Some historians have stated that Pedro Nino, one of the pilots of the command ship of Columbus was an African. Various writers have also pointed, from time to time, over many years, of West African explorers. Columbus himself insisted that the lands he discovered were well known even before he found them and not unknown as the envious and ignorant say. When the Church discovered that Muslims from West Africa were actually doing so, they launched the Naval Crusade, the brutal slavery of West Africans and the colonisation of the whole Muslim world. Western Europe had to break out.
Many people are under the impression that the root cause of colonialism was economics.
Nothing further could be from the truth. Indeed, the concept of secularism is approximately two hundred years old. Thus, all historical events should be interpreted using a religious reference frame, and not the secular, economic or political reference frame because secularism as a concept and a way of life did not exist when the voyages of discovery were taking place. Using the correct reference frame, that is, the religious one, a totally different picture emerges as to what the voyages of discovery, slavery and colonialism were all about. Their history books have to be read with a fine toothcomb using the Islamic reference frame.