They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America

by Ivan Van Sertima

Book Overview

"A landmark . . . brilliantly demonstrates] has that there is far more to black history than the slave trade."--John A. Williams

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812968174
• ISBN13: 9780812968170
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Random House Trade
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Great book!!!

Puts an end to the notion that Christopher Columbus discovered America.... An awesome read!!

The Real History That Was Buried Under Myths & Lies

I remember it as if it was yesterday; my eighth grade history teacher began to talk about Christopher Columbus when I raised my hand and asked how he could have discovered something when people were watching him from the shore. My question was shot down then, but I found the answers years later in They Came Before Columbus. Ivan Van Sertima is a Guyanese historian, linguist and anthropologist whose impeccable research clearly demonstrates that great African mariners visited the Americas and had major influences - with reciprococity - in Native American cultures through trade and religious practices. Through a strong current named Siro Kuwo, even small boats could cross the Atlantic Ocean from the Equator and travel to the Americas. Columbus learned about the route to the Americas during his years as a trader in Equatorial Guinea. Van Sertima cites linguistic similarities of West African and Native Americans, "Old World" plants in the Americas - bananas, yams, beans and gourds - that predate Columbus (and vice versa) and the similarities between Aztec/Egyptian calendars & pyramid structures and the "Olmec heartland" in the Americas, where 11 giant heads - one which appears on the cover of the book - were constructed in honor of the African explorers. Native Americans gave Columbus (as if he didn't know already) evidence of the past trading, explaining how the top of the mariners' spears were made of a metal "gua-nin." The word's origin is from the Mande language of West Africa. The Bambara werewolf cult - whose head was known as amantigi (heads of faith) - appeared in a Mexican ritual as amanteca. The history built upon the racist myths and lies are destroyed by the facts that Van Sertima meticulously presents. And it is a celebration of mariners who traveled not as imperialists looking to subjugate people, destroy their history and steal their lands, but explorers who learned from, traded with and were respected by those they met on the shores of the Americas.

More than Olmec Heads

Ivan Van Sertima's argument cannot be reduced to the apparent negroid features of the Olmec heads, and to even suggest it is to deny the thoroughness of the work, the overwhelming presence of references and notes, and is clearly based on an instinctive contempt for any attempt to show that africans have contributed to world history outside of slavery and colonization. If anything, Van Sertima's argument revolves around the existence of the Siro Kuwo, a strong current in the proximity of the Canary Islands, going accross the atlantic and ending in the Gulf of Mexico, where Monte Alban's step pyramids and most of the Olmecs heads were found. Thor Heyerdahl's travels have proven that such travels were possible with primitive boats made out of papyrus; Van Sertima considered that possibility, and backed with evidences, argues that it did happened. I find it disturbing that everytime africans are not depicted as slaves or savages, every time a scholar tries to bring any part of African history to light, it is never their arguments that is attacked, but their intentions and motives. The evidence is there, there's enough footnotes in this book to dispel any attempt to undermine Van Sertima's meticulousness. This work is not an afrocentric discursive attempt at ennobling Africans by robing Native Americans of their own contributions to world civilization, this is the work of a scholar, done with great accuracy and methodology, dealing with the multiple non-violent encounters between Africans and Native Americans, way before Columbus tried to have his cake and eat it too.

Authenic Reference & Resource

Any reader who has given this work a negative review, is do to the fact they do not know history and anthropology, and their foundation has been based off of some of the pioneers and scholars who have been culturally biased against Black people and Ancient Black civilizations. Also for the American Indian criticizers, I am one of you, if you would only check the records of the older tribes such as the Washitaw, Jamassi/Yamasse, Mawshahk, Lenape, and even the records of the Creek, Shoshoni, and Seminole and Iriqous and many others. The records have the history on the Black Mound Builders(Eagle Mounds etc.), and how the ancestors were Black, including the Mayan and Zu-Aztec coming from the Toltecs or Olmecs. In fact in 1996 the year of the indigenous people the Washitaw nation was recognized as the oldest indigenous people in America and they are Black people with wooly hair who link themselves back to the Olmecs only supporting what Sertima has said. Their United Nations number has the prefix 215, go and check it out. People do not want to admit that Blacks were the original people on the planet and has been the root for many of these civilizations regardless of how many artifacts and facts anthropologist and archeologist uncover. Well, guess what? Now science supports everything they have been saying. Biochemist have proven that Black people were here first with the Mitochondria DNA/RNA, go look it up, it is in a case study called Mitochondria Eve. Also read National Geographic while you are at it. Only about 10%-15% of the slaves came from Africa, where do you think the rest came from? They came from the tribes already here. Due to misinformation and racism most people don't know this, all they have to do is check the records of the tribes that were here first instead of creating false theories or relying on miseducated natives and euro-americans. We as American Indians were also victims of "tying the vine" and white washing just like many other minorities in this country. Back to the book, anyone who wants to email me on the previous feel free at faruki@hotmail.com, the book is excellent. It is accompanied with pictures of the monolithic Olmec statues found in Lower America. A picture is a thousand words. Then his accounts telling of the sea routes Africans or Malian Moors were able to use to sail over here prior to Columbus is supported by the engravings found in the Cockaponset forest by John Gallager (Archeologist & Professor from Fordham University)and correlates with the inscription found on the Haj Mimoun Rock in East Morocco and deciphered by Barry Fell, which records Moors (Blacks) being here a thousand years before Columbus. Also in the book "Ancient And Modern Britons" it says that "In 1676 the native races of New England were spoken of indifferently as "Indians" and "Moors";, and our British "Indians" [aboriginals] are also remembered as "Moors"". That is from European sources recognizing that there were Black people

This book presents a theory that deserves open-minded study

I read Mr. Von Sertima's book shortly after its original publication. At that time, the earliest Olmec presence in the Americas was thought to be later than 1200 BCE. Subsequent excavations have called that timeline into question, and may have extended it substantially backward. This, of course, does nothing to alter the basic premise: that black Africans were in the Americas long before the Columbian Europeans. The stone heads provide striking, and, in my view, incontrovertible evidence of that presence, the absurdist Europhile description of them as "baby face" notwithstanding. It may ultimately prove to be the case that Mr. Von Sertima has been too conservative in his dating scheme, and that older, and more powerful, African dynasts are involved. Whatever the case, this book, and its argument, merit our attention.