WELSH INDIANS. 27 



In the American Museum for May, 1792, and also in the Massachusetts Magazine 

 for August, 1792, is an article that purports to be "an extract from the MS. of a 

 late traveller," which is of interest as showing how far west and north the antiqui- 

 ties of the interior had already been observed. The writer refers to the " ruins," 

 in the Illinois and Wabash countries, and adds, that there are others no less remark- 

 able many hundred miles further west, and particularly about the great falls of the 

 Mississippi. He speaks of pyramids from thirty to seventy or eighty feet high, 

 some of which were examined, and a stratum of white substance like lime generally 

 found in them ; and of circular fortifications inclosed with deep ditches and fenced 

 with a breastwork. 



The attention of literary and scientific men in the eastern States was now fairly 

 roused, by the well authenticated descriptions of remarkable antiquities which had 

 been transmitted from the West. The presidents of the colleges at New Haven 

 and Cambridge, and the members of learned societies in Boston and Philadelphia, 

 were called upon to express an opinion respecting their purpose and origin. 



The celebrated discourse delivered by President Stiles, before the general As- 

 sembly of Connecticut, in 1783, upon the past, the present, and the future of the 

 United States, gave him distinguished prominence as a curious student of American 

 history, as well archaeological as civil and political. In that discourse he assumed 

 as " certain conclusions," 1st, that all the American Indians are one kind of people; 

 2d, that they are the same as the people of the northeast of Asia. With regard to 

 their origin, he considered them as " Canaanites of the expulsion of Joshua," some 



distance from New Orleans, whose inhabitants were of different complexions, not so tawny as the other 

 Indians, and who spoke Welsh, and that they had a book among them wrapped in skins, but could not 

 read it ; that he heard some of these afterwards in the lower Shawanaugh town speak Welsh with one 

 Lewis, a Welshman, a captive ; and that this Welsh tribe now live on the west side of the Mississippi, 

 a great way above New Orleans. Levi Hicks, another captive, told Beatty that he had been in a town 

 of Indians, on the west side of the Mississippi, who talked Welsh, as he was told, for he did not under- 

 stand them. The account given by Captain Isaac Stuart, said to be taken from his own mouth in 

 1782, and inserted in the Public Advertiser, Oct. 8, 1185, is in substance as follows : That eighteen 

 years before, he was taken prisoner about fifty miles west of Fort Pitt, and carried by the Indians to 

 the Wabash. After two years of bondage, he, and a fellow captive named John Davy (or David), were 

 redeemed by a Spaniard, and accompanying him they crossed the Mississippi, near Red river, up which 

 they travelled seven hundred miles, when they came to a nation of Indians remarkably white, and whose 

 hair was mostly of a reddish color. The day after their arrival, the Welshman (David) declared his 

 intention of remaining with that people, as he understood their language. Stuart's curiosity being 

 excited by that information, he questioned the chiefs with the aid of his companion, and learned from 

 them that their forefathers came from a foreign country and landed on the east side of the Mississippi, 

 the chiefs describing particularly the country of Florida ; and that, on the Spaniards taking possession 

 of Mexico, they fled to their theu abode. As a proof of their story they exhibited rolls of parchment 

 carefully tied up in otter's skins, on which were large characters written with blue ink, which the 

 Welshman, being ignorant of letters, was unable to read. 



If these statements are compared with Mr. Catlin's account of the Mandaus, they will be found to 

 correspond remarkably with his convictions respecting the physical differences between them and other 

 tribes, their probable descent from the followers of Madoc, and the course of their migrations. He 

 would doubtless have employed them to strengthen his argument had he been aware of their existence. 

 Autiquitates Americana?, p. XXXVII. Williams's "Inquiry," &c, Am. Museum for April and May 

 1792. Catlin's North American Indians, 6th Lond. Ed. I, 206, TI, Appendix A. 



