Here's one final really niche historical easter egg you'd probably have missed in Red Dead Redemption 2. There's a mission where Javier asks you to help him rob a homestead deep in the woods, north of Valentine...
<<SPOILERS FOLLOW>>
<<SPOILERS FOLLOW>>
Along the way, Javier tells you about a family that have been living in the remote woods for so long, that they've begun to develop their own language, and fiercely resent outsiders. Sure enough, once you're there, a rather chaotic gunfight follows.
Now, Red Dead Redemption features a number of small, isolated communities where you can wade into the gene pool and not get your ankles wet, but talk of their own dialect made me think that this was a shout out to a forgotten people - the Melungeons.
When people - particularly historians & anthropologists talk about 'Melungeons' they're referring to isolated communities that existed in Tenessee, Kentucky and Virginia, comprising people of multi-racial heritage - descendants of freed slaves, native Americans & other migrants.
Excluded from society, many of them came together in clusters, where they kept to themselves, mostly subsisting by farming. Despite their attempts to keep a low profile, they continued to be viewed with suspicion and derision, as this 1890 article shows. melungeon.org/2016/10/14/a-s…
To this day, certain surnames in certain regions of Appalachia are considered 'Melungeon' names, and recently there's been a lot of interest in tracing these families.
It's thought the name 'Melungeons' itself comes from the French 'melange', or mixture. homepages.rootsweb.com/~mtnties/surna…
It's thought the name 'Melungeons' itself comes from the French 'melange', or mixture. homepages.rootsweb.com/~mtnties/surna…
Just a shame you go and wipe a whole family out, hey?
