America Discovered by the Welsh in 1170 A.D.

by Benjamin Franklin Bowen

"Kinsmen, Friends, Countrymen, and Subjects: You know I have been eighteen years your sovereign and your natural king, as my illustrious predecessors and fathers were before me, and all the descendants of my race since we came from a far distant northern nation, whose tongue and manners we yet have partly preserved. I have been to you a father, a guardian, and a loving prince, while you have been to me faithful subjects and obedient servants.

"Let it be held in your remembrance that you have a claim to a noble descent, because you are sprung from a race of freemen and heroes, who scorned to deprive the native Mexicans of their ancient liberties, but added to their national freedom principles which do honor to human nature. Our divines have instructed you of our natural descent from a people the most renowned upon earth for liberty and valor; because of all nations they were, as our first parents told us, the only unsubdued people upon the earth by that warlike nation [Romans] whose tyranny and ambition assumed the conquest of the world; but nevertheless our great forefathers checked their ambition, and fixed limits to their conquests, although but the inhabitants of a small island, and but few in number, compared to the ravagers of the earth, who attempted in vain to conquer our great, glorious, and free forefathers," etc.

In the above, Montezuma and his people looked upon themselves as the descendants of freemen and heroes who had not been subdued, who were the inhabitants of a small island in the north. The description very strikingly answers to the character, manners, and principles of the Welsh, and the place as the British Island. When Cortez came to their country, Montezuma was the eleventh emperor of Mexico in the Aztec line. Now, allowing an average reign to each emperor of twenty years, it will be found that Prince Madoc's arrival in this country will about coincide with the time of the establishment of this empire. This is also true with regard to the Peruvian empire. Atahualpa, who was treacherously and inhumanly put to death by the cruel and avaricious Pizarro, was the twelfth emperor of Peru in succession from Manco Capac. By the same method of calculation it will be seen that the dynasty of the Incas was established about the time of Madoc's arrival. In consequence of this, with many other proofs which cannot be introduced here, it has been maintained that he also was the founder of the Peruvian empire and civilization. John Williams, an author of no small repute, in his "Natural History of the Mineral Kingdom," vol. ii. p. 410, maintains that not only Mexico but Peru also was discovered by Madoc; that the few fair and white persons found there by the Spaniards were the descendants of Madoc's colony; and that Manco Capac and Mamma Ocello were Madoc and his wife. They are supposed to be the progenitors of the Peruvian Incas. As they were so different from the original natives in their complexions, they were thought to be the children of the sun; a sentiment which Manco might encourage for his own preservation. Mamma Ocello he thinks a corruption of Mamma Ichel, or Uchel, the Welsh for "high or stately mother." He gives it as his opinion that Madoc in his first voyage landed in the Gulf of Mexico, and that when he went back to his native country he promised those whom he left behind to return to them; but that in his second voyage he was driven by a storm from the north down as low as Brazil, and was shipwrecked near the mouth of the Amazon River; that he and his wife and the survivors sailed up that river; that after some time he arrived at Cuzco, the capital of the Peruvian empire; and that he never came to his first colony. He then assigns many reasons for his belief. It cannot be denied that some of those reasons are ingenious. The fact of Madoc or some of his followers having reached Peru is not denied; but they reached that country from the western, not the eastern, side of the continent. They went down the sea-coast west of Mexico to make explorations, or were carried against their choice by a storm to Peru, where they settled. Such a theory is in harmony with the foregoing pages, while it does not in any way conflict with the founding of that empire by Madoc.

Three South American nations ascribe their civilization and religion to three white men who appeared among them.

Abbé Molina, in his "History of Chili," vol. ii. book i. chap. i., says that "there is a tribe of Indians in Baroa, Chili, whose complexions are a clear white and red."

Baron Humboldt, in his "Political Essays," remarks that "in the forests of Guiana, especially near the sources of the river Oronoco, are several tribes of a whitish complexion."

Captain John Drummond, who resided in Mexico for many years in a military capacity, as an engineer, geographer, and naturalist, favored Dr. Williams, the author of the "Enquiry," with his opinion on the subject. He said that he "was fully persuaded and convinced that Madoc was one of the confederate chiefs who went upon an expedition westward from Britain about the year 1170; and that he has heard of colonies of Welsh people now existing, who, he thinks, are descendants of Madoc's people; that the emigrants were a mixture of Welsh, North Britons, and Irish, and that Madoc was naval commander."

This was not at all unlikely, since upon Madoc's return from his first voyage he made his discoveries as public as possible. The North Britons and Irish were on friendly terms with the Welsh, and all were hostile to the English. Jeuan Brecva, a Bard who flourished about the year 1480, says that Rhiryd, an illegitimate son of Owen Gwynedd, and who, according to Powell, was Lord of Clochran, in Ireland, "accompanied Madoc across the Atlantic (Morwerydd) to some lands they had found there, and there dwelt." There can be no doubt, therefore, that some Irish went with Madoc to America.

It is probable, too, that some Scots were in the expedition; for Captain Drummond said that at one time he was accompanied by his servant, who was a Highlander, on a journey through the country, when they came to a Mexican hut where they heard a woman singing to her child. His servant began to show signs of astonishment, and turned to the captain and told him that the woman was using words from the Erse,—the language of the Highlands in Scotland.