Melungeon - Similar Groups

Similar Groups

Other so-called "tri-racial isolate" populations in the United States, some of which have gained recognition as Native American tribes by state governments because of community continuity, include the following:

Delaware:

• Nanticoke-Moors (and in Maryland) Nanticoke groups in Delaware and New Jersey (where they are intermarried with Lenape) have received state recognition. Most had left the area in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Florida:

• Dead Lake People of Gulf and Calhoun Counties (also known as "Florida Melungeons")
• Dominickers of Holmes County in the Florida Panhandle

Indiana:

• Ben-Ishmael Tribe, pejoratively called "Grasshopper Gypsies"

Kentucky:

• Magoffin County People (Magoffin and Floyd Counties), also known as Brown People of Kentucky or "Kentucky Melungeons"

Louisiana:

• Redbones (and in Texas)

Maryland:

• Piscataway Indian Nation, formerly also known as We-Sorts, one of three Piscataway-related Native American groups recognized by the state

New Jersey and New York:

• Ramapough Mountain Indians (aka "Jackson Whites") of the Ramapo Mountains, recognized by both New Jersey and New York as Native Americans

North Carolina:

• Coree or "Faircloth" Indians of Carteret County
• Goinstown Indians in Rockingham, Stokes, and Surry Counties
• Haliwa-Saponi, recognized by the state as Native American
• Lumbee, recognized by the state as Native American
• Person County Indians, aka "Cubans and Portuguese"

Ohio:

• Carmel Indians of Highland County

South Carolina:

• Red Bones (NB: distinct from the Gulf States Redbones)
• Turks
• Brass Ankles

Virginia:

• Goinstown Indians, Henry and Patrick counties
• Monacan Indians (a.k.a. "Issues") of Amherst and Rockingham counties), recognized by state of Virginia as Native American

West Virginia:

• Chestnut Ridge people of Barbour County (also known as Mayles or, pejoratively, "Guineas")

Each of these groupings of multiracial populations has a particular history. There is evidence for connections between some of them. For example, the Goins surname group in eastern Tennessee have long been identified as Melungeon, and the surname Goins is also found among the Lumbee of southern North Carolina.

In his Foreword to the section on Virginia, North, and South Carolina in Heinegg's work on free African Americans, the historian Ira Berlin sums up the history of such groups:

Heinegg's genealogical excavations reveal that many free people of color passed as whites—sometimes by choosing ever lighter spouses over succeeding generations. Even more commonly, they claimed Indian ancestry. Some free people of color invented tribal designations out of whole cloth. Here Heinegg, entering into an area of considerable controversy, explodes what he declares the "fantastic" claims of many so-called tri-racial isolates.