The Melungeons: A Mixed-Blood Strain of the Southern Appalachians

Abstract

N THE native vocabulary of East Tennessee and adjacent parts of neighboring states the word is widely used. To some people it is only a general derogatory term to be bestowed on anyone who momentarily arouses their antagonism. Middle Tennesseans are said to have applied it to their former East Tennessee enemies in the bitter period after the Civil War.' And at times the Melungeons have had to fill the place of the bogeyman in holding children in the straight and narrow path Melungeons will get you!' The persistent folk tale, however, insists that the Melungeons are unusual racially; it identifies them as a dark-skinned mixed-blood group of uncertain origin whose center is on Newman's Ridge in Hancock County (Fig. i). An Oriental appearance is occasionally attributed to them, but they are most commonly thought to be at least partly of Portuguese descent. The peculiarity of the mixture, however, is its supposed inability to blend color in crosses with whites: the Melungeon appearance may be lost for a generation or two, only to show up again in full strength. Relatively few people know the Melungeons as a group; more have seen individuals. But the elements of the legend are widely known, even to those who may not seriously entertain the possibility of its reality. Newman's Ridge and the adjacent Blackwater Valley are said to have been settled by the Melungeons before the wave of white settlers from the eastern states reached the area;3 it is suggested that they stemmed from sailors shipwrecked on the Carolina coast. The Melungeons are said to have been disfranchised4 by the restrictions placed on free persons of color in the Tennessee' Constitution of I834.5