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Was Lincoln’s Melungeons
family Muslim Nov. 15, 2009 From the 7th Century inscriptions of Arabic on Nevada
Rocks, to Islamorada in Florida, to the Meungeons of the Applachians, to the
Morrish Architecture of Caliph-Haronia (California), Islam is present
everywhere in America. One just needs to look.
Moin
Ansari | April 11th, 2008 | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ MUSLIMS IN AMERICA: The Melungeons In Spain the Muslims were known as Mudajjan a word
probably related to the term Melungeon. Ethnically, many of the Santa Elena
colonists were Berber Muslims and Sephardic Jews, recruited by the Portuguese
Captain Joao Pardo from the heavily Berber Galician Mountains of northern
Portugal in 1567-less than one year before the Inquisition kicked into high
gear against the Muslims. When Santa Elena fell, its inhabitants-including its converted
Jews and Muslims-escaped into the mountains of North Carolina. And there they
survived, intermarrying to some degree with Native Americans, eventually
merging with a second group arriving on American shores in, ironically, 1587,
the same yr. Santa Elena fell. Chinese
Muslim Admiral Zeng he discovered America before Columbus A 10th century Arab map showing America as Ard Majhoola
The Melungeons: An Untold Story of Ethnic cleansing in
America (B.Kennedy) This is an article from Islamic Horizons
magazine Nov/Dec issue 1994.
The Melungeons An Untold Story of Ethnic cleansing in
America By Brent Kennedy Perhaps Nancy Hanks, the mother of Abraham Lincoln,
was Melungeon. It somehow seems fitting that one of America’s greatest
Presidents should be of mixed race and probably Muslim heritage. But who are
the Melungeons? Historical records document that from 1492 through the early
1600’s an estimated 500,000 Jews and Muslims were exiled from Spain and
Portugal through a religious witch-hunt known as the Spanish Inquisition.
Hundreds of thousands of Muslim exiles escaped to their ancestral homelands of
Morocco, Algeria, Libya nd Tunisia.
In fact, the term “Portuguese,” became almost synonymous
for both the Muslims and the Jews who had been exiled during the Inquisition.
Finally, as the Inquisitions grew in Power and severity, even Christianized
Moors and Jews were forced in exile. These “Conversos” the name given to both
Muslim and Jewish coverts were not trusted by either the Church or the
government, and probably with good reason, since most had converted Catholicism
only to avoid the death sentence.
And there is little doubt that the Inquisition-with all
it agonies-drove Spanish and Portuguese Muslims toward the New World. While
American school children learn of columbus’s role in the discovery of the New
World, they aren’t told the entire story. For example, Columbus employed both
Moorish and Spanish sailors, and himself may have been Jewish. On his fourth voyage in 1502 he records two important
discoveries: First, on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, he discovered an
iron pot and an old ship’s mast preserved in an Indian hut. He and his crew
determined these artifacts had come from the Canary Islands. The Canaries, a Portuguese possession, had been a
favorite dumping ground for Conversos of Muslim Berber origin. Second, on July
31, 1502, came an even more extraordinary discovery. Off the island of Jamaica,
Columbus encountered strange people on a strange ship that western historians
have generally considered to be Mayan Indians. This ship was forty feet ling
with a diameter of eight feet, and had a shaded pavilion in the center. From a
distance, Columbus thought it to be uncannily like the Moorish galleys he and
so often seen the the Mediterranean. There were approximately forty men and women on thie
galley and unlike the Jamaican Indians, these people wore clothing: sleeveless
shirts and with showy colors and designs like those Columbus had seen, in his
own , in Muslim Granada. These so-called Mayan Indians carried a cargo of
tools, copper implements, and forges for working copper. But perhaps Columbus’s
striking observation was that the women aboard this galley “covered their faces
like the women of Granada.” Were these truly Mayan Indians? Or simply one more case
of biased historians refusing to accept the fact that Muslims could have
reached the New World before Columbus? Columbus certainly considered the
possibility. In 1527, the first land crossing of the US by an
non-Native American most likely was achieved by Azemmouri, a Moroccan Berber- a
muslim. Originally a member of an expedition of 300 Spaniards, only Azemmouri
and three of his comrades survived this eleven yr, 5,000 mile trek from Florida
to the West Coast and back to Texas. He was the first explorer to enter a
Pueblo Indian Village, and the story of his daring exploits make for
fascinating reading. Curiously, Azemmouri is never mentioned in the American
history books. The establishment of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 was indeed an
important event in American history. Bit is was by no means the first European settlement in
the New World. The Spanish established the Santa Elena, South Carolina, colony
in 1566, forty yrs before Jamestown. The colony thrived for more than twenty
yrs until it was overrun by the English in 1587. But since the English won the
battle for this Nation, Santa Elena was conveniently left out of American
history books. What happened to the survivors of Santa Elena, and who were
they? Their identity is important to understanding the hidden
role played by Islam in the shaping of the American nation. Many of the Santa
Elena colonists were converted Muslims and Jews or Conversos. In Spain the Muslims were known as Mudajjan a word
probably related to the term Melungeon. Ethnically, many of the Santa Elena
colonists were Berber Muslims and Sephardic Jews, recruited by the Portuguese
Captain Joao Pardo from the heavily Berber Galician Mountains of northern
Portugal in 1567-less than one year before the Inquisition kicked into high
gear against the Muslims. When Santa Elena fell, its inhabitants-including its
converted Jews and Muslims-escaped into the mountains of North Carolina. And
there they survived, intermarrying to some degree with Native Americans,
eventually merging with a second group arriving on American shores in,
ironically, 1587, the same yr. Santa Elena fell. North African Berbers and Turks captured in the
Mediterranean by the Spanish and Portuguese were regularly used as galley
slaves in ships crossing the Atlantic. Once in the New World, these Muslim
captives were assigned to slave labor on sugar plantations and in the mining
operations of among other places, Cuba and Brazil. In 1586, English pirate, Sir
Francis Drake, commanding thirty English ships, made a daring raid against his
Spanish and Portuguese enemies on coast of Brazil. During this raid, Drake
liberated some 400 Portuguese and Spanish held prisoners, including an
estimated 300 Moorish and Turkish galley slaves Muslims captured in
Mediterranean sea battles as well as several dozen South American Indians, a
smaller number of West African Muslims, and a few Portuguese soldiers. Drake had planned to arm and release Turks and Africans
on Cuba, to serve as a stronghold against Spanish but heavy storms forced him
to continue up the coast of North Carolina. There on Roanoke Island he was
sieged by stranded English settlers pleading for a ride home to England. The
English colony of Ralph B Lane had enough of the New World and wanted to go
home. To fulfill their wish, Drake had to make room for them on his already
crowded ships. According to English records, only 100 Turks were taken
back to England where they were ransomed to the Turkish Dominions,” There’s no
further mention of the remaining 200 Moors, Turks, West Africans, Portuguese
Soldiers or the South American Indians by Drake, and records show that Sir
Walter Raleigh who visited the Island two weeks later found no trace of them. Where did they go? Research indicates that Drake left them behind, assuring
that he or someone would be back for them. But that was no guarantee of safety
from the pursuing Spanish of Portuguese. On Roanoke Island they were little
more than sitting ducks. There is little doubt they made their way the short
distance e to the mainland, probably utilizing the small boats left behind by
the English, and then traveled steadily inland. Along the way too intermarried
with Native Americans, mostly Powhatan, Pamunkey, Nansemond and Hatters. Within
the next decade or so they encountered the remanent of the Santa Elena colony,
many of whom shared their Muslim heritage. And there thousands of miles away from their homelands,
these two surviving groups became one people. Christians, Jews and Muslims-
literally the people of the book- living and worshipping the God of Abraham
together. In 1654, the English explorers learned from southeastern
Indians of a colony of bearded people wearing european clothing, living in
cabins smelting silver and dropping to their knees to pray many times daily,
wherever they might be. A people who did not speak English, but claimed to
“Portyghee” In the mid 1600’so there were people living among the Powhatans and
related tribes of eastern Virginia and North Carolina who were described as
dark like Indians, but called “Portugals” A similar people in South Carolina
called themselves “Turks.” The early 17th Century Powhatan Indians description of
Heaven is nearly word for word the description found in the Holy Quran. In the
1690’s, French explorers reported finding “Christianized Moors” in the Carolina
mountains. When the first English arrived in the mid- 1700’s, large
colonies of so called “Melungeons” were already well established in the
Tennessee and Carolina Mountains. And, in broken Elizabethan English they
called themselves “Portyghee,” or by the more mysterious term “Melungeon”
Tennessee Governor John Sevier records a 1784 encounter in what is now Western
North Carolina with a dark-skinned, reddish-brown complexioned people supposed
to be of Moorish descent who claim to be Portuguese. In east Tennessee in late 1700’so Jonathan Swift, an
Englishman married to a Melungeon woman utilized Melungeon men in his own
silver mining operations. His dark-skinned companions were known as “Mecca
Indians.” Over years, as growing numbers of Anglo settlers swept upon them and
around them, Melungeons were pushed higher and higher into the mountains. And
their claims of Portuguese and Melungeon heritage were increasingly ridiculed. Even the word Melungeon became a most disparaging term.
In fact, to be legally classified as a Melungeon meant in the words of one
journalist, to “nobody at all”. The Melungeons, pushed off their lands, denied their
rights, often murdered, always mistreated, became an imbittered and nearly
defeated people. Over the ensuing decades- in a vain effort to fit in with
their Anglo neighbors, they lost their heritage, their culture , the names and
thier original religion but not their genetic structure. Perhaps the most
stunning evidence is the gene frequency research conducted in 1990 by Dr. James
Guthrie, who performed a reanalysis of 177 Melungeon blood samples taken in
1969, in east Tennessee and SW Virginia. Dr Guthrie compared the frequency of certain genes within
the Melungion sample to the know genetic make-up of nearly 200 other world
population groups. His findings indicated no significant differences between
the Melungeon people of east Tennessee and SW Virginia, and the people of North
Africa and especially Morocco, Algeria and Libya and the Calician mountains of
Spain and Portugal, Iraq, Cyprus, Malta, the Canary Islands and extreme
southern Italy, and most interesting certain South American Indians and last
but not least, the Turks. Can it be pure coincidence that these gene frequency
comparisons match up so perfectly with those populations theorized to be the
source of the Melungeons? Can this sort of coincidence truly exist? There as also a
number of medical conditions associated with the Melungeon people, e.g.
sarcoidosis, a dibilitating and sometimes fatal disease which is primarily a
disease of Arabic, North African and Portuguese people with links to the Canary
Islands, In this country it’s most common among Caucasian-Americans of
Melungeon decent and AfricanAmericans with SE roots. Both groups undoubtedly
share the same Mediterranean and Middle Eastern gene pool. There is strong evidence that Christopher Columbus
himself suffered from sarcoidosis. And there are other genetically related
illnesses as well. Familial Mediterranean Fever, thallasemia and Machado Joseph
Disease (also know as Azorean Disease) are all strong indicators that
Melungeons are indeed of mixed Mediterranean, Middle Eastern North African and
African descent. Even if historians never took seriously the Melungeon
claim to be Portuguese or Moorish, the medical and genetic work cannot be so
easily dismissed. What can the long-standing mystery word Melungeon possibly
mean? It was used by Spanish and Portuguese Berbers to describe themselves. But now there is yet another hint, further substantiating
a Muslim origin. there are two Turkish words; “melun” meaning cursed or damned
and “can” meaning “life” or “soul” used together these words- Pronounced
Melungeon” translate as “one whose life or soul has been cursed.” Which would
seem quite appropriate for 200 Muslim Turks an Ocean away from their loved ones
and their country. The descendants of the Melungeon people are everywhere ,
especially those who have ancestors from the SE US, of any race with the
following surnames: Adams, Adkins, Bell, Bennett, Berry, Bowling, Chavis,
Coleman, Collins, Gibson, Goins, Hall, Jackson, Lopes, Moore, Mullins, Nash,
Robinson, Sexton and Williams. As a result of continuning research, several
American celebrities have recently discovered their Melungeon roots. The Melungeon researchers are supported by grants from
the governments of Portugal, Morocco and especially Turkey. The Turkish are
providing Arabic-reading scholars to translate records from the Ottoman Empire.
Among the other competent scholars assisting in this research are Dr. Ahmad
al-Hassan, author of “An Illustrated History of Islamic Science and Technology”
published by Cambridge University Press. Research grants have also come from
the humanities councils of South Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky and Georgia. Many Melungeons are excited to learn that, though they
themselves are Christians, their ancestors were Muslims, and what they
accomplished. This realization put into better focus the prejudices that their
people have suffered, not only the older members of their families, but still
living ones. A Melungeon lady suffering because of the dark color of
her skin, or a Melungeon male being attacked by tow men in Blacksburg VA in
1980 because they thought he was Iranian, or another being detained as a
suspected Palestinian at an Israeli border crossing while visiting the Holy
Land with his family. All these things have impact, and point out the insanity
of prejudice based on one’s physical haracteristics. The Melungeons were Americans, and Christians as well and
even thought they were Scots Irish. Bit it didn’t matter, because the rest of
World was caught up in its preset prejudices. The Melungeons experience shows
that even if kinship may not be seen on the surface, it’s there. The Melungeons victims of an early form of ethnic cleansing-are
the ancestors of a significan number of present day Americans. Americans who
may not know they are descended from Muslims and Jews, Arabs, and Berbers,
Africans and Native Americans, Portuguese and Spanish. And when people
maliciously target any religious, racial or ethnic group that is different from
what they perceive themselves to be, they are truly hurting themselves. Racial
and religious prejudice is nothing more than self mutilation. Humankind are all
not just figuratively-but literally- brothers and sisters. Not just in God’s
eyes but in true family kinship as well The Melungeons, though most today are
Christian, are the living legacy of Islam’s first wavy of immigration to the
New World. For further information, This article is just a piece of
Brent Kennedy’s book The Melungeons: The resurrection of a Proud People
published by Mercer University Press (1994) http://thedawn.com.pk/2009/11/15/was-lincolns-melungeons-family-muslim/ |
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