Suppose that you are sitting with a group of knowledgeable
friends doing a crossword puzzle together and you find the
definition, "A mysterious group of dark-skinned people of
uncertain origins, inhabiting the southern Appalachian
mountains." There are ten horizontal spaces waiting to be filled
in with the answer. How many of your friends may be able to come
up with an answer to get all of these spaces filled in? Let me
guess. Ten years ago, those spaces would have had to be filled
in from other directions, to finally come up with the word
"Melungeon." These days, maybe one or two will know the word and
save some time. I hope that in the not too distant future, many
people will know who and what the Melungeons are, because it's a
fascinating story and one of the true mysteries, among an
abundance of speculations, on what we may call "pre-history. " I
define "pre-history" as what REALLY happened before the
historians started publishing in order to avoid perishing. So
what's the problem? We've all studied American history and we
know something about the land of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone.
Are the Melungeons recent arrivals in the southern Appalachians?
That question can be answered with a definite "NO." The evidence
is that persons called "Melungeons" have been "hanging out" in
the southeastern parts of the United States, since well before
the area was called the United States. We're talking about more
than 400 years!
In early 1996, I couldn't have told you
what a Melungeon was, and now I AM one......among other things
of course! So how did that happen? And by the way, what IS a
Melungeon? I can tell you how I stumbled into this mystery and
maybe come up with at least a partial answer to what a Melungeon
is. That's still being researched in this country and overseas.
In the mid-1990's, I got interested in genealogy. I knew very
little about my own origins and was getting curious. I got
"Family Tree Maker" and installed it into my computer. This is
what I would call a "user-friendly" software program that takes
a lot of the organizing, writing and re-writing out of
genealogy. I turned to the Prodigy Classic online service for
its Genealogy Bulletin Board, which was a place where persons
could obtain and exchange information on their families.
Although some of this information was wrong, much of it could be
checked out through archives and various other ways of verifying
who was who and what and when. It felt like retroactive
detective work and replaced the games that I have never played.
Another good source was
Rootsweb, which is accessible on the Internet. Prodigy
Classic ceased to exist in 1999, so Rootsweb remains the single
best source of information as well as a reference to many other
sources.
2. Before long, certain realities had set
in. For one thing, my father's family had emigrated from Germany
in the last century and apparently had deliberately never looked
back, nor maintained connections in the "old country." To this
day, I've been able to establish names and dates, but no
definite places, for only one line, going back three
generations. With very common German names like Klein and
Kirchner, there were few leads and no real interest within the
remaining family. I knew that my mother, the late Alma Sioux
Scarberry, a well-known writer in the 1920's and 1930's, had
been born in Carter County, Kentucky, in the eastern part of the
state. Her father had been born in Johnson County about 60 miles
away, and her paternal grandfather had been born in Wise County,
Virginia not far from eastern Kentucky. Her mother's family, the
Patricks, had come out of nearby northern Tennessee. Tracking my
mother's family was easier because her name was Scarberry, which
is not nearly as common as Klein. The Scarberrys and
Scarboroughs in this country were mostly related, and quite a
few other persons had researched the family. Within a year and a
half or so, I managed to get several hundred names of ancestors
and relatives in my genealogy program. One part that I found
interesting was that the vast majority of my maternal family
connections for many generations were from that same area where
Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee come together. I also found
that some of the same names kept popping up on different
branches of the family tree, and that many of their descendants
had stayed in the region. The names included Mullins, Lemaster,
Tackett, Ramey, Patrick, Crockett and others. It was when I was
checking out the Mullins name that I started running across the
term "Melungeon." I checked in several encyclopedias to find out
what a Melungeon was and didn't even find the word. A couple of
dictionaries did have the term, but none of the definitions
really fit what the others had. All I knew at that 
Alma Sioux Scarberry |
point was that the Melungeons were "a mysterious
dark-skinned people of uncertain origin, found in the
southern Appalachians" and that they were possibly
"tri-racial." There were even some harsh arguments on the
genealogy bulletin boards about Melungeons, including
persons seriously questioning the Melungeons' very
existence. It seems that some of the angry ones were
Melungeon descendants determined to remain WASPs, despite
some rather convincing evidence to the contrary. Several of
my most knowledgeable friends with strong academic
backgrounds denied the existence of Melungeons, because they
had never heard of them! A name that kept appearing in
relation to this subject was Dr. Brent Kennedy of Clinch
Valley College of the University of Virginia, in Wise,
Virginia, who was supposed to be a leading expert on the
Melungeon subject. I became curious enough to telephone him
and ask a few questions. |
3. He then asked me some questions. I told him that my
great-grandfather, Robert Elihu Scarberry had been born in
that same county in an area known as "the Cranes Nest" and
that his mother had been a Nancy Mullins. Dr. Kennedy's next
statement pleased me enormously. He said, "I'm glad to hear
from you cousin. All of the Mullins family in that area are
Melungeons and I'm kin to them too." I have recently found
out that he and I share my third and his
fifth-great-grandfather, Booker Mullins (1763), also known
as "Grandsire" Mullins (pronounced Granser) so we're even on
the same branch of the family tree. He also told me that he
had written a book on the subject not long before, called
"The Melungeons, The Resurrection of a Proud People, An
Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America," that had been
published by Mercer University Press. | 
Robert Elihu Scarberry |
Rev. George Washington Scarberry |
I ordered a copy of his book which told the dramatic story
of how Dr. Kennedy had found his connection to the
Melungeons, who they most likely were, and what they had
gone through, in their contacts with other cultures,
starting many years before. I also found a list of common
family names in the southern Appalachians associated with
Melungeons and found that I was connected with as many as
seven family lines of Melungeon descendants. It was an
amazing story and I was pleased to be a part of it. My list
is up to nine family lines with Melungeon connections now. |
Around that same time, a web site for and about Melungeons was
established and the first Melungeon meeting, called The
First Union was held at Clinch Valley College (renamed
The University of Virginia's College at Wise), in July of
1997. Needless to say, I went. This is the first conference I've
ever been to where I was related to perhaps a third of the
people there! It had all of the joy of a family reunion of
people who had mostly never met before. The format was similar
to an academic type of conference and the main subject was
Melungeons; who we are, how we probably got here and where we go
from here. There was a
Second Union in 1998, which I also attended and where I gave
a presentation entitled "Our French Connection." More about that
later. Articles began to appear in some internationally
well-known newspapers about Melungeons and the conferences,
including the Wall Street Journal and the London Times. The
Third Union occurred. In May of 2000 and was featured in the
Washington Post. There has been a Fourth Union since in
Tennessee, which I missed. Most local newspapers across the
country ignored the subject. Part of the problem may be that
there are still more questions than answers and journalists
hesitate to put their names on matters that are part
speculation, unless politics, passion, scandal or great amounts
of money are involved.
4. I'm not going to go into
ALL of the theories on who we are, why we are, and where we came
from. Those conflicting theories can be found in search engines
on a computer. Perhaps within the next decade or so, enough
evidence can be found for a really solid conclusion on this
subject. I believe that the current linguistic, medical,
physical, archeological, more recently
DNA studies, and traditional evidence that seems most
realistic at this time, as the most likely primary source of the
Melungeons, mainly points back to the old Ottoman Empire. Now
that we are "out of the Appalachian closet" a number of
researchers in this country and Turkey are starting to come up
with some facts from a number of different sources and
disciplines and many of them seem to be finally fitting
together. It is anticipated that more Melungeon unions will
occur and that the participants will continue to come from
various backgrounds and disciplines and continue to make new
contributions to solving one of our country's outstanding
mysteries. So what do we know? The Ottoman Empire, which was a
widespread Muslim dynasty, began around 1300 AD and was founded
by Sultan Osman I, who came out of Asia Minor. This Empire
lasted for a long period of time, although it tends to be an
important period of history that is not strongly covered in
history classes in the U.S.A.
By 1453 Constantinople was
conquered and by 1520 most of southeastern Europe, the Middle
East and North Africa was under the control of the Ottomans. The
Ottoman Empire was a widespread, long-lasting and powerful
phenomenon and survived until around the time of World War I in
the last century. During the period of the 14th through the 17th
centuries, Islamic expansion exceeded that of the Europeans.
Militarily and politically, the Ottoman forces were in charge of
wide areas of Europe, Africa and Asia.
Their territory
encompassed many different cultures and languages. The Ottoman
Empire had its first impact in the Americas and the Caribbean
area around the mid-1500's. It is known through archives in
Turkey, that Ottoman peoples, both captive and employed, were
transported to the New World mostly by Portuguese, Spanish, and
sometimes English ships. There are documents in Old Turkish
script, that are now accessible to researchers. There are data
indicating lost or abandoned Turkish sailors and a report of
some 100
Turkish men who were returned home by Sir Francis
Drake in 1587. Most interesting is the presence of strong
circumstantial evidence indicating the existence of a settlement
of Melungeons, who were most likely former Ottoman slaves,
transported on Spanish and Portuguese ships around 1566, on
Parris Island in today's North Carolina. This is where the U.S.
Marine Corps now trains. It is believed that Sir Walter Raleigh
helped the Melungeons to escape from their captors.
5.
I now quote (verbatim) part of a January 1997 report given to
Elizabeth Winkler of Indiana University, by Unsal Ozunlu, in an
online summary discussing Melungeons: About a couple of months
ago in Milliyet, one
of the daily Turkish papers, I read that
Melungeons were the grand-grand grandchildren of the 16th
century levends, some of whom were enslaved by some Portuguese
navies on the Mediterranean Sea, taken first to Portugal, then
to some parts of America to be used as slaves on the newly
captured lands in America. (In Turkish levend means a young lad
who is devoted to sailing and who practices in
navigating).....As centuries went on and on, these people
continued living together with the natives and the Americans
never to forget their origins." [I have heard no evidence that
modern day Melungeon descendants have any real idea where their
ancestors came from.
Many of them have claimed to be
'Portygee'. t.k.] "What is spelled as Melungeon in English is
spelled in Turkish as Meluncan and pronounced as melunjan. In
the Turkish language melun is borrowed from Arabic and it means
one that carries bad luck and ill omen. The last syllable is
from the Arabic word "jinn" which means soul or spirit. As these
people had been captured and enslaved and carried out to
different countries centuries ago, they still consider
themselves ill-omened people......"
During the summer of
2001, I went to Kütahya in central Anatolia in Turkey to do some
teacher training in
Dumlupinar University. I saw many persons who resembled
members of my mother's family in general facial shape and
complexion. I have a picture of my mother taken at age 26 and
met a young woman at the university who could have been her
sister. Persons from Anatolia all seemed to have that "anatolian
bump" on the back of their heads and persons whose ancestors
came from other parts of Turkey, or who belonged
to other
ethnic groups, didn't. There was intense interest among the
people when I was introduced as a "cousin" from America. There
was a lot of "bump-on-head feeling" and many smiles as well as
many questions. What's even more surprising is that some of
these features have lasted so many centuries after much mixing!
A professor of sociology at the university, Dr. Musa Shahin,
vowed to begin his own research program to find out more from
the Turkish side. An ironic reason that we now know as much as
we do about Melungeons, is that Dr. Brent Kennedy, with an Irish
name and blue eyes, became seriously ill around 1988. Many
diagnoses were attempted until an Atlanta immunologist finally
came out with the answer in 1988. He had "erythrema
nodosum sarcoidosis" a disease primarily found among persons
of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean backgrounds.
After
finally going into remission from this dangerous and painful
condition, he began his research into his own family history,
which led to his discovery that he was descended from several
lines of Melungeons. He was already familiar with these people
in their more culturally isolated enclaves, in the very area
where he was born and reared, and didn't know until many years
later that he was related to them. There are enclaves of
culturally distinct Melungeons to this day in what I would like
to call "the Anatolian Triangle," where Kentucky, southwestern
Virginia and northern Tennessee come together.
6.
At the same time, a majority of Melungeon descendants are by now
mixed into the population and not as distinct in appearance as
the more isolated groups. One thing that we all seem to have in
common, is that curious enlargement, often creased, at the
center of the base of our skulls. It is known as an "Anatolian
bump" and is definitely distinct from the modest occipital ridge
that most persons have in this same location. I find it
interesting that after more than ten generations, I have this
bump, as do my children and grandchildren. My wife doesn't have
a trace of a bump. Apparently it is a strong feature
genetically.
Many people who get into genealogy don't
like to admit it out loud, but they secretly want to discover
that they are descended from royalty, famous political leaders,
great warriors, heroes and such. I have some bad news and some
good news. It seems that we Melungeon descendants have a
disproportionate number of counterfeiters, bootleggers and
Appalachian gunfighters among our ancestors. The rest were
mostly subsistence farmers and miners. The good news is that we
seem to have inherited some positive creative genes also. Some
of the better-known Melungeon descendants in this century have
included Elvis Presley, Ava Gardner, Loretta Lynn and the late
actor, George C. Scott. President Abraham Lincoln is also
believed to be a Melungeon descendant on his mother's side. The
original Melungeon stock were apparently mostly Muslims who
spoke Old Turkish and mixed at various times with Native
Americans and later with persons who also came to this continent
from the outside world. This most likely included Spanish and
Portuguese persons on whose ships the Melungeons were
transported. There were also Gypsies among crew members and
passengers, who were a likely part of the melange. There is also
strong evidence of extensive early contact with French
immigrants, mostly Protestant Huguenot refugees, who in some
cases came directly from France or via other countries, around
the same time as the Melungeons, to escape Catholic persecution.
The other countries included Ireland, England and the
Netherlands, where the Huguenots had been sheltered. This is why
many Appalachian people believe they are English or Irish.
Within my own mother's family, I have tracked 17 lines of
persons including direct ancestors as well as relatives with
French family names, many of them now anglicized. Many of these
names are still common in the Melungeon areas and are also
considered common "Melungeon names." These family names include
the ever-present Mullins line, coming from several variations of
the French name Moulins;
Ramey (in several spellings)
originally "Remy" and the common Appalachian name Tackett,
originally "Tacquett" as well as Robertson, commonly spelled
Roberson. Some of the other common Melungeon family names
represent a general cross section of European, Scottish, Irish
and English names, including Campbell, Graham, Kiser, Evans,
Cox, etc. Some of the names are obviously of Spanish or
Portuguese origin, such as Caudill (Caudillo), Casteel
(Castillo) and Mozingo. Many given names are also derived from
Portuguese and Spanish.
7. So it seems that the
term "pure Melungeon" is an oxymoron. We are the arche type
American "mixees", a fact that at one time was apparently a
problem, for some of the "authorities" (and I use the term
loosely),
particularly in Virginia. Most infamous in the 20th
century was a notorious racist, Dr. Walter Ashley Plecker,
Virginia's Registrar of Vital Statistics, who remained involved
in policy from 1912 to 1946, and who attempted to divide his
universe into persons who were either "white" or "colored."
Needless to say, the Melungeons didn't fall into his definition
of "white." This would be HIS problem, if he had not been in an
official position to influence Virginia to take away so many
normal benefits of citizenship, including the franchise, from
persons who didn't pass his racial "tests", such as having the
"right" family names. Because of Plecker's efforts and that of
some of his "expert" predecessors, many Melungeon families,
including some of my own ancestors, left Virginia and went into
Kentucky, some even joining the Union Army, perhaps to "get
even." Dr. Kennedy spells out many of the sordid details in his
book, which has the subtitle "An Untold Story of Ethnic
Cleansing in America." So what is the present status of the
Melungeon descendants in the U.S.A.? Apparently we've come a
long way, thanks to the efforts of a number of people, who in
many cases have only in the last decade discovered that they had
this heritage. In addition to three Unions in Wise, Virginia, a
conference in Kentucky in 1999 and a 4th Union in Tennessee in
2002, a lot has happened. There are now several websites devoted
to the subject. There is a quarterly journal, "Under One Sky,"
published in Tennessee and devoted to Melungeons and Melungeon
issues. Articles are starting to appear in national and
international newspapers and magazines. The "Appalachian
Quarterly" a publication of the
Wise County, Virginia Historical Society, now has articles
about Melungeons and Melungeon family histories in every issue.
They also have a list of books on the subject, which are
available for sale.
There is now an active Melungeon
Heritage Association and a
Melungeon Heritage Foundation. Research is going on at a
steady pace about Melungeon history with participation from
linguists, historians, anthropologists, archeologists, medical
people, and geneticists in this country and Turkey. In Turkey,
documents which have been sitting for hundreds of years are now
being translated into modern Turkish and English. The town of
Wise, Virginia is now a sister city of Cesme, Turkey. The past
remains a mixed bag of curses and blessings. The present is
exciting for all concerned. The future will give us the truth.
Join the search. The best is yet to come! |
