Two terrains united by culture: The Welsh in Patagonia

Flag of the Welsh Colony in Patagonia (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Wales and South America. Rain and sun. How can these two places be so intertwined? The answer? The Welsh culture, surprisingly. In Argentinian Patagonia, there is a rich history of the Welsh language and culture, dating back to the 19th-century. Even today there is a striking connection that unifies these respective places, which, at first glance, could not seem more different from each other. These two worlds that seem so far apart – both in culture and in distance – are unified by the Welsh language.

So why did the Welsh venture to a place so far away? During the 19th century, the Welsh people, language and culture were under increasing suppression by British rule. This suppression even extended to schools, where use of the Welsh Not was widespread. Inscribed into a piece of wood was ‘W. N.’, which would be worn by a student as punishment for speaking Welsh. Additionally, there was the Treachery of the Blue Books (Brad y Llyfrau Gleision), a report by the British government harshly criticising the Welsh language, morality and education. Even earlier, in the 16th century, the language was discriminated as Henry VIII declared English as the sole language of courts in Wales, therefore you could not receive public office if using the Welsh language. This active repression of the Welsh culture made many people feel the need to escape to a land far away from British rule as well as in search of better lives and jobs.

Michael D Jones, a radical Nonconformist leader whose family had emigrated to America in 1865 and quickly assimilated to the English language decided to establish a colony (y Wladfa) in Patagonia to preserve the Welsh culture and prevent the deterioration of its traditions. This was the case for many other Welsh diasporas where the Welsh language was being lost through integration into new English-speaking communities, for example in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. After sailing on the Mimosa ship from Liverpool on the 28th of May 1865, the first Welsh settlers arrived in Patagonia on the 28th of July 1865 in Puerto Madryn. It is estimated that there are between 2,000-5,000 Welsh-speaking Argentines today, the language mainly being spoken in the Gaiman area in the Chubut Province (South of Buenos Aires) and in the towns of Trevelin and Esquel near the border with Chile. The settlers faced struggles at the beginning, such as acclimatising to the hot South American environment and the Argentinian government once prohibiting the use of the Welsh language in schools and at local government level. Despite this, today Patagonia is a place of Spanish and Welsh fusion, both in language and culture.

Since the settlement, the Welsh language has been adopted and a Patagonian Welsh dialect has been established, alongside bilingual schools and Welsh classes. The earlier settlers set up Welsh speaking schools and chapels and the first Welsh-medium school in the world was established in Patagonia in 1868 - a reflection of the harsh suppression of the language in its own country. It was not until 1939 that the first Welsh-medium school was opened in Wales itself - Ysgol Gymraeg Aberystwyth. There are three Welsh/Spanish schools in Patagonia: Ysgol y Cwm (The Valley School) in Trevelin, Ysgol yr Hendre (School of the Old Homestead/Dwelling) in Trelew and Ysgol y Gaiman in Gaiman. A recent documentary by S4C - Gwladfa - follows the Welsh singer Gwilym Bowen Rhys as he travels around Patagonia. In one segment where he visits schools, a student of Coleg Camwy (a secondary school which offers Welsh as part of the curriculum) said that they speak Welsh at home and with people from Wales who visit Patagonia.

Since 1997, the British Council have maintained the connection between Wales and Patagonia by running the Welsh Language Project, which sends Language Development Officers from Wales to Patagonia for 10 months to offer Welsh language classes to a variety of age groups. They work in the Chubut Province, in the Andes, Gaiman and Trelew areas. The School of Welsh at Cardiff University has also offered students the opportunity to travel to Patagonia to promote the Welsh language.

Linguistically, the Patagonian Welsh dialect is an incredibly interesting fusion of Welsh and of Spanish spoken in Argentina. For example, to say ‘to go for a walk’, in Welsh it would be ‘Mynd am dro’, and in Argentinian Spanish, ‘ir de paseo’/’ir paseando’. In Patagonian Welsh, this would be ‘Mynd i baseando’, the ‘b’ deriving from the grammatical rule of mutation in Welsh. Much like the Eisteddfod that is held annually in Wales, a bilingual Welsh/Spanish Eisteddfod is also held in Patagonia, sharing the same traditions such as the traditional dance (dawnsio Gwerin), and the literary prizes and ceremonies.

A bilingual Welsh/Spanish sign, reading ‘open’ (Photo: Gastón Cuello, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Marc Evans’ 2010 Welsh Argentine film, Patagonia, captures the modern manifestation of this historic settlement. It was selected for the Best Foreign Language Film as the British Entry at the 84th Academy Awards but did not reach the final shortlist. The film has Welsh, English and Spanish dialogue, and follows a couple from Cardiff who travel to Argentina where the husband has been commissioned to photograph Patagonia’s Welsh chapels. Their guide, Mateo, is portrayed by the actor Matthew Rhys, and Cerys, an elderly Welsh Argentine woman travels to Wales to visit the farm on which her mother lived before emigrating to Patagonia in the 1920s. Matthew Rhys encountered the role by chance, meeting the director Marc Evans in 2005 in Patagonia whilst Rhys was visiting descendants of the original Welsh settlers, and Evans was scouting for filming locations.

Celebrating the centenary of the Mimosa's voyage to Patagonia, (Photo: Uploaded by Geoff Charles via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0, The National Library of Wales)

Alongside Patagonia’s own Latin American culture, the Welsh language continues to thrive there today, from the bilingual education to the historic Welsh chapels and Tea Houses. This linguistic and cultural connection has allowed the small Celtic nation to share its traditions with a country whose desert landscapes are immensely different but have played host to an intriguing fusion of two cultures in one terrain.