CHAPTER
VIII,
WHO ARE WE?
Origin
of the word 'Malungeon'.
There
is 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 a settlement of
the Saponi Indians, who were made up of the remnants of many bands of
the Eastern Siouan peoples.
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
ethnogrophers and other professional researchers were aware of the
Greasy Rock (Hancock
County, Tennessee),
Stone Mountain (Scott
County, Virginia),
and Salyerrsville (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.
Of
the term Melungeon, Carlson says;“No
confirmed etymplogy of this regionally specific label has been
developed., but most contend the word stems from the French ‘melange,
meaning ‘mixing’.
More
about Rev. John Fontaine, 1715-1719 and the French Hugeunots
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. Several paragraphs are dedicated to
Rev. John Fontaine. Quoting from it, we have;
“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 ot the
remaining Saponi Indians.
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 Spaniard.” From
early days, early colonists realized that mixed race children looked
somewhat like Spaniards or Portuguese.
http://virginiahuguenot.blogspot.com/.
Learn
more about Virginia’s Huguenot peoples at the link above.
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 other's say Turkish, Jewish, or Arabic. After
they have decided the origin (without any evidence), then then go
o0ut and see a random Portuguese servant, a story of escaped slaves.
They look for galley slaves, or some other tale – anything will do.
But the word “melungeonit is none of these – it is French.
Those
who claim it is of African origin say it goes back to Mozambique. But
Mozambique is in East Africa and most slaves in America came from
West Africa. They say Angloa was a Portuguese colony and the
Portuguese brought slaves to America. But they took thm to Brazil,
mostly. However there is still a remote possiblity Angolan slaves
might have gotten to the Carolinas and Virginia. I'll grant that.
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.
Some
claim there was a shipload of Turkish slaves that got dumped on the
Carolina coasts. Somehow they made their way to the Southern
Appalatians.
However
to prove any of these things you need to show records of these people
not only in Virginia, but records showing how they went from coastal
Virginia to the interior and ultimately to the same locations where
the Melungeon families are later found. 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 hupothesis.
They have each shown a direct line from Fort Christanna to
communities of many families of mixed race families. 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 surnames 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
tolarence to cold weather into the African slaves. From what we have
learned, when capturing Indian slaves, males were often killed and
only women and children captured. They wanted to breed strong
workers, and they did create a race of strong men. The idea of a
Turkish origin might be discussed in a similar manner. Is there a
record of any Turkish settlers arriving on the coastline and
migrating inland through the regions the Melungeons reach. One must
immediately ask why there are not 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 conquestidores 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 evidence for all
thees other peoples combined, when compared to evidence for an
Saponi/Catawba origin of these people. Now for the origin of the word
“melungeon”.
I
think the word “melungeon” is of French origin, and here's why.
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 ‘malungeon’.
Http://conjugator.reverso.net/conjugation-french-verb-m%C3%A9langer.html
From the website above we have the correct way to conjugate the
French verb, “melanger.” If we observe only the present tense, we
obtain the following –
Congegation,
Present Tense, of the French Verb, “melanger”
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 living near the Melungeon and Indian communities.
Before making any claims, we have these i.] French speakng people
ii.] living in the right place iii.] during the right time in
history. With the other groups you are just asking about people.
There is no means to get them to the interior. You have owrds that
“look a little bit” like the word “melungeon” but it is NOT
exact as is the french word.
Wilburn
Waters
Mr.
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
this station [Gist's
Station]
in 1777, after their capture of Jane Whittaker and Polly Alley, and
finding it well defended make no attack upon it. Now
they went on and attacked the next fort. I have wondered if there
were other reasons this [Gist's Station] fort was spared, but we may
never know. Wilburn Water's was 1/4th
Catawba.
But just who was Wilburn Waters? What can we discover about him?
http://www.newrivernotes.com/topical_history_books_waters_wilburn.htm
We
have the following about Wilburn Waters 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 . ” Chapter 2 starts with the following words;
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.
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 according to Carlson, these
Saponi who would become known as Melungeons, who were a band of the
Catawba, had moved) ii.] Was mixed race Catawba, and iii.] His father
was French Huguenot. So 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 some living in coastal Virginia saying they are
“Melungeon”, and then we can never trace a family member EVER
moving to the Virginia/Tennessee border. This isn't finding a person
of Purtuguise 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 that is similar to
“Melungeons” that the “Melungeons” on the the
Tennessee/Virginia border derives from excaped slaves and that it is
a mere coincidence that this is the only word they recall “from the
old country”. Wilburn Waters was a REAL MAN of mixed
French-Catawban ancestry who lived in the Melungeon community.
We
have shown a French Huguenot minister visited the Fort Christanna
Saponi and associated bands early in the second decade of the 18th
century.
In fact there were thousands of French Huguenot refugees from
European persecution during that time frame, in the Carolinas and
Virginia. This region of the country is also the origin of the
Melungeon families.
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. These are all tantalizing and intriguing – but
the simplest explanation is the French origin, which is an EXACT
MATCH, letter for letter.
Bad
Ideas
There
are numerous TERRIBLE ideas as to just how the Melungeons became to
be called by that name.
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 ‘took 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.”
Carlson
says all these ideas are flawed and he provides three reasons, the
most important of which, in my opinion – and my opinion and a buck
and a half 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 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.
Melungeon
DNA Test
The
Huffington Post article is a little misleading (link above). They
seemed to gloat a little that only African American and Caucasian DNA
was reported, except for the small amout 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 the history of these “extinct” Eastern Siouan tribes.
There are many good boks about us.
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."
But
reading the article found at the link below – there is no real
denial of American Indian ancestry, while there report DOES deny any
Portuguese ancestry.
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
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. . . .
Formation
of Melungeon DNA Project
The
Core Melungeon DNA Project was formed at Family Tree DNA in July of
2005[3] 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, 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.
Parts
of this paper seem to discuss parts of MY family. The first two
records of the word Melungeon, might have referred to our family.
From fhe first record, found in Baxter County, Arkansas, we have a
reference to Batesville, Arkansas, a town only 20 miles from the
hometown of our ancestor, and both might have been there in 1819,
when my ancestor was named overseer to that place, and Jacob Mooney
was said to go through Batesville in 1819. The second record of the
Melungoens, was from the Minutes of Stony Creek Primitive Church. Our
Wayland’s namees are all over those minutes. From the study, we
have quoted the following below –
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.,[4] 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.
"The
four men who had come with Mooney were men of Mystery, referred to by
oldtimers 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."[5]
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."[5]
Why would they move west with the Indians? They moved west into
Indian Territory (Oklahoma) because they were Indian as well.
The
next written record of Melungeons is found in Scott County, Virginia
in the Stony Creek[6] church minutes in 1813[7] when a reference was
made to “harboring them Melungins.”[8]
From
that point forward in time, we access historical documents to
determine which families were originally considered to be Melungeon.
[104.]
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. So I am very interested in the study of the
Melungeons. However we were excluded from this DNA test. I know we
don't descend down a known male or female line to our Melungeon
surnames. But the fact that these others descend back to English
surnames suggests they don't elther. Their test was doomed from the
beginning. But they had good intentions and they meant well.
My
family story says we DO HAVE mixed Indian blood. My family story
NEVER MENTIONS ANY Portuguese blood – NEVER! I do have an uncle who
I recall saying something to me when I was a child. I was curious
about our ancestry and I remember Uncle Andrew saying “Be
careful. You might not like what you find.” Now
we were never ashamed about having Indian blood, I don’t think –
well, some of might have been. But to have Negro blood would have
been taboo back then. He said this when I was a child, probably in
the later part of the 1950s or the 1960s. I think this is what he was
referring to. My autosomal DNA test did say we also had some
sub-Sahara African ancestry.
I
suspect we have NO reference to the Portuguese simply because we were
living in a part of Arkansas where there was no immediate threat of
being enslaved in the mid 19th
century,
as was the case in Eastern Tennessee and other places they wre termed
“Portuguese”. Those people might have been termed runaway slaves,
and they wanted to combat those accusations by saying their ancestors
were Portuguese, not Black! My family had successfully assimilated –
theirs had not.
They
refer also to Lewis Jarvis article where he mentions the surnames of
several Melungeon families, including “others not remembered” who
have 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.
Some
of them stopped on Stony Creek, Scott County, Virginia, where Stony
Creek runs into Clinch River.
The
white immigrants with the friendly Indians erected a fort on the bank
of a river and called it Fort Blackmore[23]
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,
etc. 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 can scarcely find one of the original
Indians; a few half-bloods and quarter-bloods balance white or past
the third generation."
Well
the brother of the founder of Fort Blackmore, Joseph Blackmore,
purchased land at Castlewood, near where Russell, Wise, and Scott
counties come together. He was assignee of Nathaniel Gist! Not the
famous Nathaniel Gist, but his first cousin, who lived many years in
Cumberland County, North Carolina. Both DNA testing and genealogical
records say that I am a direct his direct descentant. My Harriet Gist
married David Brown, and their daughter Josephine Brown married
married Jeffrey Richey, son of Sarah Ann Wayland, in Arkansas in
1872.
The
report also tells us why they would NOT be Portuguese, yet claim
Portuguese heritage. It says –
“If
the Melungeons were not Portuguese, why would they have said that
they were? The answer to this question may be at least partially
found in the 1834 Tennessee constitutional amendment, which went into
effect in 1835, and meant significant changes for those citizens
designated as "free persons of color."
“Every
free white man of the age of twenty-one years, being a citizen of the
United States, and a citizen of the county wherein he may offer his
vote, six months next preceding the day of election, shall be
entitled to vote for members of the general Assembly, and other civil
officers, for the county or district in which he resides: provided,
that no person shall be disqualified from voting in any election on
account of color, who
is now by the laws of this State, a competent witness in a court of
Justice against a white man. All free men of color, shall be exempt
from military duty in time of peace, and also from paying a free poll
tax.”
So
we know why they said they were Portuguese in Tennessee, but not in
Arkansas. The report continues --
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, grand child, or great grand
child, of a negro shall be deemed, accounted, held and taken to be a
mulatto."
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.[29] 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.[30] DeMarce suggests that an obvious explanation is
the perpetual wish for non-African ancestry, which had led to a
plethora of myths.[31] 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.
The
report then spends a lot of time discussing about a dozen court cases
where they had to prove they were not Negro. Portuguese were
considered Caucasian, but were expected to be dark complected because
of 800 years of Moorish rule over their homeland, so they claimed
they were Portuguese.
Since
our Keziah Wayland appears to have been a “Gibson;” and Thomas
and Mary Gibson had a known daughter named “Cusiah”, and these
ARE KNOWN Meulngeon peoples, I have a sincere interest in these
peoples. I am interested in what the report ways about the Gibson’s.
The DNA results for some Gibson’s came, some back African, some
Caucasian. Maybe that is OUR ancestor? I don’t know, but it is
possible. Here is what the report says about the Gibson’s and the
part of their family that has an African origin:
E1b1a
– Ivory Coast, Guyana, Sierre Leone. This is in West Africa, not
East Africa where the word that is “similar” to Melungeon, is
found.
The
report asks the question – Were they Melungeons? 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. Denham does not appear to
be Portuguese. 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.”
As
for African ancestry, they say;
“Of
the eight African Melungeon lines, all have Haplotree Matches along
the slave and gold coasts . . .” This
is the same region of African mentioned above, as the origin of some
of the Gibson’s. Hmmm . . . so NONE of the Melungeon families has
DNA that matches the DNA of the people on the West African coast, who
have a word n their languaage that is similar to “Melungeon”.
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.
How
do we resolve the pervasive oral history of Native heritage with the
overwhelming African and European haplogroups being found? 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
social customs most dramatically affecting the eastern Indian
populations of Virginia and North Carolina were the Native customs of
hospitality which included providing a male traveler (there were few
if any female travelers in the back country) with a bedmate for the
night, trader marriages, Indian slavery practices and
adoptions.[243]”.
Considering
the Lumbee, who are in reality are mixed with the the Pee Dee,
Cheraw, and other Eastern Siouan groups, most likely, 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.”
So
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.
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 . .
.”
This
is a wonderful report, with both observation and empirical data
agreeing to say the Melungeons are NOT Portuguese, and NOT Cherokee.
But they are sub-Sahara African, Caucasian, and there is some small
admixture of American Indian as well.
This
report is in responce to the Huffington Post article found here.
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, however 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. However we don't have a direct male or female line
back to either the Wayland or Guess/Gist surnames. Therefore we were
not allowed to partake of this test.
Flaw
in Melungeon DNA Test
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 th 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, yet the infusion of both 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 generation. Likewise, only 50% of the
mtDNA, which we inherit from our mothers, will remain from the
American Indian side of the lineage. So we can extrapolate further
generations –
RETENTION
OF AMERICAN INDIAN Y-CHROMOSOME DNA
1st
generation
– 100%
2nd
generation
– 50 %
3rd
generation
– 25%
4th
generation
– 12.5%
5th
generation
– 6.125%
6th
generation
– 3.0625%
In
the year 1800 these families were considered mixed-bloods. If we
consider 4 generations per century, by the year 2000 we have 8
generations passing since the year 1800. So let’s add 2 more
generations.
7th
generation
– 1.53125%
8th
generation
– 0.765625%
Oh
yes, don’t forgot, these people were already mixed when
they were first recorded about the year 1800, so let us add one more
generation:
9th
generation
– 0.3828125, or slightly more than one third of one percent of the
descendants of the original 30 American Indians would still retain
the American Indian markers of their y-chromosonal DNA, 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 9 generations we get (30 persons)*
(0.3828125)= 1.14843750, or about one of those original 30 might
still retain that original information. 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 thirty families that have lost that
marker. And that is exactly what we have. They should have had a
mathematician (like me:) ) do their number crutching.
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 peoples 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. [39]
Carlson
doesn’t mention the Portuguese connection again for some time. On
page 60 he states; One
month later [note,
he had been speaking of the early Spring of 1716],
the Governor [Spotswood]
paid
another visit to Fort Christanna] with a clergyman named Rev. John
Fontaine.
Fontaine was a French Huguenot, showing an early connection between
the future “Melungeon” peoples and the French language.
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 lived in Portugal and Spain for 800 years. [189].
They were originally from Morocco, hence the name “Moor”.
On
page 81 Carlson talks of both Byrd and Fontaine, saying; “Byrd
also brought Rev. Fontaine on the survey. [195]
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.
[322] 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 father was a Frenchman born in
France, who knew the French language as it was his first language. He
would have known the meaning of “Malungeon” very well.
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..
But
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 telling 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 ourselves 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 idiotic 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.
Citations
(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
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