Asians in early America

Aeon ^ | 13 June 2023 | Diego Javier Luis

[Theoria]

NW Coast is full of opportunities for drift and landings. There have been many sites found of chinese porcelain and other artifacts up and down the coast. Even suspected ancient Roman artifacts and other ancient possibilities out there.

Some castaways and travelers who lived some crazy lives:

Otokichi

Tanaka Shōsuke

Metallurgy in pre-Columbian America

[Theoria]

travel, ping.

[Destroyer Sailor]

We know very little of pre Columbian exploration of the Americas. We have myths and legends and in some cases archaeological evidence but understanding of such finds and what they mean are limited.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Bookmark

[marktwain]

Kind of silly talking about a few “Asian” sailors on Spanish vessels, when the whole two continents were settled by Asians who crossed over from Siberia thousands of years earlier.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Thanks for posting these great articles. I’ve lived in California for 50 years (now splitting time in North Idaho) and never knew about the Portuguese “recruiting” Philippino sailors to sail across the Pacific to North America.

The use of “drift iron” by the Tlingit and Chinookan peoples is fascinating. Imagine you are in a primitive tribe without any exposure to people and technology from other parts of the world and parts of ships float onto your beach with iron straps, bolts, nails and other iron parts. What would you make of this miraculous new material arriving from the sea?

[beef]

“I winced rather predictably as I read ‘discovery’.”

I get so tired of this. Europeans are said to discover things because they were in the habit of making a record of it and then sharing that record with the rest of the world. Discovery means nothing if you don’t spread the knowledge.

[Larry Lucido]

Ah, but the Chinese restaurants and laundries were still way off in the future.

[Vaduz]

Settled in colonies from Mexico to Peru

So noodles didn’t catch on or did they bring the taco to the land?.

[Theoria]

The silliness the that they appeared on the continent and went into a dark age, like the first settlers of Australia. Those groups never formed groups or developed societies capable of sailing supremacy, while other cultures did, and sailed. The dark ages of Australia and the first peoples of the Americas are unknown. Just as Africa didn't conquer and develop Madagascar, a few miles form their shores, but Malaysian sailors, traveling thousands of miles away did. History is unique in every way.

[Vigilanteman]

At one time, most scientists thought the whole two continents were settled by Asians who crossed over from Siberia thousands of years earlier.

Now, they are less sure. I studied under a legendary professor named Ed Milligan (He Topa was his Sioux name after the tribe adopted him) who thought they were only a part of the migration. People thought he was an unorthodox crazy in those days. Now, they are actually strating to pay attention to some of what he wrote and collected.

[ifinnegan]

Ok comrade.

[rfreedom4u]

According to the book 1421, Zheng He was the first to come to the Americas.

[Fai Mao]

Which means the Chinese claim North and South America. Zheng He sailed to a place, that makes it Chinese

[bunkerhill7]

A Chinese stone anchor was discovered in Los Angeles harbor a few years back. It was in the newspapers

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Theoria!

[zeestephen]

Thanks, Theoria. Very interesting post.

Curiously, the author seems to have ignored the fact that indigenous North Americans started coming here from Asia at least 16,000 years ago.

They crossed the temporary glacial era land bridge from Russia to Alaska, and walked, or sailed, down the Pacific coast line to Oregon and the southern California islands.

Almost all their camp sites and villages have been washed away by several miles of ocean, which grew and grew as warmer weather melted the glaciers.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Well, the NM Zuni tribe is kind of a standout. Their DNA is unrelated to any of the other tribes in the region, but is closely matched to ancient Japanese. Likewise, their art is similar, again, to ancient Japanese.

Importantly, this had to have happened before the arrival of the Navajo, 800 to 1000 years ago, as they would have made an impenetrable barrier.

[Grimmy]

I suspect it goes a lot earlier than this.

Most folks just don’t understand how brutal the Han conquest of China was.

We see it still in play in western China where the adult males are rounded up and imprisoned in concentration camps (often to await donor match for their organs, then vivisection to fill the order), while the women are assigned proper Han husbands to produce Han children.

The culture and language suppressed with the goal of obliteration.

This is how the Han have done it since they began their expansion.

Seems to me there would have been several fleets of people trying to escape. And with tides and storms, some of those fleets may well have ended up on the western coasts of the Americas.

[Bonemaker]