Professor Ivan van Sertima, They Came before Columbus, A review by Femi Akomolafe, 19 January 1995
“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. So total is the Euro-Americans onslaught on black people that all military, missionary, scholarship, academic forces are mobilized to paint the picture of the African as an eternal slave of the white man.……
….Happily, one by one, these edifices of distortions, constructed by white-supremacists posing as scholars, historians, anthropologists, even scientists, are being knocked down.
In his They Came Before Columbus, Professor Ivan Van Sertima of Rutgers University assembled an impressive array of evidence to challenge one of the most persistent of these historical distortions. His argument are so compelling that very many high-calibre scholars, who have maintained the prejudiced line of history, are bound to fall flat from their pedestal. The style of the book is very engaging, almost novel-like—this makes a very good reading.
The first evidence of a black presence in the America was given to Columbus by the Indians themselves: they gave concrete proof to the Spanish that they were trading with black people. “The Indians of this Espanola said there had come to Espanola a black people who have the tops of their spears made of a metal which they called gua-nin, of which he [Columbus] had sent samples to the Sovereigns to have them assayed, when it was found that of 32 parts, 18 were of gold, 6 of silver and 8 of copper. The origin of the word guanin may be tracked down in the Mande languages of West Africa, through Mandigo, Kabunga, Toronka, Kankanka, Banbara, Mande and Vei. In Vei, we have the form of the word ka-ni which, transliterated into native phonetics, would give us gua-nin.” p.11. This was just one of the numerous instances, cited by Professor [van] Sertima, where the names, cultures and rituals of the Mandigos confluenced with those of the ancient Americans.
Thus we have the Bambara werewolf cult whose head is known as amantigi (heads of faith) appeared in Mexican rituals as amanteca. The ceremonies accompanying these rituals are too identical to have been independently evolved among peoples who have had no previous encounter. Talking devil is called Hore in Mandigo, and Haure in Carib. In the American language of Nahuatl a waistcloth is called maxtli, in Malinke it’s masiti. The female loincloth is nagua in Mexico, it is nagba in Mande.
Why would the Indians claimed to have traded with black people if they haven’t? Why would their faith and language have so much infusion of West African influence if these people haven’t had any contact? These might not be sufficient, in themselves, to justify the claims that Africans have been visiting the Americas in pre-Colombian times. But there are witnesses. In 1513 Vasco Nunez de Balboa, another Spanish usurper came upon a group of African war captives in an Indian settlement. He was told that the blacks lived nearby and were constantly waging wars. A priest, Fray Gregoria Garcia wrote an account of another encounter in a book that was silenced by the inquisition: “Here we found slaves of the lord – Negroes- who were the first our people saw in the Indies.” p.22. (It should be noted that in pre-European slavery, slaves are what we called ‘Prisoners of wars’ today. Thus, the Yorubas have the same name, ERU, for both slaves and POWs.)
Aside from these confirmed sightings, there are also an abundance archeological evidence of an Africa presence in pre-Colombian times. These were in the form of realistic portraitures of Negro-Africans in clay, gold, and stone unearthed in pre-Colombian strata in Central and South America.- pp.23-24. Moved by these overwhelming evidence, the Society of American Archeology at a conference in 1968, Professor [van] Sertima reported, concluded: “Surely there cannot now be any question but that there were visitors to the New World from the Old in historic or even prehistoric time before 1492.”
Then there is the oral history of the two peoples. The Griots—traditional historians and masters of orature—‘Oral Literature’ in Mali, have stories about their King, Abubakari the second, grandson of Sundiata, the founder of the Mali Empire (larger than the Holy Roman Empire), who set out on a great expedition of large boats in 1311. None of the boats returned to Mali, but curiously around this time evidence of contact between West Africans and Mexicans appear in strata in America in an overwhelming combination of artifacts and cultural parallels. A black-haired, black-bearded figure in white robes, one of the representations of Quetzalcoatl, modeled on a dark-skinned outsider, appears in paintings in the valley of Mexico… while the Aztecs begin to worship a Negroid figure mistaken for their god Tezcatlipoca because he had the right ceremonial color. Negroid skeletons are found in this time stratum in the Caribbean... ‘A notable tale is recorded in the Peruvian traditions … of how black men coming from the east had been able to penetrate the Andes Mountains.’ p.26
“History Fiction or Science” by Anatoly Fomenko, 7 volumes. Only first 4 volumes available, unable to get volumes 5,6 and 7. R1.
Hi,
Fomenko seems to be making some crackpot-ish claims, according to this reviewer below.
Is Van Sertima’s evidence that sketchy? I don’t know. I haven’t read either, beyond what I post here.
(Without dismissing the man entirely, here’s some criticism)
From a negative Amazon review of one of Fomenko’s books:
“To conclude: his events don’t combine, his dismissal of carbon dating doesn’t hold up, and his statement about forged documents is completely inaccurate. That last point I will demonstrate further below under the section which deals with the evidence that he denies or ignores. And speaking of…
Having shown what utter rot his selective use of facts is it’s time to turn to the facts that he doesn’t want people to know. Starting with something I mentioned above: documents. While parchment doesn’t last forever as I have said, there are certain conditions which allow it to be preserved for much longer than it would normally be. These finds are rare but offer a valuable insight into the ancient world. The most famous of these finds comes from Vindolanda. This was a Roman fort just below Hadrian’s Wall. There were a series of letters written on thin slivers of wood which were preserved underwater in the muddy ground. These letters dealt with common every day things including troop strength, parties, new clothing, etc. They also include selections from Roman literature that Fomenko dismisses as forgeries. These documents are originals, not copies, and deal with an everyday Roman life that Fomenko claims never existed. The key points is this: there was no way that a group of Jesuits working in the 16th Century could have known that anyone would have the technology to read what was written. The processes used to recover the letters was invented by archaeologists in the 1970s including the infrared photography needed to recover them. There was no way that Jesuits could have known that they would survive by chance, would be discovered, or could be read once they had been. Furthermore, what would be the point? It’s not like people doubted the Romans existed. Why create all of this useless information only to bury it forever in a place where it should have rotted away? Especially in Protestant England where Jesuits weren’t exactly welcome? This parchment find is not the only one. There is a major dump in Egypt (also outside Jesuit control) and smaller ones in several other places around Europe and the Middle East. Furthermore, the building that the Vindolanda documents was found in was clearly Roman in design and structure. Which brings me ’round to my next point.
Clearly Fomenko has no interest in the arts or humanities. He dismisses art historians with all the contempt he clearly feels for any field that isn’t Math or Physics. Which explains how he can make some of his outlandish claims. I should point out that he considers none of these claims as proof of his ‘theory.’ He doesn’t even take artistic studies seriously enough to dispute them. He simply assumes that they are wrong because he is right and leaves it at that. His sections on architecture are masterpieces of arrogant disdain. The only reason he even deigns to mention them is because his ‘theory’ is correct and therefore they must be wrong. I don’t think that I need to explain why that is the wrong attitude to take.
As an example he considers the Parthenon to be a Turkish mosque. The Parthenon is of course a masterpiece of Classical architecture and is lacking the traditional Muslim mosque design. Particularly the dome. Yes the roof was blown off, but they can still tell the structure of the thing from what remained. And what remains is remarkably similar to other temples traditionally labeled as Classical. I’m not kidding when I say he makes this claim based on no evidence either. His logic is that the Ancient Greeks never existed therefore this building cannot be Greek. He says that there was a Turkish tower on the Acropolis and therefore it must have been built there at the same time. His rather poor photo from the 1860s shows the tower right next to the temple of Athena Nike and it seems to be constructed of similar material to what is underneath it. By his reasoning this alone is enough to conclude that it was originally there when the temple was constructed.
His conclusion ignores the similarity of design between classical buildings and assumes that they are all more modern. The fact that there are buildings of similar design and function located throughout Europe is ignored. Why these buildings were all built, covered in Roman inscriptions, and then abandoned is left as something of a mystery. Or it would be if he mentioned it. Also missing is a discussion of artifacts and how some artifacts are found throughout the Mediterranean despite the highly different cultures that exist there. Why do Turkish buildings and artwork differ so much from Italian buildings and artwork if they were all the same a few hundred years ago when they built Classcal temples? And for that matter, why were they the same? Roman armor is especially strange since the only conclusion possible from his ‘theory’ is that everyone around the Mediterranean adopted Roman armor, sculpted and painted it (but only on Classically styled buildings), and then abandoned it without it ever having an effect on medieval armor and weaponry. This entire section is a blatant insult to the reader’s intelligence and his own. And it gets worse.
When mentioning the dating of buildings he neglects to explain the layering. Specifically how one building is often built upon another. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the building on top is the newer building. Yet he would have us discard such obvious facts. Because when Classical buildings are found in a medieval city they are INVARIABLY found on the bottom. That’s right, all those Classical buildings being built at the same time as medieval ones somehow all ended up on the bottom while their contemporaneous medieval ones ended up above them. Gosh, isn’t that surprising?
Additional ‘proof’ of his ‘theories’ comes from a series of drawings throughout his book. On page 28 he shows a medieval document that depicts Cicero and he’s wearing medieval clothing. From this he concludes that he was a contemporary. What he doesn’t question is how else Cicero was supposed to be portrayed? Everyone in medieval manuscripts looked medieval just as all Chinese paintings reflected contemporary Chinese dress, and Roman drawings reflected contemporary Roman dress, etc. Until relatively recently people didn’t really conceive of the past as looking very different from the present. The important point is how the manuscript writer was supposed to know what Romans looked like? Sure there were Roman statues and monuments around but unless the writer was fortunate enough to live in Rome or somewhere with a standing monument they wouldn’t have a clue what the Romans dressed like. That’s why they depict everything the same way right into the Renaissance. Biblical stories, Classical stories, ethnic stories, they all looked modern at the time when the work was commissioned. If Cicero was truly a contemporary of some medieval scribe because these scribes always reflected the appearance of historical figures accurately then why did those figures’ appearances change over the years? In the 16th and 17th Centuries there are plenty of historical paintings which depict the subjects in Renaissance dress. Are we to conclude from this that Cicero and others lived from the 1200s through the 1600s? Similarly on page 44 he shows Babylon depicted as a medieval town without asking how the artist was supposed to know what ancient Babylon looked like. In one last example of many he shows Augustus wearing a crown with a Christian cross on top in a medieval map and thus concludes that Augustus was a Christian and therefore came after Christ. The lengths that this man will go to to enhance his ignorance is amazing.
So there you have it. This sad little pile of pseudohistory manages to waste 586 pages in his first book alone trying to prove something that your average five-year-old would know is nuts. A very sad thing. I’d feel more sorry for a man who’s clearly slipped his bolt if it weren’t for his unshakeable arrogance and contempt for all other fields. The basic assumption of the book is that mathematics trumps history. Clearly he knows better than all those stupid historians who can’t see that they wasted their time in not becoming mathematicians. He actually says that one of his goals is to reclaim chronology for the field of mathematics from which he is convinced the church stole it. His contempt for other fields is staggering. He clearly knows this field better than any artist, art historian, historian, physicist, or even just plain commonsensical human being and has no hesitation in stating it. In doing so he never stoops to their level by debating facts, he simply states them as truths and then ridicules them. This book really doesn’t deserve a response, but what the hey, it’s a pretty funny read.”
Using words like crackpot is detrimental to critical thinking, similar to calling the review a rant.
Why are volumes 5, 6 and 7 unavailable ?
Hi there,
Please reread – I said “according to the reviewer” and “seems” and “crackpot-ish.”
There are a lot of things floating around the web and until I have studied them carefully, I am inclined to be skeptical – that’s all.
I think the research is certainly very interesting and I’m fully on board the thesis that the Middle Ages are grossly misrepresented. The possibility that the chronology is significantly manipulated doesn’t strike me as absurd.
But, then, what about the archaeological evidence and coins and so forth.
I’m not dismissing the stuff, especially without having read it, but on its face, it seems to be rather extreme.
Let me read the book, before taking a position!