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. 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. 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. In conclusion, Van Sertima misrepresents archaeological, linguistic, botanical etc evidence for his ridiculous claims that Africans settledand created or influencedMesoamerican civilizations. Some paint their faces, others the whole body, some only round the eyes, others only on the nose. 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. 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. 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. Van Sertima believed that Mali seafarers sailed across the Atlantic and landed in Mesoamerica. 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). "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. 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. 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. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Van Sertima even argued that in several writings Columbus suggested that Africans were in the Americas before he was. This video is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Ivan Van Sertima who made is transition on May 25th, 2009. 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. They then raised their discovery to the community at large, but it was quickly disregarded as being impossible under the logic that no Europeans had visited the Americas before Columbus. 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. 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. 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. Back in December of 2015, I published an article refuting the notion that the Olmecsand other pre-Colombian civilizationswere started by Negroid peoples. Keep reading with unlimited digital access. Human Biodiversity, IQ, Evolutionary Psychology, Epigenetics and Evolution, Home Refuting Afrocentrism They Did Not Come Before Columbus. This statement is horribly misinformed. "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. "I kept quiet about my work. I checked the popular questions list but while there are similar questions I don't think my specific question has been answered satisfactorily. A certain kind of shadow lifts. Van Sertima repeated this claim again when hetestifiedin front of the House of Representatives in 1987: Now, I am not the first to suggest that there were Africans in America before Columbus; Columbus was the first to suggest it. 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. Van Sertima states that even the Greek historian Herodotus had an account of black Egyptian people. Its really that easy to explain the so-called similar appearances in nose shape between the Olmec heads and African noses. No, since they are only telling just-so stories. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. [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. Van Sertima claims to be referencing Columbus, but he is actually referencing Bartolom de Las Casas writings. So, Van Sertima had his conclusion in mind first, and looked for evidence for itmeaning he was telling just-so stories. Highlighted Ogham found on the Isle of Man - Credit: ViewTeam (Author provided) He completed primary and secondary school in Guyana, and started writing poetry. "Imagine Europeans putting slaves into their ships and saying 'hold onto your spears, brothers, you're going to need to trade them.' A celebrated classic, They Came Before Columbus, dea. Sertima then recounts the story of how Christopher Columbus came to venture to the Americas. Barbour, the first African-American to earn a. [5] Except for a brief mention, the book had not previously been reviewed in an academic journal. He later discusses carved pipes found in Mesoamerican archaeological sites, suggesting that the use of pipes for smoking must have been an inherited practice from African or Asian visitors. Some paint themselves white, others red, and others of what color they find. Many historians have worked at debunking the They Came Before Columbus and Africans Were Already In America myth. All of these claims are incrediblewhich means that they deserve incredible evidence in order to verify them. They say slavery lasted 400 yrs America is only 250 yrs old You ever seen a slave ship ? Because the Olmec civilization is one that has been largely shrouded in mystery, there have been a number of theories about the historical roots of the Olmec. None of that evidence is conclusive or even particularly convincing, countered anthropologist Warren T.D. 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. [6] He attended the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London from 1959. 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. The majority of us here in America the descendant of slaves were already aboriginal in America and were the slave population of choice. Van Sertima, 42, here Saturday for the concluding day of the third annual black writers conference sponsored by Howard University, said the pervious to original thought, who will letters exposed Daniel as "a man imnot even do honest battle with ideas he contends but tries to drown out in a sea of vituperation and abuse.". 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. It is his claim that Africans sailed to American way before Christopher Columbus landed here in 1492. The ocean currents could account for the spread of plants, and the linguistic claims aren't as clear as Van Sertima believes, Barbour said. [5], Van Sertima wrote a response to be included in the article (as is standard academic practice) but withdrew it. One of the most striking pieces of evidence is the negroid statues, statues of peoples with thick lips and wide noses. [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. Despite this, some individuals would argue: A mass colony of Africans were not shipped from Africa to America. [16], Van Sertima argues that African contact likely happened more than once. Required fields are marked *. Van Sertima asserts that this idea is false and explains how this belief developed. Sailing, especially such great distances, was not an achievement that was typically attributed to Africans of that time, but it would have been necessary to reach the Americas. Open Document. He never returned, though some (including Van Sertima) argued that he arrived in the Americas. Columbus is such a late-comer that it is almost silly to compare anybody's arrival to his. 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 uses written, archaeological, and cultural evidence to support his thesis. He published his They Came Before Columbus in 1976, as a Rutgers graduate student. In the library of a Princeton professor, he came across three volumes, "Africa and the Discovery of America," written by a Harvard Linquist, Leo Weiner, and published more than 50 years ago. Snow continued, "The findings of professional archaeologists and physical anthropologists are misrepresented so that they seem to support the [Van Sertima] hypothesis". What did we believe in? This view, of course, is seen as highly fringe in the field of anthropology. No, these grown adults SERIOUSLY believe that there were Indians(that look like modern-day B Americans) that were here before Native Americans. 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 . 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