In this video, Dan Von Hovel speaks at a 2019 “Odd Salon” conference in San Francisco explaining that African explorers may have reached the Americas long before Christopher Columbus did.

Following are points that he makes:

— A Harvard University linguist Leo Wiener published a three-volume piece in 1920 called “Africa and the Discovery of America,” where he postulated that Africans reached America before Columbus did.  Wiener pointed out that Columbus himself had said that Africans had preceded him, where in his diary of his second voyage he said the natives gave him a gold-tipped spear head that they said came from “Black-skinned people that have come in large boats from the South and South-East.”  Upon returning to Spain, Columbus is said to have had the spear-heads examined, where the metallurgist found that they were of an alloy that matched the metal that is used in spearheads in Western Africa.  The natives also reportedly called the metal “Guanine” which is the African term for it as well.

— Columbus’s second voyage was ten times larger than the first, and they noticed that the native names of many Islands sounded like African names.

— There is evidence of botanical contact between Africa and South America through types of African bottle gourds growing in South America, as well as yams, sweet potatoes, cotton, and plantains being common on both continents.

— African empires had four types of ships which would be able to make the journey across the ocean.  Nubian pottery shows ancient African ships from 350 BC, and other artwork depicts African ships as well.

— A Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl used ancient shipbuilding techniques to construct Papyrus Reed Boats which he sailed from Africa to South America in 1969 and 1970.  Such sailing vessels can travel 100 miles per day, even without sails.  In an ocean current, a smaller raft can average about 60 miles per day.  [Note: Heyerdahl also previously made a similar type of journey across the Pacific Ocean from South America to Polynesia in 1947, which was featured in the popular 2012 Hollywood movie “Kon-Tiki.”]

— In 1311, it was reported that the Mali emperor sent a large expedition to America, which was 100 years prior to Columbus’ journey, however only one ship returned.

— Western Africa is much closer to the coast of South America than Spain is to the Caribbean, and natural ocean currents travel from Africa to South America.

— Many Spanish explorers reported encountering Black people in the new world, such as Vasco Nunez de Balboa, who in 1513 recorded meeting tribes of Ethiopians in Panama, with his log saying that they came from a black village that was “two day’s journey away.”

— Pre-Columbian African skeletons have been found throughout the Americas that date between 800 BC and 300 AD.

— A “Temple of the Warriors” mural in Chichen Itza, Mexico depicts black and indian allies in a battle against white invaders.  It is hypothesized that the white soldiers are Celtic warriors since they are depicted as fighting naked.

— Numerous pre-Columbian statues and figurines exist in Central and South America that seem to depict black faces.  One that is called “Olmec” date from 900 BC, and they were mysteriously buried.

— Von Hovel explains that Columbus was actually the “last” person to discover America instead of the first.

— Von Hovel closes his presentation by saying a quote by a historian Samuel B. Marvel: “[Historians] have had little appetite to explore the possibly that our founding father was a black man.”  [Note: Even if Africans did travel to the Americas previously, I don’t think that it would really make them the “founding fathers” since their influence was limited.  But I do think it is interesting that they may have traveled to the Americas previously though.]