Before We Were White – Episode 11: “No Safe Harbor, Part 2”
The eastern half of the continental USA is dotted with places often described as “tri-racial isolate communities”.
One of the largest such population groups can be found spread over Eastern Kentucky, the western parts of Virginia, East Tennessee, and West Virginia.
Widely known as “Melungeons”, few Americans have been the subject of such intense scrutiny and curiosity.
Who are these people? Where did they come from?
In this episode, we continue our exploration of an Appalachian enigma – asking why so many of these mountain people always claimed Portuguese ancestry, even while outsiders dismissed such folk memory.
Is this a story about weirdly exotic or isolated people – or is it a story about the lies and myths at the heart of American identity itself?
About Before We Were White
Before We Were White will be highly contentious revisionist history at its most unflinching.
Before We Were White will tell real stories of heartland America, drawing upon facts and evidence buried deep underneath the “official story”.
Everything from outlaws, river pirates and prairie bandits, to Cherokee midwives and witch trials, fake eugenics, colonial-era Muslims, snake handlers, African-American cowboys, the Lost Colony of Roanoke, Jewish hillbillies, “sporting girls”, Mountain Gypsies and Creole Irish will get their turn under the magnifying lens.
Whether your interest is in history, politics, ethnology, folklore, music, genealogy, or just a cracking good story, you will find something here to astonish and amaze, entertain and educate.
Forget everything you thought you knew about North American history.
Forget everything you thought you understood about the ethnic roots of heartland America. » Read More
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