Defining the Melungeons

A Research Article
By MHS President Jack Goins

The Melungeons were a very dark skin group of settlers who settled in the mountains of East Tennessee and the extreme Southwestern area of Virginia beginning 1790's. Originally they were Portuguese adventurers, who came to the long shore parts of Virginia, they became friends with the Indians and intermixed with them, and subsequently with the pioneer settlers. Some of them took the names of the first settlers. The main body of this group migrated from the Pamunkey River area of Virginia to the Flat River area of NC 1730's-1740's. Then around 1767 they migrated from the Flat River to the back woods New River area’s of Virginia and North Carolina before migrating to the Clinch River areas of Southwestern Virginia and East Tennessee.

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