Phil Valentine is even more confused. "I kept quiet about my work. The book deals mostly with his arguments for an African origin of Mesoamerican culture in the Western Hemisphere. In the documentary, Umar Johnson claims that Africans were going back and forth engaging in cultural and economic trade before Columbus. 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. Some paint themselves white, others red, and others of what color they find. There is the part about how whites were slaves to Blacks (muslim ones) for hundreds of years. [1], He was best known for his Olmec alternative origin speculations, a brand of pre-Columbian contact theory, which he proposed in his book They Came Before Columbus (1976). His article "The Lost Sciences of Africa: An Overview" (1983) discusses early African advances in metallurgy, astronomy, mathematics, architecture, engineering, agriculture, navigation, medicine and writing. They follow that quote with this statement: "In spite of the above evidence, education and curriculum development literature are generally silent on the Olmecs" (pg 5). These people essentially provide written testimonies that support Van Sertimas thesis. 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. "How many of us know the African influence on ancient Greece and Rome? [18] He arrived on these shores at about the same time that the Spanish defeated the Moors and destroyed more than 3,000 Arab documents and many libraries, Van Sertima toldThe Washington Post. A second problem with the manner in which Van Sertima uses this piece of information is the assumption that the black people whom de Las Casas refers to were African. pic.twitter.com/c0OjXNOVqt, Black Americans Have the Highest Mortality Rates But Lowest Levels of Life Insurance A celebrated classic, They Came Before Columbus, dea. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. There have been a number of diffusion theories regarding the Olmec. 1. The audience of about 300 people in the Medaille Campus Center was sprayed with an array of examples -- on slides and verbally -- that supported or debunked the theory that Africans reached the New World well before 1492. 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. [13] This was a record of the conference held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in September 1998 on the theme of the African Renaissance. 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. 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. 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. Haslip-Vierra, de Montellano and Barbour. The author gives pictures of examples of negroid statues in pre-Columbian America, often with black people in comparison. Van Sertima's Journal of African Civilizations was not considered for inclusion in Journals of the Century. Learn how your comment data is processed. Debunking The Black Indian Myth: From They Came Before Columbus to Hidden Colors In They Came Before Columbus, Ivan Van Sertima put forward the argument that African people were in the. He had left his native Guyana for London in 1959 to make his ways a novelist, but he was writing radio to make ends meet. EARLY PRESENCE OF BLACKS IN AMERICAS DEBATED. But the claims presented in Hidden Colors and the claims presented by others who promote the notion of Black aboriginals are so misinformed that in many cases they just seem nonsensical. Glyn Daniel, an archaeology professor at Cambridge University, called Van Sertimas book ignorant rubbish in a review he wrote for The New York Times Book Review. When evidence came out refuting Van Sertimas storytelling, he concocted an ad hoc hypothesis to save his hypothesis from immunization. After being told that he couldn't do a series on African writers because there was no African literature. 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. 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. Im pretty sure I had taken a World History course before. Van Sertima said: "Many people feel a certain kind of happiness when they read my book. 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. Weiant wrote: "Van Sertima's work is a summary of six or seven years of meticulous research based upon archaeology, egyptology, African history, oceanography, astronomy, botany, rare Arabic and Chinese manuscripts, the letters and journals of early American explorers, and the observations of physical anthropologists. As one who has been immersed in Mexican archaeology for some forty years, and who participated in the excavation of the first giant heads, I must confess, I am thoroughly convinced of the soundness of Van Sertima's conclusions. There are various other cultural similarities between the Native American and West African peoples. [15], Van Sertima does devote a considerable portion of the book to interaction of cultures within Africa as well, with Chapter 7 and 8, titled Black Africa and Egypt and The Black Kings of the 25th Dynasty in which he explores the West and Southern African man's influence on the ancient Egyptian civilization. The reason they didn't enslave Indians is because black ppl are the real Indians which would exspose the slave myth. 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. [5], Van Sertima completed his master's degree at Rutgers in 1977. Hip-hop artist B.o.B,who is also a flat Earth believer. He completed primary and secondary school in Guyana, and started writing poetry. One could do worse. Maize has African origins. The psyche of blacks is raised. Columbus is not just a man, he is a symbol. "The problem was not that the research hadn't been done," he says, "but that no one had examined the available documents and material and pulled from together.". 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. Sources of information on such misconceptions and strategies for helping students to overcome them are . Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. The Olmec associated volcanic rocks and the like with symbolic importance, and so, they carved their sculptures out of them due to this. There is also a vast body of knowledge to be uncovered about Africa and America. ( Van Sertima, 1972: xiv; They Came Before Colombus) Ivan Van Sertima is a fringe Afrocentric theorist (they all are), who argued that there was an African presence in America, long before Colombus set shore in the Bahamas in 1492. What did we do? This two-way trade never happened. https://twitter.com/BreeNewsome/status/1404242564585246720?s=20&t=Lv4XscKZw3SR_tmBhetmbg, https://twitter.com/tariqnasheed/status/1501640824576110595?s=20&t=Lv4XscKZw3SR_tmBhetmbg, https://twitter.com/RDCRaissa/status/1503381403836293127?s=20&t=Lv4XscKZw3SR_tmBhetmbg, https://twitter.com/JaKaB0i_116/status/1503133876637638663?s=20&t=Lv4XscKZw3SR_tmBhetmbg, The Genetic Ancestry of African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans across the United States. "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. Columbus never claimed that he saw black people in the Americas. But Van Sertima always defended his book. [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. He arrived on these shores at about the same time that the Spanish defeated the Moors - and destroyed more than 3,000 Arab documents and many libraries. This video is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Ivan Van Sertima who made is transition on May 25th, 2009. There was Nelson Mandelas fight against apartheid in South Africa. All Rights Reserved. A certain kind of shadow lifts. Professor Ivan van Sertima, They Came before Columbus A review by Femi Akomolafe, 19 January 1995. "Some of these voyages are designed or planned; some are accidental," he said. He posited that higher learning, in Africa as elsewhere, was the preserve of elites in the centres of civilisations, rendering them vulnerable in the event of the destruction of those centres and the loss of such knowledge. All human behavioral traits are, 4150 words Introduction It is claimed that genes (DNA sequences) have a special, privileged role in the development of all traits. I don't buy it. He talks about the risk factors for Bitcoin as an investment asset including origin risk, speculative market structure, regulatory, and environment. "[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". In 1455 the Portuguese sailor Alvise da Cadamostoin encountered West African riverboats in the Gambian river. Normativity has been distinguished between, If you have any suggestions for future posts, criticisms or praises for me, email me at RaceRealist88@gmail.com. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. Bro, are you serious now?Who brought the slaves from Africa, native Indians or Columbus Europeans?When did slave trade start that Red-Indians became yall history?So in a bid to stay off Africans yall tracing your ancestry to Indians?Mehn thats something else. I noted before that Van Sertimas claims were flawed in some respects, but his arguments were still logical in certain respects and he did attempt to provide documentation for at least some of his claims even if at times the documentation he presented was misleading. There are some problems with this theory. These strong currents, which Mali oral tradition describes as "rivers in the middle of the sea," could have helped propel African vessels to the American continents, he adds. The ocean currents could account for the spread of plants, and the linguistic claims aren't as clear as Van Sertima believes, Barbour said. They would claim them as west African too if they could. In the book They Came Before Columbus written by Ivan Van Sertima, chapter twelve, "Mystery of Mu-lan-pi", there is a reoccurring theme of disproving the notion that Columbus brought over many different things and products from his expeditions to American to the Eastern parts of the world when in reality . 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. Van Sertima also includes photos of an African man and woman for comparison, but he does not include pictures of inhabitants of the area where the artifacts were found. In 1970 Van Sertima immigrated to the United States, where he entered Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, for graduate work. Van Sertima reached larger audiences through chapters narrated by figures of the past, including Christopher Columbus and the Mali king Abu Bakr II. Saying slave ships are a myth is a whole new level of ignorance . But, in his review in the March 13 issue of The New York Times Book Review, Glyn Daniel, aracheology professor at Cambridge University, called the book "ignorant rubbish" and described Van Sertima as one of several "deluded scholars.". If you are experiencing difficulties logging in or are a subscriber getting a paywall, please try one or more of the following steps. As I sought out sources to find out more, this book appeared several times as a must-read. And he started work, using his own money. "A landmark . Did we learn anything in there that I had simply forgotten? Van Sertima cites a number of other European explorers who he claims reported seeing black people in the Americas as well. The book is a special May selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and Tandom House is about to publish a second printing. 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 professor also catalogs cultural evidence in a Negroid skeleton found in the Virgin Islands dating back to 1250 A.D. and the finding of African cotton in the Americas. He published several annual compilations, volumes of the journal dealing with various topics of African history. Theres not a shred of evidence to prove this. Probably Columbus did not believe this and that fact in itself would not be enough because the so-called Black people could be any people. So again, thanks. After divorcing his first wife, Sertima remarried in 1984, to Jacqueline L. Patten, who had two daughters. However, Columbus actually sent back on a mail boat to Spain samples of these gold-tipped metal spears. I want to make a point of clarification here. This finding flatly contradicted the claim of the historian Herodotus that the Egyptians, compared to the Greeks and other European Caucasoids, were for the most part a black-skinned and wooly-haired people. It was also concluded that it was not likely that these seeds were carried by birds. How about that. Black settlements developed at the end points of major currents from Africa, he contended. 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. 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. Many of the cultural pieces of evidence also provide intriguing support to Van Sertimas thesis, though many may legitimately be debated as coincidences or artefacts resulting simply from commonalities in how the human brain interprets the world. Of course I was taken aback by the bold claim. Mansa Musa took the throne after the previous ruler, Abu Bakr II, went on an expedition to sail the Atlantic Ocean. 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). Mansa Musa never traveled to the Americas, so how could he have been Montezuma? Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. Now, I am not the first to suggest that there were Africans in America before Columbus, Columbus was the first to suggest it. Van Sertimas case in They Came Before Columbus is the best known, certainly not the only one. I'm trying to follow all the rules but forgive me if this is a bit vague. None of that evidence is conclusive or even particularly convincing, countered anthropologist Warren T.D. As somebody who strongly believes that history is dominated by the "Western" narrative, I find myself drawn to believe Sertima. They also claim slave ships are a myth. Did the Spanish also assay the spears of West Africa to know what ratio of gold, silver and copper alloys were found in the African spears? I vaguely remembered images of figurines, masks, and pottery that also originated fromsome African countries. 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. GenresHistoryNonfictionAfricaRaceAfrican AmericanAnthropologyHistorical .more 284 pages, Paperback First published January 1, 1976 Book details & editions Even Columbus, in his second journal, noted that Indians told him of black-skinned people trading in gold-tipped spears, Van Sertima said. 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. 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. 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. {{start_at_rate}} {{format_dollars}} {{start_price}} {{format_cents}} {{term}}, {{promotional_format_dollars}}{{promotional_price}}{{promotional_format_cents}} {{term}}, Sabres place Alex Tuch on injured reserve; top-line winger's status is uncertain, Paula's Donuts to move Clarence store that faced backlash for tax breaks to Amherst, Nebraska cheerleader competes by herself at state competition, but crowd doesn't let her feel alone, Chad Hall's departure from Buffalo Bills to Jaguars remains a bit of a mystery. Furthermore, Van Sertima, quite wildly, claims that since the Olmec heads were black then they must have represented African people. Others hold true to the story of the American slave trade in which enslaved Africans were brought to Americas shores to provide free labor to build the country and grow the economy. Note how these claims are eerily similar to claims of white gods that, for example, the Aztecs and Maya speak of. So below are my questions: Is there any truth or evidence that strongly supports the argument that Africans arrived in the Americas before Columbus? Van Sertima also makes it appear that after the Nubians made contact with the Olmecs, that their civilization almost instantaneously appeared. I saw Dr. Van Sertima lecture at Cornell University in 1979. "Imagine Europeans putting slaves into their ships and saying 'hold onto your spears, brothers, you're going to need to trade them.' The researchers wrote a systematic rebuttal of Van Sertima's claims, stating that Van Sertima's "proposal was without foundation" in claiming African diffusion as responsible for prehistoric Olmec culture (in present-day Mexico). Despite this, there were however, agreed upon black kings of the 25th dynasty such as Taharqa. THEY GAME GOLUM BUS The African Presence in Ancient America Ivan Van Sertima Ncruma] has demonstrated that there is far more to hlach history than the trade. 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. If there were an African presence in the Americas, he asked, "why do we not find more African stylistic artifacts?". suddenly this stream widened, and they saw in the distance what looked at first like a drifting island of black menWe estimated on examination that there might be about one hundred and fifty at the most; they appeared very well-built, exceedingly black, and all clothed in white cotton shirts. The author gives pictures of examples of negroid statues in pre-Columbian America, often with black could. Encountered West African peoples believe Sertima purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count.. 25Th, 2009 Columbus actually sent back on a mail boat to Spain samples of these voyages designed... That fact in itself would not be enough because the so-called black people in comparison of. Been Montezuma various topics of African history South Africa try one or more of the.... These claims are eerily similar to claims of white gods that, for,! 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