Afro-Caribbean

Afro-Caribbeans are Caribbean people who trace their heritage to Sub-Saharan Africa in the period since Christopher Columbus's arrival in the region in 1492. Other names for the group include African-Caribbean (especially in the UK branch of the diaspora), Afro-Antillean or Afro-West Indian. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, European-led triangular trade brought African people to work as slaves in the Caribbean on various plantations. Many Afro-Caribbeans also have non-African ancestry, such as European, South Asian, East Asian, Middle Eastern and Native American, as there has been intermarriage over the centuries.

Although most Afro-Caribbean people today live in Spanish, French, and English-speaking Caribbean nations, there are also significant diaspora populations throughout the Western world – especially in Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, the United States and Canada. Both the home and diaspora populations have produced a number of individuals who have had a notable influence on modern Western, Caribbean and African societies; they include political activists such as Marcus Garvey and C.L.R. James, to writer and theorists such as Aime Cesaire and Frantz Fanon, to US military leader and statesman Colin Powell whose parents were immigrants, and Jamaican musician Bob Marley.