Hi Guys! Some of you may not be interested in this. It is a little long and may be more than you ever wanted to know. If so, just delete and go on. Won't hurt my feelings one bit. :-) But I do think it is interesting and something that until only a few years ago I had no idea had existed in relationship to me. If you had asked me to tell you something of this when I was teaching and had some examples of law at hand, it would have been much easier, Lee. I have only bits and peices available right now. The main research page where I found information on Plecker is down and will be for several more weeks because it is changing servers. I went thru some information that I had saved, that was not lost in my crash and came up w/ a few things, and did a quick search on the net. Too much info there, to wade thru so am just sending some notes copied from a variety of books, internet sites etc. This info covers a large period of time and is of course not complete. It may not answer your questions, in fact it may encourage more questions, but does include something of the law, the amendments, and racism. Racism is not something new to America and the Melungeons were not the only folks to suffer from it. They were however, one of many and because I am interested in the Melunegeons, and because our list covers a specific area and names that are common to Melungeons, I have done a little research on this. I think this is appropriate information for this list. First, Amendments to the Constitution: Article XV. Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Proposal and Ratification The fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States was proposed to the legislatures of the several States by the Fortieth Congress, on the 26th of February, 1869, and was declared, in a proclamation of the Secretary of State, dated March 30, 1870, to have been ratified by the legislatures of twenty-nine of the thirty-seven States. So the right to vote was not insured until 1870. Before that time, the right to vote was given to persons of wealth who OWNED land. Here is something on just WHO owned land: The 250,000 settlers who lived in the mainland colonies to the south of Canada in 1700 grew to more than two million by 1776. The top 1 percent of the population owned about 15 percent of the wealth. The top 10 percent owned nearly half the wealth. More than 20 percent of the population were African slaves. At any one time, another sizable percentage were indentured servants and even more whites were landless. Most whites owned little or no property. Less than a third of all landowners had large holdings, while another third were small farmers. Access to land and the definition of property rights were thus key elements in the development of the United States. As the Christian theologian Philip Wogaman (President Clinton's minister) has argued, the right to property, which varies from society to society, is not an abstract, pre-existing natural right. Rather, each society molds the definition of private-property rights in its own way. Each individual is entitled to property only because its government so declares. As Wogaman puts it: I may own my toothbrush more or less absolutely, but my ownership of patents or copyrights, of drilling rights, of air rights, of options to buy, of commodity futures, of a co-op apartment, of a second mortgage, or a tenured academic post, of a share in 'community property,' and so on, is all much more complex and socially defined.... It is the community, acting through government, that determines what property is. Property is first, then, a relationship we have with other people and with the community as a whole, determining what claims to 'scarce values' will be respected and, in the event of threat, protected. During the early history of this country, governments declared that only those who possessed certain pieces of paper called "titles" were entitled to the land in question. These titles to land that previously belonged to the government were given to carefully selected individuals. In this way, a relatively few people who were already wealthy gained access to most of the nation's land and used it to multiply their wealth. During this process, most people were excluded from the means to achieve prosperity and had to struggle merely to survive. It was the owning of land that gave power to people and such power was strictly limited in the early days of America. Land and voting rights were part and parcel of government. Government Of The Few, For The Few Most of the leaders of the new United States government were wealthy. They socialized and identified with people of wealth and privilege. Abbot Smith, in his study of the colonial period, concluded that this period was not democratic and certainly not egalitarian; it was dominated by men who had money enough to make others work for them.... Few of these were descended from indentured servants, and practically none had themselves been of that class. To protect each other's wealth after the War of Independence, a small group of wealthy white men secretly convened the Constitutional Convention in violation of the law of the land as defined by the Articles of Confederation and carefully crafted a system of government that they and their peers could control. Thomas Jefferson and many other leaders of the War effort were dismayed that the Convention decided illegally to create a new government rather than merely amend the Articles of Confederation. But Jefferson was serving in France and the others were unable to stop the conspiracy. An essential provision in the Constitution of the new United States of America was an agreement to allow each state to establish voting requirements, rather than establishing uniform standards nationwide. This provision meant that in most places, those who did not own land could not vote. In some states, only the very wealthy could hold state office. Sailors, apprentices, many craftsmen, indentured servants, women, and slaves were thus excluded from having a voice in the selection of those representatives who were to rule the new government. From this comes the main difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party of today. The Dems believe in a strong central government and the Republicans believe in states rights. And never the twain shall meet. The ideology of the day was clearly expressed by Alexander Hamilton (the chief architect of the Constitution and the first Secretary of the Treasury), who argued: All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well-born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God, and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Most of the leaders of the war against England knew that they were inflaming a broad discontent that could be directed against themselves as well as England. General Thomas Gage, reflecting on the 1767 protest against the Stamp Act, commented: People then began to be terrified at the Spirit they had raised, to perceive that popular Fury was not to be guided, and each individual feared he might be the next Victim to their Rapacity. Racism Throughout history, rulers have been well aware of how to use racism to divide the people and perpetuate the status quo. Government officials have consciously created divisions based on skin color to serve the interests of those in power. The following examples in the history of this country illustrate the point: During the colonial period, the government denied poor whites coastal lands and forced them to the frontier, where they were pitted against Native Americans. The government did not allow freed African slaves to travel in areas reserved for Native Americans and used slaves to fight Native Americans "to make Indians & Negroes a checque upon each other lest by their Vastly Superior Numbers we should be crushed by one or the other," as one Carolinian put it. Colonial governments declared marriages between free blacks and whites illegal. Children of such unions were labeled illegitimate and forced to live with blacks. After Bacon's Rebellion, Virginia gave amnesty to whites but not to blacks. After the Civil War, state governments in both the North and South officially prohibited blacks from working in certain well-paid positions. The 1935 National Labor Relations Act allowed labor unions to exclude blacks and other people of color from membership. The 1964 Civil Rights Act finally outlawed discrimination in employment based upon race; but enforcement of this law has been weak, allowing discrimination to continue as a widespread practice. President Lyndon Johnson told Bill Moyers: If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you. Drawing upon Jennifer Hochschild's The New American Dilemma, Derrick Bell made the same point in less colorful language: Racism is a critically important stabilizing factor that enables whites to bond across a wide socioeconomic chasm. Without the deflecting power of racism, masses of whites would likely wake up and revolt against the severe disadvantage they suffer in income and opportunity when compared with those whites at the top of our system. I don't know if what I am sending will convince you of what I am saying. I can but reiterate that Melungeons (and others) were discriminated against and particularly by Walter A. Plecker, first registrar of Vital Statistics in VA. They were labeled as M (mulatto) and FPC (Free Persons of Color) in the censuses of many states, not just VA, and by this designation, they were deprived of their rights to own land, vote, school their children in 'white' schools and were thereby forced to live in areas where 'white' folks were not interested such as the mountain tops of our beloved SW_VA where they eaked out subsistance or sub-subsistance lives of poverty and hopelessness. Most of this is really only now being understood, and it is still being hidden by both individuals and governments who are rightfully ashamed of past sins. I am sure if you are interested, a search of the internet will provide much more than what I am sending. And as I said, much of the above I did not document as to source. Sorry, these were just notes that I was taking for myself and so did not bother. Hope this helps. NancyS THE MELUNGEON HEALTH EDUCATION AND SUPPORT NETWORK: http://www.melungeonhealth.org SPARKS Genealogy: http://SparksGenealogy.net