CHAPTER
XII, IDENTITY CRISIS
Origin of the word 'Melungeon'.
There’s a
lot of noise and confusion out there about the origins of the “Melungeon”
families. As Carlson so skillfully demonstrated, they can be DIRECTLY taken
back to Fort Christanna, and the Saponi Indians, remnants of one of the many
bands of the Eastern Siouan peoples. All of the other noise just confuses the
issue, and as Jarvis Lewis put it, “cannot
be sustained.”
Carlson has
a great deal to say on these topics (p-7-8), starting with;
“Looking for remnant groups of historical tribal
populations, the few early ethnographers and other professional researchers
were aware of the Greasy Rock (Hancock County, Tennessee), Stone Mountain
(Scott County, Virginia), and Salyersville (Magoffin County, Kentucky) Indian
populations concurred, in part, with the people’s own explanations by defining
them originally as ‘wasted tribes’ and refugee Indian families. But true to the
thinking of the times, these observers held assumptions about the nature of
social and cultural assimilation that led them to conclude the people’s still
distinct and asserted ‘Indianness’ would soon disappear.”
More about Rev. John Fontaine,
1715-1719 and the French Huguenots
Rev. John
Fontaine wrote a memoir entitled “Journal
of John Fontaine: An Irish Huguenot Son in Spain and Virginia, 1710-1719”.
At http://www.virginiaplaces.org/settleland/fontaine.html there is a section on
the Huguenots. The following is about Rev. John Fontaine (240);
“John Fontaine's father and grandfather were Huguenots
who suffered official persecution by the Catholics in France. In 1693 John was
born in England, to which his father had fled as a refugee. His father then
migrated to Ireland, and succeeded in getting John a commission in an Irish
regiment in 1710. John Fontaine served briefly in Spain, then investigated Virginia
in 1715-19 before returning to England.” While in Virginia, he visited Fort Christanna which
had become home of the remaining Saponi Indians. (241)
Image 3. A
pencil image of the Reverend John Fontaine, French Huguenot minister who
visited the Saponi Indians at Fort Christanna.
In a letter
dated March 30, 1757, Rev. Fontaine, the same man who had visited Fort
Christanna several decades earlier, was said to have commented that the
colonist’s “ought to have intermarried with the Indians [more frequently],
thereby allowing [them to be] more easily convert[ed] to Christianity . . . The
French Reverend derided English Colonial authorities for discouraging marital
liaisons between Indians and Whites. He also noted his concern with physical
appearance by claiming that would result in “Indian
children as white at birth as Portuguese or Spaniards” after only two
generations. From early days, colonists realized that mixed race children
looked somewhat like Spaniards or Portuguese. (242) (243)
Conjugation of the French Verb,
“Mélanger”
There are
many ideas as to the origin of the word “Melungeon”. Some claims have been made
that it is of African origin, others say Portuguese, and still others say
Turkish, Jewish, or Arabic. After they have decided the origin (without much
evidence), they then look for a reference to a random Portuguese servant, or a
story of escaped slaves (there were many). They look for galley slaves even though
such vessels were obsolete by then, or -- or some other tale – anything will
do. Then they make a claim that this record they have found of a random
Portuguese servant found in a colony, or a story of an escaped slave, is a
reference to the Melungeon peoples, without a single reference that will tie
this poor servant or runaway slave, to these people found in Melungeon
communities. But the word “Melungeon” is none of these – it is French. There
was a thriving local French Huguenot community right there in Virginia and the
Carolina’s.
Those who
claim it is of African origin say it goes back to Mozambique or maybe Angola.
But Mozambique is in East Africa and most slaves in America came from West
Africa. They say Angola was a Portuguese colony and the Portuguese brought
slaves to America. But they usually took them to Brazil, not the Carolinas. There
is still a possibility that Angolan slaves arrived in the Carolinas or
Virginia. But this was probably very rare.
Some say
the word is of Portuguese origin. However, since both the French and Portuguese
languages are of Latin origin, one should expect there to be similarities in
both languages. But this is the EXACT French word, and it only approximates a
similar Portuguese or African word.
Some claim
there was a shipload of Turkish slaves that got dumped on the Carolina coasts.
Somehow, they made their way to the Southern Appalachians, without being
detected.
However to
prove any of these things you need to show records of these people not only in
Virginia, but records showing how/where they left Europe, where they arrived in
America, how they went from coastal Virginia to the interior of Virginia, and
ultimately to the same locations where the Melungeon families are later found. When
did they drop their Portuguese names and adopt English surnames? Don’t you
think that a community of Turks would have been mentioned in some newspaper or
in some other record? There aren’t any such records. Find a record of escaped
slaves, it would have been mentioned. Both Mr. Forest Hazel and Dr. Richard
Carlson have done this, with regard to the Indian hypothesis. They have each
shown a direct line from Fort Christanna Saponi Indians to mixed race families
found inland. It is a natural thing for these people to have had English
surnames rather than Portuguese surnames. Has anyone found a single “Portuguese
Adventurer” landing on the Atlantic Coastline, moving inland, and finally
settling in Southwestern Virginia and Eastern Tennessee? They can't even find a
Portuguese surname, much less several Portuguese surnamed individuals and
families travelling together. I strongly suspect there is some African ancestry
mixed in with the Indian Saponi of the Melungeon. Remember many Indians were
enslaved. Some say the slave owners mated the African males with American
Indian females hoping to breed a tolerance to cold weather into the African
slaves. They bred their slaves to be strong men capable of long hard hours of
strenuous labor, much as they would have bred cattle or horses for one task or
another – sad, but true.
One must
immediately ask why there are no Portuguese or Turkish surnames? There may well
have been some mixing with Spanish soldiers from Florida, with the American
Indian peoples. But we don't have reports of Spanish conquistadores as being
the fathers of the Melungeons. They are said to be Portuguese. We have people
whose surnames are English (to be expected), their EXACT migration route mapped
out. They are called “Saponi Indians” throughout their migrations routes and
they wind up exactly where the Melungeons were located. Oh, and they said they
were Indian as well.
The French
verb ‘melanger’ means ‘to mix’. First person plural of this French verb meaning
“we mix” and is still in use today in the French language, is ‘Melungeons’.
Conjugation, Present Tense, of the
French Verb, “mélanger”
English . .
. . . . . . . . . .French
I mix . . .
. . . . . . . . . . je mélange
you mix . .
. . . . . . . . tu mélanges
he/she/it
mixes . . . . . il/elle mélange
we
mix . . . . . . . . . . . nous mélangeons
yall mix .
. . . . . . . . . .vous mélangez
they mix .
. . . . . . . . . ils/elles mélangent
Notice –
“We mix” in English becomes “nous mélangeons” in French. Can it get any
simpler? In those days, we had entire Huguenot communities where French would
have been the first language in many households. They were living near the
Melungeon and Indian communities. We have known records of some French
Huguenot’s marrying American Indians. Before making any claims, we have these
i.] French speaking people ii.] living in the right place iii.] during the
right time in history. With the other groups you are just guessing that maybe
they interacted. You have words that “look a little bit” like the word
“Melungeon” but it is NOT exact as is the French word (244). I respect these
other researchers, they are doing a fine work. I just believe they have it
wrong.
Wilburn Waters
Mr. Charles
B. Coale wrote a book about a frontiersman in Southwestern Virginia and
surrounding areas. It is a true story about a man named “Wilburn Waters.” Here
is part of what it says;
“Charles B.
Coale, in "Wilburn Waters" tells of the Indians going to Gist's
Station in 1777, after the capture of Jane Whittaker and Polly Alley by the
Cherokee. Finding it well defended, they make no attack upon it. They went on
and attacked the next fort. I have wondered if there were other reasons Gist's Station
(a home that was also a fort) was spared, but we may never know. Wilburn
Water's was 1/4th Catawba. The book also says he was a French Huguenot. So just
who was Wilburn Waters? What do we know of him?
From “The Life and Adventures of Wilburn Waters,
The Famous Hunter and Trapper of White Top Mountain Embracing Early History of
Southwestern Virginia Sufferings of the Pioneers, Etc., Etc.” by Charles B.
Coale, we have from Chapter 2; “Wilburn
Waters was born on what is called Ready's River, a branch of the Yadkin, in
Wilkes county, North Carolina, on the 20th day of November, 1812. From the best
information that can now be had, his father, John P. Waters, was a French
Huguenot, who emigrated to America in early life, about the beginning of the
present century [note: that would have been the beginning of the 19th
century], and settled in South Carolina.
He was a man of some education and liberal acquirements, of strong prejudices
and passions, restless, reckless and fond of adventure. Being remarkably stout,
fearless and passionate, he was considered dangerous when excited or laboring
under a sense of injury, and was supposed by those with whom he communicated
most freely, to have been a refugee from South Carolina, if not from France,
from some cause he never revealed to others. He settled down, without any
apparent calling, among the simple and obscure people on Ready's River, where,
after a time, he married his wife the mother of Wilburn, who was a half-breed
of the Catawba Indian Tribe. (245)
We have a
mixed-race Catawba/French Huguenot living in the EXACT location where the
Melungeon families lived. Note Wilburn Waters i.] Lived on/near White Top
Mountain, where these Saponi became known as Melungeons. ii.] He was mixed race
Catawba, and iii.] His father was French Huguenot. Wilburn Waters could have
honestly said of his family in the French language, “nous melangeons. Or “we”,
meaning his family, are “mixed”, meaning he was of mixed race. This isn't someone
living in coastal Virginia saying they are “Melungeon”. This isn't finding a
person of Portuguese heritage in Jamestown and assuming that person is the
father of all Melungeons several hundred miles inland. This isn't assuming
because there is an African word “melango” that the word “Melungeons” on the
Tennessee/Virginia border derives from it. Wilburn Waters was a REAL MAN of
mixed French-Catawban ancestry who lived in the Melungeon communities.
We have
shown a French Huguenot minister visited the Fort Christanna Saponi and
associated bands early in the second decade of the 18th century. We have shown
there were thousands of French Huguenot refugees from European persecution
during that time frame, to the Carolinas and Virginia.
A
scientific principle known as ‘Occam’s Razor’ (paraphrasing it) states that if
there are two or more explanations for a single event, choose the simplest. Other
explanations are tantalizing and intriguing – but the simplest explanation is
the French origin, which is an EXACT MATCH, letter for letter.
Theories
Now that we
have the origin of the name, what is the origin of the people? What does
Carlson say (p. 8)? “. . . by 1840 the
Indians considered this label pejorative, and did not use it to identify
themselves. Primarily as a result of a few particularly influential
publications that emerged from 1889 to 1891, the imposed Melungeon label is
used in attempts to explain ‘Melungeon origins.’ These explanations are based on
various conjectural histories supported by popular myths and legends regarding,
in part, shipwrecked Phoenician sailors, the lost colony of Roanoke, Turkish
mercenaries, the Welsh Chief Modoc, Pardo’s lost soldiers, and/or the lost
tribe of Israel, all of whom were said to have ‘taken up’ with Indian women to
form the contemporary Melungeon population. These theories segregate
‘Melungeon’ Identity from Indian identity, and instead hold the Stone Mountain,
Greasy Rock, and Salyersville Indian populations to be representative of many
mislabeled ‘marginal groups’, or ‘racial isolates’, or ‘racial enclaves’
scattered throughout the American Southeast . . . Categories such as these are
used to help explain away the persistence of people’s Indian identity claims.”
(246)
Carlson
says all these ideas are flawed and he provides three reasons, the most
important of which, in my opinion – my opinion and $1.50 will buy you a cup of
coffee -- is the third; “Lack of historic
and ethnographic data needed to support their suppositions regarding the very
nature of identity itself; that is, identities that are socially constructed
and culturally reinforced. In other
words, there are no documented historical records that can cite a progression
of events that show a distinct, continuous, group of related people migrating
from Europe or elsewhere, to the Southern Appalachians, for which the label
“Melungeon” has been given them.” (247)
Melungeon DNA Test
But even
today many researchers try desperately to fit a square peg into a round hole. The
Huffington Post article about the Melungeons is somewhat misleading. They
seemed to gloat a little that only African American and Caucasian DNA was
reported, except for the small amount of American Indian DNA of a single
family. In their report they forgot to research the historical records of the
Eastern Siouan/Catawba and related tribes. They forgot about the history of
these “extinct” Eastern Siouan tribes.
My Response
The
Huffington Post article says:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- For years, varied and sometimes
wild claims have been made about the origins of a group of dark-skinned
Appalachian residents once known derisively as the Melungeons. Some speculated
they were descended from Portuguese explorers, or perhaps from Turkish slaves
or Gypsies.
Now a new DNA study in the Journal of Genetic
Genealogy attempts to separate truth from oral tradition and wishful thinking.
The study found the truth to be somewhat less exotic: Genetic evidence shows
that the families historically called Melungeons are the offspring of
sub-Saharan African men and white women of northern or central European origin.
"There were a whole lot of people upset by this
study," lead researcher Roberta Estes said. "They just knew they were
Portuguese, or Native American."
While the
report puts to rest the persistent lies of the people having Portuguese
ancestry, it does little to show the truth of American Indian ancestry. (248)
At the
website below is an amazing article, that pretty much confirms things that I
have been saying for many, many years.
Melungeons, A Multiethnic
Population
Roberta
J. Estes, Jack H. Goins, Penny Ferguson, Janet Lewis Crain; http://www.jogg.info/72/files/Estes.htm
Melungeon
is a term applied historically to a group of persons, probably multiethnic,
found primarily in Hawkins and Hancock Counties, Tennessee, and in adjoining
southern Lee County, Virginia. In this
article we define the Melungeon population study group, then review the
evidence from historical sources and DNA testing--Y-chromosome, mitochondrial
DNA, and autosomal DNA--to gain insight into the origin of this mysterious
group . . . First I’d like to say they did not use autosomal DNA testing. I
asked about it and I was not allowed to participate in it because I did not
have a direct male or female line back to an ancestor with the right surname.
My autosomal DNA test said I was triracial. I wasn’t allowed to participate in
the test even though my ancestor lived in the same Melungeon community.
Formation of Melungeon DNA Project
The Core
Melungeon DNA Project was formed at Family Tree DNA in July of 2005 with the
goal of testing the Y-line and mitochondrial DNA of families identified as
Melungeon. The first step was to define which families were Melungeon and were
eligible to be included.
The popular
press has extended the definition of Melungeon dramatically. The project
administrators researched various records to determine where the label of
Melungeon was actually applied, and to whom.
They found the word first recorded in 1810 and used for the next 100
years or so, primarily in Hawkins and Hancock Counties in Tennessee, and
slightly into neighboring counties where the Melungeon family community reached
over county and state boundaries into Claiborne County, Tennessee, and Lee, Wise,
Scott and Russell Counties in Virginia. The project was subsequently broken
into Y-line and mitochondrial DNA projects, and in 2010, a Melungeon Family
project was added with the advent of the Family Finder product. (249)
Parts of
this paper seem to discuss MY family. The first two records of the word
Melungeon, might have referred to our family. From the first record, found in
Baxter County, Arkansas, we have a reference to a man who was said to be
traveling with “Lungeons” passing through Batesville, Arkansas, in 1819. My
ancestor is recorded also in the vicinity of Batesville in 1819. The second
record of the Melungeons, was from the Minutes of Stony Creek Primitive Church.
Our Wayland’s names are all over those minutes. From the study, we have quoted
the following below. I should have been allowed to participate in that test.
First Records of Melungeon
The first
recorded instance of any word resembling Melungeon is found surrounding an 1810
event in Arkansas. In 1972, Baxter County, Arkansas published a Centennial
Edition of its history. In it they describe a Tennessean, Jacob Mooney, along
with Jacob Wolf, reportedly from Hawkins County, Tn., who made numerous
incursions into Arkansas for the purpose of trading livestock, etc. The
following passage describes Mooney's first trek to Baxter County in 1810. So we
have four “Lungens” who travel with others from Hawkins County, Tennessee, to
Arkansas. Hawkins County, Tennessee was a home of many Melungeon families, so
that checks out (250).
"The four men who had come with Mooney were men
of Mystery, referred to by old-timers who knew of them as "Lungeons."
They were neither Negro or Indian and in later years Jacob Mooney was ostracized
for living with these "foreigners"...by the time he moved to Arkansas
for good, his former slaves and the "Lungeon" men had died and most
of their families had moved west with the Indians." So after the author
says of the Lungeons, “They were neither Negroes of Indians”, she says (before
the end of her same run on sentence) , we have the author saying, “his former
slaves and the "Lungeon" men had died and most of their families had
moved west with the Indians." Why
would they move west with the Indians? They moved west into Indian Territory
(Oklahoma) because they were Indian as well. My direct family did eventually,
move to Indian Territory, by the way.
The next
written record of Melungeons is found in Scott County, Virginia in the Stony
Creek church minutes in 1813 when a reference was made to “harboring them
Melungins.” From that point forward in time, we access historical documents to
determine which families were originally considered to be Melungeon. (251)
My direct
line DID MOVE from a Melungeon community in Scott County, Virginia to Arkansas
in 1815, five years after these Lungeons are mentioned in Arkansas. Later my
family did move to Indian Territory, Oklahoma, from Arkansas. And we were
attending that church in SW Virginia in 1813, when the reference to the “them
Melungins” was made from its minutes.
They refer
also to Lewis Jarvis article where he mentions the surnames of several
Melungeon families, including “others not remembered” who had moved away from
that place. That could include my Wayland’s. We did move away.
They add,
still quoting Jarvis; They settled here
in 1804, possibly about the year 1795", obtained land grants and
"were the friendly Indians who came with the whites as they moved west.
They came from Cumberland County and New River, Va., stopping at various points
west of the Blue Ridge.
The report
also tells us why they would NOT be Portuguese, yet claim Portuguese heritage. Caucasians
had more civil rights than FPC – Free People of Color. (252)
In October
1705 in Virginia, the following act was passed; "Be it enacted and declared, and it is hereby enacted and
declared, That the child of an Indian and the child, grandchild, or great
grandchild, of a negro shall be deemed, accounted, held and taken to be a
mulatto." Sometimes people forget that Indians were also called
mulatto’s.
This was
followed by:
"That all male persons, of the age of sixteen
years, and upwards, and all negro, mulatto, and Indian women, of the age of
sixteen years, and upwards, not being free, shall be, and are hereby declared
to be tithable, or chargeable." . . .
In Virginia
in 1691, 1705 and 1753 and in North Carolina in 1715 and again in 1741,
intermarriage was banned between whites and negroes, mulattoes or Indians,
which obviously had the effect of encouraging intermarriage between blacks and
Indians. Another ban specifically against white-Indian intermarriage was found
in Tennessee in 1821, where most states only banned black/white marriages. Dr.
Ariela Gross contends that the "vanishing Indian" was a result in
this timeframe of the reclassification to mulatto and negro and follows several
examples forward through time. The 1705 Virginia statue that declared that a
Mulatto is "a child of an Indian" as well as "the child,
grandchild, or great-grandchild of a negro" was not modified until 1785
when a "colored person" was defined as all persons with "one
fourth-or more negro blood" and only those with "no negro blood"
were allowed to be classified as Indians.
The
Portuguese are considered white, although Portuguese were expected to look
"dark", having Moorish blood. Portuguese was claimed in other
locations as well, possibly also to mask either Indian or negro heritage. DeMarce
suggests that an obvious explanation is the perpetual wish for non-African
ancestry, which had led to a plethora of myths. While Caucasians of
Mediterranean descent were rare in British North America, they were counted as
white and were, if willing to be naturalized and become Protestant, not subject
to the legal disabilities imposed upon free mulattoes and Indians (253). The
report then spends a lot of time discussing about a dozen court cases where
they had to prove they were not Negro.
The report
asks the question – Were they Portuguese? It answers this question in the
following manner;
“If the Melungeons carried Portuguese ancestry, it is
not from any of the Y chromosomal lines that have been tested . . . There is
oral history to support the Portuguese claim, but no historical documents or
genetic evidence have been discovered to prove Portuguese heritage for any of
these families.”
The
report also asks about the possibility of having Native American origins for
the to the Melungeon families. It asks;
Do the
Melungeons have Native American Ancestry?
Then
proceeds;
“Of the 15 primary Melungeon core surnames or their
ancestral surnames, only one, Sizemore, has genetic Native ancestry on the
paternal Y-line. There is no genetic Native heritage on the maternal,
mitochondrial lines. One family, Riddle, has documented Native heritage in historical
records, but does not carry that heritage through the Y-line. (254)
Comment: How
do we resolve the pervasive oral history of Native heritage with the
overwhelming African and European haplogroups being found? Simple – why
couldn’t they see it? There is an unending supply of Caucasian and African
people. But for American Indians, we are talking about 30 or 50 people in one
community, two counties over maybe 200 people, a hundred miles away there are
30 others – just a few communities here and there. We are talking of people
who, if they marry someone from their own community, they will be marrying a
cousin, and this was taboo. There was no new interjection of American Indian
DNA, whereas there was an unending supply of both African and Caucasian DNA available. We are talking about people whose race became
extinct, except for in the memories of the few survivors.
So, for
example . . .
We have
thirty tests, 15 for the Y-chromosome, which we inherit only from the male
line, and 15 mt-DNA tests, which we inherit only from the female line; and in
only one of these thirty does American Indian DNA show up. That's only one of
thirty! One in thirty is, mathematically. Statistically speaking, 1/32nd is
pretty close to 1/30th. A single great-great-great grandparent who was American
Indian would be 1/32nd American Indian. That would take me back to William
Wayland. (@ 1790-1843. But more importantly, we have shown that we should
EXPECT with a sample size of 30, to have only one line in thirty-two, that will
have travelled the straight male or straight female line. And that is exactly
what we have! One out of 30 is what we should expect. I don't understand why
this is taken as meaning the American Indian heritage is a lie, this is the
result one would expect. The people conducting this test DON’T KNOW MATH!! I
have a bachelors degree in math –just one more reason I should have been
allowed to participate.
Considering
the Lumbee, who are in reality are mixed with the Pee Dee, Cheraw, and other
Eastern Siouan groups, most likely, as well as Tuscaroran (Iroquoian) and/or
some others, the report says;
“Given the known migration patterns of some of the
Melungeon families to North and South Carolina, in particular, the Bertie
County (NC) Tuscarora area (Gibson and Bunch) and the Pee Dee River area
(Gibson, Collins, Bunch, Sizemore, Goins and Bolton) where other known Natives
were living, it certainly would not be surprising to discover that some of the
Lumbee and the Melungeon families share a common heritage.”
Several
Lumbee Indian surnames are identical to the surnames of the Melungeons. Since
my Nevil Wayland Sr’s wife is considered to have been a Gibson, and since he
served in the Revolutionary War in South Carolina, this is of interest to me. All
these families moved back and forth from the Catawba to the satellite Catawban
communities.
The report
goes on to say there are NO Jewish, Middle Eastern, of Gypsy markers amongst
the Melungeons, either.
There are
still those who claim the Melungeons were part Cherokee. This report accurately
states;
“There are no known Cherokee who lived on Newman's
Ridge. The Cherokee Nation was significantly further south prior to removal in
1835 . . .”
In many
ways this is a great report. Both observation and empirical data agree to say
the Melungeons are NOT Portuguese, and probably NOT Cherokee. But they are
sub-Sahara African, Caucasian, and there is some small admixture of American
Indian as well. If not Cherokee the only other people in the area would be
Catawban.
This report
is in response to the Huffington Post article found here.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/24/melungeon-dna-study
origin_n_1544489.html#post
I have taken an autosomal DNA test and it came
back mostly Caucasian, but we do have some American Indian and some sub-Sahara
African DNA as well. Our triracial identity is confirmed. My ancestors were NOT
a part of that study, even though we lived there, on Copper Creek, Scott Co.,
Va just like they did and we attended "Stoney Creek Primitive Baptist
Church" just like known Melungeon families did, and our closest neighbors
were Gibsons descended from a known Melungeon family. My response to that
article is below. Our Gist's lived next to the Melungeon Moore family, and we
were right beside Fort Blackmore. We don't have a direct male or female line
back to either the Wayland, Guess/Gist or Gibson surnames. Therefore, we were
not allowed to partake of this test.
Flaw in Melungeon DNA Test –
Thought Experiment
Let’s go on
a little hike down Thought Experiment Trail. Assume 30 American Indians, full
blood, 15 male, 15 female. They are surrounded by 80 percent Caucasians, and 20
percent African Americans. Assume 20 percent of the American Indians marry
others with Indian blood. Of the
remaining 80 percent, 60 percent marry a Caucasian and 20 percent marry an
African American. How many generations will it take for people of straight male
or straight female line of American Indian descend to disappear?
These will
be recorded (m,f) by race. 30 Indians. First generation – 20 % of 30 is
(0.2)*30= 6 of these 30 marry other American Indians. These families would be
(I,I), (I,I), (I,I) leaving 24 full blood American Indians. Sixty percent of
these 30 marry Caucasians, and 20 percent of these 30 marry African Americans.
60% of 30 is (0.6)*30= 18 Indians marrying Caucasians. 20% of 30 is (0.2)*30= 6
American Indians marry African Americans. Assume half male and half female.
After one generation we have the following unions.
If we
consider the first variable to be male and the second female, which can be
represented as (m, f), and replace M and f with the race of the individual as W
(Caucasian), B (African), and I (American Indian), we have the following. If we
are interested in the American Indian component, we have;
(I,I),
(I,I), (I,I), (3,3), (3 Indian males, 3 American Indian females)
(I,W),
(I,W), (I,W), (I,W), (I,W), (I,W), (I,W), (I,W), (I,W), (9,0), (9 American
Indian males)
(W, I), (W,
I), (W,I), (W,I), (W,I), (W,I), (W,I), (W,I), (W,I), (0,9), (9 American Indian
females)
(I, B),
(I,B), (I,B), (3,0), (3 American Indian males)
(B, I), (B,
I), (B, I), (0, 3), (3 American Indian females)
Of the
original 30, only 15 have Indian blood on the father’s side for 2 generations,
and only 15 have females on 2 generations of the female side. It is important
to know that while there is NO new infusion of American Indian blood, the
infusion of new Caucasian and African blood is inexhaustible.
We can
extrapolate that since after only one generation of mixing race, only 50% of
the original American Indian y-chromosome is left, that 50% will be lost also
in each succeeding generation. Likewise, only 50% of the mtDNA, which we
inherit from our mothers, will remain from the American Indian side of the
lineage. We can extrapolate future generations –
RETENTION OF AMERICAN INDIAN
Y-CHROMOSOMAL DNA
1st
generation – 100%
2nd
generation – 50 %
3rd
generation – 25%
4th
generation – 12.5%
5th
generation – 6.125%
6th
generation – 3.0625%
So only
slightly more than three percent of the descendants of the original 30 American
Indians would still retain the American Indian markers of their y-chromosomal
DNA after only six generations, or the mtDNA markers from an American Indian
ancestor. To determine a value we might expect from these original 30 Indians,
just multiply (number of American Indians) by the probability that their
Y-chromosome or mtDNA is preserved, and after 6 generations we get (30
persons)* (0.030625)= 0.91875, or about one of those original 30 might still
retain that original Y-chromosome DNA marker saying their ancestor was American
Indian. And lo and behold, look at the Sizemore surname, it DOES retain the
Y-chromosome DNA marker of an Indian ancestor. The laws of Probability Theory
don’t lie. Conversely, if there is one marker that exists from an isolated
community, there could be another twenty-nine families that have lost that
marker. And that is exactly what we have. They should have had a mathematician
(like me :) to do their number crunching.
The key to
understand this decline is the limited numbers of American Indians. While each
generation there is a new infusion of Caucasian and sub-Sahara African DNA, the
American Indian DNA was from a few original donors, only. Through the
generations, there was never a new infusion of those markers, so they continued
to decline, generation after generation.
Portuguese
On page 21
Carlson starts to address the ‘Portuguese’ question. He says; Most modern
professional writers still accept the premise, generated in the 1800s, that
Melungeon history and heritage – biological and social – is forever lost to
contemporary researchers. Such outsiders have thus downplayed the people’s own
assertion of being Indians in favor of emphasizing the possibilities of White,
Black, Portuguese, Phoenician, Jewish, Moorish, Turkish, and/or Lost Colony
ancestry among them . . . in a 1947 Saturday Evening Post article focusing on
the Greasy Rock population . . .the author wrote “were his ancestors Welsh warriors, Phoenicians, or survivors of
Roanoke?” . . .[he] says he’s 75 years old, and an Indian. (255).”
On page 80
we have Byrd from the Spring to the Fall of 1728 he journeyed through some
Indian settlements, to survey the land on the North Carolina/Virginia border.
He wrote a journal of his travels. One entry was about the possibility of
mixed-blood (Caucasian/American Indian/Moorish) marriages, saying; “If a Moor may be washed White in three
generations, surely an Indian might have been bleached White in two.”
Remember the Moors (Moroccans) lived in Portugal and Spain for 800 years.
On page 81
Carlson talks of both Byrd and Fontaine, saying; “Byrd also brought Rev.
Fontaine on the survey. (256)
On page 124
we finally have the reason I have mentioned Rev. Fontaine. Carlson says; “. . . Reverend Fontaine, who had visited
Fort Christanna and travelled with Byrd and Ned Bearskin decades before . . . In a letter dated March
30, 1757, remarked that the colonists ought to have intermarried with the
Indians more frequently” . . . he also noted his concern with physical
appearance by claiming that by promoting such marriages the offspring would
result in Indian children as white at birth as a Portuguese or a Spaniard. As
far as I can tell, this is the earliest documentation mentioning a Portuguese
looking offspring of and Indian and a White man. And this record was mentioned
by man whose grandfather was a Frenchman born in France, who knew the French
language. He would have known the meaning of “Melungeons” very well. (257)
Please note
we have not found a single reference to ANY Portuguese people AT ALL. There is
NOT A SINGLE DOCUMENT ANYWHERE ON THIS PLANET that ties a single Portuguese
adventurer, either male or female, to the Melungeons. There is not a single
document that ties a ship wrecked sailor, nor a servant, nor any kind of
Portuguese man or woman, to the Melungeons – that's all done with smoke and
mirrors, and a gullible public that is willing to believe that the moon is made
of green cheese.
All these
tall tales have done is misrepresent who the Melungeon people really were. And
there are so many of these tall tales that people just assume they are being told
the truth. It started with people who hadn't even visited the Melungeons just
guessing about their origin, and then came other people guessing, and they
ignored what the Melungeon people themselves said about their origins. Now,
even Melungeon people themselves are confused. This is why I wanted to link the
Melungeons back to their TRUE roots, to a past we can be proud of, and not all
that other nonsense.
There are
people online who think the Melungeons said they were "Indian"
because they did not want to be thought of as mixed with Negro. NO! NO! NO!
They have taken the truth, and arrived at the WRONG conclusion! The reason some
said they were Portuguese was so they would not be subject to the Jim Crow
laws! Carlson has brilliantly shown the EXACT route that the Saponi took, from
Fort Christanna to Northeastern Tennessee to Ohio.
Resources:
241. The Journal of John Fontaine
1710-1719; distributed by University Press of Virginia; © 1972 by the Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation
242. Ditto
243. http://virginiahuguenot.blogspot.com/.
Learn more about French Huguenot peoples who migrated to America at this link.
244. Http://conjugator.reverso.net/conjugation-french-verb-m%C3%A9langer.html
245. “The Life and Adventures of
Wilburn Waters, The Famous Hunter and Trapper of White Top Mountain Embracing
Early History of Southwestern Virginia Sufferings of the Pioneers, Etc., Etc.”
by Charles B. Coale; Richmond, G. W. Gray & co., printers, 1878. http://www.newrivernotes.com/topical_history_books_waters_wilburn.htm;
246. 'Who's your people?':
Cumulative identity among the Salyersville Indian population of Kentucky's
Appalachia and the Midwest muck fields, 1677--2000. by Dr. Richard Allen
Carlson Jr.; Michigan State University
247. Ditto
origin_n_1544489.html#post
249
(1) http://www.jogg.info/pages/72/files/Estes.htm; Melungeons, A
Multiethnic Population, Received: July
2011; accepted Dec 2011; Roberta J. Estes, Jack H. Goins, Penny Ferguson, Janet
Lewis Crain
250. "History
of Baxter County 1873 - 1973" Centennial 1973 edition; Mary Ann Messick.
Hardback, 506 pages. Published by the Mountain Home Chamber of Commerce.
251. “Melungeons and Other Pioneer
Families”; by Jack H. Goins; © Jack H. Goins 2000
252. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/24/melungeon-dna-study-
origin_n_1544489.html#post
253. Ditto
254. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/24/melungeon-dna-study
origin_n_1544489.html#post
255. 'Who's your people?':
Cumulative identity among the Salyersville Indian population of Kentucky's
Appalachia and the Midwest muck fields, 1677--2000. by Dr. Richard Allen
Carlson Jr.; Michigan State University
256. The Journal of John Fontaine
1710-1719; distributed by University Press of Virginia; © 1972 by the Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation
257.. 'Who's your people?': Cumulative identity among the
Salyersville Indian population of Kentucky's Appalachia and the Midwest muck
fields, 1677--2000. by Dr. Richard Allen Carlson Jr.; Michigan State University
Images:
Image 3. Rev. John Fontaine, a
pencil drawing of the French Huguenot minister who visited the Saponi at Fort
Christanna.
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