Every few months or so this comes up and it’s a pain in the ass to keep writing the same argument over and over again so I figure I should just compile a decent amount of evidence for future arguments here. Plus, I get to be a bit contrarian because I’m writing this in the beginning of March, right after Black History Month, because I’m a stud, I write my article whenever I want. Unlike you.
For most people, this video is the first time they’ve ever heard this argument. I of course being from New York City have heard Our Nation of Islam people talk about this in black barbershops growing up, but like with most things said in the barber shop you just nod your head and go this motherfucker just be saying whatever and keep it moving. However, Hotep Jesus goes through about 20 minutes and I suggest you take a listen, but for those that don’t here are the main points:
Subconsciously, teaching black people their beginnings were in slavery creates a mentality of inferiority and underachievement
The Black story begins far sooner than this and there were Empires with advanced technology for their era even more advanced that Europe at the time who were in the Middle Ages
Africans were not brought to America as slaves, Africans transported themselves here and Europeans conquered them
Economically, it makes no sense to import millions of people on a voyage that will lose 50% of it’s shipment when you can simply capture and enslave people already in America.
If you ignore prior bias this argumentation makes perfect sense and it’s hard to argue with at least 3 of the 4 points. The point of real contention is #3. Is it true that Africans were able to get themselves to the Americas on their own? Is there any evidence to support this claim or is it just we wuz kangz type of shit? Lets find out.
Is the Voyage Even Possible?
Before we start to look at evidence within the actual Americas, let’s consider if this is even possible from a logistic standpoint. How would Africans, who we know didn’t have advanced sailing techniques, make it to the Americas in the first place?
The above is a slightly simplified map of ocean currents, but enough detail to demonstrate my point. If you notice the West coast of Africa, you can see that the blue current leads to S. Equatorial current, which leads along the NE coast of South America, into the Gulf. Adjacent to this current is also the N Equatorial Current which can be taken with a bit of rudimentary sailing and this leads into the Caribbean and North America. It’s important to note that this current isn’t a weak current. Now there is the question of what kind of vessel could be used to get across the ocean? Well there were several basic fishing rafts that we know were in Africa.
Thor Heyerdahl a Norweigan ethnologist made several voyages in the 70s to prove theories about cultures of the ancient world meeting prior to expectations. He famously demonstrated this in the documentary about the Kon-Tiki Expedition (which I highly recommend watching). In this 1950 documentary, Thor successfully takes a raft from Peru to Polynesia using a native fishing boat created in the exact manner they used, then arrived in Polynesia. Now, the thing is when you bring him up people are like “NO HE ONLY WENT FROM PERU TO POLYNESIA NOT FROM AFRICA.” Well, that’s actually not true. So, this voyage happened in 1950 and this voyage was monumental for obvious reasons. In 1970, Heyerdahl was able to successfully make the 6100 mile Ra II expedition from Morocco to Barbados using a boat similar to Mesopotamian or Egyptian fishing boat. His original expedition in 1967 made 90% of the trip in a boat haphazardly made out of papyrus. He beleived he could have completed the voyage using a better crafted papyrus boat. This boat instead was made out of reeds that you might find in wetlands or by a river, bound very tightly together. He proved without a doubt that using rudimentary boats with rudimentary sails you can make Transatlantic and Transpacific voyages. From here all you need is either intent or mishap to create the circumstances for this voyage.
Mishap might look like someone on a fishing boat drifted out to sea and maybe they drifted a little too far from shore then simply road the current. I think this is unlikely, however the far more likely scenario being intent.
Intent might look like the predecessor of King Mansa Musa, Abubakari the Second from the Mali Empire abdicating the throne and choosing to go on an Atlantic voyage (emphasis my own) as noted from a recorded conversation with Mansa Musa in 1324:
We belong to a house which hands on the kingship by inheritance. The king who was my predecessor did not believe that it was impossible to discover the furthest limit of the Atlantic Ocean and wished vehemently to do so. So he equipped 200 ships filled with men and the same number equipped with gold, water, and provisions enough to last them for years, and said to the man deputed to lead them: "Do not return until you reach the end of it or your provisions and water give out." They departed and a long time passed before anyone came back. Then one ship returned and we asked the captain what news they brought. He said: "Yes, O Sultan, we traveled for a long time until there appeared in the open sea [as it were] a river with a powerful current. Mine was the last of those ships. The [other] ships went on ahead but when they reached that place they did not return and no more was seen of them and we do not know what became of them. As for me, I went about at once and did not enter that river." But the sultan disbelieved him. Then that sultan got ready 2,000 ships, 1,000 for himself and the men whom he took with him and 1,000 for water and provisions. He left me to deputize for him and embarked on the Atlantic Ocean with his men. That was the last we saw of him and all those who were with him, and so I became king in my own right.[3]
So quite literally thousands of men left the Mali Empire to explicitly explore the furthest reaches of the Atlantic Ocean because they learned from the first expedition that there was an ocean current that moved very quickly (i.e. the S. Equatorial Current). Not only did they set sail with hundreds in the first expedition (so at minimal 500 people (I’m sure several ships worth are food stores), they set sail with “food that will last them years,” so we know they didn’t starve on the several week long voyage. Then after the first couple hundred ships left, a second voyage happened with a thousand additional ships with intent and the knowledge from the previous expedition. We can say with high likelihood that at least a few thousand people made it to the New World from Africa. Even if they lost 50% of their ships, the sheer volume of voyages with the knowledge of a specific current means there’s virtually zero chance they didn’t arrive. This occurred in the early 14th century, over 100 years prior to Columbus’ arrival.
I think it’s funny that the real issue here is the disbelief that black people could do something of this caliber due to inferior intelligence or acumen or whatever, but at the same time there is a legitimate biological theory which states that literal monkeys to have traveled to South America from Africa. If you are racist to enough to think black people are inferior and no different than monkeys, then logically there should be no issue here.
Forgive my second-hand link to the theory I used to have a published journal link, but I can’t find it on the shitty modern search engines we have and the increasing number of dead links. Everything on the internet lasts forever? Yeah right. Anyway
Now that we’ve covered the logistics, lets consider some firsthand accounts.
Firsthand Accounts and Evidence
…and he [Columbus] wanted to find out what the Indians of Hispaniola had told him, that there had come to it from the south and southeast Negro people, who brought those spear points made of a metal which they call guanin, of which he had sent to the king and queen for assaying, and which was found to have thirty-two parts, eighteen of gold, six of silver, and eight of copper.
- Raccolta, Parte 1, Vol.1
African guanines were alloys of gold containing copper for the sake of its odor, for it seems that the Negroes like to smell their wealth. The guanines brought home by Columbus were assayed in Spain and were found to contain the same ration of alloy as those in African Guinea
-Frederick Pohl, Amerigo Vespucci, Pilot Major
It’s not convincing enough to say that this trip is possible theoretically, there needs to be some evidence beyond just this abstraction with our modern understanding of the World. Fortunately, there were first hand accounts from European expeditions through South America which lend credibility to this claim. First of all, there’s the quote above which has been contested by scholars for many years because they couldn’t ( or didn’t want to) understand that Africans could be in the Caribbean. The Natives had to be mistaken!
The evidence I find to be compelling is the similarity between the religious rituals of the Mali Empire and Mayans. There is a curious amount of similarities between the rituals surrounding the Mayan god, Quetzalcoatl and Dasiri Worship from the Mali (i.e. Mande) People.
There is this myth that has perpetuated that Quetzalcoatl was a “white god” or the “bearded god.” It is often said that this person was Cortez as he arrived to Mexico, but given what we now about Mali Empire and their expedition in 1311 could it have been Abubakari II instead?
He was clothed from head to foot in long, flowing white robes. He looked like a child of the Sun burned dark by his rays. His black hair and beard stood out against the whiteness of his vestment…as if they had been bathed in sacred fire. Surely they have come from a land burning the white heart of the Sun. Against the blue canopy under which he stood they could quite clearly see the outlines of a great golden bird, the serpent slaying eagle, they thought was an ensign of Quetzalcoatl.
-They Came Before Columbus
There is a ton of confusion about Quetzalcoatl and the accounts about the God coming from the eastern seaboard with varying appearances seems to confuse many scholars, but once again they have a penchant for complicating things. The Mali arrived and appeared to them as one of many incarnations of the Sun God Quetzalcoatl. Furthermore, the used of “white” as reference to skin color is almost exclusively a European behavior and wasn’t found anywhere else until Japan post-European exposure. It is far more likely that white was used in this sense more holistically again since he was a tall bearded man, dressed in all white, with an all white turban. I can’t go too far into the aesthetic direction due to word count limit, but consider that there is only one bird known for its exceptional skill at hunting serpents and its the African Secretary bird. Notably, it looks like a modified eagle with long legs and plumage behind its head. If you look at any depiction of Quetzalcoatl in its bird-serpent form, it always has plumage behind its head.
Beyond just superficial similarities. There are ritual similarities between the Mali and Mayans. The icons and symbology of Quetzalcoatl and Dasiri of the Mali are far too similar. Both of which are serpent deities which bring rain. This similarity has other origins likely (probably on a far earlier time table than current doctrine allows for, but just note that its very likely human history is longer than the human model. Ignore that for now). Quetzalcoatl is associated with a tree (as he is a bird in a sacred tree and was originally the god of vegetation). The Dasiri is a serpent who lives in a sacred tree and is protector of the village whom they provide sacrifices for at the foot the tree. Both religions cultures have a feast for this deity at the beginning of the year. Both have self-flagellation dances in which they wrap themselves in thorns. The thorns are in turn supposed to bring blood from your body in the form of drops which are to represent rain drops brought from the god. Additionally, there was a similarity in this ritual hat known as a copilli in Mexico. Clavigero in “The History of Mexico (1817)” that “the copilli was a small sort of mitre (i.e. religious head covering), the forepart of which was raised up and terminated in a point, and the part behind was lowered down and hung over the neck.” Additionally, E. Seler in Codex Borgi (1907) he stated that “it was a headdress frequently made of ocelot skin, so as to represent a lot of dots, that is, the stars of a magicians cap.” Is this description beginning to sound familiar? This is a type of hat that began in Persia and disseminated to other cultures, notably the Mali. You might know this to sound a lot like Merlin’s hat (conical with stars) or like the Papal Hat (conical with flap in the back). And notably Mali is famous for conical hats, specifically the Fulani which keeps the conical shape, but lacks the religious dressings. These days when you look up the Mexican word for copilli it’s those massive feather headdresses you would have seen in movies, but two historians from over 100 years ago point to the original design.
There are far more similarities and far more firsthand accounts from Central and South Americans, but for the sake of brevity I’ll leave it at this. I think this is sufficient to at least make the claim that Africans arrived in Americas in Pre-Columbus era. Now let’s consider if Hotep Jesus’ claim that the vast majority of slaves were already here in America.
6 Million? I’d Say 350,000 At Most
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