The Melungeon People, Who are They and where did they come from? America's Lost Appalachian People.

[Music] the appalachian mountain chain of north america such a beautiful place but so vast and so rugged it runs from maine all the way down into alabama and they started settling this country in the late 1600s 1700s started coming into the area most of them were scots irish german dutch and etc from from the european countries and they got into these rugged mountains and they just started setting up their little communities and homes and farms now this area in the southern appalachian circle in yellow is mostly where they come across the melangeans at and the red is the highest concentration where they really originated from and they're still a mystery to this day now these people settlers come into this whole country they're trying to make them away in here clear them some land set up them a home and start farming and you can see the houses that they set up in when they first come in the area in this rugged country wild [Music] old indians [Music] and they found it some people were already here didn't know where they come from they wasn't english scotch irish they didn't know they'd been here a long time [Music] raising families farming the term london was given to a group of people in the southeast united states for being a mixed people of european african and native american indian descent and the biggest area they come from they found was around lee county virginia hancock county tennessee hawkins county tennessee all the way into claiborne county tennessee and round the gap but this is the highest concentration of where the malungin from and you can see the diverse different people in this millennium culture a diverse style of people from indians spanish portuguese [Music] african-americans all different bloodlines [Music] and they kind of stayed to their self in these rugged southeastern kentucky east tennessee hills and they they lived off the land just like anybody else trying to make a living raising families and their families and their families and to this day they still trying to determine where they came from now here's some of the states set up dna testing programs to determine the bloodline and their ancestry [Music] and that's still going on today now here's the example of some of the dna testing done now this is not all the people this is just a few the others they test will show african-american native american indians different cultures different bloodlines now here's just an old theory of mine and see what you think about it in these old rugged hills now back in 1540 there was a spanish explorer called hernando de soto he was a cruel explorer for spain looking for gold and land to climb and they kept good documented records [Music] and he come into this area probably the first man to ever lay eyes on the tennessee valley come across the mountains went down to french proud till he hit an indian village and you could see the proximity here of the location of the millennium people awful coincidental don't you think well he come down the river and come through the mountains claimed he had an 800 800-man expedition with 200 slaves carrying his supplies and they run up on this indian village and they was kind of wore out so they stayed at this island here with these indians for three weeks scouting the area and resting and i say a lot of men were just fed up with this they've been through indian wars and they was wore out so some may have deserted to the mountains and slaves into these rugged east tennessee mountain hills and they stayed there for generation and a generation so that's just a theory of mine [Music] now these old people they're just like anybody else just pioneer mountain people the raising family living off the land hard-working mountain people and his generations went on they evolved just like everybody else in these mountains so you can uh find any more information you want to find on this there's all kinds of books you can look onto about the ancestry and their their theories and stuff on the melons now these old families generation after generation don't there's really no set where they came from but they are a mountain people and as strong and resilient as anybody else so i thank you for watching and i'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: DONNIE LAWS

Views: 1,964,357

Keywords: Melungeon, Melungeon people, Appalachian History, Mountain people, Where did the Melungeons come from, Who are the Melungeon, Melungeon culture, Melungeon DNA testing

Id: ZyxLVdrc4_A

Length: 7min 40sec (460 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 12 2021