Forwarded with permission of poster. Source: [email protected] Subject: "Origin of the Melungeons - 1619, Part 7 "Origin of the Melungeons - 1619, Part 7 by Tim Hashaw all rights reserved. September 30, 2004 Numerous records leave no question that the pirate theft of some 60 Africans from a Portuguese slaver in July 1619 led directly to the arrival of the Pilgrim Mayflower at Plymouth 17 months later, and greatly influenced the direction of America just at the moment of birth. Melungeon ancestors were among those Africans delivered to Virginia in August 1619. This recent research makes some traditional historical scholarship describing the founding of America, highly questionable. The arrival of the Africans of 1619 has never been credited for bringing about the arrival of the Mayflower several months later. Melungeon genealogy is responsible for revealing this important historical connection. A number of outside authors have been in contact these past few months asking for sources and leads and I complied. They will write their books and they will receive acknowledgement for the discovery of a lost chapter of American history. But Melungeon genealogy made the recovery of what really happened possible as the date of these articles will show. I have much more documentation on the story, but I am working on it for a future manuscript. This following is a general view of what followed the events just described. The growing schism among investors of the Virginia Company over the activities of the Treasurer in 1619 would come to a head in the scandal of the Bautista piracy. King James of England launched an investigation following complaints from Gondomar de Acuna, ambassador from Spain, and others. King James (the same who commissioned the King James Version of the Bible) was a ruler who spent lavishly and who was always trying to refill his empty purse. He used the scandal as an excuse to not renew the Company's charter and he made Virginia a Crown colony in 1623. Once started down this path, his heirs did likewise with several other American colonies that had begun as investment ventures organized by private businessmen. Lord Rich quit the Virginia Company after his ship the Treasurer was seized in Bermuda in the autumn of 1619, and because of Edwin Sandys' dogged prosecution of him and Samuel Argall. Months later Rich organized the New England Company with other investors to compete with the Virginia Company. They obtained a charter to start a colony north of Virginia and in December of 1620, their settlers, the Pilgrim Founders arrived in Cape Cod to build Plymouth. Other northern colonies; Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut etc. were also Puritan colonies of refuge that came out of the business ventures started by Lord Rich and other Puritan businessmen. But in time they too were declared Crown colonies. The Puritan-dominated Parliament contended with the royal Stuarts over the issue of "absolute" monarchy: the Stuarts claimed they were divinely chosen monarchs answereable to no one, and Parliament striving to limit the Crown's power. The American colonies, primarily Virginia, were at the center of this debate in the early 17th century. Years later, Parliament became embroiled in a conflict with King Charles, the son of King James, which led to two English Civil Wars. Parliament appointed Lord Rich as admiral of the British Navy and he along with Oliver Cromwell were instrumental in overthrowing King Charles who was afterwards beheaded. In time, English kings returned to power to renew the battle with Parliament over England's relationship to the American colonies. The American Revolution eventually ended the debate giving independence to America. As for the early African ancestors of the Melungeons, documentation shows that the overwhelming number of Africans delivered to Virginia and Maryland between 1619-1650 were brought by English and Dutch pirates and privateers preying on Portuguese slavers sailing to the Americas from Luanda, Angola. Later, slave companies were formed that delivered Africans directly to America, but in the earliest years, they came from Angola and were brought by pirates. These Angolans who came to the Americas called themselves "malungu," as documented in my earlier series. John Geaween who is believed to be the father of Mihill Gowen, the ancestor of the Melungeon Goins, first appeared in America in the service of William Ewens or Evans, who one day in 1619 did accompany John Rolfe to meet the two ships bringing the first Africans to British North America. These pirates had just knocked off a Portuguese slaver out of Luanda, Angola. Through the 1620s and 1630s, the first African Americans labored as servants along side indentured Europeans and American Indians on the plantations of wealthy planters named Robins, Custis, Littleton, Jordan, Pott, Caulfield, Hawley, Charlton, Scarburgh, Shepherd, Evans, Kendall, Vaughn and Andrews. From 1619-1630 they were concentrated in the Virginia counties of Northampton, Surry, York, James City, Charles City and Elizabeth City. After they had served their terms of indenture, free African Americans started buying land in the 1640s near the plantations on which they had toiled. The earliest malungu clans settled on King's Creek. Later, another community appeared on Cherrystone Creek in Northampton County, Virginia before the 1640s. The Angolan-Americans there were surnamed Driggus, Harman, Carter, George, Payne, Sisco, Longo, Cane, Landum, Mongon, and Farnando. At the same time, a third Tidewater malungu community was developing around the Johnson family on Pungoteague Creek. The Angolan-American Emanuel Driggus of King's Creek knew and did business with the Angolan-American Anthony Johnson of the Pungoteague. The Driggers in Accomack County on the Eastern Shore knew the mixed families of Gowen, Cornish and Sweat on the Virginia mainland, all before 1670. Their families adopted each other's children, traded cattle, intermarried and established other malungu villages linked by family ties before 1700. A fourth important malungu community was located in the ancient tribal lands of Delaware's Nanticoke Indians near a hamlet still named "Angola" and a larger region still called "Angola Neck." A fifth malungu community centered around the families of John Geaween and John Pedro in Lancaster County, Virginia. These first African Americans intermarried not only with Northern Europeans immigrants such as the English, Irish, Scottish, German, Dutch, and French, but also with Indians of the Chesapeake Powhatans such as the Pamunkie, Rappahanock, and Chickahominie and later with the Siouan-speaking Saponi and Occaneechee Indians further west. These were the ancestors of the Melungeons; black, white and Indian. Beginning with the early marriage of John Rolfe and Pocahontas until 1691, mixed marriages were legal (blessed by the Church) in Virginia. Until Loving v Virginia in 1967, that generation of the 17th century had been the single legal mixed generation in America's history. It produced the Melungeons; free born people of color. To repeat, the chronology of arriving families as taken from Heinegg's research shows the Melungeon community developing not at once, but over a period of decades among free blacks (mostly male) and whites and Indians who intermarried. 1620's: Carter, Cornish, Dale/Dial, Driggers, Gowen/Goins, Johnson, Longo, Mongom/Mongon, Payne 1630's: Cane, Davis, George, Hartman, Sisco, Tann, Wansey 1640's: Archer, Kersey, Mozingo, Webb 1650's: Cuttillo, Jacobs, James 1660's: Beckett, Bell, Charity, Cumbo, Evans, Francis, Guy, Harris, Jones, Landum/Landrum, Lovina/Leviner, Moore, Nickens, Powell, Shorter, Tate, Warrick/Warwick 1670's: Anderson, Atkins, Barton, Boarman, Bowser, Brown, Bunch, Buss, Butcher, Butler, Carney, Case, Church, Combess, Combs, Consellor, Day, Farrell/Ferrell, Fountain, Game, Gibson/Gipson, Gregory, Grimes, Grinnage, Hobson, Howell, Jeffries, Lee, Manuel, Morris, Mullakin, Nelson, Osborne, Pendarvis, Quander, Redman, Reed, Rhoads, Rustin, Skipper, Sparrow, Stephens, Stinger, Swann, Waters, Wilson. 1680's: Artis, Booth, Britt, Brooks, Bryant, Burkett, Cambridge, Cassidy, Collins, Copes, Cox, Dogan, Donathan, Forten/Fortune, Gwinn, Hilliard, Hubbard, Impey, Ivey, Jackson, MacDonald, MacGee, Mahoney, Mallory, Okey, Oliver, Penny, Plowman, Press/Priss, Price, Proctor, Robins, Salmons/Sammons, Shoecraft, Walden, Walker, Wiggins, Wilkens, Williams 1690's: Annis, Banneker, Bazmore, Beddo, Bond, Cannedy/Kennedy, Chambers, Conner, Cuffee, Dawson, Durham, Ford, Gannon, Gates, Graham, Hall, Harrison, Hawkins, Heath, Holt, Horner, Knight, Lansford, Lewis, Malavery, Nichols, Norman, Oxendine, Plummer, Pratt, Prichard, Rawlinson, Ray, Ridley, Roberts, Russell, Sample, Savoy, Shaw, Smith, Stewart, Taylor, Thompson, Toney, Turner, Weaver, Welsh, Whistler, Willis, Young More names can be documented allying with these and later clans for decades up until the American Revolution at which time some of these families appeared in Southern Appalachia in large enough numbers to be known to whites as "Melungeons." The early colonial free people of color took divergent roads, often within the same families. One brother married a white woman, another brother married a black woman and another married an Indian woman and their families joined the white world, the black world, and the Indian world. Some families intermarried into free African American clans, others became "white" and entered the mainstream. Others of these families intermarried with Indian groups. Most of the surnames of the chiefs of the Virginia and North Carolina Indian tribes were first borne by 17th century African Americans who intermarried with Indians. Other families however did not assimilate among the larger groups but remained apart and anomalous. Like the Melungeons they also became known elsewhere as Redbones, Lumbees, Brass Ankles, etc. So it is that one family, Goins, for example, may have Goins relatives regarded today as white, black, Melungeon, Lumbee, Cherokee or Saponi. They came from a single source; John Geaween of early Jamestown by way of Angola, Africa. What accounts for Melungeon cohesion over the centuries? At the latter end of the 1600s, shipments of African captives increased dramatically and in some places in the colonies enslaved blacks outnumbered fearful whites. The colonial legislatures began revoking the civil rights of free people of color around 1700. In response, many fpc families moved to the frontier and independence as land became available; from the Tidewater to the Piedmont, into the Carolinas. Then at last, as the guns of the American Revolution were fading, the first mixed families entered Appalachia. Their genealogies and their settlements around the Cumberland Gap immediately after the War for Independence identifies Melungeon ancestors as former British subjects of color who came from the old former colonies back east. The end notes for the previous articles will follow. Tim Hashaw Houston, Texas ==== SKIPPER Mailing List ==== Skipper List administrator is Rhonda Smith [email protected] ============================== Gain access to over two billion names including the new Immigration Collection with an Ancestry.com free trial. Click to learn more. http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=4930&sourceid=1237