Criminal
11-28-2004, 10:21 AM
This is another article about tri racial people who remain in rural areas in the eastern US. I already posted about the Ramapo Mountain people who continue to survive in New Jersey. Here is an interesting article on other such groups who in Colonial times formed isolated communities. Mostly these are people of mixed blood, white, black and indian. These groups include the Lumbees of North Carolina and the Meungeons of Virginia.
Each of these groups are unique in their own way. The Ramapo people, for instance speak a form of Dutch no longer spoken anywhere else. Lumbees speak an indian dialect, yet have adopted customs of British and Scotts-Irish settlers.
Melungeons (from melange) are an ethnic group indigenous to the mountains of northeastern Tennessee, racially a mixture of black, white and American Indian. Founded by free mulattos and mestees (Indian-black mix with or without white) from North Carolina, they were in Hancock County before whites arrived there. From the time and location of their origin, the Indian element is probably Saponi and Tutelo, but is usually incorrectly thought to be Cherokee by the Melungeons. Designated 'free people of color' in the Tennessee constitution, they have been described as a 'tri-racial isolate' by anthropologists and as an 'old mixed race group' by the U.S. Bureau of the Census. They were recognized as American Indian by the Tennessee department of education during the days of school segregation and had separate schools from both white and black. Rejected as Indians by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, they are legally black under Tennessee law as they are known to have some black African ancestry. Culturally, they are Appalachian. I wrote the preceding statement some years ago to attach to affirmative action forms, etc., to explain why I check Black (with Melungeon added in parentheses) when I am not culturally Black American and show little evidence of black ancestry.
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Calvin Beale opens his chapter on "mixed-racial isolates" with the following statement: "In about 1890, a young Tennessee woman asked a state legislator, 'Please tell me what is a Malungeon?' 'A Malungeon,' said he, isn't a ******, and he isn't an Indian, and he isn't a white man. God only knows what he is.' ... The young woman, Will Allen Dromgoole, soon sought out the 'Melungeons' in remote Hancock County and lived with them for a while to determine for herself what they were. Afterward, in the space of a ten-page article, she described them as 'shiftless,' 'idle,' 'illiterate,' 'thieving,' 'defiant,' 'distillers of brandy,' 'lawless,' 'close,' 'rogues,' 'suspicious,' 'inhospitable,' 'untruthful,' 'cowardly,' 'sneaky,' 'exceedingly immoral,' and 'unforgiving.' She ... ended her work by concluding, 'The most that can be said of one of them is, 'He is a Malungeon, a synonym for all that is doubtful and mysterious - and unclean.' Miss Dromgoole was essentially a sympathetic observer." Needless to say, Miss Dromgoole is not highly regarded by Melungeons. She didn't even bother to spell the word correctly. That Beale regards her as sympathetic is a good measure of the esteem with which Mestees in general have been regarded by whites.
In the 1966 edition, The Randon House Dictionary of the English Language defined Melungeon as "a member of a people of mixed Caucasian, ******* and American Indian ancestry living in the region of the southern Appalachians." In the 1987 edition, to conform to the current nicetiesof the language,
35
the definition was changed to "a member of a people of mixed white, black and American Indian ancestry living in the region of the southern Appalachians." At an estimated nearly twenty thousand people, the Melungeons are the second largest Mestee group. The word Melungeon probably derives from melange and was the name given to these people by French traders coming up the rivers from Louisiana before English speaking whites came over the Smoky Mountains [EP,BB,JB,HP].
The origin and racial composition of the Melungeons has been the subject of many legends and disputes. Since some were settled in what is now Hancock County before any white people reached it and since they were obviously not Indian either racially or culturally, speculation has run wild. In the "Celebrated Melungeon Case" in Chattanooga in 1872, a woman's inheritance was challenged by cousins on the grounds that her mother was Melungeon and Melungeons are part blackand since black-white marriage was illegal, she was illegitimate. Lewis Shepherd, her lawyer, convinced the court that Melungeons are the descendants of Carthaginians, not Black Africans, and her cousins lost.
36
Melungeons were allowed to vote in Hancock County but when they moved away things were different. In one court case over five Melungeon men trying to register to vote, the court called in a physician as an expert witness to determine whether they had any black ancestry. Four were approved for voting as being racially consistent with an Indian-White mix but one was denied because he had flat feet. Tennessee may be unique in viewing arches as a necessary qualification for voting.
Melungeons would not send their children to black schools and they were not allowed in the white schools, so the Tennessee Department of Education had "Indian" schools for them. This led to almost total illiteracy among Melungeons. They would not have black teachers and white teachers would not teach in their schools, so they had to depend on the few Melungeons who had learned to read at the Presbyterian Mission School in Vardy. None of their teachers had been to high school. In Tennessee until the 1950's and 60's, Melungeons were usually classified as black for marriage, white for voting and Indian for education.
There is a Welsh legend of a Prince Madoc who came to America and founded a Welsh colony in late Pre-Columbian times. The site of his landing has been set as Mobile Bay (a very long ways from Wales for small boats) and three Pre-Columbian stone wall sites in the Southeast (Old Stone Fort in Tennessee, Fort Mountain in Georgia and the Welsh Caves at Desoto Falls in Alabama, all within 100 miles of Chattanooga) were all traditionally attributed to these Welsh.
Each of these groups are unique in their own way. The Ramapo people, for instance speak a form of Dutch no longer spoken anywhere else. Lumbees speak an indian dialect, yet have adopted customs of British and Scotts-Irish settlers.
Melungeons (from melange) are an ethnic group indigenous to the mountains of northeastern Tennessee, racially a mixture of black, white and American Indian. Founded by free mulattos and mestees (Indian-black mix with or without white) from North Carolina, they were in Hancock County before whites arrived there. From the time and location of their origin, the Indian element is probably Saponi and Tutelo, but is usually incorrectly thought to be Cherokee by the Melungeons. Designated 'free people of color' in the Tennessee constitution, they have been described as a 'tri-racial isolate' by anthropologists and as an 'old mixed race group' by the U.S. Bureau of the Census. They were recognized as American Indian by the Tennessee department of education during the days of school segregation and had separate schools from both white and black. Rejected as Indians by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, they are legally black under Tennessee law as they are known to have some black African ancestry. Culturally, they are Appalachian. I wrote the preceding statement some years ago to attach to affirmative action forms, etc., to explain why I check Black (with Melungeon added in parentheses) when I am not culturally Black American and show little evidence of black ancestry.
34
Calvin Beale opens his chapter on "mixed-racial isolates" with the following statement: "In about 1890, a young Tennessee woman asked a state legislator, 'Please tell me what is a Malungeon?' 'A Malungeon,' said he, isn't a ******, and he isn't an Indian, and he isn't a white man. God only knows what he is.' ... The young woman, Will Allen Dromgoole, soon sought out the 'Melungeons' in remote Hancock County and lived with them for a while to determine for herself what they were. Afterward, in the space of a ten-page article, she described them as 'shiftless,' 'idle,' 'illiterate,' 'thieving,' 'defiant,' 'distillers of brandy,' 'lawless,' 'close,' 'rogues,' 'suspicious,' 'inhospitable,' 'untruthful,' 'cowardly,' 'sneaky,' 'exceedingly immoral,' and 'unforgiving.' She ... ended her work by concluding, 'The most that can be said of one of them is, 'He is a Malungeon, a synonym for all that is doubtful and mysterious - and unclean.' Miss Dromgoole was essentially a sympathetic observer." Needless to say, Miss Dromgoole is not highly regarded by Melungeons. She didn't even bother to spell the word correctly. That Beale regards her as sympathetic is a good measure of the esteem with which Mestees in general have been regarded by whites.
In the 1966 edition, The Randon House Dictionary of the English Language defined Melungeon as "a member of a people of mixed Caucasian, ******* and American Indian ancestry living in the region of the southern Appalachians." In the 1987 edition, to conform to the current nicetiesof the language,
35
the definition was changed to "a member of a people of mixed white, black and American Indian ancestry living in the region of the southern Appalachians." At an estimated nearly twenty thousand people, the Melungeons are the second largest Mestee group. The word Melungeon probably derives from melange and was the name given to these people by French traders coming up the rivers from Louisiana before English speaking whites came over the Smoky Mountains [EP,BB,JB,HP].
The origin and racial composition of the Melungeons has been the subject of many legends and disputes. Since some were settled in what is now Hancock County before any white people reached it and since they were obviously not Indian either racially or culturally, speculation has run wild. In the "Celebrated Melungeon Case" in Chattanooga in 1872, a woman's inheritance was challenged by cousins on the grounds that her mother was Melungeon and Melungeons are part blackand since black-white marriage was illegal, she was illegitimate. Lewis Shepherd, her lawyer, convinced the court that Melungeons are the descendants of Carthaginians, not Black Africans, and her cousins lost.
36
Melungeons were allowed to vote in Hancock County but when they moved away things were different. In one court case over five Melungeon men trying to register to vote, the court called in a physician as an expert witness to determine whether they had any black ancestry. Four were approved for voting as being racially consistent with an Indian-White mix but one was denied because he had flat feet. Tennessee may be unique in viewing arches as a necessary qualification for voting.
Melungeons would not send their children to black schools and they were not allowed in the white schools, so the Tennessee Department of Education had "Indian" schools for them. This led to almost total illiteracy among Melungeons. They would not have black teachers and white teachers would not teach in their schools, so they had to depend on the few Melungeons who had learned to read at the Presbyterian Mission School in Vardy. None of their teachers had been to high school. In Tennessee until the 1950's and 60's, Melungeons were usually classified as black for marriage, white for voting and Indian for education.
There is a Welsh legend of a Prince Madoc who came to America and founded a Welsh colony in late Pre-Columbian times. The site of his landing has been set as Mobile Bay (a very long ways from Wales for small boats) and three Pre-Columbian stone wall sites in the Southeast (Old Stone Fort in Tennessee, Fort Mountain in Georgia and the Welsh Caves at Desoto Falls in Alabama, all within 100 miles of Chattanooga) were all traditionally attributed to these Welsh.