Editing African diaspora (section)

=== North America ===
==== United States ====
{{Main|Black Americans}}
Several migration waves to the Americas, as well as relocations within the Americas, have brought people of African descent to North America. According to the [[Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture]], the first African populations came to North America in the 16th century via [[Mexico]] and the [[Caribbean]] to the Spanish colonies of [[Florida]], [[Texas]] and other parts of the South.<ref name="Schomburg">[[Howard Dodson|Dodson, Howard]], and [[Sylviane Diouf|Sylviane A. Diouf]], eds (2005). [http://www.inmotionaame.org/home.cfm ''In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110226154419/http://www.inmotionaame.org/home.cfm |date=February 26, 2011 }}. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library. Retrieved November 24, 2007.</ref> Out of the 12&nbsp;million people from Africa who were shipped to the [[Americas]] during the [[transatlantic slave trade]],<ref>{{cite book |author = Ronald Segal |author-link = Ronald Segal |title = The Black Diaspora: Five Centuries of the Black Experience Outside Africa |year = 1995 |publisher = Farrar, Straus and Giroux |location = New York |isbn = 978-0-374-11396-4 |page = 4 |quote = It is now estimated that 11,863,000 slaves were shipped across the Atlantic. [Note in original: Paul E. Lovejoy, "The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on Africa: A Review of the Literature," in ''Journal of African History'' 30 (1989), p. 368.] ... It is widely conceded that further revisions are more likely to be upward than downward.}}</ref> 645,000 were shipped to the [[Thirteen Colonies|British colonies on the North American mainland]] and the [[United States]].<ref name="AA" /> In 2000, African Americans comprised 12.1 percent of the total population in the United States, constituting the largest racial minority group. The African-American population is concentrated in the [[Southern United States|southern states]] and urban areas.<ref>[http://www.censusscope.org/us/map_nhblack.html United States African-American Population]. CensusScope, Social Science Data Analysis Network. Retrieved December 17, 2007.</ref>

In the establishment of the African diaspora, the transatlantic slave trade is often considered the defining element, but people of African descent have engaged in eleven other migration movements involving North America since the 16th century, many being voluntary migrations, although undertaken in exploitative and hostile environments.<ref name="Schomburg" />

In the 1860s, people from [[sub-Saharan Africa]], mainly from [[West Africa]] and the [[Cape Verde Islands]], started to arrive in a voluntary immigration wave to seek employment as [[Whaling|whalers]] in [[Massachusetts]]. This migration continued until restrictive laws were enacted in 1921 that in effect closed the door on non-Europeans. By that time, men of African ancestry were already a majority in [[New England]]'s whaling industry, with African Americans working as sailors, blacksmiths, shipbuilders, officers, and owners. The internationalism of whaling crews, including the character [[Moby-Dick#Daggoo|Daggoo]], an African harpooneer, is recorded in the 1851 novel ''[[Moby-Dick]]''. They eventually took their trade to [[California]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20061231054329/http://www.whalingmuseum.org/kendall/heros/index_h.html "Heroes in the Ships: African Americans in the Whaling Industry"]. Old Dartmouth Historical Society / New Bedford Whaling Museum, 2001.</ref>

Today 1.7 million people in the United States are descended from voluntary immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa, most of whom arrived in the late twentieth century. African immigrants represent 6 percent of all immigrants to the United States and almost 5 percent of the African-American community nationwide. About 57 percent immigrated between 1990 and 2000.<ref name="Schomburg2">Dodson, Howard and Sylviane A. Diouf, eds (2005). [http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrations/topic.cfm?migration=13&topic=3&tab=image&bhfv=7&bhfx=&bhpc=0&bhqs=1 "The Immigration Waves: The numbers"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110114001146/http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrations/topic.cfm?migration=13&topic=3&tab=image&bhfv=7&bhfx=&bhpc=0&bhqs=1 |date=January 14, 2011 }}, ''In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience'', Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library. Retrieved November 24, 2007.</ref> Immigrants born in Africa constitute 1.6 percent of the black population. People of the African immigrant diaspora are the most educated population group in the United States—50 percent have bachelor's or advanced degrees, compared to 23 percent of native-born Americans.<ref>Dodson, Howard and Sylviane A. Diouf, eds (2005). [http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrations/topic.cfm;jsessionid=f8301649231195914518041?migration=13&topic=4&tab=image&bhfv=7&bhfx=&bhpc=0&bhqs=1 "The Brain Drain".] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090506032151/http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrations/topic.cfm;jsessionid=f8301649231195914518041?migration=13&topic=4&tab=image&bhfv=7&bhfx=&bhpc=0&bhqs=1 |date=May 6, 2009 }}</ref><ref>[https://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/vol17no2/172brain.htm "Reversing Africa's 'brain drain'"], ''In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience''. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library. Retrieved November 24, 2007.</ref> The largest African immigrant communities in the United States are in [[New York (state)|New York]], followed by [[California]], [[Texas]], and [[Maryland]].<ref name="Schomburg2" />

Due to the legacy of [[slavery in the colonial history of the United States]], the average African American has a significant European component to his DNA.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last1=Bryc|first1=Katarzyna|last2=Durand|first2=Eric Y.|last3=Macpherson|first3=J. Michael|last4=Reich|first4=David|last5=Mountain|first5=Joanna L.|date=January 8, 2015|title=The Genetic Ancestry of African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans across the United States|journal=American Journal of Human Genetics|volume=96|issue=1|pages=37–53|doi=10.1016/j.ajhg.2014.11.010|issn=0002-9297|pmc=4289685|pmid=25529636}}</ref> According to a study conducted in 2011, the African American DNA consists on average of 73.2% West African, 24% European and 0.8% Native American DNA.<ref name=":0" /> The European ancestry of African Americans is largely patrilineal with an estimated 19% of African American ancestors being European males, and 5% being European females.<ref name=":0" /> The interracial mixing occurred before the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] and largely in the [[Southern United States|American South]], beginning during the [[Colonial history of the United States|colonial era]].<ref name=":0" />

The states with the highest percentages of people of African descent are [[Mississippi]] (36%), and [[Louisiana]] (33%). While not a state, the population of the [[Washington, D.C.|District of Columbia]] is more than 50% black.<ref>{{cite news |url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-where-blacks-are-no-longer-a-majority-has-a-new-african-american-affairs-director/2015/02/04/e8bd65a0-ac8e-11e4-ad71-7b9eba0f87d6_story.html |title = D.C., where blacks are no longer a majority, has a new African American affairs director |date = February 4, 2015 |newspaper = The Washington Post |access-date = February 6, 2016 |author = DeBonis, Mike }}</ref> Recent African immigrants represent a minority of black people nationwide. The U.S. Bureau of the Census categorizes the population by race based on self-identification.<ref>U.S. Census Bureau. [http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_ASR151205.htm State & County QuickFacts] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080922014505/http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_ASR151205.htm |date=September 22, 2008 }}. Retrieved November 6, 2007.</ref> The census surveys have no provision for a "multiracial" or "biracial" self-identity, but since 2000, respondents may check off more than one box and claim multiple ethnicity that way.

==== Canada ====
{{Main|Black Canadians}}
Much of the earliest black presence in [[Canada]] came from the newly independent [[United States]] after the American Revolution; the British resettled African Americans (known as [[Black Loyalist]]s) primarily in [[Nova Scotia]]. These were primarily former slaves who had escaped to British lines for promised freedom during the Revolution.

Later during the antebellum years, other individual African Americans escaped to Canada, mostly to locations in [[Southwestern Ontario]], via the [[Underground Railroad#Arrival in Canada|Underground Railroad]], a system supported by both blacks and whites to assist fugitive slaves. After achieving independence, northern states in the U.S. had begun to abolish slavery as early as 1793, but slavery was not abolished in the South until 1865, following the [[American Civil War]].

Black immigration to Canada in the twentieth century consisted mostly of Caribbean descent.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The African Diaspora in Canada: negotiating identity & belonging|url=https://archive.org/details/africandiasporac00tett|url-access=limited|last1=Tettey|first1=Wisdom J.|last2=Puplampu|first2=Korbla P.|publisher=University of Calgary Press|year=2005|isbn=978-1-85109-700-5|location=Calgary, Alberta, Canada|pages=[https://archive.org/details/africandiasporac00tett/page/n217 205]}}</ref> As a result of the prominence of Caribbean immigration, the term "African Canadian", while sometimes used to refer to the minority of Canadian blacks who have direct African or African-American heritage, is ''not'' normally used to denote black Canadians. Blacks of Caribbean origin are usually denoted as "West Indian Canadian", "Caribbean Canadian" or more rarely "Afro-Caribbean Canadian", but there remains no widely used alternative to "Black Canadian" which is considered inclusive of the African, Afro-Caribbean, and African-American black communities in Canada.