Melungeon! A historical and virtually unheard of race!  

Wow, that's very interesting. I'm from Mississippi and have never heard this term before; I guess it's a bit of an Appalachia thing. I actually had to Google the term just to check if you weren't making this up, but it is definitely for real. It's fascinating to think about how these pockets of people with such different origins happened to settle in eastern Tennessee and other nearby areas.

umm... I have never heard of these people. They sure are new to me but they have probably been here quite awhile.. I think. All that mixed into one person sure is pretty amazing. The name Melungeons is making me think of dungeons lol. I dont any melungeons, I think. I know people that are english/african american which seems pretty close. I havent seen any native americans well except on tv. I am not sure where they live or if theres a secret place they hide. I wonder if native american children go to public school.
Makes me think but I sure want to meet one. I also want to meet a Melungeon, I wonder what they look like. But you know everyone looks the same race is not a matter. Tennessee is like 2 states away from me so thats pretty far. I might go there sometimes. I dont know why but there sure are alot of indians near a casino lol. I might go to the casino there possibly to meet this Melungeon race. Peace out and good night.

well they have lost a third of there population which was 10,000 in the 1950,s and a third of the 10,000 is on welfare and half of those have to leave to find work.the only town is sneedville population 1300 which have no theater,no hospital,no dry cleaners,no supermarket,no department stores.

i have lived in tennessee all my life & i reckon this is the first time i have heard of them i did google them & their is alot of info on them pretty intersting stuff on there. if there is any in nw tennessee where i am i don't know it. it seems they don't let it be known who they are. seems as if they are coming out more than they ever have. you may know some decendants & don't even know it. that would be interesting.

Wow a native Tennesseen, hmm thats the right way right? Hasnt heard of something a californian has? Lol. Of course the only reason I ever heard of them is because of a documentary I watched years and years ago. I cant remember much about them now though, but they are mixed with indians, european and african decent. I cant remember anything else though. Didnt realize they were here in Tennessee though.

Thnx for such interesting information. I am finding out more about them right now. In this context, let me say that there are indeed such tribes scattered in many mysterious pockets of the globe, not very far from ‘civilization’ yet hidden by their own secretive lifestyle. One such tribe we have here in India are the Jarwas of Andaman & Nicobar Island. Being confined to a particular island, as it is they enjoy some immunity from civilian onslaught. Anthropologists think they are a few of the surviving original hunter-gatherers remaining today. Their lifestyle is unimaginable to us…right down to roaming around naked with shells and feathers as decorations. The Govt of India purposefully limits any kind of aids to them so as not to make them dependent on modernity.
BTW…when we had the last big tsunami when vast tracks of coastal land from Indonesia to India went permanently under the ocean and millions were killed, the Jarwas had watched the abnormal behaviour of the birds and ants and animals and understood about the impending earthquake brewing under the ocean and hence moved to higher grounds. As a result, not a single Jarwa life was lost!

Very new to me, may be I'm not there. How do you pronounce the word Melungeons? Are they go this way Me_lun_ge_ons...I have no idea. ???

I love to learn about different things like this. I have never heard of them.
So I will be very interested to hear what everyone finds out.

I've never heard of them, but I will definitely google and see what I find, assuming someone hasn't covered it already here. That is intersting indeed.

I don't know of any but I have heard the word before, just never knowing what it meant or who they were, but it appears that they are close to us as told in this story that I found on the net..



Mixing in the Mountains


John Shelton Reed
One January day in 1996, I picked up the Wall Street Journal to find a story headlined "Rural County Balks at Joining Global Village."[2] It told about Hancock County, Tennessee, which straddles the Clinch River in the ridges hard up against the Cumberland Gap, where Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee meet. This is a county that has lost a third of its 1950 population, which was only ten thousand to begin with. A third of those left are on welfare, and half of those with jobs have to leave the county to work. The only town is Sneedville, population 1300, which has no movie theater, no hospital, no dry cleaner, no supermarket, and no department store.

I read this story with a good deal of interest, because the nearest city of any consequence is my hometown of Kingsport, 35 miles from Sneedville as the crow flies, but an hour and a half on mountain roads. (If you don't accept my premise that Kingsport is a city of consequence, Knoxville's a little further from Sneedville, in the opposite direction.)

The burden of the article was that many of Hancock County's citizens are indifferent to the state of Tennessee's desire to hook them up to the information superhighway -- a job which will take some doing, especially for the one household in six that doesn't have a telephone. The Journal quoted several Hancock Countians to the effect that they didn't see the point. The reporter observed that the county offers "safe, friendly ways, pristine rivers, unspoiled forests and mountain views," and that many residents simply "like things the way they are."

So far a typical hillbilly-stereotype story. But the sentence that really got my attention was this: "Many families here belong to 100 or so Melungeon clans of Portuguese and American Indian descent, who tend to be suspicious of change and have a history of self-reliance."

Now, I picture the typical Wall Street Journal reader as a harried commuter on the Long Island Railroad, and I wondered what in the world he made of that. What's this "Melungeon" business? And what are Portuguese doing up those remote east Tennessee hollers? You might well ask.

This is very interesting and right in our own back yard, just about 40 miles from where I live..