There was a time when Christopher Columbus was heavily pushed
Never mind the little detail of how one could “discover” a place where people already live.
But because Europeans long ago staked claim as the
dominant voice, especially of the so-called “New World,” their version
of events has endured.
As with every other position in the world, African peoples were explorers as well. Here are a few we should all know:
Abubakari II (also Abu Bakari, Abu Bakr II and Mansa Musa II)
Western scholars have, by and large, dismissed the
assertion that Africans had contact with the Americas long before
Columbus. But scholars such as Ivan Van Sertima and Cheikh Anta Diop
rejected this in the books They Came Before Columbus (1976) and The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality (1974). But they were not alone. Decades before, respected Harvard
lecturer Leo Wiener, a Russian-born scholar of Polish-Jewish heritage
who was a polyglot skilled in more than 20 languages, noted the African
presence in his 1920 book Africa and the Discovery of America.
Around 2000, Malian historian Gaoussou Diawara, author of Abubakari II,
available in French, along with other African researchers, began to
explore the history of Abubakari, who once ruled the Mali Empire in West
Africa, and to proclaim him the main force behind the African arrival
to the Americas prior to Columbus.
Abubakari is said to be the son of Kolonkan, sister of
Sundiata Keita (also Sundjata Keita and Soundjata Keita), the founding
emperor of the great Mali Empire in West Africa. In 1311, Abubakari
abdicated his throne to Mansa Musa to pursue his belief that the
Atlantic Ocean, similar to the River Niger, had another bank. Already
during his rule, Abubakari had funded a 200-boat expedition to find the
bank.
When only one ship returned, with the captain reporting
that a current swept the rest of the fleet away, prompting him to turn
back, Abubakari put together a 2000-boat expedition he himself helmed.
It is believed that Abubakari, who never returned home, landed at what
is now Recife in Brazil and that some of the previous boats landed
throughout the Americas, including what is now Mexico and even in
Colorado. This is why Wiener and others before and after him note early
remnants of African culture in the Americas, some of which Columbus
found upon his arrival.
The Niño Brothers — Pedro Alonso (also Peralonso Niño), Francisco and Juan
Described as “El Negro,” navigator and explorer Pedro
Alonso Niño, son of a white Spaniard and enslaved African woman, has
long been acknowledged for accompanying Columbus on his first expedition
to the Americas in 1492 as the pilot of the Santa Maria. Although Pedro
is one of the most well-known of Columbus’s crew, he was not alone —
his brothers Francisco (youngest) and Juan (oldest) were also part of
Columbus’s voyages.
In their home of Moguer, Spain, they were prominent
sailors with experience on Atlantic voyages. Reportedly, Pedro even
sailed the West African coast. During the first Columbus voyage, Juan
helmed La Niña, which he also owned. Francisco was most likely a sailor
on La Niña.
The brothers also took part in Columbus’s second voyage in
which it is well-documented that Pedro was with Columbus when he
“discovered” Trinidad. In fact, sons of Pedro and Juan are believed to
have participated in Columbus’s voyages as well. Enterprising Pedro set
out on his own expedition, in search of riches in the Americas Columbus
had not ventured through. Although he successfully returned to Spain, he
was accused of cheating the King of 20 percent of the treasure and
arrested. He died in prison before he could go to trial. Francisco died
in Honduras. It is not widely known where Juan died.
Juan Garrido
Born in Africa, Juan Garrido was enslaved in Portugal but
began his career in exploration in Seville, Spain, probably as a slave.
Around 1502 or 1503, he landed in Santo Domingo. Later, Garrido was
elevated to the status of conquistador and was with Ponce de Leon during
his search for the Fountain of Youth in Florida in 1513. Garrido was
also part of the Hernán (also Hernando) Cortés-led invasion of Mexico in
1519, which resulted in the conquest of the Aztecs.
Later, he participated in expeditions to Michoacán in
Mexico in the 1520s and traveled to islands around San Juan and Cuba as
well. Garrido, who married and fathered three children, settled in
Mexico City. To secure land that, based on his service, should have
automatically been his, he provided testimony of his exploits of his 30
years as a conquistador, without pay, in 1538. Today, he is also
credited with harvesting the first commercial wheat crop in the
Americas.
Estevanico/Esteban
By most accounts, Esteban was sold into slavery around
1513 in the Portuguese-controlled Azemmour on Morocco’s Atlantic coast
at around age 10 to 13 and brought to Spain, where he became the servant
of Andrés Dorantes de Carranza. With Dorantes, Esteban, who is labeled a
Moor by most historians, traveled to Cuba to join the Pánfilo de
Narváez expedition to conquer Florida for Spain. Although raised a
Muslim, Esteban converted to Catholicism, which was also a requirement
to participate in Spanish expeditions to the Americas. From Cuba, the
expedition of roughly 600 Spanish, Portuguese and African troops arrived
in Tampa Bay in 1528.
Most of the soldiers perished, however. Eventually, a
hurricane displaced Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Alonso del Castillo
Maldonado, Dorantes and Esteban around Galveston, Texas. Reportedly
captured by native peoples for five years before becoming free, the four-man crew walked for four years
through New Mexico, Arizona and Northern Mexico all the way to Mexico
City. Later, in 1536, Esteban explored northern Mexico with Cabeza de
Vaca. Around 1539, he was part of an expedition led by Friar Marcos de
Niza that scouted terrain for Francisco Coronado’s search for “Seven
Cities of Gold.” Reportedly, Esteban was killed by the Zuni tribe near
the border of Arizona and New Mexico, but his body was never recovered.
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