A Welsh Song in Patagonia

William Casnodyn Rhys a young theology student dreamed of establishing a Welsh colony where the Welsh language and culture could be preserved. A few years later the Baptist congregation of the Chubut Valley Colony offered this young pastor of the Baptist Congregation of Swansea Wales an invitation to pastor the chapel they were building. Rhys accepted the offer and with his young wife and baby daughter Myfanwy sailed in 1876 to Patagonian shores where they began their new home in the lower valley of the Chubut river called Chupat by the Tehuelche Indians and Camwy by the Welsh. For over 70 years Rhys' manuscript about life on the Welsh Colony in Patagonia Pioneers in Patagonia together with the talks 15 Years in Patagonia lay dormant in the archives of The National Library of Wales. The manuscripts were finally discovered and for the first time are available in English as compiled in 2005 by Rhys' grandson David H. Rhys Ph.D.