Origins

Melungeon: Possibly derived from the French word “mélange,” or mixed people. Tri-racial isolate emerged from the intermarriage of white, black, and American Indians of the Newman’s Ridge area of east Tennessee, southeast Virginia, and parts of Kentucky. Earliest reference to Melungeons occurs in the minutes from the Stony Creek Primitive Baptist Church in 1813.

​

Origins of the Melungeons are based on legends of historical events. Suggested origins include survivors of the lost colony of Roanoke, members of a lost tribe of Israel, Carthaginians/Phoenicians, Spanish/Portuguese Conversos, Christianized Moors fleeing oppressions, and Pirates. Each of these legends on first blush appear to be more tall-tale than documented history. However, once we look deeper into the history of Spanish colonization of North America, the history and possible genetics of the Roanoke colonists, and known Native American tribal interactions with early colonists, there is compelling evidence that the origins of Melungeons do not follow traditional generic Anglo-Western European settlement patterns.

​

What we do know with certainty is that Melungeons were the target of Dr. Walter Ashby Plecker as Virginia State Registrar, and the Racial Integrity Act of 1924.