some eighty years after this no one seems to have fallen in with the Welsh Indians. About 1730, however, a Welsh trader named Binon, having penetrated to the country west of the Mississippi, then remote and unknown, found Indians speaking Welsh of great purity. They received him kindly.[1] A man, Griffiths, in 1764 professes to have made his way with the Shawnees to Welsh-speaking Indians.[2] Beatty, in 1768, repeats a tale of Welsh Indians with a Welsh Bible in Pennsylvania;[3] though this is perhaps truly another reminiscence of Morgan Jones. "General Bowles," a Cherokee chief, who visited London in 1792, asserted that there were Welsh Indians, who were the same as the Paducahs. The name meant "white face," and was given them because of their light complexions.[3] They had sandy, red, or black hair, and were very warlike.[4] Finally, a Lieutenant Roberts tells us that whilst in a Washington hotel in 1801, he made some remarks in Welsh, when there were some Indian chiefs within hearing. One of these came up to him and continued the conversation. The chief had heard of Lloegr [England] but not of Wales: he talked much of the "Saxons." His Welsh was very free and fluent. and he explained that by a tribal law, no other dialect could be taught the children till they were twelve years old. This kept the language pure.
The existence of Welsh Indians north of Mexico was so strongly believed that several Welshmen went out to visit them or preach to them. A John Evans in 1792 started from Wales, and after five years of wandering and exploration, reported that there were no Welsh Indians in existence. The Welsh-speaking Paducahs had proved a fraud. It was, however, alleged now that these Welsh Indians were falling back steadily towards the west, and that this was the reason why they had not been discovered. Between 1803 and 1805 the Mississippi basin and Pacific slope were searched with unsuccess; another expedition in 1821 was not more profitable. With the advance of settlement and exploration it has become
- ↑ Madoc, 60
- ↑ Winsor, 'History of America,' i. 140. Grifiiths, as usual, was taken prisoner, and condemned to death.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Op. cit.
- ↑ Bowen, 88. The chief added that a Welshman who had been with him found that he could talk well with the Paducahs. Bowles is said to have been an Irishman. Paducahs, explains Mr. Bowen, would be very like Madoc if only the "P" were changed to "M." Others, bolder, have asserted that in Paducah, .Madogwy, descendant of Madoc, can be traced. Others, again, found the required name in Doeg
