The African diaspora in the Americas refers to the people born in the
Americas with partial, predominant, or complete
sub-Saharan African ancestry. Many are descendants of persons enslaved in Africa and transferred to the Americas by Europeans, then forced to work mostly in European-owned mines and plantations, between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Significant groups have been established in the United States (
African Americans), in Latin America (
Afro-Latin Americans), in Canada (
Black Canadians), and in the Caribbean (
Afro-Caribbean).
After the United States achieved independence, next came the independence of
Haiti, a country populated almost entirely by people of African descent and the second American colony to win its independence from European colonial powers. After the process of independence, many countries have encouraged
European immigration to America, thus reducing the proportion of black and
mulatto population throughout the country: Brazil, the United States, and the
Dominican Republic. Miscegenation and more flexible concepts of race have also reduced the overall population identifying as black in Latin America, whereas the
one-drop rule in the United States has had the opposite effect.[35]
From 21 to 25 November 1995, the Continental Congress of Black Peoples of the Americas was held. Black people still face discrimination in most parts of the continent. According to David D.E. Ferrari, vice president of the World Bank for the Region of Latin America and the
Caribbean, black people have lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, more frequent and more widespread diseases, higher rates of illiteracy and lower income than Americans of different ethnic origin. Women, also the subjects of gender discrimination, suffer worse living conditions.
On 4 November 2008, the first black U.S. president,
Barack Obama, won 52% of the vote. His father was from Kenya and his mother was from Kansas.[36]
Distribution
African diaspora in the Americas by percentage of population
^"Archived copy"(PDF). www.one.cu. Archived from
the original(PDF) on 3 June 2014. Retrieved 11 January 2022.{{
cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (
link)
^
ab"Censusstatistieken 2012"(PDF). Algemeen Bureau voor de Statistiek in Suriname (General Statistics Bureau of Suriname). p. 76. Archived from
the original(PDF) on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
^Daniel, G. Reginald. Race and Multiraciality in Brazil and the United States: Converging Paths?. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press. 2006.
ISBN0-271-02883-1