Madoc

Lore & Background

In Welsh folklore, Madoc was a son of the 12th-century king Owain Gwynedd. According to the story, Madoc went to sea to flee internecine violence at home. The earliest certain reference to a seafaring man named Madoc occurs in a cywydd by the Welsh poet Maredudd ap Rhys (fl. 1450–1483) that mentions a Madog who was a descendant of Owain Gwynedd and who voyaged to the sea. The first full account claiming Madoc visited America before Columbus appears in Humphrey Llwyd's Cronica Walliae (completed around 1559 but first published in 1732).

Reader's Guide

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 Spain. John Dee used the story in his 1580 treatise 'Title Royal' to Queen Elizabeth I, stating Madoc led a colony to 'Terra Florida or thereabouts' in 1170. The story was published by George Peckham (1583), David Powel (1584), and Richard Hakluyt (1589). Later developments claimed Madoc's voyagers intermarried with Native Americans, producing Welsh-speaking descendants known as 'Welsh Indians,' often identified with the Mandan people. No archaeological, linguistic, or other evidence of Madoc or his voyages has been found, and historians such as Samuel Eliot Morison agree the voyage story is fictional.

Did You Know?

• The earliest certain reference to a seafaring Madoc is in a poem by Maredudd ap Rhys (fl. 1450–1483).
• John Dee used the Madoc story in 1580 to support Queen Elizabeth I's claim to North America.
• The Reverend Morgan Jones claimed in 1686 that he was captured by the Doeg tribe and spared because the chief understood Welsh.
• Thomas Jefferson believed the Madoc story and instructed Lewis and Clark to search for Welsh-speaking Indians.