Afro-Colombians

Afro-Colombians (Spanish: Afrocolombianos), also known as Black Colombians (Spanish: Colombianos Negros), are Colombians of completely or predominantly Sub-Saharan African ancestry. Colombia has one of the largest Afro-descendant populations in South America, with government estimates being that Afro-Colombians make up about ten percent of the country's population. In the national censuses of Colombia, Black people are recognized as three official groups: the Raizals, the Palenques and other Afro-Colombians.

Africans were enslaved in the early 16th century in Colombia. They were from various places across the continent, including modern-day Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Nigeria, Cameroon, The Gambia, Liberia, Guinea, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Mali and parts of Togo, Benin, Namibia and Zimbabwe. They were forcibly taken to Colombia to replace the Indigenous population, which was rapidly decreasing due to extermination, genocide campaigns, disease, and forced labor.

Enslaved African people were forced to work in gold mines, on sugarcane plantations, cattle ranches, and large haciendas. African slaves pioneered the extraction of alluvial gold deposits and the growing of sugar cane in the areas that are known in modern times as the departments of Chocó, Antioquia, Cauca, Valle del Cauca, and Nariño in western Colombia.^{[citation needed]}

In eastern Colombia, near the cities of Vélez, Cúcuta, Socorro and Tunja, Africans manufactured textiles in commercial mills. Emerald mines outside of Bogotá relied on African labourers. Other sectors of the Colombian economy, like tobacco, cotton, artisanship and domestic work would have been impossible without African labor. In pre-abolition Colombian society, many Afro-Colombian captives fought the Spanish, their colonial forces and their freedom as soon as they arrived in Colombia. Those who escaped from their oppressors would live in free Black African towns called Palenques, where they would live as "Cimarrones", or fugitives. Some historians considered Chocó to be a very big palenque, with a large population of Cimarrones, especially in the areas of the Baudó River. This is where Cimarrón leaders like Benkos Biohó and Barule fought for freedom.^{[citation needed]}

African people played key roles in the struggle for independence from the Spanish Crown. Historians note that three of every five soldiers in Simón Bolívar's army were African.^{[better source needed]} Afro-Colombians were able to participate at all levels of military and political life.^{[citation needed]}

After the revolution, (modern day Colombia and Venezuela) created "The Law of July 21 on Free Womb, Manumission, and Abolition of the Slave trade" in the Cúcuta Congress. This led to the creation of a Free Womb trade that existed until emancipation in 1852.^{[citation needed]}

In 1851, after the abolition of slavery, the plight of Afro-Colombians was very difficult. They were forced to live in the jungles for self-protection. There they learned to have a harmonious relationship with the jungle environment and share the territory with Colombia's Indigenous people.^{[citation needed]}

Beginning in 1851, the Colombian State promoted mestizaje or miscegenation. In order to maintain their cultural traditions, many Africans and Indigenous peoples went deep into isolated jungles. Afro-Colombians and Indigenous people were often targeted by armed groups who wanted to displace them in order to take their land for sugar cane, coffee, and banana plantations, mining operations, and wood exploitation. This form of discrimination still occurs today.