Just How “African” are Latin Americans?

as many of you know if there's any region of the planet I find more demographically fascinating than any other it's our neighbors to the south and I hope I've done a good job shattering the Hollywood illusion that all Latin Americans are culturally religiously or physically the same but one aspect of Latino identity that I find neglected is the presence of black or african blood in the region this is definitely not a subject well known to the us-american our global populace but needless to say the black or Aphrodite no community is of great importance to the social fabric of Latin America found in nearly every single country south of the US border yet their presence in American lexicon is virtually non-existent as we'll discuss later in this video well over ninety percent of slaves that crossed the Atlantic ended up in Latin America or the Caribbean as opposed to the United States meaning the number of African descendants in this region well out numbers that in the US and the community has several interesting quirks such as having the only surviving monarchy in the Western Hemisphere from the jungles of the Amazons to the deserts of the Sonora it is still possible to find pockets of black Latinos in nearly every region of Latin America yet how on earth did they get there anyways the history of Africans in the Americas stretches back to the days of Columbus very very shortly after the arrival of the Spaniards in the West Indies as the Taino and Carib Amerindian rapidly began to die off from old-world diseases in the spanish and portuguese imported slaves from Africa in large numbers to replace their labor mostly from Central and West Africa and over time these groups gradually coalesced into a single identity and ethnicity similar to what occurred in the United States there are multiple types of African descendants in Latin America today each with widely varying cultures appearance and traditions the largest and most iconic of which being the Hispanic after Latinos that being the descendants of former slaves owned by the criollos meaning the american-born Spanish elite who formed their own communities following the abolition of slavery in these countries they're scattered throughout areas of the Americas having no central genetic or cultural unity although they do all generally speak Spanish as a first language have Spanish surnames have varying degrees of European and other non African admixture and are generally fairly culturally assimilated into their host countries with the only main differences between them and their white or mestizo neighbors being their complexion although they do have certain cultural quirks this is the same in Brazil which actually has a larger afro-descendant population than Hispanic America in terms of numbers and percentages although the afro-brazilian population does not include those of self-described Pardo ancestry even though afro-brazilians very often have large degrees of non African admixture themselves some sources even claim that as high as 1 in 4 Brazilians is of African or mostly African ancestry which hmm dubious but we'll touch on that again later another much smaller community are those collectively known as the Maroons a heterogeneous group comprised of runaway slaves who escaped from their Spanish masters hundreds of years ago forming their own communities deep in the jungles or mountains of whatever country they live in and may speak Spanish or a creole language highly influenced by African languages as because the maroon communities formed so long ago the average maroon has far less non African admixture and cultural influence than any other group in the Americas being near full-blooded Africans and hence have a highly divergent culture from the countries they live in and may still be isolated to this day however in pretty much all other African descended communities in Latin America there has been a huge degree of inter mixing between other races around them which has given rise to many different new combinations such as mulattoes of mixed European and African descent Zambos a mixed Emmer Indian and African descent do glows of mixed Indian and African descent as well as combinations of all these other previous groups now this becomes slightly confusing seeing how in some Latino countries these various subgroups very often intermix leaving very little distinction between the various ethnicity as for instance in Colombia little distinction is made by the government and the general populace between afro-colombians Zambos or mulattos with all simply being considered black while in contrast to the Caribbean country of the Dominican Republic makes a huge distinction between the average Dominican Lotto and the more recently arrived Haitians who are generally far darker with less non African admixture it's common for many in America to simplify the Dominicans complex history and demographics by branding them all under the label of black however the overwhelming majority of Dominicans in the country today reject such a label refusing to conform to America's racial dichotomy which only sprung up a couple hundred years ago compared to the 500 year history of mixing and Spanish heritage in the dominican republic Colombia's African descended population as a percentage is actually quite comparable to that of the United States officially sitting around 11 percent of the population and you might see this as strange seeing as how African Colombians have very little representation in Colombian media or American media depicting Colombia but this is easily explained as the majority of afro-colombians are actually concentrated on the country's western coast with the Pacific Ocean where they make up a strong majority all the way down to the Ecuadorian border and make up less than 2% in the major Colombian cities located in the center of the country in fact a band stretching from southern Panama to northern Ecuador is dominated by those of African descent so think of this region as Hispanic America's Black Belt similar to the high concentration of blacks and the American South although over the centuries the afro Latino community has spread out to virtually every region of Latin America especially in Brazil with the largest percentage being Ron Bahia in the Northeast although even the white southern states have modest minorities of afro-brazilians the majority of the nations of Cuba the Dominican Republic Puerto Rico and Brazil have at least some degree of African ancestry even many self-identified whites or Blancos in the Ares may have up to 5 to 10% African genes which is comparable perhaps a bit higher than many old stocks southern whites from states like Louisiana South Carolina or Florida although because of the higher degree of miscegenation in Latin America these African genes are more spread out although around 40 million Latin Americans actively identify as black or of African descent out of Latin America's current population of over 600 million those with at least some visible African ancestry is tripled this amount or in other words one in every five Latinos the percentage of people in Latin America of African descent was far higher in the past before the major waves of European migration and inter-regional flux diluted the African genes into the mixed-race population however afro-latino communities are still present and virtually every Latin American country from Mexico to Chile in the early 19th century some Central American cities like Tegucigalpa San Salvador and Panama City where upwards of 80 percent afro-descendant or mulattoes with this percentage rapidly falling in the next hundred years this is because although initially the large cities were mostly full of Criollo slave owners and the mulatto or African Acts lives over time mestizos from the countryside gradually migrated to these cities displacing or assimilating nearly the entire afro-descendant community leaving only small traces behind in fact it's highly probable that the small Central American country of Belize once a bastion of a furball easing Creoles will see their African descent of population be absorbed into the incoming mestizo population that has recently arrived from countries like Guatemala Mexico Honduras and El Salvador over time these African genes have dispersed throughout the population of these different Latino countries depending heavily on the region or self-identified race but generally even mestizos from Hispanic America may have between 2 to 10% African DNA brazilian Pardo's around 15 to 30% and even some Emery Indian groups may have small amounts of admixture through runaway slaves who settled in their communities but let's take a look at the demographic for those who actively identify as black in Latin America and the Caribbean or other than all of those with any African ancestry as with other Latin Americans afro-latinos are traditionally Catholic although increasingly Protestant and evangelical movements have taken a hold in many of these communities although interestingly a small minority about 5% explicitly practiced some sort of old traditional animistic African religion such as voodoo condom bleh or Santeria in contrast to the United States where these practices have more or less disappeared and even many self-described Catholics especially those in the Caribbean still incorporate elements of these African faiths out of the approximately 48 million blacks and Latin America and the Caribbean which is a slightly higher number than in the US Canada they are quite culturally and linguistically diverse because of the many countries they live in with around 1/3 speaking Portuguese saying how Brazil has the largest number followed by smaller numbers speaking Spanish such as those in Colombia Mexico or Peru then French such as that spoken in Haiti the most African country in the Americas and then English and various english-based Creole are of course common throughout the Caribbean as well as in the guy Ana's in Central America where many Jamaican Barbadian or other english-speaking Antillean immigrants migrated to within the past 200 years and their culture is quite distinct from not only the surrounding Hispanics but even the black Latinos who are far more integrated into their home countries speaking Spanish and most but not all identify and have loyalties with their own country first before any specific race or ethnicity in recent years many Latinos a full or partial African descent have been trekking north to the United States particularly to the Northeast such as Boston New York or DC or to Florida only a stone's throw away from the Caribbean and although this is getting slightly more recognition to this highly diverse numerous group of people it will probably take time for the American media to recognize that Latinos can be black white asian or any other race imaginable because as I always say Latino or Hispanic is not a race but a cultural identifiers so please let me know your thoughts on the history and culture of African descendants in Latin America which is truly the most African place in the world outside of sub-saharan Africa and for today's poll tell me which region has the most interesting black Latino community and as always thanks for watching everyone is Ben Mason I'll see you next time

Channel: Masaman

Views: 507,608

Rating: 4.8012533 out of 5

Keywords: masaman, Just How African are Latin Americans, Just how African is Latin America, Black Latinos, Afro-Latinos, Afro-Latino, Afro-Brazilian, Afro-Mexican, Black Brazilian, Genetics of Latin America, Latinos, Race in Latin America, White Latin Americans, Black Latin Americans, Mestizos, Race, Ethnicity, Genetics, Afro-Colombian, Afro-Venezuelan, Black Colombian, Black Mexican, Black Hispanic, DNA, 23andme, Genetics of Brazil, What Race are Brazilians, Are Brazilians Black, Are Brazilians White

Id: LvRS7P33mAI

Length: 11min 26sec (686 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 10 2018