Historical Melungeons

Our Native Ancestors

After spending twenty years researching the families who were called Melungeons, Redbones, Croatan etc., I can say I am 99.9% certain there is no such thing as a Melungeon. In 1776 the Cherokee Chief Dragging Canoe said;

" Whole Indian Nations have melted away like snowballs in the sun before the white man's advance. They leave scarcely a name of our people except those wrongly recorded by their destroyers."

The Melungeons were never a mystery. They did not *hide* their ancestry. They very plainly told the journalist in 1848 they were a group of Portuguese adventurers who had mixed with the Indians, the Blacks, and the Whites, this same story was repeated to Will Allen Dromgoole in 1890. All this has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt - they were exactly who they said they weere - never has been a mystery!

These families who were called Melungeons were what was left of the Native American tribes of the Carolinas and Virginia after being decimated by the English. Banded together for strength they can be traced to the many Native American towns -- right along with the Gibsons, Collins, Goins, etc.

All of the early researchers were aware of the connection to the families near the Drowning Creek, now recognized as Lumbee Indians. Hamilton McMillan, Swan Burnett, James Mooney, Stephen Weeks, etc., all with connections to the Smithsonian, wrote of the connection, they never called these people a mystery, they knew who they were -- They were Indianss!

"The legend of their history, which they carefully preserve, is this.
A great many years ago, these mountains were settled by a society of Portuguese Adventurers,
men and women, who came from the long-shore parts of Virginia, that they might be freed
from the restraints and drawbacks imposed on them by any form of government. These people
made themselves friendly with the Indians and freed, as they were from every kind of social government,
they uprooted all conventional forms of society and lived in a delightful Utopia of their own creation."
Newman's Ridge ~ 1848

Historical Melungeon Research..... Their Portuguese Connections.........Their Cherokee Connections...Message Board........Historical Articles....Magoffin County Indians....... Redbones.... .....

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''That leaves mitochondrial and Y-chromosome tests. Regrettably, neither will work to solve the Melungeon mystery. They simply can not determine Melungeon ethnicity even in properly selected subjects. ''

DNA - Why it won't work

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