Becoming Melungeon: Making an Ethnic Identity in the Appalachian South

Introduction: Race, Identity, and the Melungeon Legend

I entered the outdoor pavilion to see hundreds of people talking, laughing, and walking around. Clusters of people surrounded Brent Kennedy, who was shaking hands and posing for pictures with his newfound kin. A child who appeared to be twelve or so was singing on a makeshift stage. Donned in country attire, she had big brown eyes and long hair carefully shellacked around her head. According to the eight-by-ten glossy her mother handed me, her name was Shalacey Manderson, and she was singing “The Melungeon Song,” written by her parents. I began to wander around as Shalacey sang the chorus. Once they stood with heads held high On fertile lands of green They must not be forgotten They’re a part of you and me I noticed a group of Turkish dancers off to the side preparing for a performance. They wore colorful scarves and layered clothing that billowed brilliantly against the stark Appalachian background. A couple of Turkish women huddled together, looking around the pavilion with interest. Shalacey continued her song: A people called Melungeons Their heritage unknown introduction Race, Identity, and the Melungeon Legend 2 Introduction Whose different way of life Was all their own Someone handed me a Turkish transcription of the song. I looked at a table stacked with memoirs and treatises on Melungeons. Other booths sold Native American jewelry and new age trinkets. Most of the people around me appeared to be middle-aged or retirement age. I passed a group of white-haired women talking excitedly about genealogy. One was knitting while she talked, sporting a round button attached to her shirt that read, “Maybe Melungeon?” I was visiting Third Union, a four-day event sponsored by the Melungeon Heritage Association (mha), packed with speakers, genealogical chats, and entertainment. It was May 2000, and I was in the early stages of a research project on the Melungeon legend. I came to Third Union hoping to talk to Melungeons. Save for the Melungeon books and buttons, Shalacey’s song, and Kennedy’s tireless affability , I might have thought I was in the wrong place at first. I had understood the Unions to be a meeting place for descendants of Melungeons. I did not necessarily go to the Union anticipating live versions of the Melungeon characters so vividly described in Appalachian legend—the exotic , dark-skinned rogues who rejected the outside world. However I also was not quite expecting to stumble into what appeared to be an elaborate family reunion of people who seemed so ordinary. In fact I remember thinking, throw in a few potato salads and drunken uncles and this could have been my own family reunion. Like observers before me, I was familiar with the basics of the legendary tale: that Melungeons were a mysterious, multiethnic population who hibernated in the remote and rugged mountains in the farthest corner of northeast Tennessee . The alleged unknown origins of Melungeons drove the legend, resulting in myriad exotic-origin theories that Introduction 3 involved everything from the Lost Colony to shipwrecked Turks. Since the late 1800s popular lore fancied Melungeons to be a wayward group of bandits who deeply resented the name given to them and were not to be trespassed upon. This mythical image also reflected a more romantic image of a mysterious and oppressed people who survived by their wits and integrity. Though nobody self-identified as Melungeon before the 1960s—and only a small number did then—by the 1990s Melungeonness had become a full-fledged phenomenon, resulting in a zealous virtual community on the Internet, the establishment of the mha, and annual Melungeon Unions where a new movement of self-identified Melungeons gathered. Unlike others interested in the Melungeon story, I am not interested in debating Melungeon origins. Instead my interests relate to the ways in which the Melungeon legend has been socially constructed vis-à-vis the media, and how that social construction evolved into a fervent movement of self-identified Melungeons in the 1990s. My interest in the social construction of Melungeon identity involves a number of interrelated questions: Who are the individuals today who claim a Melungeon identity, and by what processes do they establish and legitimate such claims? What does it mean to be Melungeon to those making the claim, and to what extent do these meanings represent and/or digress from the experiences of those labeled Melungeon historically? How have...