African-American history began with the forced transportation of Sub-Saharan Africans to North America in the 16th and 17th centuries. African Americans are mainly of African ancestry, but many have non-Black ancestors as well. African Americans are largely the descendants of enslaved people who were brought from their African homelands by force to work in the New World.
Diagram of a slave ship, highlighting the inhumane conditions endured by enslaved Africans during the Middle Passage.
Their rights were severely limited, and they were long denied a rightful share in the economic, social, and political progress of the United States. Nevertheless, African Americans have made basic and lasting contributions to American history and culture.
The Early History of Black People in the Americas
Africans assisted the Spanish and the Portuguese during their early exploration of the Americas. In the 16th century some Black explorers settled in the Mississippi valley and in the areas that became South Carolina and New Mexico. The uninterrupted history of Black people in the United States began in 1619, when 20 Africans were landed in the English colony of Virginia.
These individuals were not enslaved people but indentured servants-persons bound to an employer for a limited number of years-as were many of the settlers of European descent (whites). By the 1660s large numbers of Africans were being brought to the English colonies. In 1790 Black people numbered almost 760,000 and made up nearly one-fifth of the population of the United States.
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Attempts to hold Black servants beyond the normal term of indenture culminated in the legal establishment of Black chattel slavery in Virginia in 1661 and in all the English colonies by 1750. Black people were easily distinguished by their skin color (the result of evolutionary pressures favoring the presence in the skin of a dark pigment called melanin in populations in equatorial climates) from the rest of the populace, making them highly visible targets for enslavement. Moreover, the development of the belief that they were an “inferior” race with a “heathen” culture made it easier for whites to rationalize the enslavement of Black people.
The Atlantic Slave Trade
The European colonization of the Americas, and the resulting Atlantic slave trade, encompassed a large-scale transportation of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic. Of the roughly 10-12 million Africans who were sold in the Atlantic slave trade, either to Europe or the Americas, approximately 388,000 were sent to North America. After arriving in various European colonies in North America, the enslaved Africans were sold to European colonists, primarily to work on cash crop plantations.
Map illustrating the routes of the Atlantic slave trade, highlighting the forced migration of Africans to the Americas.
Enslaved Africans were put to work clearing and cultivating the farmlands of the New World. Of an estimated 10,000,000 Africans brought to the Americas by the trade of enslaved peoples, about 430,000 came to the territory of what is now the United States. The overwhelming majority were taken from the area of western Africa stretching from present-day Senegal to Angola, where political and social organization as well as art, music, and dance were highly advanced.
On or near the African coast had emerged the major kingdoms of Oyo, Ashanti, Benin, Dahomey, and the Congo. In the Sudanese interior had arisen the empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai; the Hausa states; and the states of Kanem-Bornu. Such African cities as Djenné and Timbuktu, both now in Mali, were at one time major commercial and educational centers. With the increasing profitability of slavery and the trade of enslaved peoples, some Africans themselves sold captives to the European traders.
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The captured Africans were generally marched in chains to the coast and crowded into the holds of slave ships for the dreaded Middle Passage across the Atlantic Ocean, usually to the West Indies. Shock, disease, and suicide were responsible for the deaths of at least one-sixth during the crossing. In the West Indies the survivors were “seasoned”-taught the rudiments of English and drilled in the routines and discipline of plantation life.
White people imposed slavery on Africans because they deemed black people as inferior and suitable for slavery. White people also used the Curse of Ham biblical belief to justify slavery. Enslaved African individuals were shackled together in groups and transported by boat along the waterways of West Africa to the coast. At this location, traders awaited to sell these enslaved individuals to European merchants.
In the account of Olaudah Equiano, he described the process of being transported to the colonies and being on the slave ships as a horrific experience. On the ships, the enslaved Africans were separated from their family long before they boarded the ships. Once aboard the ships the captives were then segregated by gender. Under the deck, the enslaved Africans were cramped and did not have enough space to walk around freely. The women on the ships were often raped by the crewmen.
Women and children were often kept in rooms set apart from the main hold to give crewmen access to the women. However, these rooms also gave enslaved women better access to information on the ship's crew, fortifications, and daily routine, but little opportunity to communicate this to the men confined in the ship's hold. Women instigated, among other attempts at mutiny, a 1797 insurrection aboard the slave ship Thomas by stealing weapons and passing them to the men below as well as engaging in hand-to-hand combat with the ship's crew. Enslaved males were the most likely candidates to mutiny but were only able to at times they were on deck. While rebellions did not happen often, they were usually unsuccessful.
The American Revolution and its Aftermath
During the American Revolutionary War, in which the Thirteen Colonies gained independence and began to form the United States, Black soldiers fought on both the British and the American sides. Approximately 5,000 free African-American men helped the American Colonists in their struggle for freedom. One of these men, Agrippa Hull, fought in the American Revolution for over six years.
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By contrast, the British and Loyalists offered emancipation to any enslaved person owned by a Patriot who was willing to join the Loyalist forces. Lord Dunmore, the Governor of Virginia, recruited 300 African-American men into his Ethiopian regiment within a month of making this proclamation. In South Carolina 25,000 enslaved people, more than one-quarter of the total, escaped to join and fight with the British, or fled for freedom in the uproar of war.
After the conflict ended, the Northern United States gradually abolished slavery. However, the population of the American South, which had an economy dependent on plantations operation by slave labor, increased their usage of Africans as slaves during the westward expansion of the United States. During this period, numerous enslaved African Americans escaped into free states and Canada via the Underground Railroad.
The Civil War and Reconstruction
Disputes over slavery between the Northern and Southern states led to the American Civil War, in which 178,000 African Americans served on the Union side. After the war ended with a Confederate defeat, the Reconstruction era began, in which African Americans living in the South were granted limited rights compared to their white counterparts.
White opposition to these advancements led to most African Americans living in the South to be disfranchised, and a system of racial segregation known as the Jim Crow laws was passed in the Southern states.
| Amendment | Description |
|---|---|
| 13th Amendment | Abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. |
| 14th Amendment | Granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, including formerly enslaved people, and guaranteed all citizens "equal protection of the laws." |
| 15th Amendment | Prohibited the denial of the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. |
Key Amendments Passed During Reconstruction Era.
The Great Migration and Civil Rights Movement
Beginning in the early 20th century, in response to poor economic conditions, segregation and lynchings, over 6 million African Americans, primarily rural, were forced to migrate out of the South to other regions of the United States in search of opportunity. The nadir of American race relations led to civil rights efforts to overturn discrimination and racism against African Americans.
In 1954, these efforts coalesced into a broad unified movement led by civil rights activists such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. The civil rights movement was an organized effort by black Americans to end racial discrimination and gain equal rights under the law. It began in the late 1940s and ended in the late 1960s.
The History Of The Civil Rights Movement: Key Moments & Leaders In The Struggle For Equality
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement.
