Immigrants and their descendants from Wales (Cymru, in the Welsh language). The
Welsh, or Cymry (“fellow countrymen”), were the original British, a Celtic people who
occupied most of Britain until Anglo-Saxon invaders in the 6th and 7th centuries started
pushing them back into the north and the west, eventually into present-day Wales.
“Welsh” is a Saxon term for “foreigners.” The Welsh have been entwined in American
history from the earliest days of European exploration and settlement—colonizing
Virginia in 1607, searching for the Northwest Passage, and helping establish the new
nation through such an illustrious figure as Thomas Jefferson. Apart from the individual
explorers, the Welsh came in several waves of migration, each with its own motivation—
seeking religious freedom, political and cultural freedom, and economic improvement.
The first religious exiles were Welsh Baptists who settled on the Plymouth-Rhode
Island border in 1667 at a healthy distance from the disapproving Puritans. In the 1680s,
Welsh Quakers settled on land purchased from William Penn and were soon followed to Pennsylvania by Welsh Baptists who settled the area of Philadelphia, establishing their
own Welsh barony before moving on to Delaware.
In the late 18th and the 19th centuries, driven by the economic pressures of an
expanding population, poor crops, and rack-renting (extortionate rents, often equal to the
full value of the land), emigrants from north Wales sought the farmlands of New York
and then further west as they crossed the Alleghenies into western Pennsylvania, Ohio,
Kentucky, Wisconsin, and beyond. In this period, the Welsh were also influenced by a
new sense of nationalism and a desire to preserve their culture and language in the face of
opposition from the English state and church. Their sense of being one people with their
own language and culture had been forged in the period of the Anglo-Saxon invasions
and had survived the loss of independence in 1282 and the Act of Union of 1536, but in
the 19th century the Welsh faced yet more virulent assaults. Despairing of a future for
their culture in their homeland, many were impelled to America by hopes of setting up
Welsh communities, re-creating a Wales free of English interference (the impetus behind
Welsh Patagonia in Argentina in 1865). Thus, Morgan John Rhys established Cambria
with its townships of Beulah and Ebensburg in western Pennsylvania, and Ezeckiel
Hughes led some of the settlers farther west to Paddy’s Run in Ohio. A founder of the
cooperative movement, Robert Owen, purchased the former religious community of New
Harmony, Indiana, for his own attempt at a utopian society.
Nationalism also gave a new impetus to migration with revival of the story of Madog
ab Owain Gwynedd, who reportedly discovered America in 1169 and settled among the
Native Americans. Since he predated Columbus, his story had been important in the 16th
century as a counterclaim for the English throne against Spanish claims on the New
World. Anecdotal reports of White and of Welsh-speaking Indians combined with the
revived legend to create a frenzy of interest. In the 1790s, John Evans’ exploration of the
Missouri River was a by-product of his search for the Welsh Indians, and Lewis and
Clark were given Evans’ maps with the directive to continue the search. The search for
the Welsh Indians became a strong incentive for both immigration and westward
exploration, and the legend remains a topic of delight and debate.
The 19th century also saw major migration connected with industry, drawing mainly
on the skilled workers in south Wales. In the first part of the century, these migrants were
coal miners who resettled in Pennsylvania and lead miners who joined the Cornish in
Wisconsin. As industry grew, the skilled Welsh ironworkers filled such towns as
Scranton and Wilkes-Barre in Pennsylvania and helped establish the steel centers of
Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Chicago, while other artisans went to the copper works in
Baltimore. In the 1890s, after the imposition of heavy duties on imports into the United
States, the virtual Welsh monopoly on tin-plating moved to Ohio, Pennsylvania, West
Virginia, and Indiana. Also in this period, slate quarriers from north Wales emigrated to
Pennsylvania and Vermont.
Wherever the Welsh migrated, even in the rough goldmining towns, they set up Welsh
chapels. In Wales the Methodist revival played an important part in preserving and
reinvigorating interest in Welsh culture; in America the chapel, or church as it became,
continued as the focal point for community and language maintenance. Although English
replaced Welsh as the larjguage of worship in most communities by the early 1900s, so
that only a few chapels in urban areas still hold services in Welsh, the churches continue
to provide structure for expression of Welsh ethnicity. The immigrants also established immigrant-aid societies, often called St. David s Society, which also provided, and in
some places continue to provide, institutional concern for tradition, preserving,
cultivating, and disseminating information on Welsh culture.
Two 19th-century cultural developments in Wales were carried by the immigrants to
their new homes—the eisteddfod and the gymanfa ganu. The eisteddfod (medieval bardic
competition) was revived by nationalist sentiment as a competitive festival celebrating
Welsh literature, music, and odier arts. Eisteddfodau, complete with chairing of the bard,
were very popular in the last century in both mining and farming communities. However,
while they have increased in importance in Wales, occurring on both the local and the
national level and within special-interest organizations, they are held in only a few
locations in the United States, where the stress on poetic composition has, moreover,
almost disappeared. Following a contrary pattern, the gymanfa ganu, whose importance
has declined in Wales, is probably the most clearly established form of Welsh ethnic
celebration in the States; it is carried out on local, state, and national levels. The gymanfa
ganu (a hymnsinging service in the Welsh style of part-singing, developed as a product of
Nonconformist worship in the 1830s. In both Wales and the United States, it has become
a form of community celebration with congregations visiting each other to share the
event. The eisteddfod and the gymanfa ganu are both of necessity carried out on a public,
community level. Celebrations of St. David’s Day, March 1, are also usually organized at
an institutional level, with a church or a Welsh heritage society holding a special service
or dinner to honor the patron saint of Wales. Individuals, however, may mark the day by
following the Welsh custom of wearing a daffodil or a leek, but more commonly with a
bouquet of daffodils and foods made with leeks.
According to legend, the leek has been a symbol of Wales ever since a successful
battle against the Saxons when the Welsh, at St. David’s instigation, wore leeks in their
hats as their fighting colors. Other traditions set their first use as crests in the 14th
century, at the battles of Poitiers or Crecy. The daffodil, with its similar image—green
shoots rising out of a white bulb—has become an alternative symbol. At one more
remove, green and white ribbons may be worn on St. David’s Day. Green and white,
along with red for the red dragon, are the colors of Wales. The red dragon has symbolized
Wales at least since the 9th century, when it appeared in Historia Britonum, a history of
the Britons. It has appeared on the coat of arms of various Welsh princes, and it flies
against a background of green and white on the Welsh flag. The Welsh language itself is
known as Tafod y Ddraig (the dragon’s tongue).
The Welsh are noted for their nicknaming practices, necessitated by the notorious
dearth of surnames, which were first required with the Act of Union. Most people,
following the earlier system of identification, ap (son of), simply took the father’s name
with an additional genitive s, creating a limited field of names such as Davies, Evans,
Hughes, Jones, Roberts, and Williams. Other names were formed by allowing ap to
combine with the father’s name (for example, ap Hugh evolved into the name Pugh),
resulting in such names as Parry, Powell, Price, and Pritchard. However, because there
were so few available first name and surname combinations, and one community could
easily have, for example, several men named Dafydd Jones, community custom assigned
nicknames, identifying people by their profession, appearance, or habits (Dai Llaeth
[Milk] might deliver milk, while Dai Goch [Red] might have red hair). This custom
continued in the United States where Welsh Americans settled together, but it has mostly faded as Welsh Americans have integrated into American society, and the names within
the communities have become more diverse.
Relatively little scholarly attention has been given to Welsh American folklore, partly
because of a general failure to recognize Wales as separate and distinct from England,
and partly because, after years of cultural contact, most folk traditions reveal little to
distinguish Welsh Americans from their Anglo American neighbors. The few collections
that have been made show that as the language disappeared so did much of the lore, with
the older members of individual families retaining just a few songs or verses in Welsh or
an occasional folk belief, such as that a wild bird in the house portends death. Individual
Welsh Americans who choose to mark their ethnicity generally do so with certain
symbols of Wales—the red dragon, the daffodil, the leek—or by preparing foods such as
Welsh cakes for special occasions.
Etissa R.Henken
References
Ashton, ElwynT. 1984. The Welsh in the United States. Hove, England: Caldra House.
Hartmann, Edward George. 1967. Americans from Wales. Boston: Christopher Publishing House.
Holmes, Fred L. 1944. Old World Wiscowin. Minocqua, WI: Heartland.
Korson, George. 1949. Pennsylvania Songs and Legends. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press.
Thomas, Islyn. 1972. Our Welsh Heritage. New York: St. David’s Society of the State of New
York.
Williams, David. 1946. Cymru ac America [Wales and Amerlca]. Caerdydd: Gwasg Prifysgol
Cymru.
Williams, Gwyn A. 1987 Madoc. Oxford: Oxford University Press.