Search results
The excerpt explores the history of Africans in America prior to 1619, including that of Moroccan explorer Estebanico." Listen Via Detroit Today HKS Author - Annette Gordon-Reed
Feb 5, 2024 · Before Christopher Columbus, Africans arrived in the Americas. A full two centuries prior to Christopher Columbus “discovering” the Americas, evidence suggests that West Africans had already traveled over the Atlantic to reach the New World.
People also ask
Did African Americans come to America before Columbus?
What is 'they came before Columbus' about?
Was there African culture before Christopher Columbus?
Who were the Black Nino brothers?
- 10 Polynesian Voyagers
- 9 Japanese Fishermen
- 8 Irish Monks
- 7 English Merchants
- 6 A Moorish Daredevil
- 5 Two Venetian Brothers and A Norwegian Nobleman
- 4 A Roman Explorer
- 3 Chinese Treasure Ships
- 2 A Mali Emperor
- 1 Basque Whalers
The epic journeys of the ancient Polynesians inspired the 2016 Disney movie Moana. Starting about 3,000 years ago and using ocean-going catamarans, they colonized New Zealand, Hawaii, Rapa Nui (Easter Island), and everything in between. Their network of islands, now referred to as the Polynesian Triangle, was larger than modern-day Russia. The Poly...
In the late 1960s, Ecuadorian businessman Emilio Estrada led an excavation of Valdivia, a 5,000year-old archeology site in Ecuador. There was a large amount of strange pottery, so he wrote a letter to Betty Meggers at the Smithsonian Museum to help identify them. She replied that they looked like 5,000-year-old Jomon pottery from Japan. But how cou...
Not long after the death of Saint Patrick, another Irish saint was in town. Saint Brendan was nicknamed “the Navigator” for his voyages to Scotland, Wales, and Brittany to spread Christianity. In the ninth century, a semi-mythical, semi-historical account of his voyage became a medieval bestseller In The Voyage of Saint Brendan, Saint Barinthus tel...
In 1475, medieval codfish conglomerate the Hanseatic League refused to sell cod to the British port of Bristol. The English, who loved fish, immediately started looking for a workaround. A wealthy customs official named Thomas Croft several funded fish-finding expeditions led by merchant John Jay, whose plan was to find a mythical fog-hidden land w...
The Arab historian Abu al-Hasan Ali Al-Mas’udi, who lived from 896 to 956, described in his famous history book The Golden Meadows that a Moor named Khoshkhash had sailed into the Atlantic. “Nobody knew for a long time what had become of them,” he wrote, “At length they returned with rich booty.” Although the book fails to mention where Khoshkhash ...
In 1558, Nicolò Zeno published a bestselling book of letters that he claimed had been in his family archive for generations. They were from his great-great-great-grandfather Antonio Zeno and his great-great-great-uncle Nicolò Zeno, who wrote about their adventures traveling the Arctic. In 1380, Nicolò Zeno sailed from Venice to Flanders. From there...
In 1933, a tiny terracotta statue head was excavated at an archeology site in Calixtlahuaca, Mexico. The face was beaded, with decidedly non-Mexican features and wearing a truncated cap. Ernest Boehringer, a specialist in Classical Archaeology, examined the head and declared it to be of second or third-century Roman origin. But how could a Roman he...
In the early 1400s, China was the world’s greatest naval power. Their treasure ships were described as the size of the World War I vessel USS Minnesota and traveled throughout southern Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and the east coast of Africa. If the Chinese had wanted to cross the Pacific, they certainly could have. Former submarine c...
Mansa Musa ruled the Islamic Empire of Mali and was so wealthy that when he went on his 1324 pilgrimage to Mecca, he gave away so much gold that the price dropped internationally. But when asked about his brother Abu Bakar II, who held the throne before him, Mansa Musa said, “The ruler who preceded me did not believe that it was impossible to reach...
In 1530, the Basque were whaling in Newfoundland. In 1535, when Jacques de Cartier “discovered” the Saint Lawrence River, he found about 1,000 Basque fishing boats already harvesting cod. This makes them the first Europeans to settle in the area after the Vikings. The Basque are a unique group of people that live on the border of France and Spain. ...
Contrary to popular belief, African American history did not start with slavery in the New World. An overwhelming body of new evidence is emerging which proves that Africans had frequently sailed across the Atlantic to the Americas, thousands of years before Columbus and indeed before Christ.
- Matthew Henson. Born in 1866 in Maryland, the young Matthew Henson joined the Chesapeake Bay merchant ship at age 12 and became a cabin boy. At 20, he had already visited several countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
- Mustafa Azemmouri. Mustafa Azemmouri, also known as Esteban de Dorentes or Estevanico, was a black man born in 1500 in Azemmouri, a coastal city in Morocco.
- Abubakari II. It’s an open secret, Christopher Columbus is not the man who discovered America. Yes, there were black explorers before Columbus. Almost 200 years before him, Abubakari II, also called Mansa Musa II, reached America.
- James Beckwourth. James Beckwourth was born a slave in 1798 but he quickly made his name as a black explorer early in his life. He played an important role in exploring the West of the United States.
Sep 13, 2023 · 1. Christopher Columbus — for millions of people around the world, he is the one who discovered America. But, there were others who sailed there before him. There were maps, records, and he...
Sep 23, 2003 · 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 transportation of plants, animals, and textiles between the continents; and the diaries ...
