Atlantic voyage of the predecessor of Mansa Musa

Abu Bakr II (fl. 14th century), also spelled Abubakri and known as Mansa Qu, may have been the ninth mansa of the Mali Empire. He succeeded his nephew Mansa Mohammed ibn Gao and preceded Mansa Musa. Abu Bakr II abdicated his throne in order to explore "the limits of the ocean".

Background

Abu Bakar was one of two sons of Kolonkan, a sister of the founding emperor Sundiata Keita. He was the last of a mini-dynasty within the Keita clan of emperors descending from Kolonkan. After his abdication in 1311, the Faga Laye mini-dynasty would control the empire.

Reign

Virtually all that is known of Abu Bakr II is from the account of Chihab al-Umari. Al-Umari visited Cairo after Mansa Musa stopped there during his historic hajj to Mecca, and recorded a conversation between Musa and his host, Abu'l Hasan Ali ibn Amir Habib. According to Musa, Abu Bakr became convinced that he could find the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, and outfitted two expeditions to find it.

Al-Umari quotes Mansa Musa as follows:

The ruler who preceded me (that is, Abu Bakr II) did not believe that it was impossible to reach the extremity of the ocean that encircles the earth (the Atlantic Ocean). He wanted to reach that (end) and was determined to pursue his plan. So he equipped two hundred boats full of men, and many others full of gold, water and provisions sufficient for several years. He ordered the captain not to return until they had reached the other end of the ocean, or until he had exhausted the provisions and water. So they set out on their journey. They were absent for a long period, and, at last just one boat returned. When questioned the captain replied: "O Prince, we navigated for a long period, until we saw in the midst of the ocean a great river which was flowing massively. My boat was the last one; others were ahead of me, and they were drowned in the great whirlpool and never came out again. I sailed back to escape this current." But the Sultan would not believe him. He ordered two thousand boats to be equipped for him and his men, and one thousand more for water and provisions. Then he conferred the regency on me for the term of his absence, and departed with his men, never to return nor to give a sign of life.

Trans-Atlantic travel

Ivan van Sertima formerly of Rutgers University, and Malian researcher Gaoussou Diawara, proposed that Abu Bakr II traveled to the New World.

Most archaeologists, anthropologists, ethnohistorians, linguists, and other modern pre-Columbian scholars say that there is no evidence of any such voyage reaching the Americas, and that there are insufficient evidential grounds to suppose there has been contact between Africa and the New World at any point in the pre-Columbian era. For views representative of this point of view, see the considerations on the question advanced in Haslip-Viera et al. (1997), who for example note "no genuine African artifact has ever been found in a controlled archaeological excavation in the New World". See also the supporting responses in peer-review printed in the article, by David Browman, Michael D. Coe, Ann Cyphers, Peter Furst, and other academics active in the field. Ortiz de Montellano et al. (1997, passim.) continues the case against Africa-Americas contacts. Other prominent Mesoamerican specialists such as UCR Riverside anthropology professor Karl Taube are confident that "There simply is no material evidence of any Pre-Hispanic contact between the Old World and Mesoamerica before the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century".

A BBC article titled "Africa's greatest explorer", summarizes the controversy from the perspectives of the scholars and historians in Mali.

See also

• Keita Dynasty
• Mali Empire
• Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories

Notes

References

• Austen, Ralph A.; Jan A. M. M. Jansen (1996). "History, Oral Transmission and Structure in Ibn Khaldun's Chronology of Mali Rulers" (PDF online reproduction at DSpace Leiden University). History in Africa. 23 (1). Waltham, MA: African Studies Association: 17–28. doi:10.2307/3171932. ISSN 0361-5413. JSTOR 3171932. OCLC 2246846. Retrieved 2008-04-12.
• Baxter, Joan (2000-12-13). Written at Mali. "Africa's 'greatest explorer'". BBC News Online. London: BBC. Retrieved 2008-04-10.
• Bell, Nawal Morcos (1972). "The Age of Mansa Musa of Mali: Problems in Succession and Chronology". International Journal of African Historical Studies. 5 (2). New York: Africana Publishing, for the Boston University African Studies Center: 221–234. doi:10.2307/217515. ISSN 0361-7882. JSTOR 217515. OCLC 48537235.
• Cooley, William Desborough (1841). The Negroland of the Arabs Examined and Explained; or, An Inquiry into the Early History and Geography of Central Africa. London: J. Arrowsmith. OCLC 4760870.
• Haslip-Viera, Gabriel; Bernard Ortiz de Montellano; Warren Barbour (June 1997). "Robbing Native American Cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olmecs" (Reproduced online). Current Anthropology. 38 (3). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, sponsored by Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research: 419–441. doi:10.1086/204626. ISSN 0011-3204. OCLC 62217742. Retrieved 2008-04-10.
• Levtzion, Nehemia (1963). "The Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Kings of Mali". Journal of African History. 4 (3). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 341–353. doi:10.1017/S002185370000428X. ISSN 0021-8537. OCLC 1783006.
• Levtzion, Nehemia (1977). "The western Mahgrib and Sudan". In Roland Anthony Oliver (volume ed.) (ed.). The Cambridge History of Africa: Vol. 3, From c. 1050 to c. 1600. John Donnelly Fage and Roland Oliver (series general eds.) (reprinted 2001 ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 331–462. ISBN 0-521-20981-1. OCLC 185545332.
• Masonen, Pekka (2000). The Negroland Revisited: Discovery and Invention of the Sudanese Middle Ages. Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, Ser. Humaniora, no. 309. Helsinki: Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. ISBN 951-41-0886-8. OCLC 45681680.
• Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard; Gabriel Haslip-Viera; Warren Barbour (Spring 1997). "They Were NOT Here before Columbus: Afrocentric Hyperdiffusionism in the 1990s". Ethnohistory. 44 (2). Durham, NC: Duke University Press, issued by the American Society for Ethnohistory: 199–234. doi:10.2307/483368. ISSN 0014-1801. JSTOR 483368. OCLC 42388116.
• Taube, Karl (2004). Olmec Art at Dumbarton Oaks (PDF). Pre-Columbian Art at Dumbarton Oaks, no. 2. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection; Trustees of Harvard University. ISBN 0-88402-275-7. OCLC 56096117. Archived from the original (PDF online reproduction) on 2008-02-27. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
• Thornton, John K. (2012-09-10). A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250-1820. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521727340.

External links

• Malian praise singer Sadio Diabate, singing about Abubakar II - BBC World Service Audio