THE CHATTANOOGA TIMES
Wednesday March 5, 1941
Letters
Melungeons Recalled
Mrs. Amanda Wheelock tells of
Knowing Several of the Race
To the Editor of The
Chattanooga Times:
I have been very much
interested in the discussion of the Melungeons.” Several years
ago a number of these families lived around Rhea Springs and Spring
City: the blacksmith at Rheas Springs, Dock Graham, was a Melungeon.
These people attended the
white schools and intermarried with whites. I never heard of any
Negro intermarriage. These people were very dark, and had
straight hair and no Negro features. I bought vegetables and eggs
from a Melungeon woman. She was intelligent and of rather
pleasing personality. Her account of the history of her people
was that the were descended from Portuguese sailors who, fleeing from
an enemy. Left their boats and escaped into the mountains of North
Carolina. They married into a tribe of mountain Indians and
although these Portuguese sailors were a very dark race of people they
had no Negro blood.
In the lower end of the
county their right to attend the white schools was questioned. I
think Mr. Lewis Shepherd defended them and they won the suit, as proof
of Negro blood was not proved. When a little child, after
committing some rude or uncivil act, I was called by my grandmother “a
little Melungeon.” The pioneers had no liking for the Melungeons and
said they were descended from Portugese or Moorish pirates that were
pursued and their ships taken, the pirates escaping into the mountains
and mixing with the Indians. The Negroes did not like them
because, although dark in color, they held themselves distantly aloof
from any association. The Rhea county Melungeon were an orderly,
well behaved set of people and the tradition about their racial
rudeness I think was prejudiced and unfair. Their descendants
have lost their dark color through intermarriage with whites. I
notice several Melungeons names in the happenings here and in other
counties adjoining and I am sure many of these people do not know
of their Melungeons ancestry.
Mrs. Amanda Neal Wheelock
Chattanooga.