African Diaspora

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The African diaspora was the historic movement of Africans and their descendants to places throughout the world—predominantly to the Americas, and also to Europe, the Middle East, and other places around the globe. The term has been historically applied in particular to the descendants of the Africans who were enslaved and shipped to the Americas by way of the Atlantic slave trade, with the largest population in Brazil (see Afro-Brazilian). In modern times, it is also applied to Africans who have emigrated from the continent in order to seek education, employment and better living for themselves and their children. People from Sub-Saharan Africa, including many Africans, number at least 800 million in Africa and over 140 million in the Western Hemisphere, representing around 14% of the world's population. It is believed that this diaspora has the potential to revitalize Africa. Primarily, many academics, NGOs, and websites such as Social Entrepreneurs of the African Diaspora view social entrepreneurship as a tool to be used by the African diaspora to improve themselves and their ancestral continent.

History

18th century painting showing a family of black africans in latin america.

Dispersal through slavery

See also: Atlantic Slave Trade and Arab Slave Trade

Much of the African diaspora was dispersed throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas during the Atlantic and Arab Slave Trades. Beginning in the 9th century, Arabs took African slaves from the central and eastern portions of the continent (where they were known as the Zanj) and sold them into markets in the Middle East and eastern Asia. Beginning in the 15th century, Europeans captured or bought African slaves from West Africa and brought them to Europe and later to the Americas. Both the Arab and Atlantic slave trades ended in the 19th century. The dispersal through slave trading represents one of the largest forced migrations in human history. The economic effect on the African continent was devastating. Some communities created by descendants of African slaves in Europe and Asia have survived to the modern day, but in other cases, blacks intermarried with non-blacks and their descendants blended into the local population.
In the Americas, the confluence of multiple ethnic groups from around the world created multi-ethnic societies. In Central and South America, most people are descended from European, American Indian, and African ancestry. In Brazil, where in 1888 nearly half the population was descended from African slaves, the variation of physical characteristics extends across a broad range. In the United States, there was historically a greater colonial population in relation to African slaves, especially in the northern tier. Racist Jim Crow and anti-miscegenation laws after the Civil War, plus waves of vastly increased immigration from Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, maintained some distinction between racial groups. In the 20th century, to institutionalize racial segregation, most southern states adopted the "one drop rule", which defined anyone with any discernible African ancestry as African.

Dispersal through migration

From the very onset of Spanish activity in the Americas, black Africans were present both as voluntary expeditionaries and as involuntary laborers. Juan Garrido was one such black conquistador. He crossed the Atlantic as a freedman in the 1510s and participated in the siege of Tenochtitlan.

Emigration from Sub-equatorial Africa has been the primary reason for the modern diaspora. People have left the subcontinent because of warfare and social disruption in numerous countries over the years, and also to seek better economic opportunities. Scholars estimate the current population of recent African immigrants to the United States alone is over 600,000, some of whom are Black Africans from the Sub-equatorial region. Countries with the largest recorded numbers of immigrants to the U.S. are Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and mostly West African Countries. Some immigrants have come from Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique (see Luso American), Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, and Cameroon. Immigrants typically congregate in major urban areas, moving to suburban areas over time.
There are significant populations of recent African immigrants in many other countries around the world, including the UK and France, both nations that had colonies in Africa.

Definitions

See also: Black people

The African Union defined the African diaspora as "[consisting] of people of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality and who are willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African Union." Its constitutive act declares that it shall "invite and encourage the full participation of the African Diaspora as an important part of our continent, in the building of the African Union."
Between 1500 and 1900, approximately four million enslaved Africans were transported to island plantations in the Indian Ocean, about eight million were shipped to Mediterranean-area countries, and about eleven million survived the Middle Passage to the New World. Their descendants are now found around the globe. Due to intermarriage and genetic assimilation, just who is a descendant of the African diaspora is not entirely self-evident.
African diasporan populations outside of Sub-equatorial Africa include:

• African Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, Afro-Latin Americans and Black Canadians - Descendants of West African slaves brought to the United States, the Caribbean, and Latin America during the Atlantic slave trade.
• Zanj - Descendants of Zanj slaves whose ancestors were brought to the Near East and other parts of Asia during the Arab slave trade.
• Siddis - Descendants of Zanj slaves whose ancestors were brought to the Indian subcontinent (Pakistan and India). Also referred to as the Makrani in Pakistan.

Estimated population and distribution

Continent or region	Country population	Afro-descendants	Black and black-mixed population
Caribbean	39,148,115	73.2%	22,715,518
Haiti	9,719,932	95%	9,233,935 + 476,277
Dominican Republic	10,090,000	84%	1,109,900 + 7,365,700
Cuba	11,239,363	34.9%	1,132,928 + 2,794,106
Jamaica	2,847,232	76.3%	2,172.438 + 526,738
Puerto Rico	3,725,789	15.7%	461,998 + 122,951
Trinidad and Tobago	1,047,366	58.0%	607,472
The Bahamas	307,451	85.0%	209,000
Barbados	281,968	90.0%	253,771
Netherlands Antilles	225,369	85.0%	191,564
Saint Lucia	172,884	82.5%	142,629
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	118,432	85.0%	100,667
US Virgin Islands	108,210	79.7%	86,243
Grenada	110,000	91.0%	101,309
Antigua and Barbuda	78,000	94.9%	63,000
Bermuda	66,536	61.2%	40,720
Saint Kitts and Nevis	39,619	98.0%	38,827
Cayman Islands	47,862	60.0%	28,717
British Virgin Islands	24,004	83.0%	19,923
Turks and Caicos islands	26,000	> 90.0%	18,000
South America	388,570,461	28.70%	111,511,261
Colombia	45,925,397	4.0% (black) + 3.0% (Zambo) + 14.0% (Mulatto)	1,837,015 + 1,377,762 + 6,429,556
Venezuela	29,105,632	~10% (black)	2,910,563
Guyana	770,794	36.0%	277,486
Suriname	475,996	47.0%	223,718
French Guiana	199,509	66.0%	131,676
Brazil	190,732,694	6.84% (black) + 43.80% (multiracial)	13,046,116 + 83,540,920
Ecuador	13,927,650	4.9%	680,000
Peru	29,496,000	2.0%	589,920
Bolivia	10,907,778	~0.5%	54,539
Chile	17,094,270	< 0.1%	0*
Paraguay	6,349,000	3.5% (Mulatto)	222,215
Argentina	40,091,359	~0.12%	~50,000
Uruguay	3,494,382	4.0%	139,775
North America	491,829,020	9.02%	44,361,299
United States[29]	308,745,538	13.6%	42,020,743
Canada[30]	33,098,932	2.7%	783,795
Mexico	108,700,891	< 0.1%	103,000
Belize	301,270	31.0%	93,394
Guatemala	13,002,206	< 1.0%	100,000
El Salvador	7,066,403	< 0.1%	0*
Honduras	7,639,327	2.0%	152,787
Nicaragua	5,785,846	9.0%	520,726
Costa Rica	4,195,914	3.0%	125,877
Panama	3,292,693	14.0%	460,977
Europe	738,856,462.00	0.95%	~7,034,1000
France	62,752,136	5% (inc. overseas territories)	3,000,000
Italy	60,020,805	~0.44%	~264,500
United Kingdom	60,609,153	3.3% (inc. partial)	2,015,400
Netherlands	16,491,461	3.1%	507,000
Spain	40,397,842	0,5%	~200,000
Germany	82,000,000	0.6%	500,000
Russia	141,594,000	0.03%	40,000
Portugal	10,605,870	2.0%	201,200
Norway	4,858,199	1.4%	67,000
Sweden	9,263,872	0.8%	> 70,000
Belgium	10,666,866	0.4%	45,000
Republic of Ireland	4,339,000	1.1%	45,000
Switzerland	7,790,000	0.5%	> 40,000
Austria	8,356,707	0.2%	14,223
Finland	5,340,783	0.37%	20,000
Poland	38,082,000	0.01%	4,500
Hungary	10,198,325	0.0%	321
Asia	3,879,000,000	0.0%	?
Israel	7,411,000	2.8%	200,000
Japan	127,756,815	0.0%	10,000 –
India	1,132,446,000	0.0%	40,000
Pakistan	172,900,000	0.0%	10,000
China	1,321,851,888	0.0%	8,000+
Oceania
Australia	21,000,000	?%	?

(*)Note that population statistics from different sources and countries use highly divergent methods of rating the "race", ethnicity, or national or genetic origin of individuals, from observing for color and racial characteristics, to asking the person to choose from a set of pre-defined choices, sometimes with an Other category, and sometimes with an open-ended option, and sometimes not, which different national populations tend to choose in divergent ways. Color and visual characteristics were considered an invalid way to determine the genetic "racial" branch in anthropology (the field of science that original conceived of "race", as a genetic branch of people who could have a relative success together compared with other branches, now considered invalid) as of 1910, thus not fully reflecting the percentage of the population who actually are of African heritage.

Largest 15 African diaspora populations

The African diaspora in the Americas: Black, Black African ancestry; Brown, Black African & European ancestry; Wine-red, Multiracial.

Country	Population	Rank
Brazil	85,783,143	1 multiracial, with European and Native American ancestries in most cases
United States	38,499,304	2
Colombia	9,452,872	3
Haiti	8,788,439	4
Dominican Republic	7,985,991	5
France	4,200,000	6
Jamaica	2,731,419	7
Venezuela	2,641,481	8
United Kingdom	2,080,000	9
Cuba	1,126,894	10
Italy	1,100,000	11
Puerto Rico	979,882	12
Peru	875,427	13
Canada	783,795	14
Ecuador	680,000	15

Autosomal genetic studies and the African contribution to Brazil

African ancestry has contributed to the formation of Brazil, along with European and Native American ancestries.
A recent autosomal DNA study (2011), with nearly 1000 samples from all over the country ("whites", "pardos" and "blacks"), found out a major European contribution, followed by a high African contribution and an important Native American component. "In all regions studied, the European ancestry was predominant, with proportions ranging from 60.6% in the Northeast to 77.7% in the South". The 2011 autosomal study samples came from blood donors (the lowest classes constitute the great majority of blood donors in Brazil), and also public health institutions personnel and health students. The study showed that Brazilians from different regions are more homogenous than previously thought by some based on the census alone. "Brazilian homogeneity is, therefore, a lot greater between Brazilian regions than within Brazilians region".

Region	European	African	Native American
Northern Brazil	68,80%	10,50%	18,50%
Northeast of Brazil	60,10%	29,30%	8,90%
Southeast Brazil	74,20%	17,30%	7,30%
Southern Brazil	79,50%	10,30%	9,40%

According to an autosomal DNA study from 2010, "a new portrayal of each ethnicity contribution to the DNA of Brazilians, obtained with samples from the five regions of the country, has indicated that, on average, European ancestors are responsible for nearly 80% of the genetic heritage of the population. The variation between the regions is small, with the possible exception of the South, where the European contribution reaches nearly 90%. The results, published by the scientific magazine American Journal of Human Biology by a team of the Catholic University of Brasília, show that, in Brazil, physical indicators such as skin colour, colour of the eyes and colour of the hair have little to do with the genetic ancestry of each person, which has been shown in previous studies (regardless of census classification). "Ancestry informative SNPs can be useful to estimate individual and population biogeographical ancestry. Brazilian population is characterized by a genetic background of three parental populations (European, African, and Brazilian Native Amerindians) with a wide degree and diverse patterns of admixture. In this work we analyzed the information content of 28 ancestry-informative SNPs into multiplexed panels using three parental population sources (African, Amerindian, and European) to infer the genetic admixture in an urban sample of the five Brazilian geopolitical regions. The SNPs assigned apart the parental populations from each other and thus can be applied for ancestry estimation in a three hybrid admixed population. Data was used to infer genetic ancestry in Brazilians with an admixture model. Pairwise estimates of F(st) among the five Brazilian geopolitical regions suggested little genetic differentiation only between the South and the remaining regions. Estimates of ancestry results are consistent with the heterogeneous genetic profile of Brazilian population, with a major contribution of European ancestry (0.771) followed by African (0.143) and Amerindian contributions (0.085). The described multiplexed SNP panels can be useful tool for bioanthropological studies but it can be mainly valuable to control for spurious results in genetic association studies in admixed populations". It is important to note that "the samples came from free of charge paternity test takers, thus as the researchers made it explicit: "the paternity tests were free of charge, the population samples involved people of variable socioeconomic strata, although likely to be leaning slightly towards the ‘‘pardo’’ group".

Region	European	African	Native American
North Region	71,10%	18,20%	10,70%
Northeast Region	77,40%	13,60%	8,90%
Central-West Region	65,90%	18,70%	11,80%
Southeast Region	79,90%	14,10%	6,10%
South Region	87,70%	7,70%	5,20%

An autosomal DNA study from 2009 found a similar profile "all the Brazilian samples (regions) lie more closely to the European group than to the African populations or to the Mestizos from Mexico".

Region	European	African	Native American
North Region	60,6%	21,3%	18,1%
Northeast Region	66,7%	23,3%	10,0%
Central-West Region	66,3%	21,7%	12,0%
Southeast Region	60,7%	32,0%	7,3%
South Region	81,5%	9,3%	9,2%

According to another autosomal DNA study from 2008, by the University of Brasília (UnB), European ancestry dominates in the whole of Brazil (in all regions), accounting for 65,90% of heritage of the population, followed by the African contribution (24,80%) and the Native American (9,3%).

The Americas

Main article: Afro-American peoples of the Americas

• African Americans – There are an estimated 40 million people of Black African descent in the US. Note that this figure (here, and in the chart, above) directly conflicts with information in this same article that says that 30% of US people have genetic content from the [post 1400] African diaspora.
• Afro-Latin American – There are an estimated 100 million people of African descent living in Latin America, making up 45 % of Brazil's population, if the one drop rule is applied, and the pred. European ancestry, and the Native American ancestry, which are present in most pardos, is not considered (Brazilian "blacks" are also mixed to a significant degree). There are also sizeable African populations in Cuba, Haiti, Colombia, Dominican Republic and Venezuela.
• The population in the Caribbean is approximately 23 million. Significant numbers of African-descended people include Haiti – 8 million, Dominican Republic – 7.9 million, and Jamaica – 2.7 million,

North America

Main article: African American

Several migration waves to the Americas, as well as relocations within the Americas, have brought people of African descent to North America. According to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the first African populations came to North America in the 16th century via Mexico and the Caribbean to the Spanish colonies of Florida, Texas and other parts of the South. Out of the 12 million people from Africa who were shipped to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade, 645,000 were shipped to the British colonies on the North American mainland and the United States; another 1,840,000 arrived at other British colonies, chiefly the West Indies. In 2000, African Americans comprised 12.1 percent of the total population in the United States, constituting the largest racial minority group. The African American population is concentrated in the southern states and urban areas.
In the construction of the African Diaspora, the transatlantic slave trade is often considered the defining element, but people of African descent have engaged in eleven other migration movements involving North America since the 16th century, many being voluntary migrations, although undertaken in exploitative and hostile environments.
In the 1860s, people from sub-Saharan Africa, mainly from West Africa and the Cape Verde Islands, started to arrive in a voluntary immigration wave to seek employment as whalers in Massachusetts. This migration continued until restrictive laws were enacted in 1921 that in effect closed the door on non-Europeans, but by that time, men of African ancestry were already a majority in New England’s whaling industry, with African Americans working as sailors, blacksmiths, shipbuilders, officers, and owners, eventually bringing their trade to California.
1.7 million people in the United States are descended from voluntary immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa. African immigrants represent 6 percent of all immigrants to the United States and almost 5 percent of the African American community nationwide. About 57 percent immigrated between 1990 and 2000. Immigrants born in Africa constitute 1.6 percent of the black population. People of the African immigrant diaspora are the most educated population group in the United States — 50 percent have bachelor's or advanced degrees, compared to 23 percent of native-born Americans. The largest African immigrant communities in the United States are in New York, followed by California, Texas, and Maryland. The states with the highest percentages of Africans in their total populations are Mississippi (36.3%), and Louisiana (32.5%). While not a state, the District of Columbia is 60.0% black. Refugees represent a minority.
U.S. Bureau of the Census categorizes the population by race based on self-identification. The census surveys have no provision for a "multiracial" or "biracial" self-identity, but since 2000, respondents may check off more than one box and claim multiple ethnicity that way.

Canada

Main article: Black Canadians

Much of the earliest black presence in Canada came from the United States; comprising African Americans who came as Loyalists, or escaped to locations in Nova Scotia and Southwestern Ontario via the Underground Railroad. Slavery had begun to be outlawed in British North America as early as 1793. Later black immigration to Canada came primarily from the Caribbean, in such numbers that fully 70 per cent of all blacks now in Canada are of Caribbean origin.
As a result of the prominence of Caribbean immigration, the term "African Canadian", while sometimes used to refer to the minority of Canadian blacks who have direct African or African American heritage, is not normally used to denote black Canadians. Blacks of Caribbean origin are usually denoted as "West Indian Canadian", "Caribbean Canadian" or more rarely "Afro-Caribbean Canadian", but there remains no widely used alternative to "Black Canadian" which is considered inclusive of the African, Afro-Caribbean, and African-American black communities in Canada.

Latin America

Main articles: Afro-Latin American, Afro Central American, and Afro-South Americans

At an intermediate level, in Latin America and in the former plantations in and around the Indian Ocean, descendants of enslaved people are a bit harder to define because many people are mixed in demographic proportion to the original slave population. In places that imported relatively few slaves (like Argentina or Chile), few if any are considered "black" today. In places that imported many enslaved people (like Brazil or Dominican Republic), the number is larger, though most identify themselves as being of mixed, rather than strictly African, ancestry.
In Peru, the African population was very mixed with the other white, Indian and mestizo population, so someone is identified as negro if he or she has visible African features. Some mestizos and whites have a degree of African admixture.

Europe

Main articles: Black people in Europe and Emigration from Africa

In Europe Union countries, Black African immigrants are neither specifically identified nor described in national statistics by the colour of their skin. At best, both first and subsequent generations are described in national statistics as "foreign born citizens". Of 42 countries surveyed by a European Commission against Racism and Intolerance study in 2007, it was found that 29 collected official statistics on country of birth, 37 on citizenship, 24 on religion, 26 on language, 6 on country of birth of parents, and 22 on nationality or ethnicity. The major result of this routine is that even though people of Black African descent may outnumber other ethnic minorities in some European countries, there is no statistical evidence to support the notion that they may qualify for special measures as minorities where they live. They are, in a word, invisible. It also means that EU countries do not differentiate their inhabitants by skin color.

United Kingdom

Main article: Black British

2 million (not including British Mixed) split evenly between Afro-Caribbeans and Africans.

France

See also: Black people in France

Estimates of 2 to 3 million of African descent, although 1/4 of the Afro-French or French African population live in overseas territories.

Italy

See also: African immigrants to Italy

There are an estimated 755,000 to 1.2 million immigrants from Africa in Italy, with only a minority of Sub-Saharan Africans. Most of the latter come from West African countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and Ivory Coast.

Netherlands

See also: Afro-Dutch

There are an estimated 500,000 black people in the Dutch Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles. They mainly live in the islands of Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao and Saint Martin, the latter of which is also partly French-controlled. Many Afro-Dutch people reside in the Netherlands.

Russia

Main article: Afro-Russians

The first blacks in Russia were the result of the slave trade of the Ottoman Empire^[69] and their descendants still live on the coasts of the Black Sea. Czar Peter the Great was recommended by his friend Lefort to bring in Africans to Russia for hard labor. Alexander Pushkin's great grandfather was the African princeling Abram Petrovich Gannibal, who became Peter's protege, was educated as a military engineer in France, and eventually became general-en-chef, responsible for the building of sea forts and canals in Russia.^[70][71]
During the 1930s fifteen Black American families moved to the Soviet Union as agricultural experts. As African states became independent in the 1960s, the Soviet Union offered them the chance to study in Russia; over 40 years, 400,000 African students came, and many settled there.
Note that there are also non-African people within the former Soviet Union who are colloquially referred to as "the blacks" (chernye). Gypsies, Georgians, and Chechens fall into this category.

Abkhazia

Main article: Afro-Abkhazians

Some blacks of unknown origin once inhabited the southern Abkhazian, today are assimilated to Abkhaz.

Turkey

Main article: Afro-Turks

Beginning several centuries ago, a number of sub-Saharan Africans, usually via Zanzibar and from places like Kenya, Sudan, Ghana, Nigeria were brought by Turkish slave traders during the Ottoman Empire to plantations around Dalaman, Menderes and Gediz valleys, Manavgat, and Çukurova.

Indian and Pacific Oceans

There are a number of communities in South Asia that are descended from African slaves, traders or soldiers. These communities are the Siddi, Sheedi, Makrani and Sri Lanka Kaffirs. In some cases, they became very prominent, such as Jamal-ud-Din Yaqut, Hoshu Sheedi or the Murud-Janjira fort. The Mauritian creole people are the descendents of African slaves similar to those in the Americas.
Some Pan-Africanists also consider other peoples as diasporic African peoples. These groups include, among others, Negritos, such as in the case of the peoples of the Malay Peninsula (Orang Asli); New Guinea (Papuans); Andamanese; certain peoples of the Indian subcontinent, and the aboriginal peoples of Melanesia and Micronesia.^[ Most of these claims are rejected by mainstream ethnologists as pseudoscience and pseudoanthropology as part of ideologically motivated Afrocentrist irredentism, touted primarily among some extremist elements in the United States who do not reflect on the mainstream African-American community. Mainstream anthropologists determine that the Andamanese and others are part of a network of Proto-Australoid and Paleo Mediterranean ethnic groups present in South Asia that trace their genetic ancestry to a migratory sequence that culminated in the Australian aboriginals rather than from African peoples directly (though indirectly, they did originate from prehistoric groups out of Africa as did all human beings on this planet).