Afro-Caribbean culture
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (c. 48 million) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Haiti
|
8.9 million |
 Dominican Republic
|
8.1 million |
 Cuba
|
4.9 million |
 United States
|
2.88 million |
 Jamaica
|
2.5 million |
 Puerto Rico
|
420,000 |
 Trinidad and Tobago
|
452,536 |
 Bahamas
|
372,000 |
 Guadeloupe
|
403,750 |
 Martinique
|
330,000 |
 Guyana
|
290,000 |
 Barbados
|
253,771 |
 Suriname
|
202,500 |
 Saint Lucia
|
173,765 |
 Curaçao
|
148,000 |
 French Guiana
|
131,676 |
 Grenada
|
101,309 |
 Belize
|
93,394 |
 U.S. Virgin Islands
|
79,000 |
 Dominica
|
72,660 |
 Saint Kitts and Nevis
|
38,827 |
| Languages | |
|
Languages:
English
English Creole Caribbean Jamaican, Trinidadian, Tobagonian, Bahamian, Guyanese, Bajan, Grenadian, Belizean, Saint Kitts, Vincentian, Sranan Tongo French French Creole Haitian, Antillean Spanish Spanish Creole Caribbean Spanish Portuguese Portuguese Creole Papiamento Dutch Yoruba other West African languages |
|
| Religion | |
| Predominantly: Minority: | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Afro-Central American, Liberian, Americo-Liberian | |
Afro-Caribbeans are Caribbean people who trace at least some of their ancestry to West Africa in the period since Christopher Columbus's arrival in the region in 1492. Other names for this ethnicity include African-Caribbean (especially preferred among the United Kingdom branch of the diaspora), Afro-Antillean, or Afro-West Indian. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, European-led triangular trade brought enslaved West African people to work on Caribbean islands, primarily on various sugar plantations and in domestic households. Many Afro-Caribbeans also have non-African ancestry, such as European, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Native American, as there has been extensive intermarriage and unions among the peoples over the centuries.
Although most Afro-Caribbean people today live in French, English, and Spanish-speaking Caribbean nations, there are also significant diaspora populations throughout the Western world – especially in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands. Both the home and diaspora populations have produced a number of individuals who have had a notable influence on modern Western, Caribbean, and African societies; they include political activists such as Marcus Garvey and C.L.R. James; writers and theorists such as Aime Cesaire and Frantz Fanon; US military leader and statesman Colin Powell, whose parents were immigrants; and Jamaican musician Bob Marley.
During the post-Columbian era, the archipelagos and islands of the Caribbean were the first sites of African diaspora dispersal in the western Atlantic. Specifically, in 1492, Pedro Alonso Niño, an African-Spanish seafarer, was recorded as piloting one of Columbus's ships. He returned in 1499, but did not settle. In the early 16th century, more Africans began to enter the population of the Spanish Caribbean colonies, sometimes arriving as free men of mixed ancestry or as indentured servants, but increasingly as enslaved workers and servants. This increasing demand for African labour in the Caribbean was in part the result of massive depopulation of the native Taino and other indigenous peoples caused by the new infectious diseases, harsh conditions, and warfare brought by European colonists. By the mid-16th century, the slave trade from West Africa to the Caribbean was so profitable that Francis Drake and John Hawkins were prepared to engage in piracy as well as break Spanish colonial laws, in order to forcibly transport approximately 1500 enslaved people from Sierra Leone to San Domingo (modern-day Haiti and Dominican Republic).
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Wikipedia