African American

Running Head : AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY

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African - American History

Most of the African Americans are descendants of slaves that were moved and held in the United States from 1619-1865 . This term is usually used to refer to the descendants from sub-Saharan African and is a replacement of the words black , Color , or Negro . In this essay I will try and discuss how the African American ended up in the United States . For instance did they come to the United States as colonialists or

did they end up as a matter of migration ? In the latter section I will try and take a look at any form of discrimination that this group faced and if at all they were involved in any form of participation

In answering the question of how the African Americans ended up in the United States , first we need to look at their history . The Portuguese were the first people to cross the Atlantic Ocean with slaves . It is the Portuguese that transferred their captives to South American countries where they had colonies . According to Wikipedia (2007 , Portuguese were the first to bring slaves out of Africa in 1443 , and that the first African slaves arrived in 1619 at Jamestown , United States of America The African Americans were thus immigrants , at no point in their history do we get learn that they colonized the United States . In fact they never lived as a colony they did not take control of any part of the United States . According to John K (2006 , there was a great increase in the number of slaves coming to America during 1660s . They came mostly from west Africa . According to African American Odyssey (2007 during the slave trade period millions of African became immigrants to the new world . Indeed the African Americans were just immigrants (involuntary ) to the United States . The earlier black settlers were slaves that were forced to live Africa to Europe while others settled in the colony States of the European countries of South America . However there is another group that has migrated to the United States voluntarily albeit later . Immigrants are people who move to settle in a new place due to various reasons some move because of economic hardship , others move because they have been ejected (forcefully ) from their ancestral homes , others too migrate for other reasons . In the case of afro Americans it was a forceful relocation triggered by the slave trade

The African Americans faced various forms of discrimination racial segregation , racial prejudice among others Blacks were racially segregated mainly by the white Americans , for instance they were not allowed to attend the same schools as the whites . In 1896 , the supreme court of the United States in a case of Plessey vs . Ferguson , mandated racial segregation within its states and localities . According to the American Odyssey (2007 , during the 19th century , some democratic controlled states , largely in the south , passed racially discriminating laws . These laws were aimed at the black community...