Why did black Africans never build ships and sail the world?

Question

Or at least if they did, why are there no comparitive records of say an African Marco Polo or Columbus ?

Please, its a straight up question.

the last thing I want is for it to turn into a hate question and if it does I promise i will delete it right away.

its not Racism, racism mean you think one race is superior which is blatantly not the question here.

& i know little of black history which is why i asked the Q.

Answer 1

Ok, lets first look at those who have set sail to discover the world. What was their motive? Lets face it, with all the good it could have done in order to find more resources and such, their underlying motive was recognition for themself.

Now lets look at African culture. History is that they place much more value on "the group". They tend to stick together, which can suppress individuality and force a community to conform. They focus on the betterment and survival of their community.

It seems to me that as a whole, the African view on life is "what is, just is." It's a very difficult psyche for those who do fight for, well, just about everything, to understand. I'm not saying the culture has never taken a stand. There have been groups of individuals who have fought, but without 100% support, their efforts take an insignificant chunk out of an entirely horrible attitude toward human life.

I don't feel that anyone has the right to suppress anyone else. However, there is an obvious difference in psychology between Blacks and non-blacks. Those who have conquered so much in this world have the attitude of "kill or be killed". It's their individual survival that reigns. If these efforts were put toward a common good, of course, things would be different.

Unfortunately, wherever a footprint has been left by Whites or Asians, there seems to have been more of a negative than positive result.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

Because it shoots an arrow right through their theories of who and who is not intelligent- or genuis minded. As you say, many of African contribution (as well as African American) have been ignored or plain credited to whites. There is a certain moronic user on here, who tries to single out blacks as barbaric, unintelligent and thieves of history- yet, when someone asked about the youngest genuis in the world- who happens to not only be female, but AA. All he could say is "I'm not worried about what 'one' black is." But, yes, they are worried. that is why they lie. I read a book by W.E.B Dubois, and there is an actaul account of a black slave in America- that created a machine to help advance cropping. Did he recieve due credit? of course not. Did his invention no doubt stimulate many more to come? of course it did. The man who owned him on paper, was so jealous- he made him stop working for the other farmers. So, yes, jealousy is the biggest motivator of these people who disregard black accomplishment, or just completely color over it in white. They are jealous jsut as Napolean was. They are just as jealous today as they were thousands of years ago. I have found that black people who care, and are educated- even some who are not formally taught- to be some of the smartest people I've ever encountered. I have not doubt in my mind, that if there was more unity and more structure- and more present fathers- blacks would be a lot wealthier on a whole.

Answer 4

Wood issues.

Africans engaged in a lot of exploration in the ancient world. Most of their exploration was limited to foot travel, as the dense forests and the specific type of wood necessary for shipwrights to manufacture and create a shipping industry were not there, and the right type of trees were not there either.

It took Europeans more than 1000 years to get triangular sails and astrogation so that they could sail outside the sight of land. Africans were as evolved if not more evolved in astrology than Europeans when the age of sail started, but lacked the raw timber, and the history of ship building that comes with that much timber.

Further, the nature of crops and textiles were different in that the strength of sail required for open-sea sailing was not possible for Africans until new crops were imported and grown for textiles in the 15th and 16th centuries. The fabric strength was not there for a strong enough sail for open sea vessels.

The major impass to African seafaring was a lack of raw natural resources in early development that never came. Interesting though, African mining and agriculture surpassed Europeans, save in agriculture the exception being the Celts of ancient Wales.

Answer 5

i know that people will say that i'm a nutjob or conspiracy theorist for writing this but oh well.There are archaeologist out there who have been trying to change the accepted view of history.They have come across many things that would lead one to believe that people other than the europeans were travelling worldwide. They believe that africa and the americas had trade as far back as 1500 b.c.They have found many different arifacts here that are of african origin.But of course anything that can be brought showing that our view of history is inaccurate will not be openly mentioned,it will promptly be dismissed as mere fantasy,myth or legend no matter what kind of archaeological evidence they have

Answer 6

Not going to happen, sorry. But the Chinese had a good navy, they disbanded it, and it wasn't for imperial conquest. But as far as the whole African exploring, maybe the Egyptians did some exploring to a point. But I can't think of any of instances. Maybe it has to do with fear of open water.

Answer 7

God had endowed that continent with plentiful natural resources. The aboriginees were happy until the white man came exploring!.The explorers eploited them and enslaved them.
Most probably after a century from now the world would know what Arica was? AND how the wetrerner painted it black!

Answer 8

They may have had fear of the Ocean and getting Sea sick? Busy fighting for life and survival in the jungle, from animals
And there was no Queen rich enough to subsidize the building of Large vessels and Exploration trips.

Answer 9

because unlike europeans(no intention to make that sound racist) they weren't greedy and looking to conquer the whole world by expanding their empire. like in places like india or the americas which they conquered all. they were just happy where they were at is my guess. but once the european settlers found that native americans (ppl who were happy where they were at too) weren't good slaves because they knew the land and would run away well, they offered the africans free rides to america, the carribean,south america, etc to go live a happy life as slaves. so i guess they really couldn't. and the ones who didn't go well i guess they had their own problems at home, eh?

Answer 10

To busy competing in the Olympics