South Asians had been present in colonial America since at least 1635 with the recording of an East Indian man named "Tony" in the Colony of Virginia. They were brought over as indentured servants and sometimes slaves who eventually assimilated into the dominant white and black American populations. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Creole peoples may refer to various ethnic groups around the world. The term's meaning exhibits regional variations, often sparking debate.
Melungeon was a slur historically applied to individuals and families of mixed-race ancestry with roots in colonial Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina primarily descended from free people of color and white settlers. In modern times, the term has been reclaimed by descendants of these families, especially in southern Appalachia. Despite this mixed heritage, many modern Melungeons pass as White, as did many of their ancestors.
The institution of slavery in the European colonies in North America, which eventually became part of the United States of America, developed due to a combination of factors. Primarily, the labor demands for establishing and maintaining European colonies resulted in the Atlantic slave trade. Slavery existed in every European colony in the Americas during the early modern period, and both Africans and indigenous peoples were targets of enslavement by Europeans during the era.
Coolie is a pejorative term used for low-wage labourers, typically those of Indian or Chinese descent.
The Siddi, also known as the Sheedi, Sidi, or Siddhi, are an ethnic minority group inhabiting Pakistan and India. They are primarily descended from the Bantu peoples of the Zanj coast in Southeast Africa, most of whom came to the Indian subcontinent through the Indian Ocean slave trade. Others arrived as merchants, sailors, indentured servants, and mercenaries.
Indo-Caribbean people or Indian-Caribbean people are people in the Caribbean who trace their ancestry to the Indian subcontinent. They are descendants of the Jahaji indentured laborers from British India, who were brought by the British, Dutch, and French during the colonial era from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century. A minority of them are descendants from people who immigrated as entrepreneurs, businesspeople, merchants, engineers, doctors, religious leaders, students, and other professional occupations beginning in the mid-20th century and continuing to the present.
Black Indians are Native American people – defined as Native American due to being affiliated with Native American communities and being culturally Native American – who also have significant African American heritage.
Muslims constitute 5.6 percent of the population of Trinidad and Tobago. The majority live in Trinidad but there are a handful in Tobago as well.
The racial classification of Indian Americans has varied over the years and across institutions. Originally, neither the courts nor the census bureau classified Indian Americans as a race because there were only negligible numbers of Indian immigrants in the United States. Early Indian Americans were often denied their civil rights, leading to close affiliations with African Americans. For most of America's early history, the government only recognized two racial classifications, white or colored. Due to immigration laws of the time, those deemed colored were often denied the ability to become citizens. For these reasons, various South Asians in America took the government to court to try to be considered white instead of colored. After advocacy from the Indian American community, the racial category of Asian Indian was finally introduced in the 1980 U.S. census.
Indo-Surinamese, Indian-Surinamese, or Hindustani Surinamese are nationals of Suriname who trace their ancestry to the Indian subcontinent. Their ancestors were indentured labourers brought by the Dutch and the British to the Dutch colony of Suriname, beginning in 1873 and continuing during the British Raj. Per the 2012 Census of Suriname, 148,443 citizens of Suriname are of Indo-Surinamese origin, constituting 27.4% of the total population, making them the largest ethnic group in Suriname on an individual level. They are a subgroup of Asian Surinamese and Indo-Caribbean people.
Indian Filipinos are Filipinos of Indian descent who have historical connections with and have established themselves in what is now the Philippines. The term refers to Filipino citizens of either pure or mixed Indian descent currently residing in the country, the latter a result of intermarriages between the Indians and local populations.
South Asian Americans are Americans of South Asian ancestry. The term refers to those who can trace back their heritage to South Asia, which includes the countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldives. The South Asian American diaspora also includes generations of South Asians from other areas in the world who then moved to the United States, areas such as Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritius, Singapore, Malaysia, Suriname, other parts of the Caribbean, etc. In the United States census, they are a subcategory of Asian Americans, although individual racial classification is based on self-identification and the categorization is "not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically".
Multiracial Americans, also known as Mixed Americans, are Americans who have mixed ancestry of two or more races. The term may also include Americans of mixed-race ancestry who self-identify with just one group culturally and socially. In the 2020 United States census, 33.8 million individuals or 10.2% of the population, self-identified as multiracial. There is evidence that an accounting by genetic ancestry would produce a higher number.
Overseas Indians, officially Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and People of Indian Origin (PIOs) are Indians who reside or originate outside of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. According to the Government of India, Non-Resident Indians are citizens of India who currently are not living in India, while the term People of Indian Origin refers to people of Indian birth or ancestry who are citizens of countries other than India. Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) is given to People of Indian Origin and to persons who are not People of Indian Origin but married to Indian citizen or People of Indian Origin. Persons with OCI status are known as Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs). The OCI status is a permanent visa for visiting India with a foreign passport.
Afro-Asians are African communities that have been living in the Indian subcontinent for centuries and have settled in countries such as India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
In the United States, many U.S. states historically had anti-miscegenation laws which prohibited interracial marriage and, in some states, interracial sexual relations. Some of these laws predated the establishment of the United States, and some dated to the later 17th or early 18th century, a century or more after the complete racialization of slavery. Nine states never enacted anti-miscegenation laws, and 25 states had repealed their laws by 1967. In that year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that such laws are unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The South Asian diaspora, also known as the Desi diaspora, is the group of people whose ancestral origins lie in South Asia, but who live outside the region. There are over 44 million people in this diaspora.
Sri Lankans in Japan consist of Sri Lankan migrants that come to Japan, as well as their descendants, and have been in Japan since ancient times. In June 2024, there were 56,179 Sri Lankans living in Japan. They are the fourth largest nationality group from South Asia after Myanmar, Nepalis and Indians.
Indrani Chatterjee is an Indian-American historian, academic, and author. She is the John L. Nau III Distinguished Professor of the History and Principles of Democracy at the University of Virginia. She is known for writing about underexplored themes in South Asia’s past —including slavery, the household, and monasticism.
Jordan Arterburn (1808–1875) and Tarlton Arterburn (1810–1883) were brothers and interstate slave traders of the 19th-century United States. They typically bought enslaved people in their home state of Kentucky in the upper south, and then moved them to Mississippi in the lower south, where there was a constant demand for enslaved laborers on the plantations of King Cotton. Their "negroes wanted" advertisements ran in Louisville newspapers almost continuously from 1843 to 1859. In 1876, Tarlton Arterburn claimed they had taken profits of "30 to 40 percent a head" during their slave-trading days, and that Northern abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe had visited the Arterburn slave pen in Louisville while researching Uncle Tom's Cabin and A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. There is now a historical marker in Louisville at former site of the Arterburn slave jail, acknowledging the myriad abuses and human-rights violations that took place there.