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Friday, October 30, 2020

This is almost the Last Blog Entry -- Melungeons were mixed-Catawban, NOT mixed-Portuguese!

I can't format this blog entry right. Curses! Also as you can probably tell, it isn't going to be my last blog entry, Anyhow, I changed the title to "This is ALMOST my last blog entry . . . . It's all relative.

I've said a million times (or more) the Melungeons DID NOT descend from a group of Portuguese Adventurers! NO! NO! NO! I can't believe ANYONE believes this. As I have always said there might have been an original "Melungeon" who also had some original Portuguese ancestry. BUT -- the English, Scots-Irish and African-American contribution to our blood pool with the Saponi/Catawban or Tuscaroran element is so much greater, it dwarfs any possible Portuguese contribution down to essentially ZERO.

The fact that I have said that so often and people STILL don't realize this is what I am saying really bothers me. People trying to tell me my ancestors were Portuguese is ninety-five percent of the reason I wrote half of my blog entries! I don't know how else to say this! In fact it is pointless to keep harping on this topic.

Also I am in my late sixties, and I don't want to spend my remaining years on this topic, or on these topics.

The same is true with the topic or reality of just who the Melungeons really are. I have spent YEARS studying this topic. I am just tired of arguing simple concepts with anyone, or being called a "Wannabe" or something else when I was raised around known Native Americans who accepted me as being of non-federally-recognized Native American-mixed heritage, while someone born and raised in some other states is challenging my heritage. Dad took me to pow-wow's as a child and I still remember him telling people "I have little American Indian blood, not much, though". I have never claimed otherwise. I was born in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, a town filled with Natives. :) I also have taken DNA tests and have a result saying I am tri-racial (Including both Native and African American), but mostly Caucasian. Well, I am tired of trying to prove the same thing year after year.

I used to contact the late-Jerri Chasteen (former Cherokee Nation Registrar). She came to accept me. I was hopeful that would be the end of it. But then she passed away and a new generation came up, and they now questioned my heritage. I am just tired of having to do this, to every person I meet. That's another reason I am just old & tired, and ready to quit blogging.

So this is, and I mean it this time -- my last blog entry. I have proven my case time and again, and am done trying. :) Best wishes yall -- and adios. I'm gone.

I. The Government Acknowledges the Catawba, but Are Ignorant of the Bands Associated With Them

The government acknowledged the Catawban people early on. Then they became aware of Catawban people who lived “off the reservation” that had been forgotten and assimilated. They were perplexed. What were they to do with US? Will Allen Dromgoole gave them a reason to reject us. There was an early small effort to discredit her, but it was too little, too late. The damage was done, and couldn't be rectified. This writing is an effort to record these efforts. But it also is too little too late. EVERYONE is saying we are a bunch of fakes -- and I really hate so much that we are not believed.

1840 Treaty

By 1840 what was to become known as “The Five Civilized Tribes” had already been removed to Oklahoma, then known as “Indian Territory”. Almost all the Indians of the southeastern states had been removed – all except the Catawba and Associated Bands, as well as a few of the Cherokees, and part of the Seminoles, and a few others. While the Catawba proper were all in South Carolina, other bands that had always been associated with them were in both of the Carolinas and nearby Virginia. These had been totally assimilated into White Culture. They had married Whites, and Blacks, and still lived in small villages and farms in the east. They had mostly forgotten their original languages, and many did not live in South Carolina

The state of South Carolina wanted to be rid of all her Indians, just like neighboring states. The other Indians had been removed by the federal government, but the federal government did nothing to remove the Catawba, not to mention the bands associated with them. But only the Catawba had a land base. The three smaller bands had no land base. The descendants of the Saponi lived on the Virginia/North Carolina border, the Cheraw between the Catawba and the Atlantic Coast, on the border between North and South Carolina, and the Pedee on the same North & South Carolina border, between the Cheraw and the Atlantic Coast -- these still lived on, but all three had lost any resemblance to a tribe or nation, and had been assimilated into European culture and ways.

The state of South Carolina decided if the federal government wanted to leave their Indian population alone, they would find another way to rid themselves of their Indians. Remember this is South Carolina before the Civil war, and the Southeastern states were all in favor of “States Rights”. They felt they, as a state, had a right to sign a treaty with the Indians. That treaty has become known as “The Treaty of Nation’s Ford”. I have a copy of it here --

http://vancehawkins.blogspot.com/2018/10/catawba-saponi-melungeon-ch-13-sun.html

It was a simple treaty with only three articles. First, the Indians agreed to sell their lands in South Carolina to the State of South Carolina. Second, the Catawba would remove to lands in Haywood County, North Carolina, which the state of South Carolina would purchase for them. Third, the Catawba would be payed $2,000 annually for a period of ten years. These payments would begin once the Indians had been removed to North Carolina.

There were problems with this. First, South Carolina never told North Carolina about their deal to remove her Indigenous peoples there. North Carolina didn't want them. Second, they never bought the land in Haywood County for them to live on. Third, the land they were supposed to move on was actually the same lands of the North Carolina Cherokee. The Cherokee and Catawba were sometimes on friendly terms, but they had also been at war numerous times as well, and they really didn’t trust each other.

So since the government of South Carolina never bought the land for them to move onto, the people had no where to go once they left their homes. Since they weren’t moved into new homes, the state of South Carolina was under no obligation to pay the Catawba $2,000 per year for ten years.

The descendants of the Saponi, Cheraw, and Pedee people were watching all this very closely. All three, had at one time or another, lived with the Catawba. But remember, none of us had a land base, and we had been without a tribal land base since before the Revolutionary War. We were wondering; "Can we, too, get a land base out of the deal the Catawba signed up for?" We had always considered ourselves to be ONE nation.

Indian Appropriation Act of 1848

I have tried to find this online but with no luck. It was mentioned by a few writers, but I know nothing more about what it contained.

All I know is some Catawban peoples, including some members of the Associated Tribes, travelled to Oklahoma, then known as Indian Territory, in an effort to finally have a land base. Some of these people were adopted by the Choctaw. The vast majority were left stranded, and had to make due, as best they could.

Brown writes in “The Catawba Indians”, p. 323 “On July 29, 1848 the 73rd Congress appropriated $5,000 to defray the expense of the move [to Indian Territory].”

Per Brown, Chief James Kegg wrote a letter to President James Polk at that time and said there were 42 Catawba families who wanted to use that appropriation to move west. He said (p 324) “We humbly beg his Excellency the President . . .to remove us west of the Miss[issippi] under the act of the late Congress” [per the Indian Appropriation Act of 1848 that I just mentioned]. Still on page 324, Brown writes, “Whether the President ever saw the letter is problematical.”

October, 1872 –

Mention is made of some 84 Catawba Indians living in Georgia, who were thought to be Cherokee, who wanted to go to Indian territory. A congressional document dated Feb. 23,1897 mentions them. It can be found here -- I transcribed the entire document.

http://vancehawkins.blogspot.com/2018/10/catawba-saponi-melungeon-ch-14.html

Imbedded in this document is the following;

No action appears to have been taken by the government or any of the Indians on the question of their removal to the Choctaw or any other Indian Country until 1872 when Hon. J. C. Harper, of the House of Representatives from Georgia, brought to the attention of this office the question of the removal of certain Indians in North Carolina and Georgia. Presuming they were Cherokee, this office requested him on the 13th of June, 1872, to furnish a list of the names and ages of said Indians. In reporting the names, Mr. Joseph McDowell, of Fairmount, Georgia, under date of October 1872 (Misc. M., 229), stated that the Indians referred to, and asking relief of the government, were Catawba Indians, and 84 in number, viz:

Those italicized desired permission of the president to settle in the Indian Territory, all of whom Mr. McDowell states were good and loyal people, and that if any Indian deserved assistance from the government these Indians did: that their grandfathers on both sides the government in the War for Independence, and that their names were on the muster rolls in the War Department.

William Guy, of Granville County, Georgia, and Simon Jeffers, of Belleville Virginia, Catawba Indians, served five years in the Army and were honorably discharged, and these 84 persons were their descendants.

This is of great importance since these Indians NEVER lived on the Catawba Reservation, but has lived where other mixed-Saponi live to this day (2020) on the Virginia/North Carolina border. They descended from Revolutionary War Veterans, and they were requesting to be removed to Indian Territory, the present state of Oklahoma, and they wanted to be treated as Native Americans, and be given lands here in Oklahoma as a Native American tribe.

Apparently James Kegg made a second statement of importance some years later.

On the 21st of November, 1887, James Kegg, of Whittier North Carolina, in addressing the Secretary of the Interior (No. 31383), made the following statement, viz.:

Many years ago, his people, the Catawba Indians, leased the land they owned in South Carolina and became a wondering tribe, without homes for their wives and children. They made application he states, to the Cherokees of North Carolina, for homes upon their land and made over to them all their leased lands in South Carolina in consideration of their adoption into their tribe; that about 500 were so adopted and have been identified as such; that some 300 of them were removed west under the Cherokee Treaty of New Echota, made December 29th, 1835, leaving a few living among the Cherokees as Cherokee citizens and a small portion remaining in South Carolina “upon a section of land which they owned and was not leased out for a term of years, upon which they now reside.” Those Catawbas remaining in South Carolina, Mr. Kegg states, had no interest whatever in the lands which were leased out by those who became Cherokees by adoption, and he wished to ascertain whether or not the United States gave its consent to the Catawbas to lease out their lands to the State of South Carolina or to her citizens, and if so, upon what terms and the length of term said leases ran.

Now I want to see and understand the 1835 Treaty of New Echota of December 29th, 1835. I looked at it, and saw no references to the Catawba in it. But there was one small mention of "mixed-blood Catawbas". I believe it was referring to Cherokees who had taken Catawba husbands and/or wives. I'll look into that and respond if it proves of interest.

Four Short Newspaper Articles referring to the Catawba, one from "The Vinita Chieftain", and the other three from "The Fort Smith Elevator". I have three of those four small articles below. The fourth is listed a few paragraphs further down. Vinita is a small town in the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.

The Vinita Chieftain, March 1^st, 1888

“The Western Catawba Indian Association, with headquarters in Fort Smith, proposes to petition congress to set aside for the use of all persons of Indian blood, not members of any tribe, a portion of the Indian Territory.”

Fort Smith is on the Cherokee Nation/Choctaw Nation/Arkansas border.

August 16, 1889, The Fort Smith Elevator, Western Catawba Indian Association

The Catawba Indian Association met at Rocky Ridge on the 10th. The meeting was called to order by the President. After the reading of the minutes and the calling of the roll of the officers, transacting other business that came before the order, a call for new members was made and 90 was added to the new list, after which the meeting adjourned to meet at Ault’s’ Mill, three miles south of Fort Smith, the second day of the fair, the 16th day of October, where the delegates and all persons interested will please attend without further notice, as matters of interest will be considered.

J. Bain, President

G. W. Williamson, Secretary

“October 25th, 1889 p. 3 col. 5, From Fort Smith Historical Society publication.

The librarian at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith wrote me the following;

Hello Mr. Hawkins,

Attached is a copy of the article you requested. The article mentioned another meeting held on October 16th and I found it in the October 25th edition but the film was so dark I could not get a good print to scan. The text of the article follows. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

“Attention Catawba’s!”

The Western Catawba’s Indian Association met at Ault’s Mill October 16, 1889, at which meeting a number of new members were added to the Association, thus making it nearly 4,000 strong. They appointed an executive committee which is empowered to transact all business and place the matter before congress. The Association adjourned to convene again at a called meeting of the president.”

James Bain, President., Geo. E. Williams, Scary,

Western Catawba Indian Association

The government hadn’t made up its mind up, by this time, as to how to deal with the Western Catawba Indian Association or how to treat us. This indecision was about to come to an end. A woman named Will Allen Dromgoole had written an article about some people she was just learning about. Her writing made it easier to turn down the cries of the western Catawba settlers in Indian Territory. I found it online, but I forgot to properly site the source and give that source proper credit. I will find it again and will properly cite and credit the source.

III. The Government Changes Its Opinion About the Bands Associated with the Catawba

1891 – Will Allen Dromgoole

Her story proved to be the doom of those Catawban peoples who were trying to organize in Indian Territory. It made the government distrust the motives of the mixed-blood families who moved here to Oklahoma. Early in 1897, the government rejected the Catawban bid to become federally recognized in what was to become my home state of Oklahoma. The people gave up the effort as a result. Today, in the year 2020, this effort is just a half forgotten memory. In 1888 and 1889 we see articles in Vinita, IT and Ft. Smith, Ark, where some of our ancestors were trying to organize, creating a “Western Catawba Indian Association” with the hopes of turning it into a tribal entity which we hadn’t had in a very long time. It failed.

Ms. Dromgoole's writings are also a principle reason “the Melungeon” peoples of southwestern Virginia and northeastern Tennessee also never became state recognized in the states that have state recognition. For these reasons this must become known.

In an attempt to discover just who the Melungeons were, she went up to some Tennessee politicians. Here is what she wrote; 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-word,” was the reply. “Representative T____ can tell you all about them, they live in his county."

She found him, and asked him; “Please tell me what is a Malungeon?” “A Malungeon,: said he, “isn’t a n-word, and he isn’t an Indian, and he isn’t a white man. God only knows what he is . . .” She then continues in her own words, I merely mention all this to show how the Malungeons to-day are regarded, and to 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 believed by the people round about to be a kind of half-breed Indian.

So she based her opinion on what a Melungeon was on what a few politicians in Eastern Tennessee told her, rather than what the Melungeons themselves said. Here is another paragraph of her writing that is of interest.

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 practiced 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.

In the above paragraph it is assumed as a fact that a marriage between a Black man and a White woman was immoral. Also it mentioned he had been arrested several times and that he claimed he was Portuguese, and his Portuguese blood had darkened is skin. AND it says “he was released” because of his plea of Portuguese rather than African ancestry! If you were this man or one like him, wouldn’t YOU claim Portuguese ancestry, too? THIS is the origin of Portuguese ancestry, not ACTUAL Portuguese ancestry. But claims of Portuguese ancestry would circulate, and there are thousands of descendants of Melungeon families to this day who claim some Portuguese ancestry when in fact, it is African. Also notice when Will Allen Drumgoole saw the Melungeons first hand, she replied “In appearance, they bear a striking resemblance to the Cherokees.” Could this be the confusing origin of believing themselves of Cherokee ancestry rather than Catawban? I suspect it was.

Still in the 1890s descendants of these same people who’d migrated into the Indian Territory were trying to form the Western Catawba Indian Association in an effort to recieve lands in Oklahoma and Federal Recognition as a Native American tribe.'

She also wrote the following of the Melungeons;

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.

And;

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.

Having been born in Eastern Oklahoma, and I have seen some Indian Cemeteries there. I have a Muscogeean friend who lives in Northeastern Oklahoma, and asked him to read this story. I wanted his opinion of this custom of burial ceremonies and practices of these Melungeon families. This is his reply; "That does remind me of native cemetery tradition indeed..."

IV. The Last Hope

There is one last short article mentioning the Western Catawba.

The Fort Smith Elevator” (newspaper), date probably early Jan 1895.

All Catawba Indians by blood or otherwise are requested to meet at the County Court House in Fort Smith Arkansas on Thursday, Jan 24th, 1895 at 10 o’clock a. m. for the purpose of perfecting the census roll of the Western Catawba Indian Association and the transaction of other matters that may come before the meeting. All Catawba Indians are expected to be present or by proxy as business of importance will come before the meeting.

This is the last article I found in the Fort Smith Elevator speaking of the "Western Catawba Indian Association". I must assume these Western Catawba sent a letter to the Senate asking to be recognized. In 1897 the government sent their reply.

Department of the Interior, Washington, Feb. 1, 1897. The Catawba Tribe of Indians, 54th Congress, 2nd session, Doc. 144, February 23rd, 1897

On Feb. 23,1897 the federal government released its reply to the Western Catawba’s request for federal recognition and lands in Oklahoma. This document came out only after Ms. Dromgoole said we were mixed-Portuguese. Did her writings have any effect of the government's decision to reject us? The document starts out by saying;

February 23rd, 1897 – ordered to be printed as Senate Document for use of committee on Indian Affairs. Mr. Pettigrew presented the following memorial on behalf of the individuals formerly comprising and belonging to the Catawba Tribe of Indians.

Notice it says these individuals FORMERLY comprised and belonged to the Catawba Tribe of Indians. This is recognition by the United States government of Catawban ancestry – NOT Portuguese.

The heart and conclusion of the document states the following;

I have to say that it is the policy of the government to abolish the tribal relationship of the Indians as fast as possible, and to settle each Indian upon a separate tract of land that he can call his own, to the end that he may become self-supporting and independent of government bounty. It would not be in keeping with this policy, I think, to gather up people who happen to have more or less Indian blood in their veins and are living among the Whites, separate and apart from Indian communities, and incorporate them into a tribe and place them upon an Indian Reservation.

I strongly suspect Will Allen Dromgoole's comments were a factor in this rejection. Why would they allow a lost colony of Portuguese Adventurers ANY Indian land? This wasn't true, of course. But they clamed that it was.

1901 – Cole family claims Catawban ancestry

There was a newspaper article in Nashville, Th that spoke of a Cole Family out of Magoffin County, Kentucky that was Catawban. Here are a few excerpts from it.

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 some way related to “Old Billie” Cole, a Catawba Chief, who came here from North Carolina and settled in Floyd County nearly a century ago.

That would mean these Catawban families settled in Eastern Kentucky about 1800. This whole article can be found imbedded in this blog entry.

http://vancehawkins.blogspot.com/2020/10/some-eastern-bands-of-catawban-peoples.html

1903 – Jarvis Lewis article claiming Melungeons were of Native American ancestry.

Mr. Jarvis Lewis was a man who had lived around the Melungeons all his life. His parents had lived near them, as well. His whole writing can be found in the same previously mentioned blog entry --

http://vancehawkins.blogspot.com/2020/10/some-eastern-bands-of-catawban-peoples.html

Here is a little of what he says about them. 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. [some of this "fake news" was Ms. Dromgoole's writings.] 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 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 [writers note: my ancestors lived ON Stony Creek at this time, too.], 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 [author's note: I am a 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 1812-1814 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. [Stony Creek is in southwestern Virginia. Stony Creek was near the location of Fort Blackmore, and it was founded at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, so they were at this location by the mid/early-1770s.].

This is of interest for many reasons. One. He wrote this as a counter to what Will Allen Dromgoole had written about them being descended from a band of Portuguese Adventurers. He says they arrived with the first white men and built Fort Blackmore with them. Documents say one of the two Blackmore brothers was assignee of my direct ancestor. This is from a different line, not the Gibson line. I have three known lines from that region. That it calls him "assignee" means he got the land from my ancestor. Fort Blackmore was built in the early 1770s. He then says some came from 1795-1812. Remember the record of the Cole family that said they arrived nearly a century previously? That article was written in 1901, so a hundred years previously would have been about 1801. This is the same time frame as the Melungeons. They originally KNEW they were Catawban, as was the case with the Cole family. They are called "the friendly Indians" by Jarvis Lewis. During the Revolutionary War, the Catawba’s were friendly to the Whites and the Cherokee were mostly hostile to the settlers. But Will Allen Dromgoole used the term "Cherokee", not "Indian" to describe them. Later generations have remembered that. Since her writings became famous, and the Cole's, Guy's, and Jefferies' writing saying that they were Catawban was soon forgotten. The former was recalled, and the latter was tossed aside.

Dr. Richard Carlson and Forest Hazel both wrote of Saponi families that came to Indian Territory only to be rejected. Dr. Carlson wrote his PhD thesis on the topic from Michigan State University. Forrest Hazel wrote of the Guy and Jeffries families I mentioned above, who were veterans of the Revolutionary War. These also claimed Catawban ancestry, and wanted to come to Oklahoma, so they could have a national land base. There were over 200 descendants of the Sizemore family alone who were rejected from the Cherokee Guion-Miller Rolls, yet their male y-chromosome DNA test came back Native American. They weren't rejected because they were not Native, but rather because they were not Cherokee. The Guy and Jeffries families are the 84 'Indians' descended from Revolutionary War veterans, that I mentioned earlier. Mr. Hazel refers to them as Saponi Indians in his research. The government article I mentioned above says they are Catawba. The Saponi ARE Catawban! In colonial Virginia they were referred to as Yesah. The colonial South Carolinians referred to us as "Esaw". After teh Yamassee War abt 1710-1715 both these terms fell out of favor, as war and several small pox epidemics left just a few survivors. But the band called "Catawba" was still intact, and this term came to be used to describe all the people. After They are ALL the same people. The Saponi ARE Catawban. So are the Cheraw and Pedee. Dr. Carlson said the following in his PhD dissertation; “. . .In 1896, J. W. Perkins and John Baldwin again petitioned the Federal Government as well as the Cherokee Nation for permission to move as a body to Indian Territory, but the attempt failed.” Perkins is one of the surnames listed in the 1948 Smithsonian document as belonging to the Melungeons, falsely called "Portuguese" by Ms. Dromgoole. Melungeon families are NOT primarily Portuguese. I also have added Ms. Dromgoole's complete 1891 article to the end of blog entry below.

Vance Hawkins: Surviving Indian Groups of the Eastern United States; 1948

Conclusion

I hope I have dispelled the misleading accounts of the Melungeons being primarily “Portuguese”. Sure there might have been a single Portuguese amongst the mix. But the European component was far more often of English, Scots-Irish, or of French Huguenot descent. There was also an African and a Catawban component as well. The word "malungeon" is of French origin and means "we mix" when you conjugate the French verb, to mix, which is malunger (sp?). Many thousands of French Huguenots settled in the region.

In the government’s denial of Federal Recognition of the Western Catawba Indian Association in Oklahoma, they stated their reasons very clearly;

We were TOO mixed, TOO assimilated, to still be considered Native American. We were considered to be TOO advanced for us to be considered Natives. They HAD to see us as savages, as blood thirsty and war like – and that was not who we were. We looked too much like them.

I have enjoyed writing and studying history and genealogy. Genealogical research makes no since if you don't learn about history as well. You need to marry names & dates & locations with historical events. We walked the earth. We have a collective memory of having Native American heritage -- we faked nothing. I have already written and shown our proof. If you want to see it, it is all written in previous blog entries.

I appreciate others who want to learn of history. I hope my research is beneficial. I hope others will research their own families. I have always strove to be factual --this is important to me. I have travelled blind allies, but I have backed out of those blind allies, and started fresh, as well.

Family photos (and a couple of maps) are at the bottom of this blog entry.

Vance Hawkins: What Happened to the Catawba and Associated Bands in “Indian Territory”?

There is no outward proof that much of Oklahoma was once part of a great, shallow inland sea. But there IS a gypsum mine a few miles west of town. Gypsum is formed in shallow seas. I can therefore infer we were part of an inland sea through using both inductive and deductive reasoning. If you can think this through logically; then you can also come to the conclusion that we were CATAWBAN, and NOT Portuguese. This is probably as close to finding the truth as I will ever get. Read all the blog entries -- it's already there.

I really think I am swimming upstream, and my swimming muscles are growing weaker. Unfortunately, I'm no salmon. I don't expect anyone will remember that we were here.

I am done with researching. I wish yall the best. I am old & tired. Adios. :)

ps -- I promised to leave a link to the online source of Dromgoole's writing that I quoted above. Here it is

“The Malungeons” by Will Allen Dromgoole (1891 article) – Melungeon Heritage Association

I also saved it to a previous blog entry and left the link to is you will find a few paragraphs above.

ADDENDUM

One researcher never lets me get a word in edgewise. She has said Are you aware a SHIPLOAD of Portuguese sailors came with de Soto, borrowing women from each town -- they didn't skip Catawbas. The CHEROKEE CATAWBA Trading Path from VA crossed over the Flat River through Orange Co., to Yadkin/Saponi. The Catawba, like other Carolina tribes were mixed with Spanish, Portuguese, African and even Genoans in the 1500s. There are dozens of court cases on the Portuguese Melungeons from Carolinas to Texas. Tax men, sheriffs, neighbors and even Bushyhead of the Cherokee testify they were PORTUGUESE.

This is proof of NOTHING at all! What if De Soto brought Portuguese along with him? What if they stole and raped Native women? What if some were Eastern Siouan? Does this have anything at all to do with the "Melungeons"? NO! A good genealogist KNOWS you MUST map i.] surnames,ii.] Dates and iii.] Locations! To say a Portuguese person lived in the 16nth century within 200 miles of a family living in the 19th century is NOT proof that 19th century family descended from that 16nth century person. You need to prove the Portuguese a.) came with De Soto; and b.) kidnapped and raped local women. Then you must try to track each succeeding generation up to the present. So if Portuguese came with De Soto, give their names. Do any Portuguese surnames match the surnames of the 19th century Melungeon families? Englishmen also probably did this in the 17th century. And we have English surnames as we would expect. Does that make these Englishmen also "Melungeons"? Why aren't these people at all concerned about this? I am mixed English and Scots-Irish. I could say my ancestors were Swedes because I heard some Vikings were Swedish and the Vikings also invaded England, Scotland, and Ireland in the 8th and 9th centuries. There are documents stating the African and Native peoples mixed into the 19th century! So what? Even Dromgoole stated this. She doesn't state any first hand knowledge of Portuguese immigrants arriving in America taking Native wives -- NONE. Those court cases are very interesting. Even Dromgoole says Black/mixed Melungeons claimed their skin was "Blackened" by Portuguese ancestry, and for this reason they claimed Portuguese ancestry. They were just scared of being thought of as "Black" in a very racist land in the early 19th century. There is ONE Portuguese surname -- Chavis. NO OTHER. If these Portuguese men had fathered half-Portuguese native sons, why are there not a dozen or more Portuguese surnames? She has NO PROOF, only speculation. If the Portuguese were a major component of the Melungeon makeup -- there'd be many more Portuguese surnames, and that's just not the case.

There is the case with the DNA markers. The Iberian Peninsula has been invaded numerous times. The Carthaginians, who were Phoenicians. Then the Romans came. The entire Mediterranean region was Roman. Next came the Western Goth's, who were Germanic possibly mixed with Slavic peoples. And lastly the Moroccans, aka Moors. Islamic people ranged from Turkey to India in the north and east, to the Somalians and Nigerians in the in the south and West. Since the Anglo-Saxons were Germanic, and the Slaves were African, well don't you see the same mixtures in both populations. Even the Turkic peoples came from Central Asia, and some Native American markers also go back to Central Asia. So African/Anglo/Native markers could be mistaken for Iberian. They have NOT proven their case that we were Portuguese. They HAVE however. muddied the waters, and that's just sad.

Sunday, October 18, 2020

Some Eastern Bands of the Catawban Peoples, 1890s-1900s.

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.

Their mountains became a terror to travelers; and not until within the last half decade has it been regarded as safe to cross Malungeon territory.

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.

Yet if we will consider a moment, we shall see that a race of mulattoes cannot exist as these Malungeons have existed. The race goes from mulattoes to quadroons, from quadroons to octoroons, and there it stops. The octoroon women bear no children, but in every cabin of the Malungeons may be found mothers and grandmothers, and very often great-grandmothers.

“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.

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.

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.

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 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.”

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.

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.

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

The writing of the time of the founding says it as founded about 1771. This narrows down the timeframe of the arrival of the “friendly Indians to about this time – about the beginning of the 1770s. My Gist ancestors arrived there about 1769 or 1770. [add quote how Mr. Blackmore was assignee of Nathaniel Gist for the land]

All 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.

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.

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.

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.

Other tribes of southeastern woodland peoples have similar gravesites.

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.

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.

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".