Afro-Jamaicans

Afro-Jamaicans or Black Jamaicans are people from Jamaica who have ancestry from many of the Black racial groups of Africa, whose ancestors were brought to the island from West and Central Africa through the transatlantic slave trade starting in the 17th century. Afro-Jamaicans are Jamaicans of predominantly African descent. They represent the largest ethnic group in the country. The ethnogenesis of the Black Jamaican people stemmed from the Atlantic slave trade of the 16th century, when enslaved Africans were transported as slaves to Jamaica and other parts of the Americas. During the period of British rule, slaves brought to Jamaica by European slave traders were primarily Akan, some of whom ran away and joined with Jamaican Maroons and even took over as leaders.