African Americans

African Americans, also known as Black Americans and historically referred to as Afro-Americans, are an ethnoracial group in the United States defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as citizens or residents who have origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. This category includes people identifying as African American, as well as those reporting Sub-Saharan African origins such as Nigerian or Kenyan, and Afro-Caribbean origins such as Jamaican or Haitian. The term generally refers to Americans with at least partial ancestry descending from Africa’s Black populations. Today, African Americans constitute the second largest ethnoracial group in the United States, following White Americans.

Historical Background and Development

African American history begins in the sixteenth century with the forced migration of Africans through the Atlantic slave trade. Enslaved men, women, and children from various West and Central African societies were transported to the Americas and subjected to slavery in European colonies. Some Africans arrived in regions that would later form the United States during early Spanish expeditions, including voyages to Florida and settlements in the Caribbean. The first known Africans in British America were recorded in 1619 at Jamestown, Virginia, initially as indentured servants. Over time, legal distinctions hardened into a system of chattel slavery.
During the colonial period, Africans and their descendants worked primarily on plantations, especially in the southern colonies. Although a small minority gained freedom through manumission or escape, the vast majority remained enslaved. A few African families in early Virginia acquired land and property, but colonial legislatures increasingly restricted Black freedom. Laws such as Virginia’s 1662 statute adopting partus sequitur ventrum—which assigned slave status to children of enslaved mothers—cemented hereditary slavery and race-based social hierarchy.
Slavery persisted after the founding of the United States in 1783, especially in the South, where nearly four million people were enslaved by the mid-nineteenth century. The Civil War (1861–1865) culminated in abolition through the Thirteenth Amendment. During Reconstruction, African Americans gained citizenship and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment and adult male suffrage under the Fifteenth Amendment. However, discriminatory practices, including segregation and widespread disenfranchisement, soon undermined these gains.
The twentieth century brought major demographic and social transformation. Waves of the Great Migration saw millions of African Americans relocate from the rural South to northern and western cities, reshaping American urban and cultural life. Military participation in both World Wars, expanding activism, and the civil rights movement contributed to the dismantling of legally sanctioned segregation. Despite significant progress, structural racism and racial inequality remain persistent issues in the twenty-first century.
Immigration has also become increasingly important in shaping the African American population. As of 2022, around 10 per cent of Black Americans were immigrants, and approximately 20 per cent were either immigrants or children of immigrants, with substantial communities originating from African and Caribbean nations.

Culture and Contributions

African American culture, rooted in the diverse traditions of Africa and shaped by the distinct experiences of enslavement, resilience, and adaptation in the United States, has had profound influence across the world. Key cultural expressions include:

• Arts and Literature – African American writers, visual artists, and intellectuals have contributed significantly to American literature, philosophy, and political thought.
• Music – African American creativity underpins much of American music. Jazz, blues, gospel, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, soul, funk, disco, house, techno, hip hop, and trap all originate wholly or partly within African American communities.
• Cuisine – Soul food and other culinary traditions reflect African, Southern, and diasporic influences.
• Sports and Public Life – African Americans have played central roles in athletics, civil rights advocacy, and national leadership.

These cultural innovations have not only shaped the United States but have also influenced global trends in music, language, and artistic expression.

Colonial-Era Experiences

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Africans arrived through various colonial powers. Spanish expeditions brought enslaved Africans to Florida, Puerto Rico, and early settlements such as San Miguel de Gualdape in present-day South Carolina. Some early Africans, including Estevanico, travelled widely across North America through Spanish exploration. Interracial unions occurred in Spanish Florida, where mixed-heritage populations emerged and enslaved people were sometimes offered refuge in exchange for conversion to Catholicism.
In the English colonies, Africans initially shared similar conditions with White indentured servants but increasingly became subject to lifetime servitude. The legal system evolved to enforce racial slavery, and by the late seventeenth century, laws restricted the freedoms of both free and enslaved Black people. Some individuals, like Anthony Johnson, gained limited prosperity, yet colonial legislation soon curtailed opportunities for free Africans and solidified the status of slavery as race-based and hereditary.

Legacy and Contemporary Context

The long struggle for equality—from abolition through Reconstruction, the civil rights era, and ongoing movements addressing police reform, social justice, and systemic inequality—has defined much of African American history. Today, African Americans continue to influence national culture, politics, economics, and intellectual life, while also confronting challenges rooted in centuries of enslavement and discrimination.