Afro-Colombians
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Colombians with African ancestry make up 21% of the population today, of which 14% are mulattos , 4% black and 2% zambos . Most of them are concentrated in the country's coastal regions. The term Afro-Colombian is problematic because Afro in Latin America is only used in relation to culture ( e.g. Afro-Brazilian religion ), not in relation to people.
History of the African slaves in Colombia
The first Africans reached today's Colombia with the Spanish conquistadors . One of them was Ñuflo de Olano , who reached the Pacific with Vasco Núñez de Balboa . In 1534 the Spanish crown granted the conquistador Francisco de Lugo the right to bring black slaves to the province of Santa Marta .
Over the next three centuries several hundred thousand African slaves came to New Granada via Cartagena or some other route , where about half of them remained. Some worked as house slaves in the country or in the urban households of the upper class. Without the black slaves, the development of the haciendas on the Atlantic coast and in the Cauca Valley and the sugar mills in Colombia , Boyaca and Cundinamarca , would not have been possible. In addition, African workers had to work in the Antioquia and Chocó gold mines .
In the course of time, individual slaves managed to flee again and again. The impassable Colombian topography facilitated the formation of so-called palenques . These were difficult to access black settlements. They also served as training centers for the first guerrilla troops in Colombia . Many Palenques remained relatively unstable due to the hostile environment, but a number of them were able to hold out until the end of the colonial era . Even today, 70 km from Cartagena, there is a village with descendants of runaway slaves, San Basilio de Palenque . Much of the population speaks Palenquero , the only Spanish-based Creole in Latin America.
literature
- Paula Moreno – Zapata: Colombia: Afro – Colombians . In Carole Boyce Davies (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Culture. AC. Volume 1 . ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara 2008, ISBN 978-1-85109-705-0 , pp. 314-320