Black History Web is delighted to announce the addition of a new feature to our web site.

The African Maritime History Archive is a repository for for articles and resources related to the important and often neglected history of African maritime skills and travels. The archive features an extensive collection of articles form historian, Harry Bourne, as well as additional related resources.

We will be adding resources to the archive when they become available so if you have suggestions, please let us know.

AFRICAN MARITIME HISTORY ARCHIVE: The Harry Bourne Collection

“It has long been my opinion that our ancestors were in touch by sea that modern-day academics allow when sneering at what they would they largely dismiss as diffusionism. After some years of being interested in the maritime Celts of west Europe, it occurred to me that it might that be interesting to see what was happening further to the south on the coasts of Africa. Having found there was a mass of material scattered in various places in books, articles and several places online, it seemed possible to bring some of this together and these papers attest my efforts to do so. It wll be very obvious that there is an emphasis on west Africa. As much as anything, these papers represent attempts at particularly answering the views frequently stated that west Africans did not go to sea because they were too scared to do so.” – H.B.

“building a fishing sailboat in the same way his ancestors did hundreds of years ago”