The Epic of Madoc Ap Owain Gwynedd
The story relates about how Madoc and his brother Rhirid, both natural sons of the Welsh King of Gwnedd, Owain, became disillusioned at the fighting that had broken out at the death of their father. Having heard Viking tales of a strange land to the west, both brothers set forth with a small fleet to find that land. Madoc and his brother discovered it, left a hundred men to start a colony, and then returned to Wales to recruit more colonists. Madoc and Rhirid returned to the land in the west with ten ships filled with colonists and then passed out of history.
History does record that there was an Owain King of Gwnedd, considered to be one of the greatest Welsh rulers in history. He had a number of sons, both inside and outside of wedlock. History is rather unclear as to whether one of them was named Madoc, not to mention whether he discovered America.
Speculation is rife about the ultimate fate of Madoc and his people. While some historians suggested he may have landed as far east as Florida or as far west as Mexico, most stories have him landing in Mobile Bay in what is now Alabama. The stories go on to suggest that Madoc and his people moved north and eventually settled somewhere in what is now the American Midwest where they were eventually absorbed by the American Indians. Naturally no one actually returned to Europe to report these supposed adventures in America.
Starting in the 17th Century, reports of “White Indians” who spoke Welsh became to circulate in America. In 1669, the Reverend Morgan Jones told the story of how he was in the area now called South Carolina, when he was captured by a group of Tuscaroras Indians. They were about to put him to death when he muttered a few words in Welsh, and to his surprise the Indians understood him. Naturally they thereupon spared him. He lived among the Tuscaroras and preached the Gospel, in Welsh of course. Not only did Morgan Jones assert that this story was true; he made a formal affidavit to that effect in the year 1685.
In the 18th Century, white explorers and fur trappers encountered an American Indian people known as the Mandan, whom they claimed to be fair skinned, had well organized towns, and spoke a language said to be remarkably like Welsh. Unfortunately the Mandan people were all but wiped out by smallpox in 1837. Sadly, there is no genetic or archeological evidence that the Mandan people were ever related to the Welsh.
Other explorers of America purport to have found the ruins of European fortifications north of Mobile Bay that were said to be of pre Columbian origin. One fort, erected on top of Lookout Mountain, near DeSoto Falls, Alabama, was said to be nearly identical in setting, layout, and method of construction, to Dolwyddelan Castle in Gwynedd, North Wales, the presumed birthplace of Madoc. Cherokee legend, according to one account, suggests these fortifications were built by whites centuries ago.
The locations of the forts suggests that Madoc and his people may have traveled up the Alabama River to the Lookout Mountain site where they may have settled for some months or even years. According to speculation, pressure by hostile Indians forced Madoc and the Welsh settlers to move on up the Coosa River, where the next stronghold was established at Fort Mountain, Georgia. Situated atop a 3,000 foot mountain, this structure had a main defensive wall 855 feet long, and appears to be more hastily constructed than the previous fort.
Then, retreating from Fort Mountain, Madoc and the Welsh settlers then built a series of minor fortifications in the Chatanooga area, before moving north to the forks of the Duck River near what is now Manchester, Tennessee, and their final fortress, Old Stone Fort. Formed by high bluffs and twenty-foot walls of stone, Old Stone Fort’s fifty acres was also protected by a moat twelve hundred feet long. Like the other two major defense works, Old Stone Fort exhibits engineering proficiency well beyond the skills of the Indians. Then, perhaps, the Welsh settlers retreated from the Old Stone fort and were eventually absorbed into the surrounding Indian peoples.
The first written sources of Madoc and his supposed voyages seem to be Elizabethan. George Peckham first related in his book A True Report of the late Discoveries of the Newfound Landes. These and other stories were used by Queen Elizabeth to buttress British claims to North America.
Many historians, of course, severely doubt the idea of Madoc and Welsh settlers in North America in the 12th Century. Thomas Stephens, a Welsh scholar, wrote the first work refuting the idea in 1858. In modern times, Samuel Eliot Morison dismissed the entire story of Madoc and the Welsh discovery of America as a fable, probably spread by Tudor court historians like Peckham wanting to solidify British claims to America and to celebrate the glory of the Welsh people.
Still, not everyone agrees with Morison’s assessment. In 1953, the Virginia Cavalier Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution erected a memorial plaque at Fort Morgan at Mobile Bay. The plaque reads, “In memory of Prince Madoc, a Welsh explorer, who landed on the shores of Mobile Bay in 1170 and left behind, with the Indians, the Welsh language.”
And so the debate about Prince Madoc contiinues.
