I have mentioned about the Catawban people who came to Oklahoma in the 1880s, 1890s, and 1900s. But I have neglected discussing what happened in the East during that same time frame. I have run across several articles written during this timeframe that need discussing.
Will Allen Dromgoole Article, 1891
Will Allen Dromgoole wrote an article in March, 1891 entitled "The Malungeons" for "The Arena". In it she introduced the idea that the Melungeons might be of Portuguese extraction. These articles by Will Allen Dromgoole and others have caused much confusion through the years, over the origins of the Melungeons. Were they Native American, or were they Portuguese?
Beginning
of the false claims about the Melungeons
http://melungeon.org/2016/10/14/the-malungeons-by-will-allen-dromgoole-1891-article/
“The Malungeons” by Will Allen Dromgoole (1891 article)
“The Malungeons”
The Arena, March 1891
Were you ever when a child half playfully told “The Malungeons will get you?” If not, you were never a Tennessee child, as some of our fathers were; they tell all who may be told of that strange, almost forgotten race, concerning whom history is strangely silent. Only upon the records of the state of Tennessee does the name appear. The records show that by act of the Constitutional Convention of 1834, when the “Race Question” played such a conspicuous part in the deliberations of that body, the Malungeons, as a “free person of color,” was denied the right of suffrage. Right there he dropped from the public mind and interest. Of no value as a slave, with no voice as a citizen, what use could the public make of the Malungeon? When John Sevier attempted to organize the State of Franklin, there was living in the mountains of Eastern Tenessee a colony of dark-skinned, reddish-brown complexioned people, supposed to be of Moorish descent, who affiliated with neither whites nor blacks, and who called themselves Malungeons, and claimed to be of Poruguese descent. They lived to themselves exclusively, and were looked on as neither negroes nor Indians.
Their condition from the organization of the State of Tennessee to the close of the civil war is most accurately described by John A. McKinley, of Hawkins County, who was chairman of the committee to which was referred all matters affecting these “free persons of color.”
Said he, speaking of free persons of color, “It means Malungeons if it means anything. Although ‘fleecy locks and black complexion’ do not forfeit Nature’s claims, still it is true that those locks and that complexion mark every one of the African race, so long as he remains among the white race, as a person doomed to live in the suburbs of society.
“Unenviable as is the condition of the slave, unlovely as slavery is in all its aspects, bitter as is the draught the slave is doomed to drink, nevertheless, his condition is better than that of the ‘free man of color’ in the midst of a community of white men with whom he has no interest, no fellow-feeling and no equality.” So the Constitutional convention left these the 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 brand of the 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 as law unto themselves, a race indeed separate and distinct from the several races inhabiting the State of Tennessee.
So much, or so little, we glean from the records. From history we get nothing; not so much as the name, – Malungeons.
In the farther valleys they were soon forgotten: only now and then and old slave-mammy would frighten her rebellious charge into subjection with the threat, – “The Malungeons will get you in you ain’t pretty.” But to the people of the foot hills and nearer valleys, they became a living terror; sweeping down upon them, stealing their cattle, their provisions, their very clothing, and household furniture.
They became shiftless, idle, thieving, and defiant of all law, distillers of brandy, almost to a man. The barren height upon which they located, offered hope of no other crop so much as fruit, and they were forced, it would appear, to utilize their one opportunity.
After the breaking out of the war, some few enlisted in the army, but the greater number remained with their stills, to pillage and plunder among the helpless women and children.
Such they were; or so do they come to us through tradition and the State’s records. As to what they are any who feel disposed may go and see. Opinion is divided concerning them, and they have their own ideas as to their descent. A great many declare them mulattoes, and base their belief upon the ground that at the close of the civil war negroes and Malungeons stood upon precisely the same social footing. “free men of color” all, and that the fast vanishing handful opened thier doors to the darker brother, also groaning under the brand of social ostracism. This might, at first glance, seem probable, indeed, reasonable.
“Who are they, then?” you ask. I can only give you their own theory – If I may call it such – and to do this I must tell you how I found them, and something of my stay among them.
First. I saw in an old newspaper some slight mention of them. With this tiny clue I followed their trail for three years. The paper merely stated that “somnewhere in the mountains of Tennessee there existed a remanant of people called Malungeons, having a distinct color, characteristics,and dialect. It seemed a very hopeless search, so utterly were the Malungeons forgotten, and I was laughed at no little for my “new crank.” I was even called “a Malungeon” more than once, and was about to abandon my “crank” when a member of the Tennessee State Senate, of which I happened at that time to be engrossing clerk, spoke of a brother senator as being “tricky as a Malungeon.”
I pounced on him the moment his speech was completed. “Seantor,” I said, “what is a Malungeon?” “A dirty Indian sneak,” said he. “Go over yonder and ask Senator _____; they live in his district.” I went at once. “Senator, what is a Malungeon?” I asked again. “A Portuguese N*,” was the reply. “Representative T____ can tell you all about them, they live in his county.”
From “district” to “county” was quick travelling. And into the House of Representatives I went, fast upon the lost trail of the forgotten Malungeons. “Mr. ____,” said I, “please tell me what is a Malungeon?” “A Malungeon,: said he, “isn’t a N*, and he isn’t an Indian, and he isn’t a white man. God only knows what he is. I should call him a Democrat, only he always votes the Republican ticket.” I merely mention all this to show how the Malungeons to-day are regarded, and to show show I tracked them to Newman’s Ridge in Hancock County, where within four miles of one of the prettiest county towns in Tennessee, may be found all that remains of that outcast race whose descent is a riddle the historian has never solved. In appearance they bear a striking resemblance to the Cherokees, and they are beleived by the people round about to be a kind of half-breed Indian.
Thier complexion is a reddish brown, totally unlike the mulatto. The men are very tall and straight, with small, sharp eyes, high cheek bones, and straight black hair, worn rather long. The women are small, below the average height, coal black hair and eyes, high cheek bones, and the same red-brown complexion. The hands of the Malungeon women are quite shapely and pretty. Also their feet, despite the fact that they trravel the sharp mountain trails barefoot, are short and shapely. Their features are wholly unlike those of the negro, except in cases where the two races have cohabited, as is sometimes the fact. These instances can be readily detected, as can those of cohabitation withthe mountaineer; for the pure Malungeons present a characteristic and individual appearance. On the Ridge proper, one finds only pure Malungeons; it is in the unsavory limits of Black Water Swamp and on Big Sycamore Creek,lying at the foot of the Ridge betweenit and Powell’s Mountain, that the mixed races dwell.
In Western and Middle Tennessee the Malungeons are forgotten long ago. And iundeed, so nearly complete has been the extinction of the race that in but few counties of Eastern Tennessee is it known. In Hancock you may hear them, and see them, almost the instant you cross into the county line. There they are distinguished as “Ridgemanites,” or pure “Malungeons.” Those among them whom the white or negro blood has entered are called the “Black-Waters.” The Ridge is admirable adapted to the purpose of wild-cat distilling, being crossed by but one road and crowned with jungles of chinquapin, cedar, and wahoo.
Of very recent years the dogs of the law have proved too sharp-eyed and bold even for the lawless Malungeons, so that such of the furnace fires as have not been extinguished are built underground.
They are a great nuisance to the people of the county seat, where, on any public day, and especially on election days, they may be seen squatted about the streets, great strapping men, or little brown women baking themselves in the sun like mud figures set to dry.
The people of the town do not allow them to enter their dwellings, and even refuse to employ them as servants, owing to their filthy habit of chewing tobacco and spitting upon the floors, together with their ignorance or defiance of the difference between meum and tuum.
They are exceedingly shiftless, and in most cases filthy.They care for nothing except their pipe, their liquor, and a tramp “ter towin.” They will walk to Sneedville and back sometimes twice in twelve hours, up a steep trail though an almost unbroken wilderness, and never seem to suffer the least fatigue.
They are not at all like the Tennessee mountaineer either in appearance or characteristics. The mountaineer, however poor,is clean, – cleanliness itself. He is honest (I speak of him as a class) he is generous, trustful, until once betrayed; truthful, brave, and possessing many of the noblest and keenest sensibilities. The Malungeons are filthy, their home is filthy. The are rogues, natural, “born rogues,” close, suspicious, inhospitable, untruthful, cowardly, and to use their own word, “sneaky.” They are exceedingly inquisitive too, and will traila visitor to the Ridge for miles, through seemingly impenetrable jungles, to discover, if may be, the object of his visit. They expect remuneration for the slightest service. The mountaineer’s door stands open, or at most the string of the latch dangles upon the “outside.” He takes you for what you seem until you shall prove yourself otherwise.
In many things they resemble the negro. They are exceedingly immoral, yet are great shouters and advocates of religion. They call themselves Baptists, although their mode of baptism is that of the Dunkard.
There are no churches on the Ridge, but the one I visited in Black Water Swamp was beyond question and inauguration of the colored element. At this church I saw white women with negro babies at their breasts – Malungeon women with white or with black husbands, and some, indeed, having the three separate races represented in their children; showing thereby the gross immorality that is practised among them. I saw an old negro whose wife was a white woman, and who had been several times arrested, and released on his plea of “Portygee” blood, which he declared had colored his skin, not African.
The dialect of the Malungeons is a cross between that of the mountaineer and the negro – a corruption, perhaps, of both. The letter R occupies but a smallplace in their speech, and they have a peculiar habit of omitting the last letter, sometimes the last syllable of their words. For instance “good night” – is “goo’ night.” “Give” is “gi’,” etc. They do not drawl like the mountaineers but, on the contrary, speak rapidly and talk a great deal. The laugh of the Malungeon women is the most exquisitely musicle jingle, a perfect ripple of sweet sound. Their dialect is exceedingly difficult to write, owing to their habit of curtailing their words.
They are very like the Indians in many respect, _ their fleetness of foot,cupidity, cruelty (as practised during the days of their illicit distilling), their love for the forest, their custom of living without doors, one might almost say, – for truly the little hovels could not be called homes, – and their taste for liquor and tobacco.
They are limited somewhat as to names: their principal families being the Mullins, Gorvens, Collins, and Gibson.
They resort to a very peculiar method of distinguishing themselves. Jack Collins’ wife for instance will be Mary Jack. His son will be Ben Jack. His daughters’ names will be similar: Nancy Jack or Jane Jack, as the case may be, but always having the father’s Christian name attached.
Their homes are miserable hovels, set here and there in the very heart of the wilderness. Very few of their cabins have windows, and some have only an opening cut through the wall for a door. In winter an old quild tis hung before it to shut out the cold. They do not welcome strangers among them, so that I went to the Ridge somewhat doubtful as to my reception. I went, however, determined to be one of them, so I wore a suit as nearly like their own as I could get it. I had some trouble securing boards, but did succeed at last in doing so by paying the enormous sum of fifteen cents. I was put to sleep in a little closet opening off the family room. My room had no windows, and but the one door. The latch was carefully removed before I went in, so that I had no means of egress, except through the family room, and no means by which to shut myself in. My bed was of straw, not the sweet-smelling straw we read of. The Malungeons go a long way for their straw, and they evidently make it go a long way when they do get it. I was called to breakfast the next morning while the gray mists still held the mountain in its arms. I asked for water to bathe my face and was sent to “their branch,” a beautiful little mountain stream crossing the trail some few hundred yards from the cabin.
Breakfast consisted of corn bread, wild honey, and bitter coffee. It was prepared and eaten in the garret, or roof room, above the family room. A few chickens, the only fowl I saw on the Ridge, also occupied the roof room. Coffee is quite common among the Malungeons; they drink it without sweetening, and drink it cold at all hours of the day or nights. They have no windows and no candles, consequently, they retire with the going of the daylight. Many of their cabins have no floors other than that which Nature gave, but one that I remember had a floor made of trees slit in half, the bark still on, placed with the flat side to the ground. The people of the house slept on leaves with an old gray blanket for covering. Yet the master of the house, who claims to be an Indian, and who, without doubt, possesses Indian blood, draws a pension of twenty-nine dollars per month. He can neither read nor write, is a lazy fellow, fond of apple brandy and bitter coffee, has a rollicking good time with an old fiddle which he plays with his thumb, and boasts largely of his Cherokee grandfather and his government pension. In one part of his cabin (there are two rooms and a connecting shed) the very stumps of the trees still remain. I had my artist sketch him sitting upon the stump of a monster oak which stood in the very center of the shed or hallway.
This family did their cooking at a rude fireplace built near the spring, as a matter of convenience.
Another family occupied one room, or apartment, of a stable. The stock fed in another (the stock belonged, let me say, to someone else) and the “cracks” between the logs of the separating partition were of such depth a small child could have rolled from the bed in one apartment into the trough in the other. How they exist among such squalor is a mystery.
Their dress consists, among the women, of a short loose calico skirt and a blouse that boasts of neither hook nor button. Some of these blouses were fastened with brass pins conspicuously bright. Others were tied together by means of strings tacked on either side. They wear neither shoes nor stockings in the summer, and many of them go barefoot all winter. The men wear jeans, and may be seen almost any day tramping barefoot across the mountain.
They are exceedingly illiterate, none of them being able to read. I found one school among them, taught by an old Malungeon, whose literary accomplishments amounted to a meagre knowledge of the alphabet and the spelling of words. Yet, he was very earnest,, and called lustily to the “chillering” to “spry up,” and to “learn the book.”
This school was located in the loveliest spot my eyes ever rested upon. An eminence overlooking the beautiful valley of the Clinch and the purple peaks beyond/illows and billows of mountains, so blue, so exquisitely wrapped in their delicate mist-veil, one almost doubts if they be hills or heaven. While through the slumbrous vale the silvery Clinch, the fairest of Tennessee’s fair streams, creeps slowly, like a drowsy dream river, among the purple distances.
The eminence itself is entirely barren save for one tall old cedar, and the schoolmaster’s little log building. It presents a very weird, wild, yet majestic scene, to the traveller as he climbs up from the valley.
Within the last two years the railroad has struck within some thirty miles of them, and its effects are becoming very apparent. Now and then a band of surveyors, or a lone mineralogist will cross Powell’s mountain, and pass through Mulbery Gap just beyond Newman’s Ridge. So near, yet never nearer. The hills around are all said to be crammed with coal or iron, but Newman’s Ridge can offer nothing to the capitalist. It would seem that the Malungeons had chosen the one spot, of all that magnificent creation, not to be desired.
Yet, they have heard of the railroad, the great bearer of commerce, and expect it, in a half-regretful, half-pathetic way.
They have four questions, always, for the stranger: –
“Whatcher name?”
“Wher’d yer come fum?”
“How old er yer?”
“Did yer hear en’thin’ er ther railwa’ comin’ up ther Ridge?”
As if it might step into their midst any day.
The Malungeons believe themselves to be of Cherokee and Portuguese extraction. They cannot account for the Portuguese blood, but are very bold in declaring themselves a remnant of those tribes, or that tribe, still inhabiting the mountains of North Carolina, which refused to follow the tribes to the Reservation set aside for them.
There is a theory that the Portuguese pirates, known to have visited these waters, came ashore and located in the mountains of North Carolina. The Portuguese “streak,” however, is scouted by those who claim for the Malungeons a drop of African blood, as, quite early in the settlement of Tennessee, runaway negroes settled among the Cherokees, or else were captured and adopted by them.
However, with all the light possible to be thrown upon them, the Malungeons are, and will remain, a mystery. A more pathetic case than theirs cannot be imagined. They are going, the little space of hills ‘twixt earth and heaven alloted them, will soon be free of the dusky tribe, whose very name is a puzzle. The most that can be said of one of them is, “He is a Malungeon,” a synonym for all that is doubtful and mysterious – and unclean.
My thoughts on the above article by Will Allen Dromgoole
I will
quote from the article in order, from the top of the article to the end, then
follow up with my thoughts on it. The quote from the original article will be italycized, and my response to it will not be italycized.
The records show that by act of the Constitutional Convention of 1834, when the “Race .; Question” played such a conspicuous part in the deliberations of that body, the Malungeons, as a “free person of color,” was denied the right of suffrage.
At this time Melungeon’s and Negro “free person’s of color” were given an equal status.
When John Sevier attempted to organize the State of Franklin, there was living in the mountains of Eastern Tenessee a colony of dark-skinned, reddish-brown complexioned people, supposed to be of Moorish descent, who affiliated with neither whites nor blacks, and who called themselves Malungeons, and claimed to be of Poruguese descent. They lived to themselves exclusively, and were looked on as neither negroes nor Indians.
Wikipedia says, “Sevier settled in the Tennessee Valley frontier in the 1770s.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sevier . Lewis Jarvis wrote an article in 1903 in Hancock County, East Tennessee. He wrote, “Much has been said and written about the inhabitants of Newman’s Ridge and Blackwater in Hancock County, Tenn. They have been derisively dubbed with the name “Melungeons” by the local white people who have lived here with them. It is not a traditional name or tribe of Indians.
Some have said these people were here when the white people first explored this country. Others say they are a lost tribe of the Indians having no date of their existence here, traditionally or otherwise. All of this however, is erroneous and cannot be sustained. These people, not any of them were here at the time the first white hunting party came from Virginia and North Carolina in the year 1761. . .” So this narrows the time of the arrival of the Indians to ‘in the 1770s’ and 1761. and later in the article says, “The white emigrants with the friendly Indians erected a fort on the bank of the river and called it Fort Blackmore and here yet many of these friendly “Indians” live in the mountains of Stony Creek, but they have married among the whites until the race has almost become extinct. A few of the half-bloods may be found – none darker – but they still retain the name of Collins and Gibson, &c. From here they came to Newman’s ridge and Blackwater and many of them are here yet; but the amalgamations of the whites and Indians has about washed the red tawny from their appearance, the white faces predominating, so now you scarcely find one of the original Indians; a few half-bloods and quarter-bloods-balance white or past the third
TAll
the negroes ever brought to America came as 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.”So much, or so little, we glean from the records. From
history we get nothing; not so much as the name, – Malungeons.
So we know a little more about these Indians. They helped build a forttrss AGAINST the Cherokees during and just before the Revolutionary War. This tells us they WERE NOT Cherokees!
First. I saw in an old newspaper some slight mention of them. With this tiny clue I followed their trail for three years. The paper merely stated that “somnewhere in the mountains of Tennessee there existed a remanant of people called Malungeons, having a distinct color, characteristics,and dialect . . . a member of the Tennessee State Senate, of which I happened at that time to be engrossing clerk, spoke of a brother senator as being “tricky as a Malungeon.” . . . I pounced on him the moment his speech was completed. “Seantor,” I said, “what is a Malungeon?” . . . “A dirty Indian sneak,” said he. “Go over yonder and ask Senator _____; they live in his district.” . . . I went at once. “Senator, what is a Malungeon?” I asked again. “A Portuguese N*,” was the reply. “Representative T____ can tell you all about them, they live in his county.” From “district” to “county” was quick travelling. And into the House of Representatives I went, fast upon the lost trail of the forgotten Malungeons. . . . “Mr. ____,” said I, “please tell me what is a Malungeon?” “A Malungeon,: said he, “isn’t a N*, and he isn’t an Indian, and he isn’t a white man. God only knows what he is.”
This tells us of Dromgoole’s search for the homeland of the Melungeons. I have thought hard if I should provide a direct quote for the word she uses for “Negro’s, and have decided against it. Where you see N* is where it would have appeared.
In appearance they bear a striking resemblance to the Cherokees, and they are beleived by the people round about to be a kind of half-breed Indian. Thier complexion is a reddish brown, totally unlike the mulatto. The men are very tall and straight, with small, sharp eyes, high cheek bones, and straight black hair, worn rather long. The women are small, below the average height, coal black hair and eyes, high cheek bones, and the same red-brown complexion. . . Also their feet, despite the fact that they travel the sharp mountain trails barefoot, are short and shapely. Their features are wholly unlike those of the negro, except in cases where the two races have cohabited, as is sometimes the fact. The pure Malungeons, that is the old men and women, have no toleration for the negro, and nothing insults them so much as the suggestion of negro blood. Many pathetic stories are told of their battle against the black race, which they regard as the cause of their downfall, the annihilation, indeed, of the Malungeons, for when the races began to mix and to intermarry, and the expression, “A Malungeon N*” came into use, the last barrier vanished, and all were regarded as somewhat upon a social level.
Melungeons look like Native Americans, except those who are mixed with the Negro race. When the 1834 law was passed, Melungeons started to be treated like Negroes, and some grew bitter about it, as apparently before that time, they were treated better by their White neighbors.
. . .and some, indeed, having the three separate races represented in their children; showing thereby the gross immorality that is practised among them. I saw an old negro whose wife was a white woman, and who had been several times arrested, and released on his plea of “Portygee” blood, which he declared had colored his skin, not African.
Melungeons said they were Portuguese for fear of being labeled "Negro". African-Americans were never given equal civil rights in the 19th century. If they became associated with African-Americans, they feared they would be treated poorly. Where are the Portuguese surnames? There is Chavis and some say Driggers (?Rodriguez?) -- but that is one (maybe two) surnames. Ninety nine percent of the Melungeon surnames are British.
They are very like the Indians in many respect, _ their fleetness of foot,cupidity, cruelty (as practised during the days of their illicit distilling), their love for the forest, their custom of living without doors, one might almost say, – for truly the little hovels could not be called homes, – and their taste for liquor and tobacco.
Dromgoole seems to say they made their own whiskey, indicting they mixed with the Scots-Irish families, which she doesn’t say outright, but it must be implied.
They believe in witchcraft, “yarbs,” and more than one “charmer” may be found among them. They will “rub away” a wart or mole for ten cents, and one old squaw assured me she had some “blood beads” the “wair bounter heal all manner o’ blood ailimints.”
Now this is VERY INTERESTING to me. Dad (1915-1992) used to tell stories about his grandma; Josephine (Brown) Richey, 1854-1932. His maternal grandparents lived next door. He told how once he had a cut on his face and it got infected. It swole up. He said his grandma had him drink some whiskey, which was illegal at the time, and she always kept it in a hidden spot where nobody else could find it. It was to be used as “medicine” only. Then she got a sharp knife and cut a “backwards 7” on his infected cheek. She then squeeze all the infected pus out of it, and closed it up, covering it in a “poltice”. He never mentioned sewing it up. But it healed up fine. He also spoke of having warts on his hand. Now all the young boys had bandanas back then, and they wore them around their necks, so that when the dust clouds rolled in, they could turn them around, like outlaws in old westerns This made it easier to breathe, filtering some of the dust out. He said his grandma told him to count the warts, then go down to the nearest creek, and find the same of small round/polished stones, place them in his bandana, tie the four corners up, then walk to the nearest crossroads, and toss it diagonally across the road. He was then instructed to forget about his warts, and told that when he next thought about them, they would be gone. He said it happened exactly as she told him it would. When he next thought of them, they were gone.
Breakfast consisted of corn bread, wild honey, and bitter coffee. . . . Yet the master of the house, who claims to be an Indian, and who, without doubt, possesses Indian blood, draws a pension of twenty-nine dollars per month. He can neither read nor write, is a lazy fellow, fond of apple brandy and bitter coffee . . . and boasts largely of his Cherokee grandfather and his government pension.
I suspect he “boasted” of his Indian blood, and she added the word “Cherokee”, because she know of no other tribes in the region. But the Catawban peoples only moved there from the 1770s on. Others probably copied her lead, and said they were Cherokee. She wrote this in 1891. This is about the same time frame as the Allotment Act, when many Melungeon families arrived in Oklahoma thinking they’d be given Indian land, only do discover they’d been forgotten.
Near the schoolhouse is a Malungeon grave-yard. The Malungeons are very careful for their dead. They build a kind of floorless house above each separate grave, many of the homes of the dead being far better than the dwellings of the living. The grave-yard presents the appearance of a diminutive town, or settlement, and is kept with great nicety and care. They mourn their dead for years, and every friend and acquaintance is expected to join in the funeral arrangements. They follow the body to the grave, sometimes familes, afoot, in single file. Their burial ceremonies are exceedingly interesting and peculiar.
Other tribes of southeastern woodland peoples have similar gravesites.
They are an unforgiving people, although, unlike the sensitive mountaineer, they are slow to detect an insult, and expect to be spit upon. But injury to life or property they never forgive. Several odd and pathetic instances of Malungeon hate came under my observation while among them, but they would cover too much space in telling.
This too is very American. Perhaps the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s borrowed this tradition from the Native peoples, and not the other way around.
Newspaper article about the Cole Family claiming Catawban Ancestry, 1901
Below is evidence of Catawban families who moved into Eastern Kentucky. This newspaper article said they sent a correspondent to visit the region around Salyersville, Kentucky, which I believe is in Magoffin County. Unfortunately, I never saw the correspondent's name in the article. It mentions the Cole surname mostly, but also speaks of Perkins, Sizemore, and Mullins surnames. I believe I made a typo by mentioning the Sizemore surname twice -- I'll look at again when I get the time and correct any typos -- with me, there are always typos. This article was written 116 and a half years ago, and the earlier writing, it is often the case that since it was written early, there are fewer historical errors.
Well here is the short article. Hopefully in a month or more I might have more material to share. I have written earlier articles about false leads not backed up by historical documentation about Cherokee communities in Kentucky. As I find actual documentation I'll post it, so this blog entry should grow over time. Having recently run into people researching the surname "Cole", I thought I might post it for them.
Monday, 7th of October, 1901, “The Tennessean”, page 8, a newspaper out of Nashville, Tn.
Kentucky’s Indian’s
Plenty of them left in the Mountain Section – Old Billie Cole’s Progeny – Life in Primitive and Crude surroundings, but are honest and law abiding.
A correspondent writing from Salyersville, Ky says:
It is not generally known there are Indians scattered all over the mountains of Kentucky, but in nearly every county in the eastern section may be found families named Cole, Perkens, Sizemore. Mullins or Sizemore, many in someway related to “Old Billie” Cole, a Catawba Chief, who came here from North Carolina and settled in Floyd County nearly a century ago.
The biggest numbers of “Old Billies” descendants living in ole place is the Cole family on Big Lick Branch, in Magoffin County. The correspondent recently visited the “Cole Nation”, as it is called up there, and had a long interview with “Chief Tiney”. The correspondent also got a snap-shot of the Chief and some of his children.
Their surroundings and belongings are very primitive and crude, but they seem as content with their lot as many people more comfortably situated. The best house in the settlement is the one shown in the picture, which is the home of Chief Tiney and his son’s family. It is a log house of two rooms, with porch and floors of poplar planks.
When seen by the correspondent, “Uncle Tiney”, as everyone calls him, was sitting on the porch giving orders to some boys who were repairing a rail fence near the house. He was bareheaded, and his primitive clothes and his long hair made him look like the typical pioneer and Indian. The old man can not walk without help, but hi hearing is good and his eyes are very bright.
In response to questions, Chief Tiney gave the following narrative:
“I was bred and born in Kentucky, but I don’t know just where. Before I came to the Big Lick I lived at different places in Breathett, Floyd, Johnson, and Lawrence Counties. My father, “Old Billie” Cole, came from North Carolina. He was three-quarters Indian and was not allowed to vote until after the war, but I have voted ever since I was 21 years old. I have voted for eighteen candidate for president. My first vote was for John Quincy Adams and my last vote was for McKinley. I always vote Republican. I have lived on the Big Lick a long time, and I have outlived nearly all my children. Me and my old woman were mighty poor and could not provide for a large family, so we only raised fourteen children to be grown, and now they are all dead but six. I have 44 grandchildren, 53 great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren.
I did own a thousand acres of land on this branch, but I have got nothing now. No, I never killed a bear nor deer. I thought too much of them all, wedge and ax to do much hunting. But I have caught lots of ground hogs and ‘possums, and a few coons. I went hunting with a gun one time, but daddy left me to watch by myself, and I promised if God would forgive me that time never to do so again.
I don’t know much about my people. Old Billie, my father, brought my mother from Virginia. He had two wives and nine children. He was 106 years old when he died here on Big Lick. I will be 96 years old if I live till the 24th of next February. When asked to sit for a picture, “Uncle Tiney” replied:
“Well I never had a picture taken and I will if it don’t cost too much.”
So the correspondent assisted him to a chair near the house. He then called for his pipe and “the rifle”, and putting the pipe in his mouth where he held it with his hand as he has no teeth, and the un across his lap, the old fellow leaned back in his chair with a smile of proud satisfaction and looked the very chiefest of chiefs. He stood by the porch with the swarthy sons and a daughter for a picture of the group. The old chief seemed very proud of the opportunity to talk about his Indian relationship and to have his picture taken, but he seemed prouder still of a big twist of “home-made”, which the correspondent gave him. Wallace Cole, a son of Chief Tiney, is a Democratic politician of some local influence. His brother, Shepherd Cole, who lives at Hager in this county, is a well-known lawyer and politician and is Democratic candidate for County Attorney. These two, Wallace and Shepherd Cole, were a little more ambitious than their kinsman. They attended school, and for several years Wallace taught the public school in the Cole district. Wallace being a teacher and Shepherd a lawyer, they became the tribes mentors, so to speak.
Chief Tiney used to be a famous “witch factor”. When the simple folk living near the Cole settlement could not get their bread to rise or their cows to give good milk, they would blame the witches and send for “Old Tiney”, who would appear and prescribe remedies, with the result that the superstitious victims would for a time be convinced that the witch had been deprived of her power to inflict further injury.
The Cole Nation schoolhouse is near Uncle Tiney’s home. There are 53 pupils in the district, and 37 of them were in school at the time of our visit. The young lady teacher and others having dealings with the folk of that settlement have a great time with the names. They generally use the same name at several christenings and affix some distinguishing word or phrase. Thus they have Old Valentine and Yong Valentine, Big Adam and Little Adam. Preacher John, John Page and John Wesley, Old George, Long George, and George Washington. The settlement has sons named for Washington, Jefferson, Buchanan, Lincoln, Tilden, and Garfield.
So some Melugeon descendants KNEW who they were! But the stories of being Portuguese hadn't sunk in to ALL the people yet -- some KNEW they were NOT Portuguese, but rather of Catawban ancestry.
Lewis Jarvis Article, 1903
In response to Dromgoole's and others writings, Mr. Jarvis wrote what he thought of their claim the Melungeons were largely descendants of "Portuguese Advernurers". He wanted to correct this error. The following article was the result.
As transcribed by William Grohse, historian of Hancock County, Tennessee; from the Hancock County Times; Sneedville, Tennessee, 17 April 1903
Much has been said and written about the inhabitants of Newman’s Ridge and Blackwater in Hancock County, Tenn. They have been derisively dubbed with the name “Melungeons” by the local white people who have lived here with them. It is not a traditional name or tribe of Indians.
Some have said these people were here when the white people first explored this country. Others say they are a lost tribe of the Indians having no date of their existence here, traditionally or otherwise.
All of this however, is erroneous and cannot be sustained. These people, not any of them were here at the time the first white hunting party came from Virginia and North Carolina in the year 1761– the noted Daniel Boone was at the head of one of these hunting parties and went on through Cumberland Gap. Wallen was at the head of another hunting party from Cumberland County, Virginia and called the river beyond North Cumberland Wallen’s Ridge and Wallen’s Creek for himself. In fact these hunting parties gave all the historic names to the mountain ridges and valleys and streams and these names are now historical names. All of this however, is erroneous and cannot be sustained. These people, not any of them were here at the time the first white hunting party came from Virginia and North Carolina in the year 1761 . . .”
Wallen pitched his first camp on Wallen’s creek near Hunter’s Gap in Powell’s mountain, now Lee County, Virginia. Here they found the name of Ambrose Powell carved in the bark of a beech tree; from this name they named the mountain, river and valley for Powell, Newman’s Ridge was named for a man of the party called Newman. Clinch River and Clinch valley–these names came at the expense of an Irish man of the party in crossing the Clinch River, he fill off the raft they were crossing on and cried aloud for his companions to “Clench me”, “clench me”, and from this incident the name has become a historic name.
About the time the first white settlement west of the Blue Ridge was made at Watauga River in Carter County, Tennessee, another white party was then working the lead mines in part of Virginia west of the Blue Ridge. In the year 1762 these hunters turned, coming through Elk Garden, now Russell County, Virginia. They then headed down a valley north of Clinch River and named it Hunter’s Valley and buy this name it goes today. These hunters pitched their tent near Hunter’s gap in Powell’s Mountain, nineteen mile from Rogersville, Tenn. on the Jonesville, Va. road. Some of the party of hunter went on down the country to where Sneedville, Hancock County, now stands and hunted there during that season.
Bear were plentiful here and they killed many, their clothing became greasy and near the camp was a projecting rock on which they would lie down and drink and the rock became very greasy and they called it Greasy Rock and named the creek Greasy Rock Creek, a name by which it has ever since been known and called since, and here is the very place where these Melungeons settled, long after this, on Newman’s ridge and Blackwater.
Vardy Collins, Shepherd Gibson, Benjamin Collins, Solomon Collins, Paul Bunch and the Goodmans, chiefs and the rest of them settled here about the year 1804, possibly about the year 1795, but all these men above named, who are called Melungeons, obtained land grants and muniments of title to the land they settled on and they were the friendly Indians who came with the whites as they moved west. They came from the Cumberland County and New River, Va., stopping at various points west of the Blue Ridge. Some of them stopped on Stony Creek, Scott County, and Virginia, where Stony Creek runs into Clinch river.
The white emigrants with the friendly Indians erected a fort on the bank of the river and called it Fort Blackmore and here yet many of these friendly “Indians” live in the mountains of Stony Creek, but they have married among the whites until the race has almost become extinct. A few of the half-bloods may be found – none darker – but they still retain the name of Collins and Gibson, &c. From here they came to Newman’s ridge and Blackwater and many of them are here yet; but the amalgamations of the whites and Indians has about washed the red tawny from their appearance, the white faces predominating, so now you scarcely find one of the original Indians; a few half-bloods and quarter-bloods-balance white or past the third generation.
The old pure blood were finer featured, straight and erect in form, more so than the whites and when mixed with whites made beautiful women and the men very fair looking men. These Indians came to Newman’s Ridge and Blackwater. Some of them went into the War of 1812-1914 whose names are here given; James Collins, John Bolin and Mike Bolin and some others not remembered; those were quite full blooded. These were like the white people; there were good and bad among them, but the great majority were upright, good citizens and accumulated good property and many of them are among our best property owners and as good as Hancock county, Tenn. affords. Their word is their bond and most of them that ever came to Hancock county, Tennessee, then Hawkins County and Claiborne, are well remembered by some of the present generation here and now and they have left records to show these facts.
They all came here simultaneously with the whites from the State of Virginia, between the years 1795 and 1812 and about this there is no mistake, except in the dates these Indians came here from Stoney Creek.
Notes from William Grohse: L. M. Jarvis – Honorable Lewis M. Jarvis the leading lawyer of Sneedville was born in Scott County, Va. October 26, 1829. He was the son of Daniel Jarvis (born 3/15/1799) and Mary Jarvis, nee Mary Collins, of English and Irish descent. Daniel was born in Giles County, Va. His wife Mary was born in Botecourt County, Va. They were married in 1813. Daniel Jarvis died near Sneedville July 29, 1885.
1948 Smithsonian Article Mentioning the Melungeons
There was a 1948 document put out by the Smithsonian Institute that was about the scattered Indian groups found in the Eastern United States. I have that information here -- https://vancehawkins.blogspot.com/2020/10/surviving-indian-groups-of-eastern.html -- Some of those groups referred to the "Melungeon" people. I have included those parts referring to them.
Virginia
Indians –
Melungeons
or Ramps. —
In
the counties located in the extreme western corner of Virginia are to be found
scattered groups of mixed-bloods called Melungeons or Ramps. These people roam
the mountain regions of Virginia, southern West Virginia, Tennessee, and
Kentucky, and originally claimed Portuguese descent. The Virginia Melungeons
are found on the mountain ridges such as Copper Ridge, Clinch Ridge, and Powell
Valley in Lee and Scott Counties, in the vicinity of Coeburn and Norton in Wise
County, near Damascus in Washington County, and in the western Dismal area of
Giles County. No estimate of their numbers is available but they probably
amount to several thousands. They show dark skins with straight or curly black
hair and high cheek bones. Formerly they lived by raising a little corn,
hunting, fishing, digging roots, gathering herbs, and doing odd jobs for their
neighbors. In recent years they have taken to mining and cultivation in the
better areas of bottom lands. The chief family names of Melungeons in this area
are Bolen, Collins, Gibson or Gipson, Freeman, Goins, and Sexton.
Tennessee Indians --
Melungeons.
— This interesting minority comprises several thousand persons who were
originally centered in Hawkins County (now Hancock County) on Newman's Ridge in
the extreme northeast of the State. They have also been reported from various
other counties in the Appalachian Great Valley area, especially Rhea and
Hamilton Counties, and also in the Nashville area. The chief family names in
Tennessee are Collins, Fields, Freeman, Gann, Gibson, Goins, Gorvens, Graham,
Lawson, Maloney, Mullins or Melons, Noel, Piniore, Sexton, and Wright.
Originally ridge cultivators, they have had to resort to additional means of living in recent times, including basketmaking, cooperage, chairmaking, and charcoal burning. Their manner of life is emphatically out-of-doors in character. Their physical type shows the usual range of mixed- blood between lighter and darker types. Indian, white, and especially Portuguese blood are said to be prominent.
Socially they have been recognized as white in the courts and now attend white schools. Illiteracy is widespread however. They have no separate organizations except churches, and they are gradually merging with the remainder of the population.
Kentucky
Some 234 Indians were recorded for Kentucky in 1910. Later census figures do not enumerate as many. Most of the Indians enumerated were in Magoffin and Floyd Counties in the eastern part of the State.
In southern Kentucky on the Tennessee border (in Cumberland and Monroe Counties) is the Coe Clan, a mixed group of part-Indian descent. These people live on Pea Ridge along the Cumberland River in an area bounded partly by that river on the south and west, by Kettle Creek on the east, and Gudio Creek on the north.
Ohio
Near the village of Carmel, Ohio, about 65 miles east of Cincinnati, there is a small group of mixed-blood Indians. They dated back to 1858, when a white man moved here from Virginia with a dozen Negro retainers about the time of the Civil War. The latter mixed with other people who had arrived not long before from Magoffin County in eastern Kentucky and who were reputedly of Indian descent. The present-day Carmel Indians live in shacks on the farmers' lands, where they provide occasional labor and subsist by hunting, sale of ginseng and yellow root, and by their scant stock of chickens and pigs. A few own small plots but the rest have been said to be on relief recently. Many migrated from the area during World War II, but about 50 still remain in the neighborhood. The family names are Nichols, Gibson, and Perkins.
All these four populations, were descended from those same people Dromgoole described as descendants of there "Portuguese Adventurers", whom she also called "Melungeons".
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Great work Vance. dewey Chaffin
ReplyDeleteVance, unable to find older May 2014 entry What Tribe Were Eastern Blackfoot. Thank you for that and quite interested in your conclusion that Nanticokes joined with Delaware. My grandmothers family was from Indiana,think around Anderson. My dad said she's descended from the Delaware. His brother told me Blackfoot. I did find Delaware lived along the White River in central east Indiana, mostly farmed. Many fled to Canada, some hid and stayed there. Rest removed to Kanasas then Oklahoma. They would been ones who hid during round up. Can find source again for you if you wish. So your research is helpful, perhaps both brothers were correct. I think Delaware for sure. That would be something if knowledge of Blackfoot heritage was passed down to my dad's generation (born in 1920s). But would the elders use 'Blackfoot.' No idea. I'm just pleased I seemed to have confirmed Delaware to my satisfaction though need to research our genealogy in Indiana. Now need to go back to your entry, other sources to learn more about Nanticokes in Indiana and known locations.
ReplyDeleteSend me an email address and I'll forward you some material.
DeleteThank you. I am a Goodman by name. John Goodman (Gibson) Over two hundred years we thought we were Goodmans but DNA shows Gilbert Gibson. I just read of Goodman's being Melungeon also. I think John's mother had him with a Gibson but married a Goodman. Truly confusing.
ReplyDelete