Editing Melungeon (section)

{{Short description|Mixed-race group from the South Central Appalachian region of the United States}}
{{Infobox ethnic group
| group            = Melungeon
| image            = [[File:Goins.jpg|260px|Arch Goins and family, from [[Graysville, Tennessee]], c. 1920s]]
| image_caption    = Goins family, Melungeons from [[Graysville, Tennessee]], c. 1920s
| image_alt        = 
| image_upright    = 
| total            = <!-- total population worldwide -->
| total_year       = <!-- year of total population -->
| total_source     = <!-- source of total population; may be ''census'' or ''estimate'' -->
| total_ref        = <!-- references supporting total population -->
| genealogy        = 
| regions          = [[United States]] ([[East Tennessee]], [[Southwest Virginia]],<ref name="loller2"/><ref name=neal/> [[North Carolina]], and [[Kentucky]]<ref name=neal/>)
| languages        = [[Southern American English]]
| religions        = Predominantly [[Protestant Christianity]]
| related_groups   = [[Lumbee]], [[Atlantic Creole]], [[Turks of South Carolina]], [[Chestnut Ridge people]], [[White Southerners]], [[Black Southerners]], [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]], [[Dominickers]], [[Redbone (ethnicity)]], [[Mulatto]], [[Coloureds]], [[Griqua people]], [[Basters]], [[Métis]], [[Black Indians in the United States]], [[Garifuna]]
}}
{{African American topics sidebar}}
'''Melungeon''' ({{IPAc-en|m|ə|ˈ|l|ʌ|n|dʒ|ən|}} {{respell|mə|LUN|jən}}) (sometimes also spelled '''Malungean, Melangean, Melungean, Melungin'''<ref name="Tennessee">{{cite web |title=1894 Report of the U.S. Department of the Interior, in its Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed |url=https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1890/volume-10/indians-taxed-not-taxed.pdf |website=www2.census.gov |publisher=Department of the Interior |access-date=6 April 2025}}</ref>) was a [[Racial slur|slur]]<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gibson |first=Toby D. |date=2013 |title=The Melungeons of Newman’s Ridge: An Insider’s Perspective |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/12/article/523673 |journal=Appalachian Heritage |volume=41 |issue=4 |pages=59–66 |issn=2692-9287}}</ref> historically applied to individuals and families of [[Mulatto|mixed-race]] ancestry with roots in [[Colony of Virginia|colonial Virginia]], [[Tennessee]], and [[Province of North Carolina|North Carolina]] who were primarily descended from [[free people of color]] and [[Old Stock Americans|white settlers]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Melungeons {{!}} NCpedia |url=https://www.ncpedia.org/melungeons |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=www.ncpedia.org}}</ref><ref name="Schrift">{{Cite journal |last=Schrift |first=Melissa |date=2013-04-01 |title=Becoming Melungeon |url=https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/unpresssamples/186 |journal=University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |agency=[[Associated Press|AP]] |date=2012-05-24 |title=DNA finds origin of Appalachia’s Melungeons: African men, white women |url=https://www.denverpost.com/2012/05/24/dna-finds-origin-of-appalachias-melungeons-african-men-white-women/ |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=The Denver Post |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-07-11 |title=Dancing Revolution: Bodies, Space, and Sound in American Cultural History 2018059613, 2019013274, 9780252051234, 9780252042393, 9780252084188 |url=https://ebin.pub/dancing-revolution-bodies-space-and-sound-in-american-cultural-history-2018059613-2019013274-9780252051234-9780252042393-9780252084188.html |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=ebin.pub |language=en}}</ref> In the late 20th century, the term was [[Reclaimed term|reclaimed]] by descendants of these families, especially in [[Appalachia|southern Appalachia]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Loller |first=Travis |title='A whole lot of people upset by this study': DNA & the truth about Appalachia’s Melungeons |url=https://www.newsleader.com/story/news/2021/03/08/new-dna-study-melungeons-attempts-separate-truth-fiction/4611383001/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=The News Leader |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Rust |first=Randal |title=Melungeons |url=https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/melungeons/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=Tennessee Encyclopedia |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=FAQ |url=https://melungeon.org/features/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=Melungeon Heritage Association |language=en-US}}</ref> Despite this mixed heritage, many modern Melungeons [[Passing (racial identity)|pass]] as [[White Americans|white]], as did many of their ancestors.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wolfe |first=Brendan |title=Racial Integrity Laws (1924–1930) |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/racial-integrity-laws-1924-1930/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=Encyclopedia Virginia |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Philipkoski |first=Kristen |title=Melungeon Secret Solved, Sort Of |url=https://www.wired.com/2002/06/melungeon-secret-solved-sort-of/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |work=Wired |language=en-US |issn=1059-1028}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Schroeder |first=Joan Vannorsdall |date=2009-02-01 |title=First Union: The Melungeons Revisited |url=https://blueridgecountry.com/archive/favorites/melungeons-revisited/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=Blue Ridge Country |language=en-us}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Billingsley |first=Carolyn Earle |date=2004 |editor-last=Winkler |editor-first=Wayne |title=Melungeons: A Study in Racial Complexity—A Review Essay |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23386286 |journal=The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society |volume=102 |issue=2 |pages=207–223 |issn=0023-0243}}</ref>

Many groups have historically been referred to as Melungeon, including the Melungeons of [[Hancock County, Tennessee|Newman's Ridge]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mystery of Newman's Ridge |url=https://historical-melungeons.com/life.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130212015628/http://historical-melungeons.com/life.html |url-status=usurped |archive-date=February 12, 2013 |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=historical-melungeons.com}}</ref> the [[Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Anonymous |date=2022-05-12 |title=Are They Kin to the ‘Lost Colony’? |url=https://dsi.appstate.edu/projects/lumbee/560 |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=Digital Scholarship and Initiatives |language=en}}</ref> the [[Chestnut Ridge people]],<ref>[http://www.underonesky.org/Guineas.html Joanne Johnson Smith & Florence Kennedy Barnett, "The Guineas of West Virginia:  A Transcript of A Presentation at First Union"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928162100/http://www.underonesky.org/Guineas.html|date=2007-09-28}}, 25 July 1997; Wise, Virginia</ref> and the [[Carmel Indians]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gazette |first=Times |date=2020-06-23 |title=Highland Co.’s lost tribe |url=https://www.timesgazette.com/2020/06/23/highland-co-s-lost-tribe/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=The Times Gazette |language=en-US}}</ref> Free people of color in colonial Virginia were predominantly of [[African Americans|African]] and [[European Americans|European]] descent; however, many families also had varying amounts of [[Native American tribes in Virginia|Native American]] and [[South Asians in Colonial America|East Indian]] ancestry.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mitsawokett: "Self-Identification" |url=https://nativeamericansofdelawarestate.com/Self-Identifcation.htm |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=nativeamericansofdelawarestate.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Siekman |first=Henry Louis Gates Jr and NEHGS Researcher Meaghan |date=2016-06-24 |title=Am I Related to Free People of Color in NC? |url=https://www.theroot.com/am-i-related-to-free-people-of-color-in-nc-1790855783 |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=The Root |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=O Say Can You See: Early Washington, D.C., Law & Family |url=http://earlywashingtondc.org/ |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=earlywashingtondc.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Arora |first=Anupama |last2=Kaur |first2=Rajender |date=2017 |title=Writing India in Early American Women’s Fiction |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/90009822 |journal=Early American Literature |volume=52 |issue=2 |pages=363–388 |issn=0012-8163}}</ref> Some modern researchers believe that early [[Atlantic Creole]] slaves, descended from or acculturated by Iberian [[lançados]]<ref>{{cite news |last1=Foner |first1=Eric |date=8 June 2018 |title=Ira Berlin, 1941–2018 |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/ira-berlin-1941-2018/ |work=The Nation}}</ref> and [[Sephardic Jews|Sephardi Jews]] fleeing the [[Inquisition]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=O'Neill |first=Brian Juan |date=2017 |title=Review of Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, Havik, Philip J., and Malyn Newitt, eds |journal=Africa Today |volume=63 |issue=4 |pages=84–90 |doi=10.2979/africatoday.63.4.05 |jstor=10.2979/africatoday.63.4.05 |hdl-access=free |hdl=10071/14918}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=African blacks and Mulattos in the 17th-Century Amsterdam Portuguese Jewish community |url=https://www.asser.nl/global-city/news-and-events/african-blacks-and-mulattos-in-the-17th-century-amsterdam-portuguese-jewish-community/ |access-date=2024-05-27 |website=www.asser.nl |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Mark |first1=Peter |title=The Forgotten Diaspora: Jewish Communities in West Africa and the Making of the Atlantic World |last2=Horta |first2=José da Silva |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-66746-4}}{{page needed|date=May 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Schorsch |first1=Jonathan |title=A Letter's Importance: The Spelling of Daka(h) (Deut. 23:2) and the Broadening of Western Sephardic Rabbinic Culture |date=2019 |isbn=978-90-04-39248-9 |chapter=Revisiting Blackness, Slavery, and Jewishness in the Early Modern Sephardic Atlantic |doi=10.1163/9789004392489_022}}</ref><ref>{{cite report |title=Mariana Pequena, a black Angolan jew in early eighteenth-century Rio de Janeiro |last1=Kananoja |first1=Kalle |date=2013 |hdl=1814/27607}}</ref> were one of the pre-cursor populations to these groups.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mozingo |first1=Joe |title=The Fiddler on Pantico Run: An African Warrior, His White Descendants, A Search for Family |date=2012 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-4516-2761-9}}{{page needed|date=May 2024}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Berlin |first=Ira |author-link=Ira Berlin |date=1996 |title=From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African-American Society in Mainland North America |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |volume=53 |issue=2 |pages=251–288 |doi=10.2307/2947401 |jstor=2947401}}</ref><ref>{{cite thesis |last1=Bartl |first1=Renate |title=American tri-racials: African-Native contact, multi-ethnic Native American Nations, and the ethnogenesis of tri-racial groups in North America |date=2018 |publisher=[[Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München]] |doi=10.5282/edoc.26874}}</ref> Many creoles, once in [[British America]], were able to obtain their freedom and many [[Interracial marriage in the United States|married into local white families]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Berlin |first=Ira |author-link=Ira Berlin |title=Critical Readings on Global Slavery (4 vols.) |date=2017 |isbn=978-90-04-34661-1 |pages=1216–1262 |chapter=From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African-American Society in Mainland North America |doi=10.1163/9789004346611_039}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Anti-Amalgamation Law is Passed |url=https://aaregistry.org/story/anti-amalgamation-law-passed/ |access-date=2024-05-27 |website=African American Registry |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Wolfe |first=Brendan |title=Free Blacks in Colonial Virginia |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/free-blacks-in-colonial-virginia/ |access-date=2024-05-27 |website=Encyclopedia Virginia |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Introduction to Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina |url=https://freeafricanamericans.com/introduction.htm |access-date=2024-05-27 |website=freeafricanamericans.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Dodge |first1=David |date=January 1886 |title=The Free Negroes of North Carolina |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1886/01/the-free-negroes-of-north-carolina/522594/ |work=The Atlantic}}</ref>

Despite often being able to pass as white people, Melungeons were affected by the [[one-drop rule]]. The one-drop rule either caused, or had the potential to cause, many Melungeons to be labeled as [[Person of color|non-white]]. Some Melungeons who were labeled as non-white were sterilized by [[State governments of the United States|state governments]], most notably in [[Virginia]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Talbot |first=Tori |title=Walter Ashby Plecker (1861–1947) |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/plecker-walter-ashby-1861-1947/ |access-date=2024-08-23 |website=Encyclopedia Virginia |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Racial Integrity Act, 1924: An Attack on Indigenous Identity (U.S. National Park Service) |url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/racial-integrity-act.htm |access-date=2024-08-23 |website=www.nps.gov |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Winkler |first=Wayne |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/Walking_Toward_the_Sunset.html?id=FiF2AAAAMAAJ |title=Walking Toward the Sunset: The Melungeons of Appalachia |date=2004 |publisher=Mercer University Press |isbn=978-0-86554-919-7 |language=en}}</ref>