Afro–Latin Americans
Afro-Latin Americans, also known as Black Latin Americans, are Latin Americans of significant sub-Saharan African ancestry. Genetic studies suggest most Latin American populations have at least some level of African admixture.
The term Afro-Latin American is not widely used in Latin America outside academic circles. Normally Afro–Latin Americans are called Black. Latin Americans of African ancestry may also be grouped by their specific nationality, such as Afro-Brazilian, Afro-Cuban, Afro-Haitian, or Afro-Mexican.
The number of Afro–Latin Americans may be underreported in official statistics, especially when derived from self-reported census data, because of negative attitudes to African ancestry in some countries. Afro-Latinos are part of the wider African diaspora.
History
In the 15th and 16th centuries, many people of African origin were brought to the Americas by the English, Portuguese, Dutch, French and Spanish primarily as enslaved people, while some Spanish arrived as part of exploratory groups. A notable example of the latter was the black conquistador Juan Garrido, who introduced wheat to Mexico. Pedro Alonso Niño, traditionally considered the first of many New World explorers of African descent, was a navigator in the 1492 Columbus expedition. Those transported as part of the Atlantic slave trade were usually from West Africa, and were forced to work as agricultural, domestic, and menial laborers, and as mineworkers. They also worked in mapping and exploration and were even involved in conquest or in the army. These enslaved people largely belonged to ethnic groups such as the Gbe, Yoruba, Mande, Bakongo, Mbundu, and Wolof, among others.Enslaved Africans brought to Latin America were obtained from inter-ethnic & inter-religious conflict throughout West and Central Africa.
Such inter-ethnic conflicts include the wars between the Oyo Empire and the Kingdom of Dahomey, in the 18th and 19th centuries, in which Dahomey enslaved and sold a large number of Yoruba people into slavery in the New World.
The Fulani Jihads caused conflict between the highly Islamized Fulani people and ethnic groups that adhered to traditional West African religion. These ethnic groups include the Temne, Yoruba, Chamba, Bamileke, Fang, and Tikar peoples. This led to inter-religious clashes in which captives from both sides were traded to Europeans.
Furthermore, some enslaved people were obtained from civil and internal conflicts. Such an example include the succession disputes in the Kingdom of Kongo, which led to frequent civil war and caused many Bakongo people to be sold as slaves throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.
The Hispanic model of identity and representation has been historically characterized by its multi-faceted nature, which transcends strict racial categorizations. Numerous figures exemplify this complexity, including Martín de Porres, Beatriz de Palacios, Spanish conquistador Juan Garrido that established the first commercial wheat farm in the Americas, Estevanico, Francisco Menendez, Juan de Villanueva, Juan Valiente,, Pedro Fulupo, Juan Bardales, Antonio Pérez, Gómez de León, Leonor Galiano, Teresa Juliana de Santo Domingo and Juan García. Additionally, Juan Latino stands out as a significant figure in this discourse; he is recognized as the first black African to attend a European university, ultimately achieving the status of professor. This highlights the notion that the Hispanic identity is not monolithic and is instead enriched by diverse contributions across racial and ethnic lines. Such examples serve to challenge simplistic perceptions of race within the historical narrative of Hispanic culture.
The Caribbean and South America received 95 percent of the Africans arriving in the Americas with only five percent going to Northern America.
Traditional terms for Afro–Latin Americans with their own developed culture include Garífuna, cafuzo and zambo in the Andes and Central America. Marabou is a term of Haitian origin denoting a Haitian of multiracial ethnicity.
The mix of these African cultures with the Spanish, Portuguese, French, and indigenous cultures of Latin America has produced many unique forms of language, religions, music, martial arts and dance.
As of 2015, Mexico and Chile are the only two Latin American countries yet to formally recognize their Afro-Latin American population in their constitutions. This is in contrast to countries like Brazil and Colombia that lay out the constitutional rights of their African-descendant population.
In May 2022, the Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latin America at Princeton University estimated that about 130 million people in Latin America are of African descent.
Racial and ethnic distinctions
Terms used to refer to African heritage within Latin America include mulato, zambo/chino and pardo and mestizo, which refers to an indigenous–European mixture in all cases except for in Venezuela, where it is used in place of "pardo". The term mestizaje refers to the intermixing or fusing of ethnicities, whether by custom or deliberate policy. In Latin America this happened extensively between multiple ethnic groups and cultures, but usually involved European men and Indigenous or African women. Within Spanish-speaking Latin America specifically, the Hispanidad model of identity has historically assumed some degree of mestizaje but emphasizes Hispanic ethnic identity over racial categorizations.Representation in the media
Afro–Latin Americans have limited media appearance; critics have accused the Latin American media of overlooking the African, indigenous and multiracial populations in favor of over-representation of often blond and blue/green-eyed white Latin Americans. According to May 2022 Pew Research survey, Afro-Latinos in the United States were about 3 times more likely than other Latino adults to report being unfairly stopped by police. About half of the Afro-Latinos interviewed were told to go back to their country, and a third of them were called offensive names.South America
Argentina
According to the Argentina national census of the year 2010, the total Argentine population is 40,117,096, from which 149,493 were of African ancestry. Traditionally it has been argued that the black population in Argentina declined since the early 19th century into insignificance. Many believe that the black population declined due to systematic efforts to reduce the black population in Argentina in order to mirror the racially homogeneous countries of Europe. A 2005 study found that 5% of the population had African ancestry, while a more recent study suggested 9% may have African heritage. Researchers such as Alí Delgado and Patricia Gomes have suggested that, rather than Black people disappearingerasure from the 19th century onward has resulted in the "invisibility" of African culture and roots in Argentina.Bolivia
Self-identified African descendants in Bolivia account for about 1% of the population. They were brought in during the Spanish colonial times and the majority live in the Yungas.In 1544, the Spanish Conquistadors discovered the silver mines in a city now called Potosí, which is on the base of Cerro Rico. They began to enslave the natives as workers in the mines. However, the health of the natives working in the mines became very poor, so the Spanish began to bring in enslaved Sub-Saharan Africans to work in the mines. Slaves were brought as early as the 16th century in Bolivia to work in mines. In Potosí during the 17th century 30,000 Africans were brought to work in the mines from which the total population of Potosí which numbered around 200,000. Slaves were more expensive in Bolivia then other parts of the Spanish colonies costing upwards to 800 pesos. This was due to the fact that they had to be bought from slave ports in the coastal region of the Spanish empire and had to trek from cities like Cartagena, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires to Bolivia.
Brazil
Around 10% of Brazil's 203 million people reported to the 2022 census as Black, and many more Brazilians have some degree of African descent.Brazil experienced a long internal struggle over abolition of slavery and was the last Latin American country to do so. In 1850 it finally banned the importation of new slaves from overseas, after two decades since the first official attempts to outlaw the human traffic. In 1864 Brazil emancipated the slaves, and on 28 September 1871, the Brazilian Congress approved the Rio Branco Law of Free Birth, which conditionally freed the children of slaves born from that day on. In 1887 army officers refused to order their troops to hunt runaway slaves, and in 1888 the Senate passed a law establishing immediate, unqualified emancipation. This law, known as Lei Áurea was sanctioned by the regent Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil, daughter of the emperor Pedro II on 13 May 1888.
Preto and pardo are among five ethnic categories used by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, along with branco, amarelo, and indígena. In 2022, 10.2% of the Brazilian population, some 20.7 million people, identified as preto, while 45.3% identified as pardo. Brazilians have a complex classification system based on the prominence of skin and hair pigmentation, as well as other features associated with the concept of race.
The Africans brought to Brazil belonged to two major groups: the West African and the Bantu people. The West Africans mostly belong to the Yoruba people, who became known as the "nagô". The word derives from ànàgó, a derogatory term used by the Dahomey to refer to Yoruba-speaking people. The Dahomey enslaved and sold large numbers of Yoruba, largely of Oyo heritage. Slaves descended from the Yoruba are strongly associated with the Candomblé religious tradition. Other slaves belonged to the Fon people and other neighboring ethnic groups.
Bantu people were mostly brought from present-day Angola and the Congo, most belonging to the Bakongo or Ambundu ethnic groups. Bantu people were also taken from coastal regions of Northern Mozambique. They were sent in large scale to Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and Northeastern Brazil.