Prince Madoc

Posted by Arthur W. Ketchen on January 22, 2009 at 3:15am in Madoc

Getting back to you with this shot. I have been horrendously busy for several days. You who subscribe to the publication will no doubt shortly see the fruits of same, which had to do with several fronts. Let me comment on the Welsh legacy of America, which Madoc is part of.

The Welsh in America have always been there, whether obviously or implicitly. They have hid in broad daylight. Much of the story of Wales in America is fraught with irony. So with Madoc. The story was seized upon by the Tudors to justify their claims in the New World. It was also(like the story that Native Americans being one of the twelve lost tribes of Israel) used to explain what to European Christians(until the arrival of Darwin and scientific exploration of wider truths about the history of mankind and the world) was the inexplicable-a group of humans(who the US Supreme Court had to declare human) who did not fit in to the Biblical: Asia, Afica, Europe explanation of history. Which Celts(as in the Galatians, and of course the Gauls and British and Irish did).

This is not to say that there might not be a kernel of truth there. It is said that in a riverbend in Kentucky(as I had read some years back) remains were discovered in the ruins of a fort, which were said to be wearing armor with Welsh coats of arms. The Mandan nation(who were decimated by disease) were a Native nation which were said to have Welsh objects and to have some connection in descent.

In New Hampshire by the way, on the grounds of a powwow my wife and I once went to there is a recreated Mandan dwelling. There are many storys from Celtic lands of visits to a new world. St. Brendan, Prince Henry Sinclair, and of course there are the Viking(which also have some Celtic figures in them) chronicles-which have been borne out at places like L'Anse au Meadow.Another Celtic link, and possibly credible one, considering the technical possibility and the context, is that Breton fishermen,of course not wanting the Paris government to know about it, were off the coasts of Maritime Canada in the mid-late 1300s and perhaps even before.

The Welsh history in America continues. I might add this paraphrased from the song by Robin Williamson-Liberty: By The Office Our Thomas Swore. By The Sorrows Our Morgan Bore. By The Office Our Abraham Swore. By The Brunt of Battle General Thomas Bore. That Gave Us Liberty. The quest for liberty,the defense of liberty(noted by Giraldus Cambrensis),and the desire to travel to find liberty, are part of that continuing Welsh story in the New World. Possibly started so long ago by one prince of Gwynedd.

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Reply by Amanda Kotter on January 28, 2009 at 1:08pm

Thank you for this post. Very interesting! Just when I think I am up on Welsh history...

Amanda

Reply by BEE RICHARDS on February 8, 2009 at 3:31pm

You and me too Amanda Best Bee