I would love to believe the legends about the Mandan Indians, reputed to have descended from an ill-fated colony of Welshmen who arrived in ships in the 1100s. Their leader was a prince named Madoc. Are you going to burst my bubble? Or is there something to this? –Bill Morse, Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin
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Owain Gwynedd, who died in 1170, was a real Welsh prince, but his putative son Madoc goes unmentioned in contemporary annals. Later a seafarer named Madoc, not necessarily related and possibly mythical, showed up in medieval Welsh literature. One story has him colonizing an island paradise, location unspecified. But overtly fantastic elements–he also visits a magnetic island–mark this as medieval fiction.
Nonetheless, Dee-inspired travelers soon began reporting Welsh-speaking Indians everywhere. All told, 15 identifiable and at least 5 unidentified tribes, ranging from Peru to Canada, were equated with the Madogwys (Madoc’s people). The tribes generally lived in areas remote from white settlement, unknown except by reputation. Once they became familiar and their Welshness demonstrably absurd, the legend moved on.
The Madogwys, who according to legend alighted in the New World at Mobile, Alabama, of all places, are sometimes associated with hilltop stone “forts” (possibly ceremonial) in and around Tennessee. However, archaeological evidence shows Indians built them 1,000 years before Madoc’s time. Believers cite Roman coins found nearby. Twelfth-century Welshmen carrying second-century Roman change? Here’s a simpler explanation: Roman coins are cheap (a few bucks on eBay) and often collected–and lost–by careless modern children.
