THE KINGSPORT TIMES
July 31, 1923
DISTINCT RACE OF
PEOPLE INHABITS
THE MOUNTAINS OF
EAST TENNESSEE
Is Different From
All Other Races
Sinister and
Mysterious Race of the Melungeons May Have Sprung From Phoenicians
Nashville,
Tenn.--------In the mountains of East Tennessee live a distinct race of
people, a race as different from all others on the Western Hemisphere
as the negro is different from the American Indian. Moreover this
species of the human family is found nowhere else in America. It is the
sinister race of the Melungeons, a mysterious race, few in numbers,
whose origin is open to speculation, historians say. For many years
they were thought to be Indians or a mixture of Indians and white
people, whence probably originated their name, Melungeon, which means a
mixture, according to the view held by those who have studied them. The
history of this peculiar race as traced by the State Department of
History, reveals their primitive life in the following way: So far as
is known the Melungeons were found first in Hancock County, Tennessee,
on Newman's Ridge, soon after the revolutionary War. Now they are
settled in several counties although most numerous in Hancock County.
They are about the same color as the mulattoes but their hair is
straight and they have intermarried with the Caucasian race to a
limited extent. Judge Lewis Shepherd, who has made a close study of the
Melungeons, extending over a period of years, says that in a case of
law in which he represented a Melungeon girl the question arose as to
whether the Melungeons had negro blood in their veins. He said:
Descendants of
Phoenicians
"It was shown by
tradition and the people 'from the time whereof the memory of man
runneth not to the contrary', that they were descendants of the ancient
Phoenicians, who built the city of Carthage and produced the great
general, Hannibal. They moved from Carthage and after a time settled in
Morocco, whence they crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and settled in
the southern part of Portugal, whence came the celebrated Venetian
general, Othello, who was immortalized in Shakespeare's great play, the
"Moor of Venice." They were not tainted with negro blood, for the women
of Carthage sacrificed their long raven-colored hair to be plaited and
twisted into cables for the ships engaged in the Punic Wars. "A colony
of these Moors crossed the Atlantic before the Revolutionary War and
settled on the coast of South Carolina. They multiplied rapidly and by
this industry and energy they accumulated considerable property. The
South Carolina people, however, would not receive them on terms of
equality. They refused to recognize them specially and would not allow
the children to go to school with them. "In fact they believed they
were free negroes and treated them as such. By the laws of South
Carolina a per capita tax was levied against free negroes and the tax
authorities continuously harassed them by efforts to collect the tax.
Under this rigid proscription of the proud people of South Carolina
their condition became intolerable and so they migrated in a body and
settled after a long and wandering journey through the wilderness in
Hancock County, Tenn."
Writes of Strange
Race
In 1890 or 1891 Miss
Will Allen Dromgoole wrote of this strange race, the Melungeons, as
spells the word in the Arena as follows; "When John Sevier organized
the State of Franklin, there was living in the mountains of East
Tennessee a colony of dark-skined reddish-brown complexioned people,
supposed to be of Moorish decent, who affiliated with neither whites
nor blacks, and who called themselves Malungeons, and who claimed to be
of Portuguese descent. They lived to themselves exclusively and were
looked upon as neither negroes nor Indians. All the negroes ever
brought to America were slaves; the Malungeons were never slaves; and
until 1834 enjoyed all the rights of citizenship. Even in the
convention which disfranchised them, they were referred to as free
persons of color or, 'Malungeons.' " And again she said; "The
Constitutional Convention (of 1834) left these most pitiable of all
outcasts; denied their oath in court and deprived of the testimony of
their own color, left utterly helpless in all legal contests, they
naturally when the state set the bound of their outcast upon them, took
to the hills the isolated peaks of the uninhabited mountains the
corners of the earth, as it were, where, huddled together, they became
a law unto themselves, a race indeed separate and distinct from the
sevearal races inhabiting the State of Tennessee.
Also Found in Rhea