Melungeons: The Last Lost Tribe In America

Melungeons

by Elizabeth C. Hirschman

Most of us probably think of America as being settled by British, Protestant colonists who fought the Indians, tamed the wilderness, and brought "democracy"-or at least a representative republic-to North America. To the contrary, Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman's research indicates the earliest settlers were of Mediterranean extraction, and of a Jewish or Muslim religious persuasion. Sometimes called "Melungeons," these early settlers were among the earliest nonnative "Americans" to live in the Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia. For fear of discrimination-since Muslims, Jews, "Indians," and other "persons of color" were often disenfranchised and abused-the Melungeons were reticent regarding their heritage. In fact, over time, many of the Melungeons themselves "forgot" where they came from. Hence, today, the Melungeons remain the "last lost tribe in America," even to themselves. Yet, Hirschman, supported by DNA testing, genealogies, and a variety of historical documents, suggests that the Melungeons included such notable early Americans as Daniel Boone, John Sevier, Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, and Andrew Jackson. Once lost, but now, forgotten no more.

Genres: Nonfiction

202 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2004

Reviews

[Cynthia Jean · Rating 1 out of 5]

Utter GARBAGE! The author and I share numerous Carter grandparents that she mentions by name in her "book". When I think of the time I have invested in my family research, 38 years to be exact, it makes me livid to see such erroneous errors being published as fact. She lists a man that had only one male child as the father of my Grandmother Mary Ann Bickley. No sources quoted at all for her blatant lies disguised as fact. This woman has no right publishing inaccurate information such as this. The damage to fact and history is is not only great, but deliberate. As another reviewer mentioned, this garbage a work of pure fantasy, The author's personal agenda is clear in this "book" and in her other work of nonsense titled "When Scotland was Jewish". That agenda is trying to insert Judaism everywhere...period. My worst nightmare here is the possibility that some may accept this as fact, and this pack of lies will find it's way into countless family histories. When doing tree research, give this "book" no more consideration than you would the ancient One World Tree. I can't believe this hack is employed by a university. Parents of University of Virginia students should request a tuition refund and transfer them immediately. Or risk your child turning out to be an unemployed moron.

[Janice · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. Hearing the descriptions of the Melungeon people, I immediately thought of my maternal great-grandmother, whose father came from Tennessee. Family stories say she was half Choctaw, and she appears to be so in the few pictures we have of her. But I have no Native American DNA. And I would love to be able to document that some of my ancestors were actually descendants of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. I believe that some of them may have been. However, this book cannot be used as any sort of source for documenting family history. The author does offer sources for some of her historical statements, but she gives NO SOURCES for any of the wild assumptions she offers for her genealogical history. She believes that people are descended from Moors and Jews based solely on their given name! A person named Abraham, or Sarah, etc., must be a Jew! No other proof is necessary to her. She is sadly lacking in any knowledge of The Puritans and Pilgrims (and Baptists!) for instance, regarding their religious beliefs and naming conventions.

If you believe you may be related to the Melungeons, you won't find any documentation for it here. I already ordered Kennedy's book and I have a feeling it will be more of the same. Interesting, but ultimately useless.

[Trevor Freeman · Rating 1 out of 5]

This work would be more aptly subtitled "'I believe' rather than 'documented primary source evidence suggests.'" Her "research" is a blend of glossary internet sleuthing and heavy reliance (with lengthy direct quotes) on non-academic secondary sources. To Hirschmann's credit, she does raise the interesting possibility of a greater Atlantic world presence in the initial settling of the southeastern colonies; however, her unsupported conjecture as to the unbelievable prevalence of Jewish/Moorish descendents among this group, a non-scholarly explanation of folkways origins, and a strange tangent about Freemasonry (along with factual issues) illustrate clearly that her word is not the authority on this matter.

[Nick Wilson · Rating 2 out of 5]

To my knowledge, this largely unknown group now referred to with the reclaimed term of "Melungeon" has not been subject to any serious ongoing academic study using modern methods, but surviving anecdotal / mythological narratives laid out here have given a semblance of added cultural context and clarity to pervasive and otherwise unexplainable family stories. The dodginess of older members of the family on the subject of their family backgrounds is explained, if only at a surface level, by the anecdotes provided here and in other similarly surface-level, largely unverified literature. Old census records identifying family members as "Indian,"
"quarteroon," or "free people of color” paired with patterns of constant geographic movement seem to corroborate at least some these stories. One wonders whether much more will ever truly be known about a people whose survival depended upon generational silence or skipping town entirely. However, the authors here rest heavily - and more often than not, uncritically - upon mythologies that should not be passed along to readers as anything close to fact. All that is clear is that these people appear to have originated in the mountains of East Tennessee and the surrounding area well before the establishment of the United States. Past this, it seems those who survived did so by deliberately burying their histories (often utilizing the same myths offered up in this book) to try and fit into a physically, socially, and legally hostile world. Isolation and facade were the name of the game for a regional group now largely faded into history.

[Darrin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hyperbole to the exrteme. Erroneous genealogical information. John James BECKLEY,the first Librarian of Congress, only had one child, a son. This son went on to name the town of Beckley, WV.

There is no confusion between the BECKLEY and BICKLEY names. John BICKLEY (1713-1793) was the father of Mary Ann BICKLEY, who married Dale CARTER.

This book is a glaring example of atrocious scholarship and a clearly biased agenda.

Anyone who uses this book as a resource will do irreparable damage to their family tree.

[Johanna Haas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Complete crap. Made-up fantasies about how Melungeons are descended from Jewish and Muslim immigrants from Spain following the Inquisition. The author goes to great lengths to push away the truth that Melungeons are black / white mixed - and possibly a few other things in there.