CHAPTER VIII. THE DISPERSION OF THE WELSH INDIANS.

It was only after the most stubborn and sanguinary resistance that the Welsh Indians yielded the fertile plains of the Ohio valley to their enemies. They moved down the Ohio River to its confluence with the Mississippi, and here for a period took another stand, as is evinced by the many remarkable remains and relics which have been brought to light by accident and the diligent researches of antiquarians and archæologists.

At this point there began a series of dispersions, south, west, and north, by which they became spread over a vast area of the Western country. The Lower and Upper Mississippi, the Missouri, and many of the smaller rivers abound with remains which exhibit the same knowledge and skill with those along the Ohio. Such a dispersion offers the best solution for the construction of the numerous accounts given of them into an intelligible and consistent whole. These accounts coming from so many different parties, separated from one another in time and distance, and independent of one another, excluding the possibility of preconcert or collusion, it would not be wonderful if they appeared to vary in the minor details. Their differences are a proof of the absence of falsehood or trickery. That the Welsh did not lose all the radical characteristics of their race can be made evident: still, when it is considered how numerous the peoples were with whom they amalgamated, it will be seen that it did not require a great length of time for them to exhibit also traits of savage life. Such a result would follow from physical laws and the conditions of their wild state.

This dispersion, and their being discovered in various sections of the country along and west of the Mississippi, will account for the different names by which they were called by intelligent travellers and captured whites, who had either heard of them or had been in their country and conversed with them.

In 1792 a gentleman who had resided more than twenty years in New Orleans and on the banks of the Mississippi wrote a letter to Griffith Williams, London, being on a visit to the latter city himself at the time, from which the following extract is given: "That the natives of America have, for many years past, emigrated from the east to the west is a known fact. That the tribes mentioned by Mr. Jones, who spoke the Welsh tongue, may have done so is much within the order of probability; and that a people called the Welsh or White Indians now reside at or near the banks of the Missouri, I have not the least doubt of, having been so often assured of it by people who have traded in that river, and who could have no possible inducement to relate such a story unless it had been founded in fact.

"Since writing the above, a merchant from the Illinois country, and a person of reputation, is arrived in London. He assures me there is not the smallest doubt of a people existing on the west side of the Mississippi, called by the French the White Bearded Indians, none of the natives of America wearing beards; that these people are really white; that they are said to consist of thirty-two villages or towns, are exceeding civilized, and vastly attached to certain religious ceremonies; that a Mr. Ch., a merchant of reputation at the Illinois, has been to their country, which is, as he supposes, upwards of a thousand miles from the Illinois.

"Yours, etc., 
"J. J."

Mr. Williams, to whom the above was written, adds, "I have met the above gentleman several times, and he confirms the latter part of this narrative; that Mr. Ch. is a near relation of his; that Mr. Ch. was introduced to the chief of the Padoucas, by whom he was received with much solemnity, owing to his being of white complexion, from which circumstance, as far as Mr. Ch. could understand by being amongst them, he was deemed an angel of God, his hands and his feet being washed by order of the chief, who appeared much advanced in years, his hair being long and perfectly white; that the people chiefly subsist by the produce of the chase; that the instruments they use on the occasion are generally bows and arrows; that the farther he advanced from the frontiers, the different tribes he passed through were the more civilized."

Upon the occasion of the visit of General Bowles, a chief of the Cherokees, to London, on official business, in 1792, he was waited on by several eminent Welsh gentlemen to inquire if he knew anything of the Welsh Indians. He replied, "Yes, I know them, and they are called the Padoucas, or White Indians. This title is given them because of their complexions." When a map was laid before him on which that name was inscribed, he said that these were the people, and showed the limits of their country. He said that "generally they were called the White Padoucas, but those who live in the northern parts are called Black Padoucas, because they are a mixture of the White Padoucas and other Indians. The White Padoucas are as you are, having some of them sandy, some red, and some black hair. They are very numerous, and one of the most warlike people on the continent."

The gentlemen present then informed General Bowles of the times and circumstances of Madoc's voyages, when he replied, "They must have been as early as that period, otherwise they could not have increased to be so numerous a people. I have travelled their southern boundaries from one side to the other, but have never entered their country. Another reason I have for thinking them to be Welsh is, that a Welshman was with me at home for some time, who had been a prisoner among the Spaniards and had worked in the mines of Mexico, and by some means he contrived to escape, got into the wilds, and made his way across the continent, and eventually passed through the midst of the Padoucas, and at once found himself with a people with whom he could converse, and he stayed for some time. He told me that they had several books, which were most religiously preserved in skins and were considered by them as mysteries. These they believed gave an account from whence they came. They said they had not seen a white man like themselves, who was a stranger, for a long time."

General Bowles was of Irish descent, and had many respectable relatives residing in London, whither he had come on a public mission in behalf of the Cherokees.

Mr. Price, another chief, who was born among the Creeks, said that he understood not the Welsh tongue, but that his father, who was a Welshman, had frequent interviews and conversed with the Padoucas in his native language. He lived the greatest part of his life in the Creek country, and died there.

In Cox's description of Louisiana, 1782, p. 63, it is said "that Baron La Hontan, having traced the Missouri for eight hundred miles due west, found an east lake, along which resided two or three great nations, much more civilized than other Indians; and that out of this lake a great river disembogues itself into the South Sea."

The name by which he designates these people is Metocantes.

Charlevoix, vol. ii. p. 225 of the English translation, mentions "a great lake very far to the west of the Mississippi, on the banks of which are a people resembling the French, with buttons on their clothes, living in cities, and using horses in hunting buffaloes; that they are clothed with the skins of that animal, but without any arms but the bow and arrow." He calls them the Mactotatas.

Bossu, in his account of Louisiana, vol. i. p. 182, says that he had been informed by the Indians of a nation of clothed people, far to the westward of the Mississippi, who inhabited great villages built with white stone, navigated in great piraguas on the great salt-water lakes, and were governed by one despotic chief, who sent great armies into the field.

On page 393 he gives a particular account of Madoc's alleged voyages, and observes, "The English believe that this prince discovered Virginia. Peter Martyr seems to give a proof of it when he says that the nations of Virginia and Guatemala celebrate the memory of one of their ancient heroes, whom they call Madoc. Several modern travellers have found ancient British words used by the North American nations. The celebrated Bishop Nicholson believes that the Welsh language has formed a considerable part of the languages of the American nations. There are antiquarians who pretend that the Spaniards got their double or guttural l (ll) from the Americans, who, according to the English, must have got it from the Welsh."

Bossu adds that these Welsh Indians seem to go by various names, such as Panes, Panis (Pawnees).

During the war of the Revolution, Sir John Caldwell, Bart., was stationed on the east side of the Mississippi. He lived in the country a long time, acquired a perfect knowledge of the language of the inhabitants, was adopted by them, and married a daughter of one of their chiefs. He was informed by them that the Panis (Pawnees) were a people considerably civilized, that they cultivated the ground, and built houses. Some Welshmen in his company understood their language, which they said was Welsh. Sir John said that he became acquainted with a Mr. Pond, a very sensible and intelligent Indian trader, who frequented the country of the Panis, which lies about the head of the river Osages. He said that they were whiter and more civilized than any other Indian tribe.

Mr. Rimington said that he had known for a long time that there were civilized Indians west of the Mississippi, who were called by those on the eastern side (the Chickasaws, etc.) Ka Anzou or Ka Anjou (Kansas), which in their language signifies first of men, or first men, and he was very strongly inclined to think that they were the Welsh Indians.

Mr. Rimington, who was a native of England, had been a long time among the Indians. He said that being once with several Englishmen and one Jack Hughes, a Welshman, at the Forks of the Ohio, where was an Indian mart, some strange Indians came there from the west of the Mississippi. A Shawanese Indian, who understood English, came to Mr. Rimington and desired him to be his interpreter. He went, but found that the language of these strangers was not intelligible to him. When he returned, and told his companions that he knew not their language, one of them exclaimed, "Oh, they are the Welsh Indians!" Jack Hughes was sent, who understood them well; and he was their interpreter while they continued there. He said that these Indians are tolerably white in complexion, and their dress like that of the Europeans,—a kind of trousers, coats with sleeves, and hats or caps made of small and very beautiful feathers curiously wrought. Furthermore he said that these white Indians are to be met with at the Indian marts on the Mississippi, at the Natches, Forks of the Ohio, Kaskaskies, etc., for all the Indian tribes on this continent, even from the shores of the South Sea, resort thither.

Thus it may be seen that the Welsh Indians went by different names, the most of them bearing a similitude to what they called themselves, and by which they were known to the Indians and the whites: as Padoucas by Mr. Binon, General Bowles, Mr. Ch., Mr. Price and his father; Panis (Pawnees) by Sir John Caldwell, Mr. Pond, and others; Ka Anzou (Kansas) by the Chickasaws, and Mr. Rimington; Matocantes by Coxe; Mactotatas by Charlevoix; and Madawgwys, Madogian or Madogiaint by many others.

Padoucas would more nearly approach the general name in sound if the letter m were substituted for p, thus changing the word into Madoucas, the former being regarded as a corruption which might arise from the difficulty some tribes have experienced in pronouncing certain letters.

In the common maps of the country a century ago, an extensive nation called the White Padoucas were placed about eighty-eight degrees north latitude, and one hundred and two degrees west longitude of London; but they extended in detached communities from about thirty-seven degrees north latitude and ninety-seven degrees west longitude to forty-three degrees north latitude and one hundred and ten degrees west longitude. The city of Paducah, Kentucky, doubtless derived its name from this nation, which once occupied the region in which it is situated. The Padoucas, Pawnees, and Kansas were intermixed with one another, and suffered a fearful decimation by wars and diseases, so that the tribal name of the first is now extinct; but a few straggling bands still survive under the second and third names. In 1874 the Pawnees numbered about two thousand eight hundred and thirty-one, and the Kansas or Kaws less than that number. From the document accompanying President Jefferson's message to Congress in 1806, it may be discovered that the Pania Pique in Arkansas were formerly known by the name of the White Panias, and are of the same family as the Panias of the river Platte. According to that communication, the Padoucas, a once powerful nation, had apparently disappeared. In 1724 they resided in villages at the head of the Kansas River. Oppressed by the Missourians, they removed to the upper part of the river Platte, where they had but little intercourse with the whites. The northern branch of that river is still called the Padoucas Fork. It is conjectured that, being still more oppressed, they divided into small wandering bands, which assumed the names of the subdivisions of the Padoucas nation which have since been known under the appellation of Wetepahatoes, Kiawas, Kanenavish, Katteka, and Dotamie, who still inhabit the country to which the Padoucas are said to have removed.

In the map attached to Du Pratz's Louisiana the "White Panis" are placed at the head of the Arkansas; Panis Mahas, or White Panis, at the head of the south branch of the Missouri; and between those rivers is marked the country of the Padoucas.

During the last two centuries the Indian races have waned so rapidly, their places of habitation have been so often changed, and so many of the tribes have become amalgamated, that names are not an unerring guide by which to determine their early history, or to what stock many of the remnants still surviving belong.

As to the names given by the French travellers cited elsewhere,—Matocantes, etc.,—there is some resemblance to the name of Madoc. A Welshwoman in South Wales calling her son by that name would say Matoc, which is pure Silurian Welsh, the d being changed into t: hence there might follow such names as Matociait, Matociaint, Matocantes, as applied to the followers of Madoc. These changes are not arbitrary, but inhere in the laws and euphony of human language.

CHAPTER IX. MAURICE GRIFFITH'S AND HIS COMPANIONS' EXPERIENCE.

The following letter, published in the "Kentucky Palladium" in 1804, by Judge Toulmin, of Mississippi, will be read with keen interest by those who have any desire to study everything relating to this subject:

"Sir,—No circumstance relating to the history of the Western country probably has excited, at different times, more general attention and anxious curiosity than the opinion that a nation of white men speaking the Welsh language reside high up the Missouri. By some the idea is treated as nothing but the suggestion of bold imposture and easy credulity; whilst others regard it as a fact fully authenticated by Indian testimony, and the report of various travellers worthy of credit.

*         *         *         *          *         *         *         *

"Could the fact be well established, it would afford perhaps the most satisfactory solution of the difficulty occasioned by a view of the various ancient fortifications with which the Ohio country abounds, of any that has been offered. Those fortifications were evidently never made by the Indians. The Indian art of war presents nothing of the kind. The probability, too, is that the persons who constructed them were, at that time, acquainted with the use of iron. The situation of these fortifications, which are uniformly in the most fertile land of the country, indicates that those who made them were an agricultural people; and the remarkable care and skill with which they were executed afford traits of the genius of a people who relied more on their military skill than on their numbers. The growth of the trees upon them is very compatible with the idea that it is not more than three hundred years ago that they were abandoned.

"These hints, however, are thrown out rather to excite inquiry than by way of advancing any decided opinion on the subject. Having never met with any of the persons who had seen these white Americans, nor even received their testimony near the source, I have always entertained considerable doubts about the fact.

"Last evening, however, Mr. John Childs, of Jessamine County, a gentleman with whom I have been long acquainted, and who is well known to be a man of veracity, communicated a relation to me which at all events appears to merit serious attention. After he had related it in conversation, I requested him to repeat it, and committed it to writing. It has certainly some internal marks of authenticity. The country described was altogether unknown in Virginia when the relation was given, and probably very little known to the Shawanese Indians. Yet the account of it agrees very remarkably with later discoveries. On the other hand, the story of the large animal, though by no means incredible, has something of the air of fable, and it does not satisfactorily appear how the long period which the party were absent was spent,—though the Indians are, however, so much accustomed to loiter away their time that many weeks, and even months, may probably have been spent in indolent repose. Without detaining you any more with preliminary remarks, I will proceed to the narration as I received it from Mr. Childs.

"Maurice Griffiths, a native of Wales, which country he left when he was about sixteen years of age, was taken prisoner by a party of Shawanese Indians, about forty years ago, near Vosses Fort, on the head of the Roanoke River, in Virginia, and carried to the Shawanese Nation. Having stayed there about two years and a half, he found that five young men of the tribe had a desire of attempting to explore the sources of the Missouri. He prevailed upon them to admit him as one of their party. They set out with six good rifles and with six pounds of powder apiece, of which they were, of course, very careful.

"On reaching the mouth of the Missouri, they were struck with the extraordinary appearance occasioned by the intermixture of the muddy waters of the Missouri and the clear, transparent element of the Mississippi. They stayed there two or three days, amusing themselves with the view of this novel sight; they then determined on the course which they should pursue, which happened to be so nearly in the course of the river that they frequently came within sight of it as they proceeded on their journey. After travelling about thirty days through pretty farming woodland, they came into fine open prairies, on which nothing grew but long luxuriant grass. Here was a succession of these, varying in size, some being eight or ten miles across, but one of them was so long that it occupied three days to travel through it. In passing through this large prairie, they were much distressed for water and provisions, for they saw neither beast nor bird; and, though there was an abundance of salt springs, fresh water was very scarce. In one of these prairies the salt springs ran into small ponds, in which, as the weather was hot, the water had sunk and left the edges of the pond so covered with salt that they fully supplied themselves with that article, and might easily have collected bushels of it.

"As they were travelling through the prairies, they had likewise the good fortune to kill an animal which was nine or ten feet high and a bulk proportioned to its height. They had seen two of the same species before, and they saw four of them afterwards. They were swift-footed, and had neither tusks nor horns. After passing through the long prairie, they made it a rule never to enter on one which they could not see across, till they had supplied themselves with a sufficiency of jerked venison to last several days. After having travelled a considerable time through the prairies, they came to very extensive lead-mines, where they melted the ore and furnished themselves with what lead they wanted. They afterwards came to two copper-mines, one of which was three miles through, and in several places they met with rocks of copper ore as large as houses.

"When about fifteen days' journey from the second copper-mine, they came in sight of white mountains, which, though it was in the heat of summer, appeared to them to be covered with snow. The sight naturally excited considerable astonishment; but, on their approaching the mountains, they discovered that, instead of snow, they were covered with immense bodies of white sand.

"They had in the mean time passed through about ten nations of Indians, from whom they received very friendly treatment. It was the practice of the party to exercise the office of spokesman in rotation; and when the language of any nation through which they passed was unknown to them, it was the duty of the spokesman, a duty in which the others never interfered, to convey their meaning by appropriate signs.

"The labor of travelling through the deep sands was excessive; but at length they relieved themselves of this difficulty by following the course of a shallow river, the bottom of which being level, they made their way to the top of the mountains with tolerable convenience. After passing the mountains they entered a fine fertile tract of land, which having travelled through for several days, they accidentally met with three white men in the Indian dress. Griffith immediately understood their language, as it was pure Welsh, though they occasionally made use of a few words with which he was not acquainted. However, as it happened to be the turn of one of his Shawanese companions to act as spokesman or interpreter, he preserved a profound silence, and never gave them any intimation that he understood the language of their new companions.

"After proceeding with them four or five days' journey, they came to the village of these white men, where they found that the whole nation was of the same color, having all the European complexion. The three men took them through their villages for about the space of fifteen miles, when they came to the council-house, at which an assembly of the king and chief men of the nation was immediately held. The council lasted three days, and, as the strangers were not supposed to be acquainted with their language, they were suffered to be present at their deliberations.

"The great question before the council was, what conduct should be observed towards the strangers. From their fire-arms, their knives, and their tomahawks, it was concluded that they were a warlike people. It was conceived that they were sent to look out for a country for their nation; that if they were suffered to return, they might expect a body of powerful invaders; but that if these six men were put to death, nothing would be known of their country, and they would still enjoy their possessions in security. It was finally determined that they should be put to death.

"Griffith then thought it was time for him to speak. He addressed the council in the Welsh language. He informed them that they had not been sent by any nation; that they were actuated merely by private curiosity, and had no hostile intentions; that it was their wish to trace the Missouri to its source; and that they should return to their country satisfied with the discoveries they had made, without any wish to disturb the repose of their new acquaintances.

"An instant astonishment glowed in the countenances, not only of the council, but of his Shawanese companions, who clearly saw that he was understood by the people of the country. Full confidence was at once given to his declarations. The king advanced and gave him his hand. They abandoned the design of putting him and his companions to death, and from that moment treated him with the utmost friendship. Griffith and the Shawanese continued eight months in the nation, but were deterred from prosecuting their researches up the Missouri by the advice of the people of the country, who informed them that they had gone a twelvemonth's journey up the river, but found it as large there as it was in their own country.

"As to the history of this people he could learn nothing satisfactory. The only account they could give was, that their forefathers had come up the river from a very distant country. They had no books, no records, no writings. They intermixed with no other people by marriage: there was not a dark-skinned man in the nation. Their numbers were very considerable. There was a continued range of settlements on the river for fifty miles, and there were within this space three large watercourses which fell into the Missouri, on the banks of each of which they were likewise settled. He supposed that there must be fifty thousand men in the nation capable of bearing arms. Their clothing was skins well dressed. Their houses were made of upright posts and barks of trees. The only implements they had to cut them with were stone tomahawks; they had no iron. Their arms were bows and arrows. They had some silver which had been hammered with stones into coarse ornaments, but it did not appear to be pure. They had neither horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, nor any domestic or tame animals. They lived by hunting. He said nothing about their religion.

"Griffith and his companions had some large iron tomahawks with them. With these they cut down a tree and prepared a canoe to return home in; but their tomahawks were so great a curiosity, and the people of the country were so eager to handle them, that their canoe was completed with very little labor to them. When this work was accomplished, they proposed to leave their new friends, Griffith, however, having promised to visit them again.

"They descended the river with considerable speed, but amidst frequent dangers from the rapidity of the current, particularly when passing through the white mountains. When they reached the Shawanese Nation, they had been absent about two years and a half. Griffith supposed that when they travelled they went at the rate of about fifteen miles per day. He stayed but a few months with the Indians after his return, as a favorable opportunity offered itself to him to reach his friends in Virginia. He came with a hunting-party of Indians to the head-waters of Coal River, which runs into New River not far above the falls. Here he left the Shawanese, and easily reached the settlements on the Roanoke.

"Mr. Childs knew him before he was taken prisoner, and saw him a few days after his return, when he narrated to him the preceding circumstances. Griffith was universally regarded as a steady, honest man, and a man of strict veracity. Mr. Childs has always placed the utmost confidence in his account of himself and his travels, and has no more doubt of the truth of his relations than if he had seen the whole himself. Whether Griffith be still alive or not he does not know. Whether his ideas be correct or not, we shall probably have a better opportunity of judging on the return of Captains Lewis and Clarke, who, though they may not penetrate as far as Griffith alleged he had done, will probably learn enough of the country to enable us to determine whether the account given by Griffith be fiction or truth.

"I am, sir,  
"Your humble servant, 
"Harry Toulmin.

"Frankfort, December 12, 1804."

With regard to the exploring expeditions of Lewis and Clarke, to which Judge Toulmin refers, it was found in their published records that although they pursued a different branch of the Missouri from the one which was supposed to lead to the Welsh Indians, they discovered straggling Indians similar to those mentioned by Griffith, Vancouver, and many others. They belonged to those who had a tribal existence in other localities.

However, they describe long lines of embankments which they saw before leaving the main channel of the Missouri, some of them enclosing an area of six hundred acres. They found them as high up as one thousand miles from the junction with the Mississippi. Captain Lewis was a Welshman. In their long and perilous journey, extending to the Columbia River, they lost but one man, William Floyd, also a Welshman, and who was buried on top of one of these mounds west of the Missouri,—called to this day "Floyd's Mound."

The Missouri, taken in connection with the Mississippi, is the longest river in the world, its length from the highest navigable stream to the Gulf of Mexico being four thousand four hundred and ninety-one miles, and its length to its junction with the Mississippi, three thousand and ninety-six miles. Add to this the immense distance not navigable because of the cataracts and falls, next to Niagara the grandest on this globe, and reaching to the Rocky Mountains, and some idea may be formed of the great extent of this river. The entrance of the Yellow-Stone is nearly two thousand miles above its mouth. A journey of one thousand miles up the Missouri a century or more since, while it was an undertaking of no slight magnitude and attended with many hardships and dangers, did not bring the traveller over more than one-fourth of its length. The course pursued by Griffith and his companions can be marked out with singular accuracy by the use of subsequent knowledge, obtained during the last one hundred years, respecting the country that river traverses.

He speaks of finding lead-mines. The lead-mines of Missouri are extremely valuable, and yield millions of pounds annually.

He speaks of salt springs. The line of his journey conducted him by the salt licks of Nebraska, which, when the springs are low and evaporation is rapid, have the appearance of layers of snow.

He speaks of white mountains. Passing from the broad open prairies to the uplands and mountains, the soil is sandy and in many places remarkably white. The writer himself has often seen on the Missouri bold projections of limestone which in the distance appeared like banks of snow.

He speaks of the Indians being all white. This presents a difficulty not easily reconcilable with the intermixture theory. The predominating color, it would be supposed, was that of the red race. But he partially explains this by saying that "they intermixed with no other people by marriage: there was not a dark-skinned man in the nation." Could they without intermixture have increased to such considerable numbers as to be able, as he supposes, to put into the field "fifty thousand men capable of bearing arms"? It need not be thought impossible, but it certainly is improbable. At any rate, this people were sufficiently white to be called, by Griffith and by a large number of reliable witnesses, "White Padoucas," "White Panis," "White Indians."

He speaks of their having no records and no horses. In this respect his recital differs somewhat from those given by others, some of whom assert that they saw some old manuscript books, and that they had horses for the chase. His statement, however, offers no contradiction to that made by others, because it is pretty certain that many of them came upon different branches of the same extensive nation.

He speaks of their speaking "pure Welsh," but qualifies it by saying that they occasionally made use of a few words with which he was not acquainted. He meant no more than that the radical structure of the language was still preserved and could be readily distinguished, though some of the words had undergone modification. This is the case with all languages, not even excepting the Welsh in Wales, which has shown itself superior to all others to resist any great change.

It is somewhat surprising that Griffith did not give some account of the religious institutions of this people; for if they were the descendants of Madoc some traces of the Christian religion might have been discovered. Or had they been all effaced in six hundred years?

It must be admitted that what he does relate bears every internal mark of simple, honest truth.

CHAPTER X. CAPTAIN ISAAC STUART—GOVERNORS SEVIER AND DINWIDDIE—GENERAL MORGAN LEWIS—THEIR KNOWLEDGE OF THE WELSH INDIANS.

Captain Stuart was an officer in the Provincial Cavalry of South Carolina, and the following sketch was taken from his own lips by I. C., Esq., an intelligent gentleman, in March, 1782. Lieutenant-Colonel Conger, of South Carolina, regarded Captain Stuart as a man who could be implicitly trusted in what he said.

"I was taken prisoner about fifty miles to the westward of Fort Pitt, about eighteen years ago, by the Indians, and was carried by them to the Wabash, with many more white men, who were executed with circumstances of horrid barbarity. It was my good fortune to call forth the sympathy of what is called the good woman of the town, who was permitted to redeem me from the flames by giving as my ransom a horse.

"After remaining two years in bondage among the Indians, a Spaniard came to the nation, having been sent from Mexico on discoveries. He made application to the chief for redeeming me and another white man, who was in like situation, named John Davey (David), which they complied with.

"And we took our departure, in company with the Spaniard, to the westward, crossing the Mississippi near Rouge, or Red, River, up which we travelled seven hundred miles, when we came to a nation remarkably white, and whose hair was of a reddish color, or mostly so. They lived on the banks of a small river which is called the river Post. In the morning of the day after our arrival, the Welshman informed me that he was determined to remain with them, giving as a reason that he understood their language, it being very little different from the Welsh. My curiosity was excited very much by this information, and I went with my companion to the chief men of the town, who informed him, in a language I had no knowledge of, and which had no affinity to that of other Indian tongues that I ever heard, that their forefathers of this nation came from a foreign country and landed on the east side of the Mississippi, describing the country particularly now called Florida, and that on the Spaniards taking possession of Mexico they fled to their then abode.

"And, as a proof of the truth of what he advanced, he brought forth a roll of parchment, which was carefully tied up in otters' skins, on which were large characters written with blue ink. The characters I did not understand; and, the Welshman being unacquainted with letters, even of his own language, I was not able to know the meaning of the writing. They are a bold, hardy, and intrepid people, very warlike, and the women beautiful when compared with other Indians."

John Sevier, at one time Governor of Tennessee, in a letter dated October 9, 1810, and published by Major Stoddard in his "Sketches, Historical and Descriptive, of Louisiana," Philadelphia, 1812, p. 483, says that in 1782 he was on a campaign against the Cherokees. Observing on his route traces of very ancient fortifications, he afterwards took occasion, on exchange of prisoners, to inquire into their origin, of Oconostoto, who for sixty years had been a ruling chief of the Cherokee Nation, and particularly as to the origin of the remarkable fortifications on the branch of the Highwasse River. The venerable chief replied, that it was handed down by their forefathers that those works were made by white people who had formerly inhabited the country. When the Cherokees lived in the country now South Carolina, wars existed between them, and were only ended when the whites consented to abandon the country. Accordingly, they ascended the Tennessee to the Ohio, then to the big river Mississippi, then up the muddy Missouri to a very great distance. They are now on some of its branches, but are no longer white people; they have become Indians, and look somewhat like the other red people of the country. "I then asked him," continues Governor Sevier, "if he had ever heard any of his ancestors say to what nation of people the whites belonged. He answered, 'I heard my grandfather and other old people say that they were a people called Welsh; that they had crossed the great waters and landed near the mouth of the Alabama River, and were finally driven to the heads of its waters, and even to the Highwasse River, by the Mexican Spaniards.'

"Oconostoto also said that an old woman in his nation had some parts of an old book given her by an Indian living high up the Missouri, and thought he was one of the Welsh tribe. Unfortunately," observes Governor Sevier, "before I had an opportunity of seeing the book, her house and all its contents were destroyed by fire. I have conversed with several persons who saw and examined it; but it was so worn and disfigured that nothing intelligible remained."

Governor Sevier was informed by a Frenchman, a great explorer of the country west of the Mississippi, that he had been high up the Missouri, and traded several months with the Welsh tribes, who spoke much of the Welsh dialect. Although their customs were savage and wild, yet many of them, particularly the females, were fair and white. They often told him that they had sprung from a white people; and that they had yet some small scraps of books remaining, but in such a tattered and mutilated order that they were unintelligible.

The very year that Robert Dinwiddie, Governor of Virginia, sent a letter of remonstrance to M. de St. Pierre, the French commander, complaining of the hostile movements of The Ohio Company, George Washington, then a young man of twenty-two, being chosen bearer of the dispatches, the Governor received a letter from a gentleman named George Chrochan, showing that the French knew of the Welsh Indians. This was in 1753. The original letter was deposited in the Foreign Office in London, and several gentlemen were enabled to obtain copies of it through Maurice Morgan, Esq., secretary to Sir Guy Carleton. It is as follows:

"Last year I understood, by Colonel Lomax, that your Honor would be glad to have some information of a nation of people settled to the west, on a large river that runs to the Pacific Ocean, commonly called the Welsh Indians.

"As I had an opportunity of gathering some accounts of those people, I make bold, at the instance of Colonel Cressup, to send you the following accounts. As I formerly had an opportunity of being acquainted with several French traders, and particularly with one who was bred up from his infancy amongst the Western Indians on the west side of Lake Erie, he informed me that the first intelligence the French had of them was by some Indians settled at the back of New Spain, who, in their way home, happened to lose themselves, and fell down on this settlement of people, which they took to be French by their talking very quick; so, on their return to Canada, they informed the Governor that there was a large settlement of French on a river that ran to the sun's setting; that they were not Indians, although they lived within themselves as Indians; for they could not perceive that they traded with any people, or had any trade to sea, for they had no boats or ships as they could see; and, though they had guns amongst them, yet they were so old and so much out of order that they made no use of them, but hunted with their bows and arrows for the support of their families.

"On this account the Governor of Canada determined to send a party to discover whether they were French or not, and had three hundred men raised for that purpose.

"But, when they were ready to go, the Indians would not go with them, but told the Governor if he sent but a few men they would go and show them the country; on which the Governor sent three young priests, who dressed themselves in Indian dresses and went with those Indians to the place where these people were settled, and found them to be Welsh.

"They brought some old Welsh Bibles, to satisfy the Governor that they were there; and they told him that these people had a great aversion to the French; for they found by them that they had been at first settled at the mouth of the Mississippi, but had been almost cut off by the French there: so that a small remnant of them escaped back to where they were then settled, but had since become a numerous people. The Governor of Canada, on this account, determined to raise an army of French Indians to go and cut them off; but, as the French have been embarrassed in war with several other nations nearer home, I believe they have laid that project aside. The man who furnished me with this account told me that the messengers who went to make this discovery were gone sixteen months before they returned to Canada: so that these people must live at a great distance from thence due west. This is the most particular account I ever could get from those people as yet.

"I am yours, etc., 
"George Chrochan.

"Winchester, August 24, 1753."

Governor Dinwiddie became so positively assured of their existence that he agreed with a party of black traders to go in quest of the Welsh Indians, and promised to give them for that purpose the sum of five hundred pounds; but he was recalled before they could set out on the expedition.

General Morgan Lewis was an officer in the American Revolutionary army. He was the son of Francis Lewis, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The general was a well-known citizen of New York. He was aide-de-camp to General Gates at the battle of Saratoga, and, on the surrender of the English army at that place, was requested by him to receive the sword of General Burgoyne. In Turnbull's picture, commemorative of the event, found in the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington, the figure of General Lewis occupies a prominent position. He was distinguished for many honorable military and civil services. He was the successor of George Clinton as Governor of the State. In 1838 he became president of the Society of Cincinnati, an institution founded by Washington, who was its first president. His portrait hangs in the Governor's room of the New York City Hall. He died on the 7th of May, 1844, in his ninetieth year, beloved and respected by all. He used frequently to relate many stirring incidents which occurred during the life of his father. The latter, while on a military expedition in the French War, was captured at Oswego, and was assigned over, with thirty others, by Montcalm, the acting French commander, to certain Indians, as their share of prisoners. Among the Indians was a chief whose language resembled the Gaelic (a dialect of the Celtic with which Mr. Lewis, who was a native of Wales, was thoroughly acquainted). On hearing him converse, Mr. Lewis understood him sufficiently to discover that his language was of that ancient dialect, although modified by usage and lapse of time. He then addressed the chief in Welsh, and was understood. The chief selected Mr. Lewis from the rest of the prisoners, and accompanied and guarded him personally. Subsequently Mr. Lewis was sent to England in a cartel for exchange of prisoners, and after his return frequently mentioned to his family and others the circumstances. His name and memory are linked with the immortal band of signers. He was a merchant of New York city, owned property on Long Island which was destroyed by the English, and died in 1803, aged ninety years, the father and the son having attained the same age.

Here are several strong testimonies from four entirely independent sources, each separate from the others, with no motives of prejudice or self-interest to mislead wilfully, and the parties too intelligent to be betrayed into a blind credulity. The disclosures of this chapter, if they stood alone, would be sufficient to carry conviction to every candid inquirer, that there was a remarkable people, different from the common red races of this continent, inhabiting a portion of the Western country during the last century. And to such an extent did this conviction prevail that it was made the basis of official action by Governor Dinwiddie, whose plans were frustrated by his recall, and the Governor of Canada, who sent out an expedition, which returned in safety and reported the existence of Welsh Indians.

Mr. Binon, Captain Stuart, Governor Sevier, the members of the Canadian expedition, and others, state that these people had manuscript books in parchment, but that they could not be read or understood even by those Welshmen who were with some of these parties. Some of these manuscripts contained the mysteries of religion, and were carefully preserved.

Even to this day there are classes of the population of Wales who cannot read and write; a century ago their condition was far worse, before the establishment of parish schools; but, granting that all were learned in the rudiments of education, there is not probably one in a thousand who could read a manuscript of the twelfth century. Most of them stagger those who claim to have scholarly attainments. If they were in the Greek instead of the Roman character, as some of them have been discovered to be, the mystery would be still greater. The Greek alphabetical character was used in the British Island prior to the invasion by Julius Cæsar, after which the Roman character was adopted and became generally used in common life and writing.

Yet so sacred was the Greek character held by monastic schools, because the gospel was written in it, that many transcribers—and they were the book-makers—clung with a religious enthusiasm to it. Christianity was certainly introduced into the Island in the second century, the Greek forms in the Welsh language had not become lost, and it is likely that many parchment manuscripts were extant. Madoc's position as a member of the royal house of Wales, notwithstanding the scarcity and great cost of books in those times, would enable him to possess some of the most valuable, even those illuminated in rich, fixed colors, and which required many years of patient toil to manufacture. It is far more within the order of reason to believe that Madoc and his emigrants, upon leaving their own native shores, would take with them copies of the great book of books,—the king of books on the throne of letters,—than that they would leave them behind. Some of his followers, perhaps the most of them, were not able to read them then, but knew somewhat their contents. Under their new conditions of life, relapsing gradually from a civilized state, these manuscripts came at length to be invested with a certain sacred mystery, as the depository of their ancestors' religious faith. No wonder that they should be so carefully preserved.

CHAPTER XI. THE MANDAN INDIANS: WHO ARE THEY?

During the present century various travellers have called the attention of the civilized world to a small body of Indians inhabiting the banks of the Upper Missouri, called Mandans. They, with the Minatarees and Crows, are classed with the Dacotahs or Sioux, although it is known that their language bears no affinity whatever with the latter people. The Mandans are very light-colored.

George Catlin, the well-known student of Indian life, character, language, and manners, was, without any doubt, more intimately acquainted with this people than any others who preceded him or have followed him.

Mr. Catlin was born in Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and was for some years a practising lawyer. He removed to Philadelphia, and, upon meeting with a delegation of Indians, resolved to employ his talents as a painter in the best school, by painting man in the simplicity of his nature. Accordingly, he made arrangements to spend the most of his time among the Indian tribes of the Western country. His enthusiasm in his work arose to the height of an intense passion. He studied every phase of Indian life, nothing seeming to have escaped his attention. Withal, he was an ardent admirer of the Indian character; and he says, "No Indian ever struck me, betrayed me, or stole from me a shilling's worth of my property, that I am aware of." In another place he says, with a touching pathos, "They are fast travelling to the shades of their fathers, towards the setting sun." In his "Notes on the American Indians" he has portrayed a complete picture of the Mandans, giving the minutest details, so that the reader can study them as well from his two volumes as if he were daily living among them,—indeed, better than if he wished to visit them at present, they have been of late years so much reduced by the ravages of that fearful scourge, smallpox. After Mr. Catlin visited them, this disease was introduced by one of the steamers of the Fur Company, which had two cases aboard.

One reason assigned why so many perished was, that the Mandan villages were surrounded by the hostile Sioux. Many destroyed themselves with knives and guns, while others dashed their brains out against rocks, by leaping from the ledges. When the disease was at its greatest height, there was one incessant crying to the Great Spirit. The bodies lay in loathsome piles in their wigwams, and there remained to decay or be devoured by dogs. Some became crazed, and plunged into the coldest water when the fever was raging, and died before they could get out.

Mat-to-toh-pa, "Four Bears," great chief of the Mandans, watched his tribe, wives, and children die about him, then starved himself, dying on the ninth day, his body prostrate over the remains of his kinsmen. Their numbers are now so reduced that the last statistics give them four hundred only.

When Mr. Catlin made his first entrance into this nation, numbering several thousands, he was struck with their appearance, and at once concluded that they belonged to an amalgam of native and white. He was at a loss for some time how to account for this; and it was only after the most careful study that he reached the conviction that the Mandans were a branch of the descendants of Madoc's colony. He believed that the ten ships of Madoc, or at least a part of them, either entered the Balize at the mouth of the Mississippi, or the colonists landed on the Florida coast and made their way inward. They began agriculture, but were attacked and driven to erect those immense earthen fortifications, and subsequently were driven still farther and farther inward. Mandans was a corruption of Madawgwys, a name applied by Cambrians to the followers of Madoc.

The following brief summary, arranged by the writer of these pages, may be taken as Mr. Catlin's principal reasons why he thought the Mandans were Welsh:

(1.) Their physical appearance.

They were of medium height, and stout. They did not share that high, stalwart physical frame which is so usual with Indians of the forest before they have become degraded by the vices of civilization.

Their complexions were very light-colored, but not uniform in shade.

Their hair was of all colors found in civilized societies. The hair of the unmixed Indian is a straight black. They wore beards,—which Indians do not have. They must have been the people who were called the Bearded Indians. They had different-colored eyes,—hazel, gray, and blue.

(2.) Form of Mandan villages. Here it may be remarked that the Minatarees construct their villages upon the same plan. They sink holes in the ground to the depth of two feet and having a diameter of forty feet, of a circular form, for the foundation of their wigwams, which are built of substantial materials and display more skill than is found among the other Indians.

(3.) Mandan remains. The method of sinking down into the earth for the purpose of obtaining a foundation has, singularly enough, offered a clue as to the authors of all those remains along the Ohio, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio, and along up the Missouri to the present abode of the Mandans. Their earthen works and huts, built in Druidic circles, are exact counterparts of those along the paths of their migrations. Of course the larger works have no modern counterparts, for those were erected when they were more numerous and able to cope with their foes.

The villages of the dead are uniformly built in circles.

(4.) Their social and domestic customs.

They exhibit great skill in the manufacture of pottery, and the specimens found in the earthen remains of the Ohio Valley, many of them at present in the museum at Cincinnati, correspond with many of the products of the Mandans. The Mandan women mould vases, cups, pitchers, and pots out of the black clay, and bake them in little kilns in the sides of the hill, or under the bank of the river. They possess secrets of manufacturing known only to themselves. They have the extraordinary art of making a very beautiful and lasting kind of blue glass beads, which they wear on their necks in great abundance. This must be the nation, or at least a portion of it, which Captains Lewis and Clarke saw, and whom they declared to be light-colored, and whose manufacture of beads and glass articles they described thirty years before Mr. Catlin.

Their canoes are the exact shape of the Welsh coracle, made of raw hides,—skins of buffaloes,—stretched underneath a frame made of willows or other boughs, and shaped nearly round like a tub, which the women carry on their heads. The Welsh coracle, a boat which has been used by fishermen from time immemorial, is made in the same way by covering a wicker frame with leather or oil-cloth, and is carried on the head or with straps from the shoulders.

In their social and domestic habits generally they are different from other Indians.

(5.) Their religious belief and ceremonies.

There is something reaching the marvellous connected with their religion. Their traditional belief one would imagine was nothing less than a corrupted epitome of the Christian belief.

(a.) The account of the transgression of mother Eve, involving the doctrine of the temptation, is quite explicit. The Evil Spirit, who was a black fellow, came and sat down by a woman and told her to take a piece out of his side, which she did, and ate it, which proving to be buffalo fat, she became enceinte.

(b.) The traditions of the Deluge are far more rational, and could more easily be believed, than many which have been entertained by other nations.

(c.) The most important religious ceremony among the Mandans is a representation of the death and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It takes place annually, as soon as the willow is in full leaf; for, they say, "the twig which the bird brought in was a willow bough, and had full-grown leaves upon it." The spectacle presented in the crucifixion of the Saviour by the young men of the Mandan nation might not accord with our civilized tastes and notions of propriety, yet it is wonderfully impressive, and calculated to turn the spectator's thoughts to the tragedy of Calvary. The finest-looking young man is selected as the central figure, and others surround him, when they are stuck full of skewers, and suspended on beams around their rude temple where they worship.

(6.) The Mandan language.

In their own language they call themselves See-pohs-ka-mi-mah-ka-kee (the people of the pheasants), which Mr. Catlin thinks they would not do if they had not lived where pheasants abounded, as in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, for there are none on the prairies until within six or seven hundred miles of the Rocky Mountains.

The most convincing proof, probably, to the mind of Mr. Catlin, and to all others who have studied the possible identification of the Mandans with Madoc's colony, is found in their language. The resemblance in form and sound is so very marked that it cannot escape the eye and ear of any individual, much less those of a Welshman. It is expected that he would catch the soonest any similarity in the two languages,—the Mandan and the Welsh. And fortunately there are too many instances of this similarity to admit for a moment the idea of chance or coincidence.

That the reader may see that this is the case, his attention is called to the subjoined table of words selected from the English, Mandan, and Welsh, and their pronunciations:

Many other words might be given, but the above is sufficient to show the remarkable similarity of form, and that where they do not agree as to certain letters the resemblance is preserved in the pronunciation. Every language has its own individuality in respect to that. The Welsh is noted for its deep gutturals, and, to the ear unaccustomed to hear it, it seems very harsh. Travellers have observed this guttural pronunciation very extensively among the American Indians. Lossing says that the language of the Uchees, the remnant of a once powerful nation who were seated in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and farther west, was exceedingly harsh, and unlike that of any other nation. Mr. Baldwin, in his recent work on "Ancient America," in his endeavors to determine the origin of the Natches Indians, says, "they differed in language, customs, and condition from all other Indians in the country." He then attempts to affix their traditions with the people of Mexico. It may be remembered that elsewhere it is stated that it was right in the midst of the territory occupied by the Natches that Mr. Willin, a rich Quaker, had among his settlers a number of Welshmen, who conversed in their native tongue with the Indians. Also, that Mr. Burnell and his son, Cradog, were part of a company who purchased forty millions of acres from the Natches and Yazous, and that both father and son, particularly the latter, understanding the Welsh language, could converse with the Indians. Is it not altogether likely, then, that the Uchees and Natches, being known to be so very different from the surrounding nations in language, spoke the same as the Mandans, and that the language of the three did not differ much from the Welsh?

Dr. Morse, in the report of his tour (printed in New Haven in 1822) among the Western Indians, performed in the behalf of the Government, in 1820, mentions, upon the information furnished by Father Reichard, of Detroit, a report that prevailed at Fort Chartres, among the old people, in 1781, that Mandan Indians had visited that post and could converse intelligibly with some Welsh soldiers then in the British army. Dr. Morse suggested the information as a hint to any person who might have an opportunity of ascertaining whether there was any affinity between the two languages. By a guidance more than human, Mr. Catlin was led into the midst of that people, and he has shown that such an affinity does exist, and has performed a service of permanent value by his contributions to the literature of a question which was thought to be a bold imposture foisted upon a credulous age by an equally credulous but more ignorant rabble. But time is making things more equal, and the sturdy defenders of Madoc's voyages and American colony are having his claims ratified in a most astonishing manner. It is very fortunate that more recent researches have brought to light the language of a people so rapidly melting away, and thus supplied an answer to the question as to how the many Welshmen who came in contact with them could understand and converse with these Welsh Bearded Indians.