African origins
Like other people of African descent in the Western Hemisphere, the ancestors of the overwhelming majority of African Americans were brought to North America as slaves between 1619 and 1807, when the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was supposed to end. Hundreds of slave ships existed between 1808 and 1858 carrying "black ivory" into the United States.
They came from eight distinct slave-trading regions in Africa. The regions were Gold Coast (present day Guinea and Guinea Bissau), Sierra Leone (also includes the area of present day Liberia), Windward Coast (present day Ivory Coast), Bight of Benin (Present day Togo, Benin and western Nigeria), Bight of Bonny, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Southeast Africa (Mozambique and Madagascar). The majority of slaves that were taken to what would become the United States came from the Gold Coast, Senegambian, Sierra Leone, Windward Coast, Bight of Benin, and Bight of Biafra. Certain slaves were more favored than others because of experience in agriculture or perceived docile natures.
Black Americans, like their white counterparts, are not a homogeneous population. Just as white Americans descend from Dutch, French, English, German, Irish, Italian, Franco-American, Polish, Scots-Irish, Scottish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Russian ancestors, Black Americans are composed of multiple ethnic groups. A reliable number of just how many ethnic groups were part of the Atlantic slave trade may never be known. However, there are approximately 40 major ethnic groups Black Americans descend from that can be found in present day African nations:
* Ghana: Ashanti, Fante, Ewe, and Ga
* Mali: Mandinka, Fulani, Bambara, Songhai, and Dogon
* Senegal, Gambia, & Guinea: Wolof, Serer, Fula, Peuhl, Balante, and Papel
* Sierra Leone & Liberia: Temne, Mende, Kissi, Goree,
Kru, and Vai
* Ivory Coast: Gullah, Bassa, and Grebo
* Benin & Togo: Fon, Ewe, and Mina
* Nigeria: Yoruba, Nupe, Edo-Bini, Igbo, Ibibio, Ijaw, Ibani, and Efik
* Cameroon: Duala
* Angola: BaKongo, Imbangala, Mbunda, and Lunda
* Congo: Luba
These ethnic groups were usually sold to European traders by powerful coastal or interior states in exchange for European goods such as textiles and firearms. Europeans on occasion kidnapped Africans, but this was rare. As coastal and near-coastal nation states in Africa expanded through military conflicts, the captives of these wars (be they soldiers or villagers) were sold. Slavery had been prevalent on a much smaller scale in African society long before the arrival of Europeans. Another way of becoming a slave was being convicted of a crime. Since most if not all these states did not have a prison system, criminals were usually sold.
Most Africans lived in moderately autonomous villages or densely populated urban centers within tribal kingdoms that checked a king’s power via some sort of council. These villages or cities paid tribute to the king and fought for him when called upon.
While most Africans lived within a semi-centralized state or kingdom, others lived in small villages with no state protection. Without such protection, these Africans were at higher risk to be enslaved. Since early Europeans had little success against the African states militarily, the non-urbanized Africans became frequent victims. Stateless areas such as Gambia, Guinea and southern Angola quickly fell into the hands of Europeans who sold the inhabitants as needed to colonies in the New World. The African states also raided these areas selling the inhabitants to Europeans and each other fricans brought to America between the years of 1619 and 1661 were not considered slaves. Since English law had no precedent for slave laws, Africans were given the same rights as white indentured servants. They would work to gain their independence, and Census records dating from 1651 show free Blacks in the colonies who had worked through their servitude and were given land and their freedom.
The colonies in the 17th century were a land based economy. In order for the owners of large pieces of land to make a profit they required people to work the land for them. Until the onset of slavery, these people were indentured servants. The problem was that as more of these people got their own land, and as more free people immigrated from Europe, it was found that farmhands were in short supply. There was a need for a large and growing number of people in the colonies to work the land. This, combined with the still ambiguous nature of the social status of Blacks and the difficulty in using any other group of people as forced servants, led to the relegation of Blacks into slavery.
The first statute of slavery was passed in 1661, by Virginia. A year later, Virginia passed another statute that stated all Black children should have the same status and their mothers. Other states soon followed. By the end of the century, there were over 1,000 slaves brought to the colonies every year.
The importation of slaves into the U.S. was outlawed in 1808. In North America, African slaves could be found primarily in the southern half of the British colonies, although slaves also were owned in the Spanish colony of Florida and the French colony of Louisiana. As chattel slaves in perpetuity, African slaves and their progeny were considered the property of their owners and had no rights. Slaves often were considered little more than beasts of burden, or draught horses. Records of slave births, deaths and sales or trade transactions often were maintained in ledgers alongside similar records of farm animals.
The U.S. Constitution of 1787 said that slaves, who at no time had the right to vote in any state, should count as part of the population at the ratio of three persons counted per five slaves. Some persons have translated this into a belief that slaves counted as 3/5 of a person, which is a rough approximation of the truth of their status. Students of the abolitionist movement, however, note that slaves would have been better off if they were not counted as people at all: the population counts added pro-slavery members of the House of Representatives and added electoral votes for pro-slavery Presidential nominees.
A former slave displays the telltale criss-cross, keloid scars from being bullwhipped. It was common practice to use a bullwhip or a cat-o-nine-tails and then rub salt, or a combination of salt and hot pepper, into the open wounds, which had a dual purpose. The salt helped ward off infection, but both ingredients also acted as irritants, heightening and prolonging suffering.
A former slave displays the telltale criss-cross, keloid scars from being bullwhipped. It was common practice to use a bullwhip or a cat-o-nine-tails and then rub salt, or a combination of salt and hot pepper, into the open wounds, which had a dual purpose. The salt helped ward off infection, but both ingredients also acted as irritants, heightening and prolonging suffering.
The twin doctrines of white supremacy and its corollary, a belief in the inherent inferiority of blacks, combined with capitalism to create a powerful rationale for slavery. Nationwide, de facto and de jure segregation and discrimination based on the notion of race were accepted and effective tools to enforce and entrench a pervasive system of white economic power and privilege and black oppression and disadvantage.
Politically but less so economically, blacks have made substantial strides in the post-civil rights era. Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who ran for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, brought unprecedented support and leverage to blacks in politics. In 1989, Virginia became the first state in U.S. history to elect a black Governor, Douglas Wilder. In 1992 Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois became the first black woman elected to the U.S. Senate. There were 8,936 black officeholders in the United States in 2000, showing a net increase of 7,467 since 1970. In 2001 there were 484 mayors and 38 members of Congress.
The Congressional Black Caucus serves as a political bloc in Congress for issues relating to African Americans. The appointment of blacks to high federal offices—including General Colin Powell, Chairman of the U.S. Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1989-1993, United States Secretary of State, 2001 - 2005; Condoleezza Rice, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 2001-2004, confirmed Secretary of State in January, 2005; Ron Brown, United States Secretary of Commerce, 1993-1996; and Supreme Court justices Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas—also demonstrates the increasing visibility of blacks in the political arena. However many African Americans are discouraged by the fact that most of the above mentioned Blacks appointed to government positions served the political party opposed by 90% of Black Americans.
Economic progress for blacks has been equally slow. According to Forbes rich lists, Oprah Winfrey was the richest African American of the 20th century and has been the world's only black billionaire in 2004, 2005, and 2006.[2] Not only was Winfrey the world's only black billionaire but she's been the only black on the Forbes 400 nearly every year since 1995 (BET founder Bob Johnson briefly joined her on the list from 2001-2003 before his ex-wife acquired part of his fortune, though he recently returned to the list in 2006). With only two black wealthy enough to rank among America's 400 richest people, blacks are currently only 0.5% of America's economic elite, despite being 12% of the U.S. population.