Morgan John Rhys 1760 -1804
 

 
 











 


Letter in “Cambria” magazine
(Volume 7, Number 2 March – April 2005)


AMERICA’S WELSH LEGACY

EDITOR

I would like to protest loud and long about the State of Alabama’s failure to do exhaustive research into the obvious Welsh connections in our state. Welsh history/folklore speaks of a Prince Madog’s journey and landing on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. By all geographical descriptions given by him this happened in the Mobile Bay area of Alabama in the 1100’s. On Madog’s second sailing to Alabama with 700 or 800 fellow Welshmen it is believed they ventured up the Alabama and Cocosa rivers where they established a stone-style Welsh fort in the Desoto State Park area of Dekalb country and another one near Dalton, Georgia. There are reports by explorers who followed centuries later of the Cherokee Indians using some of the Welsh language and culture as a part of their own. The last known contact with the remnant of Madog’s expedition from Mobile Alabama was among the Mandan Indians in the Dakotas. It seems to me that most historical researchers do not want to upset the established historical applecart of this country’s history by investigating things that do not fit into their scheme of things. However, the physical evidence of their existence on Alabama soil remains in their style of fort building and goes insufficiently explained. I suppose it would be an embarrassment for the rest of the nation to have to admit that America was actually discovered in the State of Alabama. Thus it will remain buried and unrecorded in modern history.

Billy E. Price
Ashville
Alabama