African American and every American's history, part I

 Black History Month and a history month for everyone!

This month is Black History Month and is a wonderful and justified celebration. However it is important to remember that there are many groups of people in the United States and all deserve to be recognized. Often as a nation, we seem to celebrate one or two groups of people and ignore the rest. To start with let's look at the diversity of Americans of African descent.

Who are African Americans?

Americans who descend from Africans include many different groups of people. The oldest and main group of course are people who descend from black slaves from Sub-Saharan Africa who were brought to North America mainly from West Africa. 

Africa has five main regions

As you can see on the map above, Africa has a number of different regions and the peoples from each region are different in many ways from the peoples from other regions. Most African Americans are descended from West Africans that were enslaved by colonial European Americans and were later freed by the U.S. government during the Civil War, by the emancipation proclamation in 1863 and also by the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865. It is important to remember that about 750,000 Americans died in the Civil War, a war that kept the United States united and that freed the slaves. The descendants of the former slaves moved north to Chicago, Detroit, New York and Waukegan in the 1900's from places like Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. In addition, these African Americans are also descended from Europeans and sometimes American Indians who intermarried with their ancestors. So historical African Americans are the largest group of people in the United States who descend from Sub-Saharan Africans. But they are not the only group of Black people in America!

The physical geography of Africa

These days many immigrants from Western, Eastern, Southern and Central Africa, especially from the countries of Nigeria, Ghana and Somalia, have immigrated to the United States. Many African immigrants from West Africa are professionals such as doctors, nurses and teachers and have made good livings for themselves in the U.S.. There are also many Black people from the Caribbean Islands that have come to America in recent years, from places such as Jamaica, Haiti and the Bahamas. Many of the Caribbean immigrants have also done well as professionals in the United States.   

The slave trade routes to the Americas from West and Central Africa

In addition, there are also many Americans these days who are Black people of Latin American origin, including immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia along with some Brazilians, Hondurans or other Central Americans who are descended from the slaves brought to the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of Latin America. Hispanic or Latino people can be of any race and some identify as White, while others identify as Black or Mestizo. As you can see  in the maps above, the trans-Atlantic slave trade didn't only go to North America but also the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America. In fact, Brazil probably received more slaves from West Africa than any other region in the Americas, and today more than 50% of Brazilians have some Sub-Saharan African ancestry. 

So as we celebrate this year's African American history month we should remember that there are actually multiple groups of African Americans. Let's celebrate all of them this year.

Question: Did you know that Americans of African origin actually include a large number of groups of people?

Study shows African immigrants in US do well, despite differences among them

Black History Month: Celebrating Caribbean culture at Island SPACE museum