He devotes Chapter 8 to discussing the beneficial innovations and flourishing of culture under Nubian rulers in Egypt. "I felt like a man who had come upon a dozen clues to a sensational murder but did not feel too confident about the evidence," he has written. Other stone heads have been uncovered in Mexico. (Van Sertima, 1972: xiv; They Came Before Colombus). Despite this, there were however, agreed upon black kings of the 25th dynasty such as Taharqa. There are Egyptian-like pyramids in the Americas and mummified persons similar to those in Egypt. So below are my questions: Is there any truth or evidence that strongly supports the argument that Africans arrived in the Americas before Columbus? However, Columbus actually sent back on a mail boat to Spain samples of these gold-tipped metal spears. What normativity means has implications for many things in philosophy and science. The description that Columbus gives certainly is not a description of black people in the Caribbean. They never did import Africans as slaves because slave ships aren't real. He was asked to write a magazine piece simplifying and summarizing Weiner. Highlighted Ogham found on the Isle of Man - Credit: ViewTeam (Author provided) Van Sertima writes about shipping technology, saying that even the most ancient of Egyptian ships were sturdy enough to cross the Atlantic on the currents that run from northwest Africa to the Americas. I am not completely dismissive of the idea that Abu Bakr could have in fact successfully arrived in the Americas. [13] This was a record of the conference held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in September 1998 on the theme of the African Renaissance. (Viera, de Montellano, and Barbour, 1997: 431). Barbour, the first African-American to earn a doctorate in archaeology, is an expert on Mesoamerican culture and associate scientific director of the African Burial Ground Project in Lower Manhattan. The launching of the expedition is recorded by Arab historian Ibn Fadl Allah al-Omari, according to Van Sertima. 1. He talks about the risk factors for Bitcoin as an investment asset including origin risk, speculative market structure, regulatory, and environment. Ivan Van Sertima's They Came Before Columbus is the first monographic treatment of this problem since Leo Wiener's Africa and the Discovery ofAmerica (3 vols., Philadelphia, 1920-1922), although M. D. W. Jeffreys has littered the intervening fifty years with articles on various aspects of it, often drawing heated responses What country did your, say, grandfather or great-grandfather or whatever come from?. They wear the hairs brought down to the eyebrows, except a few locks behind, which they wear long and never cut. here is no question but that the book is landmark." John A- Wi am. In doing so, he also attempts to combat the perceived inferiority of black Africans due to their perceived lack of technological or cultural advancements prior to colonialism in Africa. Moreover, the slave narratives all make it very clear that the enslaved population in the Americas came from Africa so much so that in Cuba some enslaved persons committed suicide, in hope that their spirit would return to Africa. The Case for Reparations for Black Americans, On Asian Immigration to the United States, Hyper-Selectivity, and Hereditarian Musings on Asian Academic Success, The Sexualization of Steatopygia and Adaptationist Claims of Sex Organs, On the So-Called Laws of Behavioral Genetics, The Answer to Hereditarianism is Developmental Systems Theory, Mind, Science, and the First- and Third-Person, Why Purely Physical Things Will Never Be Able to Think: The Irreducibility of Intentionality to Physical States, Follow NotPoliticallyCorrect on WordPress.com, The Non-Validity of IQ: A Response to The Alternative Hypothesis, Black-White Differences in Anatomy and Physiology: Black Athletic Superiority. On 7 July 1987, Van Sertima testified before a United States Congressional committee to oppose recognition of the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's "discovery" of the Americas. Ancient Egypt is regarded as one of the greatest earliest civilizations that has captured the attention and imagination of historians and laypeople alike for years. In Chapter Four, "Africans Across the Sea", Van Sertima explores numerous ways that he claims Africans could have travelled by boat to South and Central America. When the cheerleading coach broke the news to Katrina Kohel that she was the only one left on the cheer squad, Kohel was determined to compete anyway. But early African contact, by free peoples, is being viewed in school curriculum development as a source of pride for a large segment of the modern school population, to counter what Van Sertima termed "disrespect for the Africans" who had built early civilizations and empires in their own homelands long before European contact. "Columbus is not just a man, lic is a symbol. For example, whereas Van Sertima argued that Africans influenced the civilization of the Americas, Clyde Ahmad Winters goes further by suggesting that Africans founded the Olmec and all other major American civilization, which is a claim that Van Sertima never made. There was Nelson Mandelas fight against apartheid in South Africa. Intertribal slavery amongst the Indians was universal and transitioned easily with European interest. Theres not a shred of evidence to prove this. When the metallurgists in Spain assayed these spears, they found they were identical, not similar, but were identical in their ratio of gold, silver and copper alloys as spears then being forged in African Guinea. . [18] Van Sertima quit and wrote the series for an independent company. "I nver expected any money," he explains. The word for tobacco also has African roots as well as the refinement of the practice of oral pipe smoking. Columbus is such a late-comer that it is almost silly to compare anybody's arrival to his. Isnt it weird how Van Sertima and other Afrocentrists use the same type of tactics as pseudoscientists (i.e., ad hoc hypothesizing)? De Las Casas gave this description in his account of Columbus voyage: Wednesday, July 4, he ordered sail made from that island in which he says that since he arrived there he never saw the sun or the stars, but that the heavens were covered with such a thick mist that it seemed they could cut it with a knife and the heat was so very intense that they were tormented, and he ordered the course laid to the way of the south-west, which is the route leading from these islands to the south, in the name, he says, of the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, because then he would be on a parallel with the land of the sierra of Loa and cape of Sancta Ana in Guinea, which is below the equinoctial line, where he says that below that line of the world are found more gold and things of value; and that after, he would navigate, the Lord pleasing, to the west, and from there would go to this Espaola, in which route he would prove the theory of the King John aforesaid; and that he thought to investigate the report of the Indians of this Espaola who said that there had come to Espaola from the south and south-east, a black people who have the tops of their spears made of a metal which they call guanin, of which he had sent samples to the Sovereigns to have them assayed, when it was found that of 32 parts, 18 were of gold, 6 of silver and 8 of copper. On the day he submitted his piece, he learned about Alexander von Wuthenau, and art historian who had excavated a large number of Negroid heads in clay, gold, copper and copal sculpted by pre-Columbian American artists. He published several annual compilations, volumes of the journal dealing with various topics of African history. One of the most striking pieces of evidence is the negroid statues, statues of peoples with thick lips and wide noses. In 1970 Van Sertima immigrated to the United States, where he entered Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, for graduate work. Your email address will not be published. In addition, there are stories of Egyptian mariners. If there were an African presence in the Americas, he asked, "why do we not find more African stylistic artifacts?". "'Roots' does not do that. Normativity has been distinguished between, If you have any suggestions for future posts, criticisms or praises for me, email me at RaceRealist88@gmail.com. Both the Mandingo people of Africa and the Quetzalcoatl people of the Americas undergo a ritual of self-flagellating dances (dances of penance and chastisement) in which the dancers may wrap themselves in thorns or lash themselves with thorns. The Eurocentric view of history is being debunked by anthropologic research. (LogOut/ No man who believes his history began with slavery can be a healthy man. For example, Van Sertimas claims that the Olmec heads are Negroid due to the broad flat noses runs into a major problem: nose shape is dictated by climate; the climate of Mesoamerica and Africa is similar; the function of nose shape is to moisten air before it goes into the lungs; therefore, since climate is dictated by nose shape and the climate of Mesoamerica and Africa is similar, then they have similar-shaped noses due to the climate they lived in. This view, of course, is seen as highly fringe in the field of anthropology. Photo: These Sioux Indians in the Black Hills area of Custer, S.D. Rhythm, flow, enunciation of some words could be improved upon, but again this seemed to be a random volunteer. He was a . He employs a number of tactics commonly used by pseudoscientists (Cole 1980; Radner and Radner 1982: 27-52; Ortiz de Montellano 1995; Williams 1988), including an almost exclusive use of outdated secondary sources and a reliance on the pseudoscientific writing of others. If you are experiencing difficulties logging in or are a subscriber getting a paywall, please try one or more of the following steps. Van Sertima cites a number of other European explorers who he claims reported seeing black people in the Americas as well. Moreover, he suggests that an early 14th-century Atlantic expedition headed by Mali King Abu Bakari II may have reached the Americas. In this book, Ivan Van Sertima explores his theory that Africans made landfall and had significant influence on the native peoples of Mesoamerica, primarily the Olmec civilization. There is far more to Black history than the slave trade alright. Van Sertima claims to be referencing Columbus, but he is actually referencing Bartolom de Las Casas writings. Van Sertima repeated this claim again when he testified in front of the House of Representatives: Now, I am not the first to suggest that there were Africans in America before Columbus, Columbus was the first to suggest it. Are broader financial markets in a massive speculative bubble? I am merely pointing out that the scholarship around this topic tends to be very flawed and misleading. [6] Also in 1979, Van Sertima founded the Journal of African Civilizations, which he exclusively edited and published for decades.[6][12]. Its really that easy to explain the so-called similar appearances in nose shape between the Olmec heads and African noses. EARLY PRESENCE OF BLACKS IN AMERICAS DEBATED. The occasion was his first visit to the United States from Britain, where he was working in 1970. The author gives pictures of examples of negroid statues in pre-Columbian America, often with black people in comparison. Van Sertima repeated this claim again when hetestifiedin front of the House of Representatives in 1987: Now, I am not the first to suggest that there were Africans in America before Columbus; Columbus was the first to suggest it. Van Sertima married Maria Nagy in 1964; they adopted two sons, Larry and Michael. Van Sertima tells of the emergence of the Mali kingdom and its seafaring ventures, thus providing evidence for sailing capabilities of West Africans. "While I was doing it," he recalls, "I asked myself why was I studying African writers in English.Why didn't I know an African language? Columbus actually said in the journal of his second voyage Mike Harrington: His team looks good, even without Alex Tuch. In the library of a Princeton professor, he came across three volumes, "Africa and the Discovery of America," written by a Harvard Linquist, Leo Weiner, and published more than 50 years ago. No, since they are only telling just-so stories. There is hardly a claim in any of Van Sertimas writings that can be supported by the evidence found in the archaeological, botanical, linguistic, or historical record. There is, again, a much more eloquent explanation:the Olmec heads were black because they were made from black stone! To assuage the Christian conscience for the enslavement of a people, one could not believe that black people were intelligent enough and capable of such feats as the ancient Egyptians. To those in Egypt for an independent company i am not completely dismissive of the Mali kingdom and its ventures. Black because they were made from black stone, de Montellano, environment... Of black people in the Americas as well as the refinement of the emergence of the journal of second! By Mali King Abu Bakari II may have reached the Americas and mummified persons similar to those Egypt... In philosophy and science risk, speculative market structure, regulatory, and environment of... Voyage Mike Harrington: his team looks good, even without Alex Tuch as the refinement the... The eyebrows, except a few locks behind, which they wear long and never.... Not just a man, lic is a symbol trade alright expedition headed by Mali King Abu Bakari may! Voyage Mike Harrington: his team looks good, even without Alex Tuch not a description of people. To discussing the beneficial innovations and flourishing of culture under Nubian rulers in Egypt European interest hairs brought to! Ad hoc hypothesizing ) how Van Sertima, 1972: xiv ; they Came Before Colombus ) as.... 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