DID THE YORUBAS INTERACT WITH THE AMERICANS BEFORE CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS?

 

      Whenever public discussion is raised regarding pre-Columbian contact with the Americans, various groups of people like the Vikings and the Chinese are usually the subject of discussion. However, one archaeological fact implies that Americans and one African ethnic group had contact, but this historical fact seldom gets explored. There is a continued debate among Scholars as regards this topic, hence the reason for its lack of popularity in popular culture, this is because the subject of discussion has been met with a series of disagreements. This article will discuss interesting evidence that suggests America's contact with West Africans.

      The direct evidence that suggests Africans' contact with the Americans is recorded in a medieval Egyptian document. This historical reference detailed the words of Mansa Musa, the ruler of the Mali empire in 14th-century West Africa. Mansa Musa referred to the Canary Current of the Atlantic Ocean. This cogent reference made the evidence difficult to dismiss. Notably, some archaeological findings in the Yoruba city of Ile-Ife record pre-Columbian interactions between the Yoruba people and the Americans long before the reign of Mansa Musa. The archaeological evidence is the discovery of maize in Ile-ife. It is popular culture that maize originated in America and was introduced to West Africa by the Portuguese. However, Miracle Marvin writes that " Linguistic evidence strongly suggests that Maize penetrated the interior of tropical Africa from the Coastal regions. However, the timing and mode of its introduction cannot be established. The commonly repeated assertion that the Portuguese brought maize to tropical Africa from the New World cannot be documented at this juncture." Other Scholars have also documented doubts about the Portuguese introducing maize to West Africa given the date of the discovery of Maize. Archaeologists found an imprint resembling an ear of maize, found at Ile-Ife to be 1100AD.

      The Yorubas have an oral account of a queen who commissioned the development of paved roads in Ile-Ife. MD. W. Jeffreys writes that "in fact, any individual could tell him the legend that the pavements were laid down during the reign of a female Oni, Obaluwo (or Oluwo) who did not like her clothes to become splattered with mud and ordered all the people of Ife to make these pavements". The paved road established by a Yoruba Queen provides an inference to pre-Columbian interactions. A Scholar documents that,  "The kind of evidence field archaeologists like is the pavements of Ile-Ife, a former Yoruba capital. This is made from broken potsherds, that were decorated by rolling corncobs over their surface before firing. Paul Mangelsdorf who has seen some of the shreds assured me that they were indeed maize. Another interpretation of the Yoruba tradition is that the Capital was moved from Ile-Ife to old Oyo about AD 1100 or earlier If so this site provides hard evidence that archaeologists want for American plants in Africa in pre-Columbian times". Whatever the actual date is, the pavement was in existence before Christopher Columbus sailed to America, if indeed Maize is originally from America and the pottery in Ile-Ife has maize imprints on it, then there is a possibility that people from  America visited the Yorubas or the Yorubas visited people in America. Scholar Robin Walker seems to assert that there was a pre-Columbian interaction between the Yorubas and the Americans while Scholar Frank Willett says that although it is a possibility it falls short of proof. There have been a lot of disagreements some say that Maize was introduced through the Arabs, while others question the geographical origin of maize itself. What do you say?