What is African American ?

In the West Indies the survivors were “seasoned”—taught the rudiments of English and drilled in the routines and discipline of plantation life.

History of African-Americans begins with slavery, as white European settlers first brought Africans to the continent to serve as slaves. The fate of slaves in the United States would divide the nation during the Civil War......

Just as whites were divided by the conflict between the colonies and England, so blacks faced difficult choices. African-Americans fought for both sides, providing manpower to both the British and the revolutionaries.

At White Plains, New York, in August 1778, muster rolls for the Continental army recorded 755 blacks. Fifty-eight of them, probably free men, were with the North Carolina Continental Line. Black soldiers were more likely to serve as laborers and craftsmen. They built fortifications, made weapons and ammunition, cleared roads, and shod horses. They also acted as spies, guides, musicians, or servants to white officers.

Blacks who fought with the revolutionaries included Jonathan Overton, who died in 1849 at the age of 101. A newspaper described him as “a soldier of the Revolution” who had “served under Washington, and was at the battle of Yorktown, besides other less important engagements.” Another was Ned Griffen, who was purchased by William Kitchen to serve as his substitute in the army.

First Africans in the New World arrived with Spanish and Portuguese explorers and settlers. By 1600 an estimated 275,000 Africans, both free and slave, were in Central and South America and the Caribbean area....

Article by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. appearing in the Root, October 15, 2012.

Who Was the First African American? : We know his name, and that he arrived well before the Mayflower.
Article by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. appearing in the Root, October 21, 2012.

African Americans have at various times in United States history been referred to as African, colored, Negro, Afro-American, and black, as well as African American. Exactly what portion of the African American population is of solely African ancestry is not known.

Over the past 300 and more years in the United States, considerable racial mixture has taken place between persons of African descent and those with other racial backgrounds, mainly of white European or American Indian ancestry.

Historically, the predominant attitude toward racial group membership in the United States has been that persons having any black African ancestry are considered to be African American.

In some parts of the United States, especially in the antebellum South, laws were written to define racial group membership in this way, generally to the detriment of those who were not Caucasian

It is important to note, however, that ancestry and physical characteristics are only part of what has set black Americans apart as a distinct group.

African Americans Under Slavery: 1600-1865
The first Africans in the New World arrived with Spanish and Portuguese explorers and settlers. By 1600 an estimated 275,000 Africans, both free and slave, were in Central and South America and the Caribbean area.

Africans first arrived in the area that became the United States in 1619, when a handful of captives were sold by the captain of a Dutch man-of-war to settlers at Jamestown.

Others were brought in increasing numbers to fill the desire for labor in a country where land was plentiful and labor scarce. By the end of the 17th century, approximately 1,300,000 Africans had landed in the New World. From 1701 to 1810 the number reached 6,000,000, with another 1,800,000 arriving after 1810.

Some Africans were brought directly to the English colonies in North America. Others landed as slaves in the West Indies and were later resold and shipped to the mainland

Slavery in America. The earliest African arrivals were viewed in the same way as indentured servants from Europe. This similarity did not long continue. By the latter half of the 17th century, clear differences existed in the treatment of black and white servants.

A 1662 Virginia law assumed Africans would remain servants for life, and a 1667 act declared that "Baptisme doth not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedome." By 1740 the slavery system in colonial America was fully developed.

A Virginia law in that year declared slaves to be "chattel personal in the hands of their owners and possessors for all intents, construction, and purpose whatsoeve

The principle by which persons of African ancestry were considered the personal property of others prevailed in North America for more than two-thirds of the three and a half centuries since the first Africans arrived there.

Its influences increased even though the English colonies won independence and articulated national ideals in direct opposition to slavery. In spite of numerous ideological conflicts, however, the slavery system was maintained in the United States until 1865, and widespread antiblack attitudes nurtured by slavery continued thereafter.

Prior to the American Revolution, slavery existed in all the colonies. The ideals of the Revolution and the limited profitability of slavery in the North resulted in its abandonment in northern states during the last quarter of the 18th century.

At the same time, the strength of slavery increased in the South, with the continuing demand for cheap labor by the tobacco growers and cotton farmers of the Southern states. By 1850, 92% of all American blacks were concentrated in the South, and of this group approximately 95% were slaves.

Life on the plantations was hard, and no consideration was given to the cultural traditions of blacks. In the slave market men were separated from their wives, and frequently children were taken from their mothers. Family and tribal links were thus almost immediately cut.