The Legend of Prince Madoc of Wales

History and legend have it that MADOC, a son of King Owain of Gwynedd, is claimed not only to have visited America in 1170, but also that he and his followers assimilated into a tribe on the upper Missouri. This tribe fueled tales of fair-haired Indians, living in round huts and using round coracle-like boats, both of which were common in Wales, but unheard of in America at  the time. They were also said to speak a language similar to Welsh.   Owain Gwynedd, ruler of North Wales in the  twelfth century, had twenty-four children, ten of whom were legitimate.   MADOC, one of the illegitment sons, was born in a castle at Dolwyddelan, a village  at the head of the Lledr valley between Betws-y-Coed and Blaenau Ffestiniog.

Upon the  death of Owain Gwynedd in December 1169, the brothers fought amongst themselves for the right to rule Gwynedd. MADOC, although being brave and  aventurous, was a man of peace. He and his brother, Riryd (Regyd), left the quay on the Afon (River) Ganol at Aber-Kerrik-Gwynan, on the North Wales Coast (now Rhos-on-Sea) in two ships, the Gorn Gwynant and the Pedr Sant.   They sailed west, leaving the coast of Ireland 'farre north' and landed  in Mobile Bay, in what we is now known as Alabama in the United States of America. They liked the country so much that one of the ships returned to Wales to collect  more adventurers.  In 1170AD, ten small ships assembled off Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel, which flows between South Wales and Southern England.   He and his ten ships were never heard from again.  It was many years later when the archealogical discovery of European style structures in the Southeast, built centuries before Columbus' journey, prompted a review of the Welsh histories of Madoc's voyage.  A series of pre-Columbian, dressed stone fortifications built up the Alabama River were discovered by later settlers.  Three major forts, completely unlike any known Indian structure, were constructed along the route that settlers arriving in Mobile Bay would have taken.

The first fort, erected on top of Lookout Mountain, near Desoto Falls, Alabama was found to be nearly identical in setting, layout and method of construction to Dolwyddelan Castle in Gwynedd, the presumed birth place of Madoc of Wales.  Recorded interviews and visits with Native American tribes in the 18th & 19th centuries added more evidence that some white settlers came to the region in the late 12th century.  A letter dated 1810 from Governor John Sevier of Tennessee refers to a time he spent with the Cherokee in 1782, and relates a conversation he had with Oconostota, who had been the ruling chief of the Cherokee nation for nearly sixty years.  Sevier had asked the chief about the people who had left the fortifications in his country.  Oconostota told Sevier that he "heard his grandfather and father say they were a people called Welsh, and that they had crossed the Great Water and landed first near the mouth of the Alabama River near Mobile".

Encounters with a Native American tribe called "Mandans", provide the most compelling evidence of Welsh association.  A French explorer, LaVerendreye, who visited the Mandan tribe in 1738 described the Mandan as "white men with forts, towns and permanent villages laid out in streets and squares."  There was also reference madeto the use of round skin boats which were uniquely like the coracle boats so distinctive in Wales.   It is told their vocabulary shared many common words with the Welsh language.  Unfortunately, like so many other Indian tribes, they did not survive the smallpox epidemic introduced to them by traders in 1837 and the entire tribe became extinct.

News story of dedication of Prince Madoc Plaque, Nov. 10, 1953

A plaque located at the ancient port of Aber-Cerrik at Rhos-on-Sea in North Wales where Prince Madog was to have departed, and one near Ft. Morgan, Alabama on Mobile Bay where he was to have landed.

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The background on this page is the Madoc Family Tartan