Rugby is a long way off, but given that in OTL animosity between just 2 people were involved, I would like to see some butterflying and for Wales and New Wales to opt for Rugby League in 1895.
The Dream of Iolo Morganwg: An alternate history of Welsh Patagonia
- Thread starter RPW@Cy
- Start date
New Scillies? The old Scillies would once have spoken Cornish, the language most closely related to Welsh. And there's more than one of them, so the Falklands could be St Mary's, New Tresco etc.
Still it seems certain that Rosas will not forget how his campaign was stopped short even as his attenton turns to ruling his country. I expect him to try clarify the southern border to his advantage maybe even seek conformation of Buenos Aires' rule over the Islands.
Question is would he push hard enough for war? The question there would be how much Britain would fight for an unimportant colony, risking the alienation of Argentina in the bargain.
Question is would he push hard enough for war? The question there would be how much Britain would fight for an unimportant colony, risking the alienation of Argentina in the bargain.
Now I notice there was gold in Patagonia, but not discovered until the 1880s. Might the Welsh not find it earlier, what with them being miners ?
I think Britain will want to safeguard the Straits of Magellan...
...And the Drake Passage. A base near OTL Punta Arenas is possible.
As for the Welsh, they have some value Britain went to war over trifles such as
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Jenkins'_Ear.
I must dust off my British Tierra Del Fuego files
I must dust off my British Tierra Del Fuego files
I must dust off my British Tierra Del Fuego files
I must dust off my British Tierra Del Fuego files...
...Petete123123 expects me to...
...And the Drake Passage. A base near OTL Punta Arenas is possible.
As for the Welsh, they have some value Britain went to war over trifles such as
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Jenkins'_Ear.
I must dust off my British Tierra Del Fuego files
I must dust off my British Tierra Del Fuego files
I must dust off my British Tierra Del Fuego files
I must dust off my British Tierra Del Fuego files...
...Petete123123 expects me to...
It would depend on where the gold is. Also a rush if settlers earlier might not be for the best if we want Welsh to remain the dominant language for some time. The colony is still fairly fragile with only one great town even.
There was a gold rush in Tierra del Fuego, albeit a small one. No more than 3.000 people went there counting both Argentine and Chilean side. A lot of them were Croats. But there are no gold mines, just gold dust in some rivers, and not much.
There are nevertheless some real sources of gold in Santa Cruz, but nothing for the mining capabilities in the 19th Century. Nothing of note in Chubut.
Going to rugby, I would go with both Rugby Union for the mountain areas and maybe some brand new Welsh rugby for the steppe lands, involving less long passess and kicks, the wind is quite a bitch at it.
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...And the Drake Passage. A base near OTL Punta Arenas is possible.
As for the Welsh, they have some value Britain went to war over trifles such as
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Jenkins'_Ear.
I must dust off my British Tierra Del Fuego files
I must dust off my British Tierra Del Fuego files
I must dust off my British Tierra Del Fuego files
I must dust off my British Tierra Del Fuego files...
...Petete123123 expects me to...
Go ahead. I already took a quick view at some of my TDF maps.
As you command...
...I'll see if my third or fourth Kindle and paperback can be BTDF. More work...
*sigh*
And I hope that you and that charming young lady you sent me that pic of are having a great time together.
Evil thought: once BTDF is done, you may be lumbered with the Spanish translation...
*Evil Laughter From The Mighty Wazir* (Think 'Kismet')
And apologies to Iolo Morganwg...
...I'll see if my third or fourth Kindle and paperback can be BTDF. More work...
*sigh*
And I hope that you and that charming young lady you sent me that pic of are having a great time together.
Evil thought: once BTDF is done, you may be lumbered with the Spanish translation...
*Evil Laughter From The Mighty Wazir* (Think 'Kismet')
And apologies to Iolo Morganwg...
We are, thank you. Right now we are planning on moving to Buenos Aires definetively, more money to make there
I will be delighted to try so. It's quite a piece of work. (publicity off)
Apologies for the time since my last update, but I'm studying for an exam which has taken up most of my free time. This post by the way is based on a suggestion from Petete123123 for an alternate colonisation of Tierra del Fuego, and is used with grateful acknowledgement.
Part 11 - Tir an Teine
“On March 1st, 1833, and again on March 16th, 1834, the Beagle anchored in Berkeley Sound, in East Falkland Island. This archipelago is situated in nearly the same latitude with the mouth of the Strait of Magellan; it covers a space of one hundred and twenty by sixty geographical miles, and is a little more than half the size of Ireland. After the possession of these miserable islands had been contested by France, Spain, and England, they were left uninhabited. The government of Buenos Ayres then sold them to a private individual, but likewise used them, as old Spain had done before, for a penal settlement. England claimed her right and seized them. The Englishman who was left in charge of the flag was consequently murdered. A British officer was next sent, unsupported by any power: and when we arrived, we found him in charge of a population, of which rather more than half were runaway rebels and murderers.”
Charles Darwin - The Voyage of the Beagle
---
Fort Louis, East Falkland, September 1836
Fort Louis was a miserable place. Thought Lieutenant Henry Smith, the Military Administrator of the Falkland Islands. But it’s still a damn sight better than where these poor fools are going.
He knew better than to share these thoughts with his visitors, of course - Mr Cameron MacKay of the Scottish Missionary Society was ablaze with enthusiasm for the mission entrusted to him and his handful of fellow missionaries to bring the Word of the Lord to the benighted heathens of Tierra del Fuego (his words).
Smith had to admit though that at least some thought had been given to planning the settlement that would support the missionaries. There were forty seven families who had deliberately been recruited from the most rugged parts of the highlands and islands of Scotland in the hope that they would be most suited to carving out a settlement in the main island on a site identified from the Beagle’s charts - on hearing this and deducing (accurately) that it meant the majority were Gaelic speakers, Smith did cynically wonder if London had learned nothing from allowing the Welsh to run amok on the mainland. Again, this was a view he did not share with his guest.
He looked again at the request - requisition really, given that the settlement had official backing - and signed it off allowing MacKay and his party to draw sufficient dried beef and grain from the Fort’s stores to tide the colonists over for a month or two of short rations and also a number of live sheep to form the basis of a herd of their own.
He stood up and offered his hand to his guest.
“Good luck Mr MacKay, and I wish you all success in your venture.”
“Thank ye, Mr Smith”, the missionary boomed from behind his bushy beard. “But we about the Lord’s work, we’ll have nae need for man’s luck.”
---
Author’s notes:
1. Tir an Teine - Scots Gaelic, “Land of Fire”
2. The Darwin quote at the head of the chapter is OTL. The settlement of the Falkland islands also proceeded roughly as OTL, though it will probably be the last major event in the South Atlantic area so to do - we are after all over 20 years after the first landing in Patagonia and butterflies will be starting to spread.
3. The site identified by the colonists is essentially that of Gable Island at the mouth of the Lashifashaj river, Tierra del Fuego and a few miles along the coast from Ushuaia.
Part 11 - Tir an Teine
“On March 1st, 1833, and again on March 16th, 1834, the Beagle anchored in Berkeley Sound, in East Falkland Island. This archipelago is situated in nearly the same latitude with the mouth of the Strait of Magellan; it covers a space of one hundred and twenty by sixty geographical miles, and is a little more than half the size of Ireland. After the possession of these miserable islands had been contested by France, Spain, and England, they were left uninhabited. The government of Buenos Ayres then sold them to a private individual, but likewise used them, as old Spain had done before, for a penal settlement. England claimed her right and seized them. The Englishman who was left in charge of the flag was consequently murdered. A British officer was next sent, unsupported by any power: and when we arrived, we found him in charge of a population, of which rather more than half were runaway rebels and murderers.”
Charles Darwin - The Voyage of the Beagle
---
Fort Louis, East Falkland, September 1836
Fort Louis was a miserable place. Thought Lieutenant Henry Smith, the Military Administrator of the Falkland Islands. But it’s still a damn sight better than where these poor fools are going.
He knew better than to share these thoughts with his visitors, of course - Mr Cameron MacKay of the Scottish Missionary Society was ablaze with enthusiasm for the mission entrusted to him and his handful of fellow missionaries to bring the Word of the Lord to the benighted heathens of Tierra del Fuego (his words).
Smith had to admit though that at least some thought had been given to planning the settlement that would support the missionaries. There were forty seven families who had deliberately been recruited from the most rugged parts of the highlands and islands of Scotland in the hope that they would be most suited to carving out a settlement in the main island on a site identified from the Beagle’s charts - on hearing this and deducing (accurately) that it meant the majority were Gaelic speakers, Smith did cynically wonder if London had learned nothing from allowing the Welsh to run amok on the mainland. Again, this was a view he did not share with his guest.
He looked again at the request - requisition really, given that the settlement had official backing - and signed it off allowing MacKay and his party to draw sufficient dried beef and grain from the Fort’s stores to tide the colonists over for a month or two of short rations and also a number of live sheep to form the basis of a herd of their own.
He stood up and offered his hand to his guest.
“Good luck Mr MacKay, and I wish you all success in your venture.”
“Thank ye, Mr Smith”, the missionary boomed from behind his bushy beard. “But we about the Lord’s work, we’ll have nae need for man’s luck.”
---
Author’s notes:
1. Tir an Teine - Scots Gaelic, “Land of Fire”
2. The Darwin quote at the head of the chapter is OTL. The settlement of the Falkland islands also proceeded roughly as OTL, though it will probably be the last major event in the South Atlantic area so to do - we are after all over 20 years after the first landing in Patagonia and butterflies will be starting to spread.
3. The site identified by the colonists is essentially that of Gable Island at the mouth of the Lashifashaj river, Tierra del Fuego and a few miles along the coast from Ushuaia.
Celtic, not Gaelic
The other interesting thing about this is that the Americas could now have outposts of Scots Gaelic at either extremity - there are still speakers in Nova Scotia to this day.Who better to settle the cold far away islands from South America than the people from the cold far away islands in Europe.
Heh, and thus a hard land is settled by rugged settlers. Sadly the good luck in native-settler relation in Patagonia seems unlikely to repeat.
Cool of Gaelic to get another new world Foothold. Still will it get any further injections?
The Lt's comment on the Welsh running wild os odd. The Welsh colony seems quite a success in expanding and even claiming a hold on the Pacific.
Between the three colonies Britain seems to have bitten off the tip of the Southern cone for the long term.
Cool of Gaelic to get another new world Foothold. Still will it get any further injections?
The Lt's comment on the Welsh running wild os odd. The Welsh colony seems quite a success in expanding and even claiming a hold on the Pacific.
Between the three colonies Britain seems to have bitten off the tip of the Southern cone for the long term.
I'll defer to Petete's local knowledge but my understanding is that the situation in TdF was at least tolerable until gold was discovered, and then it got very nasty very fast. Sadly, I con't think of any compelling reasons why the wouldn't be a broadly similar outcome here (other than the gold being discovered before the age of steam, making a true gold rush somewhat harder, anyway).
Undoubtedly some, but probably not enough to prevent English becoming the majority language by the 20thC at the latest.
This and the earlier post (with the POV of an RN officer) was meant to reflect a view that the Welsh are being a trifle ambitious given that their population is still not far into five figures. Settling a river valley they understand, attempting to bite off an area almost the size of France with so few people comes across as somewhat reckless.That wasn't the intention, but it may well end up the result.
So, in my uninformed opinion, you will need to have a steady stream of Gaelic speakers come out in order to refresh the community and balance out the non Gaelic speaking migrants. The Gold Rush will likely mess that up as it did elsewhere, as English or Spanish will be more widely spoken.
In NZ, we have several attempts to found Gaelic (Scots) language communities but none really lasted very long. So far as I can tell, the largest one was at a place called Waipu, where about 800 migrants came via Nova Scotia, all largely Highlands types. But by the turn of the 20th century they were largely just another Scots descended, English speaking rural NZ town.
However, this settlement could be of use to you, as the people in question could easily be diverted to your settlement as they appear to have been some sort of religious movement, known as the Normanists.
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1m39/mcleod-norman
So far as the NZ government is concerned, they believe we had Scots Gaelic up till the 1930s. This tallies with my family history, as many were Presbyterian types from Highlands/Islands families. IIRC the last person who could speak Gaelic was my great grandmother, who died in the 1950s.
The 1930s were the last years in which any significant number in New Zealand spoke Gaelic. Sermons were still being preached in Gaelic from a few Presbyterian pulpits in that decade, and in 1938 T. D. Burnett, of the Mt Cook station, organised a highland gathering at which the speeches and a sermon were in the old language. When Dame Flora McLeod visited Dunedin in 1954, she was welcomed in Gaelic by a woman from Skye.
In NZ, we have several attempts to found Gaelic (Scots) language communities but none really lasted very long. So far as I can tell, the largest one was at a place called Waipu, where about 800 migrants came via Nova Scotia, all largely Highlands types. But by the turn of the 20th century they were largely just another Scots descended, English speaking rural NZ town.
However, this settlement could be of use to you, as the people in question could easily be diverted to your settlement as they appear to have been some sort of religious movement, known as the Normanists.
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1m39/mcleod-norman
So far as the NZ government is concerned, they believe we had Scots Gaelic up till the 1930s. This tallies with my family history, as many were Presbyterian types from Highlands/Islands families. IIRC the last person who could speak Gaelic was my great grandmother, who died in the 1950s.
The 1930s were the last years in which any significant number in New Zealand spoke Gaelic. Sermons were still being preached in Gaelic from a few Presbyterian pulpits in that decade, and in 1938 T. D. Burnett, of the Mt Cook station, organised a highland gathering at which the speeches and a sermon were in the old language. When Dame Flora McLeod visited Dunedin in 1954, she was welcomed in Gaelic by a woman from Skye.
That's fascinating - thank you. And I agree, they are exactly the sort that could be diverted to TdF in the 1850's - another 800 Gaelic speakers would be a huge boost at that point.
No worries. There is probably a lot more of that kind of thing if you look hard enough. I could imagine the US must have taken a few too.
Just a bit of filler to keep this ticking over while I do some more research...
Part 12 - The Immigrant’s Tale (Part 2)
Tyddyn y Gaseg 1835
Fy annwyl fab hynaf Sion bach,
Cyfarchion i’th gymar ag i’r pedwar plantyn, gobeithio y tyfan nhw’n iach.
Mae Robin dy frawd mewn ychydig o helynt, un byrbwyll a fuo fo ‘rioed.
Y gaeaf yn galed yma’n uwch caled, ac yr Wladfa mor bell ac erioed.
Ac mae Jac Tyddyn Isa a Buddug yn hapus, a’r plant yn iach ac yn gryf
Mae’r hynaf yn cropian, yn crwydro i bobman - mae nhw’n deud fod o’n debyg i ti.
---
More time passed, Siôn adopted young Rhys Jenkins as his own son – one of Eluned’s conditions - and after a decade of mostly happy marriage he was joined by two sisters and a brother, Catrin, Eleri and Tomas. As a landowner with a wife and children, Siôn was positively respectable now and when he was asked if he’d like to stand for the office of mayor of Hebron he thought for a while and accepted, become the second worthy to hold that office.
In truth, being mayor of a town of 250 people was hardly an onerous responsibility, even if it was the second largest town in the Camwy valley and the third in the colony, after Trewatcyn and Caerfelin respectively. Occasional land disputes, runaway cattle, lending a dignified presence to the magistrate’s bench and reading the occasional lesson in Chapel being the sum of it. The children probably felt it more as they were sternly warned by their father that, as the mayor’s children, they had to set an example in their schoolwork and their behaviour at Chapel. Regardless of lectures, he still had to pretend to be angry on occasion when Rhys had to be fished out of an irrigation canal or Catrin brought home a stray puppy.
When the constitution was amended at the end of his first term as mayor to change the basis on which the Senedd was elected from at large to a constituency basis, some of the people who had asked him to stand for mayor asked him to stand for the Senedd for the newly created Hebron and district seat. He thought for a while about this too, but declined on the basis it would mean spending several weeks a year at Trewatcyn. If he ever stopped to ask what the young man who had once travelled seven and a half thousand miles to live in a tent and wield a shovel would have said to this reluctance to travel barely a day’s journey from home he showed no sign of it.
---
Author’s Note:
Again, credit is due to Bryn Fôn for the inspiration and Welsh language text. Loosely translated, it reads as follows:
Tyddyn y Gaseg 1835,
My beloved eldest son Siôn Bach,
Greetings to your spouse and the four children, I hope they are growing up healthy. Robin your brother was in some trouble, as impulsive and careless as ever. The winter is hard here, very hard, and the Colony is as far away as ever. Jack Tyddyn Isa and Buddug are happy, and their children are healthy and strong. The oldest is crawling and wandering everywhere - they say that he's like you.
Part 12 - The Immigrant’s Tale (Part 2)
Tyddyn y Gaseg 1835
Fy annwyl fab hynaf Sion bach,
Cyfarchion i’th gymar ag i’r pedwar plantyn, gobeithio y tyfan nhw’n iach.
Mae Robin dy frawd mewn ychydig o helynt, un byrbwyll a fuo fo ‘rioed.
Y gaeaf yn galed yma’n uwch caled, ac yr Wladfa mor bell ac erioed.
Ac mae Jac Tyddyn Isa a Buddug yn hapus, a’r plant yn iach ac yn gryf
Mae’r hynaf yn cropian, yn crwydro i bobman - mae nhw’n deud fod o’n debyg i ti.
---
More time passed, Siôn adopted young Rhys Jenkins as his own son – one of Eluned’s conditions - and after a decade of mostly happy marriage he was joined by two sisters and a brother, Catrin, Eleri and Tomas. As a landowner with a wife and children, Siôn was positively respectable now and when he was asked if he’d like to stand for the office of mayor of Hebron he thought for a while and accepted, become the second worthy to hold that office.
In truth, being mayor of a town of 250 people was hardly an onerous responsibility, even if it was the second largest town in the Camwy valley and the third in the colony, after Trewatcyn and Caerfelin respectively. Occasional land disputes, runaway cattle, lending a dignified presence to the magistrate’s bench and reading the occasional lesson in Chapel being the sum of it. The children probably felt it more as they were sternly warned by their father that, as the mayor’s children, they had to set an example in their schoolwork and their behaviour at Chapel. Regardless of lectures, he still had to pretend to be angry on occasion when Rhys had to be fished out of an irrigation canal or Catrin brought home a stray puppy.
When the constitution was amended at the end of his first term as mayor to change the basis on which the Senedd was elected from at large to a constituency basis, some of the people who had asked him to stand for mayor asked him to stand for the Senedd for the newly created Hebron and district seat. He thought for a while about this too, but declined on the basis it would mean spending several weeks a year at Trewatcyn. If he ever stopped to ask what the young man who had once travelled seven and a half thousand miles to live in a tent and wield a shovel would have said to this reluctance to travel barely a day’s journey from home he showed no sign of it.
---
Author’s Note:
Again, credit is due to Bryn Fôn for the inspiration and Welsh language text. Loosely translated, it reads as follows:
Tyddyn y Gaseg 1835,
My beloved eldest son Siôn Bach,
Greetings to your spouse and the four children, I hope they are growing up healthy. Robin your brother was in some trouble, as impulsive and careless as ever. The winter is hard here, very hard, and the Colony is as far away as ever. Jack Tyddyn Isa and Buddug are happy, and their children are healthy and strong. The oldest is crawling and wandering everywhere - they say that he's like you.
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