HARRIS MELTON

Harris Melton/Milton is the only person I have found in Stanly Co. records who was ever described as even part-Indian during his own lifetime. Harris and a white woman named Ann Bird/Byrd lived together as man and wife, and claimed to be legally married. The Superior Court prosecutor held that Harris was not white enough to marry a white woman, and since interracial marriages were illegal, Melton and Bird could not be legally married. The couple were charged with fornication and adultery, and tried in Stanly County on March 3rd, 1851. The prosecutor appealed the case to the NC State Supreme Court, where it was tried again in December 1852.

Harris Melton's lawyer argued that Harris's color was from Indian ancestry, and that he had no African ancestry within four generations, and that the miscegenation law applied only to people with African ancestry within four generations back. The state prosecutor, meanwhile, argued that the law applied to any non-white person--whether Indian or African--who married a white person.

The jury in the Stanly County Superior Court found "the defendant Harris Melton not guilty of being of Negro descent, but that he is of Indian and Portuguese descent, but in what degree they Cannot Say" (State v. Melton and Byrd, Dec. 1852, North Carolina Supreme Court, Case #6431, NC State Archives).

This means that Harris was probably not able to provide detailed genealogical information to back up his claim to Indian heritage. The jury believed that he wasn't black, but they weren't sure what to make of his claims to Indian ancestry, possibly due to his lack of convincing evidence.

The problem may have been that any non-white ancestry Harris had was too many generations back for him to be able to convince the jury of the particulars. Consequently, the jury used vague, catch-all terms to describe his racial ancestry: "Indian" and "Portuguese". ("Portuguese" was often used in the 19th century South as a catch-all colloquial description for a light-skinned person with some degree of non-white ancestry. It does not necessarily mean that his ancestors were from Portugal.) I have checked the surviving court records, and any more specific information about Harris Melton's ancestry that might have been raised during the trial was not preserved.

A Harris Milton was listed on the 1850 Rowan County Census with Ann Bird:

Household		102/105
Ann Bird		28 F NC
Harris Milton		26 M NC, laborer

Between the time they were enumerated on the 1850 Census in Rowan Co. and March 1851, they must have moved to Stanly Co. Whether Harris Melton was related to the other Stanly Co. Meltons is unknown at present. I have not found Harris Melton or Ann Bird in any other Stanly Co. records. They may have decided to leave the region after being prosecuted.

Witnesses for the defendants in the Melton-Bird case included Charlotte Melton of Stanly County and John Melton of Rowan County (see summons in folder entitled "Criminal Actions concerning slaves and free persons of color, 1851-1854, 1856-1859", in Stanly Co. Records of Slaves and Free People of Color, 183- to 1868, one fibredex box, NC Archives C.R. 089.928.1). Charlotte Melton of Stanly Co. may have been the same Charlotte Melton whose son Elbert, was ordered to be brought to the next term of court in August 1841, presumably to be bound out (Garner, Abstracts of the Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarters of Stanly Co., 1841-1850, p. 4). Elbert Melton, age 25, was listed on the 1850 Stanly Co. census, as a mulatto (household number 834/839). There was no entry for Charlotte Melton on the 1850 Stanly Co. census, but there is a Charlotte Melton, white and age 62, on the 1860 Stanly Co. census (household number 455/459). The relationship between Harris Melton and his Melton witnesses is unknown at present.

Melton/Milton is a very common surname among a number of racial groups. You cannot safely assume that families who share common surnames are related. You cannot safely assume that all Meltons are Indians.