What is the theory that Native Americans were racially Black?

 

There is no such theory (“theory” in a scientific sense). There are just vague assumptions, conspirationist websites and fringe hypotheses (yes, a hypothesis, not a theory, because it’s not backed up by scientific evidences produced and peer-reviewed by several scientists).

As far as I have seen, it’s mostly based on some few very arguable “scientific” evidences:

1) some paintings and sculptures of Pre-Columbian America that they think “look quite like black people” (very subjective and, considering the stylized and definitely not hyper-realistic art of Native Americans, possibly quite misleading);

2) some accounts by the first European travellers about “black-skinned people” (maybe someone who has actually seen sun-exposed Native Americans of tropical Latin America would not be surprised by Europeans, who had never known about their existence, saying that those Amerindians had “black skin”, because it is indeed a lot darker than anything they could find back in Europe);

3) and, though I find it just bafflingly naïve, some also think that their assumption is backed up by pictures and sculptures of the 18th century and 19th century, many of them made in the Caribbean region, which was the first to experience the catastrophic decline of the Native American population and to watch its almost wholesale replacement by Europeans and, in that region, by African slaves. Some centuries after the initial settlement of the Caribbean, people even mentioned that “the indigenous peoples went extinct”, because they had become a small minority, and most of their ancestry was very diluted with extensive admixture with blacks and whites. It’s well known that many enslaved blacks managed to run away and established communities deep into the forests, where they often absorbed or were absorbed by the remnants of the Amerindian tribes. Those black natives you may see in the paintings and sculptures of the 18th century (but curiously not in the artworks of the early 16th century, such as the Codexes of the Spanish conquerors) are actually Caribbean forest villagers descended heavily from African fugitives.

No modern, mostly unmixed Native American people fit into the generic label of “black race”. The major exceptions who really represent black Native Americans, like the Garifuna, have already been proven to descend from recent admixture events with West African and Central African immigrants in the last few centuries, so that’s a completely different matter, their ethnogenesis is post-Columbian and involved mixing with modern African ethnicities, not any ancient, deeply diverged “black Amerindian” lineage that would’ve come to the continent many thousands of years ago.

Besides, several dozens of ancient DNA samples from the Americas have already been recovered and tested, and they all, without any exception, plot very close to the modern “Siberian-like” Native Americans and have the same basic genetic structure that they have, which is deeply related to the Paleo-Siberian population (whose ancient DNA has also been analyzed already) and, via them, to the Ancient North Eurasians and Ancestral East Asians. The scientists found no evidences of African DNA ancestry at all.

 

 

The people who claim that the original native americans are black are afrocentrists from the african american community who are erasing native american heritage. They tend to disrespect native americans and claim that african americans are indigenous to the americas. Here is an example:

This shows an example of how afrocentrists can erase other's people's heritage including heritage which isn't theirs. They claim that the mayans were black as well even though the mayans depicted themselves in different colours:

They can't even acknowledge the fact that modern day mayans resemble the pre colonial ones:

Instead they cherry pick images of african americans and use pre colonial statues of mayans to prove that african americans resemble pre colonial mayans. Afrocentrists also claim the aztecs as well and that the were black

Not only the mayans, aztecs but also the rest of native american history such that of the olemcs, incas and the native americans of the united states. They have been afrocentric attempts to claim the olemcs. Afrocentrists can't even prove that they're native americans who resemble olmec features:

The thing is that modern day native americans are descended from whose ancestors have lived in the americas since the pre historic times. People in the americas who have native american ancestry proved who they are:

This DNA tests can debunk afrocentric claims on black native americans. However 1% african americans has native american ancestry while the majority of african americans are of sub saharan african origin

Afrocentrists once more should focus on sub saharan african heritage instead, they should stop claiming and stealing other people's history!!