Two black explorers came to North America before Christopher Columbus.
The pilot, Pedro Alonzo Nino, of the Santa Maria was black.
True, false, or unverifiable?
It would certainly be verifiable. All you gotta do is check the archives for the manifests . I found several mentions of Nino, but no archives on the web.They prob. got lost in the Y1.5K crash. I didn’t find anybody denying that he was black. Spain was once a Moorish provence, quite recently from Columbis’ point of view. Blacks were called ‘los moros’ by the Spaniards.There were a lot of them in the exploration parties. The most famous of them to us Texans is Estevan,who was shipwrecked with Cabeza de Vaca on Galveston Island in 1528.The two of them walked across Texas (They originated " The sun has riz, the sun has set. Here we is in Texas yet.") and into Mexico. They are considered to be the first “Europeans” in Texas. There is no question that Estevan was black.The old Spaniards usually mentioned the "nationality ’ of the crewmen. He later explored the Southwest. I don’t see any reason to claim Nino was black when it can be proved or disproved so easy. I don’t know who the other guy was, probably the guy they made jump out of the rowboat and pull it ashore so Chris wouldn’t get his zapatos wet. Sorry about that Long Texas history lesson, but Ol’ Cowhead and Steve are a couple of my favorite guys.
“Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”-Marx
I seem to recall that Ol’ Cowhead was the first surgeon in Texas. That true?