American Providence

June of 1837

My friends one and all, listen to what I have to say- Ever since I can remember, I have loved the whites. I have lived with them ever since I was a boy, and to the best of my knowledge, I have never wronged the white man, on the contrary, I have always protected them from the insults of others, which they cannot deny. The Four Bears never saw a white man hungry, but what he gave him to eat, drink, and a Buffalo skin to sleep on in time of need. I was always ready to die for them, which they cannot deny. I have done everything that a red skin could do for them, and how have they repaid it? With ingratitude! I have never called a white man a Dog, but today, I do pronounce them to be a set of black-hearted Dogs, they have deceived me, them that I always considered brother, has turned out to be my worst enemies. I have been in many battles, and often wounded, but the wounds of my enemies I exalt in, but today I am wounded, and by whom, by those same white Dogs that I have always considered, and treated as Brothers. I do not fear Death my friends. You know it, but to die with my face rotten, that even the Wolves will shrink with horror at meeting me, and say to themselves, that is the Four Bears, the friend of the Whites -listen well what I have to say, as it will be the last time you will hear me. Think of your wives, children, brothers, sisters, friends, and in fact all that you hold dear, are all dead, or dying, with their faces all rotten caused by those dogs the whites, think of all that my friends, and rise up all together and not leave one of them alive: The Four Bears will act his part.

The Mandan indian tribe also know as the "White Indians" is conjectured by many including Thomas Jefferson to have mixed with and therefore were descendants of prince Madog (Madoc) Owain of Wales who may be assumed an ancestor of the Madogs of Llanfydnach Wales.  Prince Madog ap Owain Gwynedd was a younger son of Owain Gwynedd, King of North Wales, and Queen Brenda, daughter of the Lord of Camo, it is likely that he was born at Dolwyddelan castle in the twelfth century.

According to Mandan beliefs, each person possessed four different, immortal souls. The first soul was white and often seen as a shooting star or meteor. The second soul was colored a light brown and was seen in the form of the meadowlark. The third soul, called the lodge spirit, remained at the site of the lodge after death and would remain there forever. The final soul was black and after death would travel away from the village. These final souls existed as did living people; residing in their own villages, farming and hunting.

Indians began dying at an accelerating rate—at first, two or three a day; later, entire families of eight or ten persons at once. “I Keep no a/c of the dead, as they die so fast that it is impossible.”

With blood pouring from their mouths and ears, they often died even before the appearance of smallpox’s characteristic pustules. In a futile effort to find relief, sufferers threw themselves into water and rolled in hot ashes. Husbands and wives committed MUTUAL SUICIDE, stabbing themselves with arrows and knives, or leaping off cliffs. One Mandan woman, after watching her husband die, killed her two children and “to complete the affair she hung herself.”