VIIIᵉ siècle – XVIIIᵉ siècle
Iberia, Western Europe, the Caribbean, and the Americas
Traduction non disponible · Original (anglais) · français indisponible
The African diaspora in Europe and the Americas comprised communities formed through migration, enslavement, military service, exploration, religious organization, labor, and resistance. From medieval Iberia through the eighteenth-century Atlantic world, Africans lived and acted in cities, plantations, armies, churches, fraternal societies, and autonomous communities. Their institutions and struggles shaped debates over freedom, abolition, identity, and political belonging across the Atlantic.
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Le récit
Africans may have reached the Iberian Peninsula in ancient times through trans-Saharan commerce, and they participated in the Muslim campaign in Iberia in 711. During subsequent Muslim-Christian warfare, Africans served as soldiers and were also enslaved. By the thirteenth century, Moorish merchants were selling enslaved people from sub-Saharan Africa at fairs in northern Portugal.
The Portuguese capture of Ceuta in 1415 opened a new phase of European penetration into Africa. Africans were taken to Lisbon from 1441, and Portugal imported an estimated 700 African slaves annually between 1450 and 1500. In Spain and Portugal, enslaved Africans worked in mines, agriculture, construction, domestic service, military roles, transport, and manufacturing, while urban ports such as Lisbon, Barcelona, Cádiz, Seville, and Valencia became important centers of African presence.
African communities also created institutions and achieved distinction. Religious brotherhoods were organized in Barcelona in 1455, Valencia in 1472, and Seville in 1475. Juan Latino studied at the University of Granada and taught there, while other Africans became clergy, painters, lawyers, military personnel, and civic officials. In France, Africans served in households and armies, including the Saxe-Volontaires Regiment, whose soldiers came from Guinea, Congo, and Madagascar.
Across the Americas, Africans were present in exploration as well as in plantation labor and slavery. Two hundred Africans accompanied Alvarado's expedition to Quito, others joined Pizarro's expedition to Peru, and Estevanico participated in Spanish exploration of New Mexico and Arizona. Africans also took part in French expeditions to Canada and the conquest of the Mississippi valley.
The arrival of African labor at Jamestown in 1619 preceded the official establishment of slavery in the English North American colonies in 1660. In the Caribbean and Brazil, plantation economies generated repeated resistance. Palmares, an autonomous African community in Brazil, survived from 1605 to 1695 and was estimated to contain 20,000 people, chiefly Bantu from the Congo-Angola region.
African religious traditions, including obeah and vodum, helped organize resistance, while Islam played a similar role in Bahia by bringing Hausa and Yoruba together. Rebellions and conspiracies also occurred in Jamaica, Guyana, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New York, Boston, and aboard slave ships. These actions expressed both opposition to enslavement and the formation of collective identities among Africans and their descendants.
VIIIᵉ siècle – XVIIIᵉ siècle
Iberia, Western Europe, the Caribbean, and the Americas
Traduction non disponible · Original (anglais) · français indisponible
The African diaspora in Europe and the Americas comprised communities formed through migration, enslavement, military service, exploration, religious organization, labor, and resistance. From medieval Iberia through the eighteenth-century Atlantic world, Africans lived and acted in cities, plantations, armies, churches, fraternal societies, and autonomous communities. Their institutions and struggles shaped debates over freedom, abolition, identity, and political belonging across the Atlantic.
Poursuivre l’exploration
Le récit
Africans may have reached the Iberian Peninsula in ancient times through trans-Saharan commerce, and they participated in the Muslim campaign in Iberia in 711. During subsequent Muslim-Christian warfare, Africans served as soldiers and were also enslaved. By the thirteenth century, Moorish merchants were selling enslaved people from sub-Saharan Africa at fairs in northern Portugal.
The Portuguese capture of Ceuta in 1415 opened a new phase of European penetration into Africa. Africans were taken to Lisbon from 1441, and Portugal imported an estimated 700 African slaves annually between 1450 and 1500. In Spain and Portugal, enslaved Africans worked in mines, agriculture, construction, domestic service, military roles, transport, and manufacturing, while urban ports such as Lisbon, Barcelona, Cádiz, Seville, and Valencia became important centers of African presence.
African communities also created institutions and achieved distinction. Religious brotherhoods were organized in Barcelona in 1455, Valencia in 1472, and Seville in 1475. Juan Latino studied at the University of Granada and taught there, while other Africans became clergy, painters, lawyers, military personnel, and civic officials. In France, Africans served in households and armies, including the Saxe-Volontaires Regiment, whose soldiers came from Guinea, Congo, and Madagascar.
Across the Americas, Africans were present in exploration as well as in plantation labor and slavery. Two hundred Africans accompanied Alvarado's expedition to Quito, others joined Pizarro's expedition to Peru, and Estevanico participated in Spanish exploration of New Mexico and Arizona. Africans also took part in French expeditions to Canada and the conquest of the Mississippi valley.
The arrival of African labor at Jamestown in 1619 preceded the official establishment of slavery in the English North American colonies in 1660. In the Caribbean and Brazil, plantation economies generated repeated resistance. Palmares, an autonomous African community in Brazil, survived from 1605 to 1695 and was estimated to contain 20,000 people, chiefly Bantu from the Congo-Angola region.
African religious traditions, including obeah and vodum, helped organize resistance, while Islam played a similar role in Bahia by bringing Hausa and Yoruba together. Rebellions and conspiracies also occurred in Jamaica, Guyana, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New York, Boston, and aboard slave ships. These actions expressed both opposition to enslavement and the formation of collective identities among Africans and their descendants.