Saponi Melungeon ( Saponi) Resources

Who made up that list? Found many a surname on there that isn’t Melungeon.

Cohee Lady; That would be Nancy Sparks Morrison, I believe. She hosts a Mellungeon forum at Topica.com. I found her to be a very nice person and very informative. I cannot speak to the accuracy of her surname list.

I think, personally, there is a movement out there to expand the use of the name Melungeon to include more people of undetermined multi-racial ethnicity.

I haven’t found a real good definition of what a Mellungeon is supposed to be or who can be included or excluded.

I think an example to me would be Micajah Bunch. Coming out of Va. and listed as a mulatto he is found living in Ashe County N.C. along the New River with the Collins and others and migrates with them to be found living on the Clinch River just east of Richard Green and just south of Newman’s Ridge in Hawkins County Tn. He doesn’t stay there though but continues on to Cumberland County Ky.

Now, many call him a Melungeon (some even claim he was the “King of the Mellungeons”) and he may so be, but when he went to live in Cumberland County Ky. is he no longer a Mellungeon?

Dan Akin.

Many of the names on this list are simply not Melungeon surnames, common or otherwise. Unless your definition of Melungeon is one that includes practically every mixed race community in the southeast. What the lister has done is lump in, for example, every common Lumbee surname (Locklear, Lowry, Dial, Revels, etc.), include numerous ones from other communities, and finally throw in the ones that actually are the old Melungeon surnames, expanding the definition of the word until it is almost meaningless.

Collins, Goins, and Gibson are some of the earliest surnames that can be said to be Melungeon, with others adding to the mix soon after their arrival in the Newman’s Ridge area.

Pat Spurlock Elder, in her “Melungeons:Examining An Appalachian Legend”, has an excellent, no-nonsense examination of Melungeon surnames, and is well worth taking a look at.

I believe I would lean toward keeping the purity of the core families. I am not a Melungeon myself, but I am something else that is yet to be identified.

The Melungeon Movement appears to me to be a concerted effort to create a greater identity and in that way it would cause the loss of the unique qualities of the Melungeon people.

As far as the often disputed origins of the Melungeon families it seems to me they clearly originated in the Piedmont of Va. and did not arrive in Hancock County Tn. until around 1790/1800. They can easily be traced using the simplest research. Please correct me if I’m wrong, from central Va. they settled along the New River in old Wilkes County now Ashe and adjoining Counties in n.w. N.C. and then returned to Va. (s.w. Va.) before settling on the Clinch River in n.e. Tn.

Please explain to me how this connects to some mountain Portuguese tribe living in the Applalacian Mountains in the 1600’s who rang a huge bell, etc., etc.

Dan.

Brenda; I like the research of Jack Goins for the origins of the Mellungeons. I will have to look up my info. but I seem to remember that he traces them to the tidewater rivers of Va. and the selling of their lands there before moving to N.C. They followed their white Va. neighbors to the areas of the frontier settlements.

I guess the point could be that even if those Portuguese folks were living in the 1600’s in the mountains, and are still there, they are not the Tidewater Va. Indian families of Saponi and Powhaton descent surnamed Collins, Blevins, Goins, Bolling, Mullins, etc.

Dan.

Pat Spurlock Elder’s book “Melungeons: Examining an Appalachian Legend” is available from continuitypress.com

It is excellent.

Hello Well so far we only have a very limited source for the terms melungeon and it all stems from the same premise.

because there are so many missing tribal languages there is the chance that the term may not be of portugese origins.

One question I have is “who coined the term” was it a self ID or was it applied to a specific group by non group members.

There was a large pan tribal communtiy on the NC / VA border (late 1700’s early 1800’s) that many people descended from, so like other perjoritives it may be that the term covered a large and varied group(s) of families.

So far no one has attempted to define the Native American component that helps make up the population termed “Melungeon”., (and the African American component aswell)

Futhermore has anyone found the first references to this group;(s) using this term, when was it and to whom was it first applied ?

I have Brent kenndy’s book , it’s a great start but only helps to define the people involved as all calling themselves “white portugese”.

anyway I’d sure like to see some more of the work done on tribal groups that are related to these mixed groups.

Tom