Thread by @michaelharriot

If we are going to follow Kimberly Guilfoyle's logic that Puerto Rico isn't part of the United States, then she should also acknowledge another fact that she probably doesn't know:

The first person to settle in America was black.

Who was it?

You tell me.

A thread:

The candidates come down to three choices.

The first one was this fine-ass black dude who might have been enslaved or he might have been an African prince —Historians disagree.

All we know is that he left Kongol, went to Portugal & ended up Spain, converting to Catholicism

This makes sense because Catholic church services are very short and this dude was very young. When he converted to Catholicism, he changed his name to Juan Garrido, which translates to "Johnny Handsome" because...of course.

When Juan was 15 years old, Ponce De Leon asked him:

"Dude, you wanna ride with me to steal some stuff?"

Johnny was like "I'on care. I don't have no gas money though."

But Ponce didn't care. So Pretty Jonny packed a suitcase and rode out.

Many people assume that Ponce was searching for the Fountain of Youth but that's a myth.

Anyway, when they got to the island of Boriken, white people were already there stealing stuff. Plus, the Taino were mad about all these white people showing up to enslave, rape and steal. The problem was, someone nicknamed the island the "Port of Riches," so everyone showed up.

By now, Johnny had already proven that he could fight like a MF, so when Ponce left Puerto Rico to go pillage other places, he was like:

"Hey Johnny, I'mma make you an official conquistador. Let's take 50 of our best thieves and see what we can find."

Johnny was down.

On April 3, 1513, Johnny and Ponce 'nem pulled up to an place they thought was island and stayed for a few days. It turned out that it wasn't an island (I think conquistadors used Mapquest back then and you know how it is when your printer runs out of ink)

But since they technically "discovered" the new land, they had to give it a name. And since they were Catholic, they decided to name it after the s Easter Season. I'm sure Johnny wanted to name it "Steve Harvey Now&Later 23-button Linen Suit" but Ponce overruled Jay.

He named it after The Feast of Flowers, or "La Florida."

They gassed up and peaced out.

Now Ponce was obsessed with La Florida but Johnny had already been named a conquistador so he didn't need Ponce anymore. He was like was like: "I don't even know anyone there" so he left.

Johnny moved to Mexico and was instrumental in genociding 100,000 Aztecs (You know how it is when you're hanging with white boys). He got married, had some kids & started teaching people how to grow crops. Dude could grow ANYTHING.

He was responsible for bringing corn to Europe.

He grew grapes in the desert and is generally considered to be the first human to harvest wheat in the Americas. But unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of cupcake shops in the 1500s so Garrido didn't have a lot of money.

That's when one of his white homies told Johnny a story

Hernando Cortés, another conquistador, told Johnny that he heard about a tribe of Black Amazons who walked around naked all day. They supposedly had hella gold and pearls and, if Johnny was down, they could go steal all of it!

You know Johnny was excited.

He borrowed some money and was out.

So these dudes left Mexico looking for this plush islands that was basically supposed to be a floating Magic City filled with WAP.

And they found it!

Except there were no butt-naked girls named Kesha wearing herringbones and pearl earrings.

There wasn't even a plush vegetation. It wasn't even an island, it was a peninsula!

So they left.

But, of course, they had to name it. So they named this place after Califa, the mythical Black warrior Queen they were looking for.

Johnny was still handsome, but he was broke.

Now how do we know all of this?

Because, when Garrido was broke, he went back to Spain and asked the King for a pension. The King was like: "Do I even know you? Are you supposed to be somebody?"

And Garrido was like: Bruh, You better ask about me. Everybody knows Handsome John!

But you know how white people are. They wanna see your resumé. So, before he would consider giving Johnny a few dollars after Johnny had literally helped conquer the new world Johnny wrote his "probanza," which is how we know he was a Bad MF

Here is the opening (translated):

That's how we know that when the first European stepped foot in Puerto Rico, Garrido was there. He was the first "Florida Man." And long before Tupac recorded California Love, Garrido was there.

There is no white man who has done ALL of this.

But Garrido ain't the baddest.

See, after Garrido stopped hanging out with Ponce, Ponce came back to Florida. Now the King had gave Ponce the right to rule over all of Florida on one condition:

When he landed, he had to basically yell out that he "claimed this land for Spain and King Ferdinand."

I know its funny, but this is how white people justified murder and theft back then. They weren't stealing the land and killing the natives, they were "claiming it."

So when Ponce went back to claim Florida without Handsome Johnny, the Calusa Indians were waiting.

They shot Ponce in the thigh with an arrow dipped in the sap of one of the deadliest trees in the world and Ponce died.

In the first case of whitesplaining, Spain said Ponce was killed by "very savage and belligerous” natives “not accustomed to a peaceful existence.”

As soon as folks Ponce had died from a leaky thighhole, Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón decided he was gonna rule over Fla. He wasn't gonna make the same mistake Ponce made, so he brought 600 ppl, including some enslaved Africans.

There was just one problem:

Ayllón, wasn't an explorer

He was basically running Puerto Rico because he was from a rich family who was loyal to Ferdinand. Ayllón didn't even have his slaves ship driver's license. But he hired his boy to drive a Uhaul ship full of slaves when he heard about that unclaimed land in Fla.... Well kinda.

See, Ayllón actually landed in SC. But, of course, this dumb, rich white boy thought SC was gonna be like Puerto Rico and Florida. By the time that SC winter hit, Ayllon started running out of supplies.

He didn't know that the black slaves were hooking up with the Indians of SC

In Nov. the enslaved black people and the angry native Americans got together and started burning down the settlement, the church and EVERYTHING!

Ayllón hauled ass back to PR and then Spain.

Of the 600 people, only 150 made it back.

Yep, 93 years before the White Lion's 1619 arrival, there had already been a slave revolt in "America."

But that isn't the best story.

It's possible to argue that Garrido et al weren't really Americans because they didn't LIVE in what would become the US.

But Esteban, tho...

After Ayllón got ran up outta, a dude named Pánfilo de Narváez thought he could come to the US. After half his crew left when they heard about Ayllón, a hurricane, a sunk boat and a few rest stops to pee, Narváez made it to present-day St. Petersburg.

Now, this was before native American colleges were out for Spring Break so no one was on the beach. Narváez made the worst decision he could possibly make...

He told the crew to "split up"

WHy do white people like splitting up so much? You think Harriet Tubman told passengers on the Underground Railroad to "split up?"

if white people aren't spraining their ankles during a zombie chase or stopping to "check out that sound," as an ax murderer is in the vicinity...

They're saying: "Let's split up."

Every student of history knows this. That's what the revolutionary war was about. It's what the Civil War was about. It's why there's 2 Dakotas and one Texas.

Stop splitting up, white people!

Anyway, Narváez split up his colonizing crew.

Then this idiot read his "claiming" shit to the Natives, they were like: "Cool, y'all got us. Lemme show you around."

Man, by the time shit was over, there were three white boys left and one enslaved Moor named Esteban.

But instead of getting on a boat, Esteban went INLAND

He became a medicine man. He befriended other natives and crossed the Mississippi before those white boys from Jamestown reached the east coast. He went as far west as New Mexico.

Some people say he was killed by Native Americans because they thought he was an evil sorcerer

Some say he faked his death and blended in with the natives to escape slavery. It's said that Esteban thought the white dudes would show up one day and re-enslave him (It sounds funny until you remember how they like "claiming" shit.)

He's probably dead by now, though.

So, if he was never found how do we know so much about him?

DUh, because other white dudes survived.
Because the natives as far west as Arizona told the story of meeting the first African American.

In fact, there is a historic quote attributed to the Pueblo in AZ:

"The first white man our people saw, was a black man."

And then, 75 years later, the Mayflower would arrive with the "1st American settlers." 250 years later, Lewis & Clark explored the west

But as the great Black historian William R. Norwood Jr. wrote:

"We hit it first."