Due to the discovery of a rare genetic "skeleton key," it is deter-mined that many descendants with various spellings of the fam-ily name are blood related. The fact that each group has "chocolate colored" members called Melungeons, ties all the branches together. The swarthy Melungeons generally have sharp, aquiline features and blue eyes.

It is unfortunate that early census enumerators in the United States did not have the latitude to properly record individuals who did not fit into their prescribed pigeon-holes of "white, In-dian, slaves, mulattos, and free men of color. The Melungeons were none of the above!

Louise Littleton Davis, writing in "The Mystery of the Melun-geons" refers to them as a "mystery race tucked away between ridges of East Tennessee mountains long before Daniel Boone and the long hunters arrived." She suggests that they were de-scendants of Portuguese sailors shipwrecked off Cape Hatteras in the 1500s or of deserters from Ferdinando De Soto's expedi-tion in 1539. A Portuguese writer who accompanied the De Soto expedition on its four-year search for gold, wrote "Evora," an ac-count of the trek, upon his return to Portugal. An English trans-lation of his manuscript was published in 1609 by the Hakluyt Society of London.

In any event, when English adventurers first topped the moun-tains going westward, there they were--copper-colored colonists who had gotten there first! It is also interesting to note that the Melungeons used English names, such as Gowen/Goin, Ross, Sellers and others.

Jean Patterson Bible in "The Melungeons, Yesterday and Today" concluded that the Melungeons were Portuguese castaways. ["Melungo" means "shipmate" in Portuguese.] Lewis Shepherd concurred and reasoned that because of cultural similarities, the Melungeons were originally Carthagenians who escaped by ship to Portugal when the city fell to the Arabs in A.D. 68.

It is probable that the Melungeons in America predated the first Negro slaves who arrived in Jamestown in 1619. The Melun-geons do not have white palms, white soles, thick lips or flared nostrils. Lewis Shepherd, attorney [later judge] of Chattanooga won a lawsuit proving that the Melungeons were not negroid. John Netherland won a similar lawsuit in Hancock County. As recently as WWII, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that Melungeon soldiers should be classified as non-negroid by the military.

It is interesting to note that Melungeon characteristics are found today in several branches of the family--Gowan, Gowen, Gowin, Goin, Going, Goen, Gowing and Goyne. This strengthens the theory that all of the above carry some common genes, and Melungeon features can crop out in any generation. Chan Ed-mondson, light complexioned vice-president of the Foundation, reports that his father, Charles Bartlett Edmondson a Gowen de-scendant, was called "Choc" because of his chocolate complex-ion.

Whether a genealogical curse or blessing, this genetic skeleton key has forced researchers in any of the above to take notes on all of the above. This fact, plus the reality that scribes would in-variably record the surname in interchangeable spellings in ev-ery generation, requires that research be broad-ened to include every possibility.

It is planned that a research team be formed to make an inten-sive study of the Melungeons. Family researchers interested in joining in this effort are requested to contact the Foundation for details.
 
Foundation Press Release
November 1, 1989
For Immediate Release----

The mystery of the Melungeons of southern Appalachia which has intrigued family researchers for decades is to receive a new challenge in 1990.  A research team proposing to gather data starting in the Spanish Archives and continuing to Newman's Ridge in Hancock County, Tennessee is being organized to find the origin of this mysterious bronze-colored people.  The pro-ject is being undertaken by Gowen Research Foundation, a non-profit heritage society chartered in May 1989 through a grant from Miller A. Gowen of Geneva, a member of the Swiss financial community, according to Arlee Gowen, president.

The Melungeons arrived in Appalachia probably 200 years be-fore the colonists pushed across the mountains into Tennessee, according to Mary Sue Going of the Watauga Association of Genealogists of Jonesboro, Tennessee.  She stated that John Se-vier, later the first governor of Tennessee, first encountered the Melungeons in 1774 when his expedition crossed the Ap-palachians in Lord Dunsmore's War.  He wrote a report on the dark-skinned people he found there to the governor of North Carolina.  The report which today reposes in the state archives mentioned that the Melungeons wore beards. had straight, black hair and many had dark blue eyes.

When the first federal census was taken in 1790, the enumera-tors found hundreds of Melungeon households in the area where Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and North Carolina con-join.  In that year Tennessee was enumerated as part of Salis-bury District of North Carolina.  The enumerators were in-structed to record the population as "white, free men of color, slaves. mulattos and Indians."  They were frustrated by the Melungeons who were none of the above.

Early settlers who asked the Melungeons about their origin were told that they were Portuguese.  Louise Littleton Davis writing in "The Mystery of the Melungeons" mentions that word melungo means shipmate in Portuguese.  She concluded that they were descended from Portuguese sailors shipwrecked off Cape Hatteras in the mid-1500s.

Jean Patterson Bible in "The Melungeons, Yesterday and Today" also concluded that they were Portuguese castaways.  Lewis Shepherd, a Chattanooga judge concurred and reasoned that be-cause of genetic and cultural characteristics, the Melungeons were originally Carthagenians who escaped by ship to Portugal when Carthage fell to the Arabs in A.D. 698.

Henry R. Price in "Melungeons: The Mysterious Colony of Newman's Ridge" offers a theory that the mysterious people were descendants of Sir Walter Raleigh's lost colony of Roanoke, Virginia established July 23, 1607.  Another expedi-tion arriving three years later found no trace of the vanished colonists.

Mary Sue Going suggests that they were descendants of desert-ers from a Spanish expedition which explored eastern Ten-nessee in 1577 under the command of Capt. Juan Pardo. Joseph Judge, an editor of National Geographic wrote an article on this expedition which was published in the March 1988 edition of the magazine.

Authority for his article was a translation of Pardo's report written in April 1569 and deposited in Seville's Archives of the Indies.  The archives holds 82,000,000 manuscript pages of well-preserved reports on Spanish efforts in America.  The re-port was translated by historian Herbert Ketcham and placed in the North Carolina State Archives.

Pardo arrived early in 1566 with 250 men and established his headquarters on Parris Island.  On November 30 he moved in-land as far as an Indian river city called Joara [DeSoto identi-fied the town as Xuala] where he built a fort and left 100 men under the command of Sgt. Hernando Moyano de Morales.  Joara is identified as present-day Newport, Tennessee by Mary Sue Going.  In the spring of 1567 a letter from Sgt. Moyano addressed to Capt. Pardo's headquarters told of eminent Indian trouble and of swapping insults with an Indian chieftain who "threatened to eat not only Sgt. Moyano. but his dog as well."

Moyano took the initiative, attacking and burning an Indian village. The chieftain retaliated with a force of 3,000 braves. The sergeant withdrew with a remnant of his forces to Chiaha [on Zimmerman's Island. according to archaeologist Polhemus who reports that the city is now submerged under 70 feet of water in Lake Douglas created by a TVA dam.]  Capt. Pardo with the help of some friendly Indians rescued Sgt. Moyano and the survivors and brought them back to Parris Island.

Manuscripts in the Spanish Archives reveal that there were Portuguese under Sgt. Moyano's command.  Emperor Charles V of Spain had made a star-crossed decision to attach the Nether-lands to the Spanish monarchy and consequently involved him-self and his successor son in a rebellion that they were unable to quell despite 54 years of continuous warfare.  A Dutch revolt against the Spanish monarch began in 1555 and continued to its successful conclusion in 1609.  The nation could not field enough soldiers to defend its empire, and as a consequence, Spain subjected neighboring Portugal and impressed Por-tuguese men into Spanish regiments throughout the empire.  It is more than credible that Portuguese soldiers would desert or defect in Tennessee if the opportunity presented Itself.

As a sidelight, a genealogical anomaly resulted from this war. A new race was created in the southern part of Holland during the six decades that Spanish and Portuguese soldiers were sta-tioned there. Their "fraternization" with the Dutch girls pro-duced dark-skinned children which were the beginning of the "Black Dutch."

The very dark Melungeons were frequently mistaken for Ne-groes, however they had sharp aquiline features.  They did not have white palms. white soles, thick lips or flared nostrils. Lewis Shepherd won a case in Chattanooga proving that the Melungeons were not Negroid.  John Netherland won a similar suit in Hancock County.  As recently as WWII, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that Melungeon soldiers should be classi-fied as non-Negroid by the military.

Dark-complexioned individuals occur in every generation in the southern branch of the Gowen family whenever Melungeon genes dominate.  It is interesting to note that these characteris-tics occur in several spelling variations of the name--Goan, Goen, Goin. Going, Gowan, Gowin, Gowing, Goyen, Goyne, along with other Soundex versions and plurals. This genealogi-cal "skeleton key" proves a relationship between the several branches of the family. Whether a curse or a blessing, it has forced researchers of any of the above to take notes on all of the above.

Genealogists nation-wide who have Melungeon data or who would like to participate in the Melungeon probe are invited to join the Foundation's research team by contacting Evelyn L. Orr, Chairman, 8310 Emmet Street, Omaha, Nebraska, 68134, 402/571-3422. The Founda-tion newsletter giving additional details is available free upon request to any member of the family or to any Melungeon researcher.  Address requests to Gowen Research Foundation, 5708 Gary Avenue. Lubbock. Texas, 79413, 806/795-8758.

Newsletter
Volume 1, No. 4  December 1989
 
Researchers Tackle Mystery
Of the Melungeons

A yellowing document addressed to the governor of North Car-olina locked in a box in the state archives there is believed to contain the first official notice taken of the Melungeons. The report, written with a quill on now-brittle foolscap by John Se-vier, later the first governor of Tennessee, described the large, mysterious colony of bronze-skinned people he found in north-eastern Tennessee.

Sevier had been dispatched by Gov. John Murray Dunmore of Virginia to rid the west of the Indian menace.  In the ensuing engagement known as Lord Dunmore's War, the colonial forces in 1774 crossed the Appalachians into Tennessee in pursuit of the Indians. Five years earlier, a few intrepid settlers had crossed the mountains and discovered the Melungeons who had already been there for 200 years, according to the estimate of Mary Sue Going of the Watauga Association of Genealogists of Jonesbor-ough, Tennessee.

The settlers directed Sevier to the Melungeons' location near present-day Harrogate, Tennessee. In his report to the gover-nor, written about 1775, he described some of the mysterious dark-skinned people as having "straight black hair and dark blue eyes."

Today, after another two centuries, researchers know very little more about the Melungeons than did Sevier, but a team of Gowen Research Foundation members is now being assembled to probe the mystery.

When the first federal census was taken in 1790, the enumera-tors found hundreds of Melungeon households in southern Ap-palachia, the area where Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia conjoin. In that year Tennessee was recorded as part of Salisbury District of North Carolina. In the first census the enumerators was instructed to record the population as "white, free men of color, slaves, mulattos and Indians." They were completely frustrated by the Melungeons who were none of the above!

In succeeding enumerations there, individuals who were once recorded as "free colored" were in the following decade recorded as "white" or "mulatto."  Color then, like beauty, lay in the eye of the beholder when the enumerator had no definitive criteria to follow.

Various writers have divergent views about the origin of the Melungeons. Louise Littleton Davis in "The Mystery of the Melungeons" refers to them as a "mystery race tucked away be-tween the ridges of East Tennessee mountains long before Daniel Boone and the long hunters arrived." She suggests that they were descendants of Portuguese sailors shipwrecked off Cape Hatteras in the mid-1500s. "Melungo" means "shipmate"
in Portuguese.

Mary Sue Going suggests that they are descendants of deserters from an expedition of 100 Spanish soldiers who were once camped at the present-day location of Newport, Tennessee. This theory is plausible because Emperor Charles V of Spain had made a star-crossed decision to attach the Netherlands to the Spanish monarchy and consequently involved himself and his successor son in a rebellion that they were unable to quell de-spite 54 years of continuous warfare. A Dutch revolt against the Spanish monarch began in 1555 and continued until its suc-cessful conclusion in 1609. The nation could not field enough soldiers to protect its empire, and as a consequence, Spain sub-jected neighboring Portugal and impressed Portuguese men into Spanish regiments throughout the empire. It is more than credi-ble that conscripted Portuguese soldiers would desert in Ten-nessee if the opportunity presented itself. As a sidelight, a ge-nealogical anomaly resulted from this war. A new race was cre-ated in the southern part of Holland during the six decades that Spanish and Portuguese soldiers were stationed there.

Their "fraternization" with the Dutch girls produced dark-skinned children which were the beginning of the "Black Dutch."

Henry R. Price in "Melungeons: The Vanishing Colony of New-man's Ridge" offers a theory that the mysterious people were de-scendants of Sir Walter Raleigh's lost colony of Roanoke, Vir-ginia established July 23, 1687. Another expedi-tion arriving three years later found no trace of the vanished colonists. John Fetterman in "The Melungeons" suggests that they are descen-dants of Carthagenian sailors who fled to Portu-gal when Carthage fell to the Arabs in A.D. 698.

Genealogists researching the Gowen family have discovered a rare genetic "skeleton key." It is interesting to note that Melun-geon characteristics are found today in several branches of the family--Goan, Goen, Goin, Going, Gowan, Gowen, Gowing, Goyne and other Soundex versions and plurals. Thus, it be-comes evident that all of the above carry some common genes. It has also forced researchers interested in any of the above to take notes on all of the above.

To undertake the Melungeon challenge the Foundation re-search team will begin gathering and interpreting all of the available data. An invitation is being extended to other Melun-geon re-searchers to join in the Foundation effort through the assistance of genealogical newspaper columnists nationwide.

Foundation members, some of whom are Melungeon descen-dants, who have been asked to serve on the research team in-clude: Evelyn L. Orr, Omaha, NE, chairman; Jean Fry, Cave City, KY; Sam K. Goans, Knoxville, TN; Mrs. Dixon Goen, San Diego, CA; Hoyt L. Goin, Russellville, AR; Martha Gowen Herbert, Ekron, KY; Sam Kretzschmar, San Angelo, TX; Louise Goins Richardson, Paragould, AR; Brenda Wood, Chandler, IN; Hazel M. Wood, San Diego, CA and Betty J. Robertson, Jacksonville, FL. Mary Sue Going, Jonesborough, TN is assisting as a consul-tant.

Newsletter
Volume 1, No. 4  December 1989

William Goyens, Melungeon
Becomes Texas Millionaire

William Goyens, believed to be a son of William Goings and Elizabeth Goings, was born in 1794 in North Carolina of a "free col-ored" father and a "white" mother.  He rose above the constric-tions im-posed by his dark skin to become an ad-venturer, a sol-dier, a pirate, an interpreter, a diplomat and a Texas million-aire and philanthropist.

Early in his life, he became aware of the stigma of a dark-col-ored skin in slave-holding North Carolina, and he went to the district judge and re-quested a cer-tificate from the court es-tablishing that he was "free col-ored," the best he could do in North Carolina.  He carefully guarded this treasured docu-ment and carried it with him wherever he went for the rest of his life, present-ing it upon occasions to prove that he was not a run-away slave.

William Goyens learned in his early years in North Carolina that slavery was forbidden in the Spanish province of Coahuila y Te-jas and concluded that his destiny lay there.  He was aware that making his way across several slave states from North Car-olina to Texas would be hazardous with his dark complexion, so he "became a Cherokee" and moved freely with the tribes-men toward the southwest.  In 1814, "William Goyens of the Chero-kee Nation" gave power of at-torney to John Lowery to collect money due him.

When the British Navy showed up at the mouth of the Mis-sissippi in December 1814 with 50 ships and 10,000 men un-der Maj.-Gen. Edward Packinham, William Goyens an-swered the call for volunteers.

When Gen. Andrew Jackson assembled his forces, William Goyens served in three different units in the Battle of New Orleans, ac-cording to "War of 1812 Veterans in Texas" by Mary Smith Foy.  He was a private in the company com-manded by Capt. James B. Moore.  When his fellow soldiers resented "serving with a nigger," he transferred to Capt. Ja-cob Short's company of U.S. Mounted Rangers.  When that be-came intolerable, he was became a member of Capt. Samuel Judy's company of Mounted Illinois Militia.

After the British withdrew following the death of Packinham and their defeat in the Battle of Chalmette, William Goyen af-filiated with Jean Lafitte and his Barataria Bay pirates to avoid the threat of slavery, accord-ing to histo-rian R. B. Blake.  He jumped ship in Galveston Bay and made his way in 1821 to Nacog-doches, his original destination, according to "Monument to a Black Man" by Daniel James Kubiak.

There his color proved to be an as-set.  When the Mexicans and Anglos there staged an up-rising in the Guiterrez-Magee-Long revolt, the Spanish army came down hard.  Nacog-doches had been nearly obliterated by the Spanish reac-tion, according to "People and Places in Texas Past" by June Ray-field Welch.  Stephen F. Austin wrote that when he passed through the town in 1821, Nacog-doches had only five houses and a church left standing.  The home of William Goyens whom the Spanish commander regarded as neither Mexican nor Anglo was preserved.

William Goyens who fluently spoke Spanish, Cherokee and several Indian dialects was used by the Spanish, the Mexi-cans and later the Texans to maintain peace with the Indi-ans who trusted him as well.  Goyens became a nego-tiator as well as an inter-preter.

He became a large property owner in Nacogdoches, opened an inn, a blacksmith shop, a gunsmith shop, a wagon factory and operated a freight line, hauling goods from Natchi-toches, Louisiana to Nacogdoches.  On a trip to Natchi-toches in 1826, he was seized as a runaway slave by William English who planned to sell him in the Louisiana slave auc-tion.  He offered William English more money for his free-dom than he would bring in the slave market and posted bond to guar-antee pay-ment.  Upon return to Texas he re-tained attorney [later sena-tor] Thomas Jefferson Rusk to repre-sent him in court.  When his North Carolina certificate was pro-duced as evi-dence, he won the case and was success-ful in getting his obli-gations to English declared null and void.  Having had a taste of victory in the courtroom, he be-came a con-stant liti-gant, being in-volved in over three dozens lawsuits during the next decade.

On May 7, 1826 he bought a lot in Nacogdoches from Pierre Mayniel for 70 pesos, and this became the first in a long string of real estate transactions recorded in his name in Nacog-doches.  He was recorded as a blacksmith in the 1828 census of Nacogdoches.  He was appointed by the Mexican govern-ment as an Indian agent to deal with the Cherokees, and upon occasions he negotiated with other tribes.  He was trusted by the Indians and the Mexicans and Anglo-Ameri-cans in East Texas, as well.

A flood of Anglos from the southern states began to flow into Mexican Texas, many bringing their slaves with them, and the practice was gradually tolerated by the government.  As fur-ther protection against being again labelled as a run-away slave, Goyens became a slave owner himself.  On Jan-uary 3, 1829, he bought Jerry, 26-year-old slave from John Durst for 700 pesos.

In the Mexican census of 1828 the household of William Goyens was recorded:

 "Goyens, William 43, single blacksmith
   Linse, Jususa  20, agreg. single
   Linse, Maria  26, widow
    Manuel 10, her son"

On June 1, 1829, he was enumerated in the district "from At-toyac to Nacogdoches:"

 "Goyens, William  44, single, blacksmith
   Lindsey, Jesus   21, single
   Lindsey, Mary,    27, widow
    Manuel  11, her son [Henry]"

On June 30, 1830, he was recorded in the district "from At-toyac to Trinity River" and reported three slaves:

 "Goyens,  William     34, single, blacksmith,
             Catholic"
    Maria Petra,    32, Catholic
    Henry, her son   11
    Sallie, slave    30
    Luiza, her daughter    6
    Juliana, her daughter   3"

In that year he was recorded as a Catholic, a requirement of every land owner in Texas.  On January 18, 1831, William Goyens appeared on a "List of Foreigners living in Nacog-doches."

On June 30, 1831, the enumerator recorded him "in the dis-trict from Attoyac to the Trinity:

 "Goyens,  William   36, single, blacksmith,
          Catholic
    Ma. Polly   35, with him, Catholic
    Henry    13, child of hers
    Sexo, slave  32
    Luisa      7, her child
    Juliana      4, her child
    Eli       1, her child"

In 1832 William Goyens, at age 38, proposed marriage to Mary "Polly" Pate Sibley, a white widow who was born in Georgia in 1795, also age 38.  Her brothers came from Geor-gia to block her marriage to a black man, but then consented when they learned that she was marrying a "Melungeon" rather than a Negro, according to Benjamin Lundy.  She had one son, Henry Sibley, by her first marriage who visited Nacogdoches frequently from Louisiana.  In the Mexican cen-sus, married women were listed by their maiden names.  In 1832, the household was recorded as:

 "Goyens, William  38, single, blacksmith, Catholic
    Maria Mose 37, single, aggreg.
    Henry   14, her son
    Ma. Lera  34, slave
    Ma. Luisa    7, her daughter
    Ma. Juliana   5, her daughter
    Ma. Ylalla   3, her daughter
    Jose Juan      6/12, her son

In 1833, the family remained static:

 "Goyens, William  39, single, blacksmith, Catholic
    Maria Mose 38, single, aggreg.
    Henry   15, her son
    Ma. Sarah  35, slave
    Ma. Luisa    8, her daughter
    Ma. Juliana   6, her daughter
    Ma. Ylalla   4, her daughter
    Jose Juan    1, her son"

In 1833, "Leonardo Goyens, blacksmith" [unidentified] was enumerated, according to "Nacogdoches--Gateway to Texas, a Biographical Directory, 1773-1849" by Carolyn Reeves Ericson.  His enumeration read:

 "Goyens, Leonardo  31 blacksmith, single
    Ranu   31, aggregated
    Maria   16, her daughter
    Sally   14, her daughter
    Thomas  12, her son
    Priscilla  10, her daughter
    Pole [Polly?]   8
    Leonardo,    4, her son
    Malinda    2, her daughter"

In 1834, the household of William Goyens was recorded as:
 
 "Goyens,  William  40, single, blacksmith, Catholic
   Mose, Maria   39, single
    Henry   16, her son
    Ma. Laura 35, slave
    Ma. Luisa    9, her daughter
    Ma. Juliana   7, her daughter
    Ma. Ellala   5, her daughter
    Jose Juan    2, her son"

In 1835, in the last Mexican census, the enumeration read:

 "Goyens,  William  40, married, blacksmith
   Pate,  Marie   39, married
   Goyens,  Henry   16, her son
   Calare, Robert     5,
    Sallie   30, negro slave
    Juliana      8
     Haire     6
    John     4
    James   30, negro"
    Jose Juan    2, her son"

In 1836, during the Texas Revolution, William Goyens was given the important task of keeping the Cherokees on friendly terms with the Texans.  And a friend of his, Sam Houston, who also had lived with the Cherokees earlier, be-came gen-eral of the Texas Army.  On May 10, 1837 he was referred to as an Indian agent in official Texas records.

Following the Revolution, Williams Goyens purchased land with a large promontory located four miles west of Nacog-doches which be-came known as Goyens' Hill.  There he con-structed a large, two-story mansion, with a sawmill and a grist-mill located on Moral Creek, just west of his home.

He appeared in the 1837 Nacogdoches County tax roll as the owner of 1,270 acres of land valued at $7,247.  He bought a quarter league December 20, 1838 from William Gann, ac-cording to "Nacogdoches County Families."

In the 1840 tax assessment of Nacogdoches County he paid a poll tax and an advalorem tax on 5,000 acres of land, city prop-erty in Nacogdoches, nine slaves, 30 head of cattle and a silver watch.  The Republic of Texas made no allowance for a free Negro to vote nor to own land, producing addi-tional evi-dence that William Goyens was not regarded as a Negro.

On April 12, 1845, William Goyens "of Nacogdoches County" gave a deed to Charles Chevalier for 1,107 acres [1/4 league] out of the John Walker League, according to adjoining Cherokee County Deed Book I, page 36.  Consideration was $1 per acre for the land which lay east of the Neches River.

On August 4, 1845, he deeded 100 acres to Mary Comb for $100, according to Nacogdoches County Deed Book I, page 76.  On November 19, 1845, he deeded 1/4 league to Thomas Jefferson Rusk, his attorney, upon payment of 1,000, ac-cording to Deed Book I, page 103.

He appeared on the advalorem tax list of Nacogdoches County in 1845.  Although his skin was dark, he appeared on the 1846 polltax list of the county.  The polltax of $1 applied to every white male resident of Texas over 21 and to women who were heads of households within the state, according to "Poll Lists for 1846, Republic of Texas" by Marion Day Mullins.  Thirty-seven of the state's 254 counties had been organized by 1846.

William Goyens deeded a house and lot in Nacogdoches to Alexander Toost "for $100 and compliance with bond," as evi-denced in Deed Book I, page 308.  He made a deed to Matthew Mosely August 24, 1848 for 100 acres of land ac-cording to Deed Book K, page 45.  On December 12, 1848, he deeded land to Joseph Campbell at a price of $1.50 per acre, according to Deed Book K, page 45.

He was enumerated in the 1850 U.S. federal census, page 158 as the head of Household 344-344:

 "Goyan, William 55, born in North Carolina, farmer,
         12,000 real estate
    Polly  55, born in Georgia, illiterate
 Collier, Robert  31, born in Texas, farmer, $320 real
         estate
 Darlin, Lewis  47, born in Delaware, farmer"

On October 4, 1851, William Goyens deeded 50 acres to Har-rison Morrow for $75, according to Nacogdoches County Deed Book M, page 259.  His charitable nature was revealed in his gift of "two cows and calves" to Arena Paasche and chil-dren," widow of D. R. Paasche in 1852, according to Nacog-doches County Deed Book K, page 690.

On March 15, 1853, he deeded to Jesse P. Bruton a tract of land for $1,712, according to Nacogdoches County Deed Book L, page 71.  On June 24, 1854 he gave a deed to Jose Mariano Acosta, Jr. to 50 acres for $50, according to Deed Book L, page 199.  Upon payment of $500, he transferred land to Eli Willingham May 24, 1855, according to Deed Book L, page 634.

Arnold Barrett received from William Goyens a "labor and 20 acres" for $500 on November 12, 1855, according to Deed Book M, page 32.  On January 1, 1856, he sold 100 acres to Alexander Moyers for $150, according to Deed Book M, page 256.  On January 17, 1856, he deeded to Thomas Collins 100 acres of land for $150, according to Deed Book M, page 357.  This land came from the original grant to Juan I. Acosta.

William Goyens sold 100 acres located eight miles southwest of Nacogdoches near Alazan Creek to Alexander Myers at $1.50 per acre on January 17, 1856.  On the same day, he sold 100 acres to Thomas J. Collins at the same price.

Shortly before his death, William Goyens owned 3,818 acres in Nacogdoches County and 9,056 acres in neighboring Houston, Cherokee and Angelina counties.  He died June 20, 1856, soon af-ter the death of his wife.  They were buried in a cemetery near the junction of the Aylitos Creek with the Moral.

In 1967, the value of his real estate was estimated at $1,863,450, ac-cording to Di-ane Elizabeth Prince who docu-mented his life as her thesis at Stephen F. Austin University.
No children were born to William Goyens and Mary "Polly" Pate Sibley Goyens.  Henry Sibley had died in March 1849.  His two daughters, Henrietta S. Sibley and Martha S. Sibley became the heirs to the estate of William Goyens and Mary "Polly" Pate Sibley Goyens.  Henry C. Hancock, a Nacog-doches lawyer was appointed administrator of the estate at the time of the death of William Goyens.

On August 6, 1857, the heirs of Matthew Moseley received 120 acres of land from the estate in compliance with a title bond, as recorded in Deed Book M, page 53.  On September 2, 1857, Jesse P. Bruboul received 1,071 acres of land located three miles west of Nacogdoches upon payment of $2.34 per acre, according to Deed Book M, page 598.  This land was part of the headright of Henry Sibley.

Additional data on this outstanding man is pro-vided in "Diary of Adol-phus Sterne," "Memoirs" by Benjamin Lun-day and "Writings of Sam Houston."

Historians have recorded his exploits for over 150 years, al-ways crediting his accomplishments to a Ne-gro.  The Texas Historical Commission sought to honor him in 1936 by erect-ing a monument at his gravesite.  On it was inscribed:

"William Goyens, born a slave [error] in South Car-olina [error], escaped [error] to Texas in 1821.  Ren-dered valuable assistance to the Army of Texas, 1836; inter-preter for the Houston-Forbes Treaty with the Chero-kees, 1836. Acquired wealth and was noted for his char-ity.  Died in his home on Goyen's Hill, 1856.  His skin was black; his heart true blue."

Newsletter
Volume 1, No. 8  April 1990

Serving Three Hitches . . .
David S. Goins, Melungeon
Ended the War at Yorktown

Prepared from research developed
By Louise Goins Richardson

David S. Goins, probably a Melungeon, was born in Hanover County, Virginia November 21, 1757, according to his Revo-lutionary War pension application abstracted in "Tennessee Heroes of the Revolution" by Zella Armstrong.

During his life he was sometimes enumerated as "white" and sometimes as "free colored."  Apparently his family removed to Halifax County, Virginia prior to the Revolution.  He en-listed there in a militia com-pany commanded by "Capt. Rogers," ac-cording to his pen-sion application dated February 27, 1834:

"David Goins, a resident of Hamilton County and State of Tennessee, aged 76 years doth appear in open court be-fore the Worshipful Justices of the Court of Pleas & Quarter Sessions of Hamilton County now sitting and on his oath make the following Declaration:

That he entered the service of the United States as a vol-unteer under Capt. Rogers in Halifax County, State of Vir-ginia and was mustered into service under Col. William Terry at Halifax Courthouse, to Williamsburg, from Williamsburg to Norfolk, and from Norfolk to Portsmouth where he was discharged, having served three months.

"Six or eight months after his return home, he was drafted, according to his memory under Capt. Bates and joined the regiment at Bibb's Ferry under Maj. Jones.  He was marched from there to Cabbin Point below Peters-burg, Virginia and was stationed there until his term of service expired, having served three months this tour and was dis-charged by Capt. Bates and returned home.

About two years after the last mentioned service, this ap-plicant was again drafted, according to his memory un-der Capt. Pregmore in Halifax County.  They marched to join Gen. Washington's army at Portsmouth where this appli-cant remained about two months before the surrender of Corn Wallis.  About three days afterward, his term of ser-vice ex-pired, and he was discharged by Capt. Pregmore and re-turned home, having served three months this tour.

Four or five years after the termination of the Revolution-ary War [October 1781], he moved from Hali-fax County to Grayson County, Virginia where he resided three years.  From there he moved to Wythe County, Vir-ginia and resided there for 10 years.  From there he moved to Grainger County and resided there for 14 years.  From there he moved to Hamilton County, Tennessee and has resided here twelve months the last day of this month and still re-sides here."

Apparently David S. Goins was married shortly after his re-turn home.  "David Going" was listed in the state census of Virginia of 1782 as the head of a household of two people in Halifax County, according to "Heads of Households, Vir-ginia, 1790," page 24.  He reappeared in the 1785 state cen-sus of Halifax County as the head of a household of "four white souls," ac-cording to the same volume.  In 1787 in Hali-fax County "David Gowin" rendered for taxes "two horses and five head of cattle."  About 1788 he removed to Grayson County and from there he relocated in adjoining Wythe County about 1791.

"David Gowin" was listed as the head of a household in the 1810 census of Wythe County, according to "Index to 1810 Virginia Census" by Madeline W. Crickard.  About 1811 he moved again to Grainger County "where he had a brother, La-ban Goin," according to his pension application.

The 1820 census of Grainger County [and all but 10 counties of Tennessee] was destroyed by a fire in Washington, and no copy remains.  "David S. Going, free negro" appeared in the 1821 tax list of Grainger County and paid a tax on "one free poll."  "David Goan" reappeared in the 1830 census of Grainger County, page 359, heading a household of "free col-ored per-sons."

"David Goins, age 76" was listed as Revolutionary War Pen-sioner S3406 in Hamilton County in 1834, according to "Twenty Four Hundred Tennessee Pensioners" by Zella Arm-strong.

David S. Goins died in 1840 in Hamilton County, "his pension then being paid to his children" [unnamed], according to pen-sion records.  He did not appear in the 1840 census of Hamilton County.

Children born to David S. Goins are unknown, however Louise Goins Richardson, Foundation Editorial Board Mem-ber, 2207 E. Lake Street, Paragould, AR, 72450 is seeking to document him as the grandfather of her great-grandfather, Oscar Clai-borne Goins.

Laban Goins, identified as a younger brother of David S. Goins, was born in 1764 in Virginia, probably Hanover County.  He lived in Halifax County during the Revolution-ary War, but was too young to serve in the militia with his brother.  About 1800 Laban Goins removed, apparently with several fam-ilies of rela-tives, to Grainger County, Tennessee.  The 1805 tax list of Grainger County included "Laborn Go-ing, Claborn Goins, Daniel Going, Caleb Going, James Goins and John Goins.  A second version of the "Taxable Inhabitants for the Year 1805" listed "Laban Going, Clai-borne Going, Daniel Goin, Shadrack Goin, James Going, John Going and Calib Go-ing."

Although the spelling varies from the first list to the sec-ond, it is obvious that the two lists refer to the same in-dividuals.  Of the second group only Shadrack Goin does not appear in the first list.  "Laborn Going" was rendered as "one free poll, ne-gro" in the tax list.

Laban Goins preceded his brother in the move to Hamilton County.  He appeared in the 1830 census of that county, page 75, as the head of a "free colored" household.  The enumera-tor obviously had no way to properly record a Melungeon house-hold.  Although he did not record the "free colored" individu-als, he did enumerate in the household "one white fe-male, 5-10" and "one white female, 0-5."

On February 7, 1834 Laban Goins submitted his affidavit to the Hamilton County Court attesting to his brother's Revolu-tionary War service.
 

Newsletter
Volume 1, No. 11  July 1990

Melungeon Gowens Plant
The Family in Kentucky

Frederick Gowen and Jonathan H. Gowen, regarded as kins-men, perhaps brothers, were born in the Patrick County, Vir-ginia area and became patriarchs of Kentucky families that, in two centuries, have spread throughout the nation.  Frederick Gowen was enumerated as "free colored" in Vir-ginia, but was reported as "white" in the Kentucky census.  Jonathan H. Gowen was the father of 13 children.  This ge-netic influence is apparent in 1990 in the descendants of both men--even eight generations later.

Frederick Gowen is regarded by some researchers as a Melungeon [a recent appellation preferred by some whose an-cestors were labeled "Mulatto"] because census enumera-tor recorded him as a "free colored male."  In many enumer-ations in the area individuals were listed as "mulatto," "colored," or "Indian" by the censustakers who had no other latitude in recording a dark-skinned person.

He was born about 1797 in Virginia, according to the federal census of 1850.  It has been suggested that he was a grandson of John F[rederick?] Gowen, Jr. of Stafford County, Virginia and Granville County, North Carolina.

Jonathan H. Gowen was a son of William Gowen and Betsey Moss Gowen, according to the research of Clara Jean Grider Fry, a descendant of Cave City, Kentucky.

"Frederick Going" was married December 10, 1818, to Nancy Coomer [Comer?] in adjoining Surry County, North Car-olina, according to "Surry County, North Caro-lina Mar-riage Bonds, 1780-1868."  "William Going" thought to be his fa-ther, was the bondsman.  Nancy Coomer Gowen was born in North Carolina about 1798, according to the 1850 census.  Their first child was born in Patrick County about 1819.

A son was born to them there about 1822, and was fol-lowed by a daughter about 1824.  "Frederick Going" appeared as the head of a "free colored" household in the 1830 census of Patrick County, page 154.

 "Going, Frederick free colored male  24-36
       free colored female 24-36
       free colored male    0-10
       free colored female   0-10
       free colored male    0-10"

They continued in Patrick County about 1831 when another son was born to them there.  About 1833, they lived in Lee County, Virginia, in the extreme western tip of the state, where their fifth child was born.

About 1835, Frederick Gowen was living near Somerset, Kentucky in Pulaski County.  No members of the Gowen [nor spelling varia-tions] family were recorded in the 1830 census of Pulaski County which showed a popu-lation of 9,521 at that time.  Frederick Gowen purchased land in Pulaski County for $225 in 1838, according to the research of Steve Gowen.  He sold his property March 2, 1848 for $150, ac-cording to Pu-laski County Deed Book 13, page 520.  On Oc-tober 1, 1849 he was paid "$1 for work on road," according to Adair County Court Order Book H, page 9.

In 1850, the household of Frederick Gowen was recorded in Adair County, First Civil District, Household 603-603:

 "Gowen, Frederick 53, born in Virginia, farmer, $200
        real estate
    Nancy  52, born in North Carolina, illiterate
    Allen  20, born in Virginia, illiterate
    Larkin  18, born in Virginia, illiterate, farmer
    Elizabeth 15, born in Kentucky
    Frederick   8, born in Kentucky
 Hignight, Mary  40, born in Virginia"

The fact that he named a son "Allen" suggests a relationship to other branches of the family who used the name "Allen" as well.  Mary Hignight was possibly related to the house-holders.

Frederick Gowen reappeared in the 1860 census of Adair County in the First Civil District as the head of Household 242-242:

 "Going, Fredrick 62, farmer, $600 real estate, $540            personal property, born in
         Patrick County, VA
    Nancy  61, housekeeping, born in Stokes
         County, NC
    Elizabeth 22, housekeeping, born in Pulaski
         County, KY
    Fredrick 18, farmer, born in Pulaski County,           KY"

Adjoining were the households of "William Going," his son, No. 243-243; "Allan Going," a son, Household No. 244-244 and William Chadowick [Chadwick?] and Mary "Polly" Gowen Chadowick, his daughter, Household No. 245-245.

He removed shortly afterward to Gibson County, Indiana where his son, Larkin Gowen had located.  "He died intes-tate, but did leave a treasure trove of information in Gibson County Court records when his heirs divided the estate," ac-cording to a letter written by August 13, 1990 by Steve Gowen, a de-scendant of Lexington, Kentucky.

Children born to Frederick Gowen and Nancy Coomer Gowen include:

 William R. Gowen   born about 1819
 Polly Gowen     born about 1824
 Allen Gowen     born about 1830
 Larkin Gowen    born about 1833
 Elizabeth G. Gowen   born about 1835
 Frederick Gowen    born October 9, 1841

Jonathan H. Gowen was a son of William Gowen and Betsey Moss Gowen, according to the research of Clara Jean Grider Sex-ton Fry.  It is suggested that he was a kinsman of Freder-ick Gowen because he appears to be closely associated with him.  Melungeon characteristics are also found among his de-scendants.  He was born in 1822 in Patrick County, Virginia, according to the 1860 census of Adair County, Kentucky.  He was born in 1827, according to the research of Jessie Gowen Thompson.  On February 6, 1846 "Jonathan Goen" was mar-ried to Hannah J. Beasley, according to "Surry County, North Car-olina Marriage Bonds, 1780-1868."  Clara Jean Grider Sexton Fry who has researched the family for many years reports that Hannah J. Beasley was a half-Cherokee, "and she is the source of the dark complexioned genetics in our family."

She was also born in Patrick County about 1826, and both of her parents were born in Virginia, according to the census enumeration.  She was born August 15, 1829, according to the research of Jessie Gowen Thompson.  J. Allen Berryman was the bondsman for the marriage.  Later that year "James Goen" was married to Elizabeth Beasley, according to the Surry County volume.  Eli Crouk was bondsman.  "Morgan Goin" was married April 5, 1862 by J. Gray, J.P.  William Gilmer was bondsman.

Jonathan H. Gowen and Hannah J. Beasley Gowen were enu-merated in the 1850 census of Stokes County, North Car-olina, along with "James Going and Betsy [Beasley?] Going and their children next door, with a Beasley household be-tween them and John Going, his wife, Margaret and a 15-year-old boy, LeRoy Going," according to the research of Steve Gowen.

From 1844 until 1855 Jonathan H. Gowen lived in Stokes County, just across the state line from Patrick County.  By 1857, he had removed to join Frederick Gowen in Adair County.  A photograph of Jonathan H. Gowen indicates him to be a tall, lean, stern man with a full growth of neck whiskers.  He was a hunting dog fancier, and descendants "swore that he loved his dogs more than his children."  Con-sequently, none of his children would tolerate a dog on his homestead after he was grown.

His household appeared in the 1860 census of Adair County.  Fortunately for genealogists, the enumerator saw fit to in-clude the county of birth for each individual:

 "Going, Jonathan   38, born in Patrick Co, VA,
          farmer
    Hannah   34, born in Patrick Co, VA
    Mary F.   15, born in Stokes Co, NC
    Sarah J.   13, born in Stokes Co, NC
    John    11, born in Stokes Co, NC
    Fanny      9, born in Stokes Co, NC
    Thomas J. [twin]   5, born in Stokes Co, NC
    Henry C. [twin]   5, born in Stokes Co, NC
    Susan E.     3, born in Adair Co, KY
    Frederick    3/12, born in Adair Co, KY"

He served as a private during the Civil War in Co. G, Thirty-seventh Kentucky Infantry Regiment.  His household reap-peared June 22, 1870 located seven miles west of Columbia, Kentucky as Household 119-119:

 "Gowen, Jonathan  46, born in VA, farmer, $300
         personal prop, $3,000 real
         estate
    Hannah  44, born in VA
    Andrew J.  18, born in NC, farmer
    Thomas J.  14, born in NC, farmer
    Henry C.  14, born in NC, farmer
    Susan E.  12, born in KY
    Jonathan  10, born in KY
    Nancy M.    8, born in KY
    Martha A.    6, born in KY
    Cornelius    3, born in KY
    Emily      2/12, born in KY

On June 10, 1880 the household of Jonathan H. Gowen ap-peared in Adair County at Gradyville, Kentucky, Civil Dis-trict 5, Enumeration Dis-trict 4, page 19:

 Gowen,  Jonathan 55, born in VA, father born in
        [blank], mother born in NC,
        farmer
    Hannah 53, born in VA, father born in VA,
        mother born in VA, wife
    Elizabeth 21, born in KY, father born in VA,
        mother born in VA, daughter
    Nancy M. 17, born in KY, father born in VA,
        mother born in VA, daughter
    Cornelius 15, born in KY, father born in VA,
        mother born in VA, son, farmer
    Emley    9, born in KY, father born in VA
        mother born in VA, daughter"

According to the family bible owned in 1972 by Martha Ann Gowen McGrath, a de-scendant of Louisville, Kentucky, chil-dren born to them in-clude:

 Mary Frances Gowen    born January 23, 1848
 Sarah Jane Gowen    born May 4, 1849
 John Gowen      born in 1850
 Andrew Jackson Gowen   born February 2, 1851
 Fanny Gowen      born February 2, 1853
 Thomas Jefferson Gowen  born June 12, 1855
 Henry Clay Gowen    born June 12, 1855
 Susan Elizabeth Gowen   born in 1858
 Jonathan Frederick Gowen  born January 10, 1859
 Nancy M. Gowen     born April 20, 1962
 Martha Alice Gowen    born in 1864
 Cornelius C. Gowen    born February 14, 1867
 Emily Gowen      born in April 1870

Newsletter
Volume 2, No. 2  October 1990

I Am Proud to Be a Melungeon!
By M. Ruth Johnson

Winding roads will take you high upon Newman's Ridge where a large group of people once lived.  They became known as the Melungeons.  Few of these courageous people had indoor plumbing or running water.  They lived in modest log homes and carried water from nearby springs, except for the fortunate few who had their own well.

Some of these people moved far away from the magnificent mountains with all their beauty, never to return.  They located wherever they could find work.  Those who remained carved out a living on the mountain, growing all their food, including the grain for flour and meal.  They hunted and fished for most of their meat, although they raised some pigs, chickens and calves for meat.  All vegetables were grown on their farms and were al-ways in bountiful supply.  Food preservation was quite an art, us-ing their own methods of drying, canning, under-ground storage and curing meats to perfection, thus they were able to feed their families through the cold winter months.

Spring days were cool and used mostly for clearing the land and readying it for planting of the crops.  Summer was so hot that straw hats were worn outside, and new ones decorated the land-scape every spring.

New straw hat, barefoot and hoe in hand readied you for work in the fields.  Joyous were the words, "Lay them by this time" which meant the last hoeing of the season.  Weeding and tilling were constant chores.  A small weed this week would be four feet tall next week!

Each season brought its own special pleasures.  Springtime on the mountain was a grand awakening of nature with trees putting out new growth in every shade of green imaginable, wild flowers springing up everywhere, snow melted off and re-sulting waterfalls cascading down the mountainside made de-lightful music--it was an exciting time.  Spring also brought the work of readying for planting crops which was hard work, but a happy time, too.

Winter was so cold that laundry froze on the line before you could get it hung out.  In only a moment the clothes would be stiff as a board.  I used to wonder if they would actually break!  Snow was plentiful and so deep that paths had to be dug in or-der to get from one area to another.  Fortunately wood for the fireplace and stove was abundantly available, and we were warm and cozy.  Boots and galoshes were a necessity.  Cold winter nights were fun-filled, popping popcorn, baking pota-toes or onions in the fireplace ashes and reading fairy tales and bible stories.  Dad played the guitar or banjo, and we would all sing along.  Often neighbors joined us in games like "Who's got the Thimble?"  We made candy, listened to the radio and played the old Victrola.

Travel on the mountain was mostly done on foot or horseback.  Overnight guests meant bringing out the pallets so guests could have your bed.  Beds were mostly straw or feather ticks.  Some-times you lucked out and got box springs with a mattress on top.  No matter, company was exciting, and no one complained about sleeping on the floor.

Farm animals included horses, cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, guineas, ducks, dogs and cats.  It was alarming to hear the chick-ens being frightened in the night and to know that "that old red fox has come back."  When a hawk hovered overhead, the chickens would flee under trees and bushes and remain very still.

All the children had chores to do, and they knew to do them on time.  There were trips to the spring for water each morning and each evening, and it was two buckets per trip.  Bath nights meant extra trips.  Washing clothes was done near the spring.  There was a big black cast-iron kettle there over an open fire.  First you boiled the clothes with home-made lye soap, then you rinsed, and then you rinsed again and added blueing.

In the old days, there was no food stamps or welfare.  The peo-ple either made it or they grew it--they made do.  There were no refrigerators so milk was placed in springs to keep it fresh.  Elec-tricity finally came to mountain about 1949, and almost everyone hooked on, adding a light to each room, usually a naked light bulb suspended from the middle of the ceiling in each room with a switch just below the bulb.  This was cer-tainly an im-provement over the "coal oil" lamp, but the lamp could be car-ried from room to room.  Lightning rods were in vogue.  If your house didn't have a lightning rod, you were "pore," so everyone had to get one to keep up appearances.

These were God-fearing people, and they were in church sev-eral times a week.  The revivals would go on for weeks--as long as people would "come forward" and repent.  The only thing I hated was the special nights, two or three times a year, given over to snake-handling.  Usually only two or three people han-dled the copperheads and rattlesnakes.  My parents were promi-nent dur-ing the singing, but when snake-handling time came, they always moved back.  I always sat in the pew with my feet up under me, in case a snake got loose and came slithering in my direction.  I decided then and there that I was never going to be a snake-handler.

Historians and writers have regarded the Melungeons in differ-ent ways.  Sometimes they praised their independence; some-times they criticized their aloofness.  Some appraisals were fair, and some were unfair--some were good, and some were bad.  Good or bad, they were the most wonderful people in the whole world to me.  The bad stories that made them feel put down, made some not willing to admit being kin to the Melungeons and caused them not to trust strangers.  That was always sad to me because they were pretty much like everyone else, only they had to work harder to earn a living up on the mountain.  They loved nature, minded their own business and respected each other.  They were a proud people, and I have learned to appreci-ate and respect them.  I am proud to say that I am a descendant of the very first settlers of Newman's Ridge.  I am a proud to be a Melungeon!
 

Newsletter
Volume 2, No. 8  April 1991

Goin, TN Selected as Site of
Goins Family Reunion in May
 
                        By Louise Goins Richardson
                      Melungeon Research Team Member
              2207 E. Lake Street, Paragould, Arkansas, 72450

The Melungeon  Goins will come back to Newman's Ridge for their 1991 family reunion which  is held  annually on  the last  Sunday in  May at the Goins, Tennessee Baptist  Church and  Cemetery.   Their's may  be the only family reunion in the na-tion centered around a cemetery.

The custom  of utilizing  part of  the family  reunion time to decorate the graves of  departed family  members displays the love of family held by the Melungeons.  Younger members  of the  family learn  much of their ancestry during the maintenance of the graves.

The mystery  of the  Melungeons first came to  my attention in 1986 when a Goins family  researcher of  Richmond, Kentucky  sent me  several  articles written about  these  fascinating  peo-ple.    More  material came  from  a correspondent in Dunlap,  Tennessee  who  had  been  in  pursuit  of  the Melungeons for  20 years.   Our  information  exchange  expanded into the nu-cleus of a Melungeon  library, and  our  interest  has  grown  into  the Foundation's Melungeon Research Team  under  the  chair-manship  of  Evelyn McKinley Orr of Omaha, Nebraska.

One of  the most  significant books  on our  shelves is  Henry  R.  Price's "Melungeons, the  Vanishing Colony  of Newmans Ridge."  His research showed that Goins, Bowlin, Collins, Bunch, Fields, Gibson, Minor and Mullins were the primary   surnames  found   initially  in  the  main  body of people tradi-tionally bearing  Melungeon traits.   Intermarriage  with  neigh-boring settlers in Tennessee added many other names to the Melungeon heritage.

In May 1988, I found the Goins Baptist Church Cemetery that Price mentioned in his  volume.  It is  located at  Goin, Ten-nessee  on Clinch Mountain's Newmans Ridge in Hancock County, about four miles from Sneedville, a small
mountain town.   Many of the people there responded to my questions.  These included members of two Goins families and William Grohse, local historian and writer whose wife  has a  Goins ancestry.   I  found all of the people there very  hos-pitable, and  several invited  me back  for the  next  Goins Fam-ily Re-union and Decoration Day.

On May 27, 1990, I returned for the reunion and found the same friendliness and hospitality.  There were Goins  and allies from all over.  A memorial service preceded the grave  decora-tion and  visiting, and  it was  a  very enjoyable experience.  There's  a saying about Sneedville--"you have to be going there to get there."  It is a small, isolated mountain town close to the Vir-ginia  line.  Many Melungeon families live there.  They are the most beautiful people  with olive skin and black hair.  I met one man with olive skin and silver gray hair who was so hand-some.

The Melungeons  seemed to originate in  the  area  where  Vir-ginia,  North Carolina, Kentucky  and Tennessee come together,  and it  is unknown where they came from prior.  There are many theories about their origin, but no one yet can document  their ancestry.   Unfortunately  there was neither a historian nor  a poet  in their earlier days to chronicle their activities.

It is the  goal  of  the  Research  Team  to  gather  information  on  all possibilities and to publish our findings in the Founda-tion Newsletter.

Will Allen  Dromgoole was the penname of the earliest known writer on the Melungeons.  She wrote "The Melungeon Tree and Its Four Branches," and it was published in Boston in 1891.   Her description of the four branches--Collins,  Gibson,  Mullins  and  Goins--was  generally  derogatory.  Most authors, up  until 1950,  were influenced  by her writing, but fortunately research professionals like Dr.  Edward Price  and Dr.  Calvin Beale  made studies of these people  about that  time and began to show them in a more favorable light.  Later,  unbiased re-porters  like John  Fetterman,  Henry  Price, Louise Davis and Bonnie Ball wrote incisive articles about them.  In 1975,  Jean   Patterson  Bible  published  my  favorite, "The  Melungeons, Yesterday and Today."

Anyone researching his Melungeon heritage needs to read her book.  She discusses the  various theories  of the  origin of these fascinating people and evaluates  each.   Each author  contributes something  to the Melungeon lore, and  every the-ory  should be considered with an open mind.  The Goins name and  Melun-geon traits are frequently found among mixed bloods all over the nation.   Most of us  Goins descendants  find  ancestors  and  even  a sprinkling of present-day cousins ex-hibiting these ge-netic characteristics.

My grandfather,  William Preston Goins [b1853 Hamilton Co, TN; d1950 Greene Co, AR]  was the only child of Oscar Clay-born Goins [b1830 Grainger Co, TN; d1903 Bradley  Co, TN]  and the only one of his family to come to Arkansas.  He had  11 children,  and five  died in infancy.  Only one of the remaining six who lived to adulthood had Melungeon traits.  He had olive skin, black hair and was a very handsome man.  The other five were fair-skinned, and no one in my generation has obvious Melungeon genetics.

My grandfather exhibited the Melungeon characteristics of self-reliance and the ability to live  off the  land.  The  family  re-lates  that  he  was successful in  every undertaking he started.  He raised and traded horses, cattle and  hogs.  He cultivated large orchards with every variety of fruit tree that  would grow  in Arkansas.   He  raised blue  Concord  grapes and maintained 150 stands of bees to aid in the pollination of his trees and to pro-duce honey  and beeswax.  He operated a blacksmith shop in which he made his own implements and maintained a horse-shoeing service for the community.  He built a sawmill, sold lumber and supplied coffins to the area.  He owned one of  the first  threshers in the country and took a harvest crew far and wide doing  custom threshing.   He was a "workaholic" and kept several farm laborers busy trying to keep up with him on his 264-acre farm.

Newsletter
Volume 2, No. 10 June 1991

Elijah Goin Sues Slanderer
In Claiborne County, TN

By Carol Ledford
Route 1, Box 16, Leicester, North Carolina, 28248

Trouble started for Elijah Goin when his daughter, Mary Ann "Polly" Goin was married to William H. "Billy" Mayes May 23, 1853 in Claiborne County, Tennessee.  Sterling Mayes, brother to the groom, took exception to the marriage, and one week later was telling everyone that his brother had married a mulatto and that the whole Goin family were mulattos and ne-groes.

Sterling even instructed his children to taunt the Goin children with the mulatto label and promised to protect them in it.  By July, the whole county had heard the accusations.  Sterling had gone so far as to make up a little song about blacks and mulat-tos which he sang to the tune of "Old Dan Tucker," popular jig tune of the day.  He even had the nerve to sing the song to Eli-jah Goin in front of his friends on the main street of Tazewell, the county seat.

Elijah Goin bit his tongue and turned the other cheek, hoping that Sterling would tire of his little game, but the pressure only intensified.  In September, Sterling sang his doggerel verses in church.  He made his rhymes fit the hymns that were being sung at the camp meeting, an evangelistic meeting held out-doors in a tent.  Several rows of worshipers heard the caustic mulatto slurs drowning out the gospel words.

That was the last straw, Elijah Goin filed suit in Circuit Court for slander against Sterling Mayes September 15, 1853, re-questing damages of $5,000, a monumental sum in those days.  The charges were serious and damaging to Elijah Goin who was a schoolteacher and active in community affairs.  He had once been elected as constable.  It was embarrassing to his family and his friends, and Elijah Goin had to take action before his reputation and standing in the county were destroyed.

Action on the suit was exceedingly slow, with continuous post-ponements and continuances.  It would be five years before a verdict was finally handed down.  When the case finally went to court July 26, 1858, the trial lasted 37 court days and in-volved the testimony of 43 witnesses.  Tennessee law required that the loser in a suit pay the court costs and the expense of bringing in the witnesses.  The witnesses were paid 25 cents a day for their appearances, and if they travelled over 20 miles, they were paid four cents a mile travel allowance.  There were 22 witnesses who had to be in court 27 days of the trial, some traveling as far as 290 miles.  Total court costs of the case was $720 with $669 going to the witnesses.

Each of the litigants had to post bond guaranteeing payment of the huge sum.  Both were men of substance, but it was a severe obligation.  Elijah Goin owned land valued at $1,000, and his personal property was valued at $350.

He was 38 years old and married.  His wife and six children would suffer severely if the verdict went against the plaintiff.  William H. "Billy" Mayes joined his father-in-law in posting the bond.

The "mulatto and negro" charge had serious implications.  The Territory Act of 1794 and the Tennessee Constitution of 1796 declared, "all negroes, mulattos and Indians and persons of mixed blood, descended from negro or Indian ancestors to the third generation inclusive, though one ancestor of each genera-tion may have been a white person, whether bond or free, should be held deemed to be incapable in law to be a witness in any case whatsoever, except against each other."

The Act also forbad such persons from obtaining marriage li-censes, voting, owning land, paying taxes, making wills, own-ing slaves or holding office.  Their civil rights were denied.

Even in Revolutionary days and in the War of 1812, negroes and mulattos could not serve as soldiers.  A few were utilized in non-combatant roles as cooks and teamsters.

Elijah Goin's 70-year-old father, Levi Goin was enduring great anguish.  Elijah Goin had several brothers, uncles and cousins who were undergoing mental duress, not to mention all of the inlaws involved.  He took some comfort in the fact his old grandfather, Thomas Goin, Revolutionary soldier and family patriarch of Claiborne County, did not have to undergo the pain and anxiety that the trial brought to the family.

Thomas Goin had lived in Claiborne County long before its creation in 1801 and had died there in 1838, 15 years before the suit was filed.  Thomas Goin didn't come to Claiborne County; the county came to him.  Thomas Goin bought his land, 225 acres on Cherokee Creek in 1786 from the State of North Car-olina, two years before Tennessee came into existence.  He was a constable there [Washington County, North Carolina] in 1784.  He served on several jury panels there, according to the county court records and was in court in Jonesborough on the day that Andrew Jackson was admitted to the bar.

In 1788, he sold his land in Washington County and moved 90 miles west to newly-created Hawkins County, Tennessee from which Claiborne would be later created.  He appeared there as a taxpayer on Big Barren Creek in 1799 in "Capt. Coxes com-pany."  The postoffice of Goin, Tennessee would later be named for this pioneer's family.  Goin still exists today, but the postoffice was discontinued in 1965.  In 1802, he and his sons help to build to road to Tazewell and were appointed its over-seers.  In 1803, he was instrumental in establishing the Big Bar-ren Primitive Baptist Church.  He served on Claiborne County jury panels and in 1833 was listed as a "white male" taxpayer.

Until he died in 1838, no one had ever suggested that he was a negro or a mulatto.  The family had distinct Melungeon fea-tures, but the mixed-blood characteristics were attributed to In-dian or Portuguese ancestry.  Thomas Goin was buried in Old Big Barren Cemetery.  The site is now at the bottom of Morris Lake, and it is unknown if the graves were moved before the lake was created.

Known children of Thomas Goin include Levi Goin, born about 1778, Uriah Goin, born about 1785 and Isaac Abraham Goin, born about 1793.

The verdict?  Elijah Goin won his slander suit against Sterling Mayes, and the jury awarded him $50 damages, far less than the $5,000 he sought.  Sterling Mayes appealed the case to the Tennessee Supreme Court in Knoxville where the Circuit Court's decision was reversed and remanded.  He won the ap-peal on the grounds that it had long been common knowledge in the community that the Goin family was of mixed blood and that he was not seeking the forfeiture of the civil rights of Eli-jah Goin.
==0==
The authoress, Carol Ledford who was born March 4, 1944 in Monroe, Michigan is a double ninth-generation grand-daughter of Thomas Goin.  Two of his sons, Levi Goin and Uriah Goin were her eighth-generation grandfathers.

Joseph Gowen Sentenced To 21
Lashes in Chowan County, NC

Joseph Gowen "alias Smith" of Chowan Precinct was indicted August 2, 1725 for larceny.  He was charged by  Patrick Ogilby of Edenton, North Carolina in the theft of a pair of shoes, according to "Colonial Records of North Carolina," Volume 2, page 591.  The indictment read:

"William Little, Esq: Attorney General comes to Prosecute the Bill of Indictment found by the Grand Jury against Joseph Gowen, alias Smith of Chowan Precinct, Mariner for Larceny in these words, viz:

The Jurors of Our Sovereign Lord the King on their Oath doe present that Joseph Gowen alias Smith, not having the fear of God before his Eyes, but moved by the instigation of the Devill in the precinct of Chowan aforesaid on or about the seventeenth day of this instant July in the year of our Lord One Thousand seven hundred & twenty-five by force and armes did fradulently and feloniously Steal, take and carry away from the house of Patrick Ogilby of Edenton of the Pre-cinct of Chowan aforesayd one payr of shoes of the value of eleven pence against the peace of Our Sovereign Lord the King that now is his Crown & dignity etc . . .

Upon which Indictment the said Joseph Gowen alias Smith was arraigned and upon his arraignment pleaded [Not Guilty] and for tryall thereof he putt himself upon God and the Country and the said William Little on the behalf of our Lord the King likewise.

Whereupon the Marshall was commanded that he should cause to come twelve good & honest men etc. . . and there came viz: Capt. John Pettifer, Mr. Thomas Luton, Junr, John Harlee, Thos. Matthews, J. Pratt, Const. Luton, John Lewis, William Benbury, John Adderly, Thos. Stubbs, Edward Patchett and John Ward who being impannelled and sworn etc. . . do say upon their Oath, 'Wee of the Jury find the Prisoner Guilty.'

Then the sayd Gowen alias Smith being asked if he had any-thing to say why sentence should not pass against him as the Law in that Case has provided and he offering nothing in avoydance thereof, It was then and there Considered and Ad-judged that he should be carried to the publick Whipping post and there to receive twenty-one lashes on his bare back well layd on & to remayne in Custody till fees are payd."

Newsletter
Volume 2, No. 12  August 1991

Joseph Goins, Pioneer Among
Newmans Ridge Melungeons
By Ruth Johnson
3705 Bloomingdale Road
Kingsport, Tennessee, 37660

Joseph Goins, a Revolutionary War veteran and my seventh-generation grandfather, was born about 1766 in Bedford County, Virginia.  Rev. Arthur Hamilton Taylor who re-searched in Melungia, suggested his birthplace as Albemarle County, Virginia.  William P. Grohse, Sneedville historian, re-ported that he was the son of Joseph Goins, Sr. who also fought in the Revolutionary War and was wounded in battle.

"Joseph Goings" on May 19, 1784 received "4 pounds, 2 shill-ings, 3 pence" for service in the militia, according to Vir-ginia Payroll Account No. 683.

Joseph Goins was married about 1790 to Millie Loving [Lov-in, Loven?]  who was born in 1770 in Scotland, according to Rev. Taylor.  She was brought to America at the age of six by an aunt who settled in Charleston, South Carolina.  William P. Grohse stated that she was born in Bedford County in 1772 to James Loving who was born in 1759 to Abraham Loving.  Mil-lie Loving Goins lost three uncles in the Revolutionary War.

In 1793, Joseph Goins was a resident of Fairfax County, Vir-ginia where a daughter was born.

"Joseph Gwinne" was enumerated as the head of a household in the 1830 census of Hawkins County, Tennessee:

 "Gwinne, Joseph  white male  50-60
       white female  50-60
       white female  10-15"

"Joseph Gowin, age 70-80," living alone, was listed in the 1840 census of Hawkins County, page 234.  Apparently in 1840 Jo-seph Goins and Millie Loving Goins were living in separate, adjoining households.

"Joseph Goings" appeared as the head of Household 302-302 in the 1850 census of Hancock County, 33rd subdivision, east part.  The family was enumerated November 27, 1850 as:

 "Goings, Joseph  84, born in Virginia, cooper, illiterate
    Milli A. 80, born in Virginia
    Leathey 36, born in North Carolina, female,

Hancock County had been created in 1844 with land from Hawkins County and Claiborne County.  Joseph Goins died in 1859 in Hancock County, a nonagenarian.  Millie Loving Goins also died there, before 1860.

Children born to them include:
 Virginia Jane "Gincie" Goins  born in 1793
 George Goins       born in 1803
 Harden Goins       born in 1805
 Aletha Goins       born about 1814

Newsletter
Volume 3, No. 2  October 1991

Melungeon Research Team
Examines Origin Theories

By Evelyn McKinley Orr
Melungeon Research Team Chairman
8310 Emmet Street, Omaha, Nebraska, 68134
Many researchers have shown a great deal of interest in the complex mystery of the origin of the Melungeons, and Gowen Research Foundation elected to pursue studies of them.  The in-tent of this series of short articles is to present a sprinkling of ideas from some of the material collected.  I wish to ex-pound on a few theories and offer some sources of informa-tion.  This is in-tended to help researchers to find data to share with the Melun-geon Research Team.

If we are to find a "lost key" to unlock the origin of the Melun-geons and other similar groups that used our Gowen surname, our examination will include researching the nation-alities of all the early dark/black-skinned peoples who came to the New World.

The Melungeons of Northeast Tennessee are not the only iso-lated group which shares the Gowen name.  The surname ap-pears in several varied spellings as the most widely used mixed race surname, thus making genealogical research more challenging.  According to Dr. Calvin Beale, the name "Goins" appeared among mixed race groups in 35 counties in seven states in early America, as quoted in "Melungeons Yes-terday and Today" by Jean Patterson Bible.

And, interestingly, many of them share similar physical and cul-tural characteristics.  From the research of other experts such as Edward T. Price of Los Angeles State College and Anthropolo-gist Brewton Berry, we learn that various racial isolate groups were sprinkled along the Eastern and Southern coasts of the United States.  Gowen individuals were not found in all of these mixed groups, and it would be a mistake to assume that all of these groups had a common origin.

No singular theory and no simple answer has been found to this complex puzzle.  The Melungeon Research Team is in-debted to many people, both inside and outside the Founda-tion, for their input and interest in this project.
Mediterranean/Moors Theory
The possibility of a Mediterranean connection appears to be one of the most frequently advanced theories.  It has included pre-Columbus theories, such as the Lost Tribes of Israel and sur-vivors from the fall of Carthage as well as suggestions of more recent Mediterranean origins.  The Melungeons of Southern Appalachia and some other isolated groups were de-scribed as not being Indian, White or Negro, but rather of "looking Mediterranean."  In "Outline of History," 1920, H. G. Wells writes, "About the Mediterranean there is a preva-lence of swarthy white-skinned peoples with dark eyes and black hair.  Their hair is straight, but never so strong and waveless as the hair of the yellow peoples.  The hair is straighter in the East than in the West."

In "Races of the Old World," 1871, Charles L. Brace de-scribed the Moors as "well built, but not so tall as the Arabs.  Their fea-tures are noble, but not so energetic as those of the Arabs.  The complexion of their children is clear, white and rosy.  The men are more brown, their hair is jet black, their eyes are also black.  The expression of their faces indicates mildness and melan-choly."

The Moors are described in "World Book Encyclopaedia" as "a dark-skinned Caucasian race among the Mediterranean peoples who were of early Arabic descent, and became a mix of Spanish, Jewish or Turkish descent.  The common, but in-correct, belief that the Moors were Negro was spread by Shakespeare's "Othello."  They were driven out of Spain in 1492, and most of them settled in North Africa.  Being skilled navigators, some of them could have found they way to the New World in the exo-dus.

While visiting in the County Museum in Galveston, Texas last winter, I observed in the Black American history display, evi-dence that Africans were in the New World before Euro-pean voyagers.  From at least the 14th century, African ships sailed the Atlantic Ocean.  Some of these ships by design or ac-cident may have crossed to the New World.  The Institute of Texan Culture, University of Texas documents the presence of blacks on Spanish ships in 1528.  This preceded by almost a cen-tury the beginning of the black slave trade in America.  Could these early sailors have included the Moors?

Five hundred years after the arrival of Columbus in the West In-dies, and in the year that the world has chosen to honor him, historians generally agree that he was not the first ex-plorer in the New World.  If there is evidence of the presence of the Moors here, can we assume that some remained by ac-cident or choice?  Serious study should be given to the many reports of early voyages and shipwrecks near our shores.

Ethnologist Thomas Henry Huxley divided the Caucasian race into two categories, the northern blonds and the Mediter-ranean brunets.  "Outline of History" makes three divisions--the Nordic blonds, the Iberian brunets and the round-headed Alpine race.
Black Dutch Theory
After a mention of the Black Dutch in a recent Foundation press release, the Melungeon Research Team received many requests for more information about these equally mysterious people.  Generally, these writers cited a family tradition of Black Dutch ancestors, but had no idea as to the origin of the Black Dutch.  Usually they described their ancestors as having "blue-black straight hair and olive or swarthy skin.  The Li-brary of Congress definition of Black Dutch is: "Sephardic [Spanish and Portuguese] Jews who intermarried with Dutch Protestants to escape the Inquisition," however this definition has generally fallen into disfavor among anthropologists.

One of the most interesting letters received was from Eva Noblin of Mississippi who wrote that she had Melungeon features which her early Grogan ancestor had ascribed to Black Dutch descent.

Eva had suffered for years from an anemia that perplexed sev-eral doctors.  Finally a doctor who was also a research spe-cialist, diagnosed it as Alpha Thalassemia, a type of inherited blood dis-ease found only in Mediterranean people.  Her father immedi-ately told the doctor about his grandmother, born in 1843, who had very dark skin and straight blue-black hair.  This knowledge helped the doctor to understand why Eva had this disease.

The Grogan family was one of the first settlers in Scott County, Mississippi.  Several generations, including the par-ents of Eva's great-grandmother, are buried near her home.  Some of the other descendants still display the Melungeon characteristics of their dark-skinned ancestors.

Information on the various types of this disorder was found in McGoogan Library of Medicine at the University of Ne-braska.  Ethnic background of the patient, Southern Euro-pean, North African or Middle Eastern, gives the physicians a clue as to the type of Alpha Thalassemia to look for.  Sickle Cell Anemia, a form of this disorder, is peculiar to African Negroes, native to the south of the Mediterranean.

An article in "Antique Week" magazine, October 15, 1990 re-ported that Datatrace Systems, Box 1587, Stephenville, Texas, 76401 has undertaken an in-depth study of the Black Dutch.  Re-searchers are encouraged to share their Black Dutch family his-tory with this organization.  There is no fee to affiliate.

Dutch Family Heritage Society, 2463 Ledgewood Drive, West Jordan, Utah, 84084 frequently publishes articles on the Black Dutch in its quarterly edited by Mary Lynn Spijkerman Parker, as well.
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The Melungeon Report of Mrs. Orr will be continued in fu-ture issues of the Newsletter.  Later installments will cover the Por-tuguese/Spanish theory, the Huguenots, The Lumbee Indians, the Tackahoes, the Turks, the Sabine Redbones and the Free Colored/Mulatto theory.

Newsletter
Volume 3, No. 3  November 1991

Continued from October . . .
Did Appalachian Melungeons
Have an Iberian Ancestry?

By Evelyn McKinley Orr
Melungeon Research Team Chairman
8310 Emmet Street, Omaha, Nebraska, 68134

Some of the early Melungeons who lived in the area where Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina come together claimed to have had Portuguese ancestors.  Iberians were the original race of people living in Portugal, however many peo-ple invaded the country.  They included Phoenicians, Cartha-genians, Goths, Romans, Greeks and Moors, according to "World Book Encyclopedia."  Neighboring Spain often sub-jugated parts of Portugal and took over the entire country in 1580.

Hernando De Soto was apparently the first explorer to pene-trate the area we now know as Tennessee.  The encounter was a disaster for both the Cherokee Indians and De Soto's men who found that they could not subdue the Indians into slavery.

When the Spanish expedition under Capt. Juan Pardo re-turned to Tennessee 26 years later, his mission was to convert the In-dians to Christianity--not to enslave them.  Pardo built a fort and left a detachment to scout the territory and to search for gold, according to an article, "Southeast Indians" by Charles Hudson in "National Geographic Magazine," March 1988.

The detachment contained some Portuguese members who de-serted the expedition, according to "Mystery of the Melun-geons" by Louise Davis.  Thurston L. Willis, writing in "The Thesopiean Journal of North American Archaeol-ogy," Volume 9, confirms and locates the fort near present-day Newport, Tennessee.

One of Pardo's lieutenants, Juan De la Bandera kept a journal of his experiences on the expedition.  North Carolina State Archives has obtained a copy of his journal on microfilm, and I was able to inspect the 285 pages recorded in Spanish.  Only 72 pages of the journal had been translated and printed in En-glish at that time.

The printed copies of the first part of the Bandera journal show that a major objective of the 1567 expedition was to cul-tivate the friendship of the Indians and convert them to the Holy Catholic faith and to the fealty of the king of Spain.

During the past year, I received correspondence about two ar-chaeologists at the University of Tennessee who were plan-ning excavations at the site of the base of the Juan Pardo ex-pedition.

It is of interest to note that the name "Goin" appeared among the protestant Huguenots who arrived from France.  A large number came into Virginia in 1690.  In 1699 another 600 ar-rived and were assigned land on the south side of the James River about 20 miles past the site of present-day Richmond.  One suggestion as the source of the name "Melungeon" is the French word "melage" translated as "mixture."

Theda Purdue, writing in "Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society, 1540-1866," mentions "black" slaves in the De Soto and Pardo expeditions.  Could they have been Portuguese?  Byron Stinson writes that Portuguese came with De Soto and made references of the Iberians mixing with the Indians in "American History Illustrated," Volume 8.

The Portuguese dispatched an armada from Lisbon in 1665 to capture Cuba from the Spanish.  As it approached Havana, a Caribbean hurricane destroyed the fleet and swept some of the derelicts aground on American coasts, according to Jon Norheimer who wrote "Mysterious Hill Folk Vanishing" for the "New York Times" edition of August 10, 1971.  Mod-ern-day treasure hunters continue to find Portuguese artifacts in the supposed burial grounds of these ships.  Norheimer raises the possibility of Portuguese survivors reaching Ameri-can shores.  During this same tumultuous period in the West In-dies, England captured Jamaica from Spain, and some 1,500 Spanish slaves fled the island, probably some intent on reaching America.

Genealogists have observed that the spelling of surnames can sometimes be a clue.  Hoyt L. Goin, Foundation member of Russellville, Arkansas, writes that "Goyen" and "Chavez" were common names in Spain and Portugal in that period and ob-serves that "Goin" and "Chavis" were common names among the early Melungeons.  The names were also found among the Redbones and the Lumbees.  Is there a link?

When considering the Portuguese-Spanish theory for the ori-gin of the Melungeons of southern Appalachia, the early cen-sus records of the United States show a westward migration pattern from North Carolina and Virginia to Tennessee and Kentucky for these people.  How does the Pardo theory fit in with them?
==0==
The Melungeon report of Mrs. Orr will be continued in future Newsletters.  The next installment will deal with the Lumbee Indians as possible precursors of the Melungeons.

Newsletter
Volume 3, No. 4  December 1991

Continued from November . . .
Did The Lumbee Indians Have
Early European Ancestors?

By Evelyn McKinley Orr
Melungeon Research Team Chairman
8310 Emmet Street, Omaha, Nebraska, 68134

For over 100 years the origin of the Lumbee Indians and the possibility of a European ancestry for them has fascinated histo-rians and researchers.  Writers who have been attracted to them include: Hamilton McMillan, A.M, "Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony," 1888; William Edward Fritch, M.D, "The First Founders in America," 1913; Lew Barton, B.A, M.A, "The Most Ironic Story in American History," 1967 and David Beers Quinn, "Set Sail for Roanoke, Voy-ages and Colonies, 1584-1606."

The Lumbees live mostly along the Lumber River in Robeson County, North Carolina.  Our Gowen name is common among them where it is most often spelled Goins or Going.  They were never considered an In-dian tribe or part of an eth-nic group until they petitioned the United States government to become an of-ficial Indian tribe in 1951.  Some re-searchers have regarded them as survivors of the Lost Colony of Roanoke.  This origin has also been suggested for the Melun-geons of Southern Appalachia.

It is generally be-lieved that every member of the Lost Colony was slaughtered by the Indian Chieftain Powhatan before 1607.  David Beers Quinn holds that part of the original colony of 1587 could have survived.  He sets forth that sur-vivors of other early En-glish explo-rations along our coast could have survived and in-ter-mixed with native inhabitants.

The history book which Quinn wrote in 1985 contains ac-counts of voyages to the colonies and along the Virginia and Carolina coast and was an extension of his other works about the Lost Colony.  He does not expand on claims of specific origins for any particu-lar group of people living today.  How-ever, his comprehensive research raises the probability that there were survivors among early English explorations which had been previously regarded as having perished.

John Lawson, exploring the region south of Pamlico Sound in 1709, met Hatteras Indians with gray eyes who told him that their ancestors were white people who "talked in a book."  When the Scotch first arrived in the Lumber River region, they found Indians who spoke English, tilled the soil and owned slaves.

Capt. John Smith wrote to the managers of the Virginia Com-pany in 1608, "Chief Opechancanough informed me of cer-taine men at a place called Ocamahowan cloathed like me."  When two members of John Smith's Colony attempted to con-tact the supposed Europeans at Ocamahowan, the chief forbad them.  Later the scouts found "crosses and letters, the charac-ters assured testimonies of Christians" newly cut in the bark of trees.  Smith was convinced that they were "somme of our nation planted by Sir Walter Raleigh yet alive, within fifty mile of our fort."

As early as 1584, Arthur Burlow, commanding one of Raleigh's ships, described children he encountered "with very fine auburn and chestnut colored hair" and surmised them to be children of Europeans from shipwrecks, according to "American History Il-lustrated," Volume 8.

An early name for the Lumbees was Croatans.  There is some evi-dence of a relationship between the early Croatans and the Redbones of the Car-olinas.  What is the origin of the name "Redbones?"  Could "Redbones" have been a colloquial name for the Croatans?
==0==
The Melungeon report of Mrs. Orr will be continued in future Newsletters.  The next installment will deal with Sabines and the Redbones and their similarities to the Melungeons.

Newsletter
Volume 3, No. 5  January 1992

Continued from December . . .
Gen. Thomas Sumter Protected
The Turks from Discrimination

By Evelyn McKinley Orr
Melungeon Research Team Chairman
8310 Emmet Street, Omaha, Nebraska, 68134

The Turks of Sumter County, South Carolina have long been a genealogical anomaly and a subject of great interest to re-searchers.  Various writers have speculated as to their history and origin.  "The New South Magazine" carried an article on the Turks written by Ira Kaye in its September 1963 edi-tion.  "The New Yorker Magazine" followed suit March 8, 1969.  Karen I. Blue gave special attention to the Turks in "The Making of the American Indian People."

The Turks have never been associated with the Melungeons by researchers, but they are a very similar group.  They are more fortunate that most of the other isolated groups in the fact that they had a better documented history and a cham-pion.

During the American Revolution, Gen. Thomas Sumter, for whom Sumter County was named, rode through the country-side seeking recruits for his brigade.  Among the first to come to his side was Joseph Benenhaley who claimed to be a Cau-casian of Arab descent from the coast of North Africa.  When he left North Africa, it was part of the Turkish Empire.  Thus he was identified as a Turk or a Moor.

The Moors, regarded as descendants of the early Phoenicians by some historians crossed from North Africa into Spain and Por-tugal.  "The Tennessee Conservationist," in its August 1967 edition carried a feature article on the migration:

"About the time of the Revolutionary War, a con-siderable body of Moors crossed the Atlantic and settled on the coast of South Carolina near the North Carolina line."  In 1792, the South Carolina legislature enacted a law regulating their im-migration.

Carson Brewer in "Just Over the Next Ridge," his article in the "Knoxville News-Sentinel" in 1989 suggests that the Moors reached Tennessee.  He described the Melungeons of Tennessee as "having the darkness of East Indians or Mediter-raneans.  Their hair was dark and straight, and their features fine."  This de-scription fits the early Turks.

About the same time that Benenhaley volunteered, a man named Scott also came forward.  Scott was believed to be a mixed-blood Frenchman with an assumed name.  Gen. Sumter appointed Be-nenhaley as his scout and Scott as his bugler, and the two re-mained constantly with the general throughout the war.  After the war, they were given land on the general's plantation, and their families were referred to as Turks by people in the area.

The General pointed proudly to their Revolutionary service and defended them from dis-crimination.

According to Mrs. Mary Ann Benenhaley Oxendine, the blue-eyed granddaughter of Joseph Benenhaley, he married a white woman named Miller.  Mrs. Oxendine's mother was a daughter of Scott the bugler and his wife, Sally.  Mrs. Oxen-dine was mar-ried to her first cousin, also named Oxendine, whose father had come from North Carolina and married her mother's sister, also a daughter of the bugler.  Oxendine has always been a common name among the Lumbee Indians of North Carolina.

Other family surnames found among the Turks were Chavis, Lowry, Hood and Ray, according to a volume written by Anne Gregorie in 1954 entitled "History of Sumter County, South Carolina."  These names were also common among the Lumbee Indians.  The 1820 census of Sumter County showed Jesse Gow-ing and Ted Gowing as heads of house-holds there.  Neighboring Fairfield County, South Carolina census returns for 1790, 1810 and 1820 contained households by the name of "Goin," "Going" and "Goings."  The large Gowen family of Davidson County, Tennessee also had roots in Fairfield County where the name was frequently spelled "Goyen."  In Sumter County the Turks were an extremely iso-lated group, intermarrying and living mostly in the high coun-try between Stateburg and Dalzell.

In 1790, the Turks petitioned the state legislature to be gov-erned by laws pertaining to white inhabitants and not by laws for slaves and free Negroes.  Describing themselves as "free Moors" and former subjects of the Emperor of Morocco, they were success-ful, according to "The Journal of the State House of Representa-tives," January 20, 1790.

Ann Gre-gorie in referring to this peti-tion stated, "It is possi-ble that the Sumter County Turks had some connection with these Mo-roccans.  Apparently some free Moors entered or at-tempted to enter the state as bonded ser-vants, possibly from a northern port, for by the law of 1792, the legislature declared that no Moors bound to service for a term of years should be brought into the state by land or water from any other state.

In Gregorie's history, she states, "Dr. J. H. Mitchell, now of Greenville, has noted the reference in Cervantes' "Don Quixote" to Cid Hamet Benengeli, an Arabian historiogra-pher," and pointed out that the pronunciation of this name is the same as used by Joseph Benehaley of the Sumter County Turks, thus adding one more evidence of their origin.

"Stateburg and Its People," written about 1918 by Thomas S. Sumter, grandson of Gen. Sumter recorded a history of the Turks.  He confirms their claim to Moorish descent and states, "They have always had alliances with white people as all of us know who are conversant with their history."

Turkish descent has been suggested for my ancestor, David Go-ings who was born September 17, 1783.  He was married in 1803 to a German girl in Montgomery [later Giles] County, Virginia.  In 1939, a descendant, Norman Goings of Selma, Indiana wrote that his father and uncles resembled "old men of Turkey as we see them in pictures today."  Norman's father believed the Go-ings to be Turkish emigrants, but according to Norman, "could never explain the Scotch name."  Three gen-erations later, my mother's Goings family in Iowa was un-aware of this earlier de-scription as they regarded our Goings as French.  I shared this belief completely until about two years ago when I discovered the Melungeons and the research of Norman Goings.

The father of Norman Goings used the term "Tuckahoe" to de-scribe the family and told Norman that it was a nickname for people from Turkey.  Generally, tuckahoe is defined as a tuber plant similar to the potato that the early Indians of southern states used for baking bread.  Locally in Virginia, it became a nickname for the lowlands and for the inhabitants of Lower Vir-ginia, according to "Annals of Augusta County, Virginia," 1902 by Joseph A. Waddell.

At an early date, the people living on the east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains received the sobriquet of "Tuckahoes," and those on the west side were called "Cohees" from their com-mon usage of the Elizabethan term "Quoth he" for "Said he."  Wad-dell wrote, "The Tuckahoe carried himself rather pompously and pronounced many words as did his English forefathers in the days of Queen Elizabeth."
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In her next installment, Mrs. Orr deals with the Redbones and Sabine Indians and Mulattos and their similarities to the Melungeons.

Newsletter
Volume 3, No. 6  February 1992

Continued from January . . .
Redbones Arrived in Louisiana
Settling on the Sabine River
By Evelyn McKinley Orr
Melungeon Research Team Chairman
8310 Emmet Street, Omaha, Nebraska, 68134

The Melungeon Research Team has received some queries re-garding the Sabines, also called Redbones, of south and west-ern Louisiana.  Similar to the Melungeons, "Going" and "Goins" is a common name among them.  It appears that the Redbones mi-grated from North Carolina to Louisiana, and those that settled along the Sabine River, its boundary with Texas, were called "Sabines."  I learned on a trip to Louisiana recently that some of the Goins, believed to have come from North Carolina, were in Louisiana by 1800.

Many nationalities were among the early settlers in south and western Louisiana.  Newsletter readers will remember the arti-cles on the Choctaw Phillip Goins who re-moved from Missis-sippi to Louisiana before 1810.

One of the largest influxes of immi-grants came when the United States government offered 640 acres of free land about 1810, and settlers came from the Car-olinas, Georgia, Missis-sippi, Alabama, Tennessee and other ar-eas.

The famous French pirate, Jean Lafitte report-edly held 11,000 acres of swamplands and bayous in Bar-rataria and held the  first pirate convention there in 1804.  The St. Charles, Louisiana library holds a rare book, "Macadish Neighbors," writ-ten about 1822 listing the early settlers who re-ceived land grants there.  The settlement of James Going is recorded in this volume.

According to anthropologist Brewton Berry, the Redbones first gained attention in the 1850s when Frederick Law Olm-sted trav-eled through the wilderness and wrote his book, "Journey Through Texas, or a Saddle Trip on the South-western Fron-tier," "We were told a number of free Negroes were in the coun-try, all mulattos.  Some of them owned many Negroes and large stocks.  There were some good-for-nothing white people who married in with them."  In "Almost White" Brewton Berry wrote, "We have learned from census records that some of these groups did own slaves."  Edward T. Price, researcher and author, sug-gested that "Redbones" was an old Carolina term for all mixed bloods.

The Research Team has recently learned of a study made from 1877 to 1903 by James McDonald Furman, noted author and ed-ucator of South Carolina.  His collection consists of 425 articles dealing with the Catawbas and the Redbones.  Fur-man referred to the Redbones as "a different race from the whites and from the late freedmen."  He believed that Red-bones was a name ap-plied to mixed-blood people who were never slaves and who had Indian blood.  He suggested a pos-sible connec-tion with the Croatans and the Lost Colony of Roanoke.
Free Colored/Mulatto
When finding "Free colored" or "Mulatto" listed for a Gowen/Goins ancestor, there are several things to be consid-ered.  An ancestral line may be found with one description while closely related individuals are recorded with another.

In his article, "Tracing Free People of Color in the Antebel-lum South: Methods, Sources and Perspectives," Dr. Gary B. Mills of the University of Alabama writes:

"Modern genealogists are discovering a world for which pop-ular history has not pre-pared them, and research manuals of-fer little guidance.  Occa-sionally textbooks refer to "a few free blacks," and in the words of one historian, "were on the edge of extinction by the out-break of the Civil War."

Dr. Mills claims, "there were over 250,000 free colored by 1861."  He noted that, "Individuals who were not perceptibly white had been grouped into a general category whose label varied from "all other free persons, except Indians, not taxed" in 1800 to "free colored persons" in 1840."  He also states, "The terms 'colored' and 'mulatto' are being routinely revised to read 'black.'"

Consequently, individuals with Indian blood who left the tribal environment to live in a white society, those who ap-peared brown to censustakers and early transplants from Asia and the Middle East are now being erroneously identified by researchers as Afro-Americans.  "Subsequent efforts to link these 'other free colored' families to black slave roots also fail," according to "National Genealogical Society Quart-erly," December 1990.

An example used to show the confusion of census records is that of the case of Thomas and Betsy [Going] Nash who were among families moving from North Carolina to Louisiana [via the Choctaw Nation in Mississippi] in the early 1800s.  They settled in an isolated area near the juncture of three parishes [counties] in Louisiana.  The 1810 St. Landry Parish enumer-ator classed the Nash-Going family as "other free persons, ex-cept Indians, un-taxed."  The 1820 census showed them to be "free colored."  Two members of the same family were recorded as "white" by the enumerators.  Present-day mem-bers of the Nash family claim to be descended from the Lum-bees of North Carolina, ac-cording to Dr. Mills.

Edward T. Price of Los Angeles State College in 1953 wrote, "A strange product of the mingling of races which fol-lowed the British entry into North America sur-vives in the presence of people of mixed ancestry presumed to be part white with varying proportions of Indian and Negro blood.  The mixed-bloods have been free people for as long as their history can be traced; it is extremely unusual to find evidence of slav-ery in their ancestral lines.  Many of them were slave holders.  Records available leave open the possibility that a branch of the Gowen/Goins family emerged as free mixed-bloods in the seventeenth century.  Could these mixed-bloods have origi-nated as free men and maintained their freedom ever since de-spite the social barrier against freed slaves?  Certainly such a phenomenon as the Goins family must have a definite story behind it, but has it made its way into the records?"

The articles by Mills and Price reveal that prior to 1661, there was no statutory provision for slavery in the Southern colonies.  Dr. Mills states, "Africans and other early counter-parts who arrived before that time were held as bonded ser-vants.  They were treated the same as all indentured deportees from England, Ire-land and Scotland.  They were eligible for free land and could marry whites.  When the perpetual servi-tude law was enacted in Virginia in 1661, it did not apply to those already free."
Early White People Discovered
Consideration should be given to the statements of people who were in what is now northeastern Tennessee before cen-sus and other records were kept.  When John Sevier, later the first gov-ernor of Tennessee,  encountered the Melungeons about 1775 during Lord Dunmore's War, he wrote an account of his discov-ery.  He described the mysterious people he found west of the mountains to be dark-skinned, of reddish brown com-plexion, neither Negro or Indian, but with Euro-pean features and who claimed to be Portuguese.

Another widely quoted description of the Melungeons was that of early explorers Abraham Wood and James Needlum.  In 1673, they penetrated into what is now called Melungia.  According to Wood's journal, "Eight days jorney down this river lives a white people which have long beardes and whiskers and weares cloth-ing."

Samuel Cole Williams, L.L.D, wrote in "Early Travels in the Tennessee Country," 1928, "There is a tradition among the early Cherokees that they respected a settlement of white men among them.  "Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee" by Haywood also deals with the early white men who lived among the Cherokees.

Newsletter
Volume 3, No. 11 July 1992

Melungeons Regarded As
Portuguese Refugees

By Evelyn McKinley Orr
Melungeon Research Team Chairman
8310 Emmet, Omaha, Nebraska, 68134

Were the Melungeons Portuguese, as they have always main-tained?  And were they also Portuguese Moors as claimed by Dr. N. Brent Kennedy, a Melungeon descendant of Atlanta?

This update is intended to express thoughts regarding the Mediterranean theory, and not to claim a proven solution.  The Melungeons of the southern Appalachia were frequently described as having a "Mediterranean look," with a long tradi-tion of claims of Portuguese ancestry.

Tradition or mythical clues cannot be used to find a solution to the mystery of the Melungeons.  However, these haunting, recurring themes demand a closer study of the history of the early Arab-Moors.  A search was begun for descriptions of their physical appearance, culture and traditions.  And most important, what happened to the thousands of these con-quered people after their last major defeat by the Christian Spaniards in 1492?  It just may be that they were the progen-itors of the Melungeons.

The 15th century Moors were considered to be descendants of the ancient Phoenicians or Carthaginians.  Their land area was known as Western Islam or the North African Maghrib, Be-fore they were finally defeated, they reigned supreme for nine centuries in the coastal Mediterranean area.  After their de-feat, they became known as Mudejars [tamed] or Moriscos.  Out of fear, they denied their Moorish heritage, and their culture vanished.  Thousands fled, but some who were Chris-tianized were allowed to remain.

Many sought refuge in Tunisia where they remained free to practice their Islamic religion.  Others were herded onto crowded ships and sent to non-Christian countries.  Those who ware turned away struggled back to Spain.  There they renounced their faith, reluctantly turned Christian and were reduced to lower class citizens by the Spanish.

Records of these once proud people are scarce, lost or non- existent.  The earthquake and fire in 1755 probably destroyed nearly all of Portugal's shipping records.  Yet, during the 1500s there were numerous reports of groups fleeing or being deported from the Mediterranean area.  Refugees who landed on foreign shores claimed to be Portuguese or Spanish.  It would not be wise to claim to be a Moor in this time period.

American Indians, explorers Needlum, Wood and Sevier claimed to know of people similar to these Moors, [Newsletter, March 1992.]

No proof of the arrival of these people in America between 1492 and 1614 has surfaced to date.  Many historians do not recognize this possibility, however Dr. Kennedy has enlisted the aid of the Moroccan ambassador in his quest for knowl-edge to unlock the Melungeon mystery.  Would the Moroccan Archives hold such a key?

Dr. Kennedy, in his "Blue Ridge Country" article, claims the Moors came to the Carolinas early, perhaps in the 1580s.  His writing reveals extensive research into the history of the Moors and the culture of their descendents from Portugal.

Dr. Kennedy has experienced a unique physiological occur-rence that suggests a Moorish ancestry for him.  Earlier in his life, he was confined to a wheelchair with a mysterious mal-ady that defied diagnosis.  When a determination was finally made, it was found that Dr. Kennedy was stricken with a rare disorder found only among the Arab race.  His physician con-cluded that it was genetically transmitted.

Between 1609-1614, King Philip III of Spain decreed that all remaining Moors, Christianized or not, were to be expelled.  Historian Thomas Bourke wrote that nearly 100,000 went into France where Henry the Fourth treated them humanely, but the majority went into what is today Morocco.  Historian Henry Coppee writes that those who went to France during 1609-1614 accepted the French Huguenot religion, and many later emigrated to the American colonies.  According to Arab historian Beverlee Mehdi, "On December 20, 1777, in a doc-ument written in French, Morocco recognized the newly-declared independent United States of America and granted free passage to all American ships."

It is logical that some Moriscos would find passage to the American colonies on some of these ships.  This could ac-count for reports of Moors in the Carolinas prior to the American Revolution [Newsletter, January 1992].  Mehdi also states that in 1790 the House of Representatives in South Car-olina provided that "Sundry Moors, subjects of the Em-peror of Morocco," be tried in court according to the laws for South Carolina citizens and not under Negro codes.  [Newsletter, January 1992].

During 1965-66 a free health study was done on 177 Melun-geons in Hancock, County, Tennessee.  With assistance of a Tazewell physician, Anthropologists William Pollitzer and William H Brown conducted the tests.  This was a pioneer study in identifying nationalities from various genetic samples and was not conclusive. The results showed compatibility with Portuguese genes, but did not produce proof.

In 1990 an abstract was done by James L. Guthrie who used more modern testing of the data used in the earlier study.  In his report entitled "Melungeons: Comparison of Gene Fre-quency Distributions to those of Worldwide Populations," Guthrie found dominant Mediterranean genes.

Guthrie concluded that the populations of Italy, Portugal, Spain, and France have comparable percentages of CDe genes to the Melungeons.  The Melungeon's A2 percentage also supports an early Mediterranean theory, listing compara-ble ranges among the peoples of coastal Mediterranean and south-ern Europe [Cyprus, Sardinia, Crete, France, Italy, Ro-mania and Yugoslavia].  The Melungeon O gene is similar to values found in certain populations of Cyprus, Crete, and Turkey.

This report also stated that "the Rhesus system level of cDe [Ro] Haplotype, a marker for Black African ancestry, is higher than for most European populations and might argue for a slight Black American contribution to the Melungeons, except that it is typical of many Mediterranean peoples with long contact with Africa."  He surmised that "populations not significantly different from the Melungeons characteristics still exist, but they live in a relatively well defined part of the world."  And, he states that "the people closest to having the same gene factors as the Melungeons are now living in Italy, Tunisia, Morocco, France, Germany and Libya."  All are ar-eas  once heavily populated by the early Moors.

If the Arabic or Spanish-speaking Moors did come to Amer-ica, they probably anglicized their surnames, and slowly picked up the dialects and lan-guage of the English colonists.  Jean Bible and Brent Kennedy referred to a few remaining Portuguese first names among the Melungeons of Tennessee.  Also, many immigrants would have been Christianized before arriving and would have used or quickly picked up the com-mon biblical first names so often used by all the early Chris-tian Europeans.  The surname Gowen/Goins should not be ruled out as having been corrupted from the Portuguese Goyen.

Just as hazy is the origin of the term Melungeon. It is gener-ally thought to derive from the French word Melange, a mix-ture.  But, could the name have originated from the Melun-geons themselves before it became corrupted into a deroga-tory term?  The very early tribes of Portugal referred to themselves as "Melongos," according to Jean Bible.  Brent Kennedy was informed in the Portuguese Embassy that "Melongo" meant "a white person," and that 16th century North Africans used this term when referring to their Spanish or Portuguese neighbors.

The fine-featured Moors generally had very dark skin, dark eyes and hair.  The fine petite features, exceptional beauty and long straight black hair of their women was common. Some blue eyes and brown hair developed from their Eastern Arab blue-eyed Berbers mix, as well as some mixing with their slaves and concubines of conquered coastal and southern Eu-ropeans. They were extremely superstitious.  Being good farmers and herders, they were able to grow crops in unfertile high areas.  They excelled in story telling which was handed down from each generation leaving no written cultural her-itage.  All of these traits were characteristic of the early Melungeons.

The claims of Portuguese ancestry by the early Melungeons fell on deaf ears.  The social and political ideas of the times encouraged that all those who didn't appear European should be classified as Negro, Mulatto or Free Colored in records. [Newsletter, March 1992].

Many Indians of the Southeast also fell under this same classi-fication.  A good reference regarding the confusion with In-dian records is in the February 1992 issue of "The North Car-olina Genealogical Society Journal."  Also, con-fusing this is-sue was early mixing among the races in the colonies before it be-came socially unacceptable, and still continued after laws against it were passed. [Newsletter, March 1992].

Sifting out accurate data is complex. For recent data support-ing the Anglo-Indian-Negro Melungeon theory, see Dr. Vir-ginia Easley DeMarce's article, "Verry Slitly Mixt, Tri-Racial Isolate Families of the Upper South" published in The Na-tional Genealogical Society Quarterly, March 1992.

Consider this Melungeon update article as information only and not as a claim to the solution of the mystery.

Sources: 1. "History of the Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors--A Sketch of the Civilization which They Achieved and Imparted to Europe, two Vols, by Henry Coppee, 1881; 2. "The Moors in Spain and Portugal by Jan Read, 1974; 3. "Concise History of the Moors in Spain" by Thomas Bourke, 1811; 4. "Arabs In America 1492-1977", compiled by Beverlee Mehdi, 1978; 5. "The Melungeon Mys-tery Solved", Dr. N. Brent Kennedy, "Blue Ridge Country," July/August 1992; 6. "Survey of Demography, Anthropometry and Genetics in the Melungeons of Tennessee; an Isolate of Hybrid Origin in Process of Dissolution," by William S. Pol-litzer and William H. Brown, University of North Carolina, 1969: 7. "Melungeons: Comparison of Gene Frequency Dis-tributions to Those of Worldwide Populations" by James L. Guthrie published in "The Tennessee Anthropologist" Vol. XV, No. 1, Spring, 1990.

Newsletter
Volume 4, No. 5  January 1993

Filming Begins on Melungeon
Mystery Documentaries

Two television crews began filming Melungeon evidences in December under the direction of a committee of researchers and academicians headed by Brent Kennedy, Ph.D. of Atlanta and William VanderKloot, president of VanderKloot Film & Television, Inc.

Kennedy, a Melungeon descendant, was born in Wise County, Virginia in the heart of Melungia and for several years has re-searched the mystery of his ancestry.  His articles published in "Blue Ridge Country" brought his work to the attention of the Foundation, and research efforts were merged.

Kennedy became interested in the hypothesis of Eloy Galle-gos, Spanish historian of Santa Fe that the Melungeons were Iberian "Conversos," Christianized Moors-Jews-Spaniards-Portu-guese, also called Moriscos.

Their efforts became of interest to the Moroccan Embassy and the Portuguese Em-bassy who were attracted to the mystery of the Melungeons and who offered the resources of their em-bassies and their national archives in the investigation.

Additionally, the Portuguese embassy sent a second television crew to southwest Virginia and Sneedville, Tennessee to begin filming in the American Melungeon homeland.  The filming was being done under the direction of Mario Crespo, re-garded as the "Ted Koppel" of Portuguese television.

The documentaries are also focusing on the evidences of the Capt. Juan Pardo Spanish expedition which explored in east-ern Tennessee in 1567 which was featured in March 1988 edi-tion of "National Geographic Magazine."

Authority for the article written by Joseph Judge, an editor of the magazine, was a translation of Pardo's report written in April 1569 and deposited in Seville's Archives of the Indes.  The Archives holds 82,000,000 manuscript pages of well-pre-served reports on Spanish efforts in America.  The report was translated by historian Herbert Ketcham and placed in the North Carolina State Archives.  Archival mate-rial on the party reveals that some of the soldiers brought their wives and fam-ilies.  Pardo directed the construction of four forts in the area inhabited by the Catawba Indians, later to become Georgia and South Carolina.  The Catawbas com-posed the principal tribe of the eastern division of the Sioux.

Gallegos, in his research of the expedition, discovered that the leader of the expedition signed his name as "Joao Pardo," re-vealing him to be a native of Portugal, rather than Spain.  Emperor Carlos V of Spain had subjected Portugal during the mid-1500s and had impressed many Portuguese men into his army.  Rosters of the 250-man Pardo party show that the ex-pedition was composed of both Spaniards and Portuguese.  Since the Melungeons have long maintained that they were "Porter-ghee," the possible connection is intriguing.

Kennedy is careful to point out that the research and the doc-umentary films will be scrupulously objective however, and are not being made to support any particular point of view.  Other hypotheses and studies are also being undertaken.

Members of the Melungeon Documentary Film com-mittee in-clude: Tomas Atencio, Ph.D, University of New Mexico; Khalid Awan, M.D, University of Virginia; Mohamed Belkhayat, Ambassador, Kingdom of Morocco; Jefferson Chapman, Ph.D, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Scott Collins, Ed.S, Sneedville, TN, Robert Elston, Ph.D, Louisiana State University Medical Center; Charles Faulkner, Ph.D, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Eloy Gallegos, M.A, Santa Fe, NM; James Guthrie, Ph.D, Ashton, MD; Ahmad Y. El-Hassan, Ph.D, University of Ontario; Benita Howell, Ph.D, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Richard Jantz, Ph.D, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; N. Brent Kennedy, Ph.D, Atlanta, GA; Richard Kennedy, J.D, Wise, VA; Anouar Ma-jid, Ph.D, Uni-versity of New England; George Waters, M.D, Indianapolis, IN; Henry Price, J.D, Rogersville, TN; Fernidia Rodrigues, Ph.D, Boston Univer-sity; Nelson Vicera, Ph.D, Brown University; Jack Williams, vice-chancellor, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Evelyn McKinley Orr, Chairman, Melungeon Research Team and Arlee Gowen, Foundation president.

It is hoped that filming will be completed during 1993 and that the documentary will be available for showing at the Gowen Research Foundation Conference in Houston in May 1994.

Newsletter
Volume 5, No. 3  November 1993

Zephaniah Goins Fought
In Yorktown Campaign

By Jack Harold Goins
Editorial Board Member
Route 2, Box 275, Rogersville, TN, 37857

Zephaniah Goins, son of John Going and Elizabeth Going, and my seventh-generation grandfather, was born about 1758 in Halifax County, Virginia.  He enlisted in the Virginia troops during the American Revolution and was present at the Battle of Yorktown when Cornwallis surrendered in October 1781.

Zephaniah Goins, a Melungeon, was married to Elizabeth Thompson June 20, 1790 by Rev. Joseph Anthony of Henry County, Virginia.  She was the daughter of William Thompson and Mary Estes Thompson.

"Zephaniah Going" was a resident of Rockingham County, Vir-ginia in 1795, according to the research of Pamela R. Lawson Jenkins, family researcher of Franklin, Tennessee.  He appeared as the head of a household in the 1810 census of the county.  Soon afterward he removed to Tennessee, according to the re-search of Wanda Aldridge of Dyer, Arkansas.

Learning that Zephaniah Goins and Elizabeth Thompson Goins had joined Blackwater Primitive Baptist Church by dis-mission letter from another church which was unnamed, I began trying to locate this church.  In the Blackwater minutes, 1816 to 1834, I found four seventh-generation grandfathers who served in the Revolutionary War: Thomas Bledsoe, Henry Fisher, John Eng-land and Zephaniah Goins.

While searching in the public library in Kingsport, Tennessee, I found the minutes of neighboring Stoney Creek Primitive Bap-tist Church at Ft. Blackmore, Virginia, just across the state line.  They contained some very interesting Melungeon references in the minutes recorded in 1813.  The term "Melungeon" was prob-ably in common usage long before then, but this is the first time I have found it recorded.

Ft. Blackmore was built at Stoney Creek, in Washington County, Virginia before the Revolutionary War by Capt. John Blackmore to protect the settlers from Indian attacks.  Ft. Blackmore was located about eight miles southwest of present day Dungannon, Virginia in Scott County.  In 1780 Capt. Blackmore's militiamen participated in the victory over the Cherokees in the Battle of Boyd's Creek.

While driving through this small town trying to form a picture of what this place looked like 200 years ago, I stopped at a church called Pine Grove Primitive Baptist Church.  Residents told me that this site was where old Stoney Creek Primitive Baptist Church had been located.  I learned that the old building had been washed away in a flood.  I was told the old fort was about where Stoney Creek flows into the Clinch River and tried to visualize this place where my fore-bears were stationed dur-ing the Revolutionary War.

Grandfather Thomas Bledsoe was in Capt. Blackmore's com-mand.  He  filed his Revolutionary War pension application in Hawkins County April 24, 1834.  He was born in March 1760 in North Carolina and moved with his parents to the new terri-tory, about seven miles from Long Islands of the Holston River, on Reedy Creek.  It is now the site of present day Kingsport, Ten-nessee.  After the Battle of Kings Mountain, peace returned to the Clinch River valley briefly.

Reference has been made in the Foundation Newsletter earlier to a letter written by Capt. John  Sevier in which he describes the physical appearance of the Melungeons upon first encoun-tering them.  He patrolled in the Trans-Appalachian area of Virginia and Ten-nessee during Lord Dunmore's War in 1774.

John Murray Lord Dunmore, the Earl of Dunmore, was ap-pointed governor of Virginia in 1771, and an Indian war erupted during the third year of his tenure which was thereafter called Lord Dunmore's War.

A band of white marauders led by a des-perado named Greathouse attacked an Indian village and killed several of the tribesmen.  An Indian chieftain, John Logan, known to the tribe as Tah-gahjute, took to the warpath to avenge the death of his sister and other kinsmen in the raid.  John Logan, son of Shikellamy, was born in 1725.  Shikellamy was a white man who had been cap-tured by the Cuyugas while a child.  He grew up in the tribe, married an Indian woman and became a chief.

Believing that the troops of Capt. Michael Cresap were respon-sible for the raid and the murders, John Logan sent him a decla-ration of hostilities.  This was the begining of Lord Dunmore's War which saw the frontier become a blazing battleground.  Gov. Dunmore did his utmost to restore peace and was able to bring the Shawnee Chief Cornstalk to a parley after the Battle of Point Pleasant, but Logan shunned the peace talks and con-tinued the fighting which was a prelude to the Revolutionary War.

When the Revolution began, Logan served the British cause and wreaked havoc on the frontier settlements.  In addition to Cuyu-gas, the Mingoes, Cherokees, Shawnees, Chickasaws, Creeks and Chickamaugas went on the warpath from time to time, all supplied and encouraged by the British.  During the Revolution, Logan led a charmed life and did not receive a scratch, but was killed in 1780 near Lake Erie by a nephew that he had attacked.

Lord Dunmore fared little better.  In April 1775 Patrick Henry at the head of the Hanover Minute Men forced Dunmore to flee his office and take refuge on a British war vessel lying off York-town.  In retaliation, Dunmore ordered Norfolk, the largest town in Virginia at that time, to be burned.  This outrage united the Virginians in their resolve, and the British quickly order Dun-more out of the colony in 1776.

Lord Dunmore's War was not the last time that John Sevier was associated with the Melungeons.  He was born in New Market, Virginia in Rockingham County in 1745.  In 1776, he was one of the first to settle on the Watauga River west of the Appalachi-ans when Tennessee was opened for settlement.  Melungeons on the Watauga were then his neighbors.

Col. Sevier was one of the commanders in the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780, and Melungeon militiamen were included in his command.  Later in that year, Col. Sevier led an expedition against the Cherokee Indians.  Included in his command was the militia company of Capt. Blackmore and its Melungeons.

He helped to organize the Free State of Franklin [which em-braced the Melungeons] and became its governor in 1784.  Feeling that he was leading an insurrection, the officials of North Carolina arrested Sevier and convicted him of high trea-son.  Later he was pardoned.  Ten years later he was elected the first governor of Tennessee.

The Stoney Creek minutes are complete from 1801 to 1811.  Then from 1811 to 1814 there are intermittent skips.  The first minutes dated November 14, 1801 reveal that it was an existing church and adding new members rapidly.  Meetings were held on the second Saturday of each month.

The minutes reveal that the congregation was composed of whites, Melungeons, free Negroes and slaves.  During the next four years, 88 new members were added; 33 of these were per-sons bearing familiar Melungeon names: Gibson, Collins, More [Moore], Bolin, Bolling, Sexton, Osborne, Maner and Minor.

The congregation made an effort to overcome the prejudice against dark-skinned people prevalent in that period, but read-ing between the lines, it was apparent that the whites were greatly relieved when the Melungeons began an exodus to Ten-nessee.  According to the minutes, by 1807 most Melungeon families were gone; eight had received letters of dismission, and five others had been excommunicated for various unre-pented sins.

The word "Melungins" was recorded in the minutes of the church dated September 26, 1813 and is the oldest written refer-ence to them that I have found:

"September 26, 1813.  Church sat in love.  Bro. Kil-gore, Moderator.  Then came forward Sis. Kitchen and com-plained to the Church against Susanna Stallard for say-ing she harbored them Melungins.  Sis. Sook said she was hurt with her for believing her child and not be-lieving her, and she won't talk to her to get satisfaction, and both is pigedish [pig-headedish] one against the other.  Sis. Sook lays it down and the church forgives her."

Sister Susanna Kitchen was provoked with Susanna "Sookie" Stallard for reporting that the Melungeons were visiting in her home.  Sister Susan "Sook" Kitchens joined the church Septem-ber 26, 1812.  Her child told Susanna Stallard the Melungeons had been staying there.  The church forgave her upon her repen-tance, but the furor appeared to continue at the next meeting.  Stoney Creek was happy to see the Melungeons remove to Ten-nessee, and some were chagrinned to have them return on visits to Virginia.  Some did not request dismissions, but simply re-turned to Stoney Creek to worship upon occasions.

The closest ones lived near Kyle's Ford, Tennessee 40 miles downstream on the Clinch.  With their primitive roads it would be impossible for them to attend services at Stoney Creek and return in one day.  Someone had to be "harboring" them for per-haps for more than one night at a time.  Some members of Stoney Creek sought a resolution to keep the Melungeons at-tending church in Tennessee:

"October 23, 1813.  Church sat and found in love.  Bro. Cox puts a question to the Church: 'Whether it is in or-der to live in the bounds of one church and to belong to an-other church.'  The assembly deter-mined 'it not good to bind any member in such cases.'"

Several blacks were members at Stoney Creek, Rhoda [Cox's black], William George and his two blacks; Luke Stallard's black."  "Feb. 26, 1809, 'Can blacks testify against whites?'  The church voted 'yes.'

Concerning the use of the word Melungeon in these minutes, it is obvious it was a common word well known to this commu-nity.  From the minutes, the following were the first people to join Stoney Creek Primitive Baptist Church bearing Melungeon related names:

"December 1801 "Nancy Gibson, received by letter. Valentine Collins received by experience and baptised.  May the 22nd day 1802: Church meeting held at Stoney Creek.  Received by ex-perance Nancy Brikey, Riley Collins, Mary Large. Rachel Gib-son, Thomas Gibson, Beter Gibson, George Gibson, John Stuart and bap-tised."

Three members of Stoney Creek are on the 1755 tax list of Or-ange County, North Carolina.  Listed were "mulattoes" Thomas Gibson, George Gibson and Charles Gibson.

Four members of Stoney Creek reappeared on the 1810 tax list of Hawkins County, Tennessee: Thomas Gibson, George Gib-son, Charles Gibson and Valentine Collins.

Using the min-utes of Stoney Creek, you can note when Valen-tine Collins and Charles Gibson left for Hawkins County.

"April the 21 day 1803, Bro. Valentine Collins and wife to receive a letter of dismission, also Bro. Charles Gib-son and wife."

Blackwater Primitive Baptist Church was located at Kyles Ford, Tennessee in Hawkins County [present day Hancock County] on the bank of the Clinch River.  Organized in 1801, it was the first church established in this section.  The earliest minutes found begin in 1816.  We know by the minutes of Stoney Creek who some of its members were.

"February the 26th day 1802. Thomas Gibson Excom-municated.  Sis. Vina Gibson obtained a letter of dismis-sion by letter of recommendation from Blackwater Church.  Sis. Mary Gibson obtained a letter of dismis-sion. Clary More received by experiance and baptised. Dismissed in order."

Thomas Gibson, listed as one of the Kings Mountain militia-men, and George Gibson are distant grandparents in the family re-search of Ruth Johnson, a member of Gowen Research Founda-tion who lives in Kingsport.  She is completing a book about her life on Newman's Ridge.

Charles Gibson, born in Virginia, moved to North Carolina and later joined Stoney Creek Primitive Baptist Church June 26, 1802, then removed to Blackwater Primitive Baptist Church.

"Charles Gibson and wife, Rubin Gibson and wife, and Valen-tine Collins and wife" received dismission to go down to Blackwater Church.  The earliest minutes found there begin in 1816, but none of these people are found in them, probably be-cause Greasy Rock Primitive Baptist Church had been subse-quently established at Sneedville, Tennessee.

Other churches mentioned in the minutes of Stoney Creek in-clude Glade Hollow Primitive Baptist Church, Deep Springs Primitive Baptist Church at 3 forks of the Powell River men-tioned Aug. 1806 probably near Jonesville, Virginia and Moc-casin Primitive Baptist Church.

When the minutes of these sis-ter congregations are found, they may contain additional infor-mation about the Melungeons.

"Zephaniah Goans, free person of color" was recorded as the head of a "free colored" household in the 1830 census of Roane County, Tennessee, page 47.

In 1834, "Zephaniah Going" was a justice in Hawkins County, Tennessee,  He filed his Revolutionary pension application there December 18, 1834.

Without any embellishment, my Melungeon grandfather simply declared, "I was at the siege and present at the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown."

Fourteen children, 10 daughters and four sons, were born to Zephaniah Goins and Elizabeth Thompson Goins.  Children born to them include:

 John Goins        born in 1792
 Isaiah Goins        born in 1795
 Susan Goins        born in 1800
 William Goins       born in 1805

Newsletter
Volume 5, No. 11 July 1994

Was David Goings a
Turkish Melungeon?

By Evelyn McKinley Orr
Chairman, Melungeon Research Team
8310 Emmet, Omaha, Nebraska, 68134

My ancestor, David Goings was born in 1783, probably in Vir-ginia.  In 1939 a grandson of David reported that his father thought David was Turkish.  His father, John Goings and his uncle David Goings, Jr, "looked like old men of Turkey as we see them in pictures today."  The first David Goings who was described as having swarthy skin is now regarded as a Melun-geon.  Was he a Turkish Melungeon?  Let's examine some facts that contribute to the complex Melungeon mystery.

Turkey is situated between the Black Sea and the Mediter-ranean Sea, and its population includes North African and Mediterranean peoples.  Originally of Asian ancestors, the Turks became mixed with the Greeks, Ethiopians, Arabs, Abyssinians and Berbers.  Later the Turks and the Moors be-came major political forces in the world.  The Moors and the Portuguese also share an Arabic and Berber heritage.  The Turks became part of this scenario with much of this same mix and geographic proximity.  The Moors-Portuguese-Spanish-Iberians are emerging as probable ancestors of the Melungeons.

Sir Francis Drake, the famous English seaman of the late 1500s, became entangled in a most interesting episode.  In May 1585, Drake liberated a large group of galley slaves of various nation-alities from Spanish bondage in Santo Domingo and Cartagena, according to "Sir Francis Drake," pp190-191 by George Thompson and "Set Sail for Roanoke" by David Beers Quinn.

Drake decided to free the slaves, some 500 plus, including some women in the vicinity of Havana.  An anti-Spanish community in a fortified harbor in Cuba would give the British a strong po-sition in the Caribbean and serve as a base for their operations.  As Drake approached Cuba, hurricane-force winds arose, and all that Drake could do was to run with the storm.  He was off the coast of Virginia before the storm abated and determined to put in at Roanoke Island, a colony just planted by Sir Walter Raleigh.

Thompson concluded that Drake planned to reinforce the Roanoke colony with his newly-freed passengers.  Gov. Ralph Lane whom Raleigh had left in charge expressed no confidence in the future of the colony and requested that Drake take them aboard as well.  The colonists prevailed upon Drake to take them back to England.

What then happened to the 500 non-paying passengers?  Were some of them dropped off at the Roanoke colony to make room for the Lane party?  Did the former slaves abandon Lane's fort, move inland and meld into the Indian population?  Did they ul-timately link up with Iberian refugees from the Santa Elena colony of Capt. Juan [Joao] Pardo in 1567?  Were they to be-come the Melungeons?

In 1990 James L. Guthrie made a comparison of genetic mate-rial taken in 1969 from Melungeons living in Hancock County, Tennessee with the DNA samples taken from peoples living in other parts of the world.  His findings were published in "Tennessee Anthropologist," Spring 1990 in an article enti-tled "Melungeons: Comparison of Gene Frequency Distri-butions to Those in Worldwide Populations."

Guthrie concluded, "Several comparisons indicating Mediter-ranean heritage include the value of the Melungeons' O gene.  It is similar to values in certain populations of Cyprus, Crete and Turkey.  It is recognized that small sample sizes, the availabil-ity of Melungeon data in only five systems, the uneven distri-bution of samples around the world, and changes in gene fre-quency distribution over time, limit the rigor of this treatment.  Nevertheless, it seems clear that the populations not signifi-cantly different from the Melungeons in these characteristics still exist, but they live in a relatively well defined part of the world, the Mediterranean and the northwest coast of Europe."

Joseph Benenhaley, regarded as the progenitor of the Turks of South Carolina, married a Lumbee Indian woman by the name of Oxendine.  He arrived in Sumter County before the Revolu-tionary War and claimed to be of Arabic descent from the coast of North Africa which was then part of the Turkish empire.

In 1963, Muhitten Guven, a member of the Turkish Parliament, on a State Department tour of the United States, learned of the Sumter Turks and requested a visit to their community.  He ob-served many similarities with his own appearance and regarded them as Maltese.  The Guthrie Report listed Malta as one of the locations where the natives have a "gene value Fy' similar to the Tennessee Melungeons.  Ken Taspinar, the interpreter for Muhitten, concluded that the Sumter Turks were North Africans from the Turkish Ottoman Empire, according to "Turks," "U.S. Journal," March 1969.

As family genealogists continue their search and as more DNA analysis becomes available, the evidence will unfold.  Hope-fully, the curtain of antiquity will be drawn away from the Melungeons.  Researchers should watch for blood ties among the Turks, the Redbones, the Brass Ankles, the Catawbas, the Lumbees and the Melungeons of Appalachia.  Dr. Brent Kennedy, Melungeon researcher and head of the prestigious Melungeon Committee, found Lumbees among his Melungeon ancestors, according to his new book "The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People."

The early Lumbees used the term "Melungeon."  An instance of their probable ties to the Sumter County Redbones appears in the 1915 North Carolina Supreme Court case of "W. B. Goins et al vs. the Board of Trustees, Indian Normal School."  Chil-dren of the Redbones Goins families had been denied entrance into the Indian Normal School for Croatan/Cherokee [now called Lumbee] Indians in Pembroke, North Carolina.  The Goins families claimed they were sometimes called Redbones sometimes called Croatan Indians.  They were asked to prove that they were "not of not of Negro blood to the fourth genera-tion."

Harold McMillan, a former North Carolina state senator and Lumbee historian, was called to testify in the case.  He had written and introduced the legislation in 1887 which provided for the "establishment of a school for the people who descended from the tribes on Croatan Island."  In 1885 he had written the legislation which gave the Indians living in Lumberton County the official name of Croatan.  Prior to that legislation, they called themselves "Malungeans."  The tern "Malungean" was also used to describe a member of the Redbone Goins family in the transcript.

The Turkish government in June sent a television crew from Istambul to Atlanta to film an interview with Dr. Kennedy.  The Turkish moderator explained to him that his government was undertaking a study of southeastern American Indians, seeking a possible link with the Turks through the Moors.  These exam-ples lend credence to the possibility of Turkish-Moorish-Por-tuguese-Spanish-Iberian blood in the Melungeons.  Proof of this theory will show that the scope of the American "melting pot" is even greater than originally thought.

The English won the struggle for North America, and our his-tory books naturally begin with the first English settlements.  Historians have had little interest in the activities of the fringe nationalities.  The "Iberians" are found only in the footnotes, if at all.  The Foundation's Melungeon Research Team and Dr. Kennedy's committee have found some intriguing pieces of the puzzle.  The work is ongoing, and additional researchers with an interest in the Melungeons are invited to join the search.

David Goings, age 20, was married to Susannah William in 1803.  Her family was a member of the New River German set-tlement in Montgomery County [later Giles County], Virginia.  The New River valley was a major migration area for settlers moving west in the 1700s, and the Melungeons were among them.

The Goings had 13 children, 11 living to adulthood.  All were born in Montgomery [Giles after 1806] County.  The family seems to have escaped the discrimination dealt many of their Melungeon cousins.

The family lived along Sinking Creek beside Melungeon Collins families which later appeared in Hancock County, Ten-nessee.  The land of David Goings was given to him by his fa-ther-in-law.  About 1824 the Goings removed to Montgomery County.  In the early 1830s they removed to Delaware County, Indiana, being influenced there by two of their married daugh-ters.  Quite a wave of migration headed west during that decade, being attracted by cheap virgin land in Indiana.

Many Melungeons removed from Montgomery County at that time and melded into the European populations, as did the fam-ily of David Goings.  Later, his descendants in Iowa regarded themselves as French.  Today many Melungeon descendants are unaware of their heritage and the discrimination that many of their ancestors endured.  Yet, some of them have obvious Melungeon features and characteristics.

David, Susannah and six unmarried sons were in Liberty town-ship in Delaware County by 1834.  Several years later David rode his horse back to Virginia for a visit with Goings relatives who remained there.  He died there in 1840 on his trip.

Children born to David Goings and Susannah William Goings include:

 Elizabeth Goings     born March 29, 1804
 Katherine Goings     born April 21, 1805
 Mary "Polly" Goings    born January 29, 1807
 Margaret "Peggy" Goings  born February 5, 1810
 Rachel Goings     born November 27, 1811
 Sally Goings      born November 14, 1813
 Frederick Goings     born May 1, 1815
 David Goings, Jr.     born March 22, 1817
 George Goings     born October 4, 1818
 Joseph Addison Goings   born February 20, 1820
 William Goings     born January 1, 1822
 Lewis Goings      born January 30, 1823
 John Williams Goings   born December 16, 1826

"The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People" can be ordered by calling Mercer University Press, 800/637-2378 [800/342-0841, Ext. 2880 in Georgia] $16.99.

1. Elizabeth Goings was married to Samuel G. Campbell, Scotch-Irish in Montgomery County and removed to Delaware County.  He farmed and taught school in Liberty township.

2. Katherine Goings was married to Jacob Surface, a German.  They remained near Pearisburg, Virginia where he was a farmer.

3. Mary "Polly" Goings was married to Anderson R. East, a German and removed to Delaware County.  He also farmed and taught school in Liberty township.  A son, Lt. Crockett East died in the Battle of Gettysburg.  War Department records de-scribe him as having "dark hair, dark complexion and blue eyes"--a Melungeon description?

4. Margaret "Peggy" Goings was married to Abram A. Brown.  It is believed that they remained in Virginia.

5. Rachel Goings was married to John A. Burton, a German.  They remained in the New River area.

6. Sally Goings died young.

7. Frederick Goings was married to Hannah Hoover in Delaware  County.  He farmed in Liberty township of Delaware County.

8. David Goings, Jr. was married to Margaret King in Delaware County.  He also farmed in Liberty township.

9. George Goings died young.

10. Joseph Addison Goings was married to Delilah Tharp in Delaware County.  They removed to Benton County, Iowa where he farmed in Polk township.  They were the author's an-cestors.

11. William Goings was married Susannah Bortzfield in Delaware County.  They remained there where he farmed in Liberty township.

12. Lewis Goings was married to Elizabeth Ketterman in Delaware County.  They accompanied his brother, Joseph Ad-dison Goings in a move to Iowa and later removed to Smith County, Kansas.

13. John Williams Goings was married to Sarah Bortzfield in Delaware County.  He was a farmer and a grain dealer in Lib-erty township.

Newsletter
Volume 6, No. 1  September 1994

Melungeon Genetics Drawn
From Many Nations, Races

By N. Brent Kennedy, Ph.D.
750 Ralph McGill Blvd, NE, Atlanta, GA, 30312

Because of the deluge of letters I receive from various Founda-tion members seeking my personal thinking on our Melungeon origins, I felt it might be useful if I provided a short position statement for the Newsletter.  It's important to note theat these opinions are expressly my own personal views.  However. I am personally convinced that our heritage approximates the fol-lowing:

First, we are absolutely tri-racial in origin.  But what does that really mean?  Although there is a remarkable history behind the creation of our people---a history that undoubtedly includes Spanish, Portuguese, Turks, Arabs, Jews and others---these na-tionalities represent only a partial picture of who we are.  We are also native American, African and various shades and mix-ture of all three races.  We should also note that even when we speak of Turks, Portuguese or Spanish settlers, we are speaking of nationalities, not races.

Undoubtedly, many settlers of Berber, Arab, Jewish, Moorish and African ethnicity considered themselves "Portuguese."  Many of us forget that when I and others speak of Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish, etc, we are not denoting race, but instead na-tionality.  Gene studies that show that we are no different from "Turks" or "Portuguese," simply show that the populations in those countries are genetically and/or racially quite similar to us.  These other populations may, too, be "tri-racial."  There is really no such thing as a "pure" race, regardless of the race in question.  And we are all healthier for this intermixing.  Re-member, in the sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire all Turks, Arabs and Berbers from Istambul to Casablanca were called either "Turks" or "Moors."  To put it into modern perspec-tive, what "race" is an American?

What is important, however, about establishing our Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish components is that it shows the presence of various non-Anglo people---regardless of race---well before the establishment of Jamestown. In other words, nearly all histori-ans agree that the Melungeons have both Native Ameri-can and African American roots, but hereto they have [erroneously in my opinion] assumed that our African roots came solely from es-caped or freed slaves---slaves brought here by the English who [importantly, from the official English standpoint] preceded their captives.  While certainly some of our African ancestors ar-rived here via slavery, not all did.  And this differentiation is historically quite important.

I contend that many, perhaps the majority, of our African an-cestors arrived here as bonafide settlers well before the English.  And they came as free individuals and full-fledged pioneers.  Some were Portuguese and some were "Turks."  And some were undoubtedly "'African."  To deny this is to deny their accom-plishment simply because some prejudiced historians cannot conceive that Africans or any other darker-complex-ioned people could have arrived on these shores prior to the English.

And be-cause these settlers were mixed in and among the Por-tuguese, the Turks and others, they unfortunately have been conveniently "lost" to historians who have not understood the difference be-tween race and nationality.  But they were here.  They survived.  And we need to remember them.

One need only look at Australia as an example of official En-glish racism; in 1788 the Australian government officially de-clared that the Aborigines arrived in Australia after the English!  And for a long time historians and others believed it and con-firmed it.  Why do we think a similar stance, however pre-posterous, would not have been utilized in colonial America?

But the confirmation of a Mediterranean heritage in no way compromises or negates our equally strong northern European, African and Native American heritages.  The invigorating real-ity is that we are a wonderful brew.  We are connected to all people.  We have indeed identified thallasemia, Familial Mediterranean Fever and Machado-Joseph [Azorean] Disease among the Me-lungeon population base, pretty much confirming at least a partial Mediterranean background.  This is quite im-portant.  And it is why so many Melungeons do indeed look Spanish, or Ara-bic, or Jewish.

But do not overlook the fact that I and many other Appalachi-ans have sarcoidosis.  Eighty percent of the victims of sarcoido-sis are so called "African-Americans."  The remainder tend to be "Caucasians" of the southern Appalachians, many if not most of Melungeon descent.  There is no doubt that I share a gene pack-age with all my fellow sufferers of sarcoidosis.  We are closely related, Cousins.  All tri-racial, if you will.  My niece, inciden-tally, is considered "bi-racial"---the child of a "white" mother and a "black" father.  Heather, like both her parents, absolutely beautiful, but is typically mistaken for "Mediterranean."  But is it actually a mistake?  I do no think so.  What, after all, is "Mediterranean" anyway but a blend over time between sub-Sa-hara Africans and northern Europeans?

The lesson here is that many of us begin to go astray when we latch onto a single ethnic component to explain a multi-ethnic issue.  We are a beautiful blend of Native American  [Cherokee, Yuchi, Catawba, Powhatan, Pamunkey, etc.] Caucasian [English, Irish, German, Portuguese, etc] and African [Mauritanian, Nige-rian, Angolan, etc.]  These various admix-tures occurred with ebbs and flows and with variations among and between the dif-ferent Melungeon population bases, and we shall most likely never sort it all out.  We really do not need to.  Instead, let's con-centrate on the important historical aspects of our story [that we were among the earliest arrivals in this coun-try---certainly prior to the English---and especially when we consider our Native American component as well as the moral implications: we are all brothers and sisters.  Not just figura-tively, but literally.  I am a Melungeon, a blend of all races and many nationalities and very, very proud of it.
 

Newsletter
Volume 6, No. 11 July  1995

Melungeon Research Committee
Completes Filming in Turkey

By N. Brent Kennedy, Ph.D.

From April 23rd to May 4, Atlanta Emmy Award-winning doc-umentary filmmaker William VanDerKloot [previous works in-clude "Portrait of America" with Hal Holbrook [WTBS], "World of Audubon" [WTBS],  "Time and Dreams," the offi-cial film on the Atlanta Olympic Committee, and "Energy: Progress Revisited" hosted by Forrest Sawyer for PBS], his film crew, and I were in Turkey as official guests of the Turkish Government.  The Turkish Government awarded a full travel and expenses grant after reviewing historical, linguistic, cul-tural, and medical/genetic evidence relating the Melungeons to Por-tuguese and, specifically, Turkish peoples, and indepen-dently concluding that the evidence was overwhelming.  A sig-nificant amount of information was gathered, and equally sig-nificant findings were made.  I'd like to present to readers of the Foun-dation Newsletter a flavoring of the trip, with the under-standing that much work remains ahead of us in sorting through the vol-umes of data collected.

First, a few words on Turkey  It was an exhausting but glori-ous two weeks, with the generally negative media images of Turkey melting into oblivion as the true nature of the nation and its people quickly became obvious.  We were all amazed at the generosity and warmth of the Turkish people, as well as the beauty and cleanliness of their cities.  I found Istanbul, despite its 14 million people, to be much tidier - and safer - than my own city of Atlanta.  And the beauty of this ancient city with its exquisite mosques and Roman architecture [Istanbul was known as Constantinople under the Romans] is over-whelming.  And this is to say nothing of the exquisite food -  Turkish cooking is considered, along with French and Chinese, to be one of the world's three greatest cuisines, and I now know why.

Turkey is also the world's largest open air museum, with many Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Holy sites scattered throughout the country.  I was particularly moved by the great respect and care given by the Muslim Turks to sacred Christian sites.  The Muslims revere Jesus and Mary and wel-come Christians as fel-low "People of the Books".  There is no  greater spiritual experi-ence than watching devout Muslims respond to the call for prayer at Istanbul's Blue Mosque, or any of the other major mosques for that matter.  Regardless if you're Melungeon, Turk, or neither, Turkey should be your next destination site.  The probable Turkish connection to our people simply sweetens what is already a fabulous destination site.

Our travel guide, incidentally, was Mr. Mehmet Topcak of Abatur Travel in Istanbul, and I recom-mend him strongly for anyone wanting a wonderful agent/guide who knows the coun-try, as well as the quality yet reasonably priced hotels, the best restaurants, and who is already familiar with the Melungeon odyssey!

The author, Dr. Brent Kennedy, third from left, with his Melungeon fea-tures, blends in with his Anatolian friends.  The Turkish government, in-trigued with his research on Melungeon roots, extended a grant for him and his film crew to work in Turkey.

He provided his services free of charge and even opened his home to me as his overnight guest [though interested travellers shouldn't expect such continued generosity, as Mehmet, too, must earn a living!]

Mehmet's telephone number is 001-90-212-516-3473 [just dial it as is, and remember the cost is about $2.00 per minute].  Mehmet speaks excellent English, but do remember that Istan-bul is seven hours ahead of  Eastern time; that is, when it's, when it's 12 noon in Sneedville, Ten-nessee, it's 7:00 p.m. in Is-tanbul!

A little background on the most promising theory of our ori-gin  The steadily accumulating evidence is that the Melun-geons, while today a diverse people representing all races and cultures, descended at least in part from two separate, major population groups.  The first parent population group would appear to be the primarily Portuguese survivors of Spain's Santa Elena Colony which was located near present-day Beaufort, South Carolina.

Melungeon Research Committee member Dr. Chester DePratter of the University of South Carolina is one of the two principal archaeologists working the Santa Elena site.  These sixteenth-century settlers, although of Portuguese nationality, were them-selves of mixed Arab, Moorish [Berber and Turkish], Jewish, Basque, Portuguese and Spanish stock.  After Santa Elena's de-struction by the English in the late 1580's, the evi-dence indi-cates that many survivors - perhaps as many as 200 men, women and children - made their way to the safety of the mountains of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee.

The second parent population group would appear to be ap-proximately 200 to 300 liberated Turk-ish galley slaves, two dozen South American Indians, and two dozen West Africans set ashore at North Carolina in 1586 by Sir Francis Drake [ironically, the same year Santa Elena fell].  Drake had inadver-tently rescued the Turks from their Portuguese captors in South America and the Caribbean.  He had planned to take them back to England and ransom them "to the Turkish Do-minions," but Ralph B. Lane's English colony at Roanoke Island had wanted to go home, and Drake apparently set these men out to make room for his compatriots.

Historian David B. Quinn provides several well researched works on this particular incident.  Unlike the Europeans, the Turks, being Muslims, harbored far less racial prejudice than their European adversaries, and banded together with their South American Indian and West African compatriots.  I am convinced that they eventually intermarried with Powhatan, Pamunkey and Catawba Indians, adding a degree of Native American blood to their population and exchanging cultural heritages.

Over the years, they too ended up in western North Carolina where they again intermarried with the survivors of Santa Elena.  The longstanding Melungeon claims to be both Por-tuguese and Turk-ish/Moorish have been criticized as "inconsistent."

The Melungeon claim to be both Por-tuguese and Turkish now seem to make sense, as does the  longstanding mystery word "Melungeon", pronounced identically to the Turkish "melun can," meaning "cursed soul"  or "one whose luck has run out".  The genetic and medical evidence both seem to corroborate the above ethnic and racial origins for our people [See Dr. James Guthrie's work in "Tennessee Anthropol-ogist," Spring, 1990], and the finding of such genetically-related Mediterranean dis-eases as thalle-semia and Machado-Joseph Disease in the Melungeon population cannot be coincidental.  In my strong opinion, within the next five to ten years scholars will take for granted the fact that both our Nation and our people - regardless of their assumed "races" - have a heretofore unacknowledged rich Middle Eastern, southern European, and African heritage that predates Anglo America.  To me this is the most marvelous aspect of the Melungeon story - the unseen interrelatedness of all people.

Now to a few tid-bits from the trip!  Most of our findings will be presented in the film, to be released in the Spring, 1996, and other points of interest and comparisons are still being exam-ined by Research Committee members. However, there are a number of intriguing elements that can be shared at this junc-tion.

The Turkish Navy is cooperating fully with our research effort [we met with and filmed Turkish Admiral Taner Uzunay, as well as artifacts in the archaeology and naval museum].  The Navy con-trols the Ottoman Archival files of interest to our project, and Admiral Uzunay will be assisting us in availing ourselves of the proper  documents, as well as scholars who can translate from the old Arabic.  It is an accepted fact by the Turks that many of their sixteenth-century seamen were lost to the Por-tuguese and ended up as galley slaves.

Of interest, the Turks can document many of these prisoners being taken to the Canaries and Azores where they became Portuguese "conversos" [forced Catholic settlers in the New World!] Turkish historians  have always assumed that  cap-tured "Levants" [Ottoman sailors] were generally taken to the Ca-naries, Azores, and the New World as slave labor. Ironically, the Turks feel a special closeness today with the Portuguese [as opposed to the Spanish] due to such eth-nic admixtures. The as-sistance of the Turkish  Navy in this highly specialized research area will help immensely.

Other intriguing evidence includes a docu-mented map that was owned by Piri Reis, a Turk dated at 1513 and showing most of North  and South America, as well as the Caribbean - areas un-known to the Spanish and the English  of the time.  Piri's de-scendant, Murat Reis, in the 1600's sailed his fleets to the Ca-naries, Holland, Eng-land, and Scandinavia.  Some Turkish histo-rians are convinced that he also reached North America.

We discovered some fascinating similarities between Turkish and Arabesque kilim and carpet de-signs from the 1500's to Melungeon and Appalachian quilting.  We filmed Anotolian [the Aegean region where most of the sixteenth-century Ot-toman sailors supposedly originated] folk dancers and were stunned to see [except for the costumes] Appalachian "line" or "square" dancing, with dulcimer-like instruments providing a bluegrass style background rhythm.  The western Anatolians are dark-complexioned and known for their light blue eyes.  I saw duplicates of my family every-where.  One particular indi-vidual - a handsome fellow with blue eyes, was so dark that he was nick-named "The  African" by his fellow fisherman.

We ate six-teenth-century Ottoman meals, and I cannot tell the difference from the meals my great grandmother prepared [which were quite differ-ent from Irish or English cuisine]. The Anatolians even had "tomato gravy" which seems to be un-heard of outside the Melungeon population.

I asked an eight-year-old Anatolian girl if I could take her photo and, just as my great-grandmother, Maggie Bennett Nash, used to do when saying no in a nonverbal fashion, she threw her head back, did a "clicking" sound in her throat, and walked away.  I was stunned, but later was told that this is the old Anatolian method of saying no without offending.  My mother and aunts have always used the term "gaumy" [my spelling] to indicate something was a mess or wrong [i.e, "I'm feeling gaumy."]  I've always considered the word an old coun-try expression.  Well, I heard the same word used among the Anatolian fishermen - its mean-ing: "sad."  Even my mother was astounded at that one!  I also heard so many Anatolian names that, although spelled differently, sounded exactly like "Reece," Ramey," "Ramsey," Sampson," "Nash," "Perry," "Berry" and "Hall" - all common Melungeon , Lumbee, and South Carolina "Turk" surnames.  And I was moved to see that whenever one turned away from the Aegean and looked inland, there stood replicas of the Appalachian Mountains!  Despite their seafaring lives, the Anatolians are a mountain people, just like the Melun-geons.

In the Naval Museum, the sixteenth-century costume of an Ot-toman warrior Levant looked quite familiar - I've seen it on the models of the eighteenth-century Cherokees in Cherokee, North Car-olina.  "Delaware" is a Turkish word meaning "beautiful land."  "Hatteras" is Turkish-Croatian, meaning "luxurious."  "Niagara" is Turkish for "a loud, roaring noise," "potomoc" [as in the "Potomac" River] is Turkish/Croatian for "descendants"], "pohatan" [as in "Chief  Powhatan"] means "cruel, aggressive leader, "shiroki" [or Cherokee"] means "widespread"], and "Croatan:" [as with the "Croatan" Indians] is simply the Ot-toman word for the Croatan people.  And the list is by no means exhausted.
(To be continued)
Newsletter
Volume 6, No. 12 August 1995

Genetics Link Melungeons
With Mediterranean Ancestors

Part 2:
By N. Brent Kennedy, Ph.D.

My guide's brother has sarcoidosis, the same illness that spurred me to do my family research in the first place.  And throughout Turkey the people needed no translation for "Melungeon," im-mediately understanding it to mean "one whose luck has run out [i.e., spelled in Turkish "melun can", but pro-nounced iden-tically]." And as a result of their understanding, I re-ceived quite a few hugs - and lots of cay [tea] - from sympa-thetic Turks who were saddened by the story of our people.  In fact, every where I went in  Turkey, the Turks assumed I was one of them. Every-one spoke to me in Turkish, and typically were surprised to learn I was an American with an Irish surname.  Alp Kamoy, an officer of the Ministry of Tourism who oversaw our itinerary and served as an interpreter, was particularly de-lighted when such "mistakes" occurred. Alp's position was that these in-stances were not cases of mistaken identity [that is, that I was indeed a Turk and recognized physically by the people as one] - but instead simply a language barrier brought on by 400 years of forced separation!  And, to be honest, they looked like us, too.  The physical pheno-types -- especially in the Cesme area [Anatolia] -- are amazingly identical, something I had not ex-pected.

Importantly, a five-person research committee has been set up by Dr. Kursun at theUniver-sity of Marmara in Istanbul and is already at work.  The committee includes historians and an-thropologists, several of whom have for years been investigat-ing the mysteri-ous connections between Southeast-ern Native Americans and Turkish culture.  As Dr. Kursun explained to me, "These recent findings finally may of-fer an explanation as to how so many amazing coincidences could have occurred."

In a related area, I have a copy of Dr. James H. Guill's book, "The Azores: A History," Vol. 5  [Golden Shield Publica-tions, PO Box 1860, Tulare, CA 93275 - $28, which includes p&h], and it's fascinating.  Guill, a historian with a keen interest in his wife's native Azores, asserts that the "Portuguese" settlers in the Azores [beginning in the late 1400s with approximately 2,000 people] were a varied ethnic population, including Por-tuguese, Berbers, and Turks, and even some Flem-ish, French and Irish.  He paints a picture of a "Middle Eastern" looking people claim-ing to be Portuguese, but occasionally sporting blue eyes and Anglo surnames!  And the Azores serves as a major source for New World Portuguese settlers.  There are un-doubtedly countless ways that "Turks"  and other Middle East-ern/Mediterranean people could have arrived early on in the New World, either by design or oth-erwise.  I could go on and on, but it was a remarkable trip and we've only seen the tip of the iceberg.  Our research committee continues to work hard, bolstered further by the medical and ge-netic assis-tance being offered by Portuguese geneticists at McGill Univer-sity [Canada] and the University of Porto [Portugal].  Virginia resi-dent Robert Gilmer, M.D., will be co-ordinating the research from "Melungeon country."

One final important statement for the record.  I want to ac-knowledge here that long before I entertained the possibility of a Turkish connection, research team member Evelyn McKinley Orr had suggested that such might be possible, or even likely.  While I was initially too consumed with other research areas to follow up on Evelyn's hypothesis, time and truth appear to be winning out.  The history of our people should record that Eve-lyn McKinley Orr first brought the possibility of a Turkish in-fluence to my attention, and for this -- I and other Melungeons - will always be grateful.
Conclusion  What is becoming increasingly clear is that the evi-dence for the true origins of the Melungeons has always been easily available, right on the surface.  The greatest obsta-cle to our having solved this mystery long ago has been, sim-ply, our inability to take se-riously what the people themselves have con-sistently told us.  Much of this probably stems from our believing the old Anglo edict that no one preceded the En-glish to these shores.  Another barrier to truth has been our ten-dency to nar-row-mindedly con-fuse our present ethnic charac-teristics [however they may vary with each population] with those of our ancestors.  All of us change over time, with inter-ethnic and in-terracial marriages bending and shaping us in one direction or the other.  All races carry the heritage of the first Melungeons.
In a nation bent on preserving the myth that only white Anglo Saxons could have conquered and settled the New World [and thus were the only ones who deserved to enjoy it], thousands upon thousands -- if not millions -- of Americans were forced  into denying, and then forgetting, their true ethnic, racial, and religious origins.  The only way to prevent such a tragedy from happening again [not an impossibility in a world consumed with "ethnic  cleansing" and the myth of "racial purity"] is to learn the truth, accept it, and fight for the right to tell it.
To all my Melungeon brothers and sisters - black, white, yel-low, red, and any beautiful combina-tion thereof - take pride in your heritage.  Those who came before you - whatever their color - loved their children and struggled to give each new gen-eration a better life.  Never, ever deny the existence of any of them!  I proudly carry the blood and the genes of all of God's peoples, and ev-ery morning upon awakening, I praise Him for letting me be born a Melungeon!

Melungeons Face the Dilemma
Of Finding Accurate Records
By Evelyn McKinley Orr
Chairman, Melungeon Research Team
8310 Emmet, Omaha, Nebraska, 68134

Dr. Brent Kennedy's article about Melungeon research in Turkey continues to add credence to the possibility of Melun-geon her-itage from the Mediterranean Middle East.  It may be that for-eign archives and old sea charts will eventually reveal more than American records.

Finding accurate documented evidence in American archives is difficult.  The traumatic history of the mixed bloods of the  Southeast developed because of the world-wide social and po-litical standards of early time periods.  In the Colonies many laws developed which placed a social stigma on individuals not considered to be Anglo-European.  We now know some her-itages were lost, and this presents a dilemma for today's geneal-ogists seeking records for documentation of their genealogy.  A good example of how this practice affected some nationalities from pre-Columbian days is outlined in the book, "Black Africans and  Native Americans" by Jack D. Forbes, 1988.

According to Forbes, Virginia passed a law as early as 1705 re-quiring all Indians to be called mulatto.  Also, see the Decem-ber, 1990, issue of National Genealogical Society Quarterly, "Tracing Free People of Color in Antebellum South," by Gary B. Mills.  Mills states that, "the term 'mulatto' is routinely being revised to read 'black.'  Consequently, Indians and part Indians who left the tribal environment to live in  the Euro-American society, families whose skin appeared to have shades of brown to census takers, and early transplants from Asia and the Middle East are now being identified by researchers as African-Ameri-can."

Dr. James L. Guthrie's genetic test on the Hancock County, Ten-nessee Melungeons produced the following results: "A gene value closest to these Melungeons was found in people now living in Coastal Europe, North Africa, the Mediterranean Is-lands, the Levant, and certain populations of Arabia, India, Africa, Eastern Europe."  See, "East Tennessee Anthropolo-gist," Vol. XV, #1, 1990.

Foundation Editorial Boardmember, Robert J. Goyen, of Aus-tralia, a very perceptive historian, wrote in the March 1995 newsletter, that the 'Turks' were raiding the Cornish coast as early as the 1400s, and perhaps that is how his Goyen's arrived there.  He also suggests that we look at books telling of the de-velopment of ships and sea routes world wide.

The Spanish and English were competing for control of North America. The English won, so why would early American histo-rians be interested in the possible survival of the Span-ish/Portuguese Pardo 1569-1586 Colony.  They certainly would not be interested in what happened to Sir Francis Drake's galley slaves in 1586.  In today's social climate, historians and archae-ologists are becoming more interested.  And, hopefully they will envision a possible world-wide connection to our Melun-geons.

 After Jamestown, a mix of nationalities were brought to America as servants.  The class caste system was strong in En-glish society, and the American work ethic had not yet devel-oped.  So, prior to American slave laws, any of these people could marry and mix socially.  Our early 'Melungeons' in-cluded.  By the time laws were passed against people with black skin, it was far to late for many of the early inhabitants of the colonies.  People whose skin was shades of brown in the eyes of the social power structure were considered inferior.  They often became known as free colored, mulatto or negro in the records.  This could include the Negro, Turk, Moor, Por-tuguese, Native American and even the Chinese.

I feel compelled to comment on the similarities Dr. Kennedy found between the citizens of Turkey and the early Lumbee In-dians of North Carolina.  The Lumbees, who have always claimed heritage to the 1587 English Roanoke Island Lost Colony, did not have a tribal name until 1885.  At that time State Senator Hamilton McMillan acquired the name Croatan Indian for them.  Testimony in a 1915 court case revealed that the Lumbee Indians called themselves 'Melungeons' before they were given the tribal name of Croatan.  [See The North Car-olina 1915 Supreme Court case of W. B. Goins vs the Board of Trustees, of the Indian Normal School.]  It is not likely that all the ancestors of these early Croatans remained in North Car-olina to become todays Lumbees.

 As a result of massive discrimination, it became common for many people with shades of brown skin to claim to be white, or  Portuguese or Turkish.  People who were part negro would also claim this, and why not, they hoped to be more ac-cepted.  Given the social attitudes of the times, that claim may not have been of much help.  It is also understandable why those in power would not believe the Appalachian Melungeons when they claimed to be "Portygee."  And, it is understandable why we have confusion sorting out their heritage today.  The search will go on for accu-rate nationalities.

It is just as wrong today to continue to ignore possible Turk, Moor or Portuguese heritage, or to record them erroneously, as it is for those who have Negro genes to deny their Negro her-itage. And, it is wrong to classify the Native American as mu-lattos or blacks, and erase their Indian heritage.  Most important is that today we are ALL Americans first, in one large melting pot, and we should all be proud of that.

Dear Cousins
Newsletter, October 1995

 Earlier this year, Dr. Brent Kennedy and his Melungeon film crew made a trip to Turkey.  One exciting event of the trip was to form plans for Chesme, Turkey, and Wise, Virginia, a home area of the Melungeons to become sister villages.  In September of this year,  Dr. George Culbertson, Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor of Clinch Valley College of the Uni-versity of Virginia, and Dr. Garett Sheldon, Professor of His-tory at Clinch Valley College, traveled to Istanbul to meet with Dr. Kursun, noted historian of Marmara University in Istanbul.  Dr. Kursun recently published his own work on the links be-tween the Ottomans and the Melungeons.
 Drs. Culbertson and Sheldon also attended ceremonies there commemorating Clinch Valley College and the University of Istanbul as sister universities.  The Melungeons have come a long way since the dark days of denying their heritage.
 The Turkish research team continues to dig into the cultural similarities.  Early conquerors, who date back to the Ottoman Turks and the Islamic Moors' 700-year reign in the Mediter-ranean, became the ancestors of many people found in the Mid-dle East and Mediterranean today.  Their complicated journey through history picked up a mosaic of nationalities, some of whom, we feel, found their way to America.  All this can con-fuse family researchers today as it runs contrary to long held beliefs that our early ancestors in America descended from one nationality or some combination of North European, Negro, Native American etc.
 The word 'Turk' is also misleading, as many historians be-lieve that the early Christian countries applied the generic name 'Turk' to all the marauding Islamic nations, not just those from Turkey, and, indeed, this is the viewpoint of Dr. Kennedy as well as the Turkish scholars involved.  Of course, in the 1500s all Islamic countries were subjects of the Ottoman Empire.
 Specialists in medicine, anthropology, archaeology, history, linquistics and genetics on Dr. Kennedy's Committee reveal that some early folks who wrote about the Appalachian Melun-geons weren't too far off the mark.  They believed they were much like a 'mysterious race' of their own.  I am grateful for the early detailed writers, such as Bonnie Ball and Jean Patterson Bible who were among the first to recognize unusual Melun-geon traits.  They gave me the idea to look into earlier history.
 Thank you, Arlee Gowen, for the support you give the Melungeon search, for forming the Foundation's Melungeon Team in 1990, and the fair hearing given to all the theories.  Then, in 1992, we discovered Dr. Brent Kennedy.  His great personal efforts, many talents, ability to attract experts in vari-ous fields and his non-profit Melungeon film project has tremendously helped the Melungeons find acceptance.  We are proud to be working with Dr. Kennedy as the search goes on.  Evelyn McKinley Orr, Chairman, Melungeon Research Team, 8310 Emmet Street, Omaha, NE, 68134

Melungeon Research Committee
Completes Filming in Turkey

By N. Brent Kennedy, Ph.D.

From April 23rd to May 4, Atlanta Emmy Award-winning doc-umentary filmmaker William VanDerKloot [previous works in-clude "Portrait of America" with Hal Holbrook [WTBS], "World of Audubon" [WTBS],  "Time and Dreams," the offi-cial film on the Atlanta Olympic Committee, and "Energy: Progress Revisited" hosted by Forrest Sawyer for PBS], his film crew, and I were in Turkey as official guests of the Turkish Government.  The Turkish Government awarded a full travel and expenses grant after reviewing historical, linguistic, cultural, and medical/genetic evidence relating the Melungeons to Por-tuguese and, specifically, Turkish peoples, and independently concluding that the evidence was overwhelming.  A significant amount of information was gathered, and equally significant findings were made.  I'd like to present to readers of the Foun-dation Newsletter a flavoring of the trip, with the understanding that much work remains ahead of us in sorting through the vol-umes of data collected.

First, a few words on Turkey  It was an exhausting but glori-ous two weeks, with the generally negative media images of Turkey melting into oblivion as the true nature of the nation and its people quickly became obvious.  We were all amazed at the generosity and warmth of the Turkish people, as well as the beauty and cleanliness of their cities.  I found Istanbul, despite its 14 million people, to be much tidier - and safer - than my own city of Atlanta.  And the beauty of this ancient city with its exquisite mosques and Roman architecture [Istanbul was known as Constantinople under the Romans] is over-whelming.  And this is to say nothing of the exquisite food -  Turkish cooking is considered, along with French and Chinese, to be one of the world's three greatest cuisines, and I now know why.

Turkey is also the world's largest open air museum, with many Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Holy sites scattered throughout the country.  I was particularly moved by the great respect and care given by the Muslim Turks to sacred Christian sites.  The Muslims revere Jesus and Mary and wel-come Christians as fel-low "People of the Books".  There is no  greater spiritual experi-ence than watching devout Muslims respond to the call for prayer at Istanbul's Blue Mosque, or any of the other major mosques for that matter.  Regardless if you're Melungeon, Turk, or neither, Turkey should be your next destination site.  The probable Turkish connection to our people simply sweetens what is already a fabulous destination site.

Our travel guide, incidentally, was Mr. Mehmet Topcak of Abatur Travel in Istanbul, and I recom-mend him strongly for anyone wanting a wonderful agent/guide who knows the coun-try, as well as the quality yet reasonably priced hotels, the best restaurants, and who is already familiar with the Melungeon odyssey!

The author, Dr. Brent Kennedy, third from left, with his Melungeon features, blends in with his Anatolian friends.  The Turkish government, intrigued with his research on Melungeon roots, extended a grant for him and his film crew to work in Turkey.

He provided his services free of charge and even opened his home to me as his overnight guest [though interested travellers shouldn't expect such continued generosity, as Mehmet, too, must earn a living!]

Mehmet's telephone number is 001-90-212-516-3473 [just dial it as is, and remember the cost is about $2.00 per minute].  Mehmet speaks excellent English, but do remember that Istanbul is seven hours ahead of  Eastern time; that is, when it's, when it's 12 noon in Sneedville, Ten-nessee, it's 7:00 p.m. in Istanbul!

A little background on the most promising theory of our ori-gin  The steadily accumulating evidence is that the Melungeons, while today a diverse people representing all races and cultures, descended at least in part from two separate, major population groups.  The first parent population group would appear to be the primarily Portuguese survivors of Spain's Santa Elena Colony which was located near present-day Beaufort, South Carolina.

Melungeon Research Committee member Dr. Chester DePratter of the University of South Carolina is one of the two principal archaeologists working the Santa Elena site.  These sixteenth-century settlers, although of Portuguese nationality, were themselves of mixed Arab, Moorish [Berber and Turkish], Jewish, Basque, Portuguese and Spanish stock.  After Santa Elena's destruction by the English in the late 1580's, the evi-dence indicates that many survivors - perhaps as many as 200 men, women and children - made their way to the safety of the mountains of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee.

The second parent population group would appear to be ap-proximately 200 to 300 liberated Turk-ish galley slaves, two dozen South American Indians, and two dozen West Africans set ashore at North Carolina in 1586 by Sir Francis Drake [ironically, the same year Santa Elena fell].  Drake had inadver-tently rescued the Turks from their Portuguese captors in South America and the Caribbean.  He had planned to take them back to England and ransom them "to the Turkish Do-minions," but Ralph B. Lane's English colony at Roanoke Island had wanted to go home, and Drake apparently set these men out to make room for his compatriots.

Historian David B. Quinn provides several well researched works on this particular incident.  Unlike the Europeans, the Turks, being Muslims, harbored far less racial prejudice than their European adversaries, and banded together with their South American Indian and West African compatriots.  I am convinced that they eventually intermarried with Powhatan, Pamunkey and Catawba Indians, adding a degree of Native American blood to their population and exchanging cultural heritages.

Over the years, they too ended up in western North Carolina where they again intermarried with the survivors of Santa Elena.  The longstanding Melungeon claims to be both Portuguese and Turk-ish/Moorish have been criticized as "inconsistent."

The Melungeon claim to be both Por-tuguese and Turkish now seem to make sense, as does the  longstanding mystery word "Melungeon", pronounced identically to the Turkish "melun can," meaning "cursed soul"  or "one whose luck has run out".  The genetic and medical evidence both seem to corroborate the above ethnic and racial origins for our people [See Dr. James Guthrie's work in "Tennessee Anthropol-ogist," Spring, 1990], and the finding of such genetically-related Mediterranean diseases as thalle-semia and Machado-Joseph Disease in the Melungeon population cannot be coincidental.  In my strong opinion, within the next five to ten years scholars will take for granted the fact that both our Nation and our people - regardless of their assumed "races" - have a heretofore unacknowledged rich Middle Eastern, southern European, and African heritage that predates Anglo America.  To me this is the most marvelous aspect of the Melungeon story - the unseen interrelatedness of all people.

Now to a few tid-bits from the trip!  Most of our findings will be presented in the film, to be released in the Spring, 1996, and other points of interest and comparisons are still being examined by Research Committee members. However, there are a number of intriguing elements that can be shared at this junction.

The Turkish Navy is cooperating fully with our research effort [we met with and filmed Turkish Admiral Taner Uzunay, as well as artifacts in the archaeology and naval museum].  The Navy con-trols the Ottoman Archival files of interest to our project, and Admiral Uzunay will be assisting us in availing ourselves of the proper  documents, as well as scholars who can translate from the old Arabic.  It is an accepted fact by the Turks that many of their sixteenth-century seamen were lost to the Por-tuguese and ended up as galley slaves.

Of interest, the Turks can document many of these prisoners being taken to the Canaries and Azores where they became Portuguese "conversos" [forced Catholic settlers in the New World!] Turkish historians  have always assumed that  cap-tured "Levants" [Ottoman sailors] were generally taken to the Canaries, Azores, and the New World as slave labor. Ironically, the Turks feel a special closeness today with the Portuguese [as opposed to the Spanish] due to such eth-nic admixtures. The assistance of the Turkish  Navy in this highly specialized research area will help immensely.

Other intriguing evidence includes a docu-mented map that was owned by Piri Reis, a Turk dated at 1513 and showing most of North  and South America, as well as the Caribbean - areas un-known to the Spanish and the English  of the time.  Piri's de-scendant, Murat Reis, in the 1600's sailed his fleets to the Ca-naries, Holland, Eng-land, and Scandinavia.  Some Turkish histo-rians are convinced that he also reached North America.

We discovered some fascinating similarities between Turkish and Arabesque kilim and carpet de-signs from the 1500's to Melungeon and Appalachian quilting.  We filmed Anotolian [the Aegean region where most of the sixteenth-century Ot-toman sailors supposedly originated] folk dancers and were stunned to see [except for the costumes] Appalachian "line" or "square" dancing, with dulcimer-like instruments providing a bluegrass style background rhythm.  The western Anatolians are dark-complexioned and known for their light blue eyes.  I saw duplicates of my family every-where.  One particular individual - a handsome fellow with blue eyes, was so dark that he was nick-named "The  African" by his fellow fisherman.

We ate six-teenth-century Ottoman meals, and I cannot tell the difference from the meals my great grandmother prepared [which were quite differ-ent from Irish or English cuisine]. The Anatolians even had "tomato gravy" which seems to be un-heard of outside the Melungeon population.

I asked an eight-year-old Anatolian girl if I could take her photo and, just as my great-grandmother, Maggie Bennett Nash, used to do when saying no in a nonverbal fashion, she threw her head back, did a "clicking" sound in her throat, and walked away.  I was stunned, but later was told that this is the old Anatolian method of saying no without offending.  My mother and aunts have always used the term "gaumy" [my spelling] to indicate something was a mess or wrong [i.e, "I'm feeling gaumy."]  I've always considered the word an old coun-try expression.  Well, I heard the same word used among the Anatolian fishermen - its mean-ing: "sad."  Even my mother was astounded at that one!  I also heard so many Anatolian names that, although spelled differently, sounded exactly like "Reece," Ramey," "Ramsey," Sampson," "Nash," "Perry," "Berry" and "Hall" - all common Melungeon , Lumbee, and South Carolina "Turk" surnames.  And I was moved to see that whenever one turned away from the Aegean and looked inland, there stood replicas of the Appalachian Mountains!  Despite their seafaring lives, the Anatolians are a mountain people, just like the Melun-geons.

In the Naval Museum, the sixteenth-century costume of an Ot-toman warrior Levant looked quite familiar - I've seen it on the models of the eighteenth-century Cherokees in Cherokee, North Car-olina.  "Delaware" is a Turkish word meaning "beautiful land."  "Hatteras" is Turkish-Croatian, meaning "luxurious."  "Niagara" is Turkish for "a loud, roaring noise," "potomoc" [as in the "Potomac" River] is Turkish/Croatian for "descendants"], "pohatan" [as in "Chief  Powhatan"] means "cruel, aggressive leader, "shiroki" [or Cherokee"] means "widespread"], and "Croatan:" [as with the "Croatan" Indians] is simply the Ot-toman word for the Croatan people.  And the list is by no means exhausted.
(To be continued)
Melungeon Research Team Films
Documentary in Turkey

By N. Brent Kennedy, Ph.D.
Part 2:
My guide's brother has sarcoidosis, the same illness that spurred me to do my family research in the first place.  And throughout Turkey the people needed no translation for "Melungeon," immediately understanding it to mean "one whose luck has run out [i.e., spelled in Turkish "melun can", but pro-nounced identically]." And as a result of their understanding, I re-ceived quite a few hugs - and lots of cay [tea] - from sympa-thetic Turks who were saddened by the story of our people.  In fact, every where I went in  Turkey, the Turks assumed I was one of them. Everyone spoke to me in Turkish, and typically were surprised to learn I was an American with an Irish surname.  Alp Kamoy, an officer of the Ministry of Tourism who oversaw our itinerary and served as an interpreter, was particularly de-lighted when such "mistakes" occurred. Alp's position was that these instances were not cases of mistaken identity.

He felt that I was indeed a Turk and recognized physically by the people as one.  He regarded it simply as a language barrier brought on by 400 years of forced separation!  And, to be honest, they looked like us, too.  The physical pheno-types -- especially in the Cesme area [Anatolia] -- are amazingly identical, something I had not ex-pected.

Importantly, a five-person research committee has been set up by Dr. Kursun at theUniver-sity of Marmara in Istanbul and is already at work.  The committee includes historians and anthropologists, several of whom have for years been investigating the mysteri-ous connections between Southeast-ern Native Americans and Turkish culture.  As Dr. Kursun explained to me, "These recent findings finally may of-fer an explanation as to how so many amazing coincidences could have occurred."

In a related area, I have a copy of Dr. James H. Guill's book, "The Azores: A History," Vol. 5  [Golden Shield Publications, PO Box 1860, Tulare, CA 93275 - $28, which includes p&h], and it's fascinating.  Guill, a historian with a keen interest in his wife's native Azores, asserts that the "Portuguese" settlers in the Azores [beginning in the late 1400s with approximately 2,000 people] were a varied ethnic population, including Portuguese, Berbers, and Turks, and even some Flem-ish, French and Irish.  He paints a picture of a "Middle Eastern" looking people claim-ing to be Portuguese, but occasionally sporting blue eyes and Anglo surnames!  And the Azores serves as a major source for New World Portuguese settlers.  There are undoubtedly countless ways that "Turks"  and other Middle Eastern/Mediterranean people could have arrived early on in the New World, either by design or oth-erwise.  I could go on and on, but it was a remarkable trip and we've only seen the tip of the iceberg.  Our research committee continues to work hard, bolstered further by the medical and ge-netic assis-tance being offered by Portuguese geneticists at McGill Univer-sity [Canada] and the University of Porto [Portugal].  Virginia resident Robert Gilmer, M.D., will be co-ordinating the research from "Melungeon country."

One final important statement for the record.  I want to ac-knowledge here that long before I entertained the possibility of a Turkish connection, research team member Evelyn McKinley Orr had suggested that such might be possible, or even likely.  While I was initially too consumed with other research areas to follow up on Evelyn's hypothesis, time and truth appear to be winning out.  The history of our people should record that Eve-lyn McKinley Orr first brought the possibility of a Turkish in-fluence to my attention, and for this -- I and other Melungeons - will always be grateful.

Conclusion  What is becoming increasingly clear is that the evi-dence for the true origins of the Melungeons has always been easily available, right on the surface.  The greatest obstacle to our having solved this mystery long ago has been, simply, our inability to take se-riously what the people themselves have con-sistently told us.  Much of this probably stems from our believing the old Anglo edict that no one preceded the English to these shores.  Another barrier to truth has been our tendency to nar-row-mindedly con-fuse our present ethnic characteristics [however they may vary with each population] with those of our ancestors.  All of us change over time, with inter-ethnic and in-terracial marriages bending and shaping us in one direction or the other.  All races carry the heritage of the first Melungeons.

In a nation bent on preserving the myth that only white Anglo Saxons could have conquered and settled the New World [and thus were the only ones who deserved to enjoy it], thousands upon thousands -- if not millions -- of Americans were forced  into denying, and then forgetting, their true ethnic, racial, and religious origins.  The only way to prevent such a tragedy from happening again [not an impossibility in a world consumed with "ethnic  cleansing" and the myth of "racial purity"] is to learn the truth, accept it, and fight for the right to tell it.

To all my Melungeon brothers and sisters - black, white, yellow, red, and any beautiful combina-tion thereof - take pride in your heritage.  Those who came before you - whatever their color - loved their children and struggled to give each new generation a better life.  Never, ever deny the existence of any of them!  I proudly carry the blood and the genes of all of God's peoples, and ev-ery morning upon awakening, I praise Him for letting me be born a Melungeon!
 

 March 1, 1996
For Immediate Release.                 Please Publish, Post or Publicize.
 

The mystery of the Melungeons, the swarthy people who claim a Mediterranean ancestry, is to be pre-sented in a documentary film and by four lecturers in the Gowen Research Foundation conference in Nashville May 5-6-7.  Many of the Melungeons were already settled in the Blue Ridge valleys when the early settlers crossed the mountains to discover them.

Dr. Brent Kennedy, author of "The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People," will address the research conference on May 6.  He will be joined on the platform by three other Melungeon descendants, Evelyn McKinley Orr, of Omaha, NE, Jack Harold Goins of Rogersville, TN and Ruth Johnson of  Kingsport, TN.  Dr. Kennedy,  Vice-Chancelor of Clinch Valley College of the University of Vir-ginia, is founder of the Melungeon Documentary Project.  He will present "The Melungeons, America's Forgotten People," a new documentary which was filmed in the Mediterranean area by Van Der Kloot Film & Television of Atlanta.

Turkish governmental officials were intrigued by the research of Dr. Kennedy and Mrs. Orr, chairman of the Melun-geon Research Team, suggesting a historical connection between the Ottoman Empire which once blanketed the Mediterranean and the Melungeons.  This interest resulted in a grant by the Turkish government for filming trips to Anatolia last year.  Ottoman scholars at the University of Istanbul and Marmara University assisted with research for the film project.

The four will discuss the hidden Melungeon heritage of hundreds of thousands of Americans as well as evidence relating to the most likely ethnic background of these mysterious people.  Any researcher who has been puzzled about dark-skinned ancestors encountered in his ancestry is welcome to pose questions and enter into the discussion period which will follow.

Dr. Virginia Easley DeMarce of Arlington, Virginia, former president of the National Genealogical Soci-ety, is the featured speaker at the Foundation dinner on May 7.  Other speakers who will appear on the three-day program include Col. Carroll Heard Goyne, Jr. of Shreveport, Louisiana, Donna Gowin Johnston of Casper, Wyoming, Guy G. Weaver, archaeologist of Memphis, Tennessee, Cherel Bolin Henderson of Knoxville, Tennessee, Tammy Goins-Stone of Ontario, Oregon, Sandra K. Loridans of Chapala, Jalisco, Mexico and others to be announced.

The event will run in tandem with the National Genealogical Society's annual Conference in the States which will unfold May 8-9-10-11 at the Nashville Convention Center.  Dates were set so that attendees could attend both conferences with one trip.  Middle Ten-nessee Genealogical Society is co-sponsor of the Conference, and East Tennessee Genealogical Society will participate with its "First Families of Ten-nessee," in celebration of the state's 200 years of statehood.

Middle Tennessee Genealogical Society invites the Foundation members and guests to board the "General Jackson," the largest showboat in the world, for a dinner cruise on the Cumberland River from 6:00 to 10:00 on Thursday, May 9.  Foundation members will be saluted at the Saturday night per-formance of Grand Ole Opry on May 11.

The Foundation conference will be held at the Sheraton Music City Hotel located at 777 McGavock Pike, Nashville, 37214, near the Metropolitan Nashville Airport and Opryland.  The hotel offers a shuttle to the airport, Opryland and to downtown.  Single and double occupancy in the 412-room hotel is normally priced at $139 nightly in season, how-ever Foundation members and their guests are offered the ac-commodations at $99 nightly during the week.  Members should specify that they are attending the GRF Conference when mak-ing reservations and again when checking in.  Phone number of the Sheraton is 615/885-2200 or 1-800/325-3535.  Early registration fee for the Foundation conference, by April 5, for members and guests is $50 per person.  After April 5, the registration fee is $60.  For a copy of the conference program, registration form and de-tails, contact Gowen Research Foundation, 5708 Gary Avenue, Lubbock, TX, 79413, 806/795-8758 or 795-9694.
 

Dr. N. Brent Kennedy to Lecture
On Melungeon Film at Nashville

N. Brent Kennedy, Ph.D, author of "The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People," will address the Foundation Research Conference at Nashville, May 5-6-7.  He, Vice-Chancelor of Clinch Valley College of the University of Vir-ginia and a Me-lungeon himself, is founder of the Melungeon Documentary Project.  He will present "The Melungeons, America's Forgotten People," a new documentary which was filmed in Turkey by Van Der Kloot Film & Television of At-lanta.

Turkish governmental officials were intrigued by the research of Dr. Kennedy and Evelyn McKinley Orr, chairman of the Melun-geon Research Team, suggesting a historical connection between the Ottoman Empire and the Melungeons.  This interest resulted in a grant by the Turkish government for filming trips to Anato-lia last year.  Ottoman scholars at the University of Istanbul and Marmara University assisted with research for the film project.

Dr. Kennedy will discuss the hidden Melungeon heritage of hundreds of thousands of Americans as well as evidence relating to the most likely ethnic heritage of these mysterious people.  He will also conduct a Melungeon Heritage Tour to Turkey, March 9-17.  The itinerary will include Istanbul, the Aegean resort of Cesme, Bursa, Smyrna and Ephesus.  Interested parties may contact AAA Travel Agency, Norton, VA [800/671-2220.]

Members of the research com-mittee include: Michael Abram, M.D, Cherokee, NC, Susan Abram, B.A, Cherokee Heritage Museum, Cherokee, NC; Tomas Atencio, Ph.D, University of New Mexico; Khalid Awan, M.D, Uni-versity of Virginia; Scott Collins, Ed.S, Sneedville, TN; Tom Costa, Ph.D, University of Virginia; Chester DePratter, Ph.D, South Carolina Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology, Columbia, SC;, Robert Elston, Ph.D, Louisiana State University Medical Center; Charles Faulkner, Ph.D, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; G. F. "Nick" Fielder, Ph.D, Tennessee State Archaeologist, Nashville, TN; Eloy Gallegos, M.A, Knoxville; Robert Gilmer, M. D, Abingdon, VA; Jack H. Goins, Rogersville, TN; Amy Hahn, Ph.D, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC; Ahmad Y. El-Hassan, Ph.D, University of Ontario; Benita How-ell, Ph.D, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Richard Jantz, Ph.D, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Ruth Johnson, Kingsport, TN; Anouar Ma-jid, Ph.D, Uni-versity of New Eng-land; Ralph Miner, Jonesville, VA; Joan Kirchman Mitchell, Ph.D, University of Albama; Evelyn McKinley Orr, Chair-man, Melun-geon Research Team, Omaha, NE; Horace Rice, Ed.D, Madison Hts, VA; Fernanda Rodrigues, Ph.D, Boston Univer-sity; Robert Seay, Newport, TN: Sayyid Muhammad Sayyid, Ph.D, Washington, DC; Frederick Taylor, Ph.D, Georgia State University; Nelson Vieira, Ph.D, Brown Uni-versity; George Wa-ters, M.D, Indianapolis, IN; Jack Williams, B.A, vice-chan-cellor, Uni-versity of Ten-nessee, Knoxville and Arlee Gowen, B.A, Foundation president.

The Foundation has requested Dr. Kennedy to make his book  available for purchase at the Conference.

Will Moreau Goins to Speak On
Native American Goins Family

Dr. Will Moreau Goins, a descendant of the Eastern Cherokee Tribe of North Carolina with family ties to the Lumbee Indians of the Cheraw Nation, will present a lecture on his heritage May 7 at the Foundation Research Conference in Nashville.  His pre-sentation, "A Celebration of the Native American Goins Family" will be done in tribal attire and will be illustrated with film clips, a slide series and various Indian accoutrement.

Dr. Goins, who received his doctorate from Penn State Univer-sity in 1994, was previously employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.  In this capacity and in the Indian Health Service he traveled extensively to visit various tribes across the United States.  He found Goins families among the Choctaws, the Chickasaws, the Cherokees, the Sioux, the Cheraws, the Lum-bees, the Catawba and other tribes.

In each, their stories of oppression were parallel to the experi-ences of the Melungeons who lived as neighbors to them in the early days before the westward expansion of the white settlers.  As a genealogist and a cultural anthropologist, Dr. Goins, now a resident of Detroit, has collected oral tribal history, government documents, genealogies and ethnographies for his lecture.

From his homeland, the Cherokee Indian Reservation of North Carolina, he began a study of the Native Americans who popu-lated America for hundreds of years prior to Jamestown and Plymouth Rock.  He continued the study during his undergradu-ate days at George Washington University and expanded it even more during his tenure with the B.I.A.  He is a recipient of the University Minority Fellowship, the Rachley Scholarship, the Native American Indian Student Association Dedicated Service Award and Penn State Alumni Association Outstanding Graduate Award.

His lecture will be of interest to researchers who have a tradition of Indian ancestry and copper-skinned individuals among their forbears.  It will be featured in the Foundation Research Confer-ence & Family Reunion which will be held at the Shera-ton Mu-sic City Hotel May 5-6-7.  The event will run in tandem with the National Genealogical Society's annual Conference in the States which will unfold May 8-9-10-11 at the Nashville Convention Center with 163 lectures and presentations by experts.

The day-long sessions on Monday and Tuesday will be devoted to lectures and presentations on research on the family surname in all of its 23 spelling variations.  Time will be devoted to a Genealogy Free-for-All in which the attendees will gather to ex-change research and to show their manuscripts, charts and books.

Middle Tennessee Genealogical Society invites the Foundation members and guests to board the "General Jackson," the largest showboat in the world, for a dinner cruise on the Cumberland River from 6:00 to 10:00 on Thursday, May 9.  Foundation members will be saluted at the Saturday night per-formance of Grand Ole Opry on May 11.  This two-and-a-half-hour event will conclude the week's festivities.

The Sheraton Music City Hotel is located at 777 McGavock Pike, Nashville, 37214, near the Metropolitan Nashville Airport and Opryland.  The hotel offers a shuttle to the airport, Opryland and to downtown.  Single and double occupancy in the 412-room hotel is normally priced at $139 nightly in season, how-ever Foundation members and their guests are offered the ac-commodations at $99 nightly during the week.  Members should specify that they are attending the GRF Conference when mak-ing reservations and again when checking in.  Phone number of the Sheraton is 615/885-2200.

Registration fee for the Foundation Conference is $60.  Regis-trants may clip or reproduce the coupon below and attach their checks.  The registration fee pays for the Foun-dation Dinner, coffee break refreshments, speaker honoraria, au-dio visual equipment rental and other hotel expenses.

Gowen Research Foundation
Family Reunion-Research Conference
Nashville, Tennessee, May 5-6-7, 1996

Lecture delivered by
Evelyn McKinley Orr, Chairman
Melungeon Research Team

The subject of the origins of the mysterious Melun-geons is very exciting.  It is also extremely complicated. The tentacles of their heritage and the heritages of their many de-scendants to-day are very extensive. Neither I nor the Gowen Research Founda-tion declare the origins completely solved. However, so very much has been discovered about Melungeons since the Foun-dation started the search and especially since 1992 when we joined with Dr. Brent Kennedy's study. Un-known to each other, Dr. Kennedy and our team were simulta-neously finding clues that suggested the Mediterranean theory should not be scorned.

Since this is a Gowen Foundation reunion, centered around the Foundation's activities, I will summarize how the Melungeon team came about.  Then I'll discuss the mystery of the origins and clarify how we arrived at some of our conclusions to date. At times I will use the original term Indian and Negro with no in-tent to offend.

The subject ofthe origins ofthe Melungeons is also very per-sonal and it generates very strong emotions. There are theories that are strongly defended. And, there were Melungeon re-searchers who coveted their material and would not share with us.

About ten years ago John and I caught the genealogy bug. When I decided to trace my family tree, I asked myself which ones should I look for first, the nuts, the fruits or the bad ap-ples? Within three years I discovered my Melungeon branch and a homet's nest would soon appear. Today my Melungeon ancestor has surfaced, as my favorite. The hornet's nest of con-troversy sti] I exists, but a flower is now blooming on this branch. I believe we are discov-ering a lost ethnic heritage of a large number of people whose existence in America has been unknown and/or ignored for cen-turies.

Our Anglo ancestors arrived in America and began their own strug-gle to form their society. They had no idea who these mysterious people were when they found them here. Nor did they care. Anglos would marry some of these swarthy skinned people especially the pretty girls. As a group they would be-come determined to own the land and form a society mostly for the benefit of themselves.

It was in the fall of 1989 when I discovered the Melungeons, and found that my ancestor, David Goings, who was born in 1783, might be connected to them. We were in Jonesborough, Tennessee, to re-search John's family, who were among the First Families of Ten-nessee. Until then, I had thought my Goings were French. I would Color or Mulatto in the records. This is a dilemma lacmg others who may have Melungeon ancestors.

Ann Shaw, a volunteer in the library, asked me if I was re-searching in Tennessee. I said, "No, but I had traced a Goings ancestor to Giles Co., Virginia." The name Goings set offan alarm and she went to the book case and returned with Jean Patterson Bible's book. I skimmed through it as John continued his re-search. I was curious, but I doubted that my Frenchman was con-nected. As Team Chairman, I would hear from Gowens, and others, who very likely were related to Melungeons, but said they couldn't be because their heritage had already been established by their family members long ago.

After leaving Jonesborough, we researched in the McClung li-brary in Knoxville.  There I discovered, what I thought to be at that time, a huge file on Melungeons. I began to believe my David's family was connected as I thought back to the physical features of my Goings grandmother, and a few other family members.

But, could traits still show up from only one line so far back? The answer is "Yes."  These same questions surface daily in our research.

While at the McClung Library, John engaged in a conversation with a professional registered genealogist about Tennessee Scotch-lrish Presbyterians.  So I decided to pick her brains about the mysterious Melungeons.  She informed me that I could forget about any mystery. There never was one and these people were a tri-racial mix of Indians, Whites and Negroes, and any-thing else was pure legend. She went on to tell me that years ago if she traced an ancestor back to the Appalachian Melungeons for a client, she would tell them that she had reached a dead end. The stigma was so negative that she would not inform them they were related to a Melungeon.  She was the professional and confi-dently related her conclusions, I won-dered if I should close the door to any further study?  After all, no one had been able to prove where the Melungeons came from for more than 100 years, since Will Allen Droomgoole first wrote her evaluation of them in the early 1880s.

Upon returning home to Nebraska I found in my mail a little blue newsletter from Lubbock, Texas containing an article about the Melungeons.  I had no idea from what list this Mr. Arlee Gowen had found my name, but I responded and asked for more information about Melungeons, and sent him refer-ences to what I found in the McClung Library. From this, Arlee made a guess that I knew some-thing about them. I received a phone call from him.  He had sensed that much interest could develop about these people, since some members of the Gowen clan had ancestors with these traits. He wanted to organize a team that would collect Melungeon mate-rial and he asked me to chair it.

Arlee sent news releases to libraries and genealogy columns, and we were launched in January of 1990. Interest was high, but most of the responses are from people seeking in-formation from us.  We received material from many members. I consider every foundation member who has contributed in-formation to be a team member. Though I wish to give special thanks to four most dedi-cated members, Arlee Gowen, Ruth Johnson, Jack Goins. and Louise Goins Richardson.

It was through the Foundation that I was able to learn more about some of my David's descendants from Foundation mem-ber Hazel Wood, just as the Foundation has helped so many of you find personal information.  Hazel had 1939 eye witness family research that re-vealed David had sons who looked just like the old men from Turkey.  There was no doubt, David was indeed a Melungeon.  At that time the Turkish description was just another name like Black Dutch, French, even Egyptian that families were applying to their swarthy skinned ancestors.  More evidence for considering Turkish connections would come later as revealed in my news let-ter article, "Was David Goings Turkish?"  And much more is being discovered now by Brent's committee.

Material and queries that came in soon proved that there were varying degrees of similarities between several of the so called mixed blood groups in the southeast.  Previous researchers have reported over 35 mixed blood groups where the Gowen name appears, as well as appearing early in many Native American Nations and Afro American communities. Many people from these groups are likely connected to the first Melungeons in America. We have Foundation members that are connected to several of the groups.

It is important to note that today the descendants of these groups do not use their earlier group name, with the exception of the Lumbee Indian. In fact, the vast majority of their descen-dants have rarely, if ever, heard of these terms.

Our search centered around the Melungeon groups of Ap-palachia who had been befriended by the early Cherokee, en-countered by the French traders in the 1600s and discovered by the Germans, and Scots-Irish who came to the New River Val-ley of Virginia in the mid 1700s.  This group generated the most interest among early ethnologists and writers so most of the material we received cen-tered around them. They were very likely the squatters that local history books sometimes referred to as being on the land when the Anglos came. Though many were land owners, especially in early days. Most important, they were the only group called Melungeons.

The mysterious physical and culture traits showing a Por-tuguese or Mediterranean heritage continually surfaced. There were quotes from early Tennessee history books, and from ex-plorers such as Seiver, Needum, and Arthur referring to Moor-ish or Mediterranean heritages. So many similar clues were re-vealed independently from many earlier ethonogists and re-searchers that I felt this theory was valid. But how did it hap-pen, and why such a mystery sur-rounding this heritage....?

From this I personally started a novice pursuit of the history of the 14th and 15th century Islamic Arab Berber Moors. Where did they go after the Spanish Inquisition and what about the known early sea exploits of the Portuguese? Ruth Johnson had gathered Tennessee history books and the writings of several Tennessee Melungeons researchers like William Grohse, Bon-nie Ball and Jean Bible. Copies of Grohse, Ball and Bible are are on film in the LDS library in Salt Lake City.  Ruth would confide with me that she too had suspected some Mediterranean heritage but didn't think anyone would ever take it seriously.

How was this mystery created? To start, no one would believe them when they first called themselves Portuguese or Portygee. And, through their traumatic history, events would develop that wiped out their heritage. Later descendants would have no written docu-mentation.

A major situation that probably helped to create the mystery more than any other event in their history was the dis-criminatory laws and the edicts issued by officials that in effect created two races, the black and the white. As land became scarce, Anglo settlers needed to figure some way to get the pro-ductive land. The best way seemed to be to create a social caste system against all the darker skinned citizens.

As early as 1705 the State of Virginia passed a law calling all Indians, mulattos. And a series of laws against dark skin was to follow in many south eastern states. By 1834 North Carolina, Vir-ginia and Tennessee had effectively classified the Melun-geons as free persons of color or mulatto. The term FPC or PC may have been created just to deal with the numerous Melun-geons.

These laws effectively caused many of the Melungeons to move into the hill country. Yet, it can be argued that these people were at home in the mountains just like their ancestors who had lived in mountainous area of the Mediterranean, Middle East and South Eu-rope.

It certainly is a mystery why so many Appalachia Mulungeons were giving their children first names that originated in these areas if they all were just a 17th century mix of Indians, Anglos and Negroes.

There is the problem of not knowing if the records are accurate and of the lack of records. As family genealogists, we are told to always document the records found. The very first census of 1790 gave evidence that many of these people were being recorded erroneously. Inaccurate records may be the core of much of the controversy today. Many free persons of color showed up m the 1790 census where it is questionable that many freed slaves would be located at that time period. Also, in later censuses many Melungeons would be recorded as white in one census and free per-sons of color or mulatto in another cen-sus.

Why did this happen if the records were accurate? A very im-portant point is that in the law and the minds of the record keepers and the society of that time period they were ac-curate. The census taker or officials of the area would decide what na-tionality they thought each family was. This had to be a dilemma because not all members of a Melungeon family were always dark complected. For more details you may refer to my article in the September 1995 newsletter.

Another point to consider, regarding records, is that we may be dealing with a time period in history, the very early 1 500's, when records were not available. Not everything that happened was recorded, especially for the common folk.

Regarding the origin of the name Melungeons, the French set-tlers may or may not have called the Appalachian Melungeons this name. But, there is no evidence that the term was derived from the French word Melange as so often surmised by early authors. Recent discoveries indicate that some of the first Melungeons in America likely called themselves Melunjuns. And, some used mulungo or melango the Afro-Portuguese words meaning shipmate or companion as first suggested by Bonnie Ball and Jean Bible.

The Portuguese embassy acknowledged that East Africans re-ferred to the first Portuguese they saw as mulangos or melungo, meaning white persons. Today the name is pronounced melun-shawn by many Portuguese. Portuguese verification has come from Portuguese sources through the help of members of Brent's committee. Specif-ically Mr. Manuel Mira, a Foundation member and currently vice chairman of the Portuguese Ameri-can society who is in our audi-ence.

Manuel will be traveling to Portugal and Spain this summer. He will be venfying some of his recent theories concerning connec-tions between the early 1500s Turk and Portuguese sea exploits that took place before the Pardo expeditions. He found a study of Portuguese music. As late as 1970 the Portuguese were singing a ballad about the battle of Le Panto in which the Turks were in-volved.

In 1915 there was the court case of the "State of North Carolina vs Goins families of South Carolina". The Goins families were ap-plying for admittance to the Indian school in North Carolina. No evidence surfaced to prove that they were not Indian so they were admitted.  From descriptions in the document, we would today as-sume they were Redbones. The most revealing testi-mony was the fact that the North Carolina Lumbee Indians called themselves Melungeans prior to being given the name Croatan Indians in 1885.

Today, Turkish scholars have verified that the name Melunjun was applied and used freely by early Ottoman Turk-ish sailors. The modem Turkish people recognize this term which meant cursed soul or abandoned by God. How ironic in view of the traumatic history of the Melungeons in America. Also, Spanish Historian, Eloy Gal-legoes, found the name in early Spanish Folk songs.

It is also ironic that these first Melungeons in America called themselves this name, then apparently lost this heritage. In the 1800s, the name would surface as a hated term for descendants living in the Appalachians. Why was the name resurrected for this particular group? Perhaps the name never did completely die out, and the term was picked up by those who wished to discriminate against them?

An important Portuguese discovery was that in the 1500s some of the Portuguese called themselves the name Portyghee, not Por-tuguese. This same term was used by early Tennessee Melungeons to define themselves. Also, early Portuguese im-migrants in every En-glish speaking country were called Portyghee. [Manuel Mira].

The 1990 genetics studies done by Dr. James Guthrie is most re-vealing. This study, done on a group of Hancock County, Tennessee Melungeons, proved that this group of Appalachian Melungeons had remained quite isolated, and indeed people holding the same major genetic genes today reside in areas of Turkey, Morocco, the Mid-dle East, the Mediterranean or south-ern Europe. The Tennessee Melungeons appear to have re-mained much like the very first Melungeons in appearance and culture traits. [Tennessee Anthro-pologist Magazine, Spring 1990.]

In the 15th century, after the Spanish Christians conquered the Moors, some of these Moslems of Arab, Berber, and Mediter-ranean descent were allowed to stay for over 100 years in north Spain. Some became Christians. Then between 1609 and 1614 King Philip decided to expel them. By this time Moorish genes and culture traits were left in the Spanish society.

Some of the expelled Moors were accepted by the Christian Huguenots in France and several decades later many came to South Carolina in the 1680s as French Huguenots. Many Huguenots had dark skin. [research of Robert Goyne, Aus-tralia].  The name Goin was listed in Rupps Huguenot book of immigrants. Today, descen-dants who trace back to the Carolina Huguenots, thinking they are French, may in reality share the genes of early Melungeons.

From the time of the 1492 Inquisition these dark complected Cau-casian Islamic people were considered marauding barbar-ians by most emerging Christian nations. They migrated any-where they could be accepted. They did not call themselves Moors, and often claimed to be Portuguese or Portyghee in hopes of better accep-tance.

An important discovery by modern Turkish scholars was that the term "Turks" was a universal generic term given all the Is-lamic marauders by the emerging Christian nations during the reign of the Ottoman Turks. Turkish scholars have long felt there were many similarities between the early Turks and our Native Americans. And more exciting discoveries are revealing the simi-larities between these cultures and the Melungeons type groups in America.

Eloy Gallegoes and archaeologist Dr. Chester De Pratter, have un-covered evidence that the Melungeons may have been sur-vivors of the Juan Pardo Santa Elena Colony of families. There were similar surnames and cultural traits among the colonists and the Melun-geons of Appalachia. Pardo himself was of Por-tuguese heritage. His signature of "Joao" is Portuguese for the Spanish "Juan."  This fact has been ignored by early historians.  He and those with him were from North Spain, the area that some of the descen-dants of the defeated Moors were living. Pardo had also estab-lished forts, manned by soldiers for as long as two years at a time. These forts were located in the Ap-palachians, remarkably close to the area the Melungeons would be found over two cen-turies later.

In 1586 Sir Francis Drake liberated galley slaves from the Span-ish and then visited Roanoke Island to visit the first En-glish Colony. He was met with a request from the colonists to take them back to England. So what should Drake do with the several hundred liberated slaves of various nationalitie

English historian, David Quinn Beers, is an author of several books on early English Colonies in America. He mentions the pos-sibility of some of Drakes slaves being left on Roanoke Is-land. Beers discusses this subject in depth in his nine page arti-cle, "Turks, Moors, Blacks and Others in Drakes West Indian Voyage," in the, Terrae Incognitae Journal for History of Dis-coveries," [Vol. XIV, 1982, Wayne State University Press.]

Any liberated people would disappear inland in the small boats abandoned by the Englishmen as they feared Spanish ships would spot them. Thus, a reason for no evidence of them being found by later English ships which landed at Roanoke.

Spanish historian, David J. Weber, professor of history at South-ern Methodist University, author of the book, "The Spanish Fron-tier in North America," states reasons to believe Drake's slaves may have been left on Roanoke Island.

James H. Guill, Azorian historian, specializes in Portuguese his-tory. In his 1993 book, "Azores Islands, a History," he mentions two incidents where ship loads of settlers, each with up to 200 people on board were headed to the Azores and did not arrive. Af-ter 1432 Portugal began the long process of pop-ulating these is-lands with settlers. These two ships are thought to have not turned north in time and winds may have taken them westward to the North Carolina shores. Could the turbu-lent gulf currents off Cape Hatteras have claimed them with the survivors being a source for Melungeons? Guill believes so. Nationalities among these set-tlers were Portuguese or Mediter-ranean types.

The surnames Goios, Goiss, Gomes, and Goyanes are among Azo-ran names that could fit into the Gowen family. In the early 1950's Dr. Guill visited the Sneedville, Tennessee, area and came to the conclusion that the Melungeons of that area could possibly have descended from these lost ships when making the difficult voyages to the Azores Islands. Dr. Guill has offered me his coop-eration in our search.

There is documented evidence that people with original Melun-geon genes did come to the Colonies. Some of this documenta-tion con-cems a later wave of immigrants.

In 1790 South Carolina recognized that there were Moors liv-ing in the state. For in that year the House of Representatives in South Carolina passed a law that provided for "All sundry Moors, sub-jects of the Emperor of Morocco, were to be tried in court ac-cording to the laws of South Carolina citizens and not under Ne-gro codes."

The 1792 statute, V1 431, South Carolina law states, "To pro-hibit the importation or bringing in of Negro slaves, Mulattoes, Indi-ans, Moors, or Mustizos bound for a term of two years from any of the United States by land or water."

A French document in Morocco, dated December 20, 1777, gave de facto recognition to the newly declared independent United States of America and granted free passage to all American ships. It would seem logical that passengers from Morocco would soon go to America. In 1787, Morocco, the country where a large number of defeated Moors fled in 1492, was the first country to officially recognized the Independence of the United States. A signed friendship treaty was ratified by our congress.

One group that likely originated from this act of friendship were the Turks of Sumter county South Caro]ina, who are re-markably similar to the Appalachian Melungeons. Two men from this isolated group became the faithful followers of Gen-eral Sumter throughout the Revolutionary War. One named Ben Ali married a girl named Ox-idine, a major neighboring Lumbee Indian name. General Sumter would defend Ben Ali and his people's claims to be Turks from Mo-rocco. Yet, their claim fell on deaf ears just as the Tennessee Melungeon Portyghee claims did. The Goins sumame was found among these Turks though it was not a prominent name.

At this time we speculate that all these events are important ev-idence that Melungeons were possibly in America by the early 1500's.  As the decades and centuries rolled by various families or individuals would intermix with various nationalities and races. And the degree of the mixing would vary.  Laws would be passed which would affect how they mixed.

We cannot establish a one parent heritage for all Melungeons as we do with our Scottish, German and English ancestors. Ironi-cally the descendants of Melungeons are found in almost every na-tionality in America today.

Descendants will appear in families who are Native American to-day. They are found in some families who are Black African Ameri-can. Many of them melted into the Anglo community. What is amaz-ing is the fact that all across America some are found who still look much like the modem day descendants of the majority of Mu-lungos or Melunjuns who remained in the Mediterranean and Middle East before 1500.

As the fascinating story of these "Cursed Souls" un-folds, more family genealogists are becoming aware of them. There may be hundreds, maybe thousands who may be related and who have never heard of their particular Melungeons type group. I credit Arlee Gowen and Brent Kennedy for being the moving force that has brought these early Melungjuns out of the closet. They have pro-moted interest among the scholars and many family  researchers.

I started a simple genealogy search for my Goings an-cestors. The search developed into my joining many other re-searchers in a major study of Ethnology, Linguistics, Medicine, Genetics, Arche-ology, Anthropology, and History, as well as genealogy.

 The goal of the search was never a quest to prove the Melungeon groups were or were not a particular ethnic her-itage. It has been an exiting journey as we do appear to be un-covering an entire ethnic heritage, lost in the American melting pot. As Brent Kennedy's mother so aptly put it, "It was like hearing cries from the grave and then deciding whether to an-swer them." We are try-ing to answer them.  I am confident that the search to solve the mystery will continue.

Capt. Joao Pardo Set Santa Elena
On Site of Huguenot Settlement

By John Noble Wilfor
The New York Times

In an attempt to establish a refuge for French Huguenots fleeing religious persecution and to challenge Spanish power in what is now the Southeastern United States, France in 1562 dispatched an expedition of two ships and 150 men under Jean Ribaut.  Somewhere along the coast of present-day South Carolina, Rib-aut decided to build a fort overlooking a harbor he called "one of the greatest and fayrest in the world."

This was the first attempt by the French to plant a colony on land that is now part of the United States.  It came three years before the founding of St. Augustine by Spain in what is now Florida, North America's first permanent European settlement out-side Mexico.  It would be more than two decades before the English at-tempted to settle at Roanoke Island in North Carolina and 45 years before the first successful English settle-ment at Jamestown. Virginia in 1607.

Ribaut named the garrison Charlesfort, for the 12-year-old French king, Charles IX, but the colony foun-dered in less than a year. The fort was abandoned and disappeared, seemingly with-out a trace.  Over the centuries, historians have speculated on the fort's location, and explorers and archaeologists have searched the coast in vain.  But late last year, just as they were running out of places to look, archaeologists from the University of South Carolina in Columbia said they have uncovered the site of Charlesfort.  It is under the edge of a golf course on the Marine Corps training base at Parris Island, near Beaufort, South Car-olina and across Port Royal Sound from Hilton Head.  The French fort had es-caped detection because the Spanish, moving in 1566 to restore control over the region, had built the town of Santa Elena and a fort, San Felipe over the ruins.
Courtesy of Beverly J. Nelson

Eight-Day Tour Through Turkey
Announced for October 10-18

Dr. Brent Kennedy, author of "The Melungeons--the Resur-rection of a Proud People" announced plans to host an excur-sion to Turkey October 10-18.  Turkish governmental officials were intrigued by the research of Dr. Kennedy and Evelyn McKinley Orr, chairman of the Melun-geon Research Team, suggesting a historical con-nection between the Ottoman Empire and the Melungeons.  This interest resulted in a grant by the Turkish government for filming trips to Anato-lia last year.  Ottoman schol-ars at the University of Istanbul and Marmara University are assisting with research for the film.

The tour will depart from Charlotte, North Carolina in a mid-day flight to New York.  There the party will board an overnight flight to Izmir, Turkey.  Two days will be spent touring the city with the Grand Efes Hotel as base.  Next stop is Ephesus with a visit to the Ephesian Museum.

Sunday, October 13 will be spent in Cesme in consultation with Turkish Melungeon scholars at the Golden Dolphin Hotel.  The cities of Bursa and Sardis are scheduled on Monday.  The next three days will be spent in Is-tanbul at the Kalyon Hotel.  There the group will attend a Turk-ish dinner show at the Orient House, visit the Hippodrome, the Blue Mosque, the Bosphorus, St. Sophia and Dolmabahce Palace before returning home.

Fares are $2,250 for singles and $1,990 each for doubles.  Travel arrangements are being handled by AAA, 648 Park Avenue, Norton, VA, 24273, 540/679-5160.

Is There a Melungeon Connection
To the Sephardic Jews of Spain?

By Evelyn McKinley Orr
Chairman, Melungeon Research Team
8310 Emmet, Omaha, Nebraska, 68134

The name Sephardic Jew is a misnomer.  Historians classify them as being Spanish citizens, not being of Jewish nationality, who were practicing the Hebrew religion.  They were forced to convert to Christianity or be thrown out of Spain after the Spanish Inquisition of 1492.  Many of them fled to northern Eu-rope and north Africa right along with the fleeing Islamic Moors.  Later, the English Jews would notice the Hebrew culture traits of these displaced people, and they anglicized the term to Sephardic Jews.

The Christian Spaniards applied the term Moranos to the Spaniards who had been practicing the Hebrew religion before converting to Christianity, and they applied Moriscos to Christianized Moors.  My discussions with a Jewish rabbi confirms that it was likely that many of these Moranos were in northern Spain and were expelled by King Philip, 1609--1614, along with the Moriscos, many of whom were also in northern Spain.

Our Melungeon research has revealed that not all the citizens of early Spain were what we consider today to be of Spanish her-itage.  Witness the fact that Spanish historian Eloy Gallegeos discovered the 'Spaniard' Capt. Juan [Joao] Pardo to be of Por-tuguese heritage.  And, the people he brought to the Santa Elena Colony were also Portuguese from northern Spain.  It is very likely that the displaced Sephardic Jews would also have a Por-tuguese and Moorish heritage along with their so called Spanish heritage.

Dr. Fernanda Rodrigues of Suffolk University and Dr. Brent Kennedy of Clinch Valley College of the University of Virginia have discovered that some soldiers and sailors in the Ottoman Empire were known to be Jews.  And the mix of na-tionalities among this military force resulted in the admiral of the Ottoman Navy ordering the flag of Barbaroso flown on the Ottoman Empire ships to bear the Ottoman Cross Bar, the Christian Cross, the Star of David, and the Islamic Crescent.

Is it any wonder the story of the Melungeons is so complicated and intriguing?  The confusing heritage of the Sephardic Jews, Moranos certainly could account for how some of them might be connected to some of the first Melungeons in the American colonies.

Another piece of intriguing information regarding the Sephardic Jews came my way recently from Drs. Rodrigues and Kennedy.  They determined that the Hebrew word "Gaon" [pronounced Goin], translated as "Great Teacher,"  was used by early Sephardic Jews as a title for outstanding rabbis.  The term is still common in the Jewish culture.  When the religious students had questions about or challenges to the doctrine, they would be sent to the "Gaon" for authoritative answers.  Is this another possible source of the surname?

Dr. Kennedy's revised edition of "The Melungeons: Resurrec-tion of a Proud People," scheduled for September release in both the United States and Turkey, at about $16.95, will include the Turkish research update and be expanded to include the medical, genetic, linguistic and historical findings.  It will also in-clude corrections supplied by readers in response to his request.  He has assigned his publication profits to the athletic department of Clinch Valley College.  Orders will be received at 800/468-3412.

From "The Journal of Southern History"

BOOK REVIEW

"The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People, An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America."  By N. Brent: Kennedy. [Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, c.1994. Pp. xv11, 156, paper, $16.99, ISBN 0-86554-445-X.]

There are a number of seventeenth and eighteenth-century doc-umented accounts of encounters with a mysterious people in Appalachia.  They were a "reddish brown complexioned people supposed to be of Moorish descent who were neither Indian nor Negro, but had fine European features, and claimed to be . . . [not Portuguese but] Portyghee, the way native Iberians or cap-tured Moors would have pronounced it."  [pp 9, 121].

These people were Melungeons, who have often been summarily dismissed by many as tri-racial isolates--a mixture of Indian, white and Negro ancestry.  Melungeons, who were primarily found in North Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia, were normally listed by early census takers as free persons of color and deprived of their basic rights.  Consequently they were driven off their lands and denied civil rights much like the Lum-bees of North Carolina were.

Kennedy was drawn to this story when he was diagnosed as having Erythema nodosum sarcoidosis--primarily an African American and Mediterranean disease.  Common to some south-eastern blacks and Caucasians, this disease is also frequent among Portuguese immigrants in New England.  Although nearly all early Melungeon accounts support the claim of being Portuguese, very few writers have tackled the problem of how these people arrived in Appalachia.  Kennedy does, giving a number of possible answers.

He starts by noting that a number of men with de Soto and Juan Pardo were Portuguese.  Pardo himself used the Portuguese spelling of his name, Joao.  Pardo had numerous men stationed at interior outposts from his base at St. Elena [modern day Parris Island] who were left behind when the settlement was closed.  Another possibility might be Sir Francis Drake, who left a num-ber of captured Moors, Spanish and Portuguese soldiers on Roanoke Island during his 1586 voyage.

The fact that the Melungeons spoke broken Elizabethan English indicates that they were here before 1600 and English was not their native language.  Many Melungeon given names are strik-ingly Mediterranean while their surnames are similar to those of many St. Elena colonists.  Even genetic studies show an undeni-able link between the Melungeon people and those of the Mediterranean.  Kennedy had not intended to produce the final word on the Melungeons.  However, he has presented new ideas to explore further.

 Western Carolina University    William L. Anderson, PhD

From "The Journal of Southern History"

BOOK REVIEW

"The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People, An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America."  By N. Brent: Kennedy. [Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, c.1994. Pp. xv11, 156, paper, $16.99, ISBN 0-86554-445-X.]

There are a number of seventeenth and eighteenth-century doc-umented accounts of encounters with a mysterious people in Appalachia.  They were a "reddish brown complexioned people supposed to be of Moorish descent who were neither Indian nor Negro, but had fine European features, and claimed to be . . . [not Portuguese but] Portyghee, the way native Iberians or cap-tured Moors would have pronounced it."  [pp 9, 121].

These people were Melungeons, who have often been summarily dismissed by many as tri-racial isolates--a mixture of Indian, white and Negro ancestry.  Melungeons, who were primarily found in North Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia, were normally listed by early census takers as free persons of color and deprived of their basic rights.  Consequently they were driven off their lands and denied civil rights much like the Lum-bees of North Carolina were.

Kennedy was drawn to this story when he was diagnosed as having Erythema nodosum sarcoidosis--primarily an African American and Mediterranean disease.  Common to some south-eastern blacks and Caucasians, this disease is also frequent among Portuguese immigrants in New England.  Although nearly all early Melungeon accounts support the claim of being Portuguese, very few writers have tackled the problem of how these people arrived in Appalachia.  Kennedy does, giving a number of possible answers.

He starts by noting that a number of men with de Soto and Juan Pardo were Portuguese.  Pardo himself used the Portuguese spelling of his name, Joao.  Pardo had numerous men stationed at interior outposts from his base at St. Elena [modern day Parris Island] who were left behind when the settlement was closed.  Another possibility might be Sir Francis Drake, who left a num-ber of captured Moors, Spanish and Portuguese soldiers on Roanoke Island during his 1586 voyage.

The fact that the Melungeons spoke broken Elizabethan English indicates that they were here before 1600 and English was not their native language.  Many Melungeon given names are strik-ingly Mediterranean while their surnames are similar to those of many St. Elena colonists.  Even genetic studies show an undeni-able link between the Melungeon people and those of the Mediterranean.  Kennedy had not intended to produce the final word on the Melungeons.  However, he has presented new ideas to explore further.

 Western Carolina University  William L. Anderson, PhD

Spanish Jews in many lands

Sephardic refers to more than just Spanish Jews.  Migration from Spain to other coun-tries has produced distant cousins of Turkish and North African citizenship.  Dr. Carlos Hi-dalgo presented interesting figures at the 15th annual Texas Hispanic Genealogy and History Conference this past October.

As a result of the 1492 Expulsion, over 170,000 Spanish Jews emigrated to other lands such as Portugal, Germany, Holland, Italy, France, England, North Africa and the New World. Turkey received about 90,000 and Morocco about 20,000.

The Sephardic House, Institute for Sephardic Culture in New York, includes citizens as Sephardics from Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Calcutta, Yemen and Turkey and Morocco.

Mr. Hidalgo stated that the term marranos was believed to be a corruption of the Hebrew word maranatha meaning "anathema over you," i.e, a person accursed or better yet a formal condemnation excom-municating those conversos from the Jewish faith.  --From "Somos Pri-mos," the publication of the Soc-iety of Hispanic, Historical and Ancestral Research, Box 5294, Fuller-ton, CA 92635.