i feel that thats great becuase as a country we need to learn more about our african heritage, for example; when they came, how many arrived, from what region were they, what foods did they established in DR? knowledge is power and we need to fight off ignorance in many ways like this, education.

I'm most interested in specific regions and cultures we came from within Africa. 'African' culture , what is that? To me as a Dominican a more specific history and geography within huuuuge and diverse Africa would be more meaningful. I've seen bits and pieces here and there about this sort of info, hope yumnuk or others have info to share on the topic.

Interesting reading, thought to share it.

A Brief History of the Caribbean

It is very difficult to know exactly when did the people that Christopher Columbus saw in 1492 migrated to the area now known as the Caribbean. The Archaeological findings suggest that human beings have migrated to the American continent between 6,000 and 10,000 BC. These dates are different from those suggested by the findings in the Caribbean region. Apparently the migration to the Caribbean Island was not done primarily but secondarily after settling on the main land in North America, Central America and the Northern region of South America. Archaeological carbon dating placed the arrival of the first human in the Caribbean region between 3.500 and 4000 BC.

A New World

On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on a small island he called San Salvador. Columbus believed he had reached the Indies, or the islands southwest of India that include Indonesia and Malaysia. Columbus died believing he had reached the east by sailing west, but instead he had discovered a "new world."

San Salvador was one of the islands in the Caribbean Sea, a body of water between North America and South America. The islands of the Caribbean are part of the West Indies. The West Indies received its name because Columbus believed the native people of the Caribbean islands were Indians.

Before the arrival of Columbus, there were three groups of native peoples in the Caribbean: The Arawak, the Carib, and the Ciboney. The Arawak populated the larger Caribbean Islands of Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. The Carib lived on the smaller volcanic islands of the eastern Caribbean: St. Kitts-Nevis, Antigua, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, St. Lucia, Barbados, St. Vincent and Tobago. They had migrated earlier from the mainland of what we now call South America.

Once word of a "new world" reached Europe, the British, French and Dutch joined the Spaniards in the Caribbean. The newcomers brought with them diseases like measles and smallpox. The Europeans had been exposed to the diseases, so their bodies developed a protection similar to a vaccine. When you receive a vaccine, a small portion of a virus is injected into your body. Your immune system then learns the disease and prepares for future infections. The native people of the Caribbean had no immunity from the European diseases, so outbreaks of measles and smallpox decimated their population.

Between 1536 and 1609 the British and French carried out armed raids on Spanish possessions in the Caribbean. They were especially successful in the smaller Leeward and Windward islands where the Spanish presence was weak. European colonization by the Spanish, followed by the British, French and Dutch resulted in the almost complete depopulation of the West Indies of its native Amerindian populations. Between 1630 and 1640 the Dutch took control of Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Saint Eustatius, Saint Martin and Saba; the British claimed Antigua, Barbados and Nevis and the French Martinique and Guadeloupe. Between 1697 and 1814 there were numerous battles between Britain and France over their Caribbean possessions.

In the 1640's Portuguese Jews emigrated from Brazil to Barbados taking with them the techniques of cultivating sugar cane, thus the sugarcane plantations of the Caribbean, some of which are still operational today. Sugar came to be known as "brown gold". With sugar came slavery, an estimated 10 million slaves being brought from Africa to the Caribbean to work on the plantations, thus repopulating this region (with the exception of Puerto Rico) through the forced transportation of African peoples (mainly from western Africa).

Slavery

Demand for slaves to cultivate sugarcane and other crops caused what came to be known as the triangle trade. Ships leaving Europe first stopped in Africa where they traded weapons, ammunition, metal, liquor, and cloth for captives taken in wars or raids. The ships then traveled to America, where slaves were exchanged for sugar, rum, salt, and other island products. The ships returned home loaded with products popular with the European people, and ready to begin their journey again.

An estimated 8 to 15 million Africans reached the Americas from the 16th through the 19th century. Only the youngest and healthiest people were taken for what was called the middle passage of the triangle trade, partly because they would be worth more in America, and partly because they were the most likely to reach their destination alive..

The African slave population quickly began to outnumber the Europeans and Native Americans. The proportion of slaves ranged from about one third in Cuba, to more than ninety percent in many of the islands. Slave rebellions were common. As slave rebellions became more frequent, European investors lost money. The costs of maintaining slavery grew higher when the European governments sent in armed forces to quell the revolts.

Many Europeans began to pressure their governments to abolish slavery in the Caribbean. The first organized opposition to slavery came in 1724 from the Quakers, a Christian sect also known as the Society of Friends. Great Britain outlawed slavery in all of their territories in 1833, but the practice continued for almost fifty years on some of the islands of the Caribbean.

Beginning in 1803 Denmark abolished the slave trade followed by Britain in 1807, France in 1817, Holland in 1818, Spain in 1820, and Sweden in 1824. Slavery was abolished in the British colonies in 1833-34, in the French colonies in 1838, in the Dutch colonies in 1863 and in the Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico in 1873 and Cuba in 1880. After emancipation in the British colonies plantation labour was sought from various sources. The largest number came from India as indentured servants. They were attracted by contracts which paid their passage and offered them options including the acquisition of land. The plantation economies of the Guianas (Guyana and Suriname especially) and Trinidad benefited most from this Indian immigration.

Source: http://www.mrdowling.com; http://www.caribbeanfestival.org; http://www.welcometothecaribbean.com

I guess they forgot to mention Haiti at all.
There is a wonderful book by a German anthropologist that traced the slave trade to the Portuguese and the many tribal wars in Africa, and it is very interesting reading because it narrates how the more hostile African tribes were engaged in their tribal wars, then the Portuguese came to them with this idea:
Instead of massacring and killing all your captives, why don't you give them to us and we will trade you for goods?
So he traces this concept on the beginning of the slave trade to America, to the Portuguese, of course later on it evolved into many more countries other than the Portuguese, trading for slaves. But the ones that were gathering the slaves in Africa were not the europeans, but the other warrior African tribes that were capturing their weaker or less hostile neighbors and selling them to slavery.
So his thesis was that the African slave trade was maintained and had its roots in the black men exploitation of their fellow men.
"His" theory let me make clear, I just read the book a few years ago.

Well clearly greedy men on both continents bore responsibility. My understanding is the level of 'casualties' from war/slaving expeditions increased tremendously as more European nations got involved in the trade. War and slaving were nothing new, but the organization and scale introduced by emerging European mercantilist states was new. Some argue the level of dehumanization was also new. I hope we are not getting into that blame game convo though, like I said I'm more interested in specific info on the origins of our African ancestry.

I'm also interested in our African heritage but it seem like bits and pieces here and there. Here's a brief summary of well known facts:

-First slaves to come to DR came from Spain. These were 'Hispanicized' (spoke Spanish and were born/lived in Spain) African slaves. As far as who they were, a couple of sources say they were a mixed bunch that came from the Senegambian region of Africa as well as some Guineans and others (Moors/Berber/Moriscos). I've read an eye witness account of a slave auction during that time in Portugal and the slaves were physically described seems to back this up. Before anyone comes in here and creates a fuss I'm not saying we descend from Berbers.

-The next ones came from Senegambia itself (the northernmost part of west Africa) and they specifically mention the muslim Wolof (who still exist).

-After that it gets rather spotty, you had some slaves that escaped from the western side Saint Domingue. These were probably Guinean and maybe even some Kongo.

-The next that are clearly mentioned are in the 20th century, the Cocolos.

In the Taino ancestry thread you'll see a post from me to Baracutei in which a study done traces our African ancestry to a very specific spot in Africa, very unusual.

Precisely, the book documents the name of specific tribes that were brought to the different Caribbean
countries and their migration patterns. Most Africans slaves were from West Africa, if I remember correctly, from Senegal, Ivory Coast and so on. According to the latest figures I read Haiti is 97.5%
black and the DR 84% mixed race.