The Carmel Melungeons, also known as Carmelites or Carmel Indians (pronounced Car'-mul) are a group of Melungeons who lived in Magoffin County, Kentucky and moved to Highland County, Ohio. Some visit Kentucky to meet relatives.[1] 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]
According to interviews, the Nichols family descends from Black servants brought from Virginia to Carmel, Ohio in 1858, after which they married into the Gibson and Perkins families who had emigrated from eastern Kentucky. According to genealogical records, they were from Melungeon communities.[2]
As researcher Paul Heinegg has documented, the ancestry of the majority of the Free Negro population can be traced to free African Americans in Virginia before the American Revolution. He posited that most of these free African Americans were mixed-race children of early unions during the colonial period between white women, either indentured servants or free, and African men who were either indentured servants, 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.[7] Heinegg states that the Carmel Melungeons are descendants of these free Black people from Virginia.[8]
Culture
"Shuck beans", also known as shucky beans.
Carmelites maintain cultural traits from rural Kentucky, notably in language, evidenced by words such as "hit" for it, "lamp oil" for kerosene, the hanging of "shuck beans", and the boiling of laundry in an "outdoor kettle".[1] A documented practice of the group was the digging up of yellowroot and ginseng to sell to local stores. Carmelites sometimes migrated for work, and would return during the offseason. They would often live in the shacks of neighbors if they lacked one of their own upon their return. Census records in the 1900s reflect a trend of majority in-marriage.[1]
↑Heinegg, Paul, 1997-2005, Free African Americans of North Carolina and Virginia (3rd edition). Clearfield Company, Inc., Baltimore, Maryland. Also on the web at Paul Heinegg, http://www.freeafricanamericans.com
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