"When about fifteen days" journey from the second copper-mine, they came in sight of white mountains, which, though it was in the heat of summer, appeared to them to be covered with snow. The sight naturally excited considerable astonishment; but, on their approaching the mountains, they discovered that, instead of snow, they were covered with immense bodies of white sand.
"They had in the mean time pa.s.sed through about ten nations of Indians, from whom they received very friendly treatment. It was the practice of the party to exercise the office of spokesman in rotation; and when the language of any nation through which they pa.s.sed was unknown to them, it was the duty of the spokesman, a duty in which the others never interfered, to convey their meaning by appropriate signs.
"The labor of travelling through the deep sands was excessive; but at length they relieved themselves of this difficulty by following the course of a shallow river, the bottom of which being level, they made their way to the top of the mountains with tolerable convenience. After pa.s.sing the mountains they entered a fine fertile tract of land, which having travelled through for several days, they accidentally _met with three white men in the Indian dress_. Griffith immediately understood their language, as it was pure Welsh, though they occasionally made use of a few words with which he was not acquainted. However, as it happened to be the turn of one of his Shawanese companions to act as spokesman or interpreter, he preserved a profound silence, and never gave them any intimation that he understood the language of their new companions.
"After proceeding with them four or five days" journey, they came to the village of these white men, where they found that the _whole nation was of the same color_, having all the European complexion. The three men took them through their villages for about the s.p.a.ce of fifteen miles, when they came to the council-house, at which an a.s.sembly of the king and chief men of the nation was immediately held. The council lasted three days, and, as the strangers were not supposed to be acquainted with their language, they were suffered to be present at their deliberations.
"The great question before the council was, what conduct should be observed towards the strangers. From their fire-arms, their knives, and their tomahawks, it was concluded that they were a warlike people. It was conceived that they were sent to look out for a country for their nation; that if they were suffered to return, they might expect a body of powerful invaders; but that if these six men were put to death, nothing would be known of their country, and they would still enjoy their possessions in security. It was finally determined that they should be put to death.
"Griffith then thought it was time for him to speak. _He addressed the council in the Welsh language._ He informed them that they had not been sent by any nation; that they were actuated merely by private curiosity, and had no hostile intentions; that it was their wish to trace the Missouri to its source; and that they should return to their country satisfied with the discoveries they had made, without any wish to disturb the repose of their new acquaintances.
"An instant astonishment glowed in the countenances, not only of the council, but of his Shawanese companions, who clearly saw that he was understood by the people of the country. Full confidence was at once given to his declarations. The king advanced and gave him his hand.
They abandoned the design of putting him and his companions to death, and from that moment treated him with the utmost friendship. Griffith and the Shawanese continued eight months in the nation, but were deterred from prosecuting their researches up the Missouri by the advice of the people of the country, who informed them that they had gone a twelvemonth"s journey up the river, but found it as large there as it was in their own country.
"As to the history of this people he could learn nothing satisfactory.
The only account they could give was, that their forefathers had come up the river from a very distant country. They had no books, no records, no writings. They intermixed with no other people by marriage: there was not a dark-skinned man in the nation. Their numbers were very considerable. There was a continued range of settlements on the river for fifty miles, and there were within this s.p.a.ce three large watercourses which fell into the Missouri, on the banks of each of which they were likewise settled. He supposed that there must be fifty thousand men in the nation capable of bearing arms. Their clothing was skins well dressed. Their houses were made of upright posts and barks of trees. The only implements they had to cut them with were stone tomahawks; they had no iron. Their arms were bows and arrows. They had some silver which had been hammered with stones into coa.r.s.e ornaments, but it did not appear to be pure. They had neither horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, nor any domestic or tame animals. They lived by hunting. He said nothing about their religion.
"Griffith and his companions had some large iron tomahawks with them.
With these they cut down a tree and prepared a canoe to return home in; but their tomahawks were so great a curiosity, and the people of the country were so eager to handle them, that their canoe was completed with very little labor to them. When this work was accomplished, they proposed to leave their new friends, Griffith, however, having promised to visit them again.
"They descended the river with considerable speed, but amidst frequent dangers from the rapidity of the current, particularly when pa.s.sing through the white mountains. When they reached the Shawanese Nation, they had been absent about two years and a half. Griffith supposed that when they travelled they went at the rate of about fifteen miles per day. He stayed but a few months with the Indians after his return, as a favorable opportunity offered itself to him to reach his friends in Virginia. He came with a hunting-party of Indians to the head-waters of Coal River, which runs into New River not far above the falls. Here he left the Shawanese, and easily reached the settlements on the Roanoke.
"Mr. Childs knew him before he was taken prisoner, and saw him a few days after his return, when he narrated to him the preceding circ.u.mstances. Griffith was universally regarded as a steady, honest man, and a man of strict veracity. Mr. Childs has always placed the utmost confidence in his account of himself and his travels, and has no more doubt of the truth of his relations than if he had seen the whole himself. Whether Griffith be still alive or not he does not know.
Whether his ideas be correct or not, we shall probably have a better opportunity of judging on the return of Captains Lewis and Clarke, who, though they may not penetrate as far as Griffith alleged he had done, will probably learn enough of the country to enable us to determine whether the account given by Griffith be fiction or truth.
"I am, sir, "Your humble servant, "HARRY TOULMIN.
"FRANKFORT, December 12, 1804."
With regard to the exploring expeditions of Lewis and Clarke, to which Judge Toulmin refers, it was found in their published records that although they pursued a different branch of the Missouri from the one which was supposed to lead to the Welsh Indians, they discovered straggling Indians similar to those mentioned by Griffith, Vancouver, and many others. They belonged to those who had a tribal existence in other localities.
However, they describe long lines of embankments which they saw before leaving the main channel of the Missouri, some of them enclosing an area of six hundred acres. They found them as high up as one thousand miles from the junction with the Mississippi. Captain Lewis was a Welshman. In their long and perilous journey, extending to the Columbia River, they lost but one man, William Floyd, also a Welshman, and who was buried on top of one of these mounds west of the Missouri,--called to this day "_Floyd"s Mound_."
The Missouri, taken in connection with the Mississippi, is the longest river in the world, its length from the highest navigable stream to the Gulf of Mexico being four thousand four hundred and ninety-one miles, and its length to its junction with the Mississippi, three thousand and ninety-six miles. Add to this the immense distance not navigable because of the cataracts and falls, next to Niagara the grandest on this globe, and reaching to the Rocky Mountains, and some idea may be formed of the great extent of this river. The entrance of the Yellow-Stone is nearly two thousand miles above its mouth. A journey of one thousand miles up the Missouri a century or more since, while it was an undertaking of no slight magnitude and attended with many hardships and dangers, did not bring the traveller over more than one-fourth of its length. The course pursued by Griffith and his companions can be marked out with singular accuracy by the use of subsequent knowledge, obtained during the last one hundred years, respecting the country that river traverses.
He speaks of finding lead-mines. The lead-mines of Missouri are extremely valuable, and yield millions of pounds annually.
He speaks of salt springs. The line of his journey conducted him by the salt licks of Nebraska, which, when the springs are low and evaporation is rapid, have the appearance of layers of snow.
He speaks of white mountains. Pa.s.sing from the broad open prairies to the uplands and mountains, the soil is sandy and in many places remarkably white. The writer himself has often seen on the Missouri bold projections of limestone which in the distance appeared like banks of snow.
He speaks of the Indians being all white. This presents a difficulty not easily reconcilable with the intermixture theory. The predominating color, it would be supposed, was that of the red race. But he partially explains this by saying that "they intermixed with no other people by marriage: there was not a dark-skinned man in the nation." Could they without intermixture have increased to such considerable numbers as to be able, as he supposes, to put into the field "fifty thousand men capable of bearing arms"? It need not be thought impossible, but it certainly is improbable. At any rate, this people were sufficiently white to be called, by Griffith and by a large number of reliable witnesses, "White Padoucas," "White Panis," "White Indians."
He speaks of their having no records and no horses. In this respect his recital differs somewhat from those given by others, some of whom a.s.sert that they saw some old ma.n.u.script books, and that they had horses for the chase. His statement, however, offers no contradiction to that made by others, because it is pretty certain that many of them came upon different branches of the same extensive nation.
He speaks of their speaking "pure Welsh," but qualifies it by saying that they occasionally made use of a few words with which he was not acquainted. He meant no more than that the radical structure of the language was still preserved and could be readily distinguished, though some of the words had undergone modification. This is the case with all languages, not even excepting the Welsh in Wales, which has shown itself superior to all others to resist any great change.
It is somewhat surprising that Griffith did not give some account of the religious inst.i.tutions of this people; for if they were the descendants of Madoc some traces of the Christian religion might have been discovered. Or had they been all effaced in six hundred years?
It must be admitted that what he does relate bears every internal mark of simple, honest truth.
CHAPTER X.
CAPTAIN ISAAC STUART--GOVERNORS SEVIER AND DINWIDDIE--GENERAL MORGAN LEWIS--THEIR KNOWLEDGE OF THE WELSH INDIANS.
Captain Stuart was an officer in the Provincial Cavalry of South Carolina, and the following sketch was taken from his own lips by I. C., Esq., an intelligent gentleman, in March, 1782. Lieutenant-Colonel Conger, of South Carolina, regarded Captain Stuart as a man who could be implicitly trusted in what he said.
"I was taken prisoner about fifty miles to the westward of Fort Pitt, about eighteen years ago, by the Indians, and was carried by them to the Wabash, with many more white men, who were executed with circ.u.mstances of horrid barbarity. It was my good fortune to call forth the sympathy of what is called the good woman of the town, who was permitted to redeem me from the flames by giving as my ransom a horse.
"After remaining two years in bondage among the Indians, a Spaniard came to the nation, having been sent from Mexico on discoveries. He made application to the chief for redeeming me and another white man, who was in like situation, named John Davey (David), which they complied with.
"And we took our departure, in company with the Spaniard, to the westward, crossing the Mississippi near Rouge, or Red, River, up which we travelled seven hundred miles, when we came to a nation remarkably white, and whose hair was of a reddish color, or mostly so. They lived on the banks of a small river which is called the river Post. In the morning of the day after our arrival, the Welshman informed me that he was determined to remain with them, giving as a reason that he understood their language, it being very little different from the Welsh. My curiosity was excited very much by this information, and I went with my companion to the chief men of the town, who informed him, in a language I had no knowledge of, and which had no affinity to that of other Indian tongues that I ever heard, that their forefathers of this nation came from a foreign country and landed on the east side of the Mississippi, describing the country particularly now called Florida, and that on the Spaniards taking possession of Mexico they fled to their then abode.
"And, as a proof of the truth of what he advanced, he brought forth _a roll of parchment_, which was carefully tied up in otters" skins, on which were large characters written with blue ink. The characters I did not understand; and, the Welshman being unacquainted with letters, even of his own language, I was not able to know the meaning of the writing.
They are a bold, hardy, and intrepid people, very warlike, and the women beautiful when compared with other Indians."
John Sevier, at one time Governor of Tennessee, in a letter dated October 9, 1810, and published by Major Stoddard in his "Sketches, Historical and Descriptive, of Louisiana," Philadelphia, 1812, p. 483, says that in 1782 he was on a campaign against the Cherokees. Observing on his route traces of very ancient fortifications, he afterwards took occasion, on exchange of prisoners, to inquire into their origin, of Oconostoto, who for sixty years had been a ruling chief of the Cherokee Nation, and particularly as to the origin of the remarkable fortifications on the branch of the Highwa.s.se River. The venerable chief replied, that it was handed down by their forefathers that those works were made by _white people_ who had formerly inhabited the country. When the Cherokees lived in the country now South Carolina, wars existed between them, and were only ended when the whites consented to abandon the country. Accordingly, they ascended the Tennessee to the Ohio, then to the big river Mississippi, then up the muddy Missouri to a very great distance. They are now on some of its branches, but are no longer white people; they have become Indians, and look somewhat like the other red people of the country. "I then asked him," continues Governor Sevier, "if he had ever heard any of his ancestors say to what nation of people the whites belonged. He answered, "I heard my grandfather and other old people say that they were a people called Welsh; that they had crossed the great waters and landed near the mouth of the Alabama River, and were finally driven to the heads of its waters, and even to the Highwa.s.se River, by the Mexican Spaniards."
"Oconostoto also said that an old woman in his nation had some parts of an old book given her by an Indian living high up the Missouri, and thought he was one of the Welsh tribe. Unfortunately," observes Governor Sevier, "before I had an opportunity of seeing the book, her house and all its contents were destroyed by fire. I have conversed with several persons who saw and examined it; but it was so worn and disfigured that nothing intelligible remained."
Governor Sevier was informed by a Frenchman, a great explorer of the country west of the Mississippi, that he had been high up the Missouri, and traded several months with the Welsh tribes, who spoke much of the Welsh dialect. Although their customs were savage and wild, yet many of them, particularly the females, were fair and white. They often told him that they had sprung from a white people; and that they had yet some small sc.r.a.ps of books remaining, but in such a tattered and mutilated order that they were unintelligible.
The very year that Robert Dinwiddie, Governor of Virginia, sent a letter of remonstrance to M. de St. Pierre, the French commander, complaining of the hostile movements of The Ohio Company, George Washington, then a young man of twenty-two, being chosen bearer of the dispatches, the Governor received a letter from a gentleman named George Chrochan, showing that the French knew of the Welsh Indians. This was in 1753. The original letter was deposited in the Foreign Office in London, and several gentlemen were enabled to obtain copies of it through Maurice Morgan, Esq., secretary to Sir Guy Carleton. It is as follows:
"Last year I understood, by Colonel Lomax, that your Honor would be glad to have some information of a nation of people settled to the west, on a large river that runs to the Pacific Ocean, _commonly called the Welsh Indians_.
"As I had an opportunity of gathering some accounts of those people, I make bold, at the instance of Colonel Cressup, to send you the following accounts. As I formerly had an opportunity of being acquainted with several French traders, and particularly with one who was bred up from his infancy amongst the Western Indians on the west side of Lake Erie, he informed me that the first intelligence the French had of them was by some Indians settled at the back of New Spain, who, in their way home, happened to lose themselves, and fell down on this settlement of people, which they took to be French by their talking very quick; so, on their return to Canada, they informed the Governor that there was a large settlement of French on a river that ran to the sun"s setting; that they were not Indians, although they lived within themselves as Indians; for they could not perceive that they traded with any people, or had any trade to sea, for they had no boats or ships as they could see; and, though they had guns amongst them, yet they were so old and so much out of order that they made no use of them, but hunted with their bows and arrows for the support of their families.
"On this account the Governor of Canada determined to send a party to discover whether they were French or not, and had three hundred men raised for that purpose.
"But, when they were ready to go, the Indians would not go with them, but told the Governor if he sent but a few men they would go and show them the country; on which the Governor sent three young priests, who dressed themselves in Indian dresses and went with those Indians to the place where these people were settled, and found them to be Welsh.
"They brought some old Welsh Bibles, to satisfy the Governor that they were there; and they told him that these people had a great aversion to the French; for they found by them that they had been at first settled at the mouth of the Mississippi, but had been almost cut off by the French there: so that a small remnant of them escaped back to where they were then settled, but had since become a numerous people. The Governor of Canada, on this account, determined to raise an army of French Indians to go and cut them off; but, as the French have been embarra.s.sed in war with several other nations nearer home, I believe they have laid that project aside. The man who furnished me with this account told me that the messengers who went to make this discovery were gone sixteen months before they returned to Canada: so that these people must live at a great distance from thence due west. This is the most particular account I ever could get from those people as yet.
"I am yours, etc., "GEORGE CHROCHAN.
"WINCHESTER, August 24, 1753."
Governor Dinwiddie became so positively a.s.sured of their existence that he agreed with a party of black traders to go in quest of the Welsh Indians, and promised to give them for that purpose the sum of five hundred pounds; but he was recalled before they could set out on the expedition.
General Morgan Lewis was an officer in the American Revolutionary army.
He was the son of Francis Lewis, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The general was a well-known citizen of New York. He was aide-de-camp to General Gates at the battle of Saratoga, and, on the surrender of the English army at that place, was requested by him to receive the sword of General Burgoyne. In Turnbull"s picture, commemorative of the event, found in the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington, the figure of General Lewis occupies a prominent position.
He was distinguished for many honorable military and civil services. He was the successor of George Clinton as Governor of the State. In 1838 he became president of the Society of Cincinnati, an inst.i.tution founded by Washington, who was its first president. His portrait hangs in the Governor"s room of the New York City Hall. He died on the 7th of May, 1844, in his ninetieth year, beloved and respected by all. He used frequently to relate many stirring incidents which occurred during the life of his father. The latter, while on a military expedition in the French War, was captured at Oswego, and was a.s.signed over, with thirty others, by Montcalm, the acting French commander, to certain Indians, as their share of prisoners. Among the Indians was a chief whose language resembled the Gaelic (a dialect of the Celtic with which Mr. Lewis, who was a native of Wales, was thoroughly acquainted). On hearing him converse, Mr. Lewis understood him sufficiently to discover that his language was of that ancient dialect, although modified by usage and lapse of time. He then addressed the chief in Welsh, and was understood.