BEGINNINGS

"Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."  - Chief Seattle, Chief of the Suquamish

The stories of creation and migration are as diverse as the multitude of different indigenous people groups who inhabited what we now call the Americas.  The Ancient ones in one nation describe how their ancestors descended from the sun while a different nation speaks of how they emerged from the deep bowels of the earth.  Yet one common thread runs through all the spoken word and that they were the first peoples to dwell on the lands of North, Central and South America. 

Modern day “experts” have their own stories.  Geneticists trace the beginning of mankind to East Africa to a small group of people who left its shores roughly 50,000 years ago and traveled to the four corners of the world while their descendants populated the entire planet. Through genetic fingerprinting of the Y-chromosome (Y-DNA) haplogroups and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups geneticists have mapped out the ethnic nationalities of the world. See link below of a PBS video entitled “Journey of Man.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dDXIX-y6aY

Again there is only one “race” of humankind, just different nationalities, ethnicities, and people groups each with their own unique culture and traditions.

Modern day text books site human migration into the “New World” beginning 12,000 years ago. These hunters came from Eastern Siberia following the migrating herds crossing the Bering Strait  land bridge during the last ice age.  The oldest skeleton discovered in the Americas was found in Brazil.  Archaeologists have discovered an 11,000 year old skeleton of a woman whose skull proportions and features are closely related to the aborigines from Australia.  Since this 1970 discovery similar skeletons have been found from Florida to Chile.  See link below of a BBC video entitled “Tracking the First Americans.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwDy-agDHWY

It appears that our human ancestors migrated to more places than we ever had imagined.  It is becoming more apparent that many people groups arrived in the Americas one time or another in small pockets and merged blood, ideas and inventions to form the indigenous cultures of the Americas.

And we are all familiar with the myth that Columbus “discovered” America (full of people) in 1492 funded by an ambitious queen who just recently ordered the expulsion of all the Jews from her land.  The History Channel made a documentary discussing the many people who possible came to the Americas before Columbus called “Who Really Discovered America?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qjlc36Dv0rw

Not surprisingly the roles of Africans are completely missing from this documentary.

African traders navigated the vast ocean of the dry sands of the Sahara Desert using celestial stars since ancient times and were capable of traveling to “The America’s” using the North Equatorial Current.  This current flows along the West African coast.  This water continues westward across the southern part of the North Atlantic which turns northwestward as the Antilles current reaches the West Indies.

Such a story was told in Cairo, Egypt in 1324 by the Egyptian scholar Al-Umari.  He records a story told by Mansa Musa, the Emperor of the Mali Empire, while he rested in Cairo on his way to his pilgrimage to Mecca. 

“The ruler who preceded me did not believe that it was impossible to reach the extremity of the ocean that encircles the earth (the Atlantic Ocean). 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.”

The year was 1311 and would be 181 years before the misguided explorer Columbus set foot on the island of Santo Domingo.

The best evidence of the African presence in America before Columbus comes from his very own letters. In his Journal of the Second Voyage, Columbus reported that when he reached Haiti the Native Americans told him that black-skinned people had come from the south and southeast in boats, trading in gold-tipped medal spears.

In his Journal of the Third Voyage, he noted that the Indians “brought handkerchiefs of cotton, very symmetrically woven and worked in colors like those brought from Guinea, from the rivers of Sierra Leone, and of no difference.” He was so startled by this “discovery” that he remarked, “but they (the Indians) cannot communicate with the latter (West Africans), because from here to Guinea is a distance of more than 800 leagues (2400 miles).”

John Boyd Thatcher, Christopher Columbus, His Life, His Work, His Remains, 392-393
Thus the kinship between our two peoples had already begun…

Mvto