Barbour, the first African-American to earn a. Classical scholar Mary Lefkowitz who debunked Afrocentric claims about ancient Greece and Rome in her book Not out of Africa explains how her colleagues let her down because of the fear of being labelled as racist like she was. They would claim them as west African too if they could. . 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. 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). He describes how Africans and Phoenicians probably made joint voyages to the Americas around 800 B.C., when the Olmec people lived in the coastal region near the Gulf of Mexico, evidence of African influence there, he said, can be seen in an array of material, including the four colossal Negroid stone heads found near La Venta, Mexico. 1. Normativity has been distinguished between, If you have any suggestions for future posts, criticisms or praises for me, email me at RaceRealist88@gmail.com. This is an inference that Van Sertima makes, but he presents his inference as a fact. 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. 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. So, Van Sertima became convinced due to the writings of linguists and anthropologists, that there was an ancient, as-of-yet-looked-into connection between ancient Africa and Mesoamerica. This video is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Ivan Van Sertima who made is transition on May 25th, 2009. No, since they are only telling just-so stories. 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. Van Sertimas case in They Came Before Columbus is the best known, certainly not the only one. [6] Also in 1979, Van Sertima founded the Journal of African Civilizations, which he exclusively edited and published for decades.[6][12]. The journal required that reprints must include the entire article and would have had to include the original authors' response (written but not published) to his response. Dwayne is the author of Kingdoms and Civilizations of Africa and several other books on African and African Diaspora history. Weiant, who had a PhD in archaeology, also wrote numerous articles on extrasensory perception and was an active member of the. (Viera, de Montellano, and Barbour, 1997: 431). The hypothesis that these seeds could have floated to America by sea was tested and the results did not support it. Isnt it weird how Van Sertima and other Afrocentrists use the same type of tactics as pseudoscientists (i.e., ad hoc hypothesizing)? Several words are also similar with similar meanings such as nama-tigi or ama-tigi from the Bambara of the Mandingos and aman-teca from the Nahuatl of Mexico, both of which refer to master or chief or headman. Van Sertima presents an argument for the transformation of the word banana with African origins. A certain kind of shadow lifts. pic.twitter.com/GRHEgWZkZb. 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? 'Before Columbus': Roots of a Dispute - The Washington Post By Hollie I. I wasn't halfway through this book and I was thoroughly offended, but I finished it just to hear their point of view. A celebrated classic, They Came . There is the part about how whites were slaves to Blacks (muslim ones) for hundreds of years. 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. Highlighted Ogham found on the Isle of Man - Credit: ViewTeam (Author provided) Moreover, he suggests that an early 14th-century Atlantic expedition headed by Mali King Abu Bakari II may have reached the Americas. At the time that the dominant narrative of the origins of ancient Egyptian civilization emerged, the use of African slaves was well into effect. 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. [24] He was survived by his wife and four adult children. Sertima then recounts the story of how Christopher Columbus came to venture to the Americas. 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. [9] The reason they didn't enslave Indians is because black ppl are the real Indians which would exspose the slave myth. Ivan Van Sertima They Came Before Columbus : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Mike Harrington: His team looks good, even without Alex Tuch. 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. Accidental stylazation could not account for the individuality and racial particulars of these heads. [10] Published by Random House rather than an academic press, They Came Before Columbus was a best-seller[11] and achieved widespread attention within the African-American community for his claims of prehistoric African contact and diffusion of culture in Central and South America. It is his claim that Africans sailed to American way before Christopher Columbus landed here in 1492. "I kept quiet about my work. Their Negro-ness could not be explained away nor, in most cases, their African cultural origin. [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. 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. In the documentary, Umar Johnson claims that Africans were going back and forth engaging in cultural and economic trade before Columbus. 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. "He was a true professional who served his community with pride every day for over 32 years," the Amherst Police Department said in a statement. In fact, that . However, I want to remain as objective as possible, which is why I'm reaching out to more knowledgeable people such as yourselves. Haslip-Vierra, de Montellano and Barbour. 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. Professor Ivan van Sertima, They Came before Columbus A review by Femi Akomolafe, 19 January 1995. "A landmark . The description that Columbus gives certainly is not a description of black people in the Caribbean. 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. If you are experiencing difficulties logging in or are a subscriber getting a paywall, please try one or more of the following steps. There is evidence of African cotton seeds in America. 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. Long time lurker, first time poster. It has come to my attention that Van Sertimas (1972) bookThey Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America (TCBC)will soon be used in certain syllabi. here is no question but that the book is landmark." John A- Wi am. Van Sertima asserts that this idea is false and explains how this belief developed. That's when I decided to take a degree at London University in African anthropology and linquistics.". Van Sertima tells of the emergence of the Mali kingdom and its seafaring ventures, thus providing evidence for sailing capabilities of West Africans. This was all that I could recall being formally taught. Many historians have worked at debunking the "They Came Before Columbus" and "Africans Were Already In America" myth. [22], In 1981, They Came Before Columbus received the "Clarence L. Holte Literary Prize". Van Sertimas scholarship was flawed in many respects, but he made an attempt to challenge the racist scholarship of his time. He argued that all the archaeology and all the excavations point to an indigenous American culture. One of the most baffling claims to me is the idea that the slave trade happened inreverseand that Native Americans were shipped to Africa, not the other way around. If each piece of evidence and argument was listed, the list would be as long as the index. Mansa Musa never sailed to America. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. He published his They Came Before Columbus in 1976, as a Rutgers graduate student. In Chapter 5, called "Among the Quetzalcoatls", Van Sertima narrates the arrival of Abu Bakr II to an Aztec civilization in Mexico in 1311, describing the Mali king as "a true child of the sun burned dark by its rays" in direct and explicit comparison to the Aztec "sun god" Quetzalcoatl, as Van Sertima writes. 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. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Unfortunately, the scholarship that he has inspired has tended to be of a worse quality than Van Sertimas was. Read more Print length 336 pages Language English Publisher Random House Trade Paperbacks Publication date September 23, 2003 Dimensions Your email address will not be published. [15], A chapter is also devoted to the presence of bottle gourds originally from Africa found in ancient Mesoamerican graves. pre-Columbian contact between Africa and the Americas, "Goodbye Columbus? 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. 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. "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.". Sidenote: I enjoyed the story of Mali in Chapter 3. 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. Van Sertima focuses specifically on the Olmec colossal heads, saying that the characteristics of the stone faces are "indisputably" African, while Mesoamerican experts such as Richard Diehl disregards this claim, as the statues are stylized and generally accepted as representing native Mesoamericans. I read They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America by Ivan Van Sertima. 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. How could Africans, who are not popularly known as seamen, have crossed the 1.500 Atlantic miles to the American continents? EARLY PRESENCE OF BLACKS IN AMERICAS DEBATED. "I nver expected any money," he explains. What did we believe in? 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. Travel between Africa and the Americas was possible, says Van Sertima, because of the worldwide ocean winds and currents that caused drift routes from east to west. The word for tobacco also has African roots as well as the refinement of the practice of oral pipe smoking. 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. 'Roots' goes back to the time when the damage was beginning. He talks about the risk factors for Bitcoin as an investment asset including origin risk, speculative market structure, regulatory, and environment. In the first place, there are no Egyptian historical records which suggest that the Egyptians ever sailed to America or even attempted such a journey. Should we give reparations to black Americans, being that they, 5500 words Introduction Hereditarians champion Asians (specifically East Asians) as proof of their gene-centric worldviewthat their genetic constitution allows their stellar performance in educational and, 2100 words Many people believe that a thing called the G-spotGrafenberg spotexists. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. It provides further evidence that all great civilizations and races are heavily indebted to one another and that no race has a monopoly on enterprise and inventive genius. Review of They Came Before Columbus by Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, Their Eyes were upon me: Learning of Nephilim, They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America, Review of the Undoing Project by Michael Lewis, Thoughts on the Undoing Project by Michael Lewis-Part 2, Follow Gazing off into Space on WordPress.com. How Large of a Role Did Jews Play in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade? Rhythm, flow, enunciation of some words could be improved upon, but again this seemed to be a random volunteer. He died on 25 May 2009 aged 74. [5] Except for a brief mention, the book had not previously been reviewed in an academic journal. In doing field work in Africa, he compiled a dictionary of Swahili legal terms in 1967. 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. 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. Dating puts the creation of these heads Wi am the best known, certainly not only... And other Afrocentrists use the same type of tactics as pseudoscientists ( i.e., ad hoc )! 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