"Before 1607? Melungeons in the New World"

Southwest Virginia Museum, Big Stone Gap

 June 29-30 2007

     Appalachia's mysterious Melungeons will be examined and discussed by authors, historians, and researchers including Lisa Alther, James Glanville, Jack Goins, Wayne Winkler, Mattie Ruth Johnson, Terry Mullins, and many others. The conference entitled "Before 1607? Melungeons in the New World" will convene at the Southwest Virginia Museum in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, on Saturday, June 30.

In addition to presentations by respected authors and researchers, the conference will feature the premiere of a documentary by filmmaker Julie Dixon, Melungeon Voices, and a performance of traditional and modern Turkish dance by the Bluestar Dance Troupe. Genealogical discussion groups and books will also be available. A reception at the museum Friday evening at 5 pm will be followed at 7 with a concert by noted musician and folklorist Ron Short.

     Prior to the founding of Jamestown in 1607, what became the southeastern United States was already populated by Native American tribes and others, some of whose descendents live in southwestern Virginia today. The Melungeon Heritage Association (MHA) and the Southwest Virginia Museum are sponsoring "Before 1607?" in conjunction with Virginia's statewide celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown. "We hope to shed some light on aspects of American history that are often overlooked," say S. J. Arthur, president of MHA. "The Melungeons represent much of what America was before Jamestown, and the diversity of those who came soon after."

The Melungeons are a group of mixed ethnic ancestry first documented in southwestern Virginia and northeastern Tennessee in the early 19th century. As a group, the Melungeons were considered by outsiders to have a mixture of European, Native American, and African ancestry. Researchers have referred to the Melungeons and similar groups as "tri-racial isolates," and the Melungeons have faced discrimination, both legal and social, because they did not fit into America's accepted racial categories.

Recent research ties the Melungeons to several of Virginia's native populations, including the Algonquin-speaking Powhatan Confederacy (Pamunkey, Nansemond, Mattaponi, and others) and the Siouan-speaking Monacan tribes (Monacan, Tutelo, Saponi, and Mannahoac). Melungeons have ancestral ties to some of the first free African-American families in the American colonies. And Melungeon family trees also connect with the wide array of ethnic groups that established the colonies, including English, Celtic, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Arabic, Jewish, Turkish, East Indian, and others.

"Virginia was the scene of the first sustained contact between European colonists and Native Americans, and the Melungeons are the result of a process of amalgamation and assimilation," says Wayne Winkler, vice-president of MHA and author of Walking Toward the Sunset: The Melungeons of Appalachia (2004, Mercer University Press). "As the tribes of Virginia and North Carolina grew smaller and weaker through disease and warfare with the colonists, the first merged with each other, then with outsiders. They created a significant mixed-ethnic population in the southeastern United States."

"That mixed-ethnic population often faced discrimination in the segregated South, and only in the past few decades have they been able to reclaim or celebrate their unique heritage," says Arthur. "Some of the surviving Indian groups have gained government recognition, and others,  like the Melungeons, are celebrating the diversity of our heritage."
 

Lisa Alther, the author of best-selling novels including Kinflicks, Original Sins, and Other Women, will discuss her first non-fiction book Kinfolks: Falling Off The Family Tree; A The Search for My Melungeon Ancestry (2007, Arcade Publishing, New York). Another author, Brent Kennedy (The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People [1994, Mercer University Press, Macon]) is featured along with several other researchers in the documentary Melungeon Voices, which will premiere with two showings during the day.

The Southwest Virginia Museum in Big Stone Gap is housed in a mansion built in the 1880s by Rufus Ayers, a Virginia industrialist and attorney general. It features a collection comprised of more than 20,000 pieces, about one third of which is on display at any given time. The museum chronicles the exploration and development of the town and surrounding area during the 1890s coal boom, as well as the pioneer period.

For more information, visit the MHA website at www.melungeon.org
or call Wayne Winkler at (423) 439-6441

Zeki Maviyildiz who was born in Turkey, is a young multi talented Turk who is a choreographer, folk dancer performer and an instructor. Zeki has traveled and danced throughout the world to twenty-five countries as a member of the Turkish National Folk Dance Troupe. In 2004, Zeki performed in Washington, DC for the Assembly of Turkish American Turkish Association Convention. Maviyildiz first came to Folkmoot USA in Waynesville, NC, where he performed there with a dance troupe from Turkey. He is currently enrolled at Wake Tech Community College studying English on an educational scholarship from the American Turkish Association of North Carolina ( http://www.ata-nc.org ) with generous support from members of the Raleigh and Chapel Hill International Folk Dance Groups. The extremely talented Turk was given a scholarship to study English from the American Turkish Association of North Carolina. Zeki attended Carlotta Santana's Spanish Flamenco dance lessons in Durham, North Carolina in 2005.  The Melungeons are enthusiastic about the Bluestar Dance Troupe attending the gathering. The regalia of the dancers are quite brilliant in colors. The introduction to Turkish traditional dances to America, the audience can come away from a show having a greater understanding of the rich culture of Anatolia. The people of Durham, North Carolina are blessed to have Zeki teaching their children this unique form of folk dance. Zeki Maviyildiz Photo Courtesy of Saphira (Teresa Dickerson)