Melungeon (/məˈlʌndʒən/ mə-LUN-jən) (sometimes also spelled Malungean, Melangean, Melungean, Melungin[3]) was a slur[4] historically applied to individuals and families of mixed-race ancestry with roots in colonial Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina primarily descended from free people of color and white settlers.

[23] Free people of color in colonial Virginia were predominantly of African and European descent; however, many families also had varying amounts of Native American and East Indian ancestry.

[24][25][26][27][28][29] Some modern researchers believe that early Atlantic Creole slaves, descended from or acculturated by Iberian lançados[30] and Sephardi Jews fleeing the Inquisition,[31][32][33][34][35] were one of the pre-cursor populations to these groups.

[44] The term Melungeon likely comes from the French word mélange ultimately derived from the Latin verb miscēre ("to mix, mingle, intermingle").

The Tennessee Encyclopedia states that in the 19th century, "the word 'Melungeon' appears to have been used as an offensive term for nonwhite and/or low socioeconomic class persons by outsiders.

They trace their descent primarily to 2 Indians (Cherokees) known, one of them as Collins, the other as Gibson, who settled in the mountains of Tennessee, where their descendants are now to be found, about the time of the admission of that state into the Union (1796).The earliest historical record of the term Melungeon dates to 1813.

In the minutes of the Stoney Creek Baptist Church in Scott County, Virginia, a woman stated another parishioner made the accusation that "she harbored them Melungins.

In 1894, the US Department of the Interior, in its "Report of Indians Taxed and Not Taxed," under the section "Tennessee" noted: In a number of states small groups of people, preferring the freedom of the woods or the seashore to the confinement of regular labor in civilization, have become in some degree distinct from their neighbors, perpetuating their qualities and absorbing into their number those of like disposition, without preserving very clear racial lines.

)[45][44]In December 1943, Walter Ashby Plecker of Virginia sent county officials a letter warning against "colored" families trying to pass as "white" or "Indian" in violation of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924.

[55] There is no uniquely Melungeon culture, though specific groups have formed into their own tribal entities on the basis of ancestral connections to historical Native American communities.

[50][60] In 1943, Virginia State Registrar of Vital Statistics, Walter Ashby Plecker, identified surnames by county: "Lee, Smyth and Wise: Collins, Gibson, (Gipson), Moore, Goins, Ramsey, Delph, Bunch, Freeman, Mise, Barlow, Bolden (Bolin), Mullins, Hawkins (chiefly Tennessee Melungeons)".

Some myths involve physical characteristics and genetic diseases that are claimed to indicate Melungeon descent, such as shovel-shaped incisors, an Anatolian bump, Familial Mediterranean fever, polydactyly, dark skin with bright colored eyes, and high cheekbones.

[70] From 2005 to 2011, researchers Roberta J. Estes, Jack H. Goins, Penny Ferguson, and Janet Lewis Crain began the Melungeon Core Y-DNA Group online.

They interpreted these results in their (2011) paper titled "Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population",[60] which shows that ancestry of the sample is primarily European and African, with one person having a Native American paternal haplotype.

[60] "Estes and her fellow researchers "theorize that the various Melungeon lines may have sprung from the unions of black and white indentured servants living in Virginia in the mid-1600s, before slavery.

They conclude that as laws were put in place to penalize the mixing of races, the various family groups could only intermarry with each other, even migrating together from Virginia through the Carolinas before settling primarily in the mountains of East Tennessee.

As a large part of their attempts to justify slavery of blacks, they cited their inability to read and write, among other aspects that made them less advanced or civilized than Europeans.

But, this wasn't always the case- some of the people who were enslaved were able to read and write in Arabic, which upset and confused many American colonial settlers at each instance they were discovered.

But, over time, the connotation of being Black Dutch started leading to just as much discrimination and a will amongst white Appalachians to shun anyone they thought might be mixed off into their own separate groups.

[81] Author Jesse Stuart's 1965 novel Daughter of the Legend, set in Tennessee, depicts a love story between a Melungeon girl and a timber cutter from Virginia, and explores socioeconomic and racial tensions among mountain-dwelling families.