Launch of Research Programme

Here's the good news. Professor Bernard Knight, CBE, MD, DM, PhD, DSc, LLD, FRCPath, MRCP, DMJ, Barrister, Britain’s foremost Forensic Pathologist and Ken Lonewolf (Shawnee/Blackfoot/White Madoc) are heading up our Madoc Research Programme in the UK and USA respectively. The following article appeared in the Journal of Wales International. 'Yr Enfys' (The Rainbow). Unfortunately, in the transcription a paragraph was omitted which detracted from the articles continuity and credibility. However, here is the artcle in its entirity. The article also appears in Welsh in 'Y Casglwr', the house magazine of the Bob Owen Society (Cymdeithas Bob Owen).

MADOC – THE SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH

Most of you will be vaguely familiar with the story of the Welsh Prince Madoc, or Madog, sailing to America around the year 1170. He is supposed to have been an illegitimate son of Owain Gwynedd and the leading sailor in his father’s navy. Historians of repute tend to dismiss the story as an Elizabethan invention to lay a prior claim on the “New World” by saying that he discovered America over 300 years before Columbus. Claiming that any European “discovered” America is a real anathema to “Native Americans” who had lived there for thousands of years before the arrival of the “paleface”.

Historians usually claim that there is no evidence of Owain Gwynedd having a son called Madoc. Well I have come across four references. However, all extant copies are post-Columbian, but they are copies of earlier originals and I have embarked on a Master’s Degree in Celtic History at the University of Wales, Lampeter, to help me trace the provenance of these sources. My original degree was in science, and my career has been in engineering and business support, so this is a complete change of discipline for me.

So what evidence is there from “across the pond”? Numerous legends exist of tribes of “white, Welsh-speaking Indians”, but I don’t believe there was ever such a thing. What I do believe is that there were probably some tribes of Indians where there were family groups who had certain white characteristics and may have spoken a form of Welsh. The Mandans are usually the tribe associated with these tales of Welsh Indians. I met Keith Bear, a Mandan, a few years ago and he told me two things. The first was that before the two smallpox epidemics, which almost wiped out the Mandans completely, they had been a major Plains Tribe and had numbered around forty thousand people.

Madoc’s second expedition supposedly numbered between ten and thirteen ships and carried animals and provisions, so the boats would have held probably somewhere between forty and sixty people. Let us assume that four hundred “whites” survived to be assimilated into the Mandans, that is only one percent of the tribe. Even if we believe that were eight hundred survivors who joined the Mandans, it still only makes the white presence in the region of two percent.

The other thing Keith Bear told me is that different parts of Mandan history were kept by different families within the tribe. When the “white mans gift”, smallpox, came, whole swathes of the tribe were wiped out and much of their history was lost.

So what else do I know about these Welsh Indians? Through my website: www.madoc1170.com, I have come across someone called “Lonewolf”, whose mother’s maternal line goes back to a small tribal group within the Shawnee Nation called “The White Madoc” who lived in the village of White Plains, which was off of the Allegheny River near Pittsburgh. They were a fair skinned people who the Europeans called “half-breeds” when they came into contact with them. Their last chief was named Chief White Madoc, who sold White Plains to early European settlers, and this transaction is a matter of historic county court record from the 18th century.

I believe my female line is Welsh, and when we ran some DNA tests a few years back, Lonewolf and I have the same Mitochondrial (female) DNA. Now there’s a coincidence! What we can’t prove, is when Lonewolf acquired a “Welsh Mam-gu” (grandmother)?

Lonewolf’s family history also confirms the Cherokee legend of a big battle on the Falls on the Ohio against white men, which lasted for three days before a truce was called, when after an exchange of prisoners, the white men agreed to depart never to return. It is very probable that the main band of white men descended the Ohio and then up the Mississippi/Missouri and were assimilated into the Mandans. We believe that a small band went north and settled amongst the Shawnees; they may even have been hostages or captives. It is worth remembering that it is Lonewolf’s female line which has Welsh links.

So what can we do to try and find out the truth? I asked Professor Brian Sykes of Oxford University, who had linked some 9,000 year old DNA from a Cheddar cave man to a local school teacher, if we could verify links between modern Mandans and Welsh people, to which he replied “Of course, but you can’t tell when the links took place. You would need to match pre-Columbian DNA from America to Welsh DNA. So herein lies the challenge.

The Native Americans have fought long and hard to have their ancient burial sites protected from trophy hunters and grave robbers, and justifiably so. As they revere their ancestors as their Gods, then their beliefs should be respected. The US Government has established the “Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act” (NAGPRA) with severe penalties for any unauthorised site disturbance. The irony is that there are many bone samples from these sites already in museums, particularly around the Falls on the Ohio in and around Louisville, Kentucky. The other ironic thing is that they could be Welsh rather than Native American.

So the challenge is twofold:
1. To persuade the authorities to release samples for DNA testing and carbon dating.
2. To raise funds so that these tests can be done by independent organisations with impeccable credentials on either side of the Atlantic, such as Oxford University in the UK and Yale/Harvard in the USA (the latter two incidentally were both founded by Welshmen).

This first challenge is being co-ordinated by Lonewolf: Lonewlf99@aol.com and we have a golden opportunity as we have a good contact in Sundea Murphy who is President of the Falls of the Ohio Archaeological Society until the end of 2008.

The Madoc International Research Association (MIRA) President, Professor Bernard Knight, CBE, MD, BCh, FRCPath, FHKCPath, DM(Hon), DSc(Hon), PhD(Hon), LLD(Hon), DMJ, Barrister, Emeritus Professor of Forensic Pathology, who, until his retirement, was Britain's foremost Forensic Pathologist, is taking up the mantle of the champion of the DNA research, and he can be contacted on: knight.j4@sky.com

“Our vision is limited only by our imagination”. - Howard Kimberley

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I am planning to run a two week Madoc Study Tour in Wales for next year, see 'Welsh & Proud', if anyone is interested, please let me know.

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North Wales

At a meeting in North Wales, the Madoc International Research Association (MIRA), proposed a permanent monument at the sea front at Rhos-on-Sea commemerating Madoc's departure from there to the 'Fabled Land across the Great Ocean'. The 'idea' was enthusiastically accepted by local dignitaries and Madoc aficionados alike. The scheme is being co-ordinated on behalf of MIRA by Professor Bernard Knight and he can be contacted on: knight.j4@sky.com

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What happened to Richard Deacon's papers?

Richard Deacon was the 'pen name' of Donald McCormick, who used to refer to himself as "Dick the Spy", who wrote 'MADOC & the Discovery of America'. Deacon was born in North Wales and he took early retirement from his position as foreign Manager of the SUNDAY TIMES to concentrate on his writing. Apart from his book on Madoc, he wrote spy thrillers and a book on 'Jack the Ripper'. There is a website which discredits some of his work on 'Jack the Ripper' and I doubt the veracity of his references to the 'Black Book of the Admiralty', according to the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, it came into existence in the eighteenth century, and the 'Lundy Stone', we, Emlyn Williams and I, have been unable to find any corrorabative evidence to support the stories of the book or the stone.

Some years ago, in a now lost e-mail following a PC crash, I was offered Deacon's papers at a price I could not then afford. Does anyone know what became of them? I would love to have access to them. I would even consider purchasing them if they were for sale. I will post this on the 'Discussion Board'.

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