It is therefore to be supposed, says our author, that Madoc and his people inhabited part of that country, since called Florida by reason that it appears from Francis Loves, an author of no small reputation, that in Acusanus and other places, the people honoured and worshipped the cross; whence it may be naturally concluded that christians had been there before the coming of the Spaniards; and who these christians might be, unless it were this colony of Madoc's, it cannot be easily imagined. But by reason that the Welsh who came over, were not many, they intermixed in a few years with the natives of the country and so following their manners and using their language, they became at length undistinguishable from the barbarians. But the country which Madoc landed in, is by the learned Dr. Powell supposed to be part of Mexico for which conjecture he lays down these following reasons:-first as it is recorded in the Spanish chronicles of the conquest of the West Indies the inhabitants. and natives of that country affirm by tradition, that their rulers descended from a strange nation, which came thither from a strange country; as it was confessed by King Montezuma, in a speech at his submission to the King of Castile, before Hernando Cortez, the Spanish general. And then the British words and names of places used in that country, even at this day do undoubtedly argue the same; as when they speak and confabulate together, they use this British word, Gwarando, which signifies to hearken, or listen, and a certain bird with a white head, they call Pengwyn, which signifies the same in Welsh. But for a more complete confirmation of this, the island of Corroeso, the cape of Bryton, the river of Gwyndor, and the white rock of Pengwyn, which are all British words, do manifestly shew, that it was that country which Madoc and his people inhabited."

John Filson, the first to write a history of Kentucky, brought the tradition over the Alleghanies and planted in the fertile soil of the Bluegrass. It has flourished apace, and it has been enlarged, buttressed, expanded, until it has a place in the history of the state. Filson visited Louisville in search of information concerning the Welsh Indians, for by that time the Welsh descendants of the original colonists were supposed to have become a tribe of Indians, seated at the Falls of the Ohio, now Louisville. Gen. George Rogers Clark spoke in a meeting called to consider the matter. He said a Kaskaskia chief had called his attention to large and curiously-shaped earthworks on the Kaskaskia River. This chief was of lighter complexion than the ordinary Indian, and he said this particular earthwork had been erected by his ancestors. Colonel Moore followed General Clark. He said an old Indian had told him that there had been a long war of extermination between the Red Indians and the White Indians. The final battle between them had been fought at the Falls of the Ohio, where the White Indians had been driven upon one island and slaughtered. General Clark then said that Chief Tobacco, of the Piankashaws, had told him the same thing. Major Harrison then called attention to a place on the north side of the Ohio, opposite the Falls, where there were thousands of human bones in such confusion that they must have been those of warriors slain in battle. All of which is only the confirmation of the battle there in which the Iroquois completed the conquest of the Ohio River country. The stories of those Indians were echoes of the fading memory of that awful catastrophe to their people.

At this meeting for the enlightenment of Mr. Filson others were heard, though little real information was forthcoming. Filson spoke last. He occupied much time, and when he was through, the members present were asleep except a Doctor Skinner, who, in compliment to Filson, suggested that his eloquence had put the club to sleep. In the 1794 edition of his History of Kentucke, Filson devoted two pages to the Welsh

tradition. He gives more than one instance of Indians speaking perfectly the Welsh tongue.

Colonel Durrett gives the main facts of the experiences of one Maurice Griffiths, a Welshman who emigrated to the colony of Virginia and settled on the Roanoke River. He was captured by the Shawnees about the year 1764. Two or three years later he was taken on a hunting and exploring trip up the Missouri River by five Shawnee young men. Far up the river the entire party was captured by a band of strange Indians who lived in that country, and taken by them to their town. This was an immense city, if the story of Griffiths is to be depended on. They traversed it fifteen miles before reaching the council house. There they were condemned to die. But Griffiths had understood what had been said by the chiefs in their deliberations, for the Indians were all white and spoke the Welsh language perfectly. When he acquainted the council with that fact, the death sentence was reversed. The exploring party remained eight months with this nation, which contained, as nearly as Griffiths could make out, some 50,000 souls-all white-not a darkskinned one among them. They said their fathers had come up the river from a far country. They had no books or records. They had no iron. implements, and used stone tomahawks.

A Mr. Thomas S. Hinde bears witness that in 1799 "six soldiers' skeletons were dug up near Jeffersonville, each skeleton had a breastplate of brass, cast with the Welsh coat-of-arms, the Mermaid and the Harp with a Latin inscription, in substance, 'virtuous deeds meet their just reward.' One of these plates was left by Captain Jonathan Taylor, with the late Mr. Hubbard Taylor, of Clark county, and when called for by me in 1814 for the late Dr. John P. Campbell of Chillicothe, Ohio, who was preparing notes of the antiquities of the west, by a letter from Mr. Hubbard Taylor, Jr. (a relative of mine), now living, I was informed that the breast plate had been taken to Virginia by a gentleman of that state."

"10

Colonel Durrett bewails the fact that these six Welsh skeletons could not compete with a Danish skeleton dug up Fall River, which was analyzed by a chemist and found to be that of Thorsvald Erickson, the Dane, who was killed in America about the beginning of the eleventh century. The Colonel thought these Falls of the Ohio skeletons should have been analyzed by a chemist, when one of them might have been identified as Prince Madoc.

Colonel Durrett cites instances of the destruction of whole tribes of Indians:

"It is therefore well known to us that whole tribes have perished and left only a name behind. That the Madocs were one of these extinguished tribes we have some Indian traditions in evidence. An old Indian told Colonel James F. Moore, of Kentucky, that long ago a war of extermination was waged between the Red Indians and the Indians of a lighter complexion in Kentucky, and that the last great battle between them was fought at the Falls of the Ohio, where the light-colored Indians were driven upon Sand Island as the last hope of escape, and there all were slaughtered by their pursuers." 11

Here, again, the reversion to the last battle of the Iroquois in the conquest of the Ohio Valley in historic times.

The Mandan Indians, a Siouan tribe yet living in the Dakotas, is the last refuge of the believers in a Welsh or white tribe of Indians. George Catlin, the painter, visited the Western tribes and was for a time at the Mandan village.12 He was familiar with the Welsh tradition, and he

10 Traditions of the Earliest Americans, 62, 63.

11 Traditions of the Earliest Americans, 68.

12 See Catlin's North American Indians, Vol. 2, pp. 781, et seq.

identified, as he believed, the Mandans as the Welsh. By mounds he traced them, as he supposed, down the Missouri to its mouth and up the Ohio. He was of the opinion that they had constructed some of the mounds now found in Ohio. He records his faith that the ten ships of Madoc, or a part of them, at least, ascended the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. There

"They cultivated their fields, and established in one of the finest countries on earth, a flourishing colony; but were at length set upon by the savages, whom, perhaps, they provoked to warfare, being trespassers on their hunting-grounds, and by whom in overpowering hordes, they were besieged, until it was necessary to erect there fortifications for their defense into which they were at last driven by a confederacy of tribes, and there held till their ammunition and provisions gave out, and they in the end had all perished except perhaps that portion of them who might have formed alliance by marriage with the Indians, and their offspring, who would have been half-breeds, and of course attached to the Indians' side; whose lives have been spared in the general massacre, and at length, being despised, as all half-breeds of enemies are, have gathered themselves into a band, and severing from their parent tribe, have moved off, and increased in numbers and strength as they have advanced up the Missouri river to the place where they have been known for many years by the name of Mandans, a corruption or abbreviation, perhaps, of 'Madawgwys,' the name applied by the Welsh to the followers of Madawc." Here again is found the reversion to the last great battle of the conquest of the Ohio Valley by the Iroquois.

The Mandans can be seen at this day. They are pure Indian. They speak a dialect of the Siouan linguistic family. There is not a syllable of Welsh in it and never was. They are not lighter than other Indians. Here is the account of them as written by the Bureau of Ethnology.1

13

"Mandan. A Siouan tribe of the northwest. The name, according to Maximilian, originally given by the Sioux is believed by Matthews to be a corruption of the Dakota Mawatani. Previous to 1830 they called themselves simply Numakiki, 'people' (Matthews). Maximilian says 'if they wish to particularize their descent they add the name of the village whence they came originally.' Hayden gives Miah'tanes, 'people on the bank,' as the name they apply to themselves, and draws from this the inference that 'they must have resided on the banks of the Missouri at a very remote period.' According to Morgan (Syst. Consang, and Affin., 285), the native name of the tribe is Metootahak, 'South villagers.' Their relations, so far as known historically and traditionally, have been most intimate with the Hidatsa; yet, judged by the linquistic test, their position must be nearer the Winnebago. Matthews appears to consider the Hidatsa and Mandan descendants from the same immediate stem. Their traditions regarding their early history are scant and almost entirely mythological. All that can be gathered from them is the indication that at some time they lived in a more easterly locality in the vicinity of a lake. This tradition, often repeated by subsequent authors, is given by Lewis and Clark, as follows: 'The whole nation resided in one large village underground near a subterraneous lake; a grapevine extended its roots down to their habitation and gave them a view of the light; some of the most adventurous climbed up the vine and were delighted with the sight of the earth, which they found covered with buffalo and rich with every kind of fruits; returning with the grapes they had gathered, their countrymen were so pleased with the taste of them that the whole nation resolved to leave their dull residence for the charms of the upper region; men, women, and children ascended by means of the vine; but when about half the nation had reached the surface of the earth, a corpulent woman 18 Handbook of American Indians, Vol. 1, pp. 796, 797.

who was clambering up the vine broke it with her weight, and closed upon herself and the rest of the nation the light of the sun. Those who were left on earth made a village below where we saw the nine villages; and when the Mandan die they expect to return to the original seats of their forefathers, the good reaching the ancient village by means of the lake, which the burden of the sins of the wicked will not enable them to cross.' Maximilian says: "They affirm that they descended originally from the more eastern nations, near the seacoast.' Their linguistic relation to the Winnebago and the fact that their movements in their historic era have been westward up the Missouri correspond with their tradition of a more easterly origin, and would seemingly locate them in the vicinity of the upper lakes. It is possible that the tradition which has long prevailed in the region of N. W. Wisconsin regarding the so-called 'groundhouse Indians' who once lived in that section and dwelt in circular earth lodges, partly underground, applies to the people of this tribe, although other tribes of this general region formerly lived in houses of this character. Assuming that the Mandan formerly resided in the vicinity of the upper Mississippi, it is probable that they moved down this stream for some distance before passing to the Missouri. The fact that when first encountered by the whites they relied to some extent on agriculture as a means of subsistence would seem to justify the conclusion that they were at some time in the past in a section where agriculture was practised. It is possible, as Morgan contends, that they learned agriculture from the Hidatsa, but the reverse has more often been maintained. Catlin's theory that they formerly lived in Ohio and built mounds, and moved thence to the N. W. is without any basis. The traditions regarding their migrations, as given by Maximilian, commence with their arrival at the Missouri. The point where this stream was first reached was at the mouth of White r., S. Dak. From this point they moved up the Missouri to Moreau r., where they came in contact with the Cheyenne, and where also the formation of 'bands or unions' began. Thence they continued up the Missouri to Heart r., N. Dak., where they were residing at the time of the first known visit of the whites, but it is probable that trappers and traders visited them earlier."

A Kansas man has evolved an entirely new theory concerning the Welsh Indians. Mark E. Zimmerman, of White Cloud, Doniphan County, has published an article in which he maintains that the Welsh developed into the ancient Tallegwi who lived in what is now Ohio, and of whom much has been said herein.14 He bases his conclusions mainly upon archeological research, though the traditions are not neglected. His chief reliance is upon a certain type of grave, which he calls the cyst grave or Celtic type of grave. He calls to his aid types of houses, the remains of which he has found and examined. The cyst graves have been found along the Missouri River to and above the mouth of the Kansas.15 Mr. Gerard Fowke, who made the investigations, attributes these graves to the Kansas Indians, or thinks it most probable that they may have been constructed by that tribe. They are found in the exact route of the Kansas Indians as they migrated into their historic seat. The graves are vaults built of thin slabs of native stone and show little or no skill in masonry. Whether the Welsh made such graves, or ever did, is not shown. It is estimated that the Allegwi or Tallegwi numbered 100,000. According to this theory, that many Welshmen lived in and around the present State of Ohio. Having come from Wales at a time when the people of that country had a knowledge of smelting iron ore, and of the manufacture of iron and steel implements, and having seated themselves

14 See Kansas Historical Collections, Vol. 14, pp. 471, et seq.

15 See Antiquities of Central and Southeastern Missouri, by Gerard Fowke, published as Bulletin No. 37, Bureau of Ethnology.