Annex 28 – Evidence of Chinese Fleets visit to Carolinas/ Virginia/ Mississippi/ Illinois/ North Dakota/ Wisconsin and Maine
1. Maps and star charts
· The Upper Mississippi appears on charts drawn before Europeans reached there, viz. Waldseemueller (1507).
2. Chinese Records and Claims
· Chinese claim Zheng He’s fleet reached N. America (Zayan) (Professor Quanzhong).
3. Accounts of contemporary European historians and Explorers
· Columbus describes people who call themselves Indian = Yin Dian (people from Yin) (Martin Tai).
· Columbus describes horses (Barbara McEwan) and meeting Muslims (Dr Shong).
· Columbus saw great ship (Warsing).
· Early European settlers met Chinese miners – later murdered by Indians – Minnay Sotor river (Scott McLean).
· James Mooney (1861-1921) was one of America’s first anthropologists, and collected many oral history accounts of Native Americans, particularly the Cherokee. One example collected by Mooney tells of a visit to the Cherokee of very tall people from the west: “James Wafford, of the western Cherokee, who was born in Georgia in 1806, says that his grandmother, who must have been born about the middle of the last century, told him that she had heard from the old people that long before her time a party of giants had once come to visit the Cherokee. They were nearly twice as tall as common men, and had their eyes set slanting in their heads, so that the Cherokee called them Tsunil’ Kalu’, “the slant-eyed people,” because they looked like the giant hunter Tsul’ Kalu. They said that these giants lived far away in the direction in which the sun goes down. The Cherokee received them as friends, and they stayed some time, and then returned to their home in the west . . .” Al Cornette
· Strange people found by first settlers (W Kleish, Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony, Lee Miller)
· Nottaway River – first settlers found “white people” (R Perkins).
· Constantine Rafinesque’s book Ancient History or Annals of Kentucky (1824) adduces convincing evidence that the Sioux came from China
· Captain John Smith’s diary (kept while a prisoner of Powhatan,) and Oceanye Ho! (later corrupted to Shawnee) defeated by colonial army in 1794 protested that they were not ”American Indians”.
· Coronado report of junks with gilded sterns found near estuary of Mississippi.
· The Records of the Virginia Company of London, compiled by Susan Myra Kingsbury, in four volumes, Washington, 1906-1935. Volume III, pages 547, 548 contain information extracted from letters sent to the Company by the Governor and Treasurer at the Virginia Colony in March, 1621. The following portion is provided verbatim (with substitution of j for I and v for u where appropriate): “… Furthermore they write that in a voyage made by Lieutenant Marmaduke Parkinson, and other English Gentlemen, up the River of Patomack they saw a China Boxe at one of the Kings houses where they were: Being demanded where he had it, made answer, That it was sent him from a King that dwelt in the West, over the great Hills, some tenne dayes journey, whose Countrey is near a great Sea, hee having the Boxe, from a people as he said, that came thither in ships, that weare cloaths, crooked swords, & somewhat like our men, dwelt in houses and were called Acamack-China: and he offered our people, that he would send his Brother along with them to that King, which offer the Governor purposed not to refuse; and the rather, by reason of the continued constant relations of all those Savages in VIRGINIA, of a Sea, and the way to it West, they affirming that the heads of all those seven goodly Rivers, (the least whereof is greater then the River of Thames, and navigable above an hundred and fifty miles, and not above sixe or eight miles one from another) which fall all into one great Bay, have the rising out of a ridge of hills, that runnes all along South and North; Whereby they doubt not but to find a safe, easie, and good passage to the South Sea, part by water, and part by land, esteeming it not above an hundred and fifty miles from the head of the Falls, where we are now planted; the Discovery whereof will bring forth a most rich trade to Cathay, China, Japan, and those other of the East Indies, to the inestimable benefit of this Kingdom..”. This seems to be tantalizing evidence of North American Indian contact with Chinese explorers – Aleck Loker
Descriptions of men who fought in colonial days described as having “yellow complexions” – Melungeon research – Helen Campbell
4. Local peoples’ descriptions of Chinese or Asiatic peoples and their ancestors, who settled amongst them before Europeans arrived
· Natchez legends “ancestors came by sea from the east” (Du Pratzi 123)
· Chinese landing party ambushed and murdered (Frank Fitch)
· Legends among the Mandan Indians near Bismarck of the great ship that sailed up the river (Rev HR Stockert)
· Dr James P. Scherz interviewed a Menominee Indian (Wisconsin) named Pamita (can be found in “Ancient American, Archaeology of the Americas Before Columbus”). On asking ‘Did you get the little horses from the Vikings?’ he responded ‘No, from the Chinese…People from across the seas came to visit and we went there to visit’ (Joanna Bergeron)
5. Linguistics and languages common to China and New World
· The Ming-Ho language, linguistics, customs and Machado Joseph disease (Jerry Warsing).
· Linguistics – Ming Ho, Lyco Ming, Wyo Ming (J Warsing)
· To local people ‘Mingo’ = foreign nation (Lee Miller)
6. Shipwrecks, Chinese anchors and fishing gear found in the wake of the treasure fleet
· Pedro Menendez de Aviles (first European) found wrecks of Chinese junks off Florida coast.
· Chinese junk found by early settlers buried in Great Dismal Swamp (L A R Clark); This story, we have found out, appeared in Coronet Magazine, p. 34, January, 1945: “…When the government took over the Swamp and dredged some of the ditches, strange looking hulks of ships were found sunk in her marshes. One, a large Chinese craft, had to be cut through. Sunk in her quagmires are the skeletons of other ships that now belong to the ages – all bearing silent testimony that Old Dismal’s rule stretches far down the corridors of time…” – Paul McNamee
· Wrecked Chinese junks found by first Europeans downwind from Virginia, viz. Pedro Menendez de Aviles – off Florida and upwind.
7. Chinese porcelain and ceramics found in the wake of the treasure fleet
· Porcelain shards (blue and white) and sword found by first settlers (R Perkins).
8. Pre-Columbian Chinese jade found in the wake of the treasure fleet
· Chinese jade in Indian burial mounds (Barbosa Rodrigues).
· Chinese jade found in tombs near the Mississippi (Georgia – Nacooche Mound; Michigan Mound (p 269B)
9. Artefacts, gems, votive offerings, coins and funerary urns
Article in Harpers New Monthly Magazine (Feb 1875) that describes some ancient mounds along the Mississippi River near Memphis, Arkansas. It suggests that there was Asian trade with North America as early as 1125 BC. It also describes an Oriental looking Idol and Malay Water Coolers that were found at the bottom of burial mounds that predate European settlement of America. (Bernard Peasley).
10. Stone buildings, artefacts, canals and aqueducts
· Buried stone observation platforms at Rock Lake
· Stone fortresses at 440 10’N, 930 00’ W.
· The cannonball river in North Dakota is home to many round sandstone rocks or “cannonballs” hence the name. Some of these are however considerably larger and made out of different and harder material. There are also legends among the Mandan Indians nr Bismark of a great ship that sailed up the river. This evidence therefore corresponds with the balls found at Moeraki, NZ, North and South Islands and Vancouver Island which each also have supporting local legends (Rev HR Stockert)
· Huge stone wheels found in Portland Harbour, Maine, whilst it was being dredged in the 1950’s (Al St. Amand)
· Urn made in the rope and coil method intricately carved with dragons on the outside (c11in high and 8in in width) was found in Portland Harbour, Maine, whilst it was being dredged in the 1950’s. The celestial Chinese dragon is comparable as the symbol of the Chinese race itself. Dragons are seen as the divine mythical creature that brings wealth and good luck. See gallery for photographs. (Al St. Amand)
· Runestone State Park outside Heavener, Oklahoma has large, flat, upright stone about 10 feet tall by 5 feet wide that has two or three lines of engraved runes that are quite visible and un-obscured by graffiti, lichen or other engravings. The carvings have been said to be Viking runes. The stone is on a currently un-navigable creek that drains into Poteau Creek which is in the Arkansas River watershed. (Richard Kern)
· In Alton Illinois, USA at the convergence of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers there was a 50 ft painted carving of two Lung, painted in the Chinese Imperial colors (colors that the Native Americans did not have at this time) called the Piasa. A team has translated Piasa to mean “water dwarf,” based on the indigenous language of the time (the indigenous people were 6 ft+, at this time). Locals and “experts” claim the words origin means “bird” or “water-leopard.” These explanations have no basis, but persist.
(Jim Kennedy)
· Reader once shown a large stone found in Princeton, BC. It was approximately the size of a basketball but oblong. On the surface were calligraphy characters. No institutions able to determine what the characters were and thought it was a hoax. The reader describes them as looking Chinese. (Jim Hagen)
· Star Foster has directed our attention to the wall at Fort Mtn State Park in Georgia, USA. It’s been dated to 1100 AD and previously been credited to the Cherokee, Welsh and aliens. It runs along a ridge for over a mile, some portions in ruins but some still at least 8 ft tall, with sections that might have been guard stations. They are semi-circular and appear along the wall at regular intervals.
11. Mining operations found by first Europeans when they reached the New World
· Columbus’s secret report describes Chinese Miners in ‘bird boats.’
· Mining operations: ‘Fireholes’ near Nottaway River (R Perkins).
12. Advanced technologies found by first Europeans on arrival in New World
Further research needed
13. Plants indigenous to one continent, found on another
· Cotton plants exported from N America to Africa before Columbus (thence to Cape Verde islands).
· The Cherokee rose – a Chinese flower found by first Europeans (Dr K Tan).
· Maize exported from N America before Columbus found by da Gama in S Africa; and by Magellan in Philippines.
· Mulberry trees, Honewort root and Paulonia Tomentosae (Paulownia or Pallowaddie) trees from China (J Warsing) and “Yellow Delicious” apples (Warsing)
· Rice found by early settlers.
· Amaranth exported to China before Europeans reached N America.
14. Animals indigenous to one continent, found on another
· Columbus describes horses (Barbara McEwan) and meeting Muslims (Dr Shong)
· Assateague wild horses.
· Turkeys reached Europe before Columbus set sail (Professor Wu).
· Japanese Sikka deer: thousands of wild deer in Maryland, USA (Craig Hudson)
· Horse remains found near Lake Superior.
· Elephant remains at 320 50’N, 800 10’ W.
· Turkeys exported from North America to Europe (via Silk Road) before Columbus set sail.
· Chinese hens found by first Europeans in N America.
· Allegators – Article states that the species of alligator found in the South Eastern United States is also found in but one other place on the planet; an isolated area along the Yangtze River in China. In every aspect other than size, they are identical though found 12,000 miles apart. Perhaps this is not an anomaly of nature? (Robert Richards)
15. Distinctive artwork carried from continent to continent
· Native carvings of foreign ships and horses found near tributaries of the Mississippi.
· Carvings of monkeys and elephants.
16. Customs and games exported from China to New World
Further research needed
17. Metal artefacts – amour, metal weapons and metal implements found in the New World
· Armour and sword (R. Perkins)
· A plain brass disk has been unearthed in a very scantly populated area of the eastern United States, several hundred miles from the coast at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. On one side, it bears the inscription of six Chinese words “Da Ming Xuan De Wei Ci” meaning “commissioned to be granted by Xuan De the emperor of Great Ming.” Dr. Siu-Leung Lee, a biochemist and resident of Columbus, Ohio, believes the medallion, and the intriguing circumstances surrounding the local area and people where it was found, could provide proof of Zheng He’s fleets’ contact with North Carolina. To read his press release please click here
18. Trans-oceanic spread of diseases from one continent to another
· Machado Joseph disease is prevalent amongst Melungeons (Jerry Warsing)
19. DNA and physical comparison
· Moskoke tribe have Chinese DNA – inherited after Bering land bridge flooded Novick and colleagues).
· Sioux tribe have Chinese DNA (post Bering Straits landbridge).
· Many readers have commented on the ‘Chinese’ appearance of the Melungeons.
· ‘Chinese’ DNA found amongst Sioux and Cree-Ojibwa peoples of upper Mississippi.
20. Meteorological events and weather
Further research needed
21. Stars and navigation
Further research needed
Related galleries: Metal artefacts
