The Mandans

Chief Tobacco

Several European and American explorers told stories of Welsh speaking Indians, and General George Rogers Clark was told by Chief Tobacco of the Shawnee Indians, that long ago many white men had been killed in a great battle at the Falls. Chief Tobacco and several other of the great Indians chiefs informed General Clark that some of these "white people" who had escaped from the carnage fled to Missouri where they became the Mandan Indians.

George Catlin and the Mandans

Details and observations of the Mandan Indians, made by George Catlin, is also presented in the book, Prince Madoc, Founder of Clark County, Indiana. Catlin was considered to be the greatest Indian painter of the early American period.

George Catlin's experiences among the Mandans were unique in many respects, because he observed their extraordinary culture and made pictures of practically every phase of their lifestyle. This included their religious torture rituals and their procedures of ceremony which were never witnessed in their entirety by any other white man. Catlin lived among the Mandans for several years and he came to the conclusion that the Mandans were the descendants of Prince Madoc. He based his conclusions on a score of various factors, but the principle reasons included these characteristics: coracle

The Mandans spoke Welsh,
They used a boat which was known as the Welsh Coracle
Many of the Mandans had blond hair and blue eyes

Dana Olson's account of the Madoc Tradition covers the entire spectrum of the legend from its beginning in Wales to its final chapter, when the Mandan Indians were wiped out by a small pox epidemic in 1837.

The story of Prince Madoc is America's oldest legend. Dana Olson's book has been designed to relate the entire untold story to a new generation. It has been composed from accounts of irrefutable evidence pertaining to the existence of a prehistoric race of white people who lived in permanent settlements in America long before the days of Christopher Columbus. They are believed to have been survivors of a colony that was established by Prince Madoc of Wales in the 12th century.

The Daughters of the American Revolution erected an historical monument at Mobile Bay, Alabama in 1953 which supports the tradition:

In memory of Prince Madoc, a Welsh explorer, who landed on the shores of Mobile Bay in 1170 and left behind, with the Indians, the Welsh language.

Authority is - Encyclopedia Americana copyright 1918 - Webster's Encyclopedia - Richard Hakluyt, 1552 to 1616, A Welsh Historian and Geographer - Ridpath's History of the World - ancient Roman coins found in forts in Tennessee. These Forts resemble the forts of Wales of the 9th and 10th centuries, and of the white Indians of the Tennessee and Missouri rivers.

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