A RE-APPRAISAL OF AFRICAN ANCESTRY IN MEXICO’S ANCIENT PAST

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show how African ancestors had made important physical and cultural presence in Mexico years long before Christopher Columbus was said to have ‘discovered’ the Americas, the New World. The conventional but ‘predominantly Western constructed’ history which has continued to shape the perspectives of most African historians suggests that Africa’s first contacts with the Americas were occasioned by the events of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Africa and its people were believed to have had no historical presence in the pre-Columbian America, and anything in contrary to this ‘established knowledge’ is unacceptably considered a hysterical speculation and not history. However, a number of archaeological and cultural evidence bearing irresistible African attributes recovered in some parts of Mexico in recent times have come to put this conventional history and its established knowledge under serious scrutiny. It is, thus, against the backdrop of these new emerging but challenging pieces of evidence that this study derives its motivation and essence. It focuses on the possible attractions of Africans to the Americas in the pre-Columbian period, and the antiquity and impact of African civilisation on Mexico’s ancient past. The paper having organised its discussion thematically adopts an historical method of analysis where some cultural comparisons are interpreted and explained. The paper argues that Africans had maintained contacts with the peoples around the coast of Mexico years before the Europeans came in contact with the Americas and, in that right, made important contributions to the rise of Meso-American civilisations. Sources of information available to the study include archival material, leading intellectual conversations on the subject matter, magazine articles, special reports, journal articles, and a few texts.