Melungeons: The Last Lost Tribe in America

by Elizabeth Hirschman

A message from the author:

I've sent to the www.melungeons.com website a brief overview of each chapter in my forthcoming book "Melungeons: The Last Lost Tribe in America". I hope this will clarify what the book proposes and what sources of evidence are used. I believe the book may now be advance-ordered from Mercer University Press. It contains nine chapters and uses a variety of documentary sources including historical writings, genealogies, archeological excavations, ethnography, religious traditions, migration patterns, naming practices and genetic testing data to support the thesis that the earliest non-Native settlers in Appalachia (ca. early 1500's CE onward) were Sephardic Jews and Muslim Moors who had been displaced from Iberia. It contains also several photographs, maps, charts and appendices, most of which have not been presented before in discussions of Melungeon/early Appalachian settlement.

1. Melungeon Mythology: Who Are We and How Did We Get Here?

This chapter reviews prior published research on Melungeons, including the most popular origin theories for this group. The hypothesis is put forward that the Melungeons are descendants of an Iberian crypto-Jewish/crypto-Muslim community that first formed in the 1500's in Appalachia and was supplemented by later European arrivals. It is also proposed that Native Americans and African Americans were incorporated into this community.

2. DNA, Disease and Demographics -- The Keys to the Mystery

This chapter reviews prior blood-composition genetic studies conducted on Melungeons and supplements this with additional, recent y-chrom DNA findings. Diseases appearing in Appalachian populations are also discussed in terms of their linkage to Mediterranean origins.

3. 1492: A Most Propitious Year

This chapter discusses the events leading up to the Spanish Inquisition, the Diaspora of Jews and Moors from Spain and Columbus' voyages to the New World. Historical accounts describing Sephardic and Muslim migrations to North and South America are presented.

4. Rewriting the Past: A New Origin Story

This chapter presents the thesis that the earliest settlers in Appalachia were composed of Sephardic and Moorish immigrants. Lists of these early settlers are presented and historical documentation of early Spanish/Portuguese/Unknown communities is critiqued.

5. Family Trees and Family Treks: Migration, Marriage and Naming Patterns Among the Melungeons

This chapter presents extensive documentation of the colonial origins of persons entering the Appalachian Mountains from the 1700's onward. It presents detailed genealogies of these same persons and their marriage and naming practices. A pattern of endogamous marriage is found, consistent with Sephardic and Muslim tradition. Naming patterns are found to conform to documented naming practices among contemporaneous Sephardic Jewish populations. Muslim naming patterns are also identified.

6. and 7. Keeping the Faith: How Jews and Moslems Gathered Together and Became Baptists

These chapters present documentation regarding the religious practices of the early Appalachian settlers. It identifies practices consistent with Sephardic Judaism and Islam. The thesis is put forward that the Primitive Baptist denomination evolved from these early Judaic/Muslim traditions. An extensive discussion suggests that Freemason Lodges in early Appalachia were also used as places of worship and the ties of Freemasonry to Templar presence in the Middle East is discussed.

8. We Are Not Alone: "Melungeons" Around the World

This chapter describes the existence of several crypto-Jewish communities across the globe; the Melungeon community of Appalachia is viewed as but one example of a much larger phenomenon that has been extensively documented by several researchers. This is, that with the Sephardic and Moorish Diaspora from Iberia in the early 1500's, many communities were established by persons who practiced Judaism (or Islam) in secret. In some cases these communities retained their ancestral memory of their earlier religious traditions, while in others these memories have been lost and are only recently being re-discovered.

9. Reconstructing Our Past and Exploring Our Future

What path (s) are open to the Melungeons as we enter the 21st century? In current crypto-Jewish communities, the response to learning one's actual origins have been diverse -- ranging from angry denial to curiosity to a strong embracing of one's religious ancestry. The dwellers of Appalachia who descend from Sephardic Jews and Muslim Moors will likely have these same wide-ranging responses. Each must fashion his/her own future; there are no easy answers for coming to grips with the past.

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