Black History Thread #10: "Did You Know?" (Africans Discovered America)

[Hissyspit]

Every day for the rest of February, I am posting some form of interesting information regarding African American history.

Africans "Discovered" America

There is convincing evidence that, in pre-Columbian times, Africans found or made contact with America or called it home.

"When Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa landed in Panama in 1513, he found a community of (black-skinned) people already living there." Archaeologists, uncovering pre-Columbian sculptures and pottery "that bore faces with distinctly African features,"including the famed Olmec heads, have added even more intriguing evidence to the theories that Africans may have been in the Americas for many centuries as explorers or traders.

The leading contemporary researcher on this subject is Ivan Van Sertima, "who has written several books on the subject. A professor at Rutgers University, he delivered a lecture to the Smithsonian Institute in 1991, as part of the symposium 'Race': Discourse and the Origin of the Americas: A New World View of 1942. An entertaining and thought-provoking read of his can be found here, a reply by Van Sertima to critics of his ideas that "that Africans made contact with America before Columbus in two major pre-Christian periods (circa 1200 b.c. and circa 800 b.c.) in addition to the Mandingo contact period (1310/1311 A.D.)"

"This line of thinking is not new. In 1920, a (Harvard grad) Leo Weiner wrote Africa and the Discovery of America (and is) thought to be the originator of the idea even though he did not have all of the recently discovered facts necessary to support his theory. Later in 1962, Harold G. Lawrence wrote African Explorers of the New World. He believed that Mandigos from the Mali and Songhay Empires carried on trade with the natives of the Americas."

"In 1939, Dr. Matthew Sterling led a joint team from the National Geographic Society into the Gulf of Mexico to spearhead a major digging operation in Vera Cruz to unearth the monolith heads. Sterling concluded: 'The features are bold and amazingly Negroid in character.' In Monte' Alban, 140 Negroid type figures have been discovered. Upon archaeological research, there is no logical denying of the 'negroidness' found in the art of ancient America."

Who were the Olmecs? One website posits that: The Olmecs came from Nubia in Central Africa and they migrated to America in which they named in their Cushite language, 'Utla', which means, "vacate." When the Olmecs discovered that there was actually a North Utla and a South Utla, the word 'Utla' became plural which became 'Atlan', which is where the word 'Atlantis' came from. The Olmecs were of a tribe in Africa called 'Dogon' in Mali. When the Dogons migrated to America they also imported the rubber tree which is only indigenous to Africa. The Dogons used the sap from the tree to make shoes, coats, capes, and they were the first to introduce the soles on shoes to the New World. The name 'Olmec' means 'Rubber People.'

Two male skeletons described as "Negroid" were found in February 1975 by a Smithsonian Institution team in the U.S. Virgin Islands in a grave that was used and abandoned long before Columbus arrived; soil dated to 1250 AD (Post-Classic). "The teeth showed, 'dental mutilation characteristic of early African cultures,'" wrote Dr. Andrzej Wiecinski. Other "Negroid" skeletons have been unearthed in pre-Columbian layers in the Pecos River valley.

Stone head from Veracruz, Mexico, Classic period, c. A.D. 900; American Museum of Natural History, New York




One of the massive Olmec stone heads in Mexico displaying features that suggest the presence of Africans in the Americas as early as 1200 BC; source unknown




A fate of forcibly resettled (mostly west) Africans post-Columbian: depiction of slaves being used to power mills in the West Indies; Library of Congress

SOURCES:
http://members.tripod.com/pointingbird/lostfeatherintl/id7.htm
http://members.aol.com/carltred/AfricanPresence.htm
http://www.africawithin.com/vansertima/reply_critics.htm
Jeffrey C. Stewart. 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About African American History. New York: Doubleday, 1996; reprint, New York: Gramercy, Random House, 2006.

Yesterday's Black History Month Thread #9: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=515930&mesg_id=515930

[EFerrari]

1. K&R

[Hissyspit]

4. Isn't that West Indies image horrifying?

Even though the drawing style is fairly cartoony (puppet-like figures), the idea that human could do that to other humans is so depressing.

[EFerrari]

6. Yes, it is.

:(

[malaise]

19. There are many more images

worse than that one. Love your threads.

[Catherine Vincent]

2. Thanks for the education, Hissy!

:hi: and Kick!

[NMMNG]

3. Another fine thread Hissyspit

It's always interesting to see what doesn't make it into the history primers. ;-)

[Skittles]

5. I am eating up these threads

yes INDEED :thumbsup:

[Zan_of_Texas]

10. I adore the Olmecs -- studied 'em waaaay back when.

Always thought they were much cooler than the Mayans and Aztecs. May have had a lot to do with the progress the Mayans made.

The Olmec jadework is quite amazing.

Here are a couple.

[NMMNG]

13. Those are great

I especially like the top one. :thumbsup:

[tocqueville]

7. some questions...

with what boats ?

why no remnants of a simmilar monolith culture on the other side ?

why no traces in the rich oral mandingo tradition ?


so many questions, so few answers....


"the word 'Utla' became plural which became 'Atlan', which is where the word 'Atlantis' came from"

so they taught the Greek who invented the word ?

Plato's accounts of Atlantis are in his works Timaeus and Critias; these are the earliest known references to the mythological civilization of the Atlanteans(360 BC).

[Hissyspit]

8. Yeah, that last part I just kind of put in for the fun of it.

That guy is the radical side of the theoretical proclamations. The Van Sertima link fleshes out a lot of the controversial elements (even if you don't agree with him).

I have no problem with the boat issue, though. Clearly earlier humans were doing MUCH more traveling by water than has been conventionally thought. There is a lot of missing evidence and plenty of controversy to go around.

[tocqueville]

11. yep but why then lose the ability ????

polynesians still travel with their boats...

[EFerrari]

14. That is an interesting question because it opens up

the history of tech in a culture.

I wonder how many shipwrights we have here in San Francisco today as opposed to 200 years ago. Or, how many people can produce a suit of clothes, a loaf of bread or frame a house. :)

[tocqueville]

21. probably a few... (can produce)

but there still plenty that can produce the same stuff with OTHER means. Besides even if people don't need to produce clothes, bread of houses (because skilled workers do it somewhere) the ability isn't lost in itself.

What I know of cultures that could sail with primitive means, have most of the time improved their sailing skills either by own inventions or by importing other's.

If the black tribes from West Africa could sail over the Atlantic, why abandon the knowledge over there ? Of course they could have drifted with rafts, but it's a bit strange why the use of rafts wasn't then spread in the New World.

[Hissyspit]

15. Well, ship transport lived on with the Egyptians who were at one time

ruled by the Nubians. Technologies are lost by civilizations; that's hardly unheard of:

Here's some other stuff on travel by boat from Africa:

There have been several important experiments with African boats and the Atlantic currents. Starting in 1952, Dr. Alain Bombard sailed from Casablanca to Barbados in an African raft. In 1955, Dr. Hannes Lindemann sailed for fifty-two days from the Cape Verde Islands to the South American coast. Both journeys were made alone and the men arrived in good health. In 1969, Thor Heyerdahl conducted two experiments, one with the Ra I and the other with the Ra II. The Ra I and the Ra II were ships built identical to an earlier model African ship. The ships were built out of papyrus and were constructed the way they would have been during the Pre-Columbian era. The Ra I was built by the Buduma people first. The Ra I started at Safi in North Africa and sailed to Barbados. The Ra I fell short of making the journey across the Atlantic. The Ra II was built by a native American tribe, the Aymara, this ship made it from Africa to America successfully. These experiments prove that if these simple vessels could negotiate the Atlantic Ocean using one of the two currents, then some of Africa's more sophisticated ships could have made the trip.

The civilization of Africa developed very sophisticated vessels. They built reed boats with a and without sails, log rafts lashed together, dugouts as wide-berthed, Viking ships, double-canoes, lateen-rigged dhows, jointed boats, and rope sewn plank vessels with straw cabins and cooking facilities. These vessels could be found navigating the Nile and Niger rivers. The vessels covered a distance of 2,600 miles carrying cargo from food and people, to elephants and building material. Africa at it's nearest point is 1,500 miles away from America. This point puts a possible voyage to the Americas in perspective.

It has been (theorized) that two different African civilizations could have made the voyage to the Americas. The first one was the 25th Dynasty of Egypt (751-656 B.C.E.). Any voyages made during this time would have resulted accidentally. The Nubians quest for iron ore deposits took them up and down the African coast. They might have journeyed into the Atlantic after iron ore deposits or a storm could have driven them into the Atlantic. Once in the currents it would have delivered them to the Americas. This would put them in the Olmec heartlands at the time of the founding of the Olmec civilization. The second voyage was made by the Mandiga people of the Mali Empire in 1310 and 1311. In 1324 Mansa Kankan Musa stopped in Cairo and reported that his predecessor, Prince Abubakari II, launched two expeditions to explore the limits of the Atlantic Ocean. The first expedition he sent out 200 ships of men, and 200 ships of trade material, food, water. One ship returned and told of the current that seemed like a river in the middle of the ocean. The captain watched the ships get sucked away, and then returned with the news. Prince Abubakari II, after listening to the captain, decided he would lead the next voyage himself. He took 1,000 ships of men and 1,000 ships loaded with supplies.

Some of these Africans must have made it to the Americas, because there were sightings that indicated their presence in the New World. Columbus himself reported that the American Indians of Hispaniola had told him that "there had come to Hispaniola people who have the tops of their spears made of a metal which they call quanin, of which he had sent samples to the Sovereigns to have them assayed, when it was found that of 32 parts, 18 were gold, six of silver and eight of copper." These samples were sent back to Spain on a mail boat, and the proportion was found to be identical to what was being forged in African Guinea. On his third voyage he journeyed to the Cape Verde Islands. There he found that "canoes had been found which start from the coast of Guinea and navigate to the west with merchandise." A personal friend of Columbus, named Las Casa, who traveled with him later left the following message:

"Certain principal inhabitants of the island of Santiago came to see them and they say that to the southwest of the Island of Huego which is one of the Cape Verdes distance 12 leagues from this, may be seen an island, and that the King Don Juan was greatly inclined to send to make discoveries to the southwest, and that canoes had been found which start from the coast of Guinea and navigate to the west with merchandise."

[TahitiNut]

9. Without recording the Title at the Royal Title Office, the 'discovery' ...

... wasn't of value to those who wrote the Royal History Books. It's all about ENTITLEMENTS, folks ... and that has rarely, throughout history, reflected reality - or justice.

[babylonsister]

12. Hissyspit, you rock, and thanks for informing us all! nt

[BreweryYardRat]

16. It's possible...

Brazil and West Africa aren't that far apart. Explorers could well have made it over there, and descriptions or later explorers could have come north to the Olmecs.

[Blue_Tires]

17. ttt

thanks again for all your research!

[Sabien]

18. AHEM - need I remind you?

That nobody "discovered" America.

The rest of the world was ignorant to the fact that we've been here forever.

Please re-think your verbage.

:eyes:

[Hissyspit]

28. AHEM - no, you don't need to remind me.

That is why the word is in quotes in the post. I did re-think the verbiage. I used the terms 'found,' 'made contact with' and 'called home' in the post.

[H2O Man]

20. "America BC"

by former Harvard faculty member Barry Fell documents African contact/commerce with the Americas, although "discovered" is not an accurate description. The ancient world was not one of total isolation and ignorance. The major tribes (as opposed to the false concept of "races") were aware of one another. The European tribes were part of the global community, although with the fall of the Roman Empire, most of Europe entered the "Dark Ages," when advanced learning was lost to all but the Irish. Hence, when Columbus was searching for a water route for advancing trade (and to by-pass other countries that served as "middle men") he ignorantly believed he had "discovered" a New World. This is similar to when the youngest sibling in a family "discovers" something new only to him/her, that everyone else in the family was aware of for many years.

[petronius]

22. It's starting to sound as though everybody discovered the Americas

except for the people who were already here...

Early trans-Atlantic voyages don't sound that far-fetched - and it would be easier to go from Africa to South America than the other way.

[Nia Zuri]

23. The people who were "already" here came from somewhere else too.

It all started in Africa. The "first Americans" migrated from Asia.

[petronius]

26. Right - a bunch of people migrated in from Asia,

populated the Americas for a dozen millennia or so, and then got 'discovered' by the Chinese, Polynesians, Africans, Norse, Italians, etc.

The people who actually did get here first are apparently the only ones who aren't getting discovery credit. Of course, it's just a semantic question - as long as the word 'discovery' is understood to refer only to the point of view of the people doing the discovering, it doesn't matter that a bunch of other people already possessed the 'new' information. Personally, however, I always like the word to be qualified a bit if the discovered knowledge is new to only a subset of humanity.

[Bridget Burke]

25. I read "They All Discovered America" back in the 60's.

I hope it's still available. It recounted all the stories of pre-Columbian discovery in a non-judgmental way. Some were more likely than others.

Even the story of the First Discoverers is growing more complicated. Rather than everyone traipsing over Beringia during an Ice Age, earlier and/or later settlers may have come by sea. Not so much epic voyages as paddling along the shore looking for likely spots to settle. Rising sea levels would have covered many earlier settlements.

[Hissyspit]

27. I remember finding out that the Phoenicians had probably been

to the British Isles. An eye-opener.

[Pithy Cherub]

24. What a great contribution to the dialogue!

This series has been exceptional, Hissy! History is written by the survivors and the winners. The legacy of the art and its value tells a tale different than some of the documents.

:toast:

[greyl]

29. Great topic! Prince - Family Name

I think this idea has a lot of merit. It makes good sense to me. I think most people don't "realize" that humanity has a 3 million year old history that began in Africa and that humans as intelligent as you and I have existed for at least 200,000 years. It makes the importance of "our" short history seem quite suspect.
On a related note, the Mormon doctrine that their ancestors came to North America from the Middle East has recently been proven incorrect.

Anyway, on Prince's The Rainbow Children, there is a great song called Family Name which touches on the concepts in your OP:

lyrics:

"Welcome. You have just accessed the Akashic Records Genetic Information
Division. This program is required for those wishing to obtain a marriage
blessing from The Kingdom. When you wish to begin this program, place your right
hand on the scanner and tightly clench up your buttcheeks as you might feel a
slight electrical shock.
Please select the race history you desire.
You have selected African-American. This is your history:

First of all, the term "black and white" is a fallacy. It simply is another
way of saying "this or that". Let's examine the term "this or that" in its
ultimate form which is: "this" means the truth or "that which is resistant to
it. When a minority realizes its similarities on a higher level- not just
"black"- but PEOPLE OF COLOR, and higher still "INDIGENOUS", and even higher
still, "FROM THE TRIBE OF", and yet higher - the "RAINBOW CHILDREN" - when
this understanding comes, the so-called minority becomes a majority in the
wink of an eye. This action will cause a Reaction or Resistance. The source
of this Resistance must be banished as it is in direct conflict with the
initial action. It cannot be assimilated, for its very nature is resistance.
In other words, ONE CANNOT SERVE 2 MASTERS. You are either "this" or "that
which is not this".

End of part one. To continue, select the program Family Name and type in the
current government name you wish history on.

(London, England sometime in the early 1600s)

"We have the God-given right to run out of our colonies anyone who does not
bow down to our law. Hear, hear?"

"Come on, come on keep it moving here. What's your name boy?"
"Abu Cah"
"Well it ain't now; it's Tom Lynch."

more...

It would be better to listen to the actual song, of course.