Afro-Latin American

An Afro-Latin American is a person from Latin America who has African ancestry. Concepts of "Black", negro or "African" are vastly different in Latin America than how they are applied within the English-speaking nations of America, since the one-drop theory was never used. Latinos believe the term "Afro-Latino" is not necessary as the term "Latino" itself ecompasses and includes a melée of various ethnic heritages that includes Indigenous, African and European bloodlines. Many in Latin America feel that certain allegedly politically-correct citizens of the United States lack a thorough understanding of what it actually means to be a Latino in America. They feel that many US persons are trying to impose their views on how to define Latino culture by viewing and comparing everyone's history through their own cultural and racial experiences in the United States and not through the cultural and ethnic lens of Latino America itself.

In most Latin American countries, the term "negro" is sometimes used for people with very dark skin or even as a term of endearment regardless of ancestry. People of mixed ancestry are called mulatto, mestizo, or zambo. The difference between the terms is subjective and influenced by cultural biases. Because of the highly miscegenated nature of the majority of Latin America and the subjectivity of terminology, the number of "Afro-Latin Americans" is not able to be calculated though it is clearly substantially larger than the number of African Americans in the United States.

History

Africans first arrived with the Spanish and Portuguese in the 16th Century. For example, Pedro Alonso Niño was a navigator in the 1492 Columbus expedition. Africans arrived in Latin America mostly as part of the Atlantic slave trade as agricultural, domestic and menial laborers and mineworkers. They were also employed in mapping and exploration (for example, Estevanico); and were even involved in conquest (for example, Juan Garrido and Juan Valiente). They were mostly brought from the West Africa and Central African nations of Nigeria, Benin, Angola, and Congo . There was also an existing African diaspora born in Spain and Portugal. Most of the slaves were delivered to Brazil and the Caribbean, but also were to be found everywhere along the Atlantic coast between Mexico and Brazil, including Central America, Colombia and Venezuela. Countries with significant black populations include Brazil (60 million), Honduras, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. Traditional terms for an Afro-Latinos with Amerindian ancestry (or vice versa) include Miskito and Garifuna (in Honduras, Guatemala and Belize), lobo in Mexico, cafuzo or mameluco (in Brazil); and zambo in the Andes and Central America.

The mix of these African cultures with the Spanish, Portuguese and indigenous cultures of Latin America has produced many unique forms of language (e.g., Palenquero and Garífuna), religions (e.g., Candomblé, Santería, Lucumi and Vodun), music (e.g., salsa, bachata, cumbia, plena), martial arts (capoeira) and dance (rumba, merengue). Many of these cultural expressions are now pervasive in Latin America.

The most famous Afro-Latin American is the Brazilian footballer Pelé.

Brazil

Main Article : Afro-Brazilian Around 30% of Brazil's 180 million people are Afro Brazilians.

Colombia

Afro-Colombians make up 26% of the population, mostly concentrated on the northwest Caribbean coast and the Pacific coast in such departments as Chocó. Not all mulattos and zambos define themselves by their ethnic and racial origins, though many are apparently beginning to do so. In practice, it has been argued by observers that Black Colombians may often encounter a noticeable degree of passive racial discrimination and prejudice, as a socio-cultural leftover from colonial times. Many of their traditional settlements around the Pacific coast have remained underdeveloped, for the most part. Black Colombians are affected by Colombia's ongoing internal conflict, both as victims of violence and displacement and also as members of armed factions, such as the FARC and the AUC. Despite these problematic issues, Black Colombians have been able to overcome prejudices and have played a role in contributing to the development of certain aspects of Colombian culture. For example, several of Colombia's musical genres, such as cumbia, have African origins or influences. Also many black Colombians can be found in Cali,Cartagena,and Barranquilla.Colombia has the third largest Black/African-descent population in the western hemisphere, after Brasil which is 1st, and the USA that is 2nd. There's said to be more than 11 million AfroColombians as of 2005.

Cuba

Most Cubans (about 60-70 percent, according to a 2001 census) characterise themselves as "mulatto", that is of mixed-race ancestry, while close to 15 percent characterise themselves as black. A large majority of those living on the island thus affirm some part of African ancestry. Many Cubans still locate their origins in specific African ethnic groups or regions, particularly Yoruba and Congo, but also Arará, Carabalí, Mandingo, Fula and others.

Central America

The blacks of Central America are mostly found in or near Caribbean coast. The blacks of Guatemala, Belize and Honduras are both of Garífuna, Afro-Caribbean, Mestizo, and/or Miskito heritage whereas those of Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panamá are almost entirely of African-Caribbean heritage. Recent studies show that most people from El Salvador have at least one African ancestor in their family tree because it is said that African slaves working for the Spanish mixed their blood with the locals thus descending El Salvadors mestizos. Many Afro-Caribbean islanders came to Panamá to help build the Panama Canal and to Honduras to get work in the banana plantations.

Dominican Republic

Around 84% of the Dominican Republic's people have some African heritage: 75% are a mixture of Spanish and African ancestry and 11% are pure Spanish(White) or predominatly black. Dominican blacks were brought as slaves in large proportions from West Africa to sugar cane plantations on the island. Blacks from Dominican Republic and Haiti are in the majority along the border between the two countries, and that is also where the pure blacks are mainly concentrated. Dominican culture is greatly affected by African traditions. The music, religion, language, food, and dress of the Dominican people have very noticeable African roots.

Ecuador

The Afro-Ecuadorian culture is found in the northwest coastal region of Ecuador. Afro-Ecuadorians make up the majority (70%) in the province of Esmeraldas and the Valle de Chota in the Imbabura Province. They can be also found in Guayaquil. The culture developed among people who were descendants of slaves brought to work sugar plantations. It is known outside of Ecuador for a distinctive kind of marimba music. Afro-Ecuadorians make up 5 to 10% of the population of the country, where they have been the victims of discrimination.

México

Although importation of black-slaves was limited in Mexico, many communities in coastal areas such as Veracruz and Guerrero received African laborers to work in plantations of sugar-cane. In some areas blacks became a majority in the population although most of them were absorbed in the non-black population. Many black slaves fled the sugar cane plantations in the United States during the XIX century and escaped to the Mexican state of Coahuila, including several thousand Texas slaves. Fugitive slaves were a perennial bone of contention between Texas slaveholders and the Mexican government in the years after Texas won independence. Texas slaveholders staged several failed expeditions attempting to recover and capture fugitives. Slaveholders in particular targeted a community of maroons known as the Black Seminoles who had emigrated to Mexico in 1850. The maroons—descendants of free blacks and runaway slaves traditionally allied with Seminole Indians in Florida and the western U.S.—fled slaveholders in the Oklahoma Indian Territory to establish a free black community in Coahuila. They successfully resisted the Texas incursions. Known in Mexico as Los Mascogos, the Black Seminole maroons settled in Nacimiento, Coahuila, and later in communities along the Texas border, where their descendants still live to this day. Map showing Black Seminole migration to Mexico

Puerto Rico

According to the 2000 U.S. Census taken in Puerto Rico, 8% of the population is black and 10.9% is of mixed or other race, but these numbers are widely thought to be skewed since they are numbers based on self-definition and acute physical observation of census-takers. An island-wide mtDNA study conducted by the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez revealed Puerto Ricans to have 61% Native Amerindian (Taino) ancestry, 27% West/Central (Sub-Saharan) African blood and only 12% European/North African blood. This misinformation of ethnic populations within Puerto Rico also existed under Spanish rule when the Native Amerindian (Taino) populations were recorded as being "extinct". Biological science has now rewritten their history books. In all, about 31 African tribes have been recorded in Puerto Rico. These tribes were not voluntary travellers, but have since blended into the mainstream Puerto Rican population (as all the others have been) with Taino ancestry being the common thread that binds.

Many so-called "pure" blacks in Puerto Rico are found in the coastal areas, areas traditionally associated with sugar cane plantations (especially in the towns Loiza, Guayama, Ponce, and Carolina). The Puerto Rican musical genres of bomba and plena are of African and Caribbean origin respectively and danced to during parties and African-derived festivals. Many Boricuas who claim West/Central African ancestry are descendants of enslaved Congo and Yoruba tribes from Africa. After the abolition of slavery in 1873 and the invasion of the United States, a number of African Americans have also migrated and settled in Puerto Rico.

Sources:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/rq.html
http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/2003/10/07/dna.htm

Venezuela

Black Venezuelans make up 10% of the population. Many of these Venezuelans live in small coastal towns in the region called Barlovento. Afro-Venezuelans are descendants from African slaves. They have kept their traditions and culture alive especially through music. President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez is of Amerindian, African and Spanish ancestry; his father was a zambo and mother a mestiza.

Perú

Afro-Peruvians are citizens of Peru descended from African slaves who were brought to the New World from the arrival of the conquistadores to the end of the slave trade. They make about 1% of the Peruvian population.

Other parts of South America

Most other South American countries do not have significant black populations. For example, Uruguay (4%), Argentina, Bolivia and Chile all have very small populations of blacks. Ecuador (3%) is another South American country with Blacks, but these African descendants have preserved their culture and live in the predominantly Afro-Ecuadorian province of Esmeraldas or largely black neighborhoods in coastal towns.

United States

In the United States many black Latino communities exist. In Brooklyn, New York, for example, the Panamanian community has an Afro-Panamanian Chamber of Commerce. Puerto Rican and Dominican communities exist in many long-established neighborhoods, such as Spanish Harlem, Inwood, Heights, and the Bronx. See African American.

External links

African diaspora | Ethnic groups in Central America | Ethnic groups in South America | Ethnic groups in the Caribbean | Afro-Lateinamerikaner

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