A Dictionary of All Religions and Religious Denominations/Welch Indians

*WELCH INDIANS, (or Padoucas) a colony supposed to have emigrated from Wales in the twelfth century, (three hundred years before Columbus,) under Prince Madoc; and whose descendants still reside on the borders of the Missouri far to the westward of the Missisippi. Several accounts are to be found in Welch and other histories, and various letters have appeared at different times in the Gentleman's and Monthly Magazines. These accounts have been collected with additions and remarks, in three pamphlets, two by the late Dr. E. Williams, and one by the Rev. G. Burder, referred to below. They were much confirmed in conversations with Gen. Bowles, the Indian Chief, when in England; by Mr. Chesholm, from the Creek Indians, also in his visit to Philadelphia; and by Mr. Heckewelder, a Moravian gentleman at Bethlehem; an abstract of these and other accounts was printed in the Weekly Register, for December 26, 1798.

The substance of all the accounts is, that there is a nation of Indians of so much lighter complexion, as to indicate an European origin; that their language is Welch, at least radically so; that they have sacred books in that language, (which have been seen by native Britons,) though they have lost the art of reading; and that there are vestiges of the European arts among them, particularly remnants of earthen ware, &c. Several natives of Wales, and some descendants from that nation in America, have expressed a great desire to go in search of this very distant country, and to commence a mission among them, which indeed was the express object of Mr. Border's pamphlet.