Unfortunately, the scholarship that he has inspired has tended to be of a worse quality than Van Sertimas was. (LogOut/ A certain kind of shadow lifts. Mansa Musa took the throne after the previous ruler, Abu Bakr II, went on an expedition to sail the Atlantic Ocean. 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 . At the time that the dominant narrative of the origins of ancient Egyptian civilization emerged, the use of African slaves was well into effect. 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). Despite this, there were however, agreed upon black kings of the 25th dynasty such as Taharqa. It was generally "ignored or dismissed" by academic experts at the time and strongly criticised in detail in an academic journal, Current Anthropology, in 1997. Saying slave ships are a myth is a whole new level of ignorance . EARLY PRESENCE OF BLACKS IN AMERICAS DEBATED. In fact, Columbus writes that they were not black. 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. Did we learn anything in there that I had simply forgotten? 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. I read They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America by Ivan Van Sertima. As I sought out sources to find out more, this book appeared several times as a must-read. "Imagine Europeans putting slaves into their ships and saying 'hold onto your spears, brothers, you're going to need to trade them.' What did we do? Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. A celebrated classic, They Came . [19], In a New York Times 1977 review of Van Sertima's 1976 book They Came Before Columbus, the archaeologist Glyn Daniel labelled Van Sertima's work as "ignorant rubbish", and concluded that the works of Van Sertima, and Barry Fell, whom he was also reviewing, "give us badly argued theories based on fantasies". 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. Thus, historians of the time removed, ignored, or minimized any evidence of black contributions to ancient Egyptian civilization. His widow, Jacqueline Van Sertima, said she would continue to publish the Journal of African Civilizations. 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. 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. on Sept. 2, 1948. There are some problems with this theory. The occasion was his first visit to the United States from Britain, where he was working in 1970. However, Afrocentrists then make the claim that the natives of Mesoamerica regarded them as gods, and so they sculpted these statues in order to honor them (sounds like Ancient Aliens, to me). 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. Some believe that Blacks were already in America and have more Native American ancestry than African. Moreover, how would he have known? 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". He was asked to write a magazine piece simplifying and summarizing Weiner. Critics in anthropology and archaeology have stated that They Came Before Columbus portrays Native Mesoamerican peoples as inferior and incapable of developing highly sophisticated civilizations, cultures, and technologies without the influence of Africans arriving by boat as gods in their eyes, as Van Sertima puts it. Experts have determined that the gourds floated across the Atlantic and washed ashore in the Americas to be adopted by Mesoamerican cultures. Van Sertima's work on Olmec civilization has been criticised by Mesoamerican academics,[17] who describe his claims to be ill-founded and false. Click Here to Get Smart on Protecting Your Family and Loves Ones, No Matter What Happens. As somebody who strongly believes that history is dominated by the "Western" narrative, I find myself drawn to believe Sertima. This video is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Ivan Van Sertima who made is transition on May 25th, 2009. There is a heated online debate about how Black Americans came to America. They say slavery lasted 400 yrs America is only 250 yrs old You ever seen a slave ship ? Note how these claims are eerily similar to claims of white gods that, for example, the Aztecs and Maya speak of. 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. The accounts of people such as Christopher Columbus himself, Spanish travelers, and Herodotus, though, are harder to debate. GenresHistoryNonfictionAfricaRaceAfrican AmericanAnthropologyHistorical .more 284 pages, Paperback First published January 1, 1976 Book details & editions They would claim them as west African too if they could. 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. 'Roots' goes back to the time when the damage was beginning. In 1997 academics in a Journal of Current Anthropology article criticised in detail many elements of They Came Before Columbus (1976). I may hear about anything from the cultural revolution, to ancient Chinese dynasties, to Genghis Kan. Van Sertima uses written, archaeological, and cultural evidence to support his thesis. 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. 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). pre-Columbian contact between Africa and the Americas, "Goodbye Columbus? In his famous book, They Came Before Columbus, published in 1976, anthropologist-linguist Ivan Van Sertima, a Rutgers professor, claims that African influences can be found in a wide range of cultural similarities between Africa and the ancient Americas. Some paint their faces, others the whole body, some only round the eyes, others only on the nose. This two-way trade never happened. My best guess would be from somewhere(s) in west and/or maybe central Africa. I found an audio version of this book on YouTube. Van Sertima claims that the Mixtecs and Aztecs were influenced by Bakari II. There are similarities between the Mandingo god the Dasiri of the Bambara and the god Quetzalcoatl of the Olmecs. Maize has African origins. "Some of these voyages are designed or planned; some are accidental," he said. In Koning's telling and in Zinn's, Columbus set out to enslave a uniformly gentle people for the sole purpose of enriching himself with gold. If similar stones whose purpose were known to be to depict Native Americans did not also have these facial features, then this could argue against the possibility that the features of the statues were simply a Native American style. There is also a vast body of knowledge to be uncovered about Africa and America. 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. Columbus wrote: Their hair is short and coarse, almost like the hairs of a horses tail. ", Van Sertima said he didn't travel much to research the book. Im pretty sure I had taken a World History course before. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Your email address will not be published. "People have different definitions of realism," he added, pointing out stylistic conventions and showing slides that depicted convincingly similar but totally unrelated rattlesnake scale designs from the early American city of Teotihuacan and decorations on a Louis XVI commode. 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. The launching of the expedition is recorded by Arab historian Ibn Fadl Allah al-Omari, according to Van Sertima. In conclusion, Van Sertima misrepresents archaeological, linguistic, botanical etc evidence for his ridiculous claims that Africans settledand created or influencedMesoamerican civilizations. . As the dogma slowly gets pushed out of science and history we are coming to realize that people of all. Van Sertimas scholarship was flawed in many respects, but he made an attempt to challenge the racist scholarship of his time. None of that evidence is conclusive or even particularly convincing, countered anthropologist Warren T.D. The spears, he claimed, were identical to weapons from African Guinea. While many found Van Sertimas scholarship flawed, his theory has many supporters. "A landmark . Highlighted Ogham found on the Isle of Man - Credit: ViewTeam (Author provided) There is evidence of African cotton seeds in America. It sounds like someone chose to record himself reading the book and decided to upload the files to YouTube. 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. A celebrated classic, They Came Before Columbus, dea. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. He published his They Came Before Columbus in 1976, as a Rutgers graduate student. What meaning do these ideas have for 20th-century people? Daniel's review provoked a barrage of letters - from scholars and laypersons - defending Van Sertima. We were taken from Africa, but who were we before slavery? It could be dark, bronze people from South America. 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. Polynesians/Melanesians of today are obviously not Africans. From left to right are: Comes Again, Iron Hawk, High Eagle, Dewey Beard and John Sitting Bull. He said, "You cannot really conceive of how insulting it is to Native Americans to be told they were 'discovered'."[14]. 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. If each piece of evidence and argument was listed, the list would be as long as the index. The sickle cell trait, an adaptation to ward off malaria found mostly in people from West Africa, was also discovered in the secluded Mayan tribe, the Lancodon Indians by Dr. Alfonso de Garay, Director of the Genetic Program of the National Commission for Nuclear Energy in Mexico. In addition, there are stories of Egyptian mariners. In a Medaille College debate moderated by Jesse E. Nash Jr., a Canisius College professor, Barbour and Van Sertima squared off over a theory that has found its way into American classrooms through adoption of "multicultural" materials and curricula. They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America originally published in 1976 was written by professor Dr. Ivan Van Sertima. 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. Hidden Colors also makes the argument that Africans were in the Americas before Columbus. 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