In fact, Columbus writes that they were not black. (LogOut/ Van Sertima quit and wrote the series for an independent company. Upon casual reading, it does at least make one take its thesis seriously. 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. Despite this, there were however, agreed upon black kings of the 25th dynasty such as Taharqa. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. Glyn Daniel, an archaeology professor at Cambridge University, called Van Sertima's book "ignorant rubbish" in a review he wrote for The New York Times Book Review. A generation of work in this area had unearthed a large number of Negroid heads in clay, gold, copper and copal sculpted by pre-Colombian American artists. "Europe is twice as distant from America as Africa," he added, noting that Africa and South America are only 1,500 miles apart at their closest points. Despite this, some individuals would argue: A mass colony of Africans were not shipped from Africa to America. The book starts by recounting the discovery of pre-Columbian statues in Mesoamerica which contained facial features referred to as negroid. Carbon dating puts the creation of these stone heads to approximately 800 B.C. Thus, historians of the time removed, ignored, or minimized any evidence of black contributions to ancient Egyptian civilization. Are broader financial markets in a massive speculative bubble? "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. Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 74: Jamarlin Martin Jamarlin returns for a new season of the GHOGH podcast to discuss Bitcoin, bubbles, and Biden. So anything that isnt physical (like the mind/consciousness) cant studied by science. A 37-year-old Buffalo firefighter died while fighting a four-alarm blaze on Main Street downtown that may have been sparked by work being done, While Amherst police were on the scene, a number of fights started among groups within the crowd in the mall lot on Alberta and in the Wegmans, The new renderings released by the Bills include an up-close view from the field level, three exterior stadium views with more detail than has. Sidenote: I enjoyed the story of Mali in Chapter 3. So, Van Sertima had his conclusion in mind first, and looked for evidence for itmeaning he was telling just-so stories. Van Sertima's work on Olmec civilization has been criticised by Mesoamerican academics,[17] who describe his claims to be ill-founded and false. It could be dark, bronze people from South America. Im not sure how legal that is, but I say thanks. Ivan Gladstone Van Sertima (26 January 1935 25 May 2009) was a Guyanese-born British associate professor of Africana Studies at Rutgers University in the United States. No, these grown adults SERIOUSLY believe that there were Indians(that look like modern-day B Americans) that were here before Native Americans. 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. Van Sertima makes this claim at the very beginning of the video below. Columbus and his men encountered the naked Taino people on the island of San Salvador in the Bahamas, so named for the Savior whom Columbus believed had delivered him to land. Columbus is not just a man, he is a symbol. 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. [5], They further called "fallacious" his claims that Africans had diffused the practices of pyramid building and mummification, and noted the independent rise of these in the Americas. This book is dense with presented evidence and deserves serious study. So again, thanks. 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 1997 academics in a Journal of Current Anthropology article criticised in detail many elements of They Came Before Columbus (1976). He completed primary and secondary school in Guyana, and started writing poetry. No man who believes his history began with slavery can be a healthy man. 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. 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. Recently, I've been handed a book called "They Came before Columbus" by Ivan Sertima, which asserts that Africans had discovered and traded with the native people of the Americas long before Columbus arrived. 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. 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. Dan Von Hoyel ~ Black Before Columbus Came: The African Discovery of America Odd Salon DISCOVERY: Six stories of rigorous inquiry and accidental revelations, [] Ocean currents such as the Guinea and Canary currents were likely to have aided Africans sailing to America as well. It was with the coming of Columbus that the twilight of the red and black races began. He was a . This book provides numerous arguments for the existence of black Africans in America before the start of the Atlantic Slave Trade. [13] This was a record of the conference held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in September 1998 on the theme of the African Renaissance. 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. Reportedly, from American historian and linguist Leo Weiner of Harvard Universitys book Africa and the Discovery of America (Ill have to add that one to the list too) in one of Columbuss journals there is an account of a statement by the Native Americans saying that they had encountered black people prior to the arrival of Columbus. Ivan Van Sertima They Came Before Columbus : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. 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. In response to Daniel's review Clarence Weiant, who had worked as an assistant archaeologist specialising in ceramics at Tres Zapotes and later pursued a career as a chiropractor, wrote a letter to the New York Times supporting Van Sertima's work. 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. Van Sertima uses written, archaeological, and cultural evidence to support his thesis. The psyche of blacks is raised. Most average 5-year olds with decent critical thinking ability can spot the cracks in the theory. I read They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America by Ivan Van Sertima. Also, some other West African countries had been known to both fish by boat and sail. Dwayne Wong (Omowale) is a Guyanese born Pan-Africanist and author. Van Sertima added, How many of us know the African influence on ancient Greece and Rome? (AP Photo). The word for tobacco also has African roots as well as the refinement of the practice of oral pipe smoking. 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. Change). New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. Back in December of 2015, I published an article refuting the notion that the Olmecsand other pre-Colombian civilizationswere started by Negroid peoples. Later forced immigrations by Africans to the New World as slaves, and the subsequent development of African-American culture, played a far greater role in shaping the Americas of the 20th century. Normativity has been distinguished between, If you have any suggestions for future posts, criticisms or praises for me, email me at RaceRealist88@gmail.com. They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America originally published in 1976 was written by professor Dr. Ivan Van Sertima. Van Sertima, who stressed that he makes no claims that blacks "discovered" America or launched the ancient cultures of Middle America, said well-known ocean currents acted as a "marine conveyor belt" that brought early voyagers easily from Africa to America. All parties remained peaceful, and Columbus specifically instructed his crews not to take advantage of the Indians. Many historians have worked at debunking the They Came Before Columbus and Africans Were Already In America myth. A celebrated classic, They Came . But Van Sertima always defended his book. "either completely ignored or generally dismissed by anthropologists, historians and other academic professionals." When new evidence was provided pushing back the dates of the manufacturing of the Olmec heads, Van Sertimareluctantlypushed back the dates of contact between the Nubians and the Olmecs (Viera, de Montellano, and Barbour, 1997). Learn how your comment data is processed. In addition, there are stories of Egyptian mariners. Though Egypt is located in Africa, typically little of its success has been attributed to black people, but rather to those who migrated from the Middle East. Between narrative chapters, Van Sertima develops his main claims about African contact with the Americas in an essay style and includes images of artifacts, which primarily consist of photographs of ceramic heads that Van Sertima says have African features. [1], Van Sertima retired in 2006. Last week came purported evidence that the Chinese admiral Zheng He sailed his great fleet of junks round the world a century before Columbus, Da Gama and Magellan. Van Sertima married Maria Nagy in 1964; they adopted two sons, Larry and Michael. In They Came Before Columbus, we see clearly the unmistakable face and handprint of black Africans in pre-Columbian America, and their overwhelming impact on the civilizations they encountered. There are Egyptian-like pyramids in the Americas and mummified persons similar to those in Egypt. I came here before you to correct this myth of Columbus, to present a more objective vision of our American history. Van Sertima asserts that this idea is false and explains how this belief developed. If each piece of evidence and argument was listed, the list would be as long as the index. 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. Not only because of the apparent Asian features of some of the Olmec sculptures, but Xu also attempted to draw a connection between the Olmec script and Chinese characters. "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? As expected, this book has caused controversy and many of Van Sertimas have been debated over the years, but this book still remains a good look into possible history. If there were an African presence in the Americas, he asked, "why do we not find more African stylistic artifacts?". The others are unidentified. There is a lack of evidence for his claims and, the evidence he claims lends credence to his outlandish claims falls short since we know the origins of what convinced him that there was an ancient African presence in Mesoamerica. Van Sertima claims to be referencing Columbus, but he is actually referencing Bartolom de Las Casas writings. Below are pictures of various Olmec sculptures. Never seen a more deluded person. Some paint their faces, others the whole body, some only round the eyes, others only on the nose. In TCBC, Van Sertima (1972: 39) reconstructed an event in the medieval empire of Mali, based on Arab historical and travel documents and the oral tradition of the Mali griots. Chapters 3 and 4 do, indeed, read like some sort of fantastical tale, so I am glad that Van Sertima left the notebut it is quite clear that he is doing nothing but storytelling. 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). The hypothesis that these seeds could have floated to America by sea was tested and the results did not support it. Recently, I've been handed a book called "They Came before Columbus" by Ivan Sertima, which asserts that Africans had discovered and traded with the native people of the Americas long before Columbus arrived. There is a heated online debate about how Black Americans came to America. Your email address will not be published. Evidence for contact comes in the hybridization of American and African cottons, linguistic links, pre-Columbian skeletal remains of Africans in America, and early American sculpture and art that obviously depicts Africans, Van Sertima said. But where did Menzies come up with the idea that it was Asians, not Europeans, who first arrived in America from other countries? I was a friend of de Montellanos and many years ago we used to debunk Afrocentrists aka Afronuts on several forums (he posted as Quetzalcoatl on Egyptsearch), but he died I think in 2016. In How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Walter Rodney explained that if any African canoes reached the Americas (as is sometimes maintained) they did not establish two-way links. If these two-way links were established, Umar fails to cite specific examples because there are no examples. Van Sertima accomplishes this through chapters relying heavily on dramatic storytelling. They noted that Olmec stone heads were carved hundreds of years prior to the claimed contact and only superficially appear to be African; the Nubians whom Van Sertima had claimed as their originators do not resemble these "portraits". In 1455 the Portuguese sailor Alvise da Cadamostoin encountered West African riverboats in the Gambian river. [15] This is one of many examples of Van Sertima's theories that Mesoamerican mythologies are based on Pre-Columbian African contact theories. [3][n 1], Van Sertima was born in Kitty Village, near Georgetown, in what was then the colony of British Guiana (present-day Guyana); he retained his British citizenship throughout his life. Reading these volumes sparked his interest in carrying further what Weiner, with his lack of knowledge about anthropology and archeology, had only suggested: the idea that Americans came to the Americas - and stayed - 2,000 years before Columbus. There is also a vast body of knowledge to be uncovered about Africa and America. Columbus wrote: Their hair is short and coarse, almost like the hairs of a horses tail. If you are experiencing difficulties logging in or are a subscriber getting a paywall, please try one or more of the following steps. So basically the vast majority of scholars reject Afrocentrism, but are too afraid to say so in public. He published several annual compilations, volumes of the journal dealing with various topics of African history. 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