African American visting...

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Tanzania

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1hytz37vZk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1w3cc3TyA8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU7jcN1ImCQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGH3PKiA9GY

African Americans visting...

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South Africa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG1UVvwaFt8

African roots of the blues series(Videos are below)
Note: (this is something people tend to mis) the point isn't to show a direct repository of music traditions from Africa to the U.S. The point is to understand what building blocks were made from the deconstruction of those African music traditions. The best way to depict that is to show you Music traditions before deconstruction. That way you can mentally break them down and see what building blocks were used in African American music. Too often people make quick comments like "They took our culture" "African Americans lost their culture" etc etc. In the process they miss the bigger picture. Work songs, spirituals, blues, jazz, techno, hip-hop, etc. didn't come from Europe. Certain filters(instruments) did but most of the substance that ran through those filters didn't.

I get tired of the simple minded one to one propositions, like if a person isn't playing a talking drum and "cowbell" they've lost there African-ness or some such nonsense. In a purely generic perspective the development African American music and continual progressions show how to do away with the similarly simple minded proposition of ether "westernize" or maintain traditions like it's an either or proposition.

---

 
 Quick & simple Generics Lesson 
Concrete example:
(4*Sqrt(4)^2)/4=4

Now take out the 4 and turn it to a common set variable.  It's now in a generic form.

Generic example
(x*Sqrt(x)^2)/x=x

Why would I take out the 4 when the example specifically deals with what happens when 4 is proccessed?
Because the generic form is true irrespective of what you put in the place of the variable.

1. (8*Sqrt(8 )^2)/8=8 ;   2. (56*Sqrt(56)^2)/56=56 ;   3. (3000*Sqrt(3000)^2)/3000=3000

Like wise I could go even crazier..
(my body mass*Sqrt(my body mass)^2)/my body mass=my body mass
or even...
(nairaland posters*Sqrt(nairaland posters)^2)/nairaland posters=nairaland posters

---

I.E the generic form (x*Sqrt(x)^2)/x=x is correct irrespective of what you put in the place of the variable.
The development of African American music is a "concrete example" that if properly "generic'd" could serve as a guide on many issues in regard to the modernization of African systems as opposed to merely copying Europeans or Asians.


Take the basic village and deconstruct it, you have cloth/garment making/dyeing, building construction, iron working, food production, etc. you don't have to change those basic building blocks just send them through more efficient filters(industrial grade agriculture, metal, and sowing tools) ...now powering those tools is a different story but anyway... in a nut shell that is the story of African American music. Which is literally an African solution to an African problem and that solution gave and gives something completely unique to the world short of straight copying other peoples institutions and regurgitating them on the people.(Which in my opinion is simply cultural terraforming)
.
Those music building blocks before deconstruction and new filters, enjoy!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRhVTjNvicU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxIGAXHm2xo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-FGHoYBtjs
Back in the U.S Mississippi delta region

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiOxn4Y9cJc
Back in Ghana?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzqDq2R7KT0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3Y3f9H41RU

Now if you can mentally deconstruct the music above into components and understand how they were filtered through different tools and reconstructed into new but still uniquely African Music forms that didn't stagnate but diversified and led the way over time then you can do that same deconstruction with the village depicted below. Take the Music example, turn it into a generic development equation by taking out music then plug in different aspects of life depicted below.

Why? How would that work? "Because the generic form is true irrespective of what you put in the place of the variable."
Concrete form:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZJPdbtn2KM


1.Now what does that village look like in component form?
2.How would I go bout plugging those components into a GenericDevelopmentEquation such as the development of African American music?
3.(mentally)What would a 10 year projection of that application/"plugging in" look like?

---

Wow I had no intention of making this long as post. My thoughts got the better of me (snaps finger)

African American visting...

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Sierra Leone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzI1ckvF4RA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVIEBDSvcfI?t=2m25s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOlS5-1Xz3Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH_kd931vNs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq7vCPmIwjU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qor2ib8iXtg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh3-KbYkdIk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcT9vJHBQ9w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20QNKEUiETE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCufDsmABN8


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSsI-s_1G28

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nufRHR8a7FU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zON37u44ObI

Supper: The french Company of the Indies(primarily a colonial and slave trading firm), had monopoly over the colony of Louisiana and also the slave trade of the Senegambian region, with their Fort St. Louis headquarters of the Company of the Indies in Africa, being located in modern day Northern Senegal. This created the slave trading Senegal-Louisiana concessions of the 18th and 19th century, which was the primary reason two-thirds of the slaves brought to Louisiana came through the Senegambian region.

And speaking of the Fulani. Here's a video showcasing some documented famous ethnic Fulani people in America(or what is now the US).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC2124XhYsg

An old unique blues style in the Northern Mississippi hill country called Northern Mississippi Fife and Drum blues, is an offshoot of Fulani Flute and drum music. In fact, the physical construction of the blues fife played in Northern MS is based on an old African model brought over by the transatlantic slave trade. The construction process mimics that of the of Fula flute. A musician typically cuts a piece of cane about a foot inlength, then a heated iron rod is used to bore out the cane, and finally the same rod isused to make the fingering and embouchure holes of the fife. No formal measure of spacing either between the embouchure hole and the fingering holes or between each of the fingering holes is used. Instead, the musicians use their hands as guides forconstruction, resulting in instruments that have slightly individualized scales, none of which are based on a classical Western model.
http://www.academia.edu/922424/_Stuff_You_Gotta_Watch_The_Effect_of_Anglo-American_Scholarship_on_North_Mississippi_Blues_Fife_and_Drum


Otha Turner construting his Blues Fife
[img]http://www.uncpress.unc.edu/poorheartease/images/pictures/canefife.jpg[/img]

Fula Flute


Mississippi Fife and Drum Blues Band - 1978

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNqrZUWBXxs
(@ 1:16)

Fulani Flute and Drum Music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xEcDHYFo1Q

I made a post on this topic earlier...
https://www.nairaland.com/1262726/endangered-african-american-musical-instruments

I wish I could force it to start a new page, or a mod could.... !

African American visting...

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Senegal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuHwWrkcum0

African American visting...

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Rwanda (I'd like to personally apologize for her hair)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGtjgCBzP8c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtMLQbdx8WY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nAaUmdbpcE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AU8LfgHI3k

PAPA AFRICA: well shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

.
Hahaha

When you say "poor" do you mean "not filthy rich" or simply don't have food, shelter, and clothing?

Personally I've found that I can live a rather full life with just food, shelter, clothing, electricity, internet, and a couple nic-nacs like decent computer/reliable transportation.

There has to be some seriously epic folk tales surrounding a lake that !

African American visting...

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Nigeria

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QlFjJy3AZA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ksa0weIATcw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsBqo5CFjHQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twxY2fcFpeA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNVGcjAgU2M

"i think diasporan blacks should really adopt the name and concept of the nuwaupians."

You mean the same Nuwaupians playing dress up while walking throughout miniature Egyptian temples off in backwoods Georgia? Mmmm.....I'on know bout dat'n buddy.

That said I respect the fact that they arrived at their own beliefs independent of European dogma.

As I like to say...
1. Freedom is a necessity but not enough. Choices are predicated on what you know at the time of calculating a decision. If I control what you know I control the range of your possible choices.
2. Knowledge is a necessity but not enough. Knowledge derives it's usefulness from being processed when calculating a decision. The smaller the range of process you are capable of carrying out the less you can do with what you know.
3. Processing(intelligence) is a necessity but not enough. There are a series of Processes done in executing a plan. If you have no plan your interests are subject to those who do have a plan. Be that in using your ability to process knowledge to further their plans(not yours) or simply by your interests being displaced in the execution of their plans.
4. Plans are a necessity but not enough. Plans are simply a means to accomplishing a goal. If you have no goals in life your interests are subject to those who do have a goal. Be that in using your ability to plan and/or process knowledge to further their goals(not yours) or simply by your interests being displaced in the execution of their goals.
5. There are more but I can successfully reply without stating the rest


While I commend the Nuwaupians for being able to accomplish the goal of feeding, clothing, and sheltering their people free of the terms/choices Europeans laid out for them.

I question both...
1.The range of processes they were able to employ on the knowledge they had. (Which led to their inability to defend against the U.S. Gov)
And
2.The extent to which their dogma impeded absorption, development, & execution of new knowledge and processes.

African American visting...

---

Niger(Tuareg focus & a lil Hausa)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE-RMzH2JEo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi4AmZuhkZQ

African American visting...

---

Namibia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbSCLxyPQcs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG363ocQPjA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljHJErMX-Sc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8GEv_u4kII

00:07 - 00:50 "He shoulda tol you motha fuckas NOO!"




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[img]http://www.msgr.ca/msgr-2/santa-died-laughing.gif[/img]

Ohhh, Let me try!

The Nigerian dream is the same as the African Diaspora dream in the Americas(North, central, south, Caribbean), Europe, ect. which is the same as the African dream(north, east, south, west, central).

What is that you ask. That dream is to make the culture, economic systems, religion, aspirations, ect. as close as possible to Europeans so we can all collectively say "look big brother I can do it too. Just like you do it I did it too, see. So now do you respect me?"




Wait, did I go too far?


Hmmm well, I leave us all with this quote...

"The point Deepak is making is - don't have a thin skin; or perhaps be more comfortable in your own skin.

I am an India and can speak for the Indian society at large - we do seem to fulfill the phrase by Nirad - that we are a wounded civilization. We, as a society/culture, are insecure and unsure of ourselves, so we constantly seek praises and (get easily flattered) or bristle at slightest insults (intended or not).

My only point is - we have to first believe in ourselves, as a society and as a civilization with a proud history. Once we do that, the world will believe in us and ironically enough, we will not even care!

-Sudeep Kanjilal"

African American visting...

---

Morrocco

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXwfX6JQw0o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVQLrPMe_F4

African American visting...

---

Mali

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Wv903djA8E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20LG2ufAXu4

African American visting...

---

Liberia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4CQ-vnWQUc

African American visting...

---

Kenya

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54kJ-H9-bdw

(This guys videos are cringe worthy but he's passionate so...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVE2E8594SM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vedvyr1przo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0BcxYxBhJ0

African Americans visting...

---

Ghana

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zfyr5tixKM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut-bjhX6tQE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKI1yuR91hI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIm8dVE1Xes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emjOz29itRA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq7asON0y4Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm-wa3TWQYk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv37sUTMn9Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzcGol7AFTk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIgIe60607A

African American visting...

---

Ethiopia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5grCgbV-dd8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZByUrunyag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZQ6lqqp7ZI

African Americans visting...

---

Egypt(Nubian focus)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvn1CTVbAQM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKwCbDxlaQM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cd-afcQ8MU

And what you will find when you finish is that van sertima never made the wild claims others make.
1.he never said the olmecs were Africans ... he said Africans were among the olmecs(subtle but strong difference)
2.he never said there were no native americans involved...he said that Africans and Asians were among olmecs as traders(possibly advisors)
3.he never said the Olmec heads were depictions of olmecs... he said the Olmec heads were depictions of Africans(subtle but strong difference)


I repeat...

The problem isn't some rogue "afrocentric", it's an inability to properly acquire, categorize, & process information . Before you can even begin to talk about someone's politics we have to talk about can they differentiate between simple concepts like truth, fact, interpretation, and presentation.(each of which are not equal in weight)
.
Without going too deep the problem is rarely with facts. The problem is usually with (mis)interpreting facts. Ascribing that problem to a boogieman term like "afrocentric" lets their intellectual missteps off the hook, validates those missteps by ascribing them as a philosophical view, and piles unnecessary baggage on an as stated "...rather "by the book", mundane, and conservative notion..."

-Me

The more videos I find of African Americans in Africa the more I find the claim African Americans don't visit Africa ridiculous and the more I'm reminded of the silly comments from European explorers of Discovering X,Y,Z in Africa. The claim is similar "If I the European don't see it then it hasn't happened yet". The vast majority of videos I've seen have been African Americans by themselves or in a group of other African Americans/Diasporans.

Why the heck would they want to go to visit Africa with a bunch of Europeans anyway


Anyway, I've been mostly doing/reading serious topics since joining this place. I figure it's time for what the journalist call a...

"Fluff piece"

---

Puff piece or fluff piece is an idiom for a journalistic form of puffery; an article or story of exaggerating praise that often ignores or downplays opposing viewpoints or evidence to the contrary.[3] In some cases, reviews of films, albums, or products (e.g., a new car or TV) may be considered to be "puff pieces", due to the actual or perceived bias of the reviewer: a review of a product, film, or event that is written by a sympathetic reviewer or by an individual who has a connection to the product or event in question, either in terms of an employment relationship or other links .

- Wikipedia



African American visting...

---

Cameroon(Tikar focus)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T65w0Gsp9g4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57S69g0Rb5k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sgByrT9MY8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBZpbQZ_7e4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqNN-M9kcpQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFbnNO2LD3Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnRhyiyRPKA

This is why I hate "black box/boogie man terms" like illuminati, afrocentric, etc.
It lets people off the hook easy, legitimizes falsehoods, and/or perpetuates the wrong use/connotation of a word.

Afrocenticity is a rather "by the book", mundane, and conservative notion.(Though unintentional I personaly think it is elegantly summed up in the idea of "African solutions for African problems" ) .

The problem isn't some rogue "afrocentric", it's an inability to properly acquire, categorize, & process information. Before you can even begin to talk about someone's politics we have to talk about can they differentiate between simple concepts like truth, fact, interpretation, and presentation.(each of which are not equal in weight)
.
Without going too deep the problem is rarely with facts. The problem is usually with (mis)interpreting facts. Ascribing that problem to a boogieman term like "afrocentric" lets their intellectual missteps off the hook, validates those missteps by ascribing them as a philosophical view, and piles unnecessary baggage on an as stated "...rather "by the book", mundane, and conservative notion..."

[size=16pt] Note to self:
That's it, I'm going to do a big post on this very nonsense topic when I get life issues settled down abit. [/size]

Just so you know the second post about the Atlantic crossing I made is unhidden(see post with life magazine cover). I suggest yall check it out, I think it's a good read.

Peace

Please unhide my post in the following thread.
https://www.nairaland.com/1291722/did-west-africans-reach-new/3#1291722.112

Thank you

Hannes Lindemann (born 28 December 1922) is a German doctor, navigator and sailor. He made two solo transatlantic crossings, one in a sailing dugout canoe made while working in Liberia and the second in a 17-foot Klepper Aerius II double folding kayak, modified to carry two masts and an outrigger. His book Alone at Sea[1] documents the trips, which were totally unassisted. He was motivated to make the trips by an interest in how the human body and mind respond to survival at sea, a theme which the Kon-Tiki (1947) and Alain Bombard (1952) explored in earlier ocean voyages.

His kayak was delivered to the Canary Islands, before sailing to the Caribbean. He very rarely paddled, though used a paddle when rudders broke. He carried 154 pounds (70 kg) of supplies, much of it canned comestibles, some of which he ditched on setting out as the kayak was too heavy. He caught fish and gathered rainwater to supplement his rations. The 3,000-mile (4,800 km) crossing to St. Martin took him 72 days. Towards the end of that trip he encountered storms of "wind force 8, gusting to force 9" when he capsized twice during a period of hallucinations brought on by fatigue and sleep deprivation. At times he described what might be described as trantric or altered states – safe in the cocoon of his sodden kayak while storms raged around him for days. He was convinced that in a survival situation the mind gave up long before the body (or indeed the craft), and to help accomplish the second trip he trained himself in sleep deprivation as well as mentally, which he described at times as prayer, meditation, autogenic training and ingraining his sub-conscious with affirmational mottos like "I will make it" and "Keep going west".

News Footage
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/dr-hannes-lindemann-arrives-home-after-sailing-the


http://archive.org/stream/aloneatsea006429mbp
The book

Translatlantic Voyage in a Liberian Dugout Canoe
[img]http://4.bp..com/-ceMXFSTTcDM/Uh-XsdR3IqI/AAAAAAAAIR8/Pa6rVOiiIiI/s320/Hannes-Lindemann+at+84.jpg[/img]

Dr. Hannes Lindemann is well-known to historically-minded kayakers for his east-to-west solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in a folding kayak in 1956-57. Less famous is his similar solo crossing just one year previous in a dugout canoe. We'll focus on Lindemann's dugout journey here; we'll address his kayak voyage, along with some other transoceanic kayak adventures, in a future post.

Lindemann, a German physician, was working in a Liberian plantation clinic for the Firestone Rubber Company in the mid-1950s when he began to solidify his long-held dream of a solo Atlantic crossing. He had previously met Alain Bombard, a Frenchman who had crossed the Atlantic in an inflatable raft in 1952 to test his theory that it was possible to survive "shipwreck" situations without fresh water by obtaining fluids from fish and drinking limited amounts of sea water. Bombard claimed that his voyage was completed under just those conditions, but Lindemann was skeptical, and he decided to test Bombard's theory.

After some unsuccessful attempts to have a dugout canoe built for him by local Liberian labor, Lindemann purchased a used canoe in questionable condition. It measured 23.5 feet LOA, with a beam of 29.9 inches, and it "had holes in the stern and bow, and in the bottom where it had lain on the ground. Also fungus growth had softened the wood somewhat," he wrote in Alone at Sea. But Lindemann thought the mahogany hull still essentially sound, and determined to repair its deficiencies. He named it Liberia II, the original Liberia being the first boat that he had attempted to have built for him locally, but which was accidentally burned.

Like Tilikum, Captain John Voss's ocean-crossing dugout canoe, Liberia II was a far cry from the original native design once Lindemann was done preparing it for sea. Lindemann planed the bottom of the hull flat, sheathed it with fiberglass, and attached a external keel 11.5 feet long and 5.1" deep and containing 250 lb. of lead. He "spanned her width with bent lengths of iron" (by which I assume he refers to internal frames), added fiberglass-covered plywood decks with a cockpit opening near the stern, and bulkheads enclosing watertight containers in the ends. On the exterior, he installed 10-inch thick cork sponsons near the waterline to reduce rolling. He writes that at this stage, the canoe "resembled the pirogues of the Carib Indians." Upon launching, the boat proved top-heavy, which Lindemann attempted to correct by the addition of bagged sand as internal ballast.

Lindemann's description of his rig is sketchy and confusing. It was apparently a sloop, with an ironwood mast that was stiff enough to "run even in the Gulf of Guinea without a backstay." Depending upon the point of sail, Lindemann had two mainsails from which to choose, a squaresail and a gaff, both of nine square yards, and a jib of three square yards. The boom, which was made of "rare red camwood, which warps even less than mahogany," could be rotated to reef the gaff mainsail. A rudder, controlled with cables, could be steered with either the hands via a tiller or by foot.

A 3-horsepower outboard engine was ruined when the boat capsized at the dock before the start of the voyage. Lindemann jettisoned the engine but made no other modifications to improve the boat's stability before setting off from Liberia in February, 1955.

This first voyage was a dismal failure. The boat proved unstable and prone to excessive rolling, and the rudder was too small to control it with the wind abeam. Apparently having forgotten to bring his antimalarial drugs, Lindemann was struck by a recurrence of malaria while underway and tossed most of his provisions overboard during a hallucinatory fit. The trip ended in Ghana just 17 days after it had begun.

Undeterred, Lindemann shipped the boat to Hamburg where he had a shipyard replace the internal ballast with additional external ballast, build a larger rudder, and add "a four-inch wide plank … around the cockpit so that I could sit there in comfort." It's unclear to me if this plank constituted a cockpit combing or a narrow cockpit seat. He then shipped the boat to Oporto and set off again in May on his second transatlantic attempt in four months.

Although his first attempt had demonstrated to him in just two and a half weeks that drinking salt-water was damaging to his health, Lindemann decided to resume the experiment. His daily liquid ration now consisted of seven ounces of sea water and "almost a quart and a half of other liquids [including evaporated milk and mineral water mixed with red wine]. By the second day edemata [i.e., edema, the accumulation of liquids between the cells] had developed, which soon extended up to my knees."

This second attempt was no more successful than the first. The rudder broke two days after a stop in Morocco; Lindemann determined that the new rudder design was too large, and he cut it down and reinstalled it. He lost it altogether shortly thereafter, along with both of his sea anchors. Steering with a paddle for 14 days, he made landfall in Villa Cisneros, in Spanish West Africa.

Lindemann wrote:

"During that time, my daily intake of sea water had been ten and a half fluid ounces, which I swallowed in doses of one and three-fourths fluid ounces six times a day, and now my feet and legs were swollen in spite of rest and exercises. I had proved to myself that there is no advantage to drinking salt water; it can, in fact, weaken a sailor's physical condition at a time when he needs all his strength."

Although this seems obvious now, this may be judging with the benefit of hindsight and the advantage of modern knowledge gained from experiments like those of Lindemann himself. On the other hand, I believe that the unhealthful effects of drinking saltwater had been recognized by sailors for millennia, though perhaps not scientifically demonstrated until after Bombard had promulgated his theory.

Lindemann shipped Liberia II from Villa Cisneros to Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands, where he again had a shipyard greatly enlarge the rudder and massively reinforce it. He also had made new sails and a canvas spray cover with an iron frame. Shipping a spare mast and oar, he relaunched in October.

For the next 18 days, Lindemann satisfied his fluid needs entirely from the juice of the apples and oranges he consumed. After discarding the remaining rotting fruit, he "switched to a daily liquid intake of fourteen ounces of evaporated milk and a mixture of one and a half pints of mineral water and a bit less than a half pint of red wine." He ate a raw onion daily which, he says, contained enough vitamins to prevent scurvy. He also ate a can of meat and six mouthfuls of honey daily, some other canned rations which are not clearly listed in his account, and frequently caught fish and ate them raw.

Although his boat was still far from perfect, this time it was good enough. "My narrow canoe rolled and yawed so badly that I usually took in the gaff sail and went under square sail at night." Following a tortuous voyage, Lindemann landed in St. Croix some time between December 29 and 31 (the account is unclear). He recuperated for ten days, then embarked again and sailed through a vicious storm to Haiti, thus completing his intended voyage, in a roundabout way, from the first Negro republic in the Old World (Liberia) to the first one in the New World.

BBC NEWS
Wednesday, 13 December, 2000, 22:27 GMT
Africa's 'greatest explorer'
By Joan Baxter in Mali


An African emperor who ruled Mali in the 14th century discovered America nearly 200 years before Christopher Columbus, according to a book to be launched this month. Abubakari II ruled what was arguably the richest and largest empire on earth - covering nearly all of West Africa. According to a Malian scholar, Gaoussou Diawara in his book, 'The Saga of Abubakari II...he left with 2000 boats', the emperor gave up all power and gold to pursue knowledge and discovery. Abubakari's ambition was to explore whether the Atlantic Ocean - like the great River Niger that swept through Mali - had another 'bank'. In 1311, he handed the throne over to his brother, Kankou Moussa, and set off on an expedition into the unknown. His predecessor and uncle, Soundjata Keita, had already founded the Mali empire and conquered a good stretch of the Sahara Desert and the great forests along the West African coast.

Gold fields
The book also focuses on a research project being carried out in Mali tracing Abubakari's journeys. "We are not saying that Abubakari II was the first ever to cross the ocean," says Tiemoko Konate, who heads the project "There is evidence that the Vikings were in America long before him, as well as the Chinese," he said. The researchers claim that Abubakari's fleet of pirogues, loaded with men and women, livestock, food and drinking water, departed from what is the coast of present-day Gambia. They are gathering evidence that in 1312 Abubakari II landed on the coast of Brazil in the place known today as Recife. "Its other name is Purnanbuco, which we believe is an aberration of the Mande name for the rich gold fields that accounted for much of the wealth of the Mali Empire, Boure Bambouk." Another researcher, Khadidjah Djire says they have found written accounts of Abubakari's expedition in Egypt, in a book written by Al Omari in the 14th century. "Our aim is to bring out hidden parts of history", she says.
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Black traders
Mr Konate says they are also examining reports by Columbus, himself, who said he found black traders already present in the Americas. They also cite chemical analyses of the gold tips that Columbus found on spears in the Americas, which show that the gold probably came from West Africa. But the scholars say the best sources of information on Abubakari II are Griots - the original historians in Africa. Mr Diawara says the paradox of Abubakari II, is that the Griots themselves imposed a seal of silence on the story. "The Griots found his abdication a shameful act, not worthy of praise," Mr Diawara said. "For that reason they have refused to sing praise or talk of this great African man." Mr Diawara says the Griots in West Africa such as Sadio Diabate, are slowly starting to divulge the secrets on Abubakari II.

'Hard-nosed historians'
But the research team says an even bigger challenge is to convince hard-nosed historians elsewhere that oral history can be just as accurate as written records. Mr Diawara believes Abubakari's saga has an important moral lesson for leaders of small nation states in West Africa, which were once part of the vast Mande-speaking empire. "Look at what's going on in all the remnants of that empire, in Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea. "Politicians are bathing their countries in blood, setting them on fire just so that they can cling to power," says Mr Diawara. "They should take an example from Abubakari II. He was a far more powerful man than any of them. And he was willing to give it all up in the name of science and discovery." "That should be a lesson for everyone in Africa today," concludes Mr Diawara.

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If you can read french