Madoc
Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd (also spelled Madog) was, according to folklore, a Welsh prince who sailed to the Americas in 1170, over 300 years before Christopher Columbus's voyage in 1492.
No archaeological, linguistic, or other evidence of Madoc or his voyages has been found in the New or Old World but legends connect him with certain sites, such as Devil's Backbone on the Ohio River near Louisville, Kentucky.
The poet Llywarch ap Llywelyn of the 12th and 13th centuries did mention someone of this name as someone who fought in Conwy, North Wales, and in another poem reports one Madog to have been murdered.
[6] The earliest certain reference to a seafaring man named Madoc or Madog occurs in a cywydd by the Welsh poet Maredudd ap Rhys (fl.
The text provides no topographical details about North America but says Madoc, who is not related to Owain in the fragment, discovered an island paradise, where he intended "to launch a new kingdom of love and music".
[11] The Madoc legend reached its greatest prominence during the Elizabethan era, when Welsh and English writers used it to bolster British claims in the New World against those of Spain.
[14][C] John Dee used Llwyd's manuscript when he submitted the treatise "Title Royal" to Queen Elizabeth I in 1580, which stated: "The Lord Madoc, sonne to Owen Gwynned, Prince of Gwynedd, led a Colonie and inhabited in Terra Florida or thereabouts" in 1170.
[18][19] According to the 1584 Historie of Cambria by David Powel, Madoc was disheartened by this family fighting, and he and Rhirid set sail from Llandrillo (Rhos-on-Sea) in the cantref of Rhos to explore the western ocean.
[26] The Monacan tribe spoke to Wynne about the lore of the Moon-eyed people who were short bearded men with blue eyes and pale skin, they were sensitive to light and only emerged at night.
[30][31] The Reverend Morgan Jones told Thomas Lloyd, William Penn's deputy, he had been captured in 1669 in North Carolina by members of a tribe identified as the Doeg, who were said to be a part of the Tuscarora.
[37][38][39] In 1810, John Sevier, the first Governor of Tennessee, wrote to his friend Major Amos Stoddard about a conversation he had in 1782 with the Cherokee chief Oconostota concerning ancient fortifications along the Alabama River.
In the letter, Hinde claimed to have gathered testimony from sources that stated Welsh people under Owen Ap Zuinch had travelled to America in the twelfth century, over 300 years before Christopher Columbus.
Supporters of this claim have drawn links between Madoc and the Mandan mythological figure "Lone Man" who, according to one tale, protected some villagers from a flooding river with a wooden corral.
[44] Llewelyn Harris, a Welsh-American Mormon missionary who visited the Zuni in 1878, wrote they had many Welsh words in their language, and that they claimed their descent from the "Cambaraga"—white men who had arrived by sea 300 years before the Spanish.
[45] According to Fritze (1993), Madoc's landing place has been suggested to be "Mobile, Alabama; Florida; Newfoundland; Newport, Rhode Island; Yarmouth, Nova Scotia; Virginia; points in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean including the mouth of the Mississippi River; the Yucatan; the isthmus of Tehuantepec, Panama; the Caribbean coast of South America; various islands in the West Indies and the Bahamas along with Bermuda; and the mouth of the Amazon River".
[47][48] Details of the discoveries are as follows: Modern commemorations in honour of Madog ap Owain Gwynedd: Prince Madoc sailed from here Aber - Kerrick - Gwynan 1170 AD and landed at Mobile (Bay), Alabama with his ships Gorn Gwynant and Pedr Sant.Madoc's legend has been a notable subject for poets, however.
Southey's poem in turn inspired the twentieth-century poet Paul Muldoon to write Madoc: A Mystery, which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1992.
