Yes, We Did!

Martyn Rhisiart Jones

Madrid, Friday 16th January 2026

Ah, Americans of Welsh origin. They were the quiet revolutionaries and the sneaky Founding Fathers. These are the guys who basically built half the country. Then, they vanished into the wallpaper like they owed us money!

Picture this. You got these little Welsh dudes. They were short, stubborn, and sang like angels on steroids. They hopped off boats in the 1600s and 1700s. Looking around at this big empty America, they said, “Yeah, this’ll do.” But first, let’s make sure the English don’t get all the credit.” And they didn’t just settle. They infiltrated.

We’re talking Thomas Jefferson. He wrote “all men are created equal.” He was probably humming a hymn in Welsh under his breath. John Adams? Welsh roots. John Quincy Adams? Same family tree. James Garfield, Calvin Coolidge, Richard Nixon. Hell, even Barack Obama has a great, great grandpa from Anglesey! That’s right, the first Black president has Welsh blood. Talk about the ultimate plot twist. “Yes, we can… and yes, we’re part sheep farmers from Snowdonia.

”And don’t get me started on the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Five? Ten? Some say sixteen of those bad boys had Welsh blood! They’re over here yelling “Give me liberty or give me death!” but in their heads it’s “Rhyddid neu farwolaeth, boys, and pass the laverbread.

”Then you got the wild ones. Daniel Boone? Welsh. Jesse James, the outlaw? Welsh. Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president? Welsh! So half the Civil War was basically a family feud between cousins who couldn’t agree on the recipe for cawl.

And the inventors, the tycoons. J.P. Morgan? Welsh. Frank Lloyd Wright? Welsh-ish. Elihu Yale? The guy who funded the university that pumps out more presidents than a reality show? Straight up Welsh.

But here’s the beautiful, tragic, Carlin-level irony. There are like two million Americans claiming Welsh ancestry, 0.6 per cent of the population, but ten million walking around with Welsh surnames like Jones, Davis, Evans, Williams. That’s right, Jones is the fifth most common last name in America! You got more Joneses than Smiths in some states, yet nobody’s throwing a St. David’s Day parade with green beer and dragons. Why? Because the Welsh assimilated so hard, they disappeared into the American wallpaper.

They didn’t need parades. They didn’t need to scream about it. They just quietly took over the banks, the White House, the frontier, the Constitution, and then said, “Right, job done. Time for tea and a quiet sulk about the English.”

Meanwhile, the Irish get shamrocks on everything. The Italians got Columbus Day until they didn’t. The Scots get kilts and bagpipes. But the Welsh? They’re the ultimate sleeper cell. You’re sitting next to one at Thanksgiving. You’re eating turkey. He’s thinking, “This gravy could use a bit of laverbread, but I won’t say anything… we’ve been running this show since 1776.

”So next time some blowhard says America was built by the English, the Germans, the Irish, just smile. Then whisper, “Yeah… and the Welsh wrote the damn script, funded the revolution, signed the paper. Then they politely stepped into the background like the polite, passive-aggressive geniuses they are.

”Diolch yn fawr, you sneaky, world shaping, choir singing bastards. America’s got Welsh in its DNA… Most of us don’t even know we’re carrying the flag of a tiny rainy country. This country conquered the biggest empire on Earth without anyone noticing. God bless the Welsh Americans. And God help anyone who forgets it.

Many thanks for reading.

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