Page 153 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961
P. 153
ANNUAL ADDRESS. 149
gation, to Mexico, and left their impress upon Mexican insti-
tutions. *
Prom this view of tho great outlines and principal facts of
Indian history, and their exact correspondence with what we
should philosophically expect from the relative position of the
American continent to the rest of the world, the course of the
winds and ocean currents, the Islands in the Pacific and the
absence of such resting places in the Atlantic, we may be
justified in drawing the following final conclusions:
..
in
*Major BTODDARD, his History of Louisinna, has a curious chapter on a
certain tribe of Indians which once inhabited Florida or the Carolinas, sup-
posed by some to have been of WELSII origin.
The evidences in favor of the existence of a Welsh tribe of Indians near the
Atlantic coast and of their subsequent migrations westward, is derived partly
from a scrap of Welsh history, and partly from the testimony of early travelers
among the Indinn tribes of the South-West.
The hittory is, that in 1170 a Welsh prince named MADOC, on nccouut of
civil discords in his own country, fitted out a small fleet nnd sought adventures
by sea-thst he discovered unkn~wn lands; returned, fitted out a larger fleet
and sailed with a colony of his country people for the newly discovered country,
and never returned. Whether this prince Madoc actually reached the New
World, or some other country, the early historians could have had no means of
judging, except from the nccount of Madoc who reported having sailed west-
ward, leaving Ireland far to the North.
The evidence of the actual existence of Indians who spoke the Welsh lan-
guage, is derived from various sources. It is said that one Morgan Jones, a
Welsh preacher, in 1660. fell in with the Tuscaroras, then in Virginia. and
found they spokc the Welsh language; that he preached to them three times a
week for four months and could confer with them on the most difficult subjects.
The testimony of several travelers of later periods is adduced, claiming that
they had been among Indians who spoke Welsh, and that they had saved their
lives by being nble to speak the same languagc.
All these stories lack, more or less, the inarlis of credibility. The story of
the voyages of Madoc is not only inconclusive as to the country to which he
migmted, hut in some respects inconbistent with itself. The account given by
Mr. Jones supposes that a colony of people, reduced to a savage stnte, would
retaitl their original language for five hundred years in such purity that an
individual from the parent country would understand them perfectly-% thing
quite incredible. The later stories of truvclers nre still more deficient in the
elements of credibility. They were received second or third handed, mostly
from incompetent persons, and the snvage Welshmen were always located far
away in the interior. Moreover. if a Welsh nation of Indians existed any-
where in the United States within the last hundrcd years and had preserved
their language in such pulaity as is representcd, for a period of six hundred
years, it is incredible that all traces of them should have disappeared upon a
more general and thorough acquaintance with the tribes of North America.
It is barely possible that such n migration from Wales to this continent took
plaee and that they contributed to the traces of Europeans found among the
Indians. The truces of Europeans were, however, all found in Mexico: and
there is tho great occ:%n eurrent, and the trade winds in the same direction,
sweeping across the Atlantic and around the Gulf of Mexico to the very shores
of the Isthmus, and European castaways falling into these currents would be
landed in the very regions where the only decisive traces of them have ever
been found.
