Carmel Indians

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The Carmel Indians (pronounced Car'-mul) are a group of Melungeons who lived in Magoffin County, Kentucky and moved to Highland County, Ohio. Dr. Edward Price observed that the most common surnames among the families were Gibson, Nichols and Perkins. His research found that the ancestors of the group were listed as free people of color on census records. [1] Paternal line descendants of Bryson Gibson and Valentine Collins who participated in the Melungeon DNA Project belong to Haplogroup E-M2. [2] The group were listed as free Black and Mulatto in Kentucky prior to the American Civil War. [3] [4]

As researcher Paul Heinegg (1997) has documented the ancestry of the majority of the Free Negro population can be traced to African Americans free in Virginia before the American Revolution. He has found that most of these free African Americans were mixed-race children of early unions during the colonial period between white women, indentured servant or free, and African men, indentured servant, free, or enslaved. This was before the racial caste had hardened and, on small farms, white and black workers lived near each other and associated. According to the law, children were born into the social status of their mothers, by the principle of partus sequitur ventrem , adopted in the 17th-century Virginia colony. Since the mothers were white and free, their children were free born. [5]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magoffin County, Kentucky</span> County in Kentucky, United States

Magoffin County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 11,637. Its county seat is Salyersville. The county was formed in 1860 from adjacent portions of Floyd, Johnson, and Morgan Counties. It was named for Beriah Magoffin who was Governor of Kentucky (1859–62).

Mulatto is a racial classification that refers to people of mixed African and European ancestry only. When speaking or writing about a singular woman in English, the word is mulatta. The use of this term began in the United States of America shortly after the Atlantic Slave Trade began and its use was widespread, derogatory and disrespectful. After the post Civil Rights Era, the term is now considered to be both outdated and offensive in America. In other Anglophone countries such as the British Isles, the Caribbean, and English and Dutch-speaking West Indian countries, the word mulatto is still used. The use of this word does not have the same negative associations found among English speakers. Among Latinos in both the US and Latin America, the word is used in every day speech and its meaning is a source of racial and ethnic pride. In four of the Latin-based languages, the default, masculine word ends with the letter "o" and is written as follows: Spanish and Portuguese – mulato; Italian – mulatto. The French equivalent is mulâtre. In English, the masculine plural is written as mulattoes while in Spanish and Portuguese it is mulatos. The masculine plural in Italian is mulatti and in French it is mulâtres. The feminine plurals are: English – mulattas; Spanish and Portuguese – mulatas; Italian – mulatte; French – mulâtresses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melungeon</span> Mixed-race group from the South Central Appalachian region of the United States

Melungeon was a slur historically applied to individuals and families of mixed-race ancestry with roots in colonial Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina primarily descended from free people of color and white settlers. In modern times, the term has been reclaimed by descendants of these families, especially in southern Appalachia. Despite this mixed heritage, many modern Melungeons pass as White, as did many of their ancestors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in the colonial history of the United States</span>

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The Virginia Slave Codes of 1705, were a series of laws enacted by the Colony of Virginia's House of Burgesses in 1705 regulating the interactions between slaves and citizens of the crown colony of Virginia. The enactment of the Slave Codes is considered to be the consolidation of slavery in Virginia, and served as the foundation of Virginia's slave legislation. All servants from non-Christian lands became slaves. There were forty one parts of this code each defining a different part and law surrounding the slavery in Virginia. These codes overruled the other codes in the past and any other subject covered by this act are canceled.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Casor</span> American slave

John Casor, a servant in Northampton County in the Colony of Virginia, in 1655 became one of the first people of African descent in the Thirteen Colonies to be enslaved for life as a result of a civil suit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Johnson (colonist)</span> Indentured servant, farmer, enslaver (1600–1670)

Anthony Johnson was an Angolan-born man who achieved wealth in the early 17th-century Colony of Virginia. Held as an indentured servant in 1621, he earned his freedom after several years and was granted land by the colony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atlantic Creole</span> Ethnic group

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of slavery in Kentucky</span>

The history of slavery in Kentucky dates from the earliest permanent European settlements in the state, until the end of the Civil War. In 1830, enslaved African Americans represented 24 percent of Kentucky's population, a share that declined to 19.5 percent by 1860, on the eve of the Civil War. Most enslaved people were concentrated in the cities of Louisville and Lexington and in the hemp- and tobacco-producing Bluegrass Region and Jackson Purchase. Other enslaved people lived in the Ohio River counties, where they were most often used in skilled trades or as house servants. Relatively few people were held in slavery in the mountainous regions of eastern and southeastern Kentucky, where they served primarily as artisans and service workers in towns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of slavery in Pennsylvania</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Key Grinstead</span> Enslaved woman in colonial America (1630–1665)

Elizabeth Key Grinstead (or Greenstead) (1630 – January 20, 1665) was one of the first Black people in the Thirteen Colonies to sue for freedom from slavery and win. Key won her freedom and that of her infant son, John Grinstead, on July 21, 1656, in the Colony of Virginia.

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John Graweere also known as John Gowen was one of the First Africans in Virginia, who was a servant who earned enough money to pay for his son's freedom. He filed a lawsuit to free his son, arguing that he wanted to raise him as a Christian. The court agreed and freed the son.

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