West African Moors Beat Columbus By at Least 168 Years

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“In 1969, Thor Heyerdahl, a Norwegian adventurer crossed the Atlantic ocean from the North African port of Safi, arriving in Barbados, West Indies. His craft was made by local Africans of indigenous papyrus. For his journey he relied on the southbound Canary Current off the coast of the Iberian peninsula and the western coast of Africa, and the Northeast Tradewinds that blow westward towards the Caribbean region.”

“The voyage has been suggested to indicate that it was technically possible to cross the Atlantic in medieval western Africa. See Islam and Muslims in the American continent: Islam in America before Columbus. Beirut: Center of historical, economic and social studies.” 

Source: Quick, Abdullah Hakim; M’Bow, Amdou Mahtar; Kettani, Ali (2001). Pg. 34

“According to studies and research conducted by Clyde Winters, the Olmecs were Africans from the Mandinka region of West Africa. They used the Mende script to write and they spoke the Mende language, the same language spoken by Cinque in the movie ‘Amistad’.

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“In his book Massaalik al-absaar fi mamaalik al-amsaar (The pathway of sight in the provinces of the kingdoms), the historian Chihab ad-Dine Abu Abbas Ahmad bin Fadhl al-Umari (1300-1384) describes an expedition into the Atlantic.”

He relates a story obtained from the Mamluk governor of Cairo, Ibn Amir Hajib. While Mansa Musa was visiting Cairo as part of his pilgrimage to Mecca, Ibn Amir Hajib asked how he had succeeded to the throne, and this is what Ibn Amir Hajib reported he was told:

“The ruler who preceded me did not believe that it was impossible to reach the extremity of the ocean that encircles the earth (meaning the Atlantic): he wanted to reach that (end) and was determined to pursue his plan. So he equipped two hundred boats full of men, and many others full of gold, water and provisions sufficient for several years. He ordered the captain not to return until they had reached the other end of the ocean, or until he had exhausted the provisions and water. So, they set out on their journey. They were absent for a long period, and, at last just one boat returned. When questioned the captain replied: ‘O Prince, we navigated for a long period, until we saw in the midst of the ocean a great river which flowing massively. My boat was the last one; others were ahead of me, and they were drowned in the great whirlpool and never came out again. I sailed back to escape this current.’ But the Sultan would not believe him. He ordered two thousand boats to be equipped for him and his men, and one thousand more for water and provisions. Then he conferred the regency on me for the term of his absence, and departed with his men, never to return nor to give a sign of life.”

“It is reported that a fleet landed in Brazil in around 1312, in the place now called Recife and that Pernambuco is allegedly an aberration of the Mande name for the rich gold fields of the Malian jurisdiction of the Moorish Empire.”

“The Mende script found on monuments at Monte Alban in Mexico, has been deciphered and it was found to be identical to the Mende script used in West Africa. Afterwards, the language was found to be the very same language spoken by the Mende of West Africa.”

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“Ivan Van Sertima provided the following in an Article Entitled – Mandingo Traders in Medieval Mexico   “Mandingo [Mandinka] Traders in Medieval Mexico “The Mandingo [Moors] practiced settled agriculture, and they must therefore have had fixed settlements in South and Central America. But their traders, by the very nature of the occupation, were nomadic, ever on the move. Passing through unfamiliar and sometimes hostile territory, they built temporary bases for their defense.”

“Some of these bases, built on elevated mounds, strongly resemble West African stockades. A comparison of the Peul African stockade from F. Moors’s Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa with Le Moyne’s drawing of a Florida stockade made in the mid-sixteenth century (responded in De Bry’s De Commodis et Insularum Ritibus Virginia) is most striking.”

“Both are circular, built of heavy upright posts, have an identical gate entrance, contain rows of circular huts, and within both the stockades are two fields. It is important to point out in this connection that the Peuls were part of the complex of peoples within the medieval Mandingo [Moorish] empire, and that their presence in pre-Columbian America has been further established by Jules Cauvet’s discovery of an amazing number of animal names shared between them and Guarani, an American tribe.”

“There were several bases from which the African  [Moor] traders spread in the two Americas: from the Caribbean in the Songhay period (circa 1462-1492); from the northeastern South America in the Mandingo period (1310 onward) into Peru; and from a base in Darien (Panama) moving along roads marked by the presence of burial mounds into and beyond Mexico, as far north as Canada.”

“These burial mounds provide further witnesses to their presence and the lines of their dispersal. Within them, among the usual native items, are to be found pipes with West African heads and totems (see Chapter 11), other Negroid figurines and gadwals, and blue white shells.”

“These shells have been found in such quantity and so selectively “stored” (akin in typology to a coin collection) as to suggest very strongly that they were used as money, a practice familiar to West Africans but alien to the pre-Columbian American, for whom shells had simply a ritual and ornamental, not a monetary value.”

Source: The African Presence in Ancient America – They Came Before Columbus Author: Ivan Van Sertima Article Entitled – Mandingo Traders in Medieval Mexico Pgs. 103-104

Columbus Plan: Sail West to Set up Trading Post to Finance Crusade Against Moors !

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Less well known was a voyage by Columbus to the Gold Coast in West Africa in 1481, sponsored by King John II of Portugal. In contrast to the Eurocentric myth of disorder and barbarism prevalent in Africa, during this voyage Columbus encountered civilized communities and well-established states with very complex social, political, and economic structures. At the time of Columbus’s visit, the most impressive medieval Moorish (West African) empire, Songhay, was still in existence. Its noted center of scholarship, Timbuktu, the home of the world-renowned higher educational institution, the Sankoré University, still possessed a great deal of its splendor. Columbus who visited the Portuguese fortress of Elmina on the Gold Coast, was impressed by the riches of the land, especially its gold. But as an explorer, Columbus learned valuable lessens in geography and oceanography.

This undoubtedly sparked his interest in a voyage westward across the Atlantic, which he erroneously believed would take him to India and establish direct access to the coveted riches of the Orient. More importantly, Columbus’s voyage to West Africa may have laid the groundwork for the first contact between that part of Africa and the Americas. A few West Africans were said to have returned with him to Europe and eventually accompanied him on his voyages to the New World between 1492 and 1504. Some scholars, however, have suggested the possibility of an African presence in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus.

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The argument is that some West African people, probably from the Senegambia area, were known to Native Americans prior to arrival of Columbus. The most forceful argument along these lines has been provided by Rutgers linguist and anthropologist Ivan Van Sertima, who marshalled an array of archaeological, historical, and botanical evidence to argue his case. The United States and West Africa: Interactions and Relations pg. 18 Because Columbus has been such an important figure in the collective imagination of Americans, what we make of him affects both how we view our history and imagine our future. In what follows, I wish, first to detangle Columbus’s motivations from the accusations that have been brought against him and then to trace briefly the apocalyptic scenario and the place of Jerusalem that figured so centrally to his quest. To distance ourselves from his religious views obscures how deeply influential they have been, and continue to be in our national and political consciousness. Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem: How Religion Drove the Voyages that Led to America pg. 236

The principal factor which governed Columbus’s life and motivated his activities was—as he put it in a letter to the Spanish monarchs—to spread the light of the Gospel throughout the world and enlist the newly converted peoples in the life-and-death war with the empire of Muhammad. His ultimate goals included the “recovery” of the Holy Land, especially Jerusalem, in preparation for the Kingdom of God. In fact, it was his deep religious convictions in prophecy which, according to The New Millennial Manual, enabled him to convince Ferdinand and Isabella to finance his “Enterprise of the Indies.” And the “Enterprise” was to be the first stage in a new Crusade which would enable the Spanish monarchs to “recapture” the Holy Land and restore the Christian faith there. Throughout his life, Columbus insisted that Providence was always guiding his steps and directing his efforts.

In fact, at the end of his first voyage, and in a letter to the Spanish court dated February 15, 1492, Columbus said that the Bible was his lifetime roadmap for the fulfillment of divine prophecies and the rebuilding of Zion. This letter was subsequently printed and translated into many European languages. In it, Columbus summed up his global program “to conquer the world, spread the Christian faith, and regain the Holy Land and the Temple Mount.” During the last voyage (1502-04), Columbus recorded in his journals that he heard voices and saw visions of God urging him on to carry out His mission. This belief in a Providential mission is what motivated Columbus to so relentlessly pursue his project of the “Enterprise of the Indies.” He wrote:

Who would doubt that this light, which urged me on with a great haste continuously, without a moment’s pause, came to you in a most deep manner, as it did to me? In this my voyage to the Indies, Our Lord wished to perform [a] very evident miracle in order to console me and others in the matter of this other voyage to the Holy Sepulcher [Jerusalem]. To realize the originality as well as the significance of Columbus’s missionary efforts and zeal to fulfill the “prophecies,” one should remember that his campaign preceded the Protestant Reformation and the resulting emphasis on Old Testament prophecies and missionary drive.

This zeal and literal interpretation of sacred prophecies led Delno West to describe Columbus as “the first American hero with all the rights and privileges, myths and legends, and criticisms the title carries.” In his obsession with the rebuilding of Zion and the preparation for the Coming Kingdom, Columbus anticipated the early Puritan settlers of the New World, the nineteenth-century end-times churches and missionary establishment, and the present-day American grand plans for the world. In essence, Columbus’s program is a roadmap for the modern campaign of the Christian Right in America today.

See PAUL BOYER’s  Did Christopher Columbus see himself on an apocalyptic mission?..