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The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People : An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America
The Melungeons The Resurrection of a Proud People An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America Author:N. Brent Kennedy, Robyn Vaughan Kennedy As early as 1654, English and French explorers in the southern Appalachians reported seeing dark-skinned, brown- and blue-eyed, and European-featured people speaking broken Elizabethan English, living in cabins, tilling the land, smelting silver, practicing Christianity, and most perplexing of all, claiming to be "Portyghee." Declared "free per... more »sons of color" in the late 1700s by the English and Scotch-Irish immigrants, the Melungeons, as they were known, were driven off their lands and denied voting rights, education, and the right to judicial process. The law was enforced mercilessly and sometimes violently in the resoundingly successful effort to totally disenfranchise these earliest American settlers. These Melungeons were a remarkable people caught up in a nightmare not of their own making. Perhaps history can finally amend itself and belatedly recognize the incredible achievement of these brave and lonely people, who were among the earliest American pioneers, and bring at long last an end to the Inquisition. The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People by N. Brent Kennedy and Robyn Vaughan Kennedy is their story.« less