These are some of the excerpts of news articles covering 1840-1990. They are "Eyewitnesses to History" of the Melungeons. They offer a view of the Melungeons in 'time and place' - not written a hundred and fifty years after the fact.
What is a Primary Source?
A primary source is a first-hand or contemporary account of an event or topic. They are the most direct evidence of a time or event because they were created by people or things that were there at the time or event. These sources have not been modified by interpretation and offer original thought or new information. Primary sources are original materials, regardless of format.
Letters, diaries, minutes, photographs, artifacts, interviews, and sound or video recordings are examples of primary sources created as a time or event is occurring. Oral histories, newspaper or journal articles, and memoirs or autobiographies are examples of primary sources created after the event or time in question but offering first-hand accounts.
"As it is, the whole community was hijacked by yellow journalists seeking personal fame and glory for such a long time, we may never get a truly clear and untainted history of them. In much of the material related to Appalachian areas in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, the more outlandish, bombastic, and fantastic, the better, and no one cared about the truth."
Rootsweb Melungeon Discussion List
Author Not Remembered
Historical Articles & Clippings
These are excerpts from old newspapers and magazines.
Click on the link at the end of the paragraph to read the entire article.
Gen. Combs, in his attempt to address the citizens of Sullivan County, on yesterday, was insulted, contradicted repeatedly, limited to one hour and a half, and most shamefully treated, and withall an effort was made, to get an impudent Malungeon.
Brownlow's Whig 1840
You must know that within ten miles of this owl's nest, there is a watering-place, known hereabouts as 'black-water Springs.' It is situated in a narrow gorge, scarcely half a mile wide, between Powell's Mountain and the Copper Ridge, and is, as you may suppose, almost inaccessible. A hundred men could defend the pass against even a Xerxian army. Now this gorge and the tops and sides of the adjoining mountains are inhabited by a singular species of the human animal called MELUNGENS. The legend of their history, which they carefully preserve, is this. A great many years ago, these mountains were settled by a society of Portuguese Adventurers, men and women.[While this article appeared across the country in 1848, note at the end. "The Dance"
ONLY appears once that I have found, in LITTELS LIVING AGE.
We are free to confess that we have never heard of or read of
the ‘Melungeons’ before this day, and all we know about them now is
what we derive from the following imperfect description obtained in a
letter from a travelling correspondent of the Louisville, Ky., Examiner.
The letter bears no date, but the site of the Melungen race appears
to be somewhere in Kentucky.
''You have alluded, classically enough, to the "sable leader" of the Athens Synod, in this work of falsehood and detraction. The fact of the copper color, the woolly head, and other similar appendages of the negro, which cling to this Rev. Malungeon, notwithstanding his Caucasian features, in the general, should be kept prominently before the proud, spirited, and high-minded Virginian. Let the distinction of color be kept up, and let our identity as a race of white men be preserved. Let the Presbyterians of Marion trample upon marriage relations, despise the distinction between white and colored people, and bid defiance to the powers of enlightened society, if they choose; but let us, my friends, have more self-respect than to imitate their example.''
The Great Iron Wheel Extracted -- Parson Brownlow - 1856
The platform of Feb 1856 which expunged and ignored the 12th section
and in a letter which goes expressly for restoring the Missouri Compromise.
The Mulungeons of Richmond endorsed the 'late convention' at Philadelphia too; but will any southern man-- a Stuart or an Imobdin even -- endorse this letter
for the restoration of the Missouri Compromise. ''The names of his soldiers
were sent in, but the scout and Bose Rouss (some called him Malungeon),
who had killed a Federal detective, were not mentioned in the list.
...... In speaking of legislators in a previous letter, I forgot to mention Jas. W. Williams, who lived on Deer Creek, not far from Husband's Tanyard. He was a tall, swarthy man, not unlike some of our F.F.V's (First Families of Virginia) who take great pride in the very uncertain genealogy that turns the current of Pocahontas in their veins. (And just here let me say in particular if just one-half of those who claim to have descended from the Indian princess are really such, Virginia in her most savage days, never had a more numerous tribe of malungeons than at present.) As before said, Mr Williams very much resembled these claimants, with his erect form, elastic step, straight black hair, olive complexion and brilliant eye.
The principal localities visited were Newman's Ridge and Blackwater Valley,
lying just south of Powell's mountain and 14 miles north of Rogersville, Tennessee. the inhabitants there, known by the local name of "Malunjins"
The First and Only Malungeon Trial
Testimony of A. B. Beeson
Page 174
Q. were you well acquainted with Solomon Bolton, the grandfather of Martha, complainant in the Cross Bill, and, if so, state what race of people he was or appeared to be. Also give a description of his person and complexion and appearance.
A. I was. He was called a Malungeon. He was a small spare made man, with low, flat head, had a dark complexion, rather a flat nose, turned up at the end. He wore his hair short, and it was always inclined to curl or kink.
Q. In the neighborhood in which he lived did he associate with white men or free negroes as his equals?
A. His general association was with the Malungeons-his own people. I never saw him associate with whites except when he had business.
Q. How many different families in this County or adjoining Counties did you know of the same race or character of people -name them?
A. I don't now how many- several - but the Perkins- the Goins, Mornings, Shumakes, Menleys &others.
It would not take him long to bring the last one of
those "crooked whisky" fellows to terms. He has straighted
out things in Hancock; now let him go over the line
and give the Virginia MOLUNGEONS a hitch.
A race of people mostly by the name of Collins and Mullins
live on the top, and along the spurs of Newmans Ridge, and some of them in a fertile valley called, "Blackwater," "history tells not of their origin," but as far as I can learn from the oldest ones among them, their ancestors came there from "Reed Island" about the beginning of the present century.
Where the village of Sneedville is situated was once an Indian town. There are any quantity of flints half finished, scattered about over a wide extent in and around the village, showing that his was a place were thye manufactured darts for their arrows, with which they killed their game. Many battle-axes, tomahawks, pestles, and remants of insturments and vessels of potter used by the aborigines have been picked up in years gone by, so that now thery are seldom found.
Within a quarter of a mile of the court-house there is still visible a round-shaped knoll which maybe a mound, It was once much sharper than it is now, so sharp that cattle have never resorted to it for rest....On a hill, not far from here, there is any amount of petrifactions. Mr. Jarvis has furnished me with many specimans.
A settlement was also made at an early date at Mulberry Gap, where a little village sprang up. Newmans' Ridge, which runs through the county to the north of Sneedville, and parallel with Clinch river, is said to have taken its name
from one of the first settlers upon it. It has since been occupied mainly
It appears that the Melungeons originally came into east Tennessee from
North Carolina, and the larger number settled in what was at that time
Hawkins County, but which is now Hancock. I have not been able to hear
of them in any of the lower counties of east Tennessee, and those I have
seen myself were in Cocke county, bordering on North Carolina.
At what time this emigration took place in not known, but it was
certainly as long ago as seventy-five or eighty years.
His name Melungeons is a local designation for this small peculiar race. Their own claim to be Portuguese is more generally known. Their original site is on the Pedee river in South and North Carolina . They were once especially strong in Georgetown and Darlington districts of the latter. Though called Portuguese – this does not indicate their true origin. I have no doubt local traditions, and the records still to be found in the Charleston library will give the true account. As dimly recollected, for I never made search with a purpose in view, it was thus in the primary colonial times of the Carolinas, Winyaw Bay was the best and most frequented harbor on the coast, and Georgetown more accessible, was more of a commercial town than old Charlestown., to that port British Cruisers sometime brought prizes.
63D CONGRESS 3D SESSION
SENATE DOCUMENT NO. 677
INDIANS OF NORTH CAROLINA
LETTER FROM THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR
TRANSMITTING, IN RESPONSE TO A SENATE RESOLUTION
OF JUNE 30, 1914, A REPORT ON THE CONDITION
AND TRIBAL RIGHTS OF THE INDIANS
OF ROBESON AND ADJOINING COUNTIES OF NORTH CAROLINA
JANUARY 5, 1915.--REFERRED TO THE COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS AND ORDERED TO BE PRINTED
Exhibit B7.
LETTER OF HAMILTON MCMILLAN TO INDIAN OFFICE, JULY 17, 1890.
The Croatan Tribe lives principally in Robeson County, N. C., though there are quite a number of them settled in counties adjoining in North and South Carolina. In Sumter County, S. C., there is a branch of the tribe and also in East Tennessee. In Lincoln County, N. C., there is another branch, settled there long ago. Those living in East Tennessee are called Melungeans, a name also retained by them here.
'The Croatan tribe lives principally in Robeson county, North Carolina, though there is quite a number of them settle in counties adjoining in
North and South Carolina. In Sumter county, South Carolina, there is a
branch of the tribe, and also in east Tennessee. In Macon county,
North Carolina, there is another branch, settled there long ago.
Those living in east Tennessee are called "Melungeons", a name also
retained by them here, which is corruption of 'Melange', a name given them
by early settlers (French), which means mixed.''
mountain tribe whose origin has baffled research, I stayed at the
cabin of one Gowens, says a special correspondent writing from Nashville,
Tennessee to the New York World. The polite prefix Mr. or Mrs. is unknown in that region. A majority of the Malungeons live within five miles of Sneedville, the
county seat of Hancock County, and their habitations are windowless log huts.
The march of progress since the war has reached the Malungeons in the ability
to raise tobacco. Otherwise they are as nearly savage as they were a
quarter of a century ago. Their orchards are the wonder of the country round
and always have been. But the fruit, as fruit, goes no further than the stillhouse.
Away up in an extreme corner of Tennessee I found them--them or it,
for what I found is a remnant of a lost or forgotten race, huddled together in a
sterile and isolated strip of land in one of the most inaccessible quarters of Tennessee.......The Malungeons are a most peculiar people. They occupy
an isolated land except for horse or foot passengers, inaccessible territory,
separated and alone, not mixing or caring to mix with the rest of the world.
-------------------------------------------------
**After Dromgoole published these four articles a flurry of letters arrived to the Editor - This is Will Allen's response;
THE TENNESSEAN (Nashville Tennessee)
Sept 09, 1890
Will Allen Comes Back at Her Critics in Gallant Style
To the Editor of the American.
Referring to the anonymous correspondence in Sunday's AMERICAN, I wish to say a word concerning the peculiar race of people occupying an isolated ridge in eastern Tennessee. The writer seems to think because he cannot see the Malungeons they cannot exist. I take it he has never seen Jesus Christ, yet we are reliably informed that he did and does exist. As to the coinage of the name, it is not mine, and in an article sent to THE AMERICAN last Friday, and which has not yet appeared, I made mention of this fact. They do not exist, however, "under the shadow of the capitol" in spite of the emphatic ignorance which 'pardon the slang' sits so crushingly down upon everybody else's opinion.
If the writer will take the cars to Chattanooga, Knoxville, Lone Mountain, then get a horse to Mulberry Gap, then Sneedville and sit on the courthouse step half an hour, he will soon discover whether or not the Malungeons are mulattos. In case he should decide affirmatively I should advise him not to make the announcement until he is well out of Hancock county. If, as he says, the Malungeons are mulattos it is a blot upon the name of Tennessee: a disgrace so black that morality would hide her face, and, leave the world forever, for these people have children of white settlers, fathers of white blood, and would silence forever the .... that dared call them mulattos.
I send with this a picture of one of them, Calloway Collins, who declares his father was a full-blooded Cherokee. Calloway is an Indian if ever one lived on Tennessee soil. The picture was drawn by Mr. Thos. M. Sharpe, of Nashville, and is exceedingly well done. Calloway was a soldier belonging to the First Tennessee under Brownlow and Johnson, and today draws a pensioner for three bullet wounds. His daughter Dorcas (one of Mr. Sharpe's drawings) speaks for herself. The family group is from life.
We visited this family with John Tyler, the brother of Hon. H. S. Tyler of Sneedville. I send the pictures along with this, and my anonymous critic can see them by calling at THE AMERICAN office. The Malungeons need no defense from me. They can speak for themselves and all Hancock county can speak for them. I first saw the name in the New York World, and many old gentlemen of Hancock county have corroborated the existence of the people and the correctness of the name. And the fact that one croaker rises to dispute their existence because he has not seen them does not in the least alter the fact of their existence.
I know nothing of the people referred to as living the the 'twenty-fourth district. I had intended visiting Mr. Cartright and asking him something of them, but work and business have prevented. And now since an anonymous critic has entered his 'protest' I presume I had best be quiet concerning them. The people in East Tennessee, however, I shall insist upon their existence and for them deny the mulatto theory. They live alone, mixing with none, and asking little. If my critic will go and see, or will kindly sign his name, I will be very glad for any information he can give concerning them. Will Allen -1890
---
In the AMERICAN of Sept. 15, 1890 Dan W. Baird wrote of the Malungeons, in part, as follows:
"Several families are still to be found in Smith, Wilson, Rutherford, and Davidson Counties. There is nothing in their family names to give the student of ethnology a clue to their origin. In a locality in Wilson County known forty years ago as 'Malungeon Town', the most common names were Richardson, Nickens, and Collins. In Rutherford County not far from Lavergne, the principal Malungeons were Archers, Lanterns, and Blackmans. One of the latter family has sold fish in the north end of the market house in this city (Nashville) for many years, and some of the same family reside a few miles out on the Nolensville Turnpike. "A pretty fair speciman of the Malungeon tribe is a young fellow named Bernice Richardson, now serving a life sentence in the state prison for self-confessed complicity in the murder of M.T. Bennet of Lebanon.
---
R. M. Ewing, wrote that when he attended law school at Lebanon Tennessee, in 1851:
" there was a colony of people residing within a few miles of Lebanon who were locally, and so far as I know generally, called Malungeons. They seemed to be a hard working, harmless, inoffensive people, a dark red or copper color, and jet black, straight hair... these people claimed to be of Portuguese descent.
Malungeon Town 1890
---------------------------------------------------------
The owner was a full-blooded Indian, with keen, black eyes, straight black hair, high cheeks, and a hook nose. He played upon his violin with his fingers instead of a bow, and entertained us with a history of his grandfather, who was a Cherokee chief, and by singing some of the songs of his tribe.
A Strange People 1890
The newspapers of the country are again wrangling with the 'Melungeons' or 'lungens' a peculiar race of people living along Newman's Ridge in Hancock county. They are also scattered along Clinch mountain in Hawkins and Grainger in isolated settlements. Even that bright and fascinating young writer, Miss Will Allen Dromgoole has taken it upon herself to journey all the way from nashville to the wilds of Hancock for the evident purpose of settling once and for all the much disp... (?) question of their origin. Unfortunately she gleamed little information other than that already published.
A Peculiar Race of People Living in Hancock County 1890
Such are the remnants called Indians in some states where a pure-blooded
Indian can hardly longer be found. In Tennessee such a group, popularly
known as Melungeans, in addition to those still known as Cherokee.
Report of Indians - Taxed and not Taxed 1890
The lateness of these details (sent to tthe New York Sun from Sneedville, November 20) may make them acceptable to you in the above connection:
" The first inhabitants of Hancock county, or, to be accurate, of what is now called Hancock county, were the strangest, most mysterious people that have ever settled any part of this country since its discovery. They are still there in greater numbers than ever before, and in as great mystery. These people are called Malungeons.
American Notes and Queries 1891
First, I saw in an old newspaper some slight mention of them. With this tiny clue I followed their trail for three years. The paper merely stated that “somewhere in the mountains of Tennessee there existed a remnant of people called Malungeons, having a distinct color, characteristics, and dialect.” It seemed a very hopeless search, so utterly were the Malungeons forgotten, and I was laughed at — little for my “new crank.”
The Malungeons 1891
Somewhere in the eighteenth century, before the year 1797, there
appeared in the eastern portion of Tennessee, at that time the
Territory of North Carolina, two strange-looking men calling themselves "Collins" and "Gibson". They had a reddish brown complexion, long , straight , black hair,
keen, black eyes, and sharp, clear-cut features. They spoke in broken English,
a dialect distinct from anything ever heard in that section of the country.
Judge Lea addressed the society on the subject of the
Melungeons. He outlined the early history of the settlement of North Carolina.
A party under the protection of a friendly Indian chief had gone into the
interior when the first settlers came to that coast and had been lost.
No other settlers came till a century afterward, and they were told of a tribe
who claimed a white ancestry, and among whom gray eyes were frequent.
This people were traced to Buncomb and Robeson counties, where the same
family and personal names were found as in the lost colonies.
Will Allen Dromgoole in the March Arena, gives an entertaining
account of a people called "Malungeons" a remnant of whom remains
in the Tennessee mountains. Whether the description is a true one
The interest aroused by Miss Will Allen Dromgoole's sketches of the Melungeons of East Tennessee, has been widespread. It has inspired study of local peculiarities in many Southern districts, and the following letter, from Illinois, is of interest, especially to show how common these wandering relics of the savage tribes are The name given to these people by Miss Bondeau recalls the Gan tribe of Southern and Middle Tennessee, which has many of the Melungeon attributes. The religious tendencies of the Illinois people are distinctive.
There is in Hancock county, Tennessee, a tribe of people known
by the local name of Malungeons or Melungeons. Some say they are
a branch of the Croatan tribe, others that they are of Portuguese stock.
Who are these people?” has been asked thousands of times,
doubtless by some passing traveler, who quickly noted their clean-cut,
distinctive race features, speech and bearing. The answer made invariably is “Melungeons” - Our fathers who settled here along about 1790 to 1800,
found them here, with another small settlement near Nashville’s present site.”
It is not generally known that in the mountains of eastern Tennessee there is a class of peculiar looking people whose origin is wrapped in mystery and who are called by the whites, Melungeons. They resent this appellation and proudly declare that they are Portuguese. (This is the original 1848 article)
Some People In Eastern Tennessee 1894
There is a race of people in Hawkins County, Tenn., whose origin is a mystery," said G. L. Babbit. "They are called the Melungeons, and are found no place else. They have been traced back to North Carolina, but further than that nothing is known. They are not Indians, they are not negroes, they are certainly not of any known race of white people.
A Queer Tennessee People 1894
They have been classed with Negroes but it is easily demonstrated
that they are not of negro origin. I mingled with them a great deal at one time,
and was fortunate enough to obtain their confidence through an act of
kindness to one of their number. A few relics of great age can be found
in the pottery and implements. Some of these marked with rude
imitations of the Maltese cross. They have a tradition that
their ancestors in North Carolina are buried in mounds.
Putting these points together, I believe that they are
descendants of the Aztecs and of Portuguese sailors
who landed upon the North Carolina coast.
<>Talking about courts. Walter Taylor tells a story on that grand old man
and jurist, Judge Richard H. Clarke, so long upon our city court bench.
That cock-eyed Melungeon, Levi Morrison, who was so long a perennial pest to the police, was arraigned before Judge Clarke for the larceny of a box of soap.
He Was Hungry 1895
"The genial-faced old gentleman who occasionally distributed a circular letter is Colonel Stewart, a candidate for the legislature.
He is well fed and good humored. He is a 'Malungen."
As to the Melungeons I know of no book containing any history of them.
They are a peculiar set of people, most of them are very dark, straight hair
and high cheek bones resemble a Cherokee Indian. Since the war they
have become civilized and a great many of them are good citizens
and good livers. I knew old Sol Collins when I was a little boy and
was well acquainted with two of his boys and one his girls. I guess
The Blackwater Valley lies between Mulberry and Newman’s Ridges, and is from half a mile to mile wide. Twenty years ago it was still a wilderness, but is now under good cultivation, and divided into small farms upon which are rather poor dwellings and outbuildings. In this valley and along Newman’s Ridge, reaching into Lee County, Virginia, are settled the people called Melungeons. Some have gone into Kentucky, chiefly into Pike County, others are scattered in adjacent territory.The first settlers here were the great grand parents, Varday Collins, Shephard Gibson, and Charley Williams, who came from Virginia it is said, though other say from North Carolina. They have marked Indians resemblances in color, feature, hair, carriage, and disposition.
A Visit To The Melungeons 1897
To The Editor of The State:
In east Tennessee there lives a very remarkable race of people known
as Melungeons, a race which appear to be somewhat similar
to the "old issues" or "Redbones" found scattered about in our State.
During the war there was an election held in a county where
some of them lived. And they were persuaded by an ambitious candidate
to go to the polls and vote for him. Their votes were challenged by the other
fellow upon the ground they had some Negro blood in their veins.
They were very indignant and said, “When you want us to fight for you,
we are same as white folks, when we want to vote, you say we are negurs.”
And so a committee of four doctors was appointed to examine them and say
what they were. The committee took them out to a sandy place in the road and
had them take off their shoes and make tracks barefooted. Five of them made
very fair Anglo-Saxon tracks and were accepted, but of the other two the report was that the hollow of their feet made holes in the ground and they were rejected.
There are some of these Croatoans on Newman’s Ridge, in Tennessee.
Marcellus Lowry, the condemned man, is a Crotan Indian from the celebrated band in North Carolina, many of whom have drifted with the turpentine and timber men into Southern Georgia, where they are called "Melungeons. "
Indian To Be Hanged 1897
Before the war the Malungeons had a hard time in obtaining the
right to vote and to send their children to the primitive public schools
of that day. The white citizens declared they were negros, and the matter
finally caused so much bickering and strife between the Malungeons
and the whites that it was carried into the courts. In the trials which
followed it was developed that the ancestors of these people had emigrated
The Manchester correspondent of the New York Evening Post writes; A party of London writers and artists are now in the Tennessee mountains studying the peculiar race of people known as the Malungeons. The Malungeons are probably the most mysterious race in America, and less is known of them than of any other people. Whence they came to America or how they obtained their peculiar name is unknown.
A Strange People 1897
"What is the traditional idea of these people themselves, from their parents and grandparents and older ones? It is that they are of Cherokee
blood; that their ancestors were Indians, and many of them have gone
to the Cherokee nation and have sued in the Cherokee Council for land
and annuities, and they have obtained them They made their proof here among our people and old citizens, that, according to the best traditional evidence, they are of Cherokee blood, and those here now boast of their Cherokee blood
Illegal Voting Trials 1897
The Rev. Charles Kesterson is an odd Kentuckian who has been on both sides of the law. His father was one of the early pioneers of Hancock County, Tenn., and his mother was an Indian, being a member of the tribe of famous Malungeons.
An Odd Kentuckian 1898
It is known that for some time past other moonshiners in the Cumberland
have been envious of the woman and of her ability to carry on her work in defiance of the law, and that she was poisoned. No investigation has been made and none can be. If she has been poisoned, the Melungeons know it and the mountains will witness bloodshed, for the tribe always avenges an injury to one of its members.
Mahala Mullins, a noted moonshiner of Hancock County, is dead, aged 75. She was the mother of 18 children and weighed 550 pounds. It is reported that she was poisoned by envious makers of illicit whiskey. She had been arrested frequently but the officers could not remove her on account of her size and the isolated location of her home.
Mahala Mullins 1898
" though these people principally reside in Robeson county there
are settlements of them in both the Carolinas and in East Tennessee,
where they are known as Melungeans, a corruption of the French Melange,
An edict has been issued by the Malungeon Indians, who live in the
mountains of Hancock county, Tenn., sixty miles or more from Middlesboro,
giving the maidens of the tribe the right to choose their husbands from the pale-faces. Formerly this was a violation of one of the sacred laws of the tribe and the girl that married a white mans was banished from Indians society.
Can Wed Palefaces 1900
They had been distillers back in South Carolina and some of the
earliest stills in Tennesse were brought by their ancestors--over the mountains
from their original settlement. they killed revenue officers just as the other
mountaineers did, for disturbing their stills. Of late years, however, the
revenue men have been so persistent in the work of destroying the illicit traffic that the Malungeons have sold but small quantities of the whiskey openly.
The Melungeons of Tennessee and Their Portuguese Ancestry 1900
A hundred years ago a colony of Croatans settled in eastern Tennessee, on Newman's Ridge, in Hancock county. They can't tell today where they came from, for tradition over 50 years isn't worth anything. These are the people called Melungeons. They are similar in racial characteristics to the Croatans
Descendant of Missing Colony 1901
North Carolina's Croatans, who claim to be descendants pf Raleigh's lost colony
are not the only peculiar people among the red inhabitants of these United States.
The claim is not new it has been more or less exploited these thirty years,
along with that of the still more curious Melungeons of East Tennessee.
All along the southern coast there are scattered here and there bands of
curious people, whose appearance, color, and hair seem to indicate a cross or mixture of the Indian, the white, and the negro. Such, for example, are the Pamunkeys of Virginia, the Croatan Indians of the Carolinas, the Malungeons of Tennessee
I have lived here at the base of Newman's Ridge, Blackwater, being
on the opposite side, for the last 71 years and well know the history of
these people on Newman's Ridge and Blackwater enquired about as
Melungeons. These people were friendly to the Cherokees who came
west with the white imigration from New River and Cumberland, Virginia, about the year 1790...The name Melungeon was given them on account of their color.
The Melungeons 1903 (Lewis Jarvis)
Across the line in South Carolina are found a people, evidently of
similar origin, designated "Red bones." In portions of w. N. C. and E. Tenn.
are found the so-called "Melungeons" (probably from French melangi', 'mixed') or "Portuguese," apparently an offshoot from the Croatan proper
Croatan Indians 1907
On Newman's ridge in Hancock County, Tennessee, overlooking
the beautiful Clinch River Valley, lives one of the most mysterios people
in America. Through their Anglo-Saxon neighbors or through writers
of romance the name "Malungeon" has been given them, a name that the
better element resents. They resemble in feature the Cherokee Indians,
and yet have a strong, Caucasian cast of countenance that makes
Possibly an explanation of these differences in description may be found in the supposition that the Melungeons may differ widely in different localities. The section of country visited by Miss Dromgoole does not contain, by any means, all the Melungeons. And, while she may have found them the lawless set of rascals she describes, it is a fact that in other places they are represented to be exactly the reverse
Your letter of yesterday received. I happen to have the information y
ou seek. The Nashville American of June 26, 1910 (since consolidated
with the Nashville Tennessean) published a paper of about 10 pages in
celebration of its 98th anniversary and in this paper is the true story of a small
number of people to be found in a few counties of East Tennessee, as in other
sections of the Appalachian region, called Melungeons or Malungeons.
I have traveled horse-back before, during and since the Civil War,
in the counties where these people live, and have seen them in their
cabin homes and from information received independently of what
The origin of these peculiar people is an unsolved mystery, although
many have tried to trace their ancestry back to some definite
race or locality. Some say that they are the remnant of Sir Walter Raleigh’s
lost colony and others that they are the descendents of some ancient
colony of refugees from Venice, Servia, or Portugal.
I have been trying for some weeks to get some information as to who or what the MELUNGEONS were. This forced me to write to different
parts of the State, and to examine old newspaper files. At last I learned that
they are a queer race of people living in the mountains of East Tennessee,
They have lived their simple pastoral life and for more than a
hundred years so quietly and obscurely that their name is unknown to many.”
They are the Melungeons -their very name is a corruption of some
foreign word unknown to them or to the few have given them any study. They have had no poet or seer to preserve their history. The Melungeons have a
tradition of a Portuguese ship mutiny, with the successful mutineer beaching
the vessel on the North Carolina coast, then their retreat towards the mountains.
A curious race of people, who called themselves Malungeons.
were among the original Franklanders. They were supposed to be of
Moorish descent. They affiliated neither with whites nor blacks, were
There is a queer offshoot of the Croatan known as "Malungeons," in
South Carolina, who went there from this state ; another the "Redbones," of
Tennessee. Mr. Mooney has made a careful study of both of these branches also.
It is remarkable that Tennessee history is silent on the subject since by the
census taken in 1795 the Melungeons must have been numbered with the
973 “free person” other than the whites. There could hardly have been so many free negroes within the bounds of the present state only about twenty-five years
after the first settlement. That of itself should have received notice. Moreover, the Melungeons’ votes, as well as those of the free negroes, had something to do with the politicians making such a radical change in the constitution of 1834.
The Melungeons of East Tennessee 1923
In the mountains of East Tennessee live a distinct race of people, a race
as different from all others on the Western Hemisphere as the negro is different
from the American Indian. Moreover this species of the human family
is found nowhere else in America. It is the sinister race of the Melungeons, a mysterious race, few in numbers, whose origin is open to speculation, historians say. For many years they were thought to be Indians or a mixture of Indians and white people, whence probably originated their name, Melungeon, which means a mixture, according to the view held by those who have studied them.
Hancock was one of the first counties in the state to establish a system of public schools, for which its people have always responded generously, says the early history of the county written by the officials in the state division of history. This is the county where the large majority of the Melungeons, a mysterious and sinister race of dark-skinned people whose origin has never been definitely determined, dwell.
Hancock County Settled by People From Virginia and North Carolina 1923
"There is no social connection between them and their neighbors, either
white or black, but they remain separate, distinct and isolated. The citizens
of that vicinity called them Portuguese. "Some years ago when the county
schools were organized and put into operation these people were
sufficiently numerous to require of the school commissioners a separate,
distinct school for their children, and furnished as many as thirty pupils
exclusively of their own race. This school was distinct from the schools
The Melungeons, a race of people said to be living in the mountains of east Tennessee, are supposed to be an offshoot of the so-called "Croatan Indians" of North Carolina.
People of Mixed Blood 1927
The Melungeons of East Tennessee are not a mixed race. They are
Tennessee. They have no facial resemblance to Indians or Negroes.
They have none of the characteristics of either negroes or Indians.
The fact is there is no negroid or Indian blood, but a pure distinct race.
Phoenicians 1928 By J Patton Gibson
About the time of our Revolutionary war, a considerable body of these people crossed the Atlantic and settled on the coast of South Carolina, near the North Carolina line, and they lived among the people of Carolina for a number of years. At length the people of Carolina began to suspect that they were mulattoes or free Negroes and denied them the privileges usually accorded to white people. They refused to associate with them on equal terms and would not allow them to send their children to school with white children, and would only admit them to join their churches on the footing of Negroes. South Carolina had a law taxing free Negroes so much per capita, and a determined effort was made to collect this of them. But it was shown in evidence on the trial of this case that they always successfully resisted the payment of this tax, as they proved that they were not Negroes. Because of their treatment, they left South Carolina at an early day and wandered across the mountains to Hancock county, East Tennessee;
A Romance of the Melungeons 1936
There is little authentic knowledge of the Melungeons, a people found
in certain parts of Tennessee and Virginia. They are about the same
color as mulattoes with no other discernible Negro traits. According to their
own tradition they are of Moorish descent, probably descendants of the ancient Phoenicians. They settled in Portugal and later crossed the Atlantic before the Revolutionary war, settling in South Carolina, due to discriminatory taxes and ostracism they emigrated in a body and settled in Hancock County, Tennessee.
Answers to Questions 1939
- Arthur Goins - He had heard his father use the word “Melungeons.” His father had come from old “James county,” now a part of Hamilton–they were from Rhea county originally, or perhaps McMinn. The tradition was that the Goins family had come to Tennessee from Virginia–but of that he was not sure.
I have read the article headed “Ancestry of Melungeon Ferry Pilot" printed
in the Daily Times of Feb. 10. It was very interesting to me. My
knowledge of the Melungeon race is limited. They did come from
Phoenicia, when Carthage fell to the Romans, and settled in North Carolina.
I once looked up this history when I wrote an article for the Times about
I bought vegetables and eggs from a Melungeon woman. She was intelligent and of rather pleasing personality. Her account of the history of her people was that the were descended from Portuguese sailors who, fleeing from an enemy. Left their boats and escaped into the mountains of North Carolina.
Melungeons Recalled 1941
One tribe of Indians and a community of mixed breed Indians were
unmolested by the whites.These were the Uchees or Emassees,
kinsman of the Seminoles or Creeks, who lived at the mouth of the
Emassee or O'Mussee or Mercer creek near Columbia,
and the Malunjins, a mixed breed community residing some three to
six miles northeast of Dothan toward Webb even as late as 1865.
Surrounded by mystery and fantastic legends, the Malungeons live on
Newman’s Ridge, deep in the Tennessee mountains. The story of a
colony whose background is lost in antiquity...... About the people of
Newman’s Ridge and Blackwater Swamp just one fact is indisputable:
There are such strange people. Beyond that, fact gives way to
legendary mystery, and written history is supplanted by garbled
stories told a long time ago and half forgotten. .
On Newman's ridge in Northeastern Tennesee live an unknown people.
Only one fact about them is undisputable, that they are strange people.
From there fact turns to legend. These people are called Malungeons.
their characteristics are like those of the Indian in many ways -- an olive
colored skin, straight black hair, small hands and feet, and high cheek bones.
Uncle Wash Osborne of Copper Ridge near Dungannon in Scott County gave
me more information about the Melungeons than anyone else. Uncle Wash’s full name is George Washington Osborne. From what I gathered from Uncle Wash, the Melungeons started coming to Wise and Scott Counties about 1820. These people came in about equal numbers from Kentucky from Newmans’ Ridge and lower end of Lee County. A few came from North Carolina.
When the white man moved into this territory to settle-the Indians notwithstanding-he left only two tribes unmolested, according to Tompkins' Sagas.One was the Uchees or Emasees, kinsmen of the Creeks or Seminoles who lived at the mouth of the Emmassee (O'Mussee or Mercer) Creek near Columbia.
Part Indian
The other was the Malunjins of the 1860s. The Emassees were friendly to the whites throughout Alabama's territorial days which might explain why whites spared them. The Malunjins were part Indian and part white which apparently explains why the whites spared them. But where they came from-where they went, nobody seems to know.Did you ever hear of the Malunjin Indians who used to live in Houston County?"
“I used to regard the stories about Melungeons as a part of mythology,”
Miss Collins, a college graduate who is descended from one of the
oldest families in the region, said. “But my sister said, “No, there is some
truth in it.” Miss Collins rose from her desk and walked thoughtfully
to the vault to withdraw a letter postmarked 1907. It had been written
to her by one of her uncles. Elegant in vocabulary and charming in
sentiment, the letter related some of the family stories about their origin.
Written by J. G. Rhea, the letter told of one of the legends that persists
to explain the presence of the dark-skinned people in the area: they are
descendants of the Spaniards and perhaps Portuguese men in DeSoto’s
party who ventured from Florida into parts of North Carolina and
Tennessee in search of gold in 1540.-
Who are the Melungeons—the “mystery race” tucked away between
giant ridges of East Tennessee mountains long before the first white
explorer arrived? What exotic tale of shipwreck or mutiny lies in the dark
eyes of the red-brown people already in Hancock County before
Daniel Boone cut a trail? What story of explorers’ strayed from
DeSoto’s party 400 years ago or of Portuguese sailors stranded on
the North Carolina coast stares out in their steady gaze?
When the cold season comes, the wind bites and howls along Newman's Ridge in east Tennessee, nudging the snow across silent, ancient graveyards and against sturdy cabins fashioned from monstrous hand hewn poplar logs. Only the wind knows the origin of the dark-complexioned and handsome people who settled on the ridge.
The Mystery of Newman's Ridge 1970
Melungeons have been angered for almost two centuries about two things:
Strangers who call them by that name, so the Melungeons think, allude
to "mixture" as having Negro blood. And writers of sensational Melungeon
I've just read your letter which had gotten misplaced in my big pile of mail... Not that I am 88 I have had to give up most research , but I still write letters and reply to those of others, even though I cannot do much active research.
As to the Melungeons, I had known them since childhood, since my father had them living as tenants on our farm when I was 8 or 9 years old. He had grown up in the Blackwater, Va., area and known them all his life.
When the Goins family came to live on our farm their children attended our school, and after I grew up and began teaching I had them as pupils, and had even played with their children. However it never occurred to me t write about them until a Norton, Va., editor began publishing articles about them, even though he knew little about them. Then it occurred to me "why not write about them myself?" So, I wrote a brief article for the Read Magazine, which sent me $75. I began receiving letters from all over the U.S.A. I had no idea that so many people were interested. A few years later I wrote one for a magazine in Ky., then the head of the ? paid me to write one for it. And in the early 1960s I decided to put it into a booklet and I had more than 2,000 copies published.
We had the Goins family for only a year or so, but we had Gibson, and Collins families living on our [land] for several years. My mother had a Collins
family there long after I grew up and married.
Other Melungeon names that I remember were; Freeman, Moore, Sexton,
Minor, and Sheets. Some of the Gibsons intermarried with other families like Phillips,
Fanning, and Clark. [The Fannins, known as "Fanon," were slightly related to me
and one of the Collins families who educated their children in Hancock Co., Tenn.
[the man was a banker] had a daughter who married my father's step sister.
They had only daughters. One took over the bank after he died and
another became a high school principle in Bristol, Tenn.
So this has been a fascinating subject for me and I still feel convinced
that they are a mixture of Moorish, Portuguese, Croatan Indians, and a small portion of Anglo-Saxon blood that was left from the final massacre of the Roanoke Island colony in North Carolina. If not, how can we explain why they use old Elizabethan English expressions and all the older ones said they were "Porty-gee." The Portuguese who were often shipwrecked off the stormy N.C coast and chose to stay there and marry Indian women. The small segment that escaped from the final massacre by the Va., Indians evidently retained the old English words that the Melungeons used, like "Hit" [for it] "ferninst'[?] for opposite, etc. Please excuse my rambling and crooked lines.
Bonnie S. Ball - 1990
Jan 1990
I have your material but am now 88 years old and not carrying on any
further research on the Melungeons. However, I grew up with them living
and working on my father farm in Lee Co, Va, and he knew them well during
his youth, and I have never doubted their real origin. I have sold over 2000
copies of my booklet. A step-sister of my father married a man of that group.
He attended a mission school for that group, and was president of the local
bank, which was later managed by a daughter. Some of them are still in
his area and have become worthwhile citizens.
A Goins man once lived on our farm with his family, a large and strong
man but was married to a woman that was probably not a Melungeon
Others whom I knew in childhood were named Gibson, Freeman, Collins,
and Sexton, which appear to be Anglo-Saxon names. However there is
no doubt that they have a Portuguese ancestry a few generations back,
but they also have some Anglo-Saxon names and speech.
Letter from - Bonnie S. Ball --1990
The Melungeon, who called their leaders "king" instead of "chief," intermarried with the Cherokee Indians and were considered a branch of the tribe. Micajah Bunch was part Melungeon and part Cherokee
Micajah Bunch1991
