Research Suggests Africans Came to Americas With Columbus

Interesting…

(Sept. 20) — Look at any historical painting or etching of Christopher Columbus and his crew arriving in the New World, and you’ll probably see a group of mustachioed Mediterranean types standing around in baggy pants. But new research suggests those pictures, as well as numerous historical accounts, might have left out another ethnic group that accompanied the explorer on his voyage across the ocean blue: Africans.

Using DNA tests, archaeologists believe they have identified at least two people of African descent buried at the site of the first European colony in the Americas, La Isabela, which was founded (and swiftly abandoned) by Columbus in the late 15th century.

Christopher Columbus is shown being greeted by Native Americans upon his arrival in the New World. New research suggests Africans may have accompanied the explorer on his ocean voyage.

“Many African-Americans are today taught that their story in the Americas began with slavery, which really only kicked off in the mid-16th century,” Hannes Schroeder, an expert in bioarchaeology at the University of Copenhagen’s Center for GeoGenetics, and part of an international team examining the La Isabela remains, told AOL News. “If our results can be confirmed, they would show that Africans were there with Europeans at the very beginning and, in a sense, would be put on par with Europeans in that part of history.”

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