In a message dated 7/8/2002 10:27:29 AM Central Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: > These olive- and copper-skinned people have lived in isolated pockets across > > Appalachia over the past several centuries. The Melungeons were > "discovered" > in 1654 by English explorers and were described as being "dark-skinned with > > fine European features." In April of 1673, James Needham, an Englishman, > and > Gabriel Arthur, possibly an indentured servant, came to the Tennessee > Valley > as explorers with approximately eight Indians. There, Needham described > finding "hairy people .... (who) have a bell which is six foot over which > they ring morning and evening and at that time a great number of people > congregrate togather and talkes" in a language not English nor any Indian > dialect that the accompanying Indians knew. Needham also described these > people as "hairy, white people which have long beards and whiskers and > weares > clothing...." who lived in log cabins with peculiar arched windows. Some of > > these peoples were also described as having red hair, and others with very > distinctive blue or blue/green eyes. They practiced the Christian religion > and told the explorers in broken Elizabethan English that they were > "Portyghee." > Hello, Maynard, and others discussing the Melungeon information, This, also, has probably been discussed on the list before but the latter people mentioned above as < Some of these peoples were also described as having red hair, and others with very distinctive blue or blue/green eyes. They practiced the Christian religion and told the explorers in broken Elizabethan English that they were "Portyghee." > could quite possibly be those descended from a combination of the Portugese explorers, Native American Indians and another group of individuals that were of Celtic lineage with light eyes and red/blonde and brown hair and were descendants of Prince Madoc of Wales and those who journeyed with him as colonists on his 2nd voyage to North America. There is a marker that was erected in 1953 beside a road in southern Alabama by the Virginia Cavalier chapter of the D.A.R. and that marker cites, "In memory of Prince Madoc, a Welsh explorer, who landed on the shores of Mobile Bay in 1170, and left behind, with the Indians, the Welsh language." In the second paragraph, the marker mentions another source in citing: "Authority is Encyclopedia Americana. . ." The Encyclopedia Americana says that Madoc was a "Welsh Prince who in consequence of some civil dissensions went to sea with ten ships and 300 men in 1170, and discovered America. He made a second voyage to and from this unknown land but finally was lost to the knowledge of his countrymen.. ." There were those final few last survivors of a tribe of people called the MANDAN Indians that after most had been wiped out by plague, battle or assimilation into other cultures that themselves joined with the South Dakota Sioux in the 1800s. There is actually a good deal of information that can be found regarding the way in which they lived with the very unique types of housing and boats that came out of their lifestyle in Wales. In addition to the marker in Alabama there is a commemorative marker at the port in Bristol, England, as well, commemorating Prince Madoc's voyage to what would become America. Bellinda Myrick - Barnett