Mellungeons and Myth
- Tuesday, October 01, 2002 -
CONCLUSION
Reading Berlin and others leads me to conclude that many slaves in early America and the West Indies were Atlantic Creoles from the western coast of Africa. Slaves were imported into America for over 200 years, so it is likely some Atlantic Creoles arrived in America well after the first slaves in 1619. Is it possible that some mountain families claimed they were Portuguese because they had Atlantic Creole ancestry? It is an interesting possibility, and has some support in the historical record.
Atlantic Creoles were the result of racial mixing that began long before America was settled. Racial mixing continued in Colonial America among people of European, African, Atlantic Creole, American Indian and other ancestries. Racial mixing also continued on the early frontier. It is likely therefore that some mountaineers have both African and Atlantic Creole ancestors.
It appears to me that the debate about Melungeons has more to do with creating myths about ones ancestors than it does with exploring the historical record. Some genealogists deny that any Melungeon families had African ancestry. They describe Melungeons as a people with Indian and European ancestry. These researchers ignore the early mixing of eastern Indian tribes with Africans as well as Europeans. Some claim a group of Portuguese sailors, stranded in early America, mixed with native Indians and later with Europeans to form Melungeon families. I find no evidence for this in the historical record. If this theory were true, however, Melungeons would still have some African ancestry. Atlantic Creoles, with both Portuguese and African ancestry, would have had a large presence among any group of Portuguese sailors in early America. There are other theories that claim Melungeons have Turkish, Gypsy, Jewish or some other ancestry. There is no doubt that there was a remarkable mixture of people in early America. There is little evidence at this time, however, to support the more exotic claims for Melungeon ancestry.
A mathematician recently discussed the fact that every person living in America today can be proven to have descended from any historical person, if that person is distant enough in the past. The time frame discussed regarding possible Melungeon ancestry is from about 1600 to 2000, or 400 years. If a generation is 25 years, then we are discussing 16 generations. Any person living today would have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, and so on. Continuing this for 16 generations means each of us would have had 65,536 ancestors living in 1600. This is clearly impossible considering the large population living today and the much smaller population existing in 1600. This means we have many ancestors in common, which is another way of confirming all humans are related, however distantly. Mountaineers should be proud of all their ancestors, regardless of their color or ethnicity.
Melungeons And Other Pioneer Families, by Jack H. Goins, is a well researched book on the origin of Gibson, Collins and other families that were described as Melungeon in the early 1800s in southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee.
The author, George R. Gibson, welcomes comments about this article. His email address is buzzg@cfl.rr.com; his address is 1311 California Avenue, St. Cloud, FL 34769. George is seriously researching the origin of the banjo in the mountains. He would like to hear from any genealogist who has oral history of family members playing banjo prior to the Civil War.
