Yes, Melungeons Are Mixed Race — Even the White-Passing Ones
Fighting race-erasure is complicated when you’re multiracial with white privilege
Mixed race people make up approximately seven percent of the American population — and The Pew Research Center expects that number to swell to around 20% over the next three decades. If you add the number of Americans who are raised not knowing that they are mixed race, the percentage is possibly much larger than that. I am one of those multiracial Americans, but you’d never guess by simply looking at me. I am Melungeon — an Appalachian woman with a rich ancestral bloodline that was almost obliterated by white supremacy. Because I have light skin, with all the privilege that goes with it, I find myself navigating a sea of ignorance when it comes to sharing that I am mixed race with others. Race is a complex and volatile subject in America, for so many obvious reasons. For Melungeon people, many of whom are only recently finding a sense of community, the discussion can be summed up in a single word: Complicated.
Who are the Melungeon people?
Sometimes described as mysterious, Melungeons are one of many tri-racial isolates in the Southern United States. The Cumberland Gap, in particular, has historically been the home of this mixed race group, with many family settlements hidden within the rugged Southern Appalachian mountains. They were pushed to live in this unforgiving terrain as white European colonists began mass immigrating to the coasts of the Southern states. Prior to that, it’s not entirely known where Melungeons came from, but there are numerous theories and different oral traditions handed down, depending on the family. Some believe the lost colony of Roanoke blended in with a nearby Native tribe, producing mixed race families that eventually became outcasts to both the local tribes and white settlers. Others believe that Portuguese slaves made their way to the New World prior to the development of the Jamestown colony, where they married Native Americans and some of the newly-arrived Europeans. Meanwhile, others believe that Melungeons come from marriages between early free people of color and white European women who came to settle in the early colonies. For as many Melungeon families that exist, there is an equal number of theories surrounding our origins — and every family has their own set of stories and legends.
For many years it was believed that they were a mix of African, North European and Native American, but recent DNA studies — along with exhaustive genealogical research — have shown that Melungeons are a mix of many different races. Depending on the family, a modern Melungeon person may have any combination of West African, North African, South Asian, West Asian, East Asian, Native American, Mesoamerican, Jewish and (very)broadly European DNA. However, DNA studies didn’t always exist, and so Melungeons have been referred to as many different things over the course of America’s history.
One people, all colors
Because Melungeon people vary in how they are mixed, there is no one physical characteristic to determine who may be one. Melungeon families will often have children that vary in complexion from dark to olive to very pale — sometimes producing children that all look like different races from one another. It is entirely common in Melungeon families for one child to look “Native American” often resembling the families “Cherokee Grandmother,” but their sibling to come out with red hair and freckles or even white-blonde hair and blue eyes. What’s more, some DNA studies have drawn attention to the possibility that Melungeon males tend to inherit more African and Native American DNA than their female siblings.
After America’s early Melungeon families began moving inland from the coastal areas, they practiced endogamy for many generations — with presumably only a few leaving their family settlements to make lives elsewhere. Melungeon families traveled together, settled together and mostly married within their own communities. During the height of the South’s slavery era and the Trail of Tears forced relocations of the region’s indigenous people, some Melungeon families integrated with the resulting diaspora.
Some Melungeon families stayed in the regions from where our ancestors once migrated, and have been given tribal status. The Lumbee tribe and Poarch Creek Indians are among the tribes related to the Melungeon people. Some Melungeon families are African-American, and identify as such. Some Melungeon families are Hispanic and some appear white and live their lives as white people. Most Modern Melungeons share autosomal DNA, making them cousins to one another — sometimes double-cousins. We are one people, all colors.
(Almost) Losing the Melungeon identity
Since Melungeons were first identified by their white neighbors, constant attempts at erasing them have persisted. Moving into harsh, secluded territory during the earliest days of our country’s existence was never enough. Keeping to themselves and shunning the outside racist society that wanted to see them decimated wasn’t enough. During the 1800s, Melungeon families found themselves caught in the middle of a volatile socio-political situation that rendered them further removed from society. They were not considered white, nor were they considered black. Many found themselves defending their freedoms in court to prove that they were not hiding secret African ancestry, to try to get out of the bonds of slavery. Most claimed Portuguese ancestry to explain-away their darker complexions and features. Thus began the long, uphill battle to be identified as “white,” when the truth of the matter was far more complex than that.
Jim Crow laws made it difficult for Melungeon families to exist on the same level as their white neighbors. A man named Walter Plecker was instrumental in what many consider to be acts of racial cleansing against Native American and Melungeon families. Plecker was a white supremacist and eugenicist who headed the state of Virginia’s Vital Statistics Bureau. He sought to eradicate the Native Americans in the region, and through this he narrowed his sights on Melungeons. It was because of him and the racist philosophies of the era that caused many Melungeon families to remain nomadic. During the early 1900s, families were forced to stay a step ahead of census-takers and lawmen by moving frequently from county to county (sometimes state to state) and changing their names. Families turned to illegal enterprises to make ends meet, such as moonshining and printing counterfeit currency. Melungeon families had to get by, during a time when their very existence was threatened by the precursors of Hitler’s “master plan.”
Walter Plecker helped pass the 1924 Racial Integrity Act, which determined that any non-white person was documented as a black person. This erased the existence of Native American people on paper, as Plecker declared that there were “No Indians in Virginia.” The Act made it to where white people were not legally allowed to marry any other race. Melungeons were a specific target of Plecker, because they were believed to be the products of white and black interracial relationships. Any Native American with African ancestry was also targeted and their identities erased. Virginia began sterilizing people that they deemed “unfit” to be a part of their society, and this included mostly mentally ill people. However, Plecker’s white supremacist influence during the dawn of the American Eugenics Movement brought the focus on to mixed race people. Eventually, sterilizations of mixed race people became an accepted practice beyond the borders of Virginia, reaching into other states including Tennessee — where many Melungeon people were known to have settled.
My great grandmother, Inez, was a Melungeon woman of color. Her mother (my great-great grandmother Lydia) was a dark skinned Melungeon of Native American and West African heritage. Her father, my great-great grandfather Joseph, was a fair-complected man from the Choctaw Indian tribe. Like the majority of Melungeons during the 1920s and 1930s, my great grandmother tried to live her life as a white woman to the best of her ability. She avoided census takers, avoided hospitals and kept her head down to avoid being “found out,” by local authorities. My great grandmother was married to a white man, which was illegal at the time — and sadly, that fact is what led to her untimely death when she was barely 30-years-old. My grandfather, her son, was only six-years-old when he lost his mother. She was bitten by a venomous snake while hanging laundry out to dry. During the 1930s in Missouri, Walter Plecker’s influence was virtually unbreakable, and Melungeons as far as Indiana (The Ben-Ishmael Melungeon Tribe) were targeted for forced institutionalization and sterilization. My great-grandmother knew that had she sought medical attention for her snakebite, that the hospital staff would likely identify her as a black woman or a Melungeon “mongrel.”
Great-grandma Inez chose to attempt treatment at home, which caused her to miscarry within days of being bitten. She was around four months pregnant at the time, and the miscarriage caused heavy bleeding, which persisted for days while she was bedridden. Inez knew that she wasn’t going to survive, but she insisted on staying home to avoid the hospital where workers had been given specific orders to expose and document any mixed race people attempting to pass for white. She knew that if that happened, then my great-grandfather would likely be arrested and charged with miscegenation. He would lose his property, and lose the ability to take care of their surviving children. She likely feared that her children, my grandfather Highlee included, would retroactively be documented as black, and be punished by society for being Melungeon. To make matters worse for Melungeons during this era, it was rumored that people were kidnapping and sterilizing young Melungeon boys against their will — and while I’m not sure if this is true or not, it was enough to keep many families living in fear.
My great-grandma Inez passed away in her home, leaving behind young children and a widower who would then be responsible for raising the family and keeping them safe. Most of their children were white-passing, with the exception of a couple of my aunts who inherited my great-great-grandmother’s darker, Senegalese features. Great-grandpa re-married — to a white woman. Together they raised my grandfather, his brothers and his sisters to believe that they were Scotts-Irish and Cherokee. The secret of my family’s Melungeon bloodline was buried in that farmhouse in Senath, Missouri in 1935, and it stayed buried for many, many years.
The story of my great grandmother is just one example of what Melungeons and other mixed-race people faced during some of the most racist points in American history. Other families have different personal stories, and some have no idea at all about where they came from, or the dangers their not-so-distant ancestors faced. Many people in the U.S. — especially those who are from the Southern Appalachian region — are brought up believing that their dark-skinned grandmothers were “full blooded Cherokee.” This is a cookie-cutter story that, while may be true for some individuals, isn’t accurate for many. Some are brought up believing that their swarthier aunts, uncles and grandparents are “Black Dutch,” or “Portuguese” or simply just “really good at tanning.” There are also indeed some families — in particular those around Newman’s Ridge, Tennessee — who were raised knowing that they are Melungeon, and who have held on to family lore. It is thanks to these families, and families like them, that there are some Melungeon memories and legends to share and pass down to the newer generations. It is important that surviving Melungeon diaspora hold on to our identities, to assure that the likes of people like Walter Plecker and other white supremacists aren’t successful in erasing our people from history.
Passing for white is a painful reminder
Many modern Melungeons are white passing, and to this day there are also many who are not. Nonetheless, every Melungeon descendent in 2020 is here because our ancestors did everything they could to survive a racist system that was designed to reward whiteness, and punish perceived blackness. For our ancestors during the rise of the American Eugenics Movement, as well as during the slavery era, passing for white meant a matter between life and death. It was the difference between being a free American citizen and being a slave. It was the difference between having a family and a future, and being sterilized against your will to prevent the continuation of your bloodline. Our ancestors did everything they could to pass for white, even if it meant hiding when the census man showed up and having someone mark down “white” for everyone in the home — knowing that this wasn’t true. Our ancestors took white husbands and wives outside of what was once known as “Melungia” in order to produce light skinned babies. They did what they could to survive and to avoid the atrocities that targeted them time after time. They didn’t do this because they wanted to do it. They did these things because the racist culture surrounding them forced them to do so in order to survive.
Passing for white today is a painful reminder of that fact. It’s a reminder that white supremacy was almost completely successful in eliminating not only my own ancestors’ bloodline, but the Melungeon people as a whole. There is very little left of the Melungeon people, with an apparently unknown population. A small movement exists now, however, to self identify as Melungeon on censuses, to right the wrongs of the past and hold on to the heritage our ancestors had to give up in order to survive.
All Melungeons are mixed race Americans
No matter the complexion, all Melungeons are mixed race people and come from multiracial backgrounds. It is because of this fact that we should all be allies to important movements like Black Lives Matter, and be understanding and compassionate of racial issues that continue to persist today. It is also important to stand up for our own identities while doing so. Thanks to organizations like The Melungeon Heritage Association and a couple of small groups on social media, modern Melungeons are able to prevent further erasure of our heritage by communicating, sharing and gathering.
