The Collaborative International Dictionary
Melungeon \Me*lun"geon\, n. [Cf. F. m['e]langer to mix, m['e]lange a mixture.] One of a mixed white and Indian people living in parts of Tennessee and the Carolinas. They are descendants of early intermixtures of white settlers with natives. In North Carolina the
Croatan Indians, regarded as descended from Raleigh's lost colony of Croatan, formerly classed with negroes, are now legally recognized as distinct.
Wikipedia
Melungeon is a term traditionally applied to one of numerous "tri-racial isolate" groups of the Southeastern United States. Historically, Melungeons were associated with the Cumberland Gap area of central Appalachia, which includes portions of East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and eastern Kentucky. Tri-racial describes populations thought to be of mixed European, African and Native American ancestry. Although there is no consensus on how many such groups exist, estimates range as high as 200. Melungeons were often referred to by other settlers as of Portuguese or Native American origin.
According to the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, in his 1950 dissertation, cultural geographer Edward Price proposed that Melungeons were families descended from free people of color (who were likely of both European and African ancestry) and mixed-race unions between persons of African ancestry and Native Americans in colonial Virginia.
Usage examples of "melungeon".
Grand Duchy of Melungeon lay to the galactic south of the Solarian League.
The Melungeon sailors filed from the house, moving more briskly than Mincio had seen them do previously.
The remainder of the Melungeon officers trailed after, though Mincio noticed that all the card players put their money in their pockets before leaving the table.
Mistress deKyper was already in the aircar, sizzling in fury at the Melungeon sacrilege.
Nothing is too good for Melungeon, and nothing on Melungeon is too good for Maxwell, Lord Orloff.
Some of the Melungeon crewmen were directly across the pit, itself less than thirty meters in radius.
Harpe and her Melungeon aides muttered cheerfully as they adjusted controls on a console with a curved bench seat holding three, and Nessler himself was whistling as he eyed the various displays with his hands in his pockets.
The Melungeon crewmen continued to babble to one another at the clarity of the image even as Maginnes shooed them out to make room for another group of sightseers.
League and Melungeon bills, the incidental fruits of the poker game that gained him the use of the cruiser.
A graduate student presentation on disease frequencies among Melungeon populations.
The dozen Melungeons clomped along stolidly with the luggage while Royston called cadence.
The fireworks had been the most entertainment the Melungeons, officers and sailors alike, had seen in a long time.
Nessler plunged deeply on two pair, losing the hand to another of the Melungeons with three queens.
Maginnes, and Harpe with a pair of Melungeons were the entire bridge crew.
Air system Maginnes had been leading a stream of Melungeons through the bridge to gape at the optical screen.