Patagonia: a small slice of Wales in South America

In early 19th century Wales, Welsh speakers, many of them non-conformist Christians, felt they were being persecuted for their language and culture. An 1847 parliamentary report on Welsh education (later known as The Treachery Of The Blue Books) made matters worse by making disparaging comments about the Welsh language. Pouring scorn on Welsh speakers, and advocating punishments like the Welsh Not (a piece of wood given to children who spoke Welsh in school, often hung around their necks), it prompted waves of migration from Wales to America. One non-conformist minister from Bala who had moved to Ohio, Michael D. Jones, knew how hard it was for the Welsh language to thrive in its motherland. The idea of creating a remote utopia away from the influence of the English language became his obsession.

A Caernarfon-born publisher and printer named Lewis Jones felt the same way. In 1862,  he travelled to Patagonia's Chubut Valley, accompanied by Welsh Liberal politician Sir Love Parry-Jones (whose home estate, Madryn, would give its name to the port in which the settlers landed) . They were offered land by an Argentinian minister, despite the region already being occupied by an indigenous tribe.

Later that year, a pamphlet selling Patagonia's virtues was written and distributed back home, by another Welshman, Hugh Hughes. Hughes' promises of a land much like Wales were somewhat overstated. Despite this, the pamphlet convinced 150 people, many from the Cynon Valley communities of Aberdare, Mountain Ash and Abercwmboi, to board a tea-clipper boat, the Mimosa. Disembarking on 28 May from Liverpool, their mission was to set up a new Welsh settlement. They would call it Y Wladfa.

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