The Melungeons

The Melungeons: "Most families in the Southern part of North America in some way have family roots to the Melungeons. So lets start from the Beginning . Where did the Melungeons come from? That is a good question . Some call the Melungeons the ' Lost People ' or the 'Mysterious ' people of Appalachia. There are a lot of stories of where the Melungeons came from . I will try to explain a few. They say that they are decended from the 'Lost Colony of Roanoke' who married into the local Native American tribes. Others say that they were descendants of Welsh explorer Modoc who came to North America around 1100 AD, with ten ships of colonists . Still others say that Melungeons are the lost tribe of Isreal,lost Spanish explores and just simply a 'tri -racial isolate, made up of Native American/ African American/Caucasian mixture. ' But then there are those that say they were Portuguese .
The Melungeons according to Brent Kennedy writer of ' The Melungeons , the Resurrection of a Proud People.' suggested that the Melungeons were stating fact when they said they were ' Portyghee' . Saying that Portuguese/Morrish people who were being increasingly attacked during the Spanish Inquisition were a large part of the settlers Spain brought to this country in the 1500's .
The largest bans of Native Americans to intermarry with the settlers were the Cherokee, Powhatans and the Pamunkeys. These people migrated westward in front of the imagrants and on the way married with other groups, possibly escaped slaves, English, English/Native Americans and Scotch /Irish. The language that they spoke was broken or Elizabethan English . Their features were said to be from Dark skin to Light skin ,eyes could be Brown or Steel Blue in color while the hair could be Brown ,Black or Blonde. This comes from intermarrying . "