Afro-Nicaraguan
    
Notables (Nicaragua): Devern Hansack · Scharllette Allen · Wilton Lopez · David Green · Rudel Calero
|
|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (600,000 (9%)) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Nicaraguan Coast | |
| Languages | |
| English, Spanish, Garifuna | |
| Religion | |
|
Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, Garifuna, Sumo, Rama and Miskitos cultures. |
|
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Sub-saharan Africans, Afro-Anglo American (Afro-Jamaican, Afro-Vincentian), English people. |
Afro-Nicaraguans are Nicaraguans of African descent in Nicaragua. They make up 9% of the population and they're the largest group of African descent in in Central America. Numbering almost 600,000, according to the CIA factbook (2011), they primarily live on the southeastern coast, the Mosquito Coast, Bluefields and Managua. The 1990 Nicaraguan national census recorded 25,000 or 1% of the population. Creoles are from the Anglo-Caribbean and speak a tongue similar to Jamaican patois. Nicaragua also has a Garifuna population.
The first people of African descent were enslaved and brought to Nicaragua as servants of the conquerors and of civil and religious officials in the early 16th century. The first African people enslaved were transported to Nicaragua were taken by Gil González Dávila, who purchased them for 300 pesos in Panama from Pedrarias Dávila´s colonial administrator. From there they took eleven enslaved individuals to the newly founded Nicaragua. They were already baptized before being taken to Nicaragua. In 1531, the council of Leon, asked the King of Spain for authorization to extract thousand slaves, tax free, to give to the neighbors. The council of Granada, Spain - in November 24, 1544 - asked the same authorization to import 50 people to enslave them in the opening of the "rapids of the drain". Also, Spanish colonists, who could no longer enslave the Indians following the New Laws of 1542, required workers in their newly formed haciendas. So, from 1558, Bishop Lazaro Carrasco, meeting with the Amerindians "almost all consumed" and less than a hundred Spanish neighbors without enough real entries, asked the King license to import 600 people of African descent to enslave them, they would remedy the situation, i.e., could produced the earth.≈
The number of the first black people enslaved were imported must have been considerable, perhaps thousands. Because most Spanish who emigrated to America were men, soldiers and colonists took indigenous and African women as partners and concubines. As early as the 18th century, most people who were enslaved born in the territory were mulattoes. According to colonial documents, people of African descent wer enslaved came from such ethnic groups such as Arara (African language group mainly of the Ewe and Fon ethnic groups from Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria),Ashanti (of Ghana), Yoruba (originally from Nigeria),"angola", conga, "mina" and "Mandinga". The proportion of men and women slaves were very similar.
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Wikipedia