Read Online Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: James W. Loewen
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voyages, not for their ostensible
geopolitical significance, but because including them gives a more complete picture of the
past. Moreover, if textbooks would only intelligently compare the Norse voyages to
Columbus's second voyage, they would help students understand the changes that took place
in Europe between 1000 and 1493. As we shall see, Columbus's second voyage was ten times
larger than the Norse attempts at settlement. The new European ability to mobilize was in
part responsible for Columbus's voyages taking on their awesome significance.
Although seafarers from Africa and Asia may also have made it to the Americas, they never
make it into history textbooks. The best known are the voyages of the Afro-Phoenicians,
probably launched from Morocco but ultimately from Egypt, that are said to have reached
the Atlantic coast of Mexico in about 750 B.C. Organic material associated with colossal
heads of basalt that stand along the eastern coast of Mexico stand has been dated to
around 750 B.C. The stone heads are realistic portraits of West Africans, according to the
anthropologist Ivan Van Sertima, who has done much to bring these images into popular
consciousness. Around the same time Indians elsewhere in Mexico created small ceramic and stone sculptures of what seem to be Caticasoid and Negroid
faces. As Alexander von Wuthenau, who collected many such terracotta statues, put it,
“It is contradictory to elementary logic and to all artistic experience that an Indian
could depict in a masterly way the head of a Negro or of a white person without missing a
single racial characteristic, unless he had seen such a person.”27 Although some scholars have dismissed the Caucasoid images as “stylized” Indian heads and
the Negroid faces as representing jaguars or human babies, the faces nonetheless stare
back at us, steadfastly Caucasoid or Negroid, hard to explain away. Ivan von Sertima and
others have adduced additional bits of evidence, including similarities in looms and
other cultural elements, identical strains of cotton that probably required human
intervention to cross the Atlantic, and information in Arab historical sources about
extensive ocean navigation by Africans and Phoenicians in the eighth century B.C.
What is the importance today of these African and Phoenician predecessors of Columbus?
Like the Vikings, they provide a fascinating story, one that can hold high school students
on the edge oftheir seats. We might also realize another kind of importance by
contemplating the particular meaning of Columbus Day. Italian Americans infer something
positive about their “national character” from the exploits of their ethnic ancestors. The
American sociologist George Homans once quipped, explaining why he had written on his own
ancestors in East Anglia, rather than on some larger group elsewhere; “They may be humans,
but not Homans!” Similarly, Scandinavians and Scandinavian Americans have always
believed the Norse sagas about the Vikings, even when most historians did not, and finally
confirmed them by conducting archaeological research in Newfoundland.
If Columbus is especially relevant to western Europeans and the Vikings to Scandinavians,
what is the meaning to African Americans of the preColumbian voyagers from Africa? After
visiting the Von Wuthenau museum in Mexico City, the Afro-Carib scholar Tiho Narva wrote,
“With his unique collection surrounding me, I had an eerie feeling that veils obscuring
the past had been torn asunder. . . . Somehow, upon leaving the museum I suddenly felt
that I could walk taller for the rest of my days.”19 Von Sertima's book is in its sixteenth printing and he is lionized by black
undergraduates across America. Rap music groups chant “but we already had been there” in
verses about Columbus.0 Obviously, African Americans want to see positive images of
geopolitical significance, but because including them gives a more complete picture of the
past. Moreover, if textbooks would only intelligently compare the Norse voyages to
Columbus's second voyage, they would help students understand the changes that took place
in Europe between 1000 and 1493. As we shall see, Columbus's second voyage was ten times
larger than the Norse attempts at settlement. The new European ability to mobilize was in
part responsible for Columbus's voyages taking on their awesome significance.
Although seafarers from Africa and Asia may also have made it to the Americas, they never
make it into history textbooks. The best known are the voyages of the Afro-Phoenicians,
probably launched from Morocco but ultimately from Egypt, that are said to have reached
the Atlantic coast of Mexico in about 750 B.C. Organic material associated with colossal
heads of basalt that stand along the eastern coast of Mexico stand has been dated to
around 750 B.C. The stone heads are realistic portraits of West Africans, according to the
anthropologist Ivan Van Sertima, who has done much to bring these images into popular
consciousness. Around the same time Indians elsewhere in Mexico created small ceramic and stone sculptures of what seem to be Caticasoid and Negroid
faces. As Alexander von Wuthenau, who collected many such terracotta statues, put it,
“It is contradictory to elementary logic and to all artistic experience that an Indian
could depict in a masterly way the head of a Negro or of a white person without missing a
single racial characteristic, unless he had seen such a person.”27 Although some scholars have dismissed the Caucasoid images as “stylized” Indian heads and
the Negroid faces as representing jaguars or human babies, the faces nonetheless stare
back at us, steadfastly Caucasoid or Negroid, hard to explain away. Ivan von Sertima and
others have adduced additional bits of evidence, including similarities in looms and
other cultural elements, identical strains of cotton that probably required human
intervention to cross the Atlantic, and information in Arab historical sources about
extensive ocean navigation by Africans and Phoenicians in the eighth century B.C.
What is the importance today of these African and Phoenician predecessors of Columbus?
Like the Vikings, they provide a fascinating story, one that can hold high school students
on the edge oftheir seats. We might also realize another kind of importance by
contemplating the particular meaning of Columbus Day. Italian Americans infer something
positive about their “national character” from the exploits of their ethnic ancestors. The
American sociologist George Homans once quipped, explaining why he had written on his own
ancestors in East Anglia, rather than on some larger group elsewhere; “They may be humans,
but not Homans!” Similarly, Scandinavians and Scandinavian Americans have always
believed the Norse sagas about the Vikings, even when most historians did not, and finally
confirmed them by conducting archaeological research in Newfoundland.
If Columbus is especially relevant to western Europeans and the Vikings to Scandinavians,
what is the meaning to African Americans of the preColumbian voyagers from Africa? After
visiting the Von Wuthenau museum in Mexico City, the Afro-Carib scholar Tiho Narva wrote,
“With his unique collection surrounding me, I had an eerie feeling that veils obscuring
the past had been torn asunder. . . . Somehow, upon leaving the museum I suddenly felt
that I could walk taller for the rest of my days.”19 Von Sertima's book is in its sixteenth printing and he is lionized by black
undergraduates across America. Rap music groups chant “but we already had been there” in
verses about Columbus.0 Obviously, African Americans want to see positive images of
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