Africans and Native Americans

The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples

Jack D. Forbes

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Year: 1993
• ISBN:
  9780252051005
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Sociologia

Jack D. Forbes's monumental Africans and Native Americans has become a canonical text in the study of relations between the two groups. Forbes explores key issues relating to the evolution of racial terminology and European colonialists' perceptions of color, analyzing the development of color classification systems and the specific evolution of key terms such as black, mulatto, and mestizo--terms that no longer carry their original meanings. Forbes also presents strong evidence that Native American and African contacts began in Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean.

1

Africans and Americans: Inter-Continental Contacts Across the Atlantic, to 1500

AMERICANS CROSSING THE ATLANTIC BEFORE COLUMBUS

The meeting of Native Americans and Africans, of people from two great continents of the earth, can be described in many ways. A fitting mode in which to begin is to cite a Native American story from Guyana, presented by Jan Carew, in which Nyan, an African sky-spirit, along with the African earth-mother, the African river-mother, and Anancy the Spider-trickster met the Great Spirit, the Father Sun, and other spirit-powers of the Americans.1

The next day, all the peoples of the earth complained to Father Sun and for the first time, the ebony people, who were neighbors of Tihona, made themselves heard. … The Great Spirit invited Nyan, the anthracite-coloured Sky-God … to share his domains. … They [the African spirits] agreed on condition that the Great Spirit, in turn, shared the distant kingdoms of earth and sky that Nyan ruled.2

Pia, an American child of the Sun and of Tihona, the Mist-woman, became a brother to Anancy the Spiderman, and both agreed to live among human beings.

Thus the spirit-powers of the Black Africans are said to have established a close cooperative relationship with the spirit-powers of the Americans. This same cooperation and reciprocal relationship can also be seen in Brazil, where Tupinamba and Guaraní candomblés exist side by side with those of Congo-Angola and Nago orientation and where Native American and African spiritual powers are called upon for assistance in various contexts.3

The dimensions of African–American contact can also be seen in a painting by the Dutch artist Jan Steen (1645) in which the making of a marriage contract in the Netherlands area is depicted. The future bridegroom is of African ancestry while a man of American race is an active onlooker on the right-hand side of the scene. The bride is of European Dutch background.4

Thus in spiritual as well as secular contexts, the American and African peoples have interacted with each other in a variety of settings and situations. These interactions may well have begun in very ancient times.

J. A. Rogers, Leo Wiener, Ivan Van Sertima, and others have cited evidence, including the “Olmec” stone heads of Mexico, pointing towards early contacts between American and African cultures.5 I do not propose here to explore the early archaeological evidence which, in essence, requires a separate study, but instead, I will cite briefly some tantalizing data which suggests contacts in both directions.

It is now well known that the Atlantic Ocean contains a series of powerful ‘rivers’ or currents which can facilitate the movement of floating objects from the Americas to Europe and Africa as well as from the latter to the Americas. In the North Atlantic the most prominent current is that of the ‘Gulfstream’ which swings through the Caribbean and then moves in a northeasterly direction from Florida to the Grand Banks off Terra Nova (Newfoundland), turning then eastwards towards the British Isles and the Bay of Biscay. This current has carried debris from Jamaica and the Caribbean to the Hebrides and Orkneys of Scotland. Moreover, Jean Merrien tells us that valuable hardwood was commonly washed ashore along the coasts of Ireland and Wales: ‘This timber from the ocean, borne by the Gulf Stream, really came from the rivers of Mexico.’ Merrien, a student of trans-Atlantic navigation by small vessels, also states that

the first attempt – the first success – [of crossing the Atlantic by one man] could only come from the American side, … because the crossing is much less difficult in that direction. A French writer has said (justly, in all probability) that if America had been the Old World its inhabitants would have discovered Europe long before we did, in fact, discover America.

This is because of the prevailing winds from the west as well as the currents. One can, says Merrien, sail in a ‘straight line’ from Boston via Newfoundland to Ireland or Cornwall ‘with almost the certainty of fair winds’. The other direction requires ‘twice the distance, thrice the time, and four times the sweat’.

In the 1860s a 48-foot-long sloop, Alice, was navigated from North America to the Isle of Wight in less than 20 days with very favorable winds; and in recent times a wooden raft was propelled from Canada to northern Europe by means of this ocean river. Moreover, Stephen C. Jett cites the 68-day passage of one William Verity from Florida to Ireland in a 12-foot sloop as well as the crossing by two men from New York to the Scilly Islands in 55 days in a 17-foot dory powered only by oars. Thus the Gulfstream demonstrably can propel small craft successfully from the Americas to Europe.

Perhaps this is the explanation behind the local Dutch tradition that holds that in AD 849 one Zierik arrived by boat to found the coastal city of Zierikzee and why the local people believed that he had arrived in an Inuit (Greenland) kayak which was on display there for several centuries. The kayak may, indeed, not have been Zierik’s original craft but it very possibly points toward a genuine folk tradition of a crossing of the Atlantic from the west.6

In this context it is also worth noting a report that Columbus had information about strange people from the west who had reached Ireland prior to 1492, doubtless via the Gulfstream. Merrien tells us that Bartholomew or Christopher Columbus had made marginal notes in their copy of Pius II’s Historia (1477) to the effect that ‘some men have come from Cathay by heading east. We have seen more than one remarkable thing, especially in Galway, in Ireland, two people tied to two wrecks, a man and a woman, a superb creature.’ Merrien also believes that the first documented case of a single navigator crossing the Atlantic consists in the record of a Native American who reached the Iberian peninsula long before Columbus’ day.

In the Middle Ages there arrived one day on the coast of Spain a man “red and strange” in a craft described as a hollowed tree. From the recorded description, which specifically states that he was not a Negro, he might well have been a native of America in a piragua – a dug-out canoe … the unfortunate man, ill and enfeebled, died before he had been taught to make himself understood.

To return to our own discussion of the Gulfstream, it should be noted that this eastward-flowing current has a southern extension which swings southwards along the west coast of Europe to the Iberian peninsula and on to the Canary Islands. From the latter region it turns southwestwards and then westwards, returning to the Americas in the vicinity of Trinidad and rejoining the Caribbean segment of the Gulfstream. Thus it would be theoretically possible to float in a great circle from the Caribbean to Europe and northwestern Africa and then back again to the Caribbean.

A North American archaeologist, E. F. Greenman, has argued that the crossing of the North Atlantic was ‘feasible’ before the end of the Pleistocene period (about 11,000 years ago) ‘for a people with kayaks and the Beothuk type of canoe [from Newfoundland], if at that time the ocean was filled with floating ice from the Scandinavian and Labrador glaciers, and from freezing of the sea itself.’ The same author attempts to show many parallels between Pleistocene European and American cultures, but sadly neglects African comparisons. In any case, his argument is based solely upon hypothetical European movements towards the Americas, movements which would have had to fight against the currents (and winds) rather than flowing with them.7

Bartolomé de las Casas, in his monumental Historia de las Indias, cites examples of rafts or canoes (almadías), dead Americans, and debris reaching the Azores Islands before 1492. This evidence will be discussed below. Here it is only necessary to note that the Azores lay in an area of weak currents but that, even so, with the help of winds from the west and northwest some boats could reach the islands from the Americas.8

In the South Atlantic, as noted, a strong current runs from the west coast of North Africa towards Trinidad. Below that a counter-current is sometimes shown, running eastwards from South America to the Gulf of Guinea. Then a strong current runs westwards from the mouth of the River Zaire (Congo), to the north of the Amazon, where it divides, part joining the northwesterly current which becomes the Gulfstream and part swinging southwards along the coast of Brazil until it veers eastwards across the Atlantic to Africa again, reaching southwestern Africa, from whence it curves northwards to rejoin the Zaire–Amazon current. Thus, as farther north, a great circle is formed.

Fundamentally, what we see are two great circular rivers in the ocean, the northern circle running in a clockwise direction and the southern circle in a counter-clockwise direction, with a smaller counter-current in between, running eastwards. In the South Atlantic Americans might have reached Africa via the counter-current or, more likely, via the Brazil to southwest Africa current. Africans could have used either the southern (westwards) swing of the North Atlantic circle or the northern (also westwards) swing of the South Atlantic circle, coming from the Sierra Leone–Senegal region or the Congo–Angola region respectively.

Of course, one of the problems with the argument for early trans-Atlantic crossings is that in the modern period such islands as Iceland, Bermuda, the Azores, the Madeiras, the Cabo Verdes, Tristan da Cunha, Ascension, and even São Tomé (off Nigeria and Cameroun) were uninhabited prior to documented Irish, Norse, and Portuguese occupations. On the other hand, some of these islands are small or far from major currents. Bartolomé de las Casas states that the Azores were the islas Cassitérides mentioned by Strabo in his Geography and which islands were repeatedly visited by the Carthaginians. Allegedly, there lived in the Azores a people who were of loro or baço color, that is to say, people of the color of Native Americans or intermediate between white and black.9 The Canary Islands were inhabited in the fifteenth century by a people who were isolated from nearby Africa and whose cultures somewhat resembled those of some Americans. Moreover, the personal names of the many canarios enslaved by the Spanish have a decidedly American ‘ring’ about them (although such resemblances do not always mean a great deal).10 The canarios are sometimes described as a loro or brownish-colored people in the slave registers.

The fact that the islands of Cabo Verde and Madeira were uninhabited in the fifteenth century does indeed pose a problem for African navigation to the Americas; however, that will be discussed later. Now it is necessary to consider briefly evidence relating to the maritime capabilities of Americans in the late fifteenth century, to see whether voyages across the Atlantic might have been feasible.

The Americans of the Caribbean region were outstanding navigators and seamen, as noted by the Spaniards and other Europeans. Christopher Columbus was impressed everywhere by their skill. He noted, for example, that their boats (barcos y barquillos) ‘which they call canoas’, were excellently made from a single tree, were very large and long, carrying sometimes 40 or 45 men, two or more codos (perhaps a man’s breadth) in width. The American boats were unsinkable, and if in a storm they happened to capsize, the sailors simply turned them back over while swimming in the sea, bailing them out with goards carried for that purpose.11 Andrés Bernaldez recorded (from Columbus) that the Americans navigated in their canoas with exceptional agility and speed, with 60 to 80 men in them, each with an oar, and they went by sea 150 leagues or more. They were ‘masters of the sea’. (A canoe was later discovered in Jamaica which was 96 feet long, 8 feet broad, made from a single tree.)12

Columbus found that the Lucayo people of the Bahamas were not only very well acquainted with Cuba (one and a half days away via canoe) but also knew that from Cuba it was a ‘ten days’ journey’ to the mainland (doubtless Mexico or South America since Florida would have been closer than that). He also saw a boat which was 95 palms long in which 150 persons could be contained and navigate. Others were seen which were of great workmanship and beauty, being expertly carved. A canoe was also seen being navigated successfully by one man in high winds and rough sea.

At Haiti, Columbus learned that that island, or Jamaica, was ten days’ journey distant from the mainland and that the people there were clothed (thus referring to Mexico or Yucatan most likely). In another place he learn...