Portyghee/Melungeon Site Round-Up

The Ruins of the Vardy School
(Image from the Melungeon Heritage Association)

Having written earlier today on the Portyghee people, I decide that it was time to put the nose to the grindstone and put together a collection of valid, valuable sources of information on their politics, economics, sociology, and history. I don't want to pretend this list is exhaustive, but it is the product of several searches and link explorations. Also, FYI, I'm going to set up a permanent sidebar link list on the subject of Portyghee/Melungeon culture over on the right here - - - look for that to expand on this list from time to time.

On to the gist:

1. Melungeons.com - Quote:

melungeon.com is dedicated to bringing you information about the Melungeon Movement. Which began in 1997 at the First Union in Wise, Virginia when about one thousand people showed up at the College of Wise campus to reclaim their lost heritage. The "Melungeon Movement" is about racial and ethnic harmony. It took its name IN HONOR of the original Melungeons who were ethnically diverse but came together as ONE people to survive and live in peace and harmony. The Movement HONORS these early pioneers and they serve as a model for ethnic and racial relations.

2. The Melungeons blog - Blog of the folks over at Melungeons.com.

3. Melungeon Heritage Association - Quote:

Our mission is to document and preserve the heritage and cultural legacy of mixed-ancestry peoples in or associated with the southern Appalachians. While our focus will be on those of Melungeon heritage, we will not restrict ourselves to honoring only this group. We firmly believe in the dignity of all such mixed ancestry groups of southern Appalachia and commit to preserving this rich heritage of racial harmony and diversity.

4. Melungeon Health Education and Support Network - Quote:

This Melungeon Health Site is dedicated to the health of ALL Melungeons descendants. If there are illnesses that seem to run throughout your family, you MAY find help here.

5. The Melungeon Resource Page - Quote:

Since you ended up on this page, it probably means you are interested in Melungeons...maybe you are a Melungeon descendant or researcher or just heard the term and are trying to figure out "What the heck is a Melungeon anyway?" No matter which we are glad you found us and hope that these pages help answer some of your questions about Melungeons as well as raise new questions for further research and discussion.

6. Documenting the Melungeons One Page at a Time -Quote:

In our examination of the many articles, books, and websites on "Who are the Melungeons, etc" we have discovered most of these are opinions with little or no historical records to back them up. We believe a growing number of people have been misled concerning the historical Melungeons. These pages are brought to you by a group of researchers determined to show factual information concerning the historical Melungeons. ~History cannot be changed by opinions.~

7. Melungeon DNA Project - Quote:

Amateur and professional genealogists and historians have been researching records, newspapers articles, Bibles, church records and more, plus listening to family stories for years to try and document the Melungeon people.
The Melungeon Project is a study of males and females who have proven known Melungeon ancestors, according to old records, and agreed on by some of the top serious Melungeon researchers. The participants must descend in a genealogical useful line; i.e., father to son to son, etc. for the Y chromosome testing and Mother to daughter to daughter, etc. for the mtDNA testing. The DNA results, combined with extensive genealogy research, hopefully will open some new windows for research on the Melungeon people.
DNA information is to be used in conjunction with historical and traditional research. DNA results do not often “prove” a relationship, but can be quite helpful in guiding research. If a profile does not match, obviously a hypothesized relationship may be incorrect. At other times it may point to an unknown adoption in the family, or some other so-called non-paternity event.

8. Jack Goins Research - Quote:

Welcome to my website. It will always be changing, so visit back often. Follow the links on the left side, or click on the pictures to explore my site. Click on the "JG" and it will bring you back to this home page. My ancestors have been in Appalachia for many years, and in tracing them I have found a lot of interesting and sometimes unusual situations. One of these situations is when a lady at Stony Creek Church described a group of people as “melungin.” Through the years I have learned much about the Melungeons from the descendants of the families who were classified Melungeon, including my own Goins and Minor family. What I have enjoyed most of all is backtracking these pioneer families from the Clinch River at Blackwater, Tennessee to the many places they lived during their incredible migration journey, so I have named this web site as the place to share “my incredible research journey.” As the Hawkins County Tennessee Archivist, I want to share the progress of our volunteer organization "Friends Of The Hawkins County Archive Project" as we work the old Circuit, Chancery and County Court loose records 1795-1930, an ongoing work in progress. Our goal is to form a county Archive and Research Center. My research is a search for the truth and sometimes the truth is sad and unpleasant, but wherever this journey leads me, I’ll share it, so come and go with me on this journey.

9. Vardy Community Historical Society - Quote:

The mission Of the Vardy Community Historical Society, Inc. is to record and report on the lives, times, and culture of families living in the Vardy Valley on Blackwater Creek in East Tennessee; to document the Presbyterian missionaries' contributions to the health, education and religious needs of resident families from 1862 through 1974; to restore and maintain certain local properties of historical interest built during the late 19th and early 20th centuries; and to participate with individuals, groups, and educational institutions with like interest in the origins, migration, and lives of people living in Vardy and elsewhere known as Melungeons.

Jim Callahan's Lest We Forget: The Melungeon Colony of Newman's Ridge

The Portyghee people, better known as the Melungeons, have a history that is almost mythical. They came from somewhere, or many somewheres, to form a single people. They fled west, out of the coastal plains and up into the Appalachian Mountains. They lived intentionally isolated lives for decades, perhaps centuries in the mountains, occasionally trading with and/or fighting native Americans of the region, until gradually men of European descent began colonizing what had become the Portyghee heartland: the valleys of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee and western Virginia and North Carolina. Gradually, through coercion and discrimination most of the Portyghee people were pushed up, literally up the mountains and onto the ridges that towered over the fertile valleys. Here, in their hillbilly Masadas, they continued to live, though now, given the the limits of their access to good agricultural territory, many began specializing in an activity both brought by the invaders and legally forbidden by them - moonshining. Gradually, however, as development came to the ridge-towns, a diaspora has begun, and the Portyghee have begun moving again into the valley-towns, or even further afield, particularly into the Midwest, often abandoning their identities along the road. And today, though many Portyghee/Melungeons still live in the towns of the Cumberland Mountains and the Clinch and Holstein River Valley, it probably isn't surprising that most Portyghee folk either have no idea that are, well, Portyghee or still hide it, fearing the sort of discrimination that plagued their ancestors in the not-so-distant past.
The book I'm reviewing today is about just such a man. Pardon, let me rephrase. It is the product of just such a man, a man of Portyghee descent, who had no idea he was Portyghee, trying to uncover just what it means to be Portyghee. Specifically, it is a book that he wrote based on his research into 1) the hypothetical origins of the Portyghee people and 2) the definite trials and tribulations of those same people, and more particularly the people of Newman's Ridge, his heretofore unknown ancestral home.
Now, Lest We Forget isn't a scholarly book - it wasn't written by a professor of Southern history or sociology at some big-name university or institute, though it is well written (Callahan is a former Director of Agriculture in Mexico for Del Monte Foods). This is evident in some of the language and turns of phrase used - though this doesn't take away from it. And the book isn't strictly historical - it constantly delves into economics, politics, and most notably physical anthropology. And sometimes it does jump around just a bit. That said, the points where the writing becomes more informal generally tend to strengthen this work, rather than detract from it, making it approachable. And Callahan is unaffected by the dominant scholarly opinions as to origins of the Portyghee - that isn't to say he doesn't weigh them in, nor that he doesn't draw deeply from them, quite the contrary. But it is to say that he throws out every conceivable theory and hypothesis and discusses them in great detail, drawing on both the scholarly and the traditional for evidence, bringing up archaeological evidence that is often too quickly dismissed or simply ignored by professional scholars.
Combine all this with some excellent photographs and maps, a ton of information on particular cultural practices of the Portyghee/Melungeons and a trove of historical vignettes and you get a book that anyone interested in this dimension of Appalachian society, and at a decent price, which frankly just cries out to be read. Thanks for your labor, Mr. Callahan.

Okay, onto the meaty meat - first, you're gonna' want the publisher - head over to see the folks at Overmountain Press for that. Secondly, just to whet your appetite, I want to quote one of the most interesting sociological points that Callahan brings up. Ahem.

". . .[William Allen Dromgoole] stated that people descended from a particular person were named individual given names and their surnames were those of the father or mother of their tribe (for example Benjamin Collins' offspring would be Andrew Ben, Zeke Ben, etc.) to differentiate between the many Collinses. For example, if Jordan Ben (son of Benjamin Collins) were to marry Abby Sol (daughter of Solomon Collins), they would have a son called Callaway Abbey after his mother. Before marriage, the daughter took her father's given name; after marriage, she took that of her husband. For example, Calloway's wife was Ann Calloway. Over time, the Collins prospered, and their increased numbers necessitated the formation of clans, which retained the names of key leaders (Ben clan, Sol clan)." (p.146-147)

Now, that's just flat out interesting.