Welsh settlement in the Americas
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Welsh settlement in the Americas was the result of several individual initiatives to found distinctively Welsh settlements in the New World. It can be seen as part of the more general British colonization of the Americas.
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[edit] The Madoc legend
A story popularized in the 16th century claimed that the first European to see America was the Welsh prince Madoc in 1170. A son of Owain Gwynedd, prince of Gwynedd, he had supposedly fled his country during a succession crisis with a troop of colonists and sailed west. He eventually landed near the Mississippi River and founded a colony, which later mingled with the Indians. In the late 16th century the legend was used by writers such as John Dee to support English claims to North America. The legend was revived in the 18th century with tales of Welsh speaking Indians, but most modern scholars consider it to have no basis in fact.
[edit] North America
There was extensive Welsh emigration to the United States and Canada, but only a few attempts to set up separate Welsh colonies. Sir William Vaughan sent Welsh colonists to Renews, Newfoundland in 1617 to establish a permanent colony, which eventually failed. Vaughan made further attempts to establish a colony at Trepassey which he called Cambriol, but this also eventually failed.
Many Quakers from Wales emigrated to Pennsylvania in the 17th century with a promise from William Penn that they would be allowed to set up a Welsh colony there. The Welsh Tract was to have been a separate county whose local government would use the Welsh language, since many of the settlers spoke no English. The promise however was not kept and by the 1690s the land had already been partitioned into different counties, and the Tract never gained self-government.
In the late 18th century, a Welsh colony named Cambria was established by Morgan John Rhys in what is now Cambria County, Pennsylvania. Later, between 1856 and 1867, there was an attempt by Samuel Roberts to establish a Welsh colony at Brynffynnon, Tennessee. Meanwhile, Michael D. Jones developed plans to establish colonies in Wisconsin, Oregon, and in British Columbia, but these were not realized.
[edit] South America
In 1852 Thomas Benbow Phillips of Tregaron established a settlement of about 100 Welsh people in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. Many of these colonists later moved to the more successful colony in Patagonia as part of the Welsh settlement in Argentina.
The best known of the Welsh colonies, the colony in the Chubut Valley of Patagonia known as Y Wladfa Gymreig ("The Welsh Colony"), was established in 1865 when 153 settlers landed at what is now Puerto Madryn. Shortly before this, the colonists had reached an agreement with Argentina's minister of the interior, Guillermo Rawson, that the colony would be recognized as one of the states of Argentina when its population reached 20,000. However this pledge was not ratified by the Argentinian Congress, out of fear that the British government would use the presence of the settlers as an excuse to seize Patagonia.
[edit] References
- John Davies. A History of Wales. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-014581-8
[edit] See also
fr:Colonisation galloise des Amériques
