Norseman & Cherokees

Maedoc ap Opwain Gwynedd was a Norseman who settled in Wales and then made his way across the North Atlantic and was lost at sea. His story is woven into Welsh and Icelandic chronicles, often told as tragic tale of lost potential. But there’s an alternate ending as well. When European Settlers in North America in the 16th century first began to ask the Cherokee people about their history, one story was of a white skinned people who preceded them. They were large, fierce men with golden grain instead of hair. They called them the Welsh tribe of the Vi-Kings. The Cherokee claimed descent from white forebears who crossed the great water. A legend like this among the Cherokee would likely have gone unnoticed, except that in Wales there are tales of this same Viking prince named Madeoc ap Owain Gwynedd who sailed west and discovered land sometime after the year 1100.

There’s sufficient evidence for some to conclude that Maedoc’s company landed in Mobil Bay and made their way to Tennessee, thus meeting the Cherokee and thus accounting for several mysterious stone Forts in Chattanooga and Manchester. The reconstructed account theorizes that the band continued through the Ohio Valley to Louisville where they intermarried with the Mandan-Sioux and moved up the Missouri River to the Dakotas.

If the Cherokee legends and Welsh and Viking tales were the only support for this fantastic story, and even if we had a few stone forts that we couldn’t explain, the story probably wouldn’t have had enough strength to survive the centuries. However, in his Principle Navigations of 1589, Richard Hakluyt offered the story of Maedoc in support of English territorial claims to the New World….

Additional support for the legend is found in the writings of American artist George Caitlin. While drawing pictures of the Mandan Sioux in N. Missouri in the 19th century, Caitlin discovered Indians w/ uncommonly pale complexions and blue eyes. He believed that they may indeed be the descendants of the legendary Viking / Welsh colony of Maedoc and argued for the case in his famous book North American Indians written in 1841.

Dr. George Grant
Notes From His Lectures on Christendom
Lecture 19

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him. View all posts by jetbrane