American Waves

Race, Ethnicity, & Cultural Identity Issue Date: 10 / 1987

The Appalachian Voice


A nineteenth-century observer, Anne Newport Royall, said, "Like
Shakespear[e], they make a word when at a loss: scawm'd is one of
them, which means spotted." ........



Misnomers and stereotypes

In eastern Tennessee, a group of dark-skinned people called
Melungeons remains something of a mystery, as with other apparently
triracial mixtures. They are believed to be part black, part Indian,
and part French, Portuguese, or Jewish. Several books and a number
of articles have been written about them. Bonnie Ball, in The
Melungeons: Their Origin and Kin (1969), traces the name to a slight
transformation of the French word melangeon, for mixed breed. While
acknowledging the presence of French trappers and traders in the
area centuries ago, she also speculates that the reputed lost colony
of North Carolina may also have provided a source for the
Melungeons.

Long ill-treated by many whites in the area, they were
encouraged to attend community meetings by a local organizer, Ellen
Rector. "They don't talk exactly like we do," Rector told Kathy Kahn
in Hillbilly Women, "but they're really good to talk up at our
meetings. I don't hardly know who is a Melungeon around here.
They've called us all Melungeons. What ain't called Melungeons is
called hillbillies."

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