Appalachians

History and Migration

Before the migration from Europe and Africa, the Appalachian region was populated by the Cherokee and Shawnee Indians for more than a thousand years. When settlers arrived in the 1600s, they found the coastal areas were overpopulated, so people started moving farther west and settled in the Appalachian Mountains. Due to the isolated geography, the Appalachians lived in an almost unchanging world from the 1600s to the late 1800s.

The majority of settlers in the southern Appalachian region came from England, Scotland, and Germany in the 1700s, seeking land, freedom, and new opportunities. By the late 1800s, large-scale logging and coal mining found their way into the dense, lush forests that held an abundance of fossil fuels. The technological advances of the era went largely unused and unnoticed by the native inhabitants. During the 1800s and 1900s, more people arrived from Ireland, Wales, France, Italy, Holland, and Africa, turning the area into a rich, multicultural region. It is difficult to make an accurate assessment of Appalachians because the group is not a recognized subcategory on the U.S. census. However, in recent years, many Appalachian counties in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia have experienced a population decline, according to 2010 census data, as this population began to move to midwestern cities like Chicago, Cincinnati, and Detroit, where they created entire urban neighborhoods with a distinct Appalachian culture.

Mystery of the Melungeons

While the Appalachian population includes people from Europe and North Africa, one group, the Melungeons, has been referred to as the lost race of Appalachia. There has been a mystery surrounding the origins of these dark-skinned Appalachian residents. Some speculate they descended from Portuguese explorers, or perhaps from enslaved Turks or from Gypsies. The term Melungeon has been used as a slur for a number of groups of mysterious mixed-race ancestry from New York to Louisiana. The claims of the people that they were of Portuguese descent was likely used so they would remain free and retain the privilege of being white.

Census data from the Appalachian region during the 1800s shows a large number of people listed as “free persons of color,” neither black nor white. During this time, laws were put in place to penalize the mixing of races, and several court cases arose from the Melungeon designation. The idea of Africans or people of color owning land or working had negative connotations. A recent DNA study in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy has found that the families historically called Melungeons are the offspring of sub-Saharan African men and white women of northern or central European origin. It is estimated that there are several thousand descendants of the historical Melungeons today.

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