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.