Tacoma Art Museum Docents Blog TAM Docents Blog: TAM: about Abubakari

This information is related to the Aminah Robinson exhibition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abubakari_II

Abubakari II was a prince of the Mali Empire, the successor of his brother Mohammed ibn Gao and predecessor of Kankan Musa I. Abubakari II appears to have abdicated his throne in order to explore "the limits of the ocean"; however, his expedition never returned. Malian scholar Gaoussou Diawara has argued that he reached the Americas some time in the early 14th century, but these claims have not been widely accepted.

Ivan van Sertima, a Guyanan scholar teaching at Rutgers University in New Jersey, also makes the case that Abubakari II travelled to the New World in They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America.

Africa’s “greatest explorer”

Wednesday, 13 December, 2000

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1068950.stm

Who Came Before Columbus? By Hisham Aidi

http://faculty.mdc.edu/jmcnair/Joe26pages/Who%20Came%20Before%20Columbus.htm

African Sailors and a Vanished Colony

http://www.texancultures.utsa.edu/publications/exploration/chapternine.htm

Heide Fernandez-Llamazares

Assistant Museum Educator and Docent Coordinator

hllamazares@TacomaArtMuseum.org

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