"Africa:  A Place in the Discovery of the Americas"
 
by:  William S. Stevens III
 
in:  Five Hundred Magazine, Volume 1/No. 1; May/June 1989,
     Coral Gables, FL  33146
     U.S. Christopher Columbus Quincentenary Jubilee Commission
 
     Guinea, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone . . . Did Christopher
Columbus visit these African countries?  Was Africa his training
ground?
     Historians have suggested that the coastline of West Africa
was where Columbus honed and developed his navigational skills;
where his venture into the unknown prepared him for his voyage
and discovery of the Americas.
     The Christopher Columbus-Africa connection is exposed and
most telling in his log of the first voyage to the Americas. 
Following the historic discovery of San Salvador (now part of the
Bahamas) on October 12, 1491, Columbus evidenced his acquaintance
with Africa by recording:
 
     Saturday, 13 October 1492
     "After sunrise people from San Salvador again began to
     come to our ships in boats fashioned in one piece from
     the trunks of trees.  These boats are wonderfully made,
     considering the country we are in, and every bit as
     fine as those I have seen in Guinea."
 
     Sunday, 28 October 1492
     ". . . there are many birds of all sizes that sing very
     sweetly, and there are many palms different from those
     in Guinea or Spain."
 
     Friday, 21 December 1492
     "I have been sailing the seas for 23 years, without
     laying off for any time long enough to be counted, and
     I have seen all the east and west, and I have traveled
     through Guinea. . . ."
 
     Wednesday, 9 January 1493
     ". . . I have seen them (manatees) on other occasions
     in Guinea on the coast of Manegueta (Liberia and Sierra
     Leone, West Africa)."
 
     --The Log of Christopher Columbus by Robert H. Fuson
 
     How is it that Christopher Columbus came to recall such
intimate memories of the west coast of Africa?  Although Columbus
was born of Italian ancestry in the old city of Genoa, fate
placed him in Lisbon, Portugal in the mid 1470's.  It was during
these pre-discovery years with the Portuguese that Columbus
experienced the wonders of sub-Sahara Africa.
     Years before Columbus arrived in Lisbon, the Portuguese,
under such renowned sailors as Henry the Navigator, Fernao Gomes,
Diego d'Azambuja and Bartolomeu Dias had begun to venture south-
ward down the west coast of Africa.
     Beginning as early as 1417, the Portuguese sought to expand
their influence on the African continent, spreading from Morocco
in the north, Equatorial Guinea, S~o Tom and Pr!ncipe at the
equator, and Mozambique around the tip of Africa to the east.
     While many of the exploits of the Portuguese were out of a
sheer desire to see new lands, the riches of gold, ivory, pepper
and regrettably slaves, made Africa so desirable that fortified
bases and castles were constructed along its west coast.  Bases
were established in Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Cape Verde,
Angola, S~o Tom and Pr!ncipe, and Equatorial Guinea, most of
which was characterized as the "Gold Coast".
     Of these bases, the most significant was the castle of S~o
Jorge de Mina.  This castle was constructed under the command of
Diego d'Azambuja between 1481 and 1482, and was used to store the
abundance of gold and other riches discovered in what is now
known as Ghana.
     Columbus, who was in Portugal while all these explorations
and discoveries were unfolding, yearned to be a part; to see; to
witness the changing world.  This was especially so, since prior
to landing in Portugal, he had sailed the regions of the
Mediterranean.  But the thought of sailing south, into the depths
of the dark continent, must have been too enticing.  For as early
as 1477, Columbus had been contemplating an Atlantic "passage to
India."  To gain experience and knowledge for this anticipated
Atlantic crossing, Samuel Eliot Morison, in his book, Admiral of
the Ocean Seas, reveals that Columbus either took part in
d'Azambuja's expedition or made a voyage to Mina (El Mina, Ghana,
West Africa) shortly after the castle was built.  This is proven
by the postils he (Columbus) jotted down on the margins of his
favorite books.  In his copy of Aeneas Sylvius' Historia Rerum,
opposite a passage where Eratosthenes is quoted as to the climate
below the equator being temperate, Columbus writes, "Per-
pendicularly under the equator is the castle of Mina of the most
serene King of Portugal, which we have seen."  With Pierre
d'Ailly's statement that the torrid zone is uninhabitable because
of excessive heat, Columbus disagrees:  "It is not uninhabitable,
for the Portuguese sail through it today, and it is even very
populous, and under the equator is the castle of Mina of the most
serene King of Portugal, which we have seen."  Moreover, in his
famous note to Pierre d'Ailly's speculations on the size of the
earth, Columbus says, "Note that often, in sailing from Lisbon to
the southward into Guinea, I observed carefully the course. . ." 
Morison concludes that Columbus' African exploits took place
during the years 1482-1484.
     Felipe Fern ndez-Armesto, author of Columbus and the
Conquest of the Impossible, best sums up the usefulness of
Columbus' African voyages, and the fact that Africa was an
influence in the discovery of the Americas:  "in the first place,
Columbus could practice the hard art of reading latitudes (though
he frequently made mistakes) over a route where the Portuguese
king had already sent astronomers to make readings that would
serve as a check for Columbus' own calculations.  Secondly, he
could test his own theory of the value of a degree in miles--an
essential factor in calculating the breadth of the ocean he would
have to traverse in his prospective crossing of the Atlantic. 
Thirdly, Columbus could familiarize himself with conditions in
the latitudes he expected to have to explore.  Finally, he could
improve his own mastery of the business of seamanship and his
knowledge of the 'secrets of the world.'"
     On October 12, 1492, Columbus exposed the 'secrets of the
world'--the discovery of the Americas--and Africa was the
training ground.
 
Permission to reprint this article was given by Five Hundred
magazine.
 
                                                       STEVENS1.ART