• This is the only continent from which all the almost 8 billion people have the same root, since Africa is the cradle of humanity.
• From the first tools and arts to our alphabet, they have an African origin.
• Africa was the cradle of great civilizations (Egypt and Carthage to the North, Mali, Ghana, Timbuktu and others in the West, Ethiopia in the East and Zimbabwe in the Southeast).
• In Africa there were great sailing towns. The empires of Egypt, Carthage and Mali crossed the ocean. The island of Madagascar and other parts of East Africa were interconnected with the islands of Southeast Asia, from which the Polynesians who arrived in continental America also left.
• The Bible claims that its first books were written by Africans, who were freed slaves who left Egypt for the “Promised Land”.
• Iberia is the European region most influenced by Africa, from which it is separated by only 14 kilometers from the Strait of Gibraltar. For 12 centuries it was colonized by North Africans. Carthage baptized this peninsula as Hispania and Barcelona has its name from the family of Aníbal Barza, the only African who arrived with his army in Rome. The first time Iberia had an important civilization of its own was during the 8 centuries of North African rule, which made this peninsula the melting pot of Western mathematics, science, arts, literature, medicine and engineering.
• Spanish and Portuguese are the only European languages in which 10% of their words have Semitic origins from North Africa.
• Iberia is the only region in Europe with internal African regions: Azores and Madeira are autonomous regions of Portugal and the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla are autonomous regions of Spain.
• The PALOP (African Countries with an Official Portuguese Language) were the first and also the last European dependencies in black Africa. The PALOPs are Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, Angola and Mozambique, all of which came to have Rio de Janeiro as their capital.
• Buenos Aires became the capital of Equatorial Guinea. This republic, like in Western Sahara and Morocco, were also Spanish colonies where many Spanish-speakers still persist. .
• All of Columbus’ trips departed from the African Canary Islands. The first time Columbus arrived in South America, he did so from the African archipelago of Cape Verde. It is speculated that he followed a route that the African Empire of Mali had made two centuries before, which became the richest in gold on the planet and also sent dozens of ships to cross the Atlantic.
• After the conquistadors depopulated various parts of the Americas with their epidemics and abuse, Europeans repopulated their American colonies with millions of African slaves whom they hunted, caged, and transported like beasts.
• Although Africans were treated as subhumans and as the lowest caste of all in the New World, their influence was essential in the history, society, economy, culture and religion of the US, Latin America and the Caribbean. Today half of the 35 independent states and 25 dependent territories of the Americas have majorities of African origin.
• The first Latin American independences were achieved by African slaves. Four centuries ago, Spain recognized the sovereignty of the lands liberated in Veracruz (Mexico) by the Guinean maroon Gaspar Nyanga. In 1804 the African slaves were creating in the then very rich island of Haiti the first Latin American republic, from which Francisco Miranda would arrive in the first liberating expedition of South America.
• The percentage of Ibero-Americans who have Africans cannot be specified, but it is likely that this number will reach a third of the almost 800 million that we are.
TRIBUTE TO AFRICA ON HIS DAY
