http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gowenrf/nl199201.htm
During the American Revolution, Gen. Thomas Sumter, for whom Sumter
County was named, rode through the countryside seeking recruits for
his brigade. Among the first to come to his side was Joseph Benenhaley
who claimed to be a Caucasian of Arab descent from the coast of North
Africa. When he left North Africa, it was part of the Turkish Empire.
Thus he was identified as a Turk or a Moor.
The Moors, regarded as descendants of the early Phoenicians by some
historians crossed from North Africa into Spain and Portugal. "The
Tennessee Conservationist," in its August 1967 edition carried a
feature article on the migration:"About the time of the Revolutionary War, a considerable body of Moors
crossed the Atlantic and settled on the coast of South Carolina near
the North Carolina line." In 1792, the South Carolina legislature
enacted a law regulating their immigration.Carson Brewer in "Just Over the Next Ridge," his article in the
"Knoxville News-Sentinel" in 1989 suggests that the Moors reached
Tennessee. He described the Melungeons of Tennessee as "having the
darkness of East Indians or Mediterraneans. Their hair was dark and
straight, and their features fine." This description fits the early
Turks.About the same time that Benenhaley volunteered, a man named Scott
also came forward. Scott was believed to be a mixed-blood Frenchman
with an assumed name. Gen. Sumter appointed Benenhaley as his scout
and Scott as his bugler, and the two remained constantly with the
general throughout the war. After the war, they were given land on
the general's plantation, and their families were referred to as Turks
by people in the area.The General pointed proudly to their Revolutionary service and defended
them from discrimination.According to Mrs. Mary Ann Benenhaley Oxendine, the blue-eyed
granddaughter of Joseph Benenhaley, he married a white woman named
Miller. Mrs. Oxendine's mother was a daughter of Scott the bugler and
his wife, Sally. Mrs. Oxendine was married to her first cousin, also
named Oxendine, whose father had come from North Carolina and married
her mother's sister, also a daughter of the bugler. Oxendine has
always been a common name among the Lumbee Indians of North Carolina.Other family surnames found among the Turks were Chavis, Lowry, Hood
and Ray, according to a volume written by Anne Gregorie in 1954
entitled "History of Sumter County, South Carolina." These names were
also common among the Lumbee Indians. The 1820 census of Sumter County
showed Jesse Gowing and Ted Gowing as heads of households there.
Neighboring Fairfield County, South Carolina census returns for 1790,
1810 and 1820 contained households by the name of "Goin," "Going" and
"Goings." The large Gowen family of Davidson County, Tennessee also
had roots in Fairfield County where the name was frequently spelled
"Goyen." In Sumter County the Turks were an extremely isolated group,
intermarrying and living mostly in the high country between Stateburg
and Dalzell.In 1790, the Turks petitioned the state legislature to be governed by
laws pertaining to white inhabitants and not by laws for slaves and
free Negroes. Describing themselves as "free Moors" and former
subjects of the Emperor of Morocco, they were successful, according
to "The Journal of the State House of Representatives," January 20,
1790.Ann Gregorie in referring to this petition stated, "It is possible
that the Sumter County Turks had some connection with these Moroccans.
Apparently some free Moors entered or attempted to enter the state as
bonded servants, possibly from a northern port, for by the law of 1792,
the legislature declared that no Moors bound to service for a term of
years should be brought into the state by land or water from any other
state.In Gregorie's history, she states, "Dr. J. H. Mitchell, now of
Greenville, has noted the reference in Cervantes' "Don Quixote" to
Cid Hamet Benengeli, an Arabian historiographer," and pointed out
that the pronunciation of this name is the same as used by Joseph
Benehaley of the Sumter County Turks, thus adding one more evidence
of their origin."Stateburg and Its People," written about 1918 by Thomas S. Sumter,
grandson of Gen. Sumter recorded a history of the Turks. He confirms
their claim to Moorish descent and states, "They have always had
alliances with white people as all of us know who are conversant with
their history."Turkish descent has been suggested for my ancestor, David Goings who
was born September 17, 1783. He was married in 1803 to a German girl
in Montgomery [later Giles] County, Virginia. In 1939, a descendant,
Norman Goings of Selma, Indiana wrote that his father and uncles
resembled "old men of Turkey as we see them in pictures today."
Norman's father believed the Goings to be Turkish emigrants, but
according to Norman, "could never explain the Scotch name." Three
generations later, my mother's Goings family in Iowa was unaware of
this earlier description as they regarded our Goings as French. I
shared this belief completely until about two years ago when I
discovered the Melungeons and the research of Norman Goings.The father of Norman Goings used the term "Tuckahoe" to describe the
family and told Norman that it was a nickname for people from Turkey.
Generally, tuckahoe is defined as a tuber plant similar to the potato
that the early Indians of southern states used for baking bread.
Locally in Virginia, it became a nickname for the lowlands and for
the inhabitants of Lower Virginia, according to "Annals of Augusta
County, Virginia," 1902 by Joseph A. Waddell.At an early date, the people living on the east side of the Blue
Ridge Mountains received the sobriquet of "Tuckahoes," and those on
the west side were called "Cohees" from their common usage of the
Elizabethan term "Quoth he" for "Said he." Waddell wrote, "The
Tuckahoe carried himself rather pompously and pronounced many words
as did his English forefathers in the days of Queen Elizabeth."http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gowenrf/nl199407.htm
Joseph Benenhaley, regarded as the progenitor of the Turks of South
Carolina, arrived in Sumter County before the Revolutionary War and claimed to
be of Arabic descent from the coast of North Africa which was then
part of the Turkish empire.In 1963, Muhitten Guven, a member of the Turkish Parliament, on a
State Department tour of the United States, learned of the Sumter
Turks and requested a visit to their community. He observed many
similarities with his own appearance and regarded them as Maltese.
The Guthrie Report listed Malta as one of the locations where the
natives have a "gene value Fy' similar to the Tennessee Melungeons.
Ken Taspinar, the interpreter for Muhitten, concluded that the Sumter
Turks were North Africans from the Turkish Ottoman Empire, according
to "Turks," "U.S. Journal," March 1969.The Turkish government in June sent a television crew from Istambul
to Atlanta to film an interview with Dr. Kennedy. The Turkish
moderator explained to him that his government was undertaking a
study of southeastern American Indians, seeking a possible link with
the Turks through the Moors. These examples lend credence to the
possibility of Turkish-Moorish-Portuguese-Spanish-Iberian blood in the
Melungeons. Proof of this theory will show that the scope of the
American "melting pot" is even greater than originally thought.The English won the struggle for North America, and our history books
naturally begin with the first English settlements. Historians have
had little interest in the activities of the fringe nationalities.
The "Iberians" are found only in the footnotes, if at all. The
Foundation's Melungeon Research Team and Dr. Kennedy's committee have
found some intriguing pieces of the puzzle. The work is ongoing, and
additional researchers with an interest in the Melungeons are invited
to join the search.