the Haliwa Saponi Indians in North Carolina. Up popped over 800 Indians in the Warren County census in 1950, where there had been none in 1940. Gilbert had not known of them. I don’t think Price knew of them. From the 1950 schedules, I learned the surnames, which were not particularly marker names, although a couple appeared in the Gointown group in Rockingham County and a couple among the Lumbee and Brass Ankles. I checked the pre-Civil war censuses at the National Archives, and there they were, free farming people, consistently listed as “M” for mixed or mulatto. I drove down to the area in 1954 and made cotact. The whites called them “Issues,” a term that historically only connoted White and Black ancestry, but they lived separately from the local Black population, and asserted they had always had a tradition of being Indian. In just the previous few years they had begun to insist that their driver’s licenses and vital records show them as Indian. Unlike the Lumbee or the Person County Indians, they had never been given separate schools and were in the Black school system, although their neighborhood concentration essentially gave them their own schools. They had a sympathetic State legislator whom I met while making my first inquiries and whom they had hired to do research in Raleigh for them. He gave me the name of one of the group’s leaders to contact and said there would be mutual benefit in my doing so. His name would guarantee me access and at the same time the group would think that he was still busy on his work of determining their history.

When I met and talked with one of the leaders, I recall the sense of frustration and embarrassment that showed at one point when he said to me, “The newspaper wil ltalk of events down here in Fishing Creek Township and it will mention the white people, the colored people, and the ‘other.’ Now who are the other?” I am sure this feeling of “Who are we?” was a common one at times for people in every mixed racial population whose origin was lost in time.

At the same time that the 800 Indians showed up in Warren County, in 1950, about 40 did so in neighboring Halifax County. Yet 10 years later the Halifax contingent was up to 537, indicating that many people there who were regarded by census takers as Negro in 1950 were now either regarded as Indian or were actively asserting their Indianness to the census taker. The Warren County group, though, fell off from 800 to 400, perfectly showing the inconsistency of treatment from one census to another or one enumerator to another, that seemed to have led to the Census Bureau’s “mixed stock” procedure in 1950. By 2000, in the era of self-reporting with mail-out, mail-back questionnaires there were over 3,000 Indians in the two counties, with 2/3 in Halifax.

The Alabama Creeks

During the 1950s and 1960s,I gradually visited a number of the mixed-racial communities as opportunity offered. In some, I made contact with group members; in others, where the situation was touchy, I simply talked with informed people, perhaps consulted courthouse records and looked around. I think my most satisfying visits were those to the Haliwa, the Carmelites of Ohio, the Creeks of Alabama, and the Melungeons.

In the early 1960s I had another experience like the 1950s inquiry regarding hte Wesorts. This time someone from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) called the Census Bureau asking if anyone there was aware of a group of people in southwest Alabama who claimed to be Creek Indians. The Census Bureau referred him to me. Well, I knew there was such a group, because William Gilbert has listed them in an article that I had read. But now there was going to be a cash award to the Creek Tribe for the lands taken from it in the South without compensation when the tribe was forcibly moved to Oklahoma. Suddenly the BIA had people in Alabama claiming to be eligible for part of the award. I was quite surprised that the BIA anthropologists were unsure of them. But they were asking me, are these people Creek descendants? Do they have any survival of Indian culture?

So with my interest piqued, I caught a plane to Mobile, went over to their area, and rather easily made contact. It didn’t matter how much I stressed that I was just there as a private individual, since I worked for the federal government it had to be a good sign. I found that the group consisted of both descendants of “friendly” Creeks from the Creek War and of “hostile” Creeks. Some of the group had quietly remained behind when the removal came. In general, it was the “friendly” descendants who were poor and felt discriminated against, whereas the “hostile” descendants had intermarried more with the Whites and had a higher social status (including the sheriff of one county). I visited a number of people, asked a lot of questions, took some photos, wrote up my notes, and briefed the BIA people when I returned. Whether this played any role in the final BIA decision or not I don’t know, but the Alabama Creeks did get to share in the award. Late they acquired Federal recognition as a tribe, and submitted part of my notes with the documentation. So it was an experience that was not only interesting but was satisfying because it may have had some practical effect.

The Melungeons

In July of 1969, I read a small item in a newspaper about the Melungeons opening an outdoor drama in Sneedville. It so happened that I had some business in Oak Ridge at this time. So the day after I finished that, I drove up to Sneedville, found the amphitheatre, and got a ticket. I also asked whether there was anyone in town who might be willing to show me around some. Claude Collins was mentioned. So I contacted him and he was gracious enough to take me for a drive up on Newman’s Ridge, to the Vardy School, and up Snake hollow. I also asked about a place to stay overnight and was able to get one of the two motel rooms above the beauty parlor.

That night, before the play, there was a lobby at the amphitheatre with craft items on sale. I wanted to take home some small souvenirs and gifts and stood contemplating some homemade soaps. I must have done so for more than just a moment. Presently, I heard a voice from somewhere in back and I think somewhat above me say, “Mr. Beale, are you planning on taking a bath?” It was Claude Collins.

There was a big audience for the play. I remember having a rather so-so reaction tothe first act that pictured the Melungeons’ rather prosperous early period in the area, although they were regarded as people whose origin was unknown. But the second act, set much later and with its star-crossed love story between a Melungeon girl and the son of a prominent businessman who covets Melungeon land, was very skillfully done, and by the end there were hardly any dry eyes in the house, my own included.

Epilogue

That trip was nearly the last research excursion that I took relating to the triracial populations, as my interests seemed to turn to other things. Life was rapidly changing for the groups, as it was for the country in general. The Civil Rights era had ended the separate school systems many groups had that had both limited and sustained their status. It was the time of television and much better roads, and a greatly diminished role for farm work. By ’69, there were large numbers of people from eery group who had dispersed to the cities to work. The Melungeons, in effect, had a big coming-out party and said, “Yes, we’re Melungeons. So what?” The Reds Bones of Louisiana seem essentially to have done the same thing more recently. Some small groups were dissolving, such as the Portuguese of Northampton County, N.C., or the Coe Ridge clan in Kentucky. Others were reasserting their Indianness.

The so-called “Jackson Whites” of New Jersey and New York have sough Federal recognition as Ramapough Indians. The “Cajans” of southwest Alabama also filed for Federal recognition as Choctaw Indians. Their application was denied, but I admit it was rather convincing tome. A core of the Wesorts are organized as Piscataway Indians, although with much factionalism. The so-called Amherst County, Virginia “Issues” now have state recognition as Monacan Indians. Several of the “Brass Ankle” groups of South Carolina have also organized as survivors of historic Indian tribes.

Recent censuses have also seen the emergence of new groups claiming predominant India descent. A prominent example is in northern Alabama where 2,100 persons reported themselves as Indian in Lawrence County in 1990 where there had been just 40 in 1980. I made one last field trip there and found that the population is organized and claims mostly Cherokee ancestry, a status, their leader said, that would only have been detrimental to them in the past. Although they do not have BIA recognition, they had acquired funds for educational assistance to Indians from the US Department of Education that were very beneficial in that children of the group could receive some individual tutoring in school.

I don’t for a minute doubt the authenticity of the group’s claim. The East and South are full of small populations of mixed ancestry who saw no merit in advertising their racial history in the past if they could pass as white. But as a demographer, it was very interesting to me to see the apparent effect of the availability of a Federal program for Indians on the age composition of the persons who now reported themselves as indian. Those reporting themselves as Indian consisted very disproportionately of families with children of school age. Eighty-one percent of all Indian families had children 6 – 17 years old, whereas only 35 percent of all other families in the county had children of this age. Fifteen percent of all children 6 – 17 years old in the county were identified as Indian, but just seven percent of those under six years old or of persons 20 –24 years old, who were generally too young to have children of school age. For this mixed racial population, meaningful status as a separate group has emerged, whereas for the Melungeons, or others such as the Redbones or the Pools, the imposed separateness of the past has dissipated.

Altogether, it has been rather remarkable over the course of 50-some years — and the last 35 in particular – to see the evolution of the status of the various groups and to witness the explosion of research and literature on their origins and culture.

Calvin Beale was one of the first researchers to take a scientific look at the Melungeons and other tri-racial communities. Following in the wake of two other postwar scientists studying the tri-racial phenomenon, William Gilbert and Edward Price, Beale began researching these communities in the late 1940’s. While working as a demographer for the Agricultural Marketing Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he published “American Triracial Isolates in the December 1957 issue ofEugenics Quarterly. He has published numerous articles since then on a wide variety of topics; a collection of his writings can be found at:
http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-02278-7.html

Beale, the Senior Demographer at Economic Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture, has visited the majority of counties in the United States. A collection of his courthouse photographs can be found at:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/population/photos/.

More on Calvin L. Beale can be found at:
http://www.pnrec.org/pnrec97/beale.htm
http://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/news/fact-31-5-2004.shtml

Melungeon Unions (Archive, pre-2012)

2006 Union Report

October 15, 2016 Published by: mha

Sixth Union

Sixth Union

Sixth Union, June 8-10, 2006

The mysterious Appalachian people known as the Melungeons met in Kingsport, Tennessee 8-10 June 2006 for their bi-annual gathering. Sixth Union was be held at the Kingsport Civic Auditorium, and was co-sponsored by the Melungeon Heritage Association and the Kingsport Convention and Visitors Bureau, and featured numerous researchers, authors, and genealogists who are shedding new light on these once-reviled people.

David Arnett, former U. S. General Consul to Turkey and a Melungeon descendent, spoke about the perception of Melungeons (believed by many to be partially of Turkish descent) in Turkey. Other authors and researchers included Evelyn Orr, DruAnna Overbay, Wayne Winkler, Kathy Lyday-Lee, James, Nickens, Elizabeth Hirschmann, Eloy Gallegos, Jack Goins, Penny Ferguson, Frank and Mary Sweet, April Mullins Mela, and Katherine Vande Brake, A. D. Powell, Gwendolyn Higdon, Cheryl Holloway, Mattie Ruth Johnson, Ted Klein, and others. You can see a list of presenters and their biographies here. The Union also featured genealogy workshops and “family chats,” where people shared genealogical information with others in their family lines, and discovered more about their own ancestry and heritage. A social gathering on the evening of Friday, June 9, provided an informal setting for attendees to get to know one another and to chat with the various presenters.