AFRICA'S HIDDEN MARITIME HISTORY | African Seafaring - The Untold History

Welcome to this episode. When most individuals today talk about or think about those people who engaged in ancient seafaring, navigation, exploration, discovery of new lands and so on and so forth, the last thing they imagine in their heads is Africans. In their mental paradigm, Africans are the perennially discovered, the exotic, quixotic creatures of colonial imagination dancing around in the forest as fortune-seeking foreign sailors berthed on their sea coasts. Certainly not the discoverers. Which is pretty sad because Africans were not just the world's first seafarers, explorers, sailors and navigators. They were doing it for many thousands of years before any other race of people existed on this earth. According to scientific consensus on the Out of Africa thesis, the first modern humans arose in Africa roughly 200,000 years ago. Around 50,000 years ago, some of those Africans migrated to various parts of the world which they came to populate. Firstly to the area now known as the Arabian Peninsula and then to Asia and later on to Europe, with the first discovery of the remains of Grimaldi man supporting the presence of African populations in Europe from at least 40,000 BCE. So all these regions of the world were populated by Afrikoid people who formed kingdoms and empires in Europe, Asia, the Americas and elsewhere, most of which are now lost to history because we're talking about a 40,000 year period. The records are gone and the first non-black populations emerged by scientific consensus only about seven or eight thousand years ago. So for roughly 190,000 out of the 200,000 years of human existence, the entire world was African. Did they navigate the seas and discover new lands? Well of course they did. How else did everyone get to where they are today? According to research, scientists believe some kind of boat was used by ancient people to reach Australia at least 50,000 years ago. Of course we know who those ancient people were. So Africans 50,000 years ago were sailing the oceans in sea vessels large, sturdy and powerful enough to get them to Australia. Let that sink in. Now you know why we call Africa the cradle of civilization. But to come a bit closer to our time in the period of say the last 6,000 years, there is quite substantial evidence and corroboration of African seafaring on a massive scale even after the emergence of other racial groups and nationalities and it is that period that we're going to be talking about in this video. Some of the earliest evidence we have of ancient African seafaring comes from Kemet, also known as ancient Egypt. In addition to large-scale navigation of the Nile river by thousands of vessels such as are shown in these magnificent artifacts from the period, the people of Egypt sailed the Mediterranean Sea and beyond in advanced sea craft with rudders and sails. Old kingdom texts and images confirm seafaring on both the Mediterranean and Red Seas and this activity continued throughout documented Egyptian history. By the Roman period Egypt was the nexus of a far-flung international maritime system that tied the Mediterranean to distant ports in East Africa, Arabia and India according Pharaoh Thutmose III used the navy and military campaigns as did Ramses III. Thutmose III understood the importance in maintaining a fast and efficient communications and supply line that would connect his bases in the Levantine region with Kemet. For this reason he constructed his famous dockyard for the royal fleet near Malfe, also known as Memphis, whose sole purpose was to constantly supply the campaigning Kemetian army with additional troops as well as communication with Kemet and for general supplies. Nowhere was Kemet's sea mastery made more evident than in the famous battle against the Sea People. It was the most famous Kemetian war heavily involved in the naval strength of the empire and it is the first to be well documented. During the reign of Ramses III a new threat arose to challenge the people of Kemet in a different way than what they were used to. A new people called the Sea People were arriving in the Levantine region and destroying cities. Already the once mighty Hittites were destroyed by these people of mysterious origin and it soon became obvious that Kemet with all of its wealth would be next. Ramses III prepared a mighty fleet and planned to repulse the Sea Peoples in the Nile. In the account from the temple relief of Medinat Habu, Ramses states, I prepared the river mouth like a strong wall with warships, galleys and light craft. They were completely equipped both fore and aft with brave fighters carrying their weapons and infantry of all the pick of Kemet. The Kemetians on their fast and nimble riverine crafts won against the maritime vessels of the Sea People who are depicted by the Kemetians as ill-equipped for ranged combat. Some of the vessels were huge. According to research a boat used by Queen Hatshepsut to carry obelisks to Karnak was larger and broader than Admiral Nelson's victory. The ancient Kemet vessel was 200 feet long and 70 feet in beam. Kunlun Bo, the vessels of black men. Chinese dynastic records from as early as 192 AD refer many times to the kingdom of Linye which meant the land of black men. They stated the inhabitants whom they referred to as the Kunlun possessed black skin, eyes deep in the orbit, nose turned up, hair frizzy at a period when they were not yet subject to foreign domination and preserved the purity of this type according to scholars. During this time ships of the Linye known to the Chinese by the appellation Kunlun Bo meaning the vessels of black men were navigating the currents of the Indian Ocean from Southeast Asia to Madagascar. Edward Schaeffer quotes in The people south of Linye are curly-haired and black-bodied and was called Kurung. Scholar Julie Wilensky notes that the term Kunlun is a mysterious and poorly understood word first applied to dark-skinned Chinese and then expanded over time to encompass multiple meanings all connoting dark skin. Well we'll put a quick end to that mystery of that name Kunlun Bo and Kunlun right here and let you know where it comes from. Here's a Mandinka English dictionary to clarify things. It's not the clearest but you can just about make out that Kunlun Bo refers to boat and ship as well in the language of the Mandinka people the same people from the Amali Empire currently modern-day Senegal right there on the coast believed to have discovered the Americas before Columbus. That is the land of the Kunlun and the original home of the Kunlun Bo ships of antiquity which traversed Asia and they came to be known in Asia as the Kunlun after Kunlun Go, the name they called their ships. In Iche Ching Ying He, a dictionary compiled by Hui Ling in 817 AD, Po is mentioned several times and stood for large ocean-going ships. According to Kuanya, Po is an ocean-going ship. It is fast and carries a thousand men as well as merchandise. It is also called Kunlun Po. Many of those who form the crews and technicians of these ships are Kunlun people. With the fibrous bark of the coconut tree they make cords which bind the parts of the ship together. Nails and clamps are not used for fear that the heating of the iron would give rise to fires. The ships are constructed by assembling several thicknesses of side planks for the boards are thin and that they fear that they will break. Their length is over 60 meters. Sails are hoisted to make use of the winds and these ships cannot be propelled by the strength of men alone. According to research, the Kunlun Bo ship had six characteristics. Very large ship, used no tail, instead mortise and pegs. Ship's body made of multi-layered plank, several masts and sails, two rudders, no outrigger. Length of Kunlun ship was about 60 meters with several decks and could hold 1,000 tons of cargo. Also says that ship could accommodate 1,000 people. For simple visualization, the length and width is equivalent to eight double-story houses and their compounds in a row and the height as high up as the roof of the houses and that was a size as early as the 3rd century AD. Whenever a Kunlun Bo ship arrived in Chinese ports, they were not allowed to harbour straight away and had to wait for the wharf to be cleared because the wave from the Kunlun Bo ship could destabilize and damage the smaller ships in the ports. Regarding early black populations in Japan, the early Japanese historians themselves have described for us the black barbarians of the south who in an age which antedates authentic history came from the south in ships and settled in Japan. So there was widespread seafaring across the pacific and beyond by African crews from thousands of years ago. They were right at the center of trade networks that spanned the entire Indian Ocean and the Pacific as well as the Atlantic Ocean which was then known as the Ethiopian Ocean and prior to them the people of Kemet were traversing the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. There's actually grown evidence that the ancient people of Kemet sailed to the Americas thousands of years ago with traces of the cocoa plant having been found in certain ferrous remains and they are only traceable to South America. The Maritime Jade Road established in 2000 BC is the earliest known international trading network and was established by the indigenous peoples of Taiwan and the Philippines and later expanded throughout Southeast Asia. The network operated for 3,000 years ending around the 11th century AD. So who were these indigenous Taiwanese and Filipinos setting up international shipping and trade networks 1,200 years before the birth of Greece? Well ancient Chinese reports speak about them as being people with dark skin, short and small body stature, frizzy hair. Regarding the Philippines research scientists Dr Howard McCubbin tells us that the Negrito groups are considered to be the earliest inhabitants of the Philippines. In 1825 Arnold Herman Herring professor of history and politics in the University of Göttingen published in his great work Iden Uba a lengthy essay on the history culture and commerce of the ancient Africans which had profound influence on contemporary writers in the conclusion that it was among these ancient black people of Africa and Asia that international trade was first developed. He thinks that as a by-product of these international contacts there was an exchange of ideas and cultural practices that lay the foundations of the earliest civilizations of the ancient world. Herring in his researches says from the remotest times to the present the Ethiopians have been one of the most celebrated and yet the most mysterious of nations. In the earliest traditions of nearly all the civilized nations of antiquity the name of this distant people is found. The annals of the Egyptian priests are full of them and the nations of the Euphrates and Tigris have interwoven the fictions of the Ethiopians with the traditions of the wars and conquests of their heroes and at a period equally remote they glimmer in Greek mythology. When the Greeks ghastly knew Italy and Sicily by name the Ethiopians were celebrated in the verses of their poets and when the faint gleam of tradition and fable gives way to the clear light of history the luster of the Ethiopians is not diminished. The kingdom of Axum in east Africa is dated from 100 to 940 AD. At the beginning of the 4th century AD the Aksumite state had become well established featuring urban centers, an official currency with coinage struck in gold, silver and copper, an intensive agricultural system and a well-organized military. The maritime endeavors of the Aksumite kingdom within Africa's rich historical narrative reveal an extraordinary blend of entrepreneurship and maritime prowess. Through the astute utilization of the monsoon trade route the Aksumites embarked on a transformative journey that connected their nation with distant lands. Aksum had a fleet of ships that guarded the Red Sea ports. Aksumite ships were put together by rope fibers. It did not use iron nails to bind wood. Ships sailed as far away as India and possibly China according to research. Aksum played a role in the transcontinental trade route between Rome and India. The Aksumite control over Adulis enabled the exchange of Ethiopian products for foreign imports. Around 280 Aksumite ambitions had expanded to southern Arabia where Aksum appears to have established itself in al-Mafa. According to a Greek inscription in Eritrea known as the Monumentum Adulatanum, around the mid to late 3rd century the Aksumites achieved significant territorial expansion in the Ethiopian highlands and the Arabian Peninsula with their influence extending as far as the borders of Egypt. By the end of the 3rd century AD Aksum had gained recognition by the prophet Mani in the Kefalaya as one of the four great powers of the world alongside Rome, Persia and China. More impetus for Aksumite maritime activity was provided by their conquest of Yemen in the 3rd century which brought the competitors of Adulis under Aksumite control as well. The monumental royal inscription of the Aksumite king in 280 which mentions him sending a fleet and land forces against the Arabitae and Sinadoko-Potae who dwelled on the other side of the Red Sea and having reduced the sovereigns of both I imposed on them a land tribute and charged them to make traveling safe by sea and by land and thus subdued the whole coast from Luke Comet to the country of the Sabaean lent further support to the existence of a well-developed maritime tradition in Aksum that was likely conducted through Adulis. It was during the height of the Aksumite empire that we find some of the most detailed descriptions of Aksumite merchants sailing in their own ships to Sri Lanka and the Roman sailor Sopratus was traveling aboard a ship owned by men from Adulis who were Aksumite merchants most likely involved in the transshipment of Chinese silk and Indian pepper. External accounts from Yemen indicate that ships from Mogadishu made annual trips to Hadrami port of Aden, Arshir among others carrying various commodities such as ivory, grain, ambergris, wood and gump that had been transshipped to Mogadishu by local ships sent from southern Swahili port cities and another account from 1336 records the arrival of a ship from Kilwa in modern-day Tanzania loaded with rice at the Hadrami city of Aden. Another account from 1341 by Ibn Battuta mentions a virtuous ulama from Mogadishu named Said who had traveled to India and China. In 1505 Tome Pires noted the presence of several eastern African merchants from Ethiopia, Mogadishu, Kilwa, Mombasa and Malindi in the port of Malacca in Indonesia according to scholars. In 1631 the sultan of Pate in modern-day Kenya sent a ship to Goa in India and by the 1720s the ivory trade was very active between the northern Swahili coast and Gujarat in India with ship owners from Barawa used to send a shipment of ivory to Surat in India and the sultan of Pate asked of the Portuguese the right to send one of his ships loaded with ivory to Diu and asked for free circulation of their ships to all the ports of Asia. The majority of Swahili ships had a tonnage of 30 to 60 tons with an average length of around 12 to 30 meters, an average width of 8 meters, a depth of 3 meters, a mast height of 15 to 20 meters and a combined passenger and crew total of 40 to 60 people and his crewmen possessed compasses, quadrants and maritime charts. At low tide ships could rest on the beach supported by the keel and side stakes. They were of shallow draft and could navigate in extremely shallow waters. According to Godfrey Higgins author of the famous 19th century historical work Anacalypses, there were two Ethiopias one to the east of the Red Sea and the other to the west of it and a very great nation of blacks did rule over almost all Asia in a very remote era in fact beyond the reach of history or any of our records and historian Clyde Winters informs us that Ethiopias have had very intimate relations with Indians in fact in antiquity the Ethiopians ruled much of According to D.V. Anamali the Harappan civilization of India was created by black people from Africa's kingdom of ancient Ethiopia dating back possibly to 7000 BCE called the Dravidians. These black Dravidians of ancient India created a highly advanced civilization in the Indus Valley region which included agriculture, building and sanitation systems. The Dravidians were an advanced seafaring people with the Cholas in particular distinguishing themselves among the dominant maritime powers of their era. Through its port the mighty kings of Chola traded with Ethiopia and Somalia, the Arab world, Cambodia and China and Sri Lanka exporting spices and camphor, ebony, ivory, textiles and precious jewels. In West Africa maritime activities flourished along the coastlines of the Atlantic. The kingdoms of Mali and Ghana engaged in extensive trade networks that included maritime routes. Ships constructed from local materials facilitated trade with distant regions. Evidence suggests that West African sailors reached the Americas long before Columbus a claim supported by cultural and botanical similarities between Africa and the Americas. For example the presence of African crops such as yams and bananas in pre-Columbian America suggests trans-oceanic contact. Furthermore linguistic and cultural parallels between African and American civilizations have been cited to support the idea of Asian-African voyages across the Atlantic. In 1324 while staying in Cairo during his Hajj Mansa Musa the ruler of the Mali empire told an Egyptian official whom he had befriended that he had come to rule when his predecessor led a large fleet in an attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean and never returned. This account recorded by Arab historian Al Umari has attracted considerable interest and speculation as a possible instance of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact. The voyage is now believed to have been undertaken and occurred in or shortly before 1312. Mansa Musa stayed in Cairo for three months in 1324 while en route to Mecca for the Hajj. While there he befriended an emir named Abu Al Hasan Hajib who was the governor of the district of Cairo in which Musa was staying. Hajib later recounted to the scholar Al Umari what he had learned of Mali from his conversations with Musa. In one such conversation Hajib had asked Mansa Musa how he had become king and Musa responded we belong to a house which hands on the kingship by inheritance. The king who was my predecessor did not believe that it was impossible to discover the furthest limits of the Atlantic Ocean and wished vehemently to do so. So he equipped 200 ships filled with men and the same number filled with gold water and provisions enough to last them for years and said to the man deputy to lead them do not return until you reach the end of it or your provisions and water give out. They departed and a long time passed before anyone came back. Then one ship returned and we asked the captain what news they brought. He said yes old sultan we traveled for a long time until they appeared in the open sea a river with a powerful current. Mine was the last of those ships the other ships went on ahead but when they reached that place they did not return and no more was seen of them and we do not know what became of them. As for me I went about at once and did not enter that river but the sultan disbelieved him. Then that sultan got ready two thousand ships one thousand for himself and the men whom he took with him and one thousand for water and provisions. He left me to deputize for him and embarked on the Atlantic Ocean with his men. That was the last we saw of him and all those who were with him and so I became king in my own right. The river on the sea described by the survivor of the first expedition is presumably the Canary Current. The inclusion of this fact in Musa's account indicates that Musa and the Mali empire had knowledge of the oceanographic conditions of the open Atlantic. An abstract from Columbus's log showed the claims of the native inhabitants of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola that from the south and the southeast had come black people whose spears were made of metal called guanine from which it was found that of 32 parts 18 were gold 6 were silver and 8 copper. And of course widespread evidence of large-scale African settlement in the pre-Columbian Americas suggests that most if not all of the 2,200 ships sent out on a voyage of discovery by the Mali empire did arrive safe and sound in the Americas. African moors were present in and dominated large parts of Europe between 711 and 1492. Moorish innovations in the maritime industry made it possible for the Spanish and the Portuguese to sail across the Atlantic. In science the moors introduced the number system, the compass for navigation and numerous medical advancements. Between the 8th and 15th centuries they brought innovations in technology, education, architecture, agriculture and social habits including personal and public hygiene. Through these innovations Spain and Portugal became the most powerful countries in Europe and Moorish navigators were so renowned for their expertise that even Christopher Columbus had them. Many people don't realize this but it is indeed the case that Columbus's ships had several African navigators. Regarding Columbus and his voyage to the new world little is known of the passengers of his three infamous ships the Pinta, the Nina and the Santa Maria or where they came from. History has been written to assume that all the passengers of these three legendary ships were all of European descent but that is false. 1492 was when Columbus made the journey and that was the year Moorish rule came to an end in Spain and Europe after 800 years of dominance. So most of the technical experts in Europe of the time were black African Moors and a few Arabs so Columbus's crews were full of them. One particular Moor was a navigator and a pilot of one of Columbus's ships during his first and third voyages to the new world. His name was Pedro Alonso Nino. Also the word Moor in those days was a name interchangeable with the term for those of African origin so Moor may not have meant that Pedro was a Muslim as was the case of the Moors who conquered Spain. Pedro Alonso Nino was born in Spain but of African heritage. His nickname was El Negro. His descent was either from Ethiopia or a region in West Africa. He grew up and lived in the region of Andalusia in Spain. Pedro Nino was the navigator pilot of the Santa Maria, the largest ship in the trio of ships in the first expedition to the new world. So there you have it, a rich history of African seafaring that is second to none in terms of its antiquity and exploratory reach and an impressive template for later seafaring traditions that were to follow it. Today in the post-colonial era the African nations are rebuilding their ancient fleet with modern really capable navies in the major powers like South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt. These countries have invested billions of dollars in developing their naval capabilities to secure their maritime domains and contribute to regional stability. They boast relatively strong naval forces equipped with modern vessels, aircraft and coastal surveillance systems. These navies conduct patrols, maritime exercises and joint operations to safeguard their waters and promote maritime safety and security. And with growing local production of ever more complex sea vessels supplemented by imports of some of the most advanced vessels on the international market, Africans are still very much top active navigators of the seas today. But there's still a long way to go to regain their ancient ubiquity. In terms of their share of global shipping we are told by the Institute for Security Studies, Africa's participation in the shipping industry remains hindered by the continent's low fleet ownership. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development estimates that only Nigeria features among the top 35 ship-owning nations with a share of 0.31% in deadweight tonnage as of January 2020. This means that Africa will have to seek the help of foreign-owned vessels in implementing the African Continental Free Trade Agreement until such time that African-built, crewed and owned vessels finally carry African-made products all over the continent and the world. Here at African History Fountain, we certainly look forward to that bright African future. Thanks for watching this episode. Do remember to like, comment and subscribe and look out for the next one on Africa's Great Civilizations.