Madoc , the 1170 welsh Colony and America
History and legend have it that MADOC, a son of King Owain of Gwynedd, is claimed not only to have discovered America in 1170, but also to have formed a tribe on the upper Missouri. This tribe fuelled tales of fair-haired Indians, living in round huts and using round coracle-like boats, both of which were common in Wales, but unheard of in America at the time. They were also said to speak a language similar to Welsh.
Owain Gwynedd, ruler of North Wales in the
twelfth century, had nineteen children, six of whom were legitimate. MADOC, one of the bastard sons, was born in a castle at Dolwyddelan, a village at the head of the Lledr valley between Betws-y-Coed and Blaenau Ffestiniog.
On the death of Owain Gwynedd in December1169, the brothers fought amongst themselves for the right to rule Gwynedd. MADOC, although being brave and adventurous, was a man of peace. He and his brother, Riryd, left the quay on the Afon (River) Ganol at Aber-Kerrik-Gwynan, on the North Wales Coast (now Rhos-on-Sea) in two ships, the Gorn Gwynant and the Pedr Sant. They sailed west, leaving the coast of Ireland 'farre north' and landed in Mobile Bay, in what we now know as Alabama in the United States of America.
They liked the country so much that one of the ships returned to Wales to collect more adventurers, and in 1170AD, ten small ships assembled off Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel, which flows between South Wales and Southern England.
On arrival in America, they sailed from Mobile Bay up the great river systems, settling initially in the Georgia//Tennessee/Kentucky area where they built stone forts. They warred with the local Indian tribe, the Cheyenne. When they decided to return down river in some time after 1186, they built big boats but they were ambushed trying to negotiate the falls on the Ohio River (where Louisville, Kentucky now stands). A fierce battle took place lasting several days. A truce was eventually called and, after an exchange of prisoners, it was agreed that MADOC and his followers would depart the area never to return.
They sailed down river to the Mississippi, which they sailed up until the junction with the Missouri, which they then followed upstream. They settled and integrated with a powerful tribe living on the banks of the Missouri called Mandans.
In 1781-82, the white man's gift, smallpox, reduced the Mandans, a tribe of 40,000 people, down to 2,000 survivors. They partially recovered, increasing their numbers to some 12,000 by 1837, when a similar epidemic almost wiped the tribe out completely. It is recorded that there were only 39 survivors but the Mandan-Hidatsa claim it was about 200. These bewildered survivors of a once mighty tribe were taken in by the Hidatsa who had also been affected by the disease but to a much lesser extent. View from Dolwyddelan Castle of MADOC's probable birth place (center of picture) It is this background which over the centuries has fuelled tales of a tribe of fair-haired Indians, living in round huts and using round, coracle-like boats - both of which were common in Wales but unheard of in America at the time. The tribe were also said to speak in a language similar to Welsh.
As we know many people including the Phonicians, St Brendan and the Vikings discovered North America before the Spanish in the 15th century. This story is fascinating and their is alot of evidence to back it up.
In 1666 the Rev Morgan Jones, a Welsh missionary in North America, was captured by an Indian tribe with fair features and was about to be killed. But he prayed loudly to God in Welsh for deliverance, and was suddenly spared, treated as an honoured guest and found he was able to converse freely in Welsh with the natives.
In 1739, a Frenchman, La Verendrye, encountered a tribe of Indians on the Upper Missouri 'Whose Fortifications are not characteristic of the Indians... Most of the women do not have Indian features... The tribe is mixed white and black. The women are fairly good looking, especially the light coloured ones; many have blonde or fair hair.' He called them Mantannes.
There were many other visitors to the so-called Welsh tribe; one of interest was a Maurice Griffith who was taken prisoner by the Shawnee Indians in 1764. The Indians eventually befriended him and took him on a hunting expedition to seek the source of the Missouri. High in the mountains they came across 'three white men in Indian dress' with whom they travelled for several days until they arrived at a village where there were others of the same tribe, all having the same European complexion.
A council of this white Indian tribe decided to put the strangers to death and Griffith decided it was time to speak. He addressed them in the Welsh language explaining that they had no hostile intentions but merely sought the source of the Missouri and that they would return to their own lands satisfied with their discoveries. The Chief of the Tribe greeted them in Welsh and they were thereafter treated as guests, staying with the nation some eight months. Griffiths eventually returned to Virginia but his story aroused little interest.
In October 1792, a French fur trader, Jacques d’Eglise, who had set off up the Missouri in August 1790, arrived back in St Louis. He had travelled over 800 leagues from St Louis up the river and had found a mighty and wealthy tribe of Indians, the Mandans. There had been earlier rumours of this remarkable tribe, but no one had ever reached them from St Louis. He said that they were 5,000 strong, living in eight, great fortified villages; they had the finest furs; they lived in sight of a volcano and alongside the Missouri, which at that point flowed from the west or north-west and could take the largest boats. d’Eglise reported that their fortified villages were like cities compared with other native settlements, they were much more civilised than other Indians and the final marvel, these Mandans 'are white like Europeans'. Here at last was confirmation of all those stories of civilised white Indians, which had been filtering back along the Missouri for years.
John Sevier, Governor of Tennessee, wrote to a Major Stoddard of the U.S. Army about a discussion he had had with the Major Chief of the Cherokee, Oconostota, in 1792. The venerable old chief informed him that, according to his forefathers, the white people who had formerly inhabited the country had made ancient fortifications on the Highwassee River now called Carolina. A battle took place between the Whites and the Cherokees at the Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee River. After a truce and exchange of prisoners, the Whites agreed to leave the area, never to return, eventually settling 'a great distance' up the Missouri.
The Chief's ancestors claimed 'they were a people called Welsh and they had crossed the Great Water'. Governor Sevier also claimed to have been in the company of a Frenchman who informed him that he had been high up the Missouri and 'he had traded with the Welsh tribe; that they certainly spoke much of the Welsh dialect, and though their customs were savage and wild, yet many of them, particularly the females, were very fair and white.'
I truely believe, like the Spanish themselves that they were not the first white men to set foot on north american soil and with evidence like this it is easy to see why.
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Originally Posted by Byzantine Prince
) learning the Aztecs all kinds of things would seem to me to be another myth for the origins of their own people. Compare it to their belief that they found the lake upon which Tenochtitlan was, after a long nomadic trek, when an eagle devoured a snake on a cactus.
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