Oral traditions of Native Americans, according to reported Mexican authority, Nicholas Leon, include the belief that the oldest inhabitants of Mexico were Negroes among other stories. Yeah, they forget about the actual red dark Indians in India. This article will refute Van Sertimas claim that the Olmec heads were of Negroid originor were sculpted to show the appearance of Negroidsand his other claim that Mali seafarers reached the Americans some 200-odd years before Colombus. Mike Harrington: His team looks good, even without Alex Tuch. While his Olmec theory has "spread widely in African American community, both lay and scholarly", it was mostly ignored in Mesoamericanist scholarship, and has been dismissed as Afrocentric pseudoarchaeology[2] and pseudohistory to the effect of "robbing native American cultures". What did we do? Van Sertima also argued it was Columbus himself who suggested that Africans were in the Americas before he was. Van Sertima states near the end of the book that all civilizations are capable of independent invention, and that he aims to place his claims on the spectrum between diffusionism and isolationism, or the idea that cultures separated geographically are capable of inventing similar things without interaction between the two. Theres not a shred of evidence to prove this. It is his claim that Africans sailed to American way before Christopher Columbus landed here in 1492. If anything, the only thing Van Sertimas book is good for is a good laugh into the delusions of someone with the conclusion in mind, working backward to prove it (meaning, hes using the type of reverse engineering that EPists use). Kenneth L. FedderKenneth L. Feder, a specialist in archaeological pseudoscience, addresses prevalent misconceptions about the settlement of the Americas, discussing how they are stimulated by ethnic pride and religious faith, propagated uncritically in the media, and accepted by students. 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. His widow, Jacqueline Van Sertima, said she would continue to publish the Journal of African Civilizations. Van Sertima never explained why he selected this particular dynasty, but his reasoning for doing so is important because he later altered the date in African Presence in Early America to 948 or circa 1000 B.C. Van Sertima was forced to alter his thesis in light of new evidence which demonstrated that the Olmec civilization was older than was originally believed, which leads me to the next issue. In this book, the author presents evidence and arguments for the existence of black Africans in America before the arrival of Columbus and the beginning of the Atlantic Slave Trade in 1492. He researched the book at the British Museum, and in libraries at Princeton, London University and Douglas College, and the corresponded with scholars all over the world. Columbus actually said in the journal of his second voyage when he was in Haiti, then known as Espanola, Native Americans came to him and told him that Black people had come in large boats from the south and southeast trading in gold-tipped metal spears. [6] He attended the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London from 1959. Sailing, especially such great distances, was not an achievement that was typically attributed to Africans of that time, but it would have been necessary to reach the Americas. Anthropologists, archaeologists, historians and linguists alike have debunked much of the evidence that Menzies used to support his notion, which has come to be called the 1421 theory. He completed primary and secondary school in Guyana, and started writing poetry. Smart Policies are as low as $30 a month, No Medical Exam Required West May 9, 1977 Anthropologist-linguist Ivan Van Sertima has set ablaze a mini-controversy with his thesis that Africans. 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. Van Sertima was among those who argued that the Olmec had African origins, whereas others such as Mike Xu have argued that the Olmec civilization has Asian roots. Columbus actually said in the journal of his second voyage This view, of course, is seen as highly fringe in the field of anthropology. History, as taught in the Western and Western-dominated world, gives the impression that the first Africans to reach the Americas were brought as slaves, in shackles on slaves-ships. Human Biodiversity, IQ, Evolutionary Psychology, Epigenetics and Evolution, Home Refuting Afrocentrism They Did Not Come Before Columbus. These Black Indians, now mistaken as African Americans, were shipped back to America and classified as African Slaves. This part of our history is what the school systems fail to mention in history programs. Any other significant information about the history of my people tended to start with, we were slaves. In doing this, primary source anecdotes are often the evidence cited by Van Sertima combined with inference and exaggeration, though he implies to his readers that the narrative is based in fact. "They couldn't be slave blacks," he said. Van Sertima answers that Africans were indeed sailors, that a division of Negro sea captains and mariners is reported to have been in the Egyptian navy of the 19th dynasty and the East Africans sailed between their countries and China in the 13th century. 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. However, archaeological work has indicated that the foundations of Olmec cultureand indeed all of Mesoamerican culturehad its beginnings in Mesoamerica long before the Olmec appeared on the scence. Daniel's review provoked a barrage of letters - from scholars and laypersons - defending Van Sertima. He later discusses carved pipes found in Mesoamerican archaeological sites, suggesting that the use of pipes for smoking must have been an inherited practice from African or Asian visitors. Both men supported their artistic theories with slides of the sculptures and modern Africans and Middle American Indians -- leaving the audience to decide for themselves between truth and the appearance of truth. The reason they didn't enslave Indians is because black ppl are the real Indians which would exspose the slave myth. Of course I was taken aback by the bold claim. "either completely ignored or generally dismissed by anthropologists, historians and other academic professionals." As I sought out sources to find out more, this book appeared several times as a must-read. In They Came Before Columbus, Van Sertima argues that Egyptian journey to the Americas happened during the rule of the 25th dynasty, which was the Kushite dynasty that ruled Egypt. This book is dense with presented evidence and deserves serious study. Back in December of 2015, I published an article refuting the notion that the Olmecsand other pre-Colombian civilizationswere started by Negroid peoples. All Rights Reserved. Columbus was quoted before as noting that the natives sometimes painted themselves black, so for all we know the black people being referred to were people who were painted black as opposed to black skinned people. brilliantly [demonstrates] has that there is far more to black history than the slave trade."John A. Williams They Came Before Columbus reveals a compelling, dramatic, and superbly detailed documentation of the presence and legacy of Africans in ancient America.Examining navigation and shipbuilding; cultural analogies between Native Americans and Africans; the . 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. One of the most baffling claims to me is the idea that the slave trade happened in reverse and that Native Americans were shipped to Africa, not the other way around. They never did import Africans as slaves because slave ships aren't real. Some paint themselves white, others red, and others of what color they find. Van Sertima does not say, but he jumps the conclusion that the spears that were sent to Spain were African spears without providing a basis for why he believes so. Even Van Sertima himself admits that the people who were trading these spears could be dark bronze people from South America as opposed to African. He never returned, though some (including Van Sertima) argued that he arrived in the Americas. The psyche of blacks is raised. Photo: These Sioux Indians in the Black Hills area of Custer, S.D. [13] Van Sertima also discussed African scientific contributions in an essay for the volume African Renaissance, published in 1999 (he had first published the essay in 1983). Columbus actually said in the journal of his second voyage when he was in Haiti, then known as Espanola, Native Americans came to him and told him that Black people had come in large boats from the south and southeast trading in gold-tipped metal spears. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America originally published in 1976 was written by professor Dr. Ivan Van Sertima. 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. [24] He was survived by his wife and four adult children. 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. "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. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America at Amazon.com. I knew that the subjext was suspect. And numerous Negroid portraits and masks were found with them. Van Sertima spent his career pushing pseudoscience of this type, even editing and publishing most of his own work in his own edited journals (because other journals would not accept his fringe work). The g-spot has been referred to as the female prostate (Puppo, 2014) and, 2550 words Steatopygia is an extreme accumulatation of large amounts of fat on the buttocks, and is also known as obesity in the coccyx (Wallner, 2400 words In the year 2000, psychologist Erik Turkheimer proposed three laws of behavioral genetics (LoBG hereafter): First Law. [5] They further noted that in the 1980s, Van Sertima had changed his timeline of African influence, suggesting that Africans made their way to the New World in the 10th century B.C., to account for more recent independent scholarship in the dating of Olmec culture. How about that. There is also a vast body of knowledge to be uncovered about Africa and America. 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. What did we believe in? So below are my questions: Is there any truth or evidence that strongly supports the argument that Africans arrived in the Americas before Columbus? Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. In Hidden Colors, a documentary by filmmaker Tariq Nasheed, Dr. Umar Johnson, a doctor of Clinical Psychology, is interviewed and claims that Africans were going back and forth engaging in cultural and economic trade before Columbus. "[20][n 2], In 1981 Dean R. Snow, a professor of anthropology, wrote that Van Sertima "uses the now familiar technique of stringing together bits of carefully selected evidence, each surgically removed from the context that would give it a rational explanation". Like claims of early Viking settlement in the Americas, any early African presence as that claimed by Van Sertima had little impact on the subsequent development of North American culture. Van Sertima's Journal of African Civilizations was not considered for inclusion in Journals of the Century. Most average 5-year olds with decent critical thinking ability can spot the cracks in the theory. Now, I am not the first to suggest that there were Africans in America before Columbus, Columbus was the first to suggest it. However, anthropologists and archaeologists who specialized in Mesoamerican history, rightly, reject Van Sertimas storytelling. [5], Van Sertima completed his master's degree at Rutgers in 1977. Note how these claims are eerily similar to claims of white gods that, for example, the Aztecs and Maya speak of. 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. 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