African-American diaspora

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The African-American diaspora refers to communities of people of African descent who previously lived in the United States. These people were mainly descended from formerly enslaved African persons in the United States or its preceding European colonies in North America that had been brought to America via the Atlantic slave trade and had suffered in slavery until the American Civil War. The African-American diaspora was primarily caused by the intense racism and views of being inferior to white people [1] that African Americans have suffered through driving them to find new homes free from discrimination and racism. This would become common throughout the history of the African-American presence in the United States and continues to this day.

Contents

The spreading of the African American diaspora would begin as soon as slaves were brought over to the New World and would first become a large movement during the American Revolution and into the 19th century by escaping slave owners for a chance at freedom [2] and through serving in both the British and colonial army for their freedom. Canada would abolish slavery in 1803 and opened its doors for freemen and fugitive slaves from the states resulting in thousands migrating there to escape slavery via the Underground Railroad. [3] Today, many African Americans, especially women, are leaving the U.S. for an easier life in places like South Africa, Mexico, and the Caribbean. [4]

History

18th century

The spread of the African-American diaspora began during the 18th century through the escape of slaves from their masters and through the Revolutionary war. During the Revolutionary War, slaves were offered freedom in exchange for their services in both the British and Union Army. Ultimately about 5,000 would serve for the union and another 20,000 for the British during the Revolution. [5] Newly freed African Americans who fought for either side would end up living as freedmen in Nova Scotia Canada, in England, or in British Sierra Leone. [6]

19th century

During the 19th century, the formation of the American Colonization Society (ACS) in 1817 would begin the Back to Africa movement with the goal of resettling free African Americans and newly emancipated slaves back to their home country. it would create the colony of Liberia and would send over 13,000 freedmen. However, the ACS was greatly disliked by both African Americans who believed they were entitled to the same rights as any white man and America was just as much of their country as any white man. [7] Between 1800 and 1865 over 30,000 African Americans would escape to Canada through the Underground Railroad to escape life in the south. After the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865, the 13th Amendment was ratified by Congress abolishing slavery in all forms and freeing all persons of color from slavery. Throughout the rest of the 19th and into the 20th century African Americans would flee the harsh realities of the South such as lynching and other racism and would mainly relocate to Canada. [8]

20th century

During the 20th century, African Americans continued to face racism and discrimination being denied work in higher-paying jobs and would be severely restricted through Jim Crow laws. [9] Organized crime stopped African Americans from gaining jobs and homes and threatened the lives of those who tried to give them jobs or sell them land. [10] During this time period, Canada would abolish its immigration policies that discriminated against African Americans and it would prompt more African-American communities to be introduced. [8]

21st century

Today African Americans are still leaving America to escape racism and find an easier way of life outside the U.S.. Racism is still more present than ever with police-involved black murders being 350% higher than whites as well as being imprisoned at a much higher rate. [11] Today they search for lives in Africa, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Europe free from the hardships faced in the U.S.. Today living outside the U.S offers a lower cost of living and a safer more secure lifestyle and people report feeling less oppressed and more accepted. [12] [4] Today many people migrating will up businesses that will sell vacations and help other African Americans leave the country as well as create their own side hustles and find jobs to help fellow African Americans to make the move. Because the cost of living outside the U.S. is greatly lower it can allow more people to migrate permanently or temporally out of the U.S. [4]

West Africa

Sierra Leone

Many freed slaves were discontent with where they were resettled in Canada after the Revolutionary War and were eager to return to their homeland. Beginning in 1787, the British government made their first attempt to settle people in Sierra Leone. About 300 Black Britons, known as the Black Poor of London, were settled on the Sierra Leonean peninsula in West Africa. Within two years, most members of the settlement would die from disease or conflict with the local Temne people. In 1792, a second attempt at settlement was made when 1,100 freed slaves established Freetown with support from British abolitionist Thomas Clarkson. Their numbers were further bolstered when over 500 Jamaican Maroons were transported first to Nova Scotia, and then to Sierra Leone in 1800. [13] The descendants of the freedmen in Freetown are the Sierra Leone Creole people. [14]

Colored soldiers served in the Revolutionary War in exchange for their freedom. Many would end up in Canada or Sierra Leone, both of witch were under British control. Soldiers in Uniform WDL2960.png
Colored soldiers served in the Revolutionary War in exchange for their freedom. Many would end up in Canada or Sierra Leone, both of witch were under British control.

Liberia

In the early 19th century, the American Colonization Society was established with the stated aim of sending formerly enslaved African-Americans back to Africa. There, they would establish independent colonies on the West African coast. Gaining support from both American slaveowners and abolitionists, in the 1840s ships containing both African Americans and Black West Indian settlers landed on the West African coast and established the nation of Liberia. There, they formed the Americo-Liberian ethnic group in contrast to the indigenous Africans who lived in Liberia. [15]

Canada

African-Americans who settled in Canada before Confederation include three major waves:

Other, smaller waves of African-American settlement occurred in Western Canada in the 19th and early 20th centuries, with African-Americans from California taking up an allowance from the Colony of Vancouver Island to settle on the island in the 1860s, as well as settlements by African-Americans from Oklahoma and Texas in Amber Valley, Campsie, Junkins (now Wildwood) and Keystone (now Breton) in Alberta, as well as a former community in the Rural Municipality of Eldon, north of Maidstone, Saskatchewan. [10]

Caribbean

Mexico

Some African American expats have moved to Mexico to escape racism in the United States. [16]

Europe

In the 1780s with the end of the American Revolutionary War, hundreds of black loyalists, especially soldiers, from America were resettled in London. [17] However, they were never awarded pensions, and many of them became poverty-stricken and were reduced to begging on the streets. Reports at the time stated they: ''had no prospect of subsisting in this country but by depredations on the public, or by common charity.'' A sympathetic observer wrote that ''great numbers of Blacks and People of Colour, many of them refugees from America and others who have by land or sea been in his Majesty's service were.....in great distress.'' Even towards white loyalists there was little good will to new arrivals from America. [18] Later some, many of whom had fallen into poverty, emigrated to Sierra Leone with help from Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor. [19]

The African-American population in Britain did not grow until World War II. By the end of 1943 there were 3,312 African-American GIs based at Maghull and Huyton, near Liverpool. [20]

Germany

There is an African American community in Germany. [21]

Russia

African Americans emigrated to Russia in the 1930s. [22]

Israel

South Africa

Approximately 3,000 African Americans live in South Africa. [23]

Japan

China

There is an African American presence in China. African Americans came to China during World War II. The first African American contact with China came during the Boxer Rebellion. [24]

See also

Related Research Articles

Sierra Leone first became inhabited by indigenous African peoples at least 2,500 years ago. The Limba were the first tribe known to inhabit Sierra Leone. The dense tropical rainforest partially isolated the region from other West African cultures, and it became a refuge for peoples escaping violence and jihads. Sierra Leone was named by Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra, who mapped the region in 1462. The Freetown estuary provided a good natural harbour for ships to shelter and replenish drinking water, and gained more international attention as coastal and trans-Atlantic trade supplanted trans-Saharan trade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Colonization Society</span> 19th-century group in the United States

The American Colonization Society (ACS), initially the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America, was an American organization founded in 1816 by Robert Finley to encourage and support the repatriation of freeborn people of color and emancipated slaves to the continent of Africa. It was modeled on an earlier British colonization in Africa, which had sought to resettle London's "black poor".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sherbro Island</span> Place in Southern Province, Sierra Leone

Sherbro Island is in the Atlantic Ocean, and is included within Bonthe District, Southern Province, Sierra Leone. The island is separated from the African mainland by the Sherbro River in the north and Sherbro Strait in the east. It is 32 miles (51 km) long and up to 15 miles (24 km) wide, covering an area of approximately 230 square miles (600 km2). The western extremity is Cape St. Ann. Bonthe, on the eastern end, is the chief port and commercial centre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Loyalist</span> Slaves who sided with the Loyalists for freedom

Black Loyalists were African-Americans who sided with the Loyalists during the American Revolutionary War. In particular, the term refers to men who escaped enslavement by Patriot masters and served on the Loyalist side because of the Crown's guarantee of freedom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Temne people</span> West African ethnic group

The Temne, also called Atemne, Témené, Temné, Téminè, Temeni, Thaimne, Themne, Thimni, Timené, Timné, Timmani, or Timni, are a West African ethnic group, They are predominantly found in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone. Some Temne are also found in Guinea. The Temne constitute the largest ethnic group in Sierra Leone, at 35.5% of the total population, which is slightly bigger than the Mende people at 31.2%. They speak Temne, a Mel branch of the Niger–Congo languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Back-to-Africa movement</span> Political movement in the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries

The back-to-Africa movement was a political movement in the 19th and 20th centuries advocating for a return of the descendants of African American slaves to the African continent. The movement originated from a widespread belief among some European Americans in the 18th and 19th century United States that African Americans would want to return to the continent of Africa. In general, the political movement was an overwhelming failure; very few former slaves wanted to move to Africa. The small number of freed slaves who did settle in Africa—some under duress—initially faced brutal conditions, due to diseases to which they no longer had biological resistance. As the failure became known in the United States in the 1820s, it spawned and energized the radical abolitionist movement. In the 20th century, the Jamaican political activist and black nationalist Marcus Garvey, members of the Rastafari movement, and other African Americans supported the concept, but few actually left the United States.

Thomas Peters, born Thomas Potters, was a veteran of the Black Pioneers, fighting for the British in the American Revolutionary War. A Black Loyalist, he was resettled in Nova Scotia, where he became a politician and one of the "Founding Fathers" of the nation of Sierra Leone in West Africa. Peters was among a group of influential Black Canadians who pressed the Crown to fulfill its commitment for land grants in Nova Scotia. Later they recruited African-American settlers in Nova Scotia for the colonisation of Sierra Leone in the late eighteenth century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Clarkson (abolitionist)</span> English abolitionist

Lieutenant John Clarkson was a Royal Navy officer and abolitionist, the younger brother of Thomas Clarkson, one of the central figures in the abolition of slavery in England and the British Empire at the close of the 18th century. As agent for the Sierra Leone Company, Lieutenant Clarkson was instrumental in the founding of Freetown, today Sierra Leone's capital city, as a haven for chiefly formerly enslaved African-Americans first relocated to Nova Scotia by the British military authorities following the American Revolutionary War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David George (Baptist)</span> Historical figure

David George was an African-American Baptist preacher and a Black Loyalist from the American South who escaped to British lines in Savannah, Georgia; later he accepted transport to Nova Scotia and land there. He eventually resettled in Freetown, Sierra Leone where he would eventually die. With other enslaved people, George founded the Silver Bluff Baptist Church in South Carolina in 1775, the first black congregation in the present-day United States. He was later affiliated with the First African Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia. After migration, he founded Baptist congregations in Nova Scotia and Freetown, Sierra Leone. George wrote an account of his life, an important early slave narratives.

Boston King was a former American slave and Black Loyalist, who gained freedom from the British and settled in Nova Scotia after the American Revolutionary War. He later immigrated to Sierra Leone, where he helped found Freetown and became the first Methodist missionary to African indigenous people.

Harry Washington was a Black Loyalist in the American Revolutionary War, and enslaved by Virginia planter George Washington, later the first President of the United States. When the war was lost the British then evacuated him to Nova Scotia. In 1792 he joined nearly 1,200 freedmen for resettlement in Sierra Leone, where they set up a colony of free people of color.

<i>Book of Negroes</i> 1783 British document

The Book of Negroes is a document created by Brigadier General Samuel Birch, under the direction of Sir Guy Carleton, that records names and descriptions of 3,000 Black Loyalists, enslaved Africans who escaped to the British lines during the American Revolution and were evacuated to points in Nova Scotia as free people of colour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Coker</span> African-American former slave and Methodist minister

Daniel Coker (1780–1846), born Isaac Wright, was an African American of mixed race from Baltimore, Maryland. Born a slave, after he gained his freedom, he became a Methodist minister in 1802. He wrote one of the few pamphlets published in the South that protested against slavery and supported abolition. In 1816, he helped found the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first independent black denomination in the United States, at its first national convention in Philadelphia.

Moses "Daddy Moses" Wilkinson or "Old Moses" was an American Wesleyan Methodist preacher and Black Loyalist. His ministry combined Old Testament divination with African religious traditions such as conjuring and sorcery. He gained freedom from slavery in Virginia during the American Revolutionary War and was a Wesleyan Methodist preacher in New York and Nova Scotia. In 1791, he migrated to Sierra Leone, preaching alongside ministers Boston King and Henry Beverhout. There, he established the first Methodist church in Settler Town and survived a rebellion in 1800.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nova Scotian Settlers</span> Historical ethnic group that settled Sierra Leone

The Nova Scotian Settlers, or Sierra Leone Settlers, were African Americans who founded the settlement of Freetown, Sierra Leone and the Colony of Sierra Leone, on March 11, 1792. The majority of these black American immigrants were among 3,000 African Americans, mostly former slaves, who had sought freedom and refuge with the British during the American Revolutionary War, leaving rebel masters. They became known as the Black Loyalists. The Nova Scotian Settlers were jointly led by African American Thomas Peters, a former soldier, and English abolitionist John Clarkson. For most of the 19th century, the Settlers resided in Settler Town and remained a distinct ethnic group within the Freetown territory, tending to marry among themselves and with Europeans in the colony.

John Kizell was an American immigrant who became a leader in Sierra Leone as it was being developed as a new British colony in the early nineteenth century. Believed born on Sherbro Island, he was kidnapped and enslaved as a child and shipped to Charleston, South Carolina, where he was sold again. Years later, after the American Revolutionary War, during which he gained freedom with the British and was evacuated to Nova Scotia, he eventually returned to West Africa. In 1792, he was among 50 native-born Africans among the 1200 predominantly African-American Black Loyalists resettled in Freetown.

The history of African-American settlement in Africa extends to the beginnings of ex-slave repatriation to Africa from European colonies in the Americas.

Black nationalism is a nationalist movement which seeks liberation, equality, representation and/or self-determination for black people as a distinct national identity, especially in racialized, colonial and postcolonial societies. Its earliest proponents saw it as a way to advocate for democratic representation in culturally plural societies or to establish self-governing independent nation-states for black people. Modern black nationalism often aims for the social, political, and economic empowerment of black communities within white majority societies, either as an alternative to assimilation or as a way to ensure greater representation and equality within predominantly Eurocentric or white cultures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sierra Leone Creole people</span> Ethnic group of Sierra Leone

The Sierra Leone Creole people are an ethnic group of Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leone Creole people are descendants of freed African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and Liberated African slaves who settled in the Western Area of Sierra Leone between 1787 and about 1885. The colony was established by the British, supported by abolitionists, under the Sierra Leone Company as a place for freedmen. The settlers called their new settlement Freetown. Today, the Sierra Leone Creoles are 1.2 percent of the population of Sierra Leone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sierra Leone Colony and Protectorate</span> British colony (1808–1861) and protectorate (1896–1961)

The Colony and Protectorate of Sierra Leone was the British colonial administration in Sierra Leone from 1808 to 1961, part of the British Empire from the abolitionism era until the decolonisation era. The Crown colony, which included the area surrounding Freetown, was established in 1808. The protectorate was established in 1896 and included the interior of what is today known as Sierra Leone.

References

  1. ↑ Keim, Curtis; Somerville, Carolyn (2017). Mistaking Africa Curiosities and Inventions of the American Mind (4th ed.). 1290 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10104: Westview Press. ISBN   978-0-8133-4983-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  2. ↑ Browne, Simone. Dark Matters. Available from: St. Mary's College of Maryland, Duke University Press, 2015.
  3. ↑ Gallant, Sigrid Nicole. “Perspectives on the Motives for the Migration of African-Americans to and from Ontario, Canada: From the Abolition of Slavery in Canada to the Abolition of Slavery in the United States.” The Journal of Negro History, vol. 86, no. 3, 2001, pp. 391–408. JSTOR, doi : 10.2307/1562457. Accessed 13 Dec. 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 Girma, Lebawit Lily. "Black Women Are Banding Together to Leave America Behind. Here's Why". Bloomberg.Com, Feb. 2023, p. N.PAG. EBSCOhost.
  5. ↑ Bill (February 1, 2022). "Freedom Denied? Enslaved Soldiers During the Revolution – Fort Stanwix National Monument". U.S. National Park Service. Archived from the original on Dec 3, 2023. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  6. ↑ "African Americans & the Revolution | NCpedia". www.ncpedia.org. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
  7. ↑ "Re-Creating 1834 Debates on Abolition". Hartford Courant. 2003-05-22. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  8. 1 2 "Significant events in Black history in Canada". www.canada.ca. 2021-01-29. Retrieved 2023-12-10.
  9. ↑ "African Americans in the Twentieth Century – EH.net" . Retrieved 2023-12-11.
  10. 1 2 "African American Exodus to Canada". Oklahoma Historical Society – The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Retrieved 2023-12-11.
  11. ↑ "Racial Discrimination in the United States". Human Rights Watch. 2022-08-08.
  12. ↑ Brown, DeNeen L. (September 26, 2022). "The Case for Leaving America to Escape Racism". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 13, 2023.
  13. ↑ Sivapragasam, Michael (June 2018). After the treaties: a social, economic and demographic history of Maroon society in Jamaica, 1739–1842 (Thesis). University of Southampton. pp. 136–154.
  14. ↑ Hargreaves, J.; Porter, A. (1963). "The Sierra Leone Creoles – Creoledom: A Study of the Development of Freetown Society". The Journal of African History . 4 (3, 0000539): 468–469. doi:10.1017/S0021853700004394. S2CID   162611104.
  15. ↑ Murray, Robert P., Whiteness in Africa: Americo-Liberians and the Transformative Geographies of Race (2013). Theses and Dissertations—History. 23. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/history_etds/23
  16. ↑ Janowitz, Nathaniel; Poole, Lisette (30 October 2020). "Racism in the U.S. Prompts a Growing Community of Thriving, Black Expats in Mexico" . Retrieved 20 March 2024.
  17. ↑ Winch, Julie (2003). A Gentleman of Color: The Life of James Forten. Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780195163407.
  18. ↑ Winch, Julie (2003). A Gentleman of Color: The Life of James Forten. Oxford University Press. pp. 60–61. ISBN   9780195163407.
  19. ↑ Zuberi, Tukufu; McDaniel, Antonio (15 April 1995). Swing Low, Sweet Chariot: The Mortality Cost of Colonizing Liberia in the ... University of Chicago Press. pp. 25–26. ISBN   9780226557243.
  20. ↑ "Liverpool's Black Population During World War II", BASA Newsletter No. 20, January 1998, p. 10.
  21. ↑ Greene, Larry A.; Ortlepp, Anke (7 December 2010). Germans and African Americans: Two Centuries of Exchange. Univ. Press of Mississippi. ISBN   978-1-60473-785-1 . Retrieved 20 March 2024– via Google Books.
  22. ↑ Hotchkiss, Faith (2022-12-07). "What Does It Mean To Be Black in Russia?". Glimpse from the Globe. Retrieved 2024-03-19.
  23. ↑ Walker, Kenneth (20 April 2010). "The Discomfort of African Americans in South Africa". The Root. Retrieved 20 March 2024.
  24. ↑ Africans and African Americans in China: A Long History, A Troubled Present, and a Promising Future?
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