Settlement began in the 1790s, following the American Revolutionary War,Will Thomas Hale and Dixon L. Merritt, A History of Tennessee and Tennesseans, Vol. 3 (Lewis Publishing Co., 1913), p. 794. as migrants moved into the area from the Piedmont frontiers of Virginia and North Carolina. Such migrants had formed families in colonial Virginia. Among them was a multi-racial group of settlers who became known as Melungeon. They have been documented as having primarily European and sub-Saharan African ancestry. They also have a lesser amount of Native American heritage.
