By Jide Uwechia
(Queen Califia painting by James Gayle)
California, the land of the ever-living Muurish Empress Calafia/Califia. Calafia was the title of each empress. California was her land. She was known to be black of skin, of the muurish nationality, and ruled over Islands and Islands of black people, from California, Baja, to Hawaii.
A muurish Island, ruled by women. It was first mentioned in the records of the western European christians in the seventh century, and retold “The Song of Roland” where a passing mention of a place called Califerne, was made perhaps because it was the caliph’s domain. See (Putnam, Ruth (1917). Herbert Ingram Priestley. ed. California: the name. Berkeley: University of California)
Spanish conquistadors told stories about a mystical black muurish queen that ruled a State of California, situated in the same location as the present day California. The modern state of State California continues the legacy and the memory of this great black Queendom and its Queens.
(Califia, Queen of California painting by Arthur Wright)
The Muurs and Calafia
Khalifa means God’s ruler (in Muurish Arabic).
The story of Calafia was later re-narrated in the book The Adventures of Esplandián, a book written in 1500, probably based on stories gleaned from the old Muurish seamen of Spain, Portugal, Holland, Belgium and England.
Calafia is introduced as “… a regal Muurish black woman, courageous, strong of limb and large in person, full in the bloom of womanhood, the most beautiful of a long line of queens who ruled over the mythical realm of California.”
She supposedly commanded a fleet of ships with which she ruled and maintained peace in the surrounding lands, and islands including Baja and Hawaii. She reportedly kept an aerial defense force of “griffins”, and other fabulous animals which were native to California, trained to defend the land against invanders.
She was so powerful she could project her imperial power over the seas of the mediteranean at will. The Esplandian narrates that Calafia maintained cultural and trading contacts with the Muurs of Africa. It told of her wars in the mediterranean seas, in Anatolia, the Byzantine empire and in southern Europe. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calafia#cite_ref-Sabir2004_23-1
According to the author of The Adventures of Esplandián:
“Know ye that at the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California, very close to that part of the Terrestrial Paradise, which was inhabited by black women without a single man among them, and they lived in the manner of Amazons. They were robust of body with strong passionate hearts and great virtue. The island itself is one of the wildest in the world on account of the bold and craggy rocks.”(Putnam, Ruth (1917). Herbert Ingram Priestley. ed. California: the name. Berkeley: University of California)
The crusader and conqueror of the territory of California Hernán Cortés and his men were familiar with the book. Cortés quoted liberally from the book and it did have an influence on his decision to look for the Island of California. As governor of Mexico he sent out an ill-fated expedition of two ships, one guided by the famous pilot Fortún Ximénez. That expedition did not fare well at all and most of the ships and the men were lost.
In 1535, Cortés led an expedition back to the land of Calafia or California, and decided to re-named it Santa Cruz. However, that name did not stick, as the natives, and the Muurs and the black Indians and red Indians and so-called whites continued to use the ancient and old name of the land “California”.
Cortes himself and his contemporaries appeared to have used the name too. In 1550 and 1556, the name appears three times in reports about Cortés written by Giovanni Battista Ramusio.
Thus over the years of increasing conquest, colonization and rape of the land of California, the ancient land of the muurs has held onto its name and identity, in the knowledge that one day, it will be as it was in the beginning.
African-Americans and Queen Califia
In 2004, the African American Historical and Cultural Society Museum in San Francisco assembled a Queen Califia exhibit, curated by John William Templeton, featuring works by artists such as TheArthur Wright and James Gayles; artistic interpretations of Calafia.
The show displayed a 1936 treatment of Lucille Lloyd’s “California Allegory” triptych, with Queen Califia as the central figure. Templeton said that “Califia is a part of California history, and she also reinforces the fact that African Americans had always been in California. See, Sabir, Wanda. “Wanda’s Picks”. San Francisco Bayview. Retrieved January 2, 2011. http://sigidiart.com/Docs/WandasPicksCalifia.htm
“Califia is a part of California history, and she also reinforces the fact that when Cortes named this place California, he had 300 black people with him. And throughout the whole Spanish-Mexican war, 40 percent of the population was black.” .
Templeton pointed out that most of the navigators on the explorations to the New World were African, because Africans knew how to get the New World.
For instance, Columbus had a black navigator. Muurish (black) folks had been going back and forth between Africa and America from the dawn of time. All they had to do was get in the wind right off the West Coast of Africa.
A Muurish (African) Emperor Abu Bukari took 1,000 ships to the New World in the 1300s. So Muurish navigators and sea men were highly sought in those days that the previously land-bounded Europeans were in their infancy in navigational and maritime sciences.
A black man used to own the San Fernando Valley. That was Pio de Jesus Pico (1801-1894). He was also the last Mexican governor of California. In total, in the 1800s, there were atleast four black governors of the state of California. See Sabir, Wanda. “Wanda’s Picks”. San Francisco Bayview. Retrieved January 2, 2011 http://sigidiart.com/Docs/WandasPicksCalifia.htm
Dr. William E. Hoskins, director of the museum, said that very few people know the story of Queen Califia. He said, “One of the things we’re trying to do is let people have the additional insight and appreciation for the contributions of African Americans to this wonderful country and more specifically to the state of California”. See Sabir, Wanda. “Wanda’s Picks”. San Francisco Bayview. Retrieved January 2, 2011 http://sigidiart.com/Docs/WandasPicksCalifia.htm
Jide Uwechia
Naw so called mexicans never forgot i must say did anybody ever think of looking stuff up Fact is they are in a binding maybe i been busy painting inside my paintings with my ancestors one family no seperators or barriers they forgot who our mother/father was sun pages dont lie slay the ego reborn again we been here forever
The oldest human skeleton ever found in the Americas was of an African woman. They named her ‘Lucy.’ Her remains were found in Brazil.
Obviously, today, there are STARK differences between a Navajo or a Kiowa person from the Americas, and a Haratin Moor or a Fante person from Africa.
But, this fact still and will always remain: Africans were the first (and at the time really the only people who covered the face of the entire earth) people to inhabit not only the Americas, but also Asia, Australia, the entire Pacific Islands (Tasmania, Samoa, Christmas Islands, Tahiti, Solomon Islands…you name it) as well as the peninsula of Eurasia some arrogant folks call the European ‘continent,’ along with Africa itself.
Native Americans originally, were African. Then, as other folks came along, other admixtures appear. Plain and SIMPLE. Right now, in Canada, there are very many dark Native Americans, just as there are dark Native Americans in Mexico.
Many actually say that they CAME from Africa. Along the way, Europeans would make babies with them. In 1600, there wwre 90 MILLION NATIVE AMERICANS in North and Soith America.
By 1900, only TWO MILLION were left in the entire region! So today, there are just as many ‘pale’ Natives, as there are (or even more than) dark ones.
But let’s not get hung up on complexion. The evidence speaks for itself: The Olmec Civilization was African. Not only with the way they depicted themselves, but also the foods they ate, their architecture is a MIRROR-COPY of African architecture.
The plants they bred too.
The Maya depict themselves as dark people. Their hairstyles are also what Africans wore. As well as their jewellery, and how they wore it. Their religion(s) are identical to Old African ones too!
The Ohlone people of California. ..clearly, the painter was not stupid.
The Calafia story is based on ACTUAL people ruled by Queens. Again, Africans were the only people on earth who CONSISTENTLY had no QUALMS about having female, as well as male rulers.
Right from the beginning, in Kush (in what is now Sudan and Egypt), Misri (in what is now Egypt, Sudan, Libya.
Misri, Miziri or Maziri is how Eastern, Central and Southern African descendants of Ancient Egypt called that kingdom – mazi/mai/maji being the various variants of the word for water. I just gave you the renderings for ‘water’ in Luhya (a Kenyan nation/Kikuyu, also a Kenyan nation (the Tigrinya of Eritrea use that same word ‘mai’ for ‘water’ and Swahili for water – maji).
Moving down through the days of Axum (Sudan/Ethiopia/ Eritrea) the quens of the Kongo Empire (Congo/Angola), the Iyoba (queens) of Benin Empire (Nigeria), the days of the Buganda Empire of Uganda…none ever had QUEASINESS regarding rule by women.
Even today, some African countries either have Female heads of state, or female vice presidents. Like, Liberia.
Dahomey Kingdom (in today’s Togo) had an army wing composed of women.
Khalafia was a real person – perhaps with a different name though. Remember, the Moors (actually, the MAURI people) after whom the West African country of MAURITANIA is named, subjugated and occupied Iberia (Spain and Portugal) with the help of Afro-Arabs and white Arabs. They had one thing in common; Islam.
So Spaniard stories depicting ‘black’ people like the one about Khalafia are not fantasy. Spain still has mosques today, built between 700 AD and the Inquisition.
Also, people had been faring between Africa and the Americas for centuries. Later on, after they resettle a ‘newly-white’ Europe – Africans begin travelling from Europe to the Americas again.
The Europeans at that time had a belief that sailing across the Atlantic would make one FALL OF THE EDGE OF THE EARTH.
One wonders how stupid they must have been; wouldn’t the oceanic water have cascaded off the edge too? Anyway. They also believed that the SKY WOULD FALL ON THEM.
Primitive stuff. Whatever.
Meanwhile, Africans knew of GOLD in the Valifornias. Later on, you see Europeans heading off to South America looking for EL DORADO. They knew about what Africans had been talking about. But were combining different stories from different sources.
Today, it’s said the Muisca people of South America had a gold-powder ceremony for the king. He’d bathe in it. But the Spaniards had heard of El Dorado long before they ever heard of the Muisca. See?
Funny enough, someone strikes gold in California, and leads to the GOLD RUSH of 1849-1855.
Queen Khalafia had gold in abundance. She lived in California, and she existed long before 1849.
Mexico’s first (or is it second nowadays) president, Vicente Guerrero was partially African. Clearly, not a descendant of ‘slaves.’
The Miskito people of Nicaragua and Honduras…the list is endless. The evidence even more so.
LUIZA is the oldest NON-AFRICAN skeletal remains found in the Americas, Brazil… To pay homage to LUCY, whom was the previously oldest skeletal remains, found in Africa… (Luiza was named after Lucywho WAS the oldest). Meaning Lucy is what the out of Africa Theory is based on & is no longer factual.
FACT: LUIZA is the oldest skeletal remains found at this current day & time and LUIZA is NEGROID but NOT FROM AFRICA. LUIZA has a completely different D.N.A. & lineage than LUCY. Amen Ra. Ase
I love it we been here forever
This is a story of the real wonder womb-man
love it! a white family has the nerve to be selling almond milk products named “califia farms” with a light beige woman as the image.
Pretty Spot on. Except there is no such Nationality of “African-American’ We are and as the excerpt say we will always be. Muurs
more should be shown about this and other things to offset the devastation that is the “SCIENCE” if what was done and described in the Willy Lynch syndrome. Include in that pictures and movies of modern African Mega Cities, the desecration images that Hollywood generates to demean and belittle people of Color,and the true meaning of Executive order 13603. [ Your wealth can legally be seized by Law exactly like the Nazi -Jew event that in fact did happen…Harry Truman did this] Watch the 1968 documentary that Bill Cosby narrated, and you will see why he is going through what is happening to him now. No man with wealth, when wealth was just that, had to resort to what is being said about him. He exposed many lies that were accepted and told as History, in a day where the true top dog of a Casino Empire is not depicted as the Orange Troll and Demon he is. .
Thank you for providing this great information! I’m amazed that I’ve never before heard or read any of this information before now, but am truly grateful that you’ve rectified the situation!!!
You know non black people is calling Khalafia a myth, now y’all see what the black woman right now is disrespected. It was done out of jealousy,