Linda M. Heywood is Professor of African American Studies and History at Boston University. In 1991 Dr. Van Sertima defended his highly controversial thesis on the African presence in pre-Columbian America before the Smithsonian. Search the history of over 804 billion One of these articles, African Popes, discussed the lives of the three African pontiffs: St. Victor I (189-199), St. Miltiades (311-314) and St Scientific analysis of the surrounding soil suggests that the skeletons date back to about 1250 A.D.28, Any objective analysis of the evidence clearly shows that Black people reached the Americas thousands of years before Columbus. How central the role was that African Americans played has never been completely told and, unfortunately, a pivotal part of that history has been excluded from this exhibit. They appear to represent priest-kings who ruled vast territories in Mesoamerica [Mexico and Central America] during the Olmec period, which is to be considered later herein. African Americans History & Culture Britannica.com 168. In his. cit. A clear indicator of pre-Columbus African trans-Atlantic travel is the recent archeological findings of narcotics native to America in Ancient Egyptian mummies, which have astounded contemporary historians. As Columbus Day (October 12) approaches and as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the publication of They Came Before Columbus by the late Rutgers University professor, Ivan Van Sertima, we must reveal to the world the grandeur of Africa by highlighting the achievements of some of its great navigators and rulers. Download full-text PDF Download full-text PDF Read full-text. N17 9HT. In this summary, however, we are confining ourselves to a particular geographic region (the Gulf of Mexico), a particular culture complex or civilization (known as Olmecs), and a particular period of history (948-680 B.C. I have never claimed, writes Van Sertima, that Africans created or founded the Olmec civilizationThey left a significant influence upon itand that is more than can be said of any other Old World group visiting the native American or emigrating to the continent before Columbus.34, A study of the Olmec civilization reveals elements that are remarkably similar to the ritual traits and techniques in the Egypto-Nubian world of the same period. African explorers crossing the vast Atlantic waters in primitive boats may seem unlikely, or perhaps, far fetched to some. A recurring theme in Afrocentrism is the claim that African Americans, Black West Africans in the Americas, and other groups (arbitrarily racialized by various groups to fit respective point of views) are the "real" Hebrews, Native Americans, Romans, etc. Father Fray Gregoria Garcia, a priest of the Dominican order who spent nine years in Peru during the early sixteenth century, identified an island off of Cartagena, Columbia as the place where the Spanish first found Black people in the New World. station39.cebu African Presence in Early Europe (1985) places into perspective the role of the African in world civilization, in particular the little-known contributions to the advancement of Europe with a . The Indus Valley civilization was at its height from about 2200 B.C.E. He wrote: Cleared of the surrounding earth, it [the colossal head] presented an awe-inspiring spectacle. In using standard scientific measurements of skull shape and the formation of the face, Wiercinski found a clear prevalence of the total Negroid pattern26, In this same vein, historian Frederick Peterson has written that [w]e can trace the progress of man in Mexico without noting any definite Old World influence during this period (1000-650 B.C.) Readers should also consider the following 10 books that filled in this or that piece of the African jigsaw: Charles S. Finch, The Star of Deep Beginnings, US, Khenti, 1998. Face of Afro-Olmec child carved on the waste "belt" of an Olmec ballplayer, Back to Historical Views | AfricaSpeaks.com, Check for historical references and literature, THE VANISHING EVIDENCE OF CLASSICAL AFRICAN CIVILIZATIONS. How central the role was that African Americans played has never been completely told and, unfortunately, a pivotal part of that history has been excluded from this exhibit. The book is divided into six parts: The First Europeans: African Presence in the Ancient Mediterranean Isles and Mainland Greece; Africans in the European Religious Hierarchy (madonnas, saints and popes); African Presence in Western Europe; African Presence in Northern Europe; African Presence in Eastern Europe. He also claimed However, at La Venta in Mexico, the Olmecs made a fully finished pyramid, with no signs of progressive learning. All these religious similarities are too large and occur far too often to be mere coincidences. endobj
What is the significance of this meeting of Africans and Native Americans? Stephen Jett in Riley, Kelley, Pennington and Rands (eds. We will keep fighting for all libraries - stand with us! Islam in the African-American Experience Second Edition African Presence in Early America (1987) is focused on contact between Africa and America towards the close of the Bronze Age (circa 948-680 B.C.) However, during the early 1940s archeologists uncovered a civilization known as the Olmecs of 1200 BC, which pre-dated any other advanced civilization in the Americas. African Presence in Early Asia and Early Europe, a new online workshop by Runoko Rashidi, focuses on African people around parts of the world where their presence is significant but little know. While we could continue to cite infinite similarities between ancient African and New World cultures in various fields including linguistics and botany, let us turn instead to consider the likely origin of the Africans who appear to have reached and profoundly influenced American culture thousands of years before Columbus. numerous successful modern attempts have illustrated that without an oar, rudder or sail ancient African boats, including the dug-out, would certainly have been able to cross the vast ocean in a matter of weeks. But, in the words of Van Sertima, proof of contact is only half of the story. Are you ready to come out from where you hide? Academia.edu uses cookies to personalize content, tailor ads and improve the user experience. Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean It seems that rather than barriers, the Pacific and Atlantic have acted as liquid highways since at least the appearance of the Olmec around 15 BCE. In Egyptian mythology the human headed bird, Ba, flies out of the tomb. Black History, American History. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. except a strong Negroid substratum connected with the Magicians [Olmecs].27 Finally, in February of 1975, a team from the Smithsonian Institute reported the discovery of two Negroid male skeletons in a grave in the U.S. Virgin Islands. African American history began with slavery, as white European settlers first brought Africans to the continent to serve as enslaved workers. Early American Scans NetSuite, According to historians such as Wayne B. Chandler (African Presence in Early America), two of Chinas earliest dynaties, the Shang and the Shia, were both heavily Black African/Black Oceanic dynasties, with Mongol Chinese as well. The outcome, I believe, is a comprehensive explanation of why and how the African slave trade expanded to unprecedented levels during the early modern period. The original Olmecs were Native Americans who were very probably colonized and acculturated by Africans who settled their homeland. 1 Privateering, Colonial Expansion, and the African Presence in Early Anglo-Dutch Settlements 5 2 The Portuguese, Kongo, and Ndongo and the Origins of Atlantic Creole Culture to 1607 49 183. I reflected that there had undoubtedly been Blacks in this country and this had been in the first epoch of the world10 Since Melgars discovery sixteen other colossal stone heads have been found in many parts of Mexico, including ancient sacred sites such as La Venta and Tres Zapotes in southern Mexico. Re-Genesis Encyclopedia: Synthesis of the Spiritual Dark Motherline, Integral Research, Labyrinth Learning, and EcoThealogy. Why would native Americans venerate images so unmistakably African if they had never seen them before? ), Matthew M. Stirling, Discovering the New World: Oldest Dated Work of Man,, W. Hayes III, The African Presence in America Before Columbus,. 7-The Underrepresentation of African American Female, The Olmecs: An African Presence in Early America (In Celebration of Black History Month) By Paul A. Barton The Perspective February 28, 2001 According to an archeologist who recently participated in archeological work in Mexico, One of the most ancient civilizations in the Americas, the Black (Negritic) Olmecs developed a calendar that goes Historian Nicholas Cheetham writes of the exaggeratedly Negroid features of the stone heads.20 Finally, another scholar, Floyd Hayes, has provided the following thought provoking assessment of the racial significance of the colossal stone heads: One might merely ask himself: if Africans were not present in the Americas before Columbus, why the typically African physiognomy on the monuments? His research also discussed the early African . He could not know Gobekli Tepe, the surrounding settlements, the Natufian villages, etc., all going back to 12,000 years BC which is more than 6,000 or 7,000 years before the Egyptian civilization and 9,000 before the invention of the first known writing system in the Middle East, the Sumerian writing system too often identified as the Akkadian cuneiform writing system because the scribes were Akkadian speaking a Semitic language though the language was Sumerian, a synthetic-analytical language, probably post-agglutinative. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. Part I of the book explores these roots in the Middle East, West Africa, and antebellum America. The existence of Negroes and giants is commonly believed by nearly all the races of our soil Several archaeological objects found in various locations demonstrate their existence Memories of them in the most ancient traditions induce us to believe that the Negroes were the first inhabitants of Mexico, Another authority, J.A. ).30, The name Olmec means Dweller in the land of Rubber and could technically be applied to anyone who lived in the jungle areas of the Mexican Gulf Coast in antiquity.31 For centuries the indigenous people there created and perpetuated a local culture that varied little from its surroundings. A number of black leftists survived the most repressive years of the early Cold War to participate in the post-war African American civil rights movement. The original source of this article is Global Research. Runoko Rashidied, African Presence in Early Asia, US, Transaction Publishers, 1995. %PDF-1.5
The Olmec an African Presence in Early America We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. His topic will be "The African Presence in Ancient America" at BCC's Davie campus at 11 a.m., and he will be the featured speaker at the "Africa and the Diaspora" program scheduled for 1 to 5 p.m . <>>>
As time allows us to drift further and further away from the European age of exploration and we move beyond an age of racial intellectual prejudice, historians are beginning to recognize that Africans were skilled navigators long before Europeans, contrary to popular belief. Pdf_module_version 0.0.19 Ppi 300 Republisher_date 20200128192458 Republisher_operator associate-jessa-lubiano@archive.org Republisher_time 504 Scandate 20200128085733 Scanner station39.cebu.archive.org Scanningcenter Racial Gaps in Early Childhood Socio-emotional nccp.org, Mesoamerica was yet another world location for the emergence of an early civilization, but Mesoamerican societies were not necessarily connected to a single famous river (like the Nile) as the other early civilizations were, though there were plenty of rivers in the New World. <>/XObject<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI] >>/MediaBox[ 0 0 612 792] /Contents 4 0 R/Group<>/Tabs/S/StructParents 0>>
The African presence is proven by stone heads, terra cottas, skeletons, artifacts, techniques and inscriptions, by oral traditions and documented history, by botanical, linguistic and cultural data. 4 0 obj
The Portuguese, Kongo and Ndongo and the origins of Atlantic Creole culture to 1607 3. The earliest people in the Americas were people of the Negritic African race, who entered the Americas perhaps as early as 100,000 years ago, by way of the bering straight and about thirty thousand years ago in a worldwide maritime undertaking that included journeys from the then wet and lake filled Sahara towards the Indian Ocean and the Conspicuous among these shared elements are those adopted by the monarchies in both civilizations, and appear in a combination too arbitrary and unique to be independently duplicated.35 They include the following: The double crown, the royal flail, the sacred boat or ceremonial bark of the kings, the religious value of the color purple and its special use among priests and people of high rank; the artificial beard, feathered fans and the parasol or ceremonial umbrella. CAPE EVIDENCE OF WEST AFRICAN MOVEMENTS TO THE AMERICAS LESSON 2. Clearly, Africans helped civilize America well before Europeans discovered America, and well before Europeans claim to have civilized Africa. The most striking similarities between the two cultures are seen in the magnificent stone structures that have been found on both sides of the Atlantic. In recent times, it has been common to associate Latinos with the . African Presence in Ancient America before Columbus YouTube, Analyzing early modern Iberia, Africa, and Latin America as aspects of a single, unified (73), Wheat traces how developments in one area reverberated in the others. BLACK AFRICAS HISTORY This book was salvational in many ways at the time of its publication. In Egyptian mythology the human headed bird, Ba, flies out of the tomb. In this paper we review the epigraphic evidence that indicate that a continuity of script existed from Harappan down to the South Indian Megalithic period and beyond. As in Darien, these Africans were also captives of war among the native Americans.6 Also during the sixteenth century after the advent of Columbus, but before the universal enslavement of Africans Cabello de Balboa cited a group of seventeen Black people who, after being shipwrecked in Ecuador, became governors of an entire province of native Americans.7. Visions for Black Men Nashville: Winston-Derek, 1991. 1. We cannot of course reproach the author with what he could not know in 1976. In 1922, about 350 miles northeast of Harappa, another large Indus city, Mohenjo-daro (the. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. ), Some of the Olmec sculptures depicting human beings are so decidedly Negroid that many scholars long thought that the indigenous Olmec culture itself was of Black origin. The strongest evidence of African presence in America before Columbus comes from the pen of Columbus himself. The Mayans, Aztecs and Incas all worshipped black gods and the surviving portraits of the black deities are revealing. villages, no pyramid appears until much later.. Throughout all of these travels, African explorers have not had a history of starting devastating wars on the people they met. A similar sculpture has been discovered at the Olmec site of Portrero Nuevo. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the In fact, in 445 BC, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote of the Ancient Egyptian pharaohs great seafaring and navigational skills. It is grounded now upon an overwhelming and growing body of reliable witnesses. Ivan Van Sertima, They Came Before Columbus. Dr. Runoko Rashidi, They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient AFRICA & ANCIENT IRELAND AFRICA TO IBERIA According to Von Wuthenau, [t]he startling fact is that in all parts of Mexico, from Campeche in the east to the southeast of Guerrero, and from Chiapas, next to the Guatemalan border, to the Panuco River in the Huasteca region (north of Veracruz) archeological pieces representing Negro or Negroid people have been found, especially in archaic or pre-classic sites. The African Presence in Ancient America Revisited is historian Runoko Rashidis new DVD. cit., p.37. endobj
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