Subject: The Melungeons: An Untold Story of Ethnic cleansing in America

"The Melungeons" written by N.Brent Kennedy and Robyn Vaughan Kennedy
published by Mercer University press Macon Georgia 31207
   copyright 1994    ISBN 0-86554-445-X 

Covers the story of the Muslims in the America's prior to the arrival of 
Christopher Columbus. It is fascinating reading and may be ordered directly 
from the Mercer University press. 

The Melungeons  An Untold Story of Ethnic cleansing in America

By Brent Kennedy

Perhaps Nancy Hanks, the mother of Abraham Lincoln, was Melungeon.  
it somehow seems fitting that one of America's greatest Presidents 
should be of mixed race and probably Muslim heritage. But who
are the Melungeons?

Historical records document that from 1492 through the early
1600's an estimated 500,000 Jews and Muslims were exiled from Spain 
and Portugal through a religious witch-hunt known as the Spanish
Inquisition.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslim exiles escaped to their ancestral
homelands of Morocco, algeria, Libya nd Tunisia.  In fact, the
well-known Barbary Coast Pirates of  North Africa sprang from this
group.

They, along with their Turkish compatriots, were renowned for their
seagoing exploits as they sought revenge against the Spanish and 
Portuguese in ferocious Mediterranean sea battles.

Of course, they didn't always win: those pirates unfortunate
enough to lose at sea often ended up as galley slaves beneath the
creaking decks of Spanish and Portuguese ships bound for the New World.
Ironically, slaves of the Christians once again.

Other Muslims - Berbers, in particular - Moriscos they were called -
made their way to the Canary Islands, India, France and other countries.
And interestingly enough wherever these exiled Berbers went, they
identified themselves as 'Portuguese," even if they had originated in
Spain.  In fact, the term "portuguese," became almost synonymous for
both the Muslims and the Jews who had been exiled during the
Inquisition.

Finally, as the Inquisitions grew in Power and severity, even
Christianized Moors and Jews were forced in exile.  these "Conversos"
the name given to both Muslim and Jewish coverts were not trusted by
either the Church or the government, and probably with good reason,
since most had converted Catholicism only to avoid the death sentence.

The Spanish Inquisition, horrible as it was accomplished
something of great historical value for Islam.  Even though Western
historians have generally ignored the evidence, there is little doubt
that Muslims played an early-and perhaps the earliest- role in the
permanent settlement of this Nation.  And there is little doubt that
the Inquisition-with all it agonies-drove Spanish and Portuguese Muslims
toward the New World.
    
While American school children learn of columbus's role in the
discovery of the New World, they aren't told the entire story.  For
example, Columbus employed both Moorish and Spanish sailors, and
himself may have been Jewish.  On his fourth voyage in 1502 he records
two important discoveries:

First, on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, he discovered an
iron pot and an old ship's mast preserved in an Indian hut.  He and his
crew determined these artifacts had come from the Canary Islands.  The
Canaries, a Portuguese possession, had been a favorite dumping ground
for Conversos of Muslim Berber origin.

Second, on July 31, 1502, came an even more extraordinary
discovery.  Off the island of Jamaica, Columbus encountered strange
people on a strange ship that western historians have generally
considered to be Mayan Indians. 

This ship was forty feet long with a diameter of eight feet, and had a
shaded pavilion in the center.  From a distance, Columbus thought it to
be uncannily like the Moorish galleys he and so often seen the the
Mediterranean.  There were approximately forty men and women on thie
galley and unlike the Jamaican Indians, these people wore clothing:
sleeveless shirts and with showy colors and designs like those Columbus
had seen, in his own, in Muslim Granada.

These so-called Mayan Indians carried a cargo of tools, copper
implements, and forges for working copper.  But perhaps Columbus's
striking observation was that the women aboard this galley "covered
their faces like the women of Granada."  Were these truly Mayan Indians?
Or simply one more case of biased historians refusing to accept the fact
that Muslims could have reached the New World before Columbus? Columbus
certainly considered the possibility.

In 1527, the first land crossing of the US by an non-Native American
most likely was achieved by Azemmouri, a Moroccan Berber- a muslim. 
Originally a member of an expedition of 300 Spaniards, only Azemmouri
and three of his comrades survived this eleven yr, 5,000 mile trek 
from Florida to the West Coast and back to Texas.  He was the first
explorer to enter a Pueblo Indian Village, and the story of his daring
exploits make for fascinating reading.  Curiously, Azemmouri is never
mentioned in the American history books.

The establishment of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 was indeed an important
event in American history.  Bit is was by no means the first European
settlement in the New World.  The Spanish established the Santa
Elena, South Carolina, colony in 1566, forty yrs before Jamestown.  The
colony thrived for more than twenty yrs until it was overrun by the
English in 1587.  But since the English won the battle for this Nation,
Santa Elena was conveniently left out of American history books.

What happened to the survivors of Santa Elena, and who were they? Their
identity is important to understanding the hidden role played by Islam
in the shaping  of the American nation.  Many of the Santa Elena
colonists were converted Muslims and Jews or Conversos.  In Spain the 
Muslims were known as Mudajjan a word probably related to the term 
Melungeon. Ethnically, many of the Santa Elena colonists were Berber 
Muslims and Sephardic Jews, recruited by the Portuguese Captain Joao 
Pardo from the heavily Berber Galician Mountains of northern Portugal 
in 1567 - less than one year before the Inquisition kicked into high 
gear against the Muslims.

When Santa Elena fell, its inhabitants-including its converted
Jews and Muslims-escaped into the mountains of North Carolina.  And
there they survived, intermarrying to some degree with Native Americans,
eventually merging with a second group arriving on American shores in,
ironically, 1587, the same yr. Santa Elena fell.

North African Berbers and Turks captured in the Mediterranean by
the Spanish and Portuguese were regularly used as galley slaves in
ships crossing the Atlantic.  Once in the New World, these Muslim
captives were assigned to slave labor on sugar plantations and in
the mining operations of among other places, Cuba and Brazil.

In 1586,  English pirate, Sir Francis Drake, commanding thirty
English ships, made a daring raid against his Spanish and Portuguese
enemies on  coast of Brazil.  During this raid, Drake liberated some
400 Portuguese and Spanish held prisoners, including an estimated 300
Moorish and Turkish galley slaves Muslims captured in  Mediterranean sea
battles as well as several dozen South American Indians, a smaller
number of West African Muslims, and a few Portuguese soldiers. 
Drake had planned to arm and release  Turks an  Africans on Cuba, to
serve as a stronghold against Spanish but heavy storms force him to 
continue up the coast of North Carolina.

There on Roanoke Island he was sieged by stranded English settlers
pleading for a ride home to England.  The English colony of Ralph B 
Lane had enough of the New World and wanted to go home.  
To fulfill their wish, Drake had to make room for them on his 
already crowded ships.  According to English records, only 100 
Turks were taken back to England where they were ransomed to the 
Turkish Dominions," There's no further mention of the remaining
200 Moors, Turks, West Africans, Portuguese Soldiers or the South 
American Indians by Drake, and records show that Sir Walter Raleigh
who visited the Island two weeks later found no trace of them. 
Where did they go?
 
Research indicates that Drake left them behind, assuring that he
or someone would be back for them.  But that was no guarantee of safety
from the pursuing Spanish of Portuguese.  On Roanoke Island they were
little more than sitting ducks.  There is little doubt they  made their
way the short distance e to the mainland, probably utilizing the small
boats left behind by the English, and then traveled steadily inland.
Along the  way  too intermarried with Native Americans, mostly
Powhatan, Pamunkey, Nansemond and Hatters.

Within the next decade or so they encountered the remanent of the
Santa Elena colony, many of whom shared their Muslim heritage.  And
there thousands of miles away from their homelands, these two surviving
groups became on people.  Christians, Jews and Muslims- literally the
people of the book - living and worshipping the God of Abraham together. 

In 1654, the English explorers learned from southeastern Indians of a
colony of bearded people wearing european clothing, living in cabins 
smelting silver and dropping to their knees to pray many times daily, 
wherever they might be.  A people who did not speak English, but claimed 
to "Portyghee"

In the mid 1600'so there were people living among the Powhatans
and related tribes of eastern Virginia and North Carolina who were
described as dark like Indians, but called "Portugals"  A similar
people in South Carolina called themselves "Turks"  The early 17th
Century Powhatan Indians description of Heaven is nearly word for 
word the description found in the Holy Quran.

In the 1690's, French explorers reported finding "Christianized
Moors" in the Carolina mountains.  When the first English arrived in
the mid- 1700's, large colonies of so called "Melungeons" were already
well established in the Tennessee and Carolina Mountains.   And, in
broken Elizabethan English they called themselves "Portyghee," or by 
the more mysterious term "Melungeon".

Tennessee Governor John Sevier records a 1784 encounter in what
is now Western North Carolina with a dark-skinned, reddish-brown
complexioned people supposed to be of Moorish descent who claim to be
Portuguese.

In east Tennessee in  late 1700'so Jonathan Swift, an Englishman
married to a Melungeon woman utilized Melungeon men in his own silver
mining operations.  His dark-skinned companions were known as "Mecca
Indians."

Over the years, as growing numbers of Anglo settlers swept upon
them and around them, Melungeons were pushed higher and higher into the
mountains.  And their claims of Portuguese and Melungeon heritage were
increasingly ridiculed.  Even the word Melungeon became a most
disparaging term.  In fact, to be legally classified as a Melungeon
meant in the words of one journalist, to "nobody at all".

The Melungeons, pushed off their lands, denied their rights,
often murdered, always mistreated, became an imbittered and nearly
defeated people.  Over the ensuing decades- in a vain effort to fit in
with their Anglo neighbors, they lost their heritage, their culture ,
the names and thier original religion but not their genetic structure.

Perhaps the most stunning evidence is the gene frequency research
conducted in 1990 by Dr. James Guthrie, who performed a reanalysis of
177 Melungeon blood samples taken in 1969, in east Tennessee and SW
Virginia. Dr Guthrie compared the frequency of certain genes within the
Melungion sample to the know genetic make-up of nearly 200 other world
population groups.  His findings indicated no significant differences
between the Melungeon people of east Tennessee and SW Virginia, and the
people of North Africa and especially Morocco, Algeria and Libya and 
the Calician mountains of Spain and Portugal, Iraq, Cyprus, Malta,
the Canary Islands and extreme southern Italy, and most interesting 
certain South American Indians and last but not least, the Turks.

Can it be pure coincidence that these gene frequency comparisons
match up so perfectly with those populations theorized to be the source
of the Melungeons?  Can this sort of coincidence truly exist?  There as
also a number of medical conditions associated with the Melungeon
people, e.g.  sarcoidosis, a dibilitating and sometimes fatal disease
which is primarily a disease of Arabic, North African and Portuguese
people with links to the Canary Islands, In this country it's most
common among Caucasian-Americans of Melungeon decent and African-
Americans with SE roots.  

Both groups undoubtedly share the same Mediterranean and Middle
Eastern gene pool.  There is strong evidence that Christopher Columbus
himself suffered from sarcoidosis.  And there are other genetically
related illnesses as well.  Familial Mediterranean Fever, thallasemia
and Machado Joseph Disease (also know as Azorean Disease) are all strong
indicators that Melungeons are indeed of mixed Mediterranean, Middle
Eastern North African and African descent.

Even if historians never took seriously the Melungeon claim to be
Portuguese or Moorish, the medical and genetic work cannot be so easily
dismissed.

What can the long-standing mystery word Melungeon possibly mean?
It was used by Spanish and Portuguese Berbers to describe themselves.
But now there is yet another hint, further substantiating a Muslim
origin.  there are two Turkish words; "melun" meaning cursed or damned
and  "can" meaning  "life" or "soul" used together these words-
Pronounced Melungeon" translate as "one whose life or soul has been
cursed."  Which would seem quite appropriate for 200 Muslim Turks an
Ocean away from their loved ones and their country.

The descendants of the Melungeon people are everywhere, especially those
who have ancestors from the SE US, of any race with the following
surnames:

Adams, Adkins, Bell, Bennett, Berry, Bowling, Chavis, Coleman, Collins,
Gibson, Goins, Hall, Jackson, Lopes, Moore, Mullins, Nash, Robinson,
Sexton and Williams.  As a result of continuning research, several
American celebrities have recently discovered their Melungeon roots.

The Melungeon researchers are supported by grants from the governments 
of Portugal, Morocco and especially Turkey. The Turkish are providing 
Arabic-reading scholars to translate records from the Ottoman Empire. 
Among the other competent scholars assisting in this research are 
Dr. Ahmad al-Hassan, author of  "An Illustrated History of Islamic
Science and Technology"  published by Cambridge University Press.
Research grants have also come from the humanities councils of South
Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky and Georgia.

Many Melungeons are excited to learn that, though they themselves are
Christians, their ancestors were Muslims, and what they accomplished.

This realization put into better focus the prejudices that their
people have suffered, not only the older members of their families, but
still living ones. A Melungeon lady suffering because of the dark color
of her skin, or a Melungeon male being attacked by two men in Blacksburg
VA in 1980 because they thought he was Iranian, or another being
detained as a suspected Palestinian at an Israeli border crossing while 
visiting the Holy Land with his family.  All these things have impact,
and point out the insanity of prejudice based on one's physical
characteristics. 

The Melungeons were Americans, and Christians as well and even thought
they were Scots irish.  Bit it didn't matter, because the rest of World 
was caught up in its preset prejudices.

The Melungeons experience shows that even if kinship may not be
seen on the surface, it's there.

The Melungeons victims of an early form of ethnic cleansing-are
the ancestors of a significan number of present day Americans.
Americans who may not know they are descended from Muslims and Jews,
Arabs, and Berbers, Africans and Native Americans, Portuguese and 
Spanish.  And when people maliciously target any religious, racial 
or ethnic group that is different from what they perceive themselves 
to be, they are truly hurting themselves. 

Racial and religious prejudice is nothing more than self mutilation.
Humankind are all not just figuratively-but literally-brothers and 
sisters.  Not just in God's eyes but in true family kinship as well

The Melungeons, though most today are Christian, are the living
legacy of Islam's first wavy of immigration to the New World.

This article is just a piece of Brent Kennedy's book:
The Melungeons:  The resurrection of a Proud People published by
Mercer University Press (1994)
_______________________________________________________________