According to an AP news item Jan.16, 1999 the group of people who call themselves Melungeons will ask the state of Tennessee to declare them American Indians. This request if based on their bloodline....one theory of their origin is that they are descendents of Turkish, North African or Portuguese laborers who were brought to America more than 300 years ago and escaped or were abandonded and interbred with American Indians. This news item mentions clandestine stories of Melungeon burials and dark skinned men who minted silver coins in the mountains of Ky., Tn. and S.W. Va...none of which have been proven... My comments: If these people were descendents of Turkish, African or Portuguese of 300 years ago, how did they learn to speak any kind of English? How did they happen to come to this area in the Appalachian Mountains and leave no trace of their ancestory along the east coast where the English were living at that time? And to be found as late as 1700-1750 by explorers and long hunters.. The story that they minted silver coins matches my theory that were descendents of a party of prospectors who became lost from Hernando DeSotos' army of explorers and prospectors in 1541 and makes more sense than the theory about the excaped laborers because I understand there are records to prove DeSoto passed through the mountains of N.C. into Tenn and spent the winter there..G. Lee Hearl