John Evans, explorer

John Thomas Evans (April 1770 – May 1799) was a Welsh explorer who produced an early map of the Missouri River.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Evans_(explorer)

Evans was born in Waunfawr, near Caernarfon. In the early 1790s there was an upsurge of interest in Wales in the story of Madog having discovered America, and there were persistent rumours in North America of the existence of a tribe of Welsh Indians, identified with the Mandan. Iolo Morganwg had originally intended to explore the Missouri to discover these Welsh Indians, and Evans was to have gone with him. However, Iolo withdrew from the expedition and Evans embarked for the United States alone, arriving in Baltimore in October 1792. In the spring of 1793 he made his way to St. Louis in Spanish Louisiana, where he was imprisoned for a while on suspicion of being a British spy.

In April 1795 he set off on an expedition with Spanish backing to explore the Missouri and to try to discover a route to the Pacific Ocean from its headwaters. He found the Mandan in 1796, and spent the winter with them before returning to St. Louis in 1797. However, he found no trace of Welsh speakers among them. He had travelled 1,800 miles up the Missouri from its confluence with the Mississippi, and he produced a map showing the course of the river. This map, passed on by Thomas Jefferson, was later used by the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Evans remained in the service of the Spanish authorities, but died in New Orleans in May 1799.

Apart from one hunter (Jacques d'Eglise) he was the first white man to ascend the Missouri 1,800 miles above its junction with the Mississippi.

In popular culture

In 2014, the history of John Evans gained renewed popular interest as the topic of a book, film, album and mobile application, all entitled American Interior, created and produced by Welsh musician Gruff Rhys, vocalist with Super Furry Animals.

Extract from American Interior by Gruff Rhys (2014) < link >

In 1792 John Evans, a 22-year-old farmhand and weaver from the village of Waunfawr in the mountains of Snowdonia, Wales, responded to a plea from the great Welsh cultural mischief-maker Iolo Morganwg to settle, for once and for all time, the quandary of whether there was indeed a tribe of Welsh-speaking Native Americans still walking the Great Plains, descendants of Prince Madog, who was widely believed (especially by Welsh historical revisionists) to have discovered America in 1170. With the aid of a loan from a gullible friend, Evans set sail to Baltimore to begin the greatest of adventures, whereupon he set off on foot and disappeared into the Allegheny Mountains with one dollar and seventy-five cents to his name, in search of the lost tribe. …

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoc

Madoc, also spelled Madog, ab Owain Gwynedd was, according to folklore, a Welsh prince who sailed to America in 1170, over three hundred years before Christopher Columbus's voyage in 1492.[1]

Madog. Book illustration by A.S. Boyd, 1909

From American Interior: The Quixotic Journey of John Evans. By Gruff Rhys. (2014). < GoogleBooks >

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoc#Mandans

Folk tradition has long claimed that a site called “Devil's Backbone" at Rose Island, about fourteen miles upstream from Louisville, Kentucky, was once home to a colony of Welsh-speaking Indians. The eighteenth-century Missouri River explorer John Evans of Waunfawr in Wales took up his journey in part to find the Welsh-descended "Padoucas" or "Madogwys" tribes.[33]

33. Kaufman, Will (31 March 2005). Britain and the Americas: Culture, Politics, And History: A Multidesciplinary Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 569. ISBN 978-1-85109-431-8. < link >

Williams, David. “John Evans’ Strange Journey: Part II. Following the Trail.” The American Historical Review, vol. 54, no. 3, 1949. Page 526.

“The racist origins of the myth a Welsh prince beat Columbus to America.” By James Griffiths, CNN. Published 8:43 PM EDT, Sat July 20, 2019. < link >

… Evans’ critics claimed that he had lied to protect the territorial claims of his Spanish paymasters, and stories of Madog continued into the 20th century. “John Evans proved that Madoc is myth, which is an unpopular assumption to make,” one of his descendants, Gruff Rhys, frontman of Welsh rockband Super Furry Animals, said in 2014.vRhys’ album “American Interior” focuses on Evans’ explorations and his debunking of the Madog tales. “He’s an incredibly brave and romantic figure, who is almost beyond classification. His story is quite unique,” the musician told the BBC. “He failed in some ways but it’s a glorious failure.”

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Statues, hither & thither. “John Evans Memorial” < link > John Thomas Evans (Waunfawr 1770 - New Orleans 1799). Welsh explorer who produced an early map of the Missouri River.

Standing stone with a bas-relief of a man, with a low boat in front of him, representing the boat bringing John Evans' soul back to Waunfawr. John Evans is portrayed as The Lonely Man of the Mandan legend. There are other allusions to the sculpture around the garden; a stream of slate along the wall following the course of the stream below, and slates carved by local children and workers at the Antur, done in workshops with the sculptor, portraying various aspects of John Evans' story. Sculptor: Meic Watts, Welsh sculptor. image

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References

• Williams, D., (1959). “EVANS, JOHN (1770 - 1799), explorer.” Dictionary of Welsh Biography. Retrieved 9 Sep 2022, from https://biography.wales/article/s-EVAN-JOH-1770
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Evans_(explorer) cites
  • Gwyn A. Williams (1979) Madog: the making of a myth (Eyre Methuen) ISBN 0-413-39450-6
  • Floyd C. and William B. McGroarty Shoemaker, A. Nasatir (1931) John Evans, Explorer and Surveyor (Missouri Historical Review, Volume 25, Number 2-4) < GoogleBooks >
  • Gruff Rhys (2014) The Quixotic Journey of John Evans, His Search for a Lost Tribe and How, Fuelled by Fantasy and (Possibly) Booze, He Accidentally Annexed a Third of North America (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Books Ltd.) ISBN 9780241146019. < GoogleBooks >; < Archive.Org > “ My father used to tell me that, apart from me and my siblings, he and his cousin Mary Fôn were Evans’s only living relatives – or maybe I misinterpreted him as a child, as from what I’ve since figured out, this isn’t strictly true. I now know of a few others, and there must be descendants of his siblings dotted around the place; if they’re anything like John, they could be anywhere. …”. Descended from John Evans maternal uncle.
  • Part of John Evans's map < link >
  • "In the Footsteps of the Third Spanish Expedition: James Mackay and John T. Evans' Impact on the Lewis and Clark Expedition", Great Plains Quarterly 26:2 (Spring 2006), Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. < link >
• Williams, David. “John Evans’ Strange Journey: Part I. The Welsh Indians.” The American Historical Review, vol. 54, no. 2, 1949, pp. 277–95. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1845387. Accessed 9 Sep. 2022.
• Williams, David. “John Evans’ Strange Journey: Part II. Following the Trail.” The American Historical Review, vol. 54, no. 3, 1949, pp. 508–29. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1843005. Accessed 9 Sep. 2022.
• Great British Nutters. “John Evans: In Search of the Welsh Indians.” (Friday, January 25, 2008). < link > “Either the Madogion or death”– John Evans. JOHN EVANS WAS A STRANGE YOUNG MAN who went on a bizarre journey to find a tribe of Welsh-speaking American Indians. It was a daring trip, and a foolish one. And it ultimately cost him his life. …
• http://american-interior.com/
• https://youtu.be/KHV_6H2hQnM trailer
• “Lone Man” sculpture by Meic Watts. < link > “ This carving was made to celebrate the life of the explorer John Evans who came from Waunfawr in North Wales and went in search of the Mandan tribe in America. It was thought at the time that the tribe were connected to Prince Madoc who had travelled to America in the Middle Ages and spoke Welsh. He travelled up the Missouri river making maps that later helped Lewis and Clarke in crossing the continent. He found and lived with the Mandan close to the Canadian border, but did not find all he had hoped for. The Lone Man features in the Mandan belief as a Creator deity. This carving refers to the Lone Man and the boat he made but also to John Evans and his journey. It is carved from Trefor granite.”