Dr. Ivan Van Sertim Book Review

Abdallah Ibn Battuta was one of the most recognized of medieval travelers. His Rihla, or book of travels tells the story of his travels throughout Africa, Indonesia, Central Asia, India, the Middle East, Russia, and China between 1325 and 1354. Said Hamdun and Noël King have translated those portions of the Rihla, that tells of Ibn Battuta’s travels to East Africa in 1329 or 1331 and his extended travels and visits in West Africa between 1352 and 1354. This small part of his Rihla, solidifies his influence and presents the only written account we have of the East African city-states or the empire of Mali in the fourteenth century.

The story that surrounds the transatlantic slave trade is notoriously known, by both young and old, across the nation. This story has not only survived, but thrived as “truth” through generations for several centuries; Although, it is much closer to a mystical tale than reality. In Reversing Sail, Michael Gomez lays the myths affiliated with African Diaspora to rest. Gomez shows the path of the amalgamation of the African people along with their resources into Europe. A path that leads to the New World, that would potentially become the Americas, would ultimately result in more than just the exploitation of Africans as slaves. Compacted into an eight-chapter undergrad textbook, Gomez uses Reversing Sail to unground the history, complexity, and instrumentality of the African Diaspora. He does such in a

Africa’s Discovery of Europe, written by David Northrup and much as its name implies, is a monograph detailing Sub-Saharan Africa, starting from 1450 to 1850. This broad timespread starts just before Columbus sailed the ocean blue and ends just beyond the Industrial Revolution. Originally published in 2002, Northrup intended for readers to see Europe from a different perspective; from the lense of African people. The title, Africa’s Discovery of Europe, is interesting within itself. In many cases, majority of people believe it was Europe that opened up the world and conquered the Americas and discovered all this new land, and a sliver of that is true, so many countries surrounding Europe were already major, active players in the modernizing world already. In this case, as Europe was discovering Africa, Africa was also discovering Europe. It switches the mind of the reader from a Eurocentric role to an African one. Northrup discusses how contact was not one-sided, and depicts accurate descriptions of African interactions amongst other Africans and Europeans. Northrup shows the reader that African people were discovering Europe very actively, not passively; African people physically go to European countries and have first-hand experiences with European people and lifestyles.

Columbus’s big plan for Hispaniola since the beginning was to take advantage of the natives and take their land, and the gold he believed was located there. He built the first fort in the Western Hemisphere, and left some of his men to find and store gold there. Columbus had to ask for a little more help from their majesties, he convinced them by saying he would take them “as much gold as they need ... and as many slaves as they ask” (Zinn,6 ) Columbus’s plans affected the natives, in many ways; first of all they were going to lose their land, and also they were going to be taken captive for slave labor.

. to find means to escape from us, still I determined to pass none of these islands without taking possession, because being once taken, it would answer for all times”( Columbus, Journals of the First Voyage of Columbus, 115). The gold was one of the most important discoveries by Columbus. Although, the purpose of Columbus was to discover whether his theories about the world were true, his discoveries led many people to bow to material things. Moving on, while reading that Portuguese’s launched the Atlantic Slave Trade, which basically refers to the trade of slaves mostly Africans that used to be sent North and South America to work in coffee and cotton plantations, mines of gold, in contractions, etc. I could see how race has been an issue since long time ago. This treaty did not just affect the way Europeans and the world saw African, it change the culture and social statuses. “Muslims who ruled Iberia had disguised between slaves on the basis of skin color; they considered darker-skinned people from sub-Sahara Africa inferior and more suitable for enslavement” (Schaffer and Schulzinger, 20). The change was notable, the slaves weren’t criminals war captives, now dark-skinned people were commended to

1949--> Columbus unleashed 200 troops w/ 20 on horseback to terrorize the natives b/c he was upset he couldn't govern

The Native Americans once thrived on the rich land of the Americas, and they built a long-lasting civilization with the help of nature, gods, and organized roles within the tribes. However, the thriving population plummeted after their encounter with diseases and forced labor brought upon them by the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadores. Although at first the conquistadores mistreatment of Native Americans seem shallow and unethical, their conquest of the Americas only partially reflects the claims of the English Black Legends..

In the book The Conquest of America by Tzvetan Todorov, Todorov brings about an interesting look into the expeditions of Columbus, based on Columbus’ own writings. Initially, one can see Columbus nearly overwhelmed by the beauty of these lands that he has encountered. He creates vivid pictures that stand out in the imagination, colored by a "marvelous" descriptive style. Todorov gives us an interpretation of Columbus’ discovery of America, and the Spaniards’ subsequent conquest, colonization, and destruction of pre-Columbian cultures in Mexico and the Caribbean. Tzvetan Todorov examines the beliefs and behavior of the Spanish conquistadors and of the Aztecs.

In the book They Came Before Columbus written by Ivan Van Sertima, chapter twelve, “Mystery of Mu-lan-pi”, there is a reoccurring theme of disproving the notion that Columbus brought over many different things and products from his expeditions to American to the Eastern parts of the world when in reality there is factual evidence that Africans made contact with America far before Columbus did. The author of this book, Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, has his undergraduates degree in African languages and literature from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Van Sertima also worked as a journalist in Great Britain and did broadcasted to the Caribbean and Africa. With and extensive knowledge and work experience in African American Studies it is clear why he chose to wrote this book. The idea that Columbus was the first to bring things like maize from America is widely believed to be true but Van Setima saw that this was false and published They Came Before Columbus to show the facts and evidence that Columbus was not the first person to accomplish this. After writing this book Van Sertima went on to complete a master’s degree in African Studies at Rutgers University and even became a professor of African Studies at the same university. In this essay I will be going deeper into the theme and its relationship to African American history and discussing three other articles that can be related back to chapter twelve of They Came Before Columbus.

Columbus mistakenly found the New World in 1492, when sailing from Europe in hopes of sailing to Asia. He hit shore on what is now Virginia, and came in contact with the Indians, who were already settled. Columbus came with a group of colonial men and brought with him “cotton, parrots, javelins, and other things too numerous to mention,” (Doc. 1). The Indians perceived the colonial men as a different culture and welcomed them by inviting them into their religious faith, this way there would be no tension between the parties. Consequently, both parties ended up fighting over control over the land, the Indians with bows and arrows and the colonial men with swords and armor (Doc. 5).

The natives had no basis to recognize the extreme value of these items to Columbus and his men – nor how far these “visitors” would go to gain/take such “things” (Halstall). Columbus immediately noticed the natives had no real weapons, and remarked that he and fifty of his men could easily conquer these obviously friendly and peaceful people. Communication was mostly by sign, but intrinsically was achieved because the natives did not perceive any threat to their wellbeing (Primary Doc. 1).

The history of Africa is very complex. Europeans invaded Africa and stripped them of their culture and denied future generations their history. Despite the focus on the time of enslavement in modern history, African history expands far beyond that. African history has been consistently whitewashed and many historians have attempted to put our history in a box. In order to understand and study the African experience, one must realize that the history of Africa extends far beyond the times of enslavement and colonialism.

In an attempt to get to Asia, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas. His efforts were funded by Spain because, like Columbus, they wanted gold, wealth, and power. Columbus had ideas that Earth was smaller than it really was and was also unaware of the land mass that is the present day Americas. So when he thought he arrived at Asia, he was really no where close. During his expedition, Columbus and his crew came across many Native Americans, specifically, the Arawaks. They treated the natives terribly even when the natives were very kind to them. They took the natives as slaves, inflicted diseases upon them and tricked them. The natives offered them many things upon their arrival to

The process of colonization in the Americas was a complex and complicated series of events, each driven by the varied interests of an array of European empires. For some, the Americas were a world of untold riches, while for others, this discovery allowed for missionary efforts to convert Native Americans to their faith. Regardless of the reason, violence against the many Native Americans who inhabited this “new land” was a common colonization tool to achieve these means. Direct violence is the most well-known approach, one that Spain wielded so effectively that the Black Legend was created to attest to their cruelty. Yet, the violence used was not all direct in nature. Cultural violence, which England employed itself, was used just as often. Overall, though the Black Legend has led to Spain being viewed as the most violent colonizer in the Americas, England’s use of indirect violence through engagement in the fur trade and missionary efforts was just as destructive to Native Americans.

The “new world” that Columbus boasted of to the Spanish monarchs in 1500 was neither an expanse of empty space nor a replica of European culture, tools, textiles, and religion, but a combination of Native, European, and African people living in complex relation to one another. »full text