Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology, John D. Baldwin [ereader with dictionary TXT] 📗

occasioned many anxieties and some adventures. One of the company, a fierce, resolute man, bewailed their apostasy from the old religion, and declared that to find relief they must return to the worship of Thor. But they found a supply of provisions without trying this experiment. Thor’s worshiper afterward left the company with a few companions to pursue an expedition of his own, and was killed by the natives.

The next spring Thorfinn explored the coast farther west and south. Then he went to the bay where Leif spent the winter, and there passed his second winter in Vinland. He called the bay Hóp. The Indians called it Haup; we call it Hope. During the next season they saw many natives and had much intercourse with them, which finally led to hostilities. The natives, in great numbers, attacked them fiercely, but were signally defeated. Freydis, being with the company, fought desperately in this battle, and greatly distinguished herself as a terrible combatant, although in that peculiar condition which does not specially qualify a woman for such exploits. Thorfinn afterward explored Massachusetts Bay, spent a third winter in Vinland, and then, with part of the company, returned to Greenland. He finally went back to his home in Iceland, and there remained during the rest of his life.

The Indians had traditions which appear to have preserved recollections of these visits of the Northmen. In 1787, Michael Lort, Vice-president of the London Antiquarian Society, published a work, in which he quoted the following extract of a letter from New England, dated more than half a century earlier: “There was a tradition current with the oldest Indians in these parts that there came a wooden house, and men of another country in it, swimming up the Assoonet, as this (Taunton) river was then called, who fought the Indians with mighty success.”

There was now a settlement in Vinland, at Hóp Bay, and voyages to that region became frequent. The old Norse narrative says: “Expeditions to Vinland now became very frequent matters of consideration, for these expeditions were considered both lucrative and honorable.” The following appears in Wheaton’s History of the Northmen: “A part of Thorfinn’s company remained in Vinland, and were afterward joined by two Icelandic chieftains. * * In the year 1059, it is said, an Irish or Saxon priest named Jon or John, who had spent some time in Iceland, went to preach to the colonists in Vinland, where he was murdered by the heathen.” The following is from the Introduction to Henderson’s Iceland: “In the year 1121, Eirek, bishop of Greenland, made a voyage to Vinland.”

Thus it appears to be an authenticated fact that the Northmen had a settlement or settlements in New England six hundred years previous to the arrival of English settlers. It is probable that their Vinland settlements consisted chiefly of trading and lumbering establishments. The first explorers “loaded their vessels with timber” when ready to return to Greenland, where the lack of timber was so great that the settlers found it necessary to use stone for building material. The Vinland timber-trade became naturally an important business, but neither Greenland nor Iceland could furnish emigrants to occupy the country. Traces of the old Norse settlements in Greenland are still visible in the ruins of stone buildings. Near the Bay of Igalito, in Greenland, are remains of a stone church. Vinland was covered with great forests, and there it was much easier and cheaper to build houses of wood.

The Norse records speak also of a region south of Vinland to which voyages were made. It is called Huitramannaland. Indeed, two great regions farther south are mentioned. There is a romantic story of one Biorn Asbrandson, a noble Icelander, who, being crossed in his matrimonial desires, went away toward Vinland; but his vessel was driven much farther south by a storm. Nothing was heard of him until part of the crew of a Norse vessel, on a voyage to Huitramannaland, were captured by the natives, among whom Biorn was living as a chief. He discovered an old acquaintance among the prisoners whom he found means to release. He talked freely with his old friend of the past, and of Iceland, but would not leave his savage friends.

How little we know of what has been in the past ages, notwithstanding our many volumes of history! We listen attentively to what gets a wide and brilliant publication, and either fail to hear or doubt every thing else. If these Norse adventurers had sailed from England or Spain, those countries being what they were in the time of Columbus, their colonies would not have failed, through lack of men and means to support and extend them, and the story of their discoveries would have been told in every language and community of the civilized world. But the little communities in Iceland and Greenland were very different from rich and powerful nations. Instead of being in direct communication with the great movements of human life in Europe, recorded in what we read as history, they were far off in the Northern Ocean, and, out of Norway, almost unknown to Europe. Afterward, when the name and discoveries of Columbus had taken control of thought and imagination, it became difficult for even intelligent men, with the old Norse records before them, to see the claims of the Northmen.

B.
THE WELSH IN AMERICA.

The story of the emigration to America of Prince Madoc, or Madog, is told in the old Welsh books as follows:

About the year 1168 or 1169 A.D., Owen Gwynedd, ruling prince of North Wales, died, and among his sons there was a contest for the succession, which, becoming angry and fierce, produced a civil war. His son Madoc, who had “command of the fleet,” took no part in this strife. Greatly disturbed by the public trouble, and not being able to make the combatants hear reason, he resolved to leave Wales and go across the ocean to the land at the west. Accordingly, in the year 1170 A.D., he left with a few ships, going south of Ireland, and steering westward. The purpose of this voyage was to explore the western land and select a place for settlement. He found a pleasant and fertile region, where his settlement was established. Leaving one hundred and twenty persons, he returned to Wales, prepared ten ships, prevailed on a large company, some of whom were Irish, to join him, and sailed again to America. Nothing more was ever heard in Wales of Prince Madog or his settlement.

All this is related in old Welsh annals preserved in the abbeys of Conway and Strat Flur. These annals were used by Humphrey Llwyd in his translation and continuation of Caradoc’s History of Wales, the continuation extending from 1157 to 1270 A.D. This emigration of Prince Madog is mentioned in the preserved works of several Welsh bards who lived before the time of Columbus. It is mentioned by Hakluyt, who had his account of it from writings of the bard Guttun Owen. As the Northmen had been in New England over one hundred and fifty years when Prince Madog went forth to select a place for his settlement, he knew very well there was a continent on the other side of the Atlantic, for he had knowledge of their voyages to America; and knowledge of them was also prevalent in Ireland. His emigration took place when Henry II. was king of England, but in that age the English knew little or nothing of Welsh affairs in such a way as to connect them with English history very closely.

It is supposed that Madog settled somewhere in the Carolinas, and that his colony, unsupported by new arrivals from Europe, and cut off from communicated with that side of the ocean, became weak, and, after being much reduced, was destroyed or absorbed by some powerful tribe of Indians. In our colony times, and later, there was no lack of reports that relics of Madog’s Welshmen, and even their language, had been discovered among the Indians; but generally they were entitled to no credit. The only report of this kind having any show of claim to respectful consideration is that of Rev. Morgan Jones, made in 1686, in a letter giving an account of his adventures among the Tuscaroras. These Tuscarora Indians were lighter in color than the other tribes, and this peculiarity was so noticeable that they were frequently mentioned as “White Indians.” Mr. Jones’s account of his experiences among them was written in March, 1686, and published in the Gentleman’s Magazine for the year 1740, as follows: