Africans in Early American pre History

[D J Thornton]

More could be added to this but then we come to an interesting point. There is a long line of academic sceptics ready to pounce on any suggestion that Africans in Pre-Columbian times were capable of being sailors in their own right. This is especially so for Africans sailing the Atlantic and Africa-centred/Afrocentric is the normal label for this. As part and parcel of the anti-Afrocentricism, we find consistent denials that there were black elements in ancient Egypt or ancient Mexico.

It would appear that we are supposed to believe that Egypt was/is severed from the continent it is physically part of; that there is no River Nile nor Red Sea stretching from what is called Sub-Saharan/Black Africa; no sources telling of west Africans crossing the Sahara to Egyptian Pharoahs. As said in another article of mine, if you are predisposed not to find evidence, you not do so or will be ignored if it is found. Put simply, the location of Egypt means that it will have received influences from a wide variety of sources by sea, river, overland, etc and that this will have included much from Black Africa.

An African element in Pre-Columbian Mexico is discussed in Yorubas and the Sea; West Africa & the Sea in Antiquity; West Africa & the Atlantic in Antiquity; Abubakri II: Who He? Numerous references are given there. They include the much-quoted articles by messrs. de Montellano, Haslip-Viera and Barbour and who would dismiss notions of Africans trading between west Africa, the Cape Verde Islands and the Americas. To them can be added what is written by Forbes (1995; 2007).

He has described the reports by Columbus about black traders in the Caribbean as no more than Caribbean Amerinds that had painted themselves black but with little to explain they would have done so. The generally accepted fact of Africans migrating towards Europe and adapting through the years to colder climes seems questioned by Forbes (2007) when doubting that groups from colder climes could so adapt to the reverse that would be called for by north/south migrations. It has been seen that he seeks extensive west/east movement across the Atlantic but wants to do so onl

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http://ancientamerica.com/the-sea-red-men-in-africa/

[christopherswink8]

The Olmecs must have been of Sub Saharan African origin based on the statues found in Central America. Rafinesque also speaks of “black African looking” Indians in Northern California. So much of the Americas history is lost or “hidden”. I presume “hidden”. For what ever reasons. In America if one wants to know the history one has to look to the European texts and mission church logs for the truth. Finding those seems next to impossible.

[jakayj]

I've watched documentaries and read about Africans in the prehistoric Americas. Ancient sailors did not view rivers and oceans as obstacles, but as highways.

As for Africans migrating into Egypt, they ruled for years:

Kush, the Egyptian name for ancient Nubia, was the site of a highly advanced, ancient black African civilization that rivaled ancient Egypt in wealth, power and cultural development. The first capital of Kush lay at Kerma just south of the Third Cataract of the Nile. Here dwelt powerful and wealthy black kings who controlled the trade routes connecting central Africa with ancient Egypt. The Egyptians, who had few natural resources of their own, sought the precious, exotic products of central Africa to satisfy the demands of their luxury-loving populace. By about 1500 B.C., the Egyptians, feeling threatened by the Nubian kings, invaded Kush and conquered it. For the next four centuries, the Egyptians exploited Kush as a colony. Egypt's wealth in gold came from the desert mines of Kush. The Egyptian word for gold is nub, which is thought by some to be the origin of the name Nubia.

Centuries later the prophet Isaiah would refer to "Kush ... of whirring wings," likening it's army to a locust plague. Around 730 B.C., Kush's warrior hordes turned the tables on a weakened Egypt and conquered it. This event established the black Pharaohs of Kush. They ruled an Egyptian-Nubian empire that extended from the Mediterranean to the confluence of the Blue and White Niles for sixty years. Historians would count their reign as Egypt's 25th Dynasty.

The Kushite pharaohs promoted a renaissance in Egypt and incorporated Egyptian culture, art, and philosophy into their homeland. They built magnificent temples at Jebel Barkal and Meroë, filling them with statuary, cultic implements and religious papyri, which became the inspirational force for their culture for centuries to come. The pyramid, abandoned as the proper tomb type by Egyptian kings a thousand years earlier, was revived by the Kushites and used by their monarchs for a thousand years, which is why today there are many more pyramids in the Sudan than in Egypt.

By Timothy Kendall

|| BLACK KINGDOMS OF THE NILE EPISODE ||

[dpyates]

Thank you for posting, Jakay.