History of the Banjo

One of the primary instruments for the playing of both mountain music and bluegrass is the banjo.

For a history of the banjo: Click Here and Click Here.

The premier banjo player of the modern era is undoubtedly Earl Scruggs. To read about him: Click Here.

Bluegrass Music

In the early 20th century, country music, rooted in Appalachia, enjoyed popularity as country singers brought their craft to the cities. Country music was characterized by two or three-part harmonies sung over acoustic instruments.

In the 1920s, the Monroe Brothers rose to popularity with Charlie Monroe on guitar and his brother Bill on mandolin. Finally in 1938, the brothers split to form separate bands. Having hailed from Kentucky (the “Blue Grass State”), Bill named his band Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys. This original band implemented elements of Gospel, work songs, folk, country, and blues, and showcased various types of vocal harmonies. They experimented with many acoustic instruments, but eventually settled on guitar, bass, fiddle, mandolin and banjo. By the '50s, Bluegrass had begun enjoying extensive popularity.

For a brief history of bluegrass music and links to other bluegrass web sites: Click Here and Click Here.

The former is a better history but the latter has better links.

A Note on the Melungeons

By Swan M. Burnett, M. D., Washington
Read at a meeting of the American Society of Anthropologists
February 5, 1889

Legends of the Melungeons I first heard at my father’s knee as a child in the mountains of Eastern Tennessee, and the name had such a ponderous and inhuman sound as to associate them in my mind with the giants and ogres of the wonder tales I listened to in the winter evenings before the crackling logs in the wide-mouth fireplace. And when I chanced to waken in the night and the fire had died down on the hearth, and the wind swept with a demoniac shriek and terrifying roar around and through the house, rattling the windows and the loose clapboards on the roof, I shrank under the bedclothes trembling with a fear that was almost an expectation that one of these huge creatures would come down the chimney with a rush, seize me with his dragon-like arms, and carry me off to his cave in the mountains, there to devour me piecemeal.

To read more: Click Here.

A Queer North Carolina Race

Are These Descendants of Members of the Lost Colony of Roanoke?

New York Sun
November 15, 1894

There live in the swamps of Robeson County, North Carolina, a strange race of people. Their manners, customs and personal appearance are unlike those of any other race on the American continent. They live within themselves, and their intercourse with their neighbors, both white and colored, is limited to the extent which necessity demands. Among the citizens of the county they are called Portuguese and mulattoes. They are neither. Recent investigations by antiquarians who have closely studied their characteristics, in cline to the opinion that they are the descendants of the Croatan Indians and the lost colony of Roanoke Island.

It is an historical fact that on the arrival of the relief expedition fitted out by Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Richard Grenville the colony planted on Roanoke Island a few months before had totally disappeared. Years afterward, when the country had become sparsely settled by the English, and when the Tuscorora Indians were the dominant tribe, it was a tradition among them that in the interior there were white men who wee members of a smaller tribe of Indians, and that these men possessed many of the gifts of the English. It is generally thought that when the English vessels sailed to England for supplies for the infant colony those left on Roanoke Island were too weak to defend themselves against the Croatan Indians, their nearest neighbors, and that in an incursion the men were killed and the women and children carried away into captivity.

Whatever may be the supposition, the fact, nevertheless, remains, that in this remote county of the Old North State, thee exists today a strange and peculiar people. Their associations have, in the main, been with those who, previous to the war, were known in the Southern States as free negroes. They inter-married with these free negroes and the majority of them are more or less tinctured with African blood. this admixture, however, does not change their characteristics. There are among them certain families who have held aloof from such alliances, and these occupy a position of superiority. while they are not, in the strictest sense, tribal in their government, they bow in implicit obedience to their rulers who are always members of the pure blooded families. These pure bloods in personal appearance resemble the Portuguese, but in every other characteristic they are more like the Indian. They are brave, generous, natural hunters, fine
shots and very truthful. The swamps abound in game, such as bear, deer, ducks, turkeys and smaller animals and birds. They never forget an injury and treasure up their feelings of vengeance till they find a way to gratify it. They live in houses of peculiar architectural design resembling the "dug out" of the primitive Western settler.

A few years ago these people became a source of terror to their white neighbors. One of their principle men, Henry Berry Lowrey, organized a band of them and wrought as much crime in Robeson and the adjoining counties ad did the James gang in its more extensive field of operations. This man, on account of a real or fancied wrong, waylaid and murdered a wealthy and influential white man, a Mr. Townsend. The horrors of an Indian war, except the scalping of the victims, followed. Women and children were killed as well as able bodied men. No race was exempt. It was a war of extermination. Houses were burned, stock destroyed, and the country laid waste. After committing depredations, the band would return to the swamps, which are almost as impenetrable as the jungles of India. they are covered with dense underbrush, and only those familiar with their recesses are able to find the hidden paths that lead into their depths. Lowery possessed
considerable intellect, and, being familiar with every inch of the ground, showed himself an adept in the warfare. His second in command, Stephen Lowery, his uncle, was a capable lieutenant, and was often sent on a marauding expedition with a part of the command, while the chief would strike at a distant Point.

This was continued for several years, and became so disastrous to that portion of the state that the Legislature passed an act granting amnesty to all the desperadoes except Henry Berry and Stephen Lowery, for whose capture of death a reward of $10,000 was offered. This action of the State had desired effect and the war came to an end. What became of the leaders is not known. they were never captured and no one ever claimed the reward for killing them. they disappeared, and their followers resumed the even tenor of their way.

These people are legal citizens of the United States, but seldom avail themselves of their privileges. They take no interest in either local or national affairs. They have fought against all efforts for their improvement, and live today the same lives their ancestors did.

Earliest New York Times Reference to Melungeons

A recent MHS Blog article raised the question of when Melungeons were first mentioned in the New York Times. The 1897 article transcribed below, found and kindly provided by Joanne Pezzullo, appears to be the earliest:

AN INDIAN TO BE HANGED
Georgia Crotan to be Executed Next Month for Murder.

New York Times
February 28, 1897, Wednesday

ATLANTA, Ga., Feb. 27. -- For the first time in fifty years an Indian is under sentence of death in Georgia. He will be hanged in Glynn County next month. Marcellus Lowry, the condemned man, is a Crotan Indian from the celebrated band in North Carolina, many of whom have drifted with the turpentine and timber men into Southern Georgia, where they are called "Melungeons."  Lowery and a white man named Patrick Burns were working in the woods together and Burns went to Lowery's camp and entered his shanty to get something to eat.  The Croatan Indians are a fierce, treacherous and vindictive race and once their anger is aroused they do not hesitate to commit murder.

The witnesses in the case testified on the trial that as Burns left the shanty Lowery shot him in the back, having concealed himself behind a tree.  As to the origin of the difficulty between them very little was brought out, but so far as can be ascertained it was simply the ungovernable temper of the Indian.

Civil War in the Mountain South

By Wilma A. Dunaway
Wilma A. Dunaway. "Slavery and Emancipation in the Mountain South: Sources, Evidence and Methods," Virginia Tech, Online Archives

Southern Appalachia may have been harder hit by the Civil War than any other section of the country. On the one hand, Southern Mountain counties were deeply split politically over secession, and local populations divided their loyalties between the Union and the Confederacy. On the other hand, this region lay geographically at the heart of the Civil War. Both armies moved repeatedly up and down the valleys of Virginia and Tennessee. In addition, both armies targeted numerous sites within the region as strategic occupancy points because they were located on major rivers, were railroad junctures, or were the sites of important resources such as the national rifle works, saltworks, mineral springs, or mines. By the end of the War, eighty Appalachian counties had been devastated by major battles or campaigns or had been overwhelmed by the establishment of military facilities . . . The "official" battles between the two armies probably brought less devastation and destruction to most mountain counties than did the frequent and continuing raids and assaults by guerrillas, partisans and robber bands.

To continue reading: Click Here.

This article is offered in honor of Veterans Day, but in the fierce guerrilla warfare which engulfed the mountains of Southern Appalachia during the Civil War, it often made little difference if one were in or out of uniform, man or woman, elderly or a child; and everyone who was caught up in the struggle became, in a very real sense, a veteran of the Civil War.

My own great grandfather as a boy of 11 in Letcher County, Kentucky had the barrel of loaded pistol shoved into his mouth by band of Confederate partisans wanting to know where his uncle, a civilian Union man, was hiding. Fortunately, they did not pull the trigger, but his uncle was not so lucky: He was eventually captured and summarily executed with a bullet to the back of his head fired by a 16 year old boy.

It was a very nasty war. All wars are nasty, but none are nastier than civil wars.

Mountain Music

Music has always been an important part of Appalachian life. The last blog entry, about the Museum of Appalachia, featured a number of pictures of the instruments used to make mountain music.

For a very readable overview of Appalachian music: Click Here.

For a list of Appalachian music sites on the web: Click Here.

To download and play samples of Appalachian music: Click Here.

Note: In order to play the music samples, your system must have an MP3 player, and you must have Java Script enabled. A broadband connection is recommended but if you have the patience to download the music over a dial-up connection, your patience will be rewarded.