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African-American history is the part of American history that looks at the African-American or Black American ethnic groups in the United States. Most African Americans are the descendants of Africans forcibly brought to and held captive in the United States from 1555 to 1865. Blacks from the Caribbean whose ancestors immigrated, or who immigrated to the U.S., have also traditionally been considered African-American, as they share a common history of predominantly West African or Central African roots, the Middle Passage and slavery.

African Americans have been known by various names throughout American history, including colored and Negro, which are no longer accepted in English. Instead the most usual and accepted terms nowadays are African American and Black, which however may have different connotations (see African American § Terminology). The term person of color usually refers not only to African Americans, but also to other non-white ethnic groups. Others who sometimes are referred to as African Americans, and who may identify themselves as such in US government censuses, include relatively recent Black immigrants from Africa, South America and elsewhere.

African origins

Most African Americans are descended from Africans brought directly from Africa as slaves. Originally these slaves were captured in African wars or raids and transported in the Atlantic slave trade. African Americans are descended from various ethnic groups, mostly from western and central Africa, including the Sahel. A smaller number came from eastern and southeastern Africa. The major ethnic groups that the enslaved Africans belonged to included the Hausa, Bakongo, Igbo, Mandé, Wolof, Akan, Fon, Yoruba, and Makua, among many others. Although these different groups varied in customs, religious theology and language, what they had in common was a way a life that was different from the Europeans.  However, since a majority of the slaves came from these villages and societies, once sent to the Americas these different peoples had European standards and beliefs forced upon them, causing them to do away with tribal differences and forged a new history and culture that was a creolization of their common pasts, present, and European culture. Slaves from specific African ethnic groups were more sought after and more dominant in numbers than others in certain regions of what later became the United States.

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Regions of Africa

Studies of contemporary documents reveal seven regions from which Africans were sold or taken during the Atlantic slave trade. These regions were:

• Senegambia, encompassing the coast from the Senegal River to the Casamance River, where captives as far away as the Upper and Middle Niger River Valley were sold;

• The Sierra Leone region included territory from the Casamance to the Assini River in the modern countries of Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire;

• The Gold Coast region consisted of mainly modern Ghana;

• The Bight of Benin region stretched from the Volta River to the Benue River in modern Togo, Benin and southwestern Nigeria;

• The Bight of Biafra extended from southeastern Nigeria through Cameroon into Gabon;

• West Central Africa, the largest region, included the Congo and Angola; and

• East and Southeast Africa, the region of Mozambique-Madagascar included the modern countries of Mozambique, parts of Tanzania and Madagascar.

The largest source of slaves transported across the Atlantic Ocean for the New World was West Africa. Some West Africans were skilled iron workers and were therefore able to make tools that aided in their agricultural labor. While there were many unique tribes with their own customs and religions, by the 10th century many of the tribes had embraced Islam. Those villages in West Africa that were lucky enough to be in good conditions for growth and success, prospered. They also contributed their success to the slave trade.

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