The American Negro

Abstract Paradoxical as it may seem, the Negro goes as far back in the history of the new world as any of the old-world groups. Indeed, there are theories that African Negroes crossed the Atlantic at its narrowest point, landed on the South American continent, and influenced Indian civilization before the arrival of the white man. These theories have been set forth in great detail by Professor Leo Wiener, formerly of Harvard University. Whether the finds of Wiener be regarded as matters of fact or of conjecture, data exist which show that Negroes had a part in the accepted discovery of America and its exploration. There are some grounds for believing that the pilot of Columbus’s flagship on the first voyage and the Nina on the third voyage was a Negro. He was Pietro (or Pedro or Pero) Alonzo. In the “Libretto” (1504) there are a number of references to him as “Alonzo, the Negro.” Once he is referred to as “Alonz, Negro companion of the Admiral.” Similar references are made in other early reports of the voyages of discovery. Whatever may be the fact concerning Alonzo’s race (Thacher states that the word “Negro” as used in the “Libretto,” which became current in following publications, was in the first instance the result of a typographical error), it is known that Negroes were numerous in Portugal and Spain long before Columbus sailed, and that many of them followed the sea; so it is not beyond likelihood that Negroes were among the crews of the three voyages. However that may be, authentic history attests the fact that there were Negroes with Balboa, Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto, and with the other great explorers. One of the survivors of the ill-fated expedition led by De Narvaez was a Negro called Estevanico.