USA > New York > History of the state of New-York : including its aboriginal and colonial annals, vol. pt 1 > Part 4
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But who were these whites? May it be presumed that the Alleghanians (Alligewi) and Mexicans were the same people by intermixture, and that the former crected these works be- fore the Lenape and Iroquois came and destroyed them. (21) Many of the supposed fortifications were temples, partieu- larly that of Circle-ville in Ohio, where human sacrifices were one of the rites, and where female victims, as in India,
* M.Culloh, 216.
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Origin of the Aborigines and ancient Ruins. [PART I.
were immolated with the males. Their similitude with those of Mexico, as described by Humboldt, has also been traced. (22) Bones of victims in heaps, shells used in sa- cred rites as in India, and idols of baked clay, consisting of three heads, similar to the triad of India, have also been found. (23)
But if the Alleghanians may be thus identified with the Mexicans, who were the whites that instructed the latter ? Were the nations of our state descendants in reality of those victorious Tartars, (if they may be so denominated,) who formed their alliance on the banks of the Mississippi, waged the exterminating war against the Alligewi, and succeeded in expelling them, according to the tradition before recited ? Were, then, those fugitives who escaped down the Mississippi, . and never returned, the white instructors of the Mexicans ? And if conjecture might be extended to the supposition that they were, still the inquiry arises, who were these whites, these Alligewi, these instructors of the Mexicans, these authors of our antiquities ? Whence came they ? Were they from Eu- rope, or from Asia -- were their conquerors from either of those continents? Were the former the first people who had emi- grated, or had they succeeded others whom they in their turn had extirpated? The main question therefore recurs, by what means was America originally peopled ?
§ 8.
We shall attempt little more than a classification of authors, and the peculiar theory which each has erected, following in order such as maintain a European ancestry ; European or Asiatic ; Asiatic only ; ante or postdeluvian; African; an- cient Atlantic; and lastly, such as believe that the abori- gines are strictly such.
The remote voyages of the Scandinavians, which are al- leged to have reached the coast of New-York, will be reserved until the examination of the third question. The antiquary of
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America will probably find, says Dr. Mitchill,* that the Scandinavians emigrated about the tenth century of the Chris- xian era, if not earlier. And they may be considered not merely as having discovered this continent, but to have, ex- plored its northern climes to a great extent, and to have peo- pled them three or four hundred years at least before Colum- bus was born.
In a topographical description of the western territory of North America, f including the accountt of the discovery and settlement of Kentucky, published 1984, it is asserted that the ancient remains in Kentucky, (which seem to prove that this country was formerly inhabited by a nation further advanced in the arts of life than the Indians) are usually attributed to the Welsh, who are supposed to have formerly inhabited here ; but having been expelled by the natives, were forced to take refuge near the sources of the Missouri. This, says the au- thor, is confirmed of late years by the western settlers having received frequent accounts of a nation inhabiting at a great distance up the Missouri, in manners and appearance resem- bling the other Indians, but speaking Welsh, and retaining some ceremonies of the Christian worship; and at length this is universally believed among them to be a fact. Capt. Abm. Chaplain, of Kentucky, a gentleman whose veracity the author says may be entirely depended upon, assured him, that in the late war, being with his company in garrison at Kaskaskia, some Indians came there, and speaking in the Welsh dialect, were perfectly understood and conversed with by two Welshmen in his company, and that they informed them of the situation of their nation as above mentioned.§
* In Archæ. Amer.
+ By George Imlay, London, printed 1793.
. # By John Filson, p. 377-8.
4 Mr. Rankin, a clergyman of Kentucky, communicated to a gentleman in England, 1792, the assurance of the existence of such a tribe some hun- dreds of miles westward of Kentucky ; that about 200 miles of the distance n'as a tract of waste hunting ground, through which it was dangerous to pass, in consequence of the depredations of the wild Indians. See Wil- liams's Further Observations.
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46 Origin of the Aborigines and ancient Ruins. [PART I.
John Sevier, late governor of Tennessee," says, that in 1789 he was on a campaign against the Cherokees. Observ- ing on his route traces of very ancient fortifications, he after- wards took occasion, on the 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 fortification on the bank of High- wassee river? The venerable chief replied, It was handed down by their forefathers, that these 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 de- scended the Tennessee to the Ohio, then to the big river (Mis- sissippi), then up the muddy river ( 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 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 have heard my grandfather and other old people say, that they were a people called Welsh ; that they had crossed the great water, and landed near the mouth of Alabama river, and were finally driven to the heads of its wa- ters, and even to Highwasse river, by the Mexican Spaniards.' Oconostoto also observed, that an old woman in his nation had some part 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 S., " before I had an op- portunity of seeing the book, her house and 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." Many years ago, Governor
* In a letter, dated October 9, 1810, and published by Major Stoddard, in his Sketches historical and descriptive of Louisiana. Philadelphia, 1812 p. 483
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S. 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; and although their customs were savage and wild, yet many of them, particular- By the females, were fair and white. They often told him they had sprung from a white nation of people ; that they had yet some small scraps of books remaining among them, but in such tattered and mutilated order, that they were unintelligi- ble.# Captain Stewart gave an account of his capture by the Indians, about the year 1764;} of his redemption by a Spa- niard from Mexico ; of his expedition with him 700 miles up the Red river, where they came to a nation on the river Post, remarkably white, whose hair was of a reddish colour. (24) A Welshman in company, understanding their language, which differed very little from the Welsh, announced the next morn- ing his determination to remain. Captain Stewart proceeded with him to the chief men of the town, who said their forefa- thers landed on the east side of the Mississippi, and on the Spaniards possessing Mexico, they fled to that part of the coun- try. In corroboration, they produced rolls of parchment, carefully tied up in otter-skins, on which were large charac- ters, written with blue ink, which to the Welshman, who was ignorant of letters, was unintelligible. They were a bold, hardy, intrepid, warlike people, and their women were beau- tiful, when compared with other Indians.
A similar account was rendered in London, 1792, by two Cherokee chiefs, then there. One of them said the Welsh Indians were the Padou- cas. Their books, religiously preserved in skins, were considered by them as mysteries, containing an account of whence they came. (Sec Wil- liams's Further Observations. ) Others who have been among the Welsh Indians, relate, that they say Wales was the place of their ancestry, but they knew not where Wales was. Visitors also have supposed that among their manuscripts or books, was a Welsh Bible, of great antiquity. (Sce the relations as published by Mr. Beatty, and Williams's Further Obser- vations. )
* Beatty's Missionary Tour from New-York westward, 1786.
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Origin of the Aborigines and ancient Ruins. [PART I.
The earliest account which we have, appears to be that of the Rev. Morgan Jones, who, having as chaplain accompanied Major General Bennet on an expedition to Port Royal, South Carolina, in 1660, was afterwards taken prisoner with his companions, by the Tuscarora Indians ; and being condemn- ed to die. he made an exclamation upon his wretched fate in his native Welsh language. This was instantly understood by a sachem of the Doeg tribe, who interceded and saved them .* Mr. Jones proceeded to their town near Cape Atros, (Hatte- ras,) conversed familiarly, and preached for months in the same language. When his narrative, dated March 10, 1635-6, was transmitted through Dr Lloyd of Pennsylvania, to his friend in Great Britain for publication, ; Mr. Jones was a resident of New-York.
To the account of Governor Sevier, Mr. Stoddard super- adds two relations : one in confirmation of Griffith's statement · of his discovery of the Welsh tribes ; } and the other, that about a lake, near the head of the Missouri, was a nation not the least tawny, but rather of a yellowish complexion, who wore
* In 1675, the Dogs were a small tribe, who lived on the Maryland side of the Potomac. (Vol. I. H. Williamson's North Carolina, p. 222.) Were they of the Tuscarora nation, who afterwards fled from Carolina and became incorporated as the sixth of our confederated Indian nations? Sce Stoddard, p. 482. Mr. Williams considers the Tuscaroras and the Dela- wares the same as the Doegs. Query? (Sce Williams's Inquiry and Fur- ther Observations.) Are the Dog-rib Indians, recently described by Mr. Herriot (in Travels, Loud. 1807, p. 300) as possessing striking peculiari- ties, the original Doegs ?
t See Owen's British Remains. See Gentlemen's Magazine, vol. X. for 1740, cited by Williams.
[ Griffith was a Welshman, taken prisoner by the Shawnees. Ile ac- companied a party of them to the source of the Missouri, and among the Shining Mountains arrived at a village of white Indians, whose language was Welsh. His account was published originally by Judge Toulman (Henry Toulman, one of the Judges of the Mississippi) in 1804; re-pub- lished by Dr. Barton, (vol. I. of his Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal, p. 79, 83. A. D. 1805,) who seems to admit grounds for believing the existence of the Welsh tribes, but doubts the legitimacy of the conclu. sim, that is the authenticity of Mader's voyage to this continent.
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their beards, great numbers of whom had red hair. Vancou- ver found a people in the vicinity of the Columbia, whose lan- guage differed from that of their neighbours, and whose fea- tures resembled the northern Europeans. Lewis and Clark, though they pursued a different branch of the Missouri than the one which is supposed to lead to the Welsh Indians, disco- vered some straggling Indians near the mouth of the Columbia, similar to those mentioned by Vancouver. (25)
At what precise spot they are located, if indeed they have any tribal existence, as is doubted by some,* would be diffi- cult to say, as the various accounts of their alleged existence appear somewhat irreconcilable. Writers have located them in different places, from the Red river to the shining moun- tains. Charlevoix, it is said, found a white people round a Jake near the head waters of the Missouri. In the map at- tached to Du Pratz's Louisiana, i are placed the " White Panis," at the head of a branch of the Arkansas; " Panis Mahas, or White Panis," at the head of the south branch of the Missouri; and between those is marked the country of the Padoucas.į
The Padoucas, the Panis, and the Cansez were formerly intermixed.§ Sir John Caldwell, one of the numerous per- sons who are said to have confirmed, from various sources, the existence of the Welsh Indians, § says they are the Panis, or, as the English pronounce it, the Pawnees, (26) that their country lay about the head of the river Osages, the southern branch of the Mississippi, and extended far westward to a chain of mountains, from the top of one of which the Pacific
* See Brackenridge, in his Views of Louisiana, in chapter on antiqui- ties.
t See also Cox's Description of Louisiana, vol. II. p. 252. Bossu's Account of Louisiana, vol. II. p. 182. Carver's Travels, p. 118, 119, 386. Hennepin says, in his Travels, he came to a tribe of white Indians, But he is not generally entitled to credit.
Į So also sce Charlevoix's Map in his New France,
: Sce William's observations. Charlevoix Vo! 2.
" William's further observations.
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Origin of the Aborigines and ancient Ruins. [PART I.
Ocean' could plainly be seen. The Panis were whiter and more civilized than any other Indian tribes. We learn from the documents accompanying President Jefferson's message to Congress in 1806 ;* that the Pania Pique (in Arkansas) were formerly known by the name of the White Panias, and are of the same family with the Panias of the River Platte. According to that communication, the Padoucas, a once powerful nation, has apparently disappeared. Inquiry for them had proved of little avail. In 1724 they resided in villages at the head of the Kansas (or Cansez) River, and could at that time bring more than two thousand men into the field.f Oppressed by the Missourians, they removed to the upper part of River Platte, where they had bat little inter- course with the whites. The northern branch of that river is still called the Paducas fort. It is conjectured that being still more. oppressed, they divided into small wandering bands, which assumed the names of the sub-divisions of the Paducas nation ; and are known to us at present under the appellation of Wetepahatoes, Kiawas, Kanenavish, Katteka, Dotame, &c. who still inhabit the country to which the Pa- doucas are said to have removed.
This was the people whom one of the Cherokee Chief's said, in London 1792, were Welsh. Are they the wretched remnant of Welsh, whom the venerable Oconostoto informed Governor Sevier were forced from the eastern to the western re- gions of the Mississippi; who were afterwards driven to the upper part of the River Platte, dispersed into separate tribes, and like the Jews, incorporated and yet distinct among others ? Were some of those wanderers seen by Vancouver near the mouth of Columbia River, and afterwards by Lewis and Clarke ?
Doctor Morse, in the reportt of his tour among the western Indians, performed in behalf of the government in 1820, men-
* Communicating discoveries made by Lewis and Clark, Sibley and Dunbar. See Reports of the latter persons.
i See Du Pratz's Louisana p. 74, and map.
1 Printed New-Haven 1322. p. 115. 252.
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tions, upon the information of 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 suggests the information as a hint to any person who may have an opportunity of ascer- taining whether there is any affinity between the Mandan and Welsh languages. The Mandans reside on the Missouri, a few miles east of Mandan Fort. Their population is stated to be 1250.
We now superadd the following account which we receiv- ed from General Morgan Lewis. His father, Francis Lewis, (one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence) while on a military expedition, in the French war, was captured, and at Oswego assigned over with more than thirty others by Montcalm, the acting French Commander, to certain Indians, as their share of the 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 lan- guage 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, accompanied and guarded him person- ally to Montreal, and insisted with the French Commander upon his liberation, on the ground that he was his captive, to be disposed of as he pleased. Mr. Lewis however, was sent to England in a cartel for the exchange of prisoners ; and after his return, frequently mentioned the cause of his escape from the fate of the other prisoners. (who were put to death) and during his life he often repeated the anecdote.
Thus for more than a century and a half the existence of Welsh tribes within the interior of our country (to the supe- rior skill of whose ancestors, some have attributed the erec.
* Ib. see Lewis and Clark's visit to the Mandan villages. p. 26. ante.
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Origin of the Aborigines and ancient Ruins. [PART I.
tion of our ancient fortifications, temples, and works of art has been asserted by various persons at different times and places, under circumstances so seemingly preclading the idea of preconcert, interest, or prejudice, as to render the assertion that Indians have been discovered on this Continent, whose language was understood by Welshmen, better supported than are many historical facts to which the world has yielded implicit credence. Many of the sources of information, as given by writers upon this subject,* remain unnoticed.
Dr. Williams in his researches, concluded that the Dela- wares and Tuscaroras,f as well as certain tribes west of the Mississippi, were descendants of the Welsh. But the lan- guage and traditions of the former, so far as they are under- stood, prove that he was mistaken. If he had heard of the Alligewi, he might with some plausibility have conjectured that the Welsh were that extraordinary people, whom the ancestors of the Delawares and Iroquois expelled from the northern country, according to the tradition heretofore given.
The Padoucas and Panis, who were once numerous and formidable, were of whitish complexion ; but if their language was Welsh, the fact might probably have been placed beyond controversy many years ago.
In conclusion, is it improbable that soon after the Spanish discovery of South America, or in the early visits of the Eu- ropeans, (asearly as the commencement of the sixteenth century into Florida) some straggling Welshmen might have visited Flo- rida or Alabama, and (like many resident traders since) inter- married with the natives ? From a solitary instance, a nume- rous Welsh offspring would be reared in the succession of ge- nerations, during three hundred years. The Welshmen who ac- companied Captain Stewart sixty years ago, chose to stay with
* See Inquiry into the truth of a tradition concerning the discovery of Ainerica, by Prince Madog. ab. owen Guynedd, about anno 1170. By John Williams, LL.D. Lond. 1791. Further observations, &c. by do. Lond. 1792. Beattey's Jour. Lond. 1768. Stoddard's Louisiana, London Gentlemen's Magazine for 1740, 1791.
+ See note ante. p. 48.
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the Indians. He may have contributed to preserve the lan- guage among them in modern purity, and thus rendered it intelligible to modern visiters. In some of their accounts, it is stated that the Welsh Indians knew their forefathers were Welsh. One statement relates that their ancestors were from Wales, but they did not know where Wales was. Suppose they were thus ignorant, even this circumstance might not be conclusive in favour of a very ancient settlement. It will be recollected that the Buccaneers of St. Domingo had in thirty years forgotten all traces of christianity. If, however, we are to sustain a more ancient derivation : if, for instance, we would trace the ancestors of these Welsh Indians to the twelfth century ; we must presume that the Welsh language, as spoken within the last century, has remained much like that which was used in Wales five centuries before ; and that the difference between a savage and civilized condition, has not within that period contributed to render the dialect in its cha- racter and pronunciation so discordant, as to prevent its being mutually understood by modern Welsh and Welsh Indians. To sustain this presumption, we must further presume that the Welsh tongue has strangely escaped a mutability which has attended the English," and every other living European language within a few hundred years.
1
But from the assumed establishment of the fact of the ex- istence of Welsh Indians, a strong probability has been de- duced in favour of Madoc's voyage to this continent, and his colonial settlement in the twelfth century. Whether true or fictitious, Prince Madoc's adventures have been the theme of modern (27) as well as ancient song, and the historian, tra- veller, and antiquary, (28) as well as the bard, have concur- red in supporting as authentic, what others (29) have consi-
See Johnson's Histroy of the English language. Also an English Almanac for the year 1386, in the New-York Historical Library.
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Origin of the Aborigines und ancient Ruins [PART I.
dered a fable. We shall not enter into the controversy, but dismiss it with a few observations.
The basis of all the statements (30) which have appeared, seems to depend upon the authenticity of ancient records or collections made from time to time, and kept in the abbeys of Conway in Carnarvonshire, North Wales, and Strat Flur (or Strata Florida) South Wales. The best copy of these regis- ters was taken, it has been said, by Gutton Owen, a bard in the reign of Edward IV. 1480, and is alluded to by other Welsh bards in their odes. They were the historians of their times. Their odes were written prior to any notion of a wes- tern world. Madoc's voyages were little known except by the native Welsh, who were ignorant whither he went. But their tradition having existed for ages before the reign of Eli- zabeth, could not have been a fiction invented to support the English against the Spanish claims of prior discovery. (31) It is asserted by respectable authority (32) that there are authentic records in the British tongue as to Madoc's expedi- tion, wherever he did co, prior to the discovery of Columbus. Admitting that he left Wales, the supposition that he went to America is at best but posthumous and conjectural. (33) What part of America he came to, must also be purely matter of speculation. Accordingly, many analogies between Welsh and local languages, particularly in names, have been fancied. The address of Montezuma, the mighty emperor of Mexico, to his subjects, (1520) that " our forefathers came from a farre countrey, and their king and captaine who brought them hither returned again to his naturall countrey, saying that he would send such as should rule and govern us, if by chance be himself returned not," &c .; (34) the vestiges of Christianity ; the honour paid to the cross in Acuzamil, according to Fran- cis Lopez de Gomera ; have all formed intended coincidences to a determinate conclusion in behalf of this adventurer. One writer (35) concludes that Madoc fell in with Virginia or New-England, and there settled. Another, that he landed near where Columbus discovered the country, or on . some
F
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Prince Madoc-Indian Freemasonry.
part of Florida. (36) The Virginians and Guahutemallians,* from ancient times are said by a third, (37) to have worship- ped one Madoc as a hero. The monuments in the country are said to prove that Madoc had been in those parts. Peter Martyr, who appears to have been in the Spanish Court when Columbus returned, is supposed to have afforded decisive evi- dence that when Columbus landed on the coast, some nations in America honoured the memory of one Madoc, under the names of Matec Zangam and Mat Jugam, that is, Madoc the Cambrian. (38) We have seen that Madoc's colony must have landed, according to the tradition of Oconostoto, at the mouths of the Alabama. Dr. Williams (39) had, previously to the ac- count of that tradition, concluded, from a review of all the evidences before him and a comparison of circumstances, that Madoc landed on some part of New-England or Virginia, and in process of time his colony extended itself southward to Mexico, and their descendants spread over a great part of America ; that those foreign ancestors of the Mexican chiefs, of whom the Spanish writers often speak in their accounts of Cortez's adventures, were ancient Britons. (40)
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