This is a third hand account, reported by the Egyptian al-Umari to be something he heard from a friend that the King Mansa Musa had said about his predecessor. Musa had made a pilgrimage to Mecca in the years 1324-5 (CE), making a lasting impression on the communities through which the royal entourage passed.

al-Umari recorded this anecdote from his informant, Ibn Amīr Ḥād̲j̲ib, that Musa, speaking about Abubakri II (aka "Mansa Qu"). So with that sketchy -- but contemporary- provenance al-Umari speaks of Musa saying

The ruler who preceded me did not believe that it was impossible to reach the extremity of the ocean that encircles the earth (meaning Atlantic), and wanted to reach to that (end) and obstinately persisted in the design. So he equipped two hundred boats full of men, as many others full of gold, water and victuals sufficient enough for several years. He ordered the chief (admiral) not to return until they had reached the extremity of the ocean, or if they had exhausted the provisions and the water. They set out. Their absence extended over a long period, and, at last, only one boat returned. On our questioning, the captain said: 'Prince, we have navigated for a long time, until we saw in the midst of the ocean as if a big river was flowing violently. My boat was the last one; others were ahead of me. As soon as any of them reached this place, it drowned in the whirlpool and never came out. I sailed backwards to escape this current."

No traces of these boats have ever been found, nor is it actually clear that he said this. West African watercraft of the time were canoes-- some reputed to be large enough to carry 100 warriors. That said, they are not known to be blue ocean navigators; the canoes were for coastal and river travel, and the Malians are much more well known for crossing oceans of desert than water. Given prevailing trade winds, it would be relatively easy, accidentally or intentionally, to reach the Caribbean or South America from West Africa, but much harder to get back.

In terms of Malian sources, there's the Sunjata/Sundiata epic, which is challenging as to historicity. More importantly, it doesn't mention any such sea voyage.

We have other Arab historians who mention Mansa Qu-- notably ibn Battuta who did travel to Mali, and ibn Khaldun who didn't, but who has many reports of Mansa Musa; neither mention ocean going vessels, or this story. A careful reading of the sources suggests that Mansa Musa's suggestion that Mansa Qu might have disappeared into the ocean may be related to dynastic issues-- note the phrase where Mansa Musa describes Mansa Qu as "the ruler who preceded me", which Levtzion takes to mean "not my father". If you take this snippet of al-Umari to be an accurate reading, then you have a reason why Musa might represent Qu as having "disappeared into the ocean", there's some indication that he may be have been a usurper, from another lineage. The Malian oral epic, the Sunjata/Sundiata, says nothing about the seafaring Kings and is merely suggestive the dynastic issue.

You will find a von Daniken like literature asserting African travel to the Americas, works like

THEY CAME BEFORE COLUMBUS: THE AFRICAN PRESENCE IN ANCIENT AMERICA. By Ivan Van Sertima. New York: Random House, 1977

A review of this book in the International Journal of African Historical Studies reflects scholarly estimation of the quality of these claims:

Deep in the bowels of respectable libraries is a curious shelf of works catalogued around Library of Congress number E 101 - 105. Here one finds that nearly every civilization in the world claims to have discovered and left cultural imprints on the Americas prior to the arrival of Columbus in 1492. Both hypothetically and methodologically, these contentions run the gamut from the serious to the absurd. One of Africa's entries in the pre-Columbian sweepstakes is a predecessor of Mansa Musa to the throne of the Mali Empire, who according to an Egyptian source commissioned two fleets to explore the Atlantic early in the fourteenth century. But numerous suggestions of pre- Columbian contact between the continents have been raised, citing cultural traits, linguistic similarities, and botanical and other evidence to support their hypotheses.1

Ivan Van Sertima's They Came Before Columbus is the first monographic treatment of this problem since Leo Wiener's Africa and the Discovery of America (3 vols., Philadelphia, 1920-1922), although M. D. W. Jeffreys has littered the intervening fifty years with articles on various aspects of it, often drawing heated responses from more cautious and systematic scholars.2 The appearance of Van Sertima's book should be an occasion to review, hopefully with his help, the major questions surrounding this issue. Unfortunately, however, his work is a strenuous attempt to extend the boundaries of absurdity in a genre which has never attracted much rigorous scholarship in the best of times. Africanists who read They Came Before Columbus will come away convinced that the manuscript was never seriously critiqued. In fact, its content and format raise questions about the motivations of everyone involved, from the author to his publishers, in marketing a relatively expensive, useless publication.

Ouch. That's harsh . . . but justified.

Mansa Musa is an important figure in medieval Islamic history, and we wish we knew more about the Malian Empire than we do; so lots of things "are possible", but until we've got some more evidence, chalk this one up as "a story". I suppose that if you wanted to indulge this speculation as a diversion, you might get a hand on van Sertima's book, just understand that the scholarly community isn't impressed by it.

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Sources:

Mansa Mūsā - Entry in the Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edition

ʿUmarī, Masālik al-abṣār (written Cairo 737 or 738/1337-8), French tr. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, L’Afrique moins l’Egypte, Paris 1927

J. F. P. Hopkins and Levtzion, ed. and tr. Corpus of early Arabic sources for West African history, Cambridge 1981

The Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Kings of Mali

The Canoe in West African History

Searching for History in the Sunjata Epic: The Case of Fakoli

Reviewed Work(s): They Came before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America by Ivan Van Sertima Review by: Ronald W. Davis

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