The Carmel Indians (pronounced Car'-mul) are a group of Melungeons who have lived in Highland County in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. They are descendants and relatives of the Melungeons of Kentucky, also a group of mixed ancestry. Anthropologists have described both groups as among the "little races" and tri-racial isolates.^[1] The Carmel Indians migrated from Kentucky to Ohio during the 19th century.

The Melungeons often called themselves Indians, as did people outside the group. This was one way they could evade some of the racial barriers of antebellum and post-Civil War years. Outsiders called them Indians to explain aspects of the differences between their appearance and that of their mostly European neighbors.^[2] They found an adaptive way to evade some of the pressures that intensified in some areas after the Civil War of the binary division of society into black and white races.

As Paul Heinegg (1997) has documented, the earliest ancestry of eight of the nine common names among the Melungeons in Magoffin County, Kentucky go back to African Americans of mixed race, free in Virginia before the Revolution. Most of the free African Americans were children of early unions between white women, indentured servant or free, and African men, indentured servant, free or slave. Since the mothers were white, their children were free born.^[3] Through the years there were probably also some marriages of Native Americans into the group as they migrated to North Carolina, then into Kentucky and Ohio. One family name has been associated with Saponis of North Carolina.^{[4] [5] [6]}

References

1. ↑ Edgar T. Thompson, "The Little Races", ''American Anthropologist'', 74, 5, 1295-13, Oct 1972, accessed 29 Jul 2008
2. ↑ Springer, Craig, The Saga of the Carmel Indians, ''Country Living'', August 2006, 32-33
3. ↑ Heinegg, Paul, 1997 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
4. ↑ John S. Kessler and Donald B. Ball, "North from the Mountains: The Carmel Melungeons of Ohio", Paper presented at Melungeon Third Union, May 2002, University of Virginia's College at Wise, Virginia
5. ↑ Price, Edward Thomas, Jr. 1950 "The Mixed-blood Strain of Carmel, Ohio, and Magoffin County, Kentucky." Ohio Journal of Science 50(6):281-290.
6. ↑ John S. Kessler and Donald B. Ball, ''North from the Mountains: A Folk History of the Carmel Melungeon Settlement, Highland County, Ohio'', 2001