In 1621, the English geographer John Smith, in his book A General History of Virginia New England and the Islands of Eternal Summer, first mentioned the "Welsh Indians." It became, as it were, an overture to a great ethno-historical search. With the arrival of immigrants from Ireland, Scotland and Wales in the 17th century in the New World, evidence of meetings with these people increased.
The cartographic collection in Seville, Spain, contains a 1519 map made by a certain Diego Ribeiro. The modern city of Mobile Bay in Alabama, he designated as Terra de los Gales - "Land of the Gauls" (the Celts in Europe were known as Gauls).
And here is a quote from a letter from Tennessee Governor John Seaver to the historian Amos Stoddard (1810): “In 1782 I participated in the campaign against the Cherokee and found traces of ancient fortifications on their territory. Chief Okanosta told me that here, on the banks of the Hiawassee and Tennessee rivers, once lived an unusual tribe of white Indians who called themselves the Welshes. In ancient times, they crossed the Big Water and stayed to live at the mouth of the Alabama River. Then there was a three-year war between them and the Cherokee, and the whites left for the Big (Mississippi) and Dirty (Missouri) rivers. Since then, nothing is known about them."
In 1740 in the American magazine "Gentleman Magazine" there was a message from a certain Morgan Jones, referring to 1686: "When I first saw them, I was convinced of their relationship with some European race, and their language indicated such a similarity … In 1660, my comrades and I were captured by the Tuscarora Indian tribe, ready to tear us to pieces when I spoke aloud to them in Welsh. However, later they cooled down and already calmly talked to me in this language, albeit somewhat spoiled."
In 1721, Father Charlevoix was studying tribes living in the Missouri Valley. There, he more than once heard stories of residents about people who have fair skin and white hair, especially women. However, Charlevoix could not find this tribe. A few years later, the researcher de la Verandri raised funds to search for mysterious people. After wandering for three years, he remained to live among the Mandan Indians. Subsequently, he said that their dwellings are located in neat villages with streets and squares, these are log cabins, on which earth is poured on top. These, in the expression of the French, fair-haired Indians told him that they used to live in the far south, but were forced to retreat to the north, pressed by enemies.
In the English archives and in the British Museum, several letters from the 18th-19th centuries have survived, the authors of which, perhaps, cannot be denied impartiality. Here are lines from a letter from John Crockan, an English official, dated 1753: “Last year I learned,” Crockan wrote to an unknown addressee, “that you are collecting any information about local tribes and, in particular, about the so-called“Welsh Indians”. Here is some data. The French settlers who lived on the western shores of Lake Erie often saw people like Indians, but not like them. There are about three hundred of them."
In 1805, Major Amos Stoddart, author of Essays on Louisiana, spoke of a tribe whose people had fair skin, beards, and red hair. A certain Roberts claimed to have met an Indian chief in Washington in 1801, who spoke Welsh as fluently as if he himself were from Wales. He explained to Roberts that it was the language of his people, who lived 800 miles northwest of Philadelphia. The chief did not hear anything about Wales, the homeland of the Welsh, but said that they have a tradition according to which the ancestors of his tribe came from a distant country in the east, which lies beyond the Great Water. Then Roberts asked the chief how they managed to preserve their language, and he replied that the tribe had a law forbidding children to learn any language other than their own. This message appeared in the Chambers Journal in 1802. American officer Davis recallsthat when he was delivering mail around Illinois, some of the employees spoke Welsh to the local Indians. Warden talks in the pages of the "Philosophical, Medical and Physical Journal" in 1805 about a Welsh named Griffith, who was captured by the "white Indians" of Shawnee. Trying to explain the peaceful purposes of his journey, he addressed them in his native language, and the tribe did not touch him. Unfortunately, Griffith could not figure out the history of the tribe, except for one legend, according to which the homeland of these Indians is a country overseas.he spoke to them in his own language, and the tribe did not touch him. Unfortunately, Griffith could not figure out the history of the tribe, except for one legend, according to which the homeland of these Indians is a country overseas.he spoke to them in his own language, and the tribe did not touch him. Unfortunately, Griffith could not figure out the history of the tribe, except for one legend, according to which the homeland of these Indians is a country overseas.
The Scottish Lord Monboddo, who lived in the 17th century, noted that rumors reached him that Celtic languages were spoken even in Florida: he knew one person - a Scotsman who lived among the wild tribes in Florida and spoke to them in his native language, and the Indians understood him. “It is noteworthy,” wrote Monboddo, “that their war songs contain not only individual words, but whole stanzas from the majestic verses of our ancestors about the wars of past centuries…”.
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And finally, a letter preserved in the Newberry Library (Chicago). When A. Stoddart, already known to us, was preparing material for his "Sketches …", in 1816 he wrote a letter to the Governor of Tennessee Sevier with a request to send some new data: “Judging by what Governor Claiborne told me, you once saw what is an ancient book in the hands of a Cherokee woman. This book was handed over from somewhere on the western shores of the Mississippi, and then burned. I am now just collecting material about the ancient Welsh colony on this continent, founded here, according to some sources, in 1170. Write me…".
In October of the same year, Sevier sent a reply: “In 1782 I participated in a campaign against several Cherokee tribes and even then I discovered traces of old fortifications of irregular shape. I managed to ask an old leader about them. He said that from their ancestors they got a legend, as if these structures were built by white people who inhabited the land now called Carolina. For several years there was a war between the two peoples. Then they offered to exchange prisoners, after which they promised to leave our country and not return again. Then they built big boats and sailed down the river. They went along the Big River (Mississippi), then along the Dirty (Missouri). Now their descendants live here, but these are no longer white Indians, but ordinary ones, like the rest. The chief also told me that an Indian woman named Peg had an ancient book,received from Indians from the upper Missouri, and believed that it was a Welsh book, Unfortunately, before I could get it, it was burned in the house of the Indian.
The traces of pale-faced Indians in Tennessee are evidenced at the beginning of the 20th century by the historian and judge John Heywood. On the site of former settlements in different places and states, they find a lot in common: defensive structures typical of Celtic forts, metal tomahawks, helmets, swords, pottery with a harp, Roman coins. It is known that Roman money was in circulation in Wales in the XII century. Until the early 19th century, American pioneers encountered tribes that were outwardly unlike traditional Indians. Moreover, some spoke the Old Celtic language.
The existence of white Indians is also evidenced by the well-known history of the Delaware Walam Olum, the Indian analogue of the Karelian epic "Kalevala", recorded in the 19th century by the professor of Transylvanian University (Lexington, Kentucky) Constantin Rafinescu. The same conclusions can be drawn from the official archaeological observations of the future ninth President of the United States, William Harrison, and the travel notes of the famous explorers of America Lewis and Clark. The hero of the Revolutionary War, General Roger Clark, founder of the Historical Society of Kentucky John Filson, is seriously interested in white Indians.
But a special and, perhaps, the most significant contribution to the collection of knowledge about white Indians was made by the English artist of the first half of the 19th century, George Kathleen, who lived for a long time among the Mandans.
A lawyer by training, Kathleen left his profession for painting, the main objects of his drawings and paintings were Indians. The artist visited 48 American tribes. Over 500 of his paintings are the most valuable ethnographic document. Leaders, warriors, women, children pose for him, he draws Indian villages, collects jewelry and household items, studies languages and customs. Among some tribes, the artist has lived for several years, in particular among the Mandans, near St. Louis.
“I think,” Kathleen wrote at the end of his book about the Indians, “that the Mandans have so many features in everyday life and in physical appearance that they can be considered as the remnants of a lost Welsh colony, merged with the tribe.”
For the first time, the French explorer Pierre Gaultier met this tribe, then the travelers Lewis and Clark. The observations of Gauthier, Lewis, Clark and Kathleen were remarkably similar. The Mandanas were unlike any Indian tribe. They could not be completely reckoned with the white race, most were dark-skinned, but dark-skinned not in Indian style, but as strongly tanned whites. Atypical for the Indians, tall stature and facial features, many have gray eyes and light, sometimes even red hair, of a European cut. Indians, strikingly similar to Vikings, and women with blue or gray eyes look from Kathleen's portraits.
Kathleen went down the Mississippi to an abandoned Indian village and traced the gradual movement of its inhabitants from Ohio to the upper Missouri. He also first discovered the amazing similarity of boats among the Mandans and the Welsh: both are made of rawhide, stretched over a frame of willow rods.
From the book: "Forbidden History or Columbus did not discover America." Zhukov Andrey, Nepomniachtchi Nikolay
