Was There Ever an Age of Magic?

Was There Ever an Age of Magic?

Was there ever an age of magic, where Gypsy's and Portuguese Adventurers appear undocumented and otherwise unknown upon the American Continent, unknown until the about 1890, that is? My job is to prove there wasn't. Can I do it?

I keep running into people who say history occurred up to a point, but then magic took a hold of reality and conquered her -- abra-cadabra, presto-chango, Voilà! The age of magic happened for maybe fifty years, say 1550 to 1600. Enter the Black Box. We entered the black box FULL-BLOOD Yesah People turned into Melungeons, who when exiting the black box, it turns out we had been Gypsy’s, Portuguese, and Turks the whole time! Why do people keep repeating this fantasy?

Will Allen Drumgoole

Much of the confusion happened because of the writings of one person. Wikipedia tells us the following -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Allen_Dromgoole

Will Allen Dromgoole (October 26, 1860 – September 1, 1934) was an author and poet born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. She wrote over 7,500 poems; 5,000 essays; and published thirteen books. She was renowned beyond the South; her poem "The Bridge Builder" was often reprinted. It remains quite popular. An excerpt appears on a plaque at the Bellows Falls, Vermont Vilas Bridge, spanning the Connecticut River between southern Vermont and New Hampshire.

Will Allen Dromgoole was the last of several daughters born to Rebecca Mildred (Blanche) and John Easter Dromgoole in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.[1] Her paternal grandparents were Rev. Thomas and Fanny Dromgoole. Her great-grandparents were Edward Dromgoole, a Scots-Irish minister from Sligo, Ireland, and his wife Rebecca Walton. He married her after immigrating to the North American colonies.

Dromgoole's parents sent her to the Clarksville Female Academy, where she graduated in 1876. She studied law with her father, but women were not allowed to become lawyers. She was appointed as staff to the state legislature, where she started working in 1883.

Career

Dromgoole was a prolific writer, publishing both prose and poetry. She was also a journalist for the Nashville American, a newspaper based in the Middle Tennessee city.

She first published a story in Youth's Companion in 1887. It was about the Tennessee governor, Bob Taylor. She had a best-selling novel in 1911, The Island of the Beautiful.

Dromgoole taught school in Tennessee one year, and one year in Temple, Texas. There she founded the Waco Women's Press Club.[1] During World War I, Dromgoole was a warrant officer in the United States Naval Reserve. She lectured to sailors on patriotic topics.

Dromgoole wrote a series of articles on the Southeastern ethnic group known as the Melungeons, published in the Nashville Daily American (1890) and the Boston Arena (1891).[1][2] This historically mixed-race group was then living mostly in northeastern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, and eastern Kentucky. Her derogatory comments about them, while based more on hearsay than fact, expressed the biases about mountain people typical of her society and the period in which she was writing. Since the early 20th century, Melungeons have increasingly intermarried with European Americans and integrated into mainstream white society.[3]

References

1.] Kathy Lyday-Lee, "Will Allen Dromgoole", Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture], accessed 20 Jun 2010

2.] "Will Allen Dromgoole", Historical Melungeons

3.] Paul Heinegg, Free African Americans in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware, 2005

4.] "Vilas Bridge", webpage http://www.danaxtell.com/bf/bfvilas.html

Okay – that last paragraph about Melungeons is why I mention her at all. Maybe she wrote some wonderful things. But she also trashed some of our ancestors. She confused people and her writings live today, even amongst the descendants of Melungeon’s themselves.

What Did She Say About the Melungeons?

I found three of Will Allen Dromdoole’s articles about the Melangeons online. I will cover them in the order that she wrote them. Her first article is found here. https://vhawkins1952.wixsite.com/catawbaresearch/post/dromgoole-1-a-strange-people-sep-1890

I have copied and pasted it. It has been my experience that if I depend on another website, that website might vanish. I have grown to regret not posting or copying information I found online. I know I won’t delete it.

Dromgoole; 1Sep1890; A Strange People

She talks about a Melungeon school teacher who can’t read or write himself.

She says; I have made a careful study and inquiry as to the name Malungeon, but have been unable as yet to place it. It has an Indian sound, but the Malungeons themselves have no idea as to its origin or meaning.

This statement left the door open for others to try and find an exotic explanation, when the real explanation was staring them in the face. “Melangeons” is simply a French word meaning “we mix” – no need to look further. All that other nonsense about it being Arabic or Turkish meaning “a lost soul” or something similar is RUBBISH.

She adds; Their homes are miserable hovels, set in the very heart of the wilderness. There is not, I am told, a family on the ridge other than the Malungeons.

Ths nearly-extinct Saponi try to save their cultural heritage, as long as they can.

She spoke of being fed only corn bread, honey, and bitter coffee. Didn’t she think of putting the honey in the coffee? Apparently not. Then in the next paragraph she reports; I visited one house where the floors were of trees, the bark still on them, and the beds of leaves. The owner was a full-blooded Indian, with keen, black eyes, straight black hair, high cheeks, and a hook nose. So even in the 1890s – there still existed full bloods. Here are photo’s od grandma taken about 1960, and 2 of her brothers, taken from a 1909-1910 school photo.

Another quote that caught my eye. --

I also visited the cabin of a charmer, for you must know these people have many superstitions. This charmer can remove warts, moles, birth-marks, and all ugly protuberances by a kind of magic known only to herself.

This reminded me of something dad (1915-1992) used to say about his grandma. He used to say his grandma Richey healed his hand of warts. He also spoke of a time his face got infected, and swole up. She cut his face open with a knife, pushed the puss out of the wound, sealed it with a poltice of some kind, and he said that healed him.

She keeps saying interesting things. I cannot spell their dialect as they speak it. It is not the dialect of the mountaineers, and the last syllable of almost every word is omitted. The “R” is missing entirely from their vocabulary. There is also a witch among them who heals sores, rheumatism, “conjures,” etc. They come from ten miles afoot to consult her. They possess many Indian traits, that of vengeance being strongly characteristic of them.

Dad used to say the same thing about his grandma (Josephine [Brown] Richey 1854-1932) – that people came from miles around if they had medical needs. She was also a mid-wife and delivered both my parents. They lived way out in the country with the nearest doctor miles away.

Continuing with her narrative; I visited one of their schools, taught by a native Malungeon. He could not read, and his pronunciation of the words given to the spelling class was exceedingly peculiar, as well as ridiculous. Mr. Thomas Sharpe, of Nashville, made an excellent sketch of this teacher while he was busy with his class and unconcious that he was “being tuk fur a pictur.”

I have generally skipped over her insults to the Melungeon people. Instead of saying they are trying to learn to read and write on their own without a teacher being assigned to them, she magnifies their shortcomings.

And she ends the article by insulting them again. You can read the rest at the link provided above.

Dromgoole 2 -- The Melungeons; Mar. 1891

There are three articles that she wrote I found online. This is the second one. Here she has changed her mind of our origins. She says –

When John Sevier attempted to organize the State of Franklin, there was living in the mountains of Eastern Tenessee a colony of dark-skinned, reddish-brown complexioned people, supposed to be of Moorish descent, who affiliated with neither whites nor blacks, and who called themselves Malungeons, and claimed to be of Poruguese descent. They lived to themselves exclusively, and were looked on as neither negroes nor Indians.

Remember she’d written previously in 1890 about meeting a full blood Indian. She now seems to be backing away from that statement. When Jarvis Lewis heard what she’d written, he felt he needed to respond. Lewis Jarvis was a local lawyer in East Tennessee who grew with Melungeon neighbors, and he objected to her writings, and wanted to set the record straight. Here (below) is a part of what he wrote, published April 17th, 1903 in response to what she had said (above quote) about us.

. Some have said these people were here when the white people first explored this country. Others say they are a lost tribe of the Indians having no date of their existence here, traditionally or otherwise. All of this however, is erroneous and cannot be sustained. These people, not any of them were here at the time the first white hunting party came from Virginia and North Carolina in the year 1761 . . .

So he says these Indians were NOT living in the area in 1761. Dromgoole says when John Seiver tried to found the state of Franklin in 1784, Indians were living there. This agrees EXACTLY with the time frames of the movements of the Saponi.

Dromgoole reports; Their features are wholly unlike those of the Negro, except in cases where the two races have cohabited, as is sometimes the fact. This explains a dark complexion that we should expect – a tri-racial ancestry created our ancestors without the need for a Gypsy or Portuguese element to explain us away.

She then goes into a long tirade of insults about the character of the Melungeons . . . she seems much like what we call racist today, but for the end of the 18th century, it would have been typical of the time period. I won’t repeat it here – you can go to the link above to read it.

She speaks more, saying of the Melungeons; They do not drawl like the mountaineers but, on the contrary, speak rapidly and talk a great deal. I’ve always that was a difference between Oklahoman’s and southeasterner’s speech – we speak quickly and they often drawl things out.

The next part of her story was VERY interesting – it is worth it just for this story alone --Near the schoolhouse is a Malungeon grave-yard. The Malungeons are very careful for their dead. They build a kind of floorless house above each separate grave, many oof the homes of the dead being far better than the dwellings of the living. The grave-yard presents the appearance of a diminutive town, or settlement, and is kept with great nicety and care. They mourn their dead for years, and every friend and acquaintence is expected to join in the funeral arrangements. They follow the body to the grave, sometimes families, afoot, in single file. Their burial ceremonies are exceedingly interesting and peculiar.

If you have ever seen an Indian cemetery in Eastern Oklahoma – you will have s cemetery EXACTLY like the Melungeon cemetery described here. The similarities are uncanny.

She adds; The Malungeons believe themselves to be of Cherokee and Portuguese extraction. They cannot account for the Portuguese blood, but are very bold in declaring themselves a remnant of those tribes, or that tribe, still inhabiting the mountains of North Carolina, which refused to follow the tribes to the Reservation set aside for them.

There were Catawba who went to live with, and were adopted by, the Eastern Cherokee.

Dromgoole also said; There is a theory that the Portuguese pirates, known to have visited these waters, came ashore and located in the mountains of North Carolina. The Portuguese “streak,” however, is scouted by those who claim for the Malungeons a drop of African blood, as, quite early in the settlement of Tennessee, runaway negroes settled among the Cherokees, or else were captured and adopted by them.

It sounds like she is saying those claiming Portuguese blood might actually have had Negro blood.

Dromgoole 3; The Melungeon Tree and Its Four Branches; May 1891

https://vhawkins1952.wixsite.com/catawbaresearch/post/dromgoole-3-the-melungeon-tree-and-its-four-branches

I am starting to realize some of what she said makes sense, but some of is makes NO sense -- and is NONsense. She starts this story by talking about Vardy Collins and Buck Gibson. She comments; They had a reddish brown complexion, long, straight , black hair, keen, black eyes, and sharp, clear-cut features. They spoke in broken English, a dialect distinct from anything ever heard in that section of the country. They claimed to have come from Virginia and many years after emigrating, themselves told the story of their past. She says that sometime before 1797 they arrived in northeastern Tennessee. She speaks of “their Cherokee ancestors”. She continued with her story. Old Buck, as he was called, was disguised by a wash of some dark description, and taken to Virginia by Vardy where he was sold as a slave. He was a magnificent specimen of physical strength, and brought a fine price, a wagon and mules, a lot of goods, and three hundred dollars in money being paid to old Vardy for his "likely n-----".

Once out of Richmond, Vardy turned his mules shoes and stuck out for the wilderness of North Carolina, as previously planned. Buck lost little time ridding himself of his Negro disguise, swore he was not the man bought of Collins, and followed in the wake of his fellow thief to the Territory. The proceeds of the sale were divided and each chose his habitation; old Vardy choosing Newman's Ridge, where he was soon joined by others of his race, and so the Melungeons became a part of the inhabitants of Tennessee. This story I know is true. There are reliable parties still living who received it from old Vardy himself, who came here as young men and lived, as the Melungeons generally did to a ripe old age. The names "Collins" and "Gibson" were also stolen from the white settlers in Virginia where the men had lived previous to emigrating to North Carolina.

I have problems with this story. There were other Gibson’s and Collins’ also in southwestern Virginia. How could someone, an Indian, pretend to be a Negro, and the purchaser not notice? It is a tale that sounds like they taught Ms. Dromgoole how to kiss the blarney stone. However I see where she said, This story I know is true. There are reliable parties still living who received it from old Vardy himself. The use of the words “reliable parties” carries some weight with me. But is it a true story? Maybe, I just don’t know. I also remember she was an author trying to make a living with her stories. I have been burned before by stories of “Cherokees” in Wayne County, Kentucky.

Then she talks of Vardy’s sons, claiming each one to be a tribe. Then she claims; The original Collins people were Indian, there is no doubt about that, and they lived as the Indians lived until sometime after the first white man appeared among them.

I am reminded of Dr. Richard Carlson’s PhD Thesis. In it, he stated not long after Spotswood’s death in the Summer of 1740, this band of Saponi Indians had been having troubles with the local settlers. In the Spring of 1742, twenty-six of the Saponi men residing at the Fox’s Neck village were in court defending themselves from the vague accusations of “doing mischief”. Then Carlson adds, “The bands troubles would climax in the winter of 1743 when a number of Saponi men had their guns seized and found themselves arrested. The Saponi men named John Collins, Alex Machartion, John Bowling, Craft Tom, Blind Tom, Foolish Jack, Charles Griffen, Little Jack, Isaac and Harvey were taken before the Orange County court for trial ‘by precept under the hands and seals of William Russell and Ed Spencer, gentleman’, under the charges of stealing hogs, burning the woods, and terrifying one Lawrence Strothers. Strothers had even claimed that he was shot at and chased by the Saponi in the backwoods. The Saponi men were ordered held in jail until bonded, after which they were ordered to leave the county.

Please notice one Saponi man was named “John Collins”. Also notice the name “Charles Griffin”. There was an earlier Reverend Charles Griffin who taught at Fort Christanna, the place where the Saponi were sent by Virginia Governor Spotswood about 1715. Now in the 1740s there is a Saponi Indian with that name. In the 1790s we’ll see a man named “Griffen Collins” living I a Melungeon town near the Va/Tn/NC border.

Please read the rest of Dromgoole’s story at the link above. She states there are four Melungeon branches – The Collins that are Indian, and are the main trunk of the tree, the Goins that are mixed-Black, the Denham’s that are mixed-Portuguese, and the Mullins branch that are mixed-English. I think this is oversimplified, but it is there.

It appears as though some of those Saponi who were asked to leave Orange County, Virginia in the 1740s have descendants that became the Melungeons by the 1790s, and in the 1890s a Tennessee Author wrote about them. But since she doesn’t know who they are, makes up exciting stories about their origins.

For some reason stories of Portuguese ancestry has become the big deal, and we forget that is only a small piece. The BIG DEAL that united all these families, was our Saponi ancestry. None of the others would have settled in that area, without the Saponi keeping them together.

The magic was not in an age or a black box hidden from view, hiding the Saponi from view for a generation while they magically turned into Gypsy’s and Portuguese and Turks – it was in their Saponi heritage that kept them together as one family.

Parsimony, or Occam’s Ruler

What does parsimonious mean in research?

Scientists in varying disciplines have applied the concept of parsimony in their studies and research. ... Parsimony is a concept in which an explanation of a situation or thing is created with the fewest assumptions. The Law of Parsimony advocates choosing the simplest scientific explanation that fits the evidence.

Occam’s Ruler is defined on Wikipedia as; Occam's razor, Ockham's razor, Ocham's razor, or the principle of parsimony or law of parsimony is the problem-solving principle that "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity", sometimes paraphrased as "the simplest explanation is usually the best one." Wikipedia

Applying Occam’s Razor to Melungeon Research

Let us apply this principle to Will Allen Dromgoole’s Writings concerning the Melungeons. She spoke of the four branches of the Melungeon Tree.

The First Branch

She then explains that there is an Indian branch, and she refers to this branch as “Cherokee”. Of course we now realize this branch was Catawba, not Cherokee. We can trace the Saponi Indians from Fort Christanna to the Clinch River, which is the homeland of the so-called “Melungeons”. We know the origin of the term “Melungeons” is of French origin, and it means (first person, plural, present tense, of the French verb, mélanger) “we mix”. The first known time it was used was by a descendant of French Huguenot. Ms. Dromgoole did not know the origin of the word, and she did not know the Indians in question were Catawban (Saponi), not Cherokee. But she did discover a lot.

Her explanation of the Melungeon people as “Cherokee is NOT valid. Her explanation that we were Indian is valid, however. So what she says about our Indian ancestry is NOT reliable as to tribal identity, but otherwise is true.

The Second Branch

She says there was an English branch. All the Melungeon surnames (save one) have English surnames. So this too, seems to be a fairly accurate description. We also know millions of Englishmen eventually emigrated to America, and ALL the surnames of the Melungeon people (save one) emigrated to the regions next to the counties Melungeon inhabit. I see no fault in her saying there is an English branch to the Melungeon tree.

The Third Branch

Ms Drumgoole gives an example of a Melungeon family that was of partial Negro extraction, who pretended to be Portuguese. However we do not know anything about the origins of the African family. We also know there were millions of Africans brought to America as slaves. We know of many families of Melungeon origin that have the appearance of being mixed with African ancestry. I suspect her description of African ancestry is spot on, She gives a valid example of a mixed-race African family. She also gives the impression of having a racial bias. I’d say her bias means her account might make her observations as reliable as one would have hoped.

The Fourth Branch

She says the fourth branch of the Melungeon tree was Portuguese in origin. She states the surname of the Portuguese branch was “Denham”. She says; The Portuguese branch was for a long time a riddle, the existence of it being stoutly denied. It has at last, however, been traced to one "Denham", a Portuguese who married a Collins woman.

Okay, we have an issue here. She says that the issue of having a “Portuguese branch” to the Melungeon the Melungeon tree was at first, “STOUTLY DENIED”. Who would have “stoutly deined” it? Well we must assume the Melungeons themselves would have! Non Melungeons all just would have said they had no idea where the Melungeons came from. Only Melungeons themselves would have “stoutly denied” their own origin.

Then she adds, our Portuguese origin had . . . been traced to one "Denham", a Portuguese who married a Collins woman.

Here there is a BIG problem. Everyone I have come across that believes this tale, has told me the story of Portuguese ancestry dates back to early Spaniards who carried a partial Portuguese crew on their voyages of exploration. Here Dromgoole gives the origin of the Portuguese story as being marriage of a Denham man to a Collins female.

The internet is a wonderful thing. I can research so many things, because of it! But it is a tool that can just as easily be misused. That is why I seek to validate my internet sources. People all over the internet just “believe” without validation, the sources that say we are of Portuguese descent.

I chose to look up the surname “Denham” – I never found a Portuguese branch of the Denham’s. I did discover however, the surname on Wikipedia. It stated; Denham is a surname of Anglo-Saxon origin. It originally referred to those from Denham, Buckinghamshire, Denham, Suffolk and Denholme, Yorkshire.[1] The name of Denham may have come from Brittany as "de Dinan" (Dinan is a walled town in North West France) and carried to Scotland by Alan, Baron de Dinan. (Probably with the William the Conquer). See The name "Denham" by Virginia Denham (Detroit 1940).