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A self-depiction by the Muslims in Iberia. Taken from the Tale of Bayad and Riyad

Santiago Matamoros ("Saint James the Moor-slayer"). St. James is on horseback and a beheaded Moor lies on the ground, by the 15th-century Flemish-Spanish painter Juan de Flandes.

The Almoravides dynasty, c. 1100 CE. At the dynasty's greatest expanse of control, a succession of Moroccan-based states existed from modern Senegal to the Iberian Peninsula.

The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of Berber, Black African and Arab descent from Northern Africa, who came to conquer, occupy and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years.^{[citation needed]} At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed other religions. They called the territory Al Andalus, comprising most of what is now Spain and Portugal.

" Moors" are not a distinct or self-defined people. Medieval and early modern Europeans applied the name primarily to Berbers, but also at various times to Arabs, Muslim Iberians^[1] and West Africans from Mali and Niger who had been absorbed into the Almoravid dynasty.^[2] Mainstream scholars observed in 1911 that "The term 'Moors' has no real ethnological value."^[3]

The Andalusian Moors of the late Medieval era inhabited the Iberian Peninsula after the Moorish conquests of the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates, and the final Umayyad conquest of Hispania.^{[citation needed]} The Moors' rule stretched at times as far as modern-day Mauritania, West African countries, and the Senegal River. Earlier, the Classical Romans interacted with (and later conquered) parts of Mauretania, a state that covered northern portions of modern Morocco and much of north western and central Algeria during the classical period. The people of the region were noted in Classical literature as the Mauri.

The term Mauri, or variations, was later used by European traders and explorers of the 16th to 18th centuries to designate ethnic Berber and Arab groups speaking the Hassaniya Arabic dialect.^{[citation needed]} Today such groups inhabit Mauritania and parts of Algeria, western Sahara, Morocco, Niger and Mali.^[4] Speakers of European languages have historically designated a number of associated ethnic groups as "Moors". In modern Iberia, the term is applied to people of Moroccan ethnicity living in Europe. "Moor" is sometimes colloquially applied to any person from North Africa. Some people to whom it is applied consider the term pejorative and racist.

Etymology[link]

In Latin, the word maurus (plural mauri) means coming from Mauretania, a Roman province on the northwestern fringe of Africa. In the Medieval Romance languages (such as Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian,Romanian), the root appeared in such forms as mouro, moro, moir, mor and maur. Derivatives are found in today's versions of the languages. Some derive the word from the ancient Greek mauros, meaning "dark".

Through nominalization, the root has taken on a variety of meanings. Moreno, from the Latin root, can mean "tanned" in Spain and Portugal, as well as in Brazil. In Cuba and other Spanish-speaking countries, it can mean "black person" or "mulatto".^{[citation needed]} Also in Spanish, morapio is a humorous name for "wine", especially that which has not been "baptized" or mixed with water, i.e., pure unadulterated wine. Among Spanish speakers, moro ("Moor") came to have a broader meaning, applied to both Moros of Mindanao in the Philippines, and the moriscos of Granada. Moro is used to describe all things dark, as in "Moor", moreno, etc. It was used as a nickname; for instance, the Milanese Duke Ludovico Sforza was called Il Moro because of his dark complexion. In Polish murzyn means a black person and can be perceived either as a neutral or pejorative term.

In Portugal and Spain, mouro (feminine, moura) may also refer to supernatural beings known as enchanted moura, where "moor" implies 'alien' and 'non-Christian'; These beings were siren-like fairies with golden or reddish hair and a fair face. They were believed to have magical properties.^[5] From this root, the name moor is also applied to unbaptised children, meaning not Christian.^[6][7] In Basque, mairu means moor and also refers to a mythical people.^{[8][dead link]}

History[link]

Overview[link]

Eastern Hemisphere in 476 CE, showing the Moorish kingdoms after the fall of Rome.

Although the Moors came to be identified as Muslim, the name Moor pre-dates Islam. It derives from the small Numidian Kingdom of Maure of the 3rd century BCE in what is now northern central and western part of Algeria and a part of northern Morocco.^[9] The name was applied to people of the entire region. "They were called Maurisi by the Greeks", wrote Strabo, "and Mauri by the Romans."^[10] During that age, the Maure or Moors were trading partners of Carthage, the independent city state founded by Phoenicians. During the second Punic war between Carthage and Rome, two Moorish Numidian kings took different sides, Syphax with Carthage, Masinissa with the Romans, decisively so at Zama.

Thereafter, the Moors entered into treaties with Rome. King Jugurtha responded to violence against merchants with war. Juba, a later king, was a friend of Rome. Eventually, the Roman Empire incorporated the region as the provinces of Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania Tingitana. The area around Carthage was already part of the province of Africa. Roman rule was effective enough so that these provinces became integrated into the empire.

During the Christian era, two prominent Berber churchmen were Tertullian and St. Augustine. After the fall of Rome, the Germanic kingdom of the Vandals ruled much of the area.

Neither Vandal nor Byzantine could extend effective rule; the interior remained under Moorish Berber control.^[11] For more than 50 years, the Berbers resisted Arab armies from the east. Among its memorable resistance were the forces led by Kahina, the Berber prophetess of the Awras, during 690–701. By 700 CE, or the 92nd lunar year after the Hijra, the Arab Muslims dominated North Africa.^[12]

Moors of Iberia[link]

Progress of the Reconquista (790–1300).

In 711 AD, the now Islamic Moors conquered Visigothic Christian Hispania. Their general, Tariq ibn-Ziyad, brought most of Iberia under Islamic rule in an eight-year campaign. They moved northeast across the Pyrenees Mountains, but were defeated by the Frank Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers in 732 AD.

The Moorish state fell into civil conflict in the 750s. The Moors ruled in North Africa and in most of the Iberian peninsula for several decades. They were resisted in areas in the northwest (such as Asturias, where they were defeated at the battle of Covadonga) and the largely Basque regions in the Pyrenees. Though the number of Moor colonists was small, many native Iberian inhabitants converted to Islam. According to Ronald Segal, by 1200 AD, some 5.6 million of Iberia's 7 million inhabitants, nearly all native inhabitants, were Muslim.^[13] In the late 15th century, the persecution of Muslims and forced conversion to Catholicism caused a mass exodus.

In a process of decline, the Al Andalus had broken up into a number of Islamic-ruled fiefdoms, or taifas, which were partly consolidated under the Caliphate of Córdoba.^{[citation needed]}

Coat of arms of Alcanadre. La Rioja, Spain. Depicting slayed heads of the Moors

The Asturias, a small northwestern Christian Iberian kingdom, initiated the Reconquista (the "reconquest") soon after the Islamic conquest in the 8th century. Christian states based in the north and west slowly extended their power over the rest of Iberia. Navarre, Galicia, León, Portugal, Aragón, Catalonia or Marca Hispanica, and Castile began a process of expansion and internal consolidation during the next several centuries under the flag of Reconquista.

Reconstruction of costumes of Moorish nobility from a German book published in 1880

In 1212, a coalition of Christian kings under the leadership of Alfonso VIII of Castile drove the Muslims from Central Iberia. The Portuguese side of the Reconquista ended in 1249 with the conquest of the Algarve (Arabic الغرب — Al-Gharb) under Afonso III. He was the first Portuguese monarch to claim the title "King of Portugal and the Algarve".

The Moorish Kingdom of Granada continued for three more centuries in the southern Iberia. On January 2, 1492, the leader of the last Muslim stronghold in Granada surrendered to armies of a recently united Christian Spain (after the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, the Catholic Monarchs). They forced the remaining Muslims and Jews to leave Spain, convert to Roman Catholic Christianity or be killed for not doing so. To exert social and religious control, in 1480, Isabella and Ferdinand agreed to allow the Inquisition in Spain.

The Inquisition was aimed mostly at Jews and Muslims who had overtly converted to Christianity but were thought to be practicing their faiths secretly. They were respectively called marranos and moriscos. The Inquisition also attacked heretics who rejected Roman Catholic orthodoxy, including alumbras, who practiced a personal mysticism or spiritualism. The latter represented a significant portion of the peasants in some territories, such as Aragon, Valencia or Andalusia. In the years from 1609 to 1614, the government expelled such subjects. The historian Henri Lapeyre estimated that this affected 300,000 out of an estimated total of 8 million inhabitants.^[14]

Christian and Moor playing chess, from The Book of Games of Alfonso X, c. 1285

Many Muslims converted to Christianity and remained permanently in Iberia. This is indicated by a "high mean proportion of ancestry from North African (10.6%)" that "attests to a high level of religious conversion (whether voluntary or enforced), driven by historical episodes of social and religious intolerance, that ultimately led to the integration of descendants.".^[15][16]

In the meantime, the tide of Islam had rolled not just to Iberia, but also eastward, through India, the Malayan peninsula, and Indonesia up to the Philippines. This was one of the major islands of an archipelago which the Spaniards had reached during their voyages westward from the New World. By 1521, the ships of Magellan^{[citation needed]} and other Spanish explorers had reached that island archipelago, which they named Las Islas de Filipinas, after Philip II of Spain. In Mindanao, the Spaniards named the kris-bearing people as Moros or 'Moors'. Today in the Philippines, this ethnic group of people in Mindanao, who are generally Muslims, are called 'Moros'. This identification of Islamic people as Moros persists in the modern Spanish language spoken in Spain, and as Mouros in the modern Portuguese language. See Reconquista, and Maure.

According to historian Richard A. Fletcher,^[17] 'the number of Arabs who settled in Iberia was very small. "Moorish" Iberia does at least have the merit of reminding us that the bulk of the invaders and settlers were Moors, i.e. Berbers from Algeria and Morocco.'.

• 

  Reconquista

• 

  The Moors request permission from James I of Aragon

• 

  Christian and Moor playing lute, 13th century

• 

  Muhammad XII of Granada, last Moorish sultan in Spain

• 

  Leo Africanus, born in Granada

Medieval Southern Italy[link]

Muslim musicians at the court of the Norman King Roger II of Sicily.

The first Muslim conquest of Sicily and parts of southern Italy lasted 75 years (827–902). By 827, Sicily was almost entirely in control of the Aghlabids with the exception of some minor strongholds in the rugged interior until 909 when it was then replaced by Shiite Fatimids. Four years later, the Fatimid governor was ousted from Palermo when the island declared its independence under Emir Ahmed ibn-Kohrob.

In 1038, a Byzantine army under George Maniaces crossed the strait of Messina. This included a corps of Normans which saved the situation in the first clash against the Muslims from Messina. After another decisive victory in the summer of 1040, Maniaces halted his march to lay siege to Syracuse. Despite his conquest of the latter, Maniaces was removed from his position, and the subsequent Muslim counter-offensive reconquered all the cities captured by the Byzantines.

The Norman Robert Guiscard, son of Tancred, invaded Sicily in 1060. The island was split between three Arab emirs, and the majority Christian population rose up against the ruling Muslims. One year later, Messina fell, and in 1072, Palermo was taken by the Normans. The loss of the cities, each with a splendid harbor, dealt a severe blow to Muslim power on the island. Eventually all of Sicily was taken. In 1091, Noto in the southern tip of Sicily and the island of Malta, the last Arab stongholds, fell to the Christians.

Islamic authors would marvel at the tolerance of the Norman kings of Sicily. Ibn al-Athir wrote: "They [the Muslims] were treated kindly, and they were protected, even against the Franks. Because of that, they had great love for king Roger."^[18]

Many repressive measures were introduced by Frederick II to please the popes who were intolerant of Islam in the heart of Christendom. This resulted in a rebellion by Sicilian Muslims, which in turn triggered organized resistance and systematic reprisals and marked the final chapter of Islam in Sicily. The Muslim problem characterized Hohenstaufen rule in Sicily under Henry VI and his son Frederick II. The complete eviction of Muslims and the annihilation of Islam in Sicily was completed by the late 1240s when the final deportations to Lucera took place.

Modern age[link]

Moorish man in Mauritania

Beside its usage in historical context, Moor and Moorish (Italian and Spanish: moro, French: maure, Portuguese: mouro, Romanian: maur) is used to designate an ethnic group speaking the Hassaniya Arabic dialect. They inhabit Mauritania and parts of Algeria, Western Sahara, Tunisia, Morocco, Niger and Mali. In Niger and Mali, these peoples are also known as the Azawagh Arabs, after the Azawagh region of the Sahara.^[19]

In Spain, modern colloquial Spanish use of the term "Moro" is derogatory for Moroccans in particular^{[20][21][22][23][24]} and North Africans in general. Similarly, in modern, colloquial Portuguese, the term "Mouro" was primarily used as a designation for North Africans and secondarily as a derogatory and ironic term by northern Portuguese to refer to the inhabitants of the southern parts of the country (Lisbon, Alentejo and Algarve). However, this designation has gotten more acceptance in the South.

In the Philippines, a former Spanish colony, many residents call the local Muslim population in the Southern islands Moros. They also self-identify that way (see Muslim Filipino). The term was introduced by the Spanish colonizers. Within the context of Portuguese colonization, in Sri Lanka (Portuguese Ceylon), Muslims of Arab origin are called Moors (see Sri Lankan Moors).

Religious relations[link]

The initial rule of the Moors in the Iberian peninsula under this Caliphate of Córdoba is regarded as tolerant in its acceptance of Christians, Muslims and Jews living in the same territories.^{[citation needed]} The Caliphate of Córdoba collapsed in 1031 and the Islamic territory in Iberia fell under the rule of the Almoravid dynasty. This second stage inaugurated an era of Moorish rulers guided by a version of Islam that left behind the tolerant practices of the past.^{[citation needed][dubious – discuss]}

Architecture[link]

Interior of the Mezquita, Córdoba

Moorish architecture is a term used to describe the articulated Islamic architecture of North Africa and parts of Spain and Portugal where the Moors were dominant from 711–1492. The best surviving examples are La Mezquita in Córdoba and the Alhambra palace (mainly 1338–1390),^[25] and also the Giralda in 1184.^[26] Other notable examples include the ruined palace city of Medina Azahara (936–1010), the church (former mosque) San Cristo de la Luz in Toledo, the Aljafería in Saragossa and baths at for example Ronda and Alhama de Granada.

Heraldry[link]

Arms of the great Bristol merchant and shipper William II Canynges(d.1474), as depictd on his canopied tomb in St Mary Redcliffe Church, showing the couped heads of three Moors wreathed at the temples, possibly slaves

In European heraldry the Moors are shown as black Africans, most frequently as a couped (i.e. severed) head with the temples wreathed.^{[citation needed]}

Population genetics[link]

Shomarka Keita, a biological anthropologist from Howard University, has claimed that populations in Carthage circa 200 BC and northern Algeria 1500 BC were very diverse. As a group, they plotted closest to the populations of Northern Egypt and intermediate to Northern Europeans and tropical Africans. Keita claimed that "the data supported the comments from ancient authors observed by classicists: everything from fair-skinned blonds to peoples who were dark-skinned 'Ethiopian' or part Ethiopian in appearance."^[27] Modern evidence showed a similar diversity among present North Africans. Moreover, this "diversity" of phenotypes and peoples was probably due to in situ differentiation, not foreign influxes. Of course foreign influxes certainly had an impact but they did not replace the indigenous Berber population.^[28]

The Y chromosome p49a,f TaqI Haplotype V, which corresponds to Y haplogroup E1b1b1b (M81) —formerly E3b1b, E3b2 and colloquially referred to as the "Berber marker"— has been found among 68.9% of modern Berbers in North Africa and as high as 80% in one group. It is believed to be about 5,600 years old,^[29] and to have arrived with the Neolithic expansion from the Near East. M81 is not found in Sub-Saharan Africa. This haplotype has also been observed in as high as 40% of one small group of Andalusians tested. Generally it appears at much lower frequencies among Iberian populations, and lower as distance from North Africa increases.^[30]

Y DNA haplogroup E1b1b (formerly E3b) predominates among North African populations; its E1b1b1b subgroup (M81) is identified especially with Berbers. The Vb subtype of p49a,f Haplotype V, apparently corresponding to E3b1b, has been found to occur in two-thirds of the Haplotype V Southern Iberians, that is, in about a quarter of all Andalusians tested. The frequency of Vb is at its highest among Berbers, and was found to decline rapidly from West to East among North Africans sampled. It is uncommon in France and Italy.^[30]

A 2006 mitochondrial DNA study of 12th to 13th century Islamic remains from Priego de Córdoba, Spain, indicates a higher proportion (4%) of sub-Saharan African lineages. This is attributed only partially to the period of Moorish occupation; researchers believe that more ancient migrations from Africa to Europe were more significant.^[31]

Notable Moors[link]

Aureus of Macrinus. Its elaborate symbolism celebrates the liberalitas ("prodigality") of Macrinus and his son.

Ptolemy of Mauretania the son of king Juba II of Mauretania.

• Lusius Quietus, a Roman general, governor of Iudaea in 117. Originally a Berber prince, his military ability won him the favor of Trajan, who even designated him as his successor. During the emperor's Parthian campaign, the numerous Jewish inhabitants of Babylonia revolted and were relentlessly suppressed by Quietus, who was rewarded by being appointed governor of Judea. Restlessness in the region caused Trajan to send his favorite, as a legate of consular rank, to Judea, where he continued his sanguinary course.
• Macrinus, 164–218, a Berber officer, prefect of the Praetorian Guard under Caracalla. In 217–218, he became the first Roman emperor who was not a senator.
• Gildo, a Berber chieftain who instigated a rebellion against the Roman Empire in 398.
• Tariq ibn Ziyad, Berber general who defeated the Visigoths and conquered Hispania in 711.
• Al-Mansur, reigned 754–775, second Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate; his mother was a Berber.
• Abd ar-Rahman I, founder of the Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba in 756; along with its succeeding Caliphate of Córdoba, the dynasty ruled Islamic Spain for three centuries.
• Abbas Ibn Firnas, 810–887, Berber inventor and aviator who invented an early parachute and made the first attempt at controlled flight with a hang glider.
• Maslamah Ibn Ahmad al-Majriti, died 1007, Andalusian writer believed to have been the author of the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity and the Picatrix.
• Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (Abulcasis), Andalusian physician and surgeon who established the discipline of surgery as a profession with his Al-Tasrif in 1000.
• Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī (Arzachel), 1028–1087, Andalusian astronomer and engineer who developed the equatorium and universal (latitude-independent) astrolabe and compiled a Zij later used as a basis for the Tables of Toledo.
• Ibn Bajjah (Avempace), died 1138, Andalusian physicist and polymath whose theory of motion, including the concept of a reaction force, influenced the development of classical mechanics.
• Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar), 1091–1161, Andalusian physician and polymath who discovered the existence of parasites and pioneered experimental surgery.
• Muhammad al-Idrisi, circa 1100–1166, Moorish geographer and polymath who drew the Tabula Rogeriana, the most accurate world map in pre-modern times.
• Ibn Tufail, circa 1105–1185, Arabic writer and polymath who wrote Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, the first philosophical novel.
• Ibn Rushd (Averroes), 1126–1198, classical Islamic philosopher and polymath who wrote The Incoherence of the Incoherence and the most extensive Aristotelian commentaries, and established the school of Averroism.
• Ibn al-Baitar, died 1248, Andalusian botanist and pharmacist who compiled the most extensive pharmacopoeia and botanical compilation in pre-modern times.
• Ibn Battuta, 1304–1368, a Berber traveller who was the most prolific explorer in pre-modern times, travelling 73,000 miles across much of the Old World.
• Ibn Khaldun, a pioneer of the social sciences and forerunner of sociology, historiography and economics, who wrote the Muqaddimah in 1377.
• Abū al-Hasan ibn Alī al-Qalasādī, 1412–1486, Moorish mathematician who took the first steps toward the introduction of algebraic symbolism.
• Othello, the fictitious hero in the eponymous play by William Shakespeare, published in 1604. The character of Othello was a mercenary who served in the war between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, who married the daughter of a Venetian nobleman.
• Estevanico, also referred to as "Stephen the Moor", was an explorer in the service of Spain of what is now the southwest of the United States.
• Monostatos, a fictional corrupt henchman in Mozart's The Magic Flute.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Moors

Bibliography[link]

This section's bibliographical information is not fully provided. If you know these sources and can provide full information, you can help Wikipedia by completing it.

• Jan Carew, Rape of Paradise
• David Brion Davis, "Slavery: Black, White, Muslim, Christian"
• Herodotus, The Histories
• Shomark O.Y. Keita, "Genetic Haplotyes in North Africa"
• Shomark O.Y. Keita, "Craniometric Data from North Africa
• Shomark O.Y. Keita, "Further Craniometric Data from North Africa"
• Shomark O.Y. Keita, "Bernal vs. Snowden"
• Bernard Lewis, "The Middle East"
• Bernard Lewis, "The Muslim Discovery of Europe"
• Bernard Lewis, "Race and Slavery in Islam"
• Stanley Lane-Poole, Turkey (1888)
• Stanley Lane-Poole, The Barbary Corsairs (1890)
• Stanley Lane-Poole, The History of the Moors in Spain
• J.A. Rogers, Nature Knows no Color Line
• Ronald Segal, "Islam's Black Slaves"
• Ivan van Sertima, The Golden Age of the Moor
• Frank Snowdon, "Before Color Prejudice"
• Frank Snowdon, "Blacks in Antiquity"
• David M. Goldenberg, "The Curse of Ham"
• Lucotte and Mercier, various genetic studies
• Eva Borreguero. "The Moors Are Coming, the Moors Are Coming! Encounters with Muslims in Contemporary Spain". Islam and Christian-Muslim relations, 2006, vol. 17, no4, pp. 417–432. Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
• "The Moors" by Ross Brann, published on New York University website.

See also[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Moorsgate.com
• Pbs.org
• Encyclopedia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia (2006)
• Moors, Classic Encyclopedia (1911)
• Khalid Amine, Moroccan Shakespeare: From Moors to Moroccans. Paper presented at an International Conference Organized by The Postgraduate School of Critical Theory and Cultural Studies, University of Nottingham, and The British Council, Morocco, 12–14 April 2001.
• Heraldry: The Moor's Head, Hidden Histories - African in Medieval and Renaissance Art, Victoria and Albert Museum (n.d)
• Sean Cavazos-Kottke. Othello's Predecessors: Moors in Renaissance Popular Literature: (outline). Folger Shakespeare Library, 1998.

The term black people is used in some socially-based systems of racial classification for humans of a dark-skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups represented in a particular social context. Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class and socio-economic status also play a role, so that relatively dark-skinned people can be classified as white if they fulfill other social criteria of "whiteness" and relatively light-skinned people can be classified as black if they fulfill the social criteria for "blackness" in a particular setting.^[1]

As a biological phenotype being "black" is often associated with the very dark skin colors of some people who are classified as "black". But, particularly in the United States, the racial or ethnic classification also refers to people with all possible kinds of skin pigmentation from the darkest through to the very lightest skin colors, including albinos, if they are believed by others to have African ancestry, or to exhibit cultural traits associated with being "African-American". As a result, in the United States the term "black people" is not an indicator of skin color but of socially based racial classification.^[2]

Some definitions of the term include only people of relatively recent Sub-Saharan African descent (see African diaspora). Among the members of this group, dark skin is most often accompanied by the expression of natural afro-hair texture. Other definitions of the term "black people" extend to other populations characterized by dark skin, sometimes including people indigenous to Oceania.^[3][4]

Physiological traits[link]

Dark skin[link]

Map of indigenous skin color distribution in the world based on Von Luschan's chromatic scale.

The evolution of dark skin is linked intrinsically to the loss of body hair in humans. By 1.2 million years ago, all people having descendants today had the same receptor protein of today's Africans; their skin was dark, and the intense sun lowered the chance of survival of those with lighter skin that resulted from mutational variation in the receptor protein.^[5] This is significantly earlier than the speciation of Homo sapiens from Homo erectus some 250,000 years ago.

Skin cancer as a result of ultraviolet light radiation causing mutations in the skin is less common among people with dark skin than it is among those with light skin.^[6][7] Dark skin prevents an essential B vitamin, folate, from being destroyed. In the absence of modern medicine and diet, a person with dark skin in the tropics would live longer, be healthier and more likely to reproduce than a person with light skin. As evidence of this expectation of adverse effects of light skin in the tropics, White South Africans ^[8] and white Australians have some of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world.^[9]

Conversely, as dark skin prevents sunlight from penetrating the skin, it hinders the production of vitamin D₃. When humans migrated to less sun-intensive regions in the north, low vitamin D₃ levels became a problem, and humans with lighter skin were more successful in reproducing. White people of Europe, who have low levels of melanin, naturally have an almost colorless skin pigmentation, especially when untanned. This low level of pigmentation allows the blood vessels to become visible, which gives the characteristic pale pink color of white people. The loss of melanin in white people is thought to have been caused by a mutation in one letter out of 3.1 billion letters of DNA.^[10]

The genetic mutations leading to light skin, though different among East Asians and Europeans,^[11] suggest the two groups experienced a similar selective pressure due to settlement in northern latitudes.^[12]

Black skin pigmentation has been linked to a number of other properties, including tactile characteristics, and slower and less pronounced development of wrinkles.^[13]

Hair[link]

The texture of hair in people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry is noticeably different from that of European and Asian populations. Herodotus described the peoples of Libya (the "western Ethiopians") as woolly-haired.

Such "afro-hair" texture is denser than its straight counterparts. Due to this, it is often referred to as "coily", "thick", "nappy", "bushy", or "woolly". For several reasons, possibly including its relatively flat cross section (among other factors^[14]), this hair type conveys a dry or matte appearance.^[15][16] Its unique shape renders it prone to breakage when combed or brushed.^[16]

The specific characteristics of the natural afro-hair form are unique among all mammals.^{[clarification needed][dubious – discuss][17]} The texture likely predates the evolution of dark skin. It evolved when, as pre-human australopithecines lost most of their fur to enable perspiration, the need to protect the newly exposed pale skin underneath this body hair was crucial (see^[18] in light of Rogers and others., 2004 and Harding and others., 2000). The trait ceased to be essential to survival at the equator upon the evolution of hairless dark skin. Yet it has continued to be expressed vestigially among most Melanesians, Andaman Islanders, and sub-Saharan Africans.

Sub-Saharan Africa[link]

A black woman and her albino son from Tanzania

Sub-Saharan Africa is a common, if imprecise term that encompasses African countries located south of the Sahara Desert. It is commonly used to differentiate the region culturally, ecologically, politically and, more controversially, racially, from North Africa, which has historically been considered part of the Mediterranean sphere and whose residents are primarily of Arab ethnicity.

Because the indigenous people of this region are primarily dark-skinned, it is alternatively called "Black Africa".^[19] However the terminology Black Africa and Sub-Sahara Africa is considered by some as a pejorative term and a vestige of colonialism, which divided Africa into European terms of homogeneity.^[20] Some criticize the use of the term, because, as it has become in many quarters synonymous with Black Africa, people may not realize that there are also indigenous black populations in North Africa. In addition, the Sahara cuts across countries such as Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Chad, leaving some parts of them in North Africa and some in sub-Saharan Africa.

Some black Africans prefer to be culturally distinguished from those who live in the north of the continent.^[21]

Cultural ideas of a black race[link]

South Africa[link]

A Khoisan man, an ethnic group in South Africa.

In South Africa during the apartheid era, the population was classified into four main racial groups: Black, White, Asian (mostly Indian), and Coloured. The Coloured group included people of mixed Bantu, Khoisan, and European descent (with some Malay ancestry, especially in the Western Cape). The Coloured definition occupied an intermediary position between the Black and White definitions in South Africa.

The apartheid bureaucracy devised complex (and often arbitrary) criteria in the Population Registration Act to determine who belonged in which group. Minor officials administered tests to enforce the classifications. When it was unclear from a person's physical appearance whether a person was to be considered Colored or Black, the "pencil test" was employed. This involved inserting a pencil in a person's hair to determine if the hair was kinky enough for the pencil to get stuck.^[22]

During the apartheid era, those classed as "Coloured" were oppressed and discriminated against. But, they had limited rights and overall had slightly better socioeconomic conditions than those classed as "Black".

In the post-apartheid era, the ANC government's laws in support of their affirmative action policies define "Black" people to include "Africans", "Coloureds" and "Asians". Their affirmative action policies have also favored "Africans" over "Coloureds". Some South Africans categorized as "African Black" openly state that "Coloureds" did not suffer as much as they did during apartheid. The popular saying by "Coloured" South Africans to illustrate their dilemma is:

We were not white enough under apartheid, and we are not black enough under the ANC (African National Congress)

In 2008, the High Court in South Africa ruled that Chinese South Africans who were residents during the apartheid era (and their descendents) are to be reclassified as "Black people" solely for the purposes of accessing affirmative action benefits, because they were also "disadvantaged" by racial discrimination. Chinese people who arrived in the country after the end of apartheid do not qualify.^[23]

Other than by appearance, "Coloureds" can usually be distinguished from "Blacks" by language. Most speak Afrikaans or English as a first language, as opposed to Bantu languages such as Zulu or Xhosa. They also tend to have more European-sounding names than Bantu names.^[24]

In the Middle East[link]

Near East and North Africa[link]

Black African and Near Eastern peoples have interacted since prehistoric times.^[25][26] Some historians estimate that as many as 14 million black slaves were transported across the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara Desert in the Arab slave trade from 650 to 1900 CE.^[27][28] The Moroccan Sultan Moulay Ismail "the Bloodthirsty" (1672–1727) raised a corps of 150,000 black slaves, called his Black Guard, who coerced the country into submission.^[29][30]

13th century slave market in Yemen. Yemen officially abolished slavery in 1962.^[31]

In more recent times, about 1000 CE, interactions between black people and Arabs resulted in the incorporation of extensive Arabic vocabulary into Swahili, which became a useful lingua franca for merchants. Some of this linguistic exchange occurred as part of the slave trade; the history of Islam and slavery shows that the major juristic schools traditionally accepted the institution of slavery.^[32] As a result, Arab influence spread along the east coast of Africa and to some extent into the interior (see Swahili people). Timbuktu was a trading outpost that linked West Africa with Berber, Arab, and Jewish traders throughout the Arab World. As a result of these interactions, some female-mediated gene flow into the Middle East from Sub-Saharan Africa can be observed in certain populations.^[33]

According to Dr. Carlos Moore, resident scholar at Brazil's University of the state of Bahia, Afro-multiracials in the Arab world self-identify in ways that resemble Latin America. He claims that black-looking Arabs, much like black-looking Latin Americans, consider themselves white because they have some distant white ancestry.^[34]

Soldiers of the Free Arabian Legion in Greece, September 1943.

Moore also claims that a film about Egyptian President Anwar Sadat had to be canceled when Sadat discovered that an African-American had been cast to play him. In fact, the 1983 television movie Sadat, starring Louis Gossett, Jr., was not canceled. The Egyptian government refused to let the drama air in Egypt, partially on the grounds of the casting of Gossett.^[35]

Sadat's mother was a dark-skinned Sudanese woman and his father was a lighter-skinned Egyptian. In response to an advertisement for an acting position he remarked, "I am not white but I am not exactly black either. My blackness is tending to reddish".^[36]

Fathia Nkrumah was another Egyptian with ties to Black Africa. She was the late wife of Ghanaian revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah, whose marriage was seen as helping plant the seeds of cooperation between Egypt and other African countries as they struggled for independence from European colonization. This helped advance the formation of the African Union.^[37]

Bashi-bazouk of the Ottoman Empire by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1869

Because of the patriarchal nature of Arab society, Arab men enslaved more black women than men, and used more black female slaves than males. The men interpreted the Qur'an to permit sexual relations between a male master and his female slave outside of marriage,^[38][39] leading to many mixed-race children. When an enslaved woman became pregnant with her Arab master's child, she became umm walad or “mother of a child”, a status that granted her privileged rights. The child was allowed to prosper from the wealth of the father and was given rights of inheritance.^[40] Because the society was patrilineal, the children took their fathers' status at birth and were born free. Some succeeded their fathers as rulers, as was the case with Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur, who ruled Morocco from 1578 to 1608. His mother was a Fulani concubine of his father.

Such tolerance, however, was not extended to wholly black persons, even when technically "free." Arabs commonly believed that blacks were slaves.^[41] The term "abd", (Arabic: عبد‎,) "slave," remains a common term for black people in the Middle East, and, depending on the context, usually though not always derogatory.^[42]

Turkey[link]

Beginning several centuries ago, a number of sub-Saharan Africans were brought by slave traders during the Ottoman Empire to plantations between Antalya and Istanbul in modern-day Turkey.^[43] Some of their descendants remain, mixed with the rest of the population in these areas, and many migrated to larger cities. Some came from the island of Crete following the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923.^[44]

Israel[link]

An African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem child in Dimona.

About 150,000 black people live in Israel, amounting to just over 2% of the nation's population. The vast majority of these, some 120,000, are Beta Israel,^[45] most of whom came during the 1980s and 1990s from Ethiopia.^[46] In addition, Israel is home to over 5,000 members of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem movement, who reside mainly in a distinct neighborhood in the Negev town of Dimona. Unknown numbers of black converts to Judaism reside in Israel, most of them converts from the UK, Canada, and the United States. Thousands of mixed-race individuals with non-black Jewish relatives also live in Israel.

In the Americas[link]

Approximately 12 million Africans were shipped to the Americas during the Atlantic slave trade from 1492 to 1888. Today their descendants number approximately 150 million,^[47] most of whom live in the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America. Most notably Brazil has the largest population in the world, aside from Nigeria, of individuals of at least partial African descent. Many have a multiracial background of African, Amerindian, European and Asian ancestry. The various regions developed complex social conventions with which their multi-ethnic populations were classified.

United States[link]

Harriet Tubman, an African-American abolitionist and conductor of the Underground Railroad.

In the first 200 years that black people were in the United States, they commonly referred to themselves as Africans. In Africa, people primarily identified themselves by ethnic group (closely allied to language) and not by skin color. Individuals would be Ashanti, Igbo, Bakongo or Wolof. But when Africans were brought to the Americas, they were forced to give up their ethnic affiliations when they were combined with other groups from Africa. In areas of the Upper South, different ethnic groups were brought together. This is significant as Africans came from a vast geographic region, the West African coastline stretching from Senegal to Angola and in some cases from the south east coast such as Mozambique. A new identity and culture was born that incorporated elements of the various ethnic groups and of European cultural heritage, resulting in fusions such as the Black church and Black English. This new identity was based on African ancestry and slave status rather than any one ethnic group.^[48]

In March 1807, Britain, which largely controlled the Atlantic, declared the trans-atlantic slave trade illegal, as did the United States. (The latter prohibition took effect January 1, 1808, the earliest date on which Congress had the power to do so under Article I, Section 9 of the United States Constitution.)

By that time, the majority of black people were U.S.-born, so use of the term "African" became problematic. Though initially a source of pride, many blacks feared the use of African as an identity would be a hindrance to their fight for full citizenship in the US. They also felt that it would give ammunition to those who were advocating repatriating black people back to Africa. In 1835 black leaders called upon black Americans to remove the title of "African" from their institutions and replace it with "Negro" or "Colored American". A few institutions chose to keep their historic names, such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church. "Negro" and "colored" remained the popular terms until the late 1960s.^[49]

The term black was used throughout but not frequently as it carried a certain stigma. In his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech,^[50] Martin Luther King, Jr. uses the terms negro fifteen times and black four times. Each time he uses black it is in parallel construction with white, for example, "black men and white men".^[51]

With the successes of the civil rights movement, a new term was needed to break from the past and help shed the reminders of legalized discrimination. In place of Negro, activists promoted the use of black as standing for racial pride, militancy and power. Some of the turning points included the use of the term "Black Power" by Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael) and the release of James Brown's song "Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud".

African-American Michael Jordan, considered by many the greatest basketball player in history.

In 1988 Jesse Jackson urged Americans to use the term African American because the term has a historical cultural base. Since then African-American and black have essentially a coequal status. Controversy continues over which term is more appropriate. Some such as Maulana Karenga and Owen Alik Shahadah argue African-American is more appropriate because it accurately articulates geography and historical origin.^[48] Others have argued that "black" is a better term because "African" suggests foreignness, despite the long presence of black people in the US.^[52] Still others believe the term black is inaccurate because African Americans have a variety of skin tones.^{[citation needed]} Surveys show that the majority of black Americans have no preference for "African American" or "Black,"^[53] although they have a slight preference for "black" in personal settings and "African-American" in more formal settings.^[54] Increases in the number of immigrants to the United States from Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America have brought up questions about who uses the term African-American. The more recent African immigrants may sometimes view themselves, and be viewed, as culturally distinct from native-born people who are descendants of African slaves.^[55]

The U.S. census race definitions says a black is a person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black, African Am., or Negro," or who provide written entries such as African-American, Afro-American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian. However, the Census Bureau notes that these classifications are socio-political constructs and should not be interpreted as scientific or anthropological.^[56]

A black Gl and a Chinese soldier place the flag of their ally on the front of their jeep, truck convoy on the Stilwell Road, Burma, 1945

A considerable portion of the U.S. population identified as black also has some Native American or European ancestry. For instance, genetic studies of African-American people show an ancestry that is on average 17–18% European.^[57]

One-drop rule[link]

Since the late nineteenth century, the South used a colloquial term, the one-drop rule, to classify as black a person of any known African ancestry. This practice of hypodescent was not put into law until the early twentieth century.^[58] Legally the definition varied from state to state, and was more flexible in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries before the American Civil War. For instance, Thomas Jefferson held persons who were legally white (less than 25% Black) according to Virginia law at the time, but, because they were born to slave mothers, they were born into slavery, according to the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, which Virginia adopted into law in 1662.

Outside of the US, some other countries have adopted the one-drop rule, but the definition of who is black and the extent to which the one-drop "rule" applies varies greatly from country to country.

The one-drop rule may have originated as a means of increasing the number of black slaves^[59] and been maintained as an attempt to keep the white race pure.^[60] One of the results of the one-drop rule was uniting the African-American community.^[58] Some of the most prominent civil-rights activists were multiracial, and advocated equality for all.^{[citation needed]}

Blackness[link]

Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States, was throughout his campaign criticized as being either "too black" or "not black enough".^[61][62][63]

The concept of blackness in the United States has been described^{[by whom?]} as the degree to which one associates themselves with mainstream African-American culture and values. To a certain extent, this concept is not so much about race but more about culture and behavior. Blackness can be contrasted with "acting white," where black Americans are said to behave with assumed characteristics of stereotypical white Americans, with regard to fashion, dialect, taste in music,^[64] and possibly, from the perspective of a significant number of black youth, academic achievement.^[65]

The notion of blackness can also be extended to non-black people. Toni Morrison once described Bill Clinton as the first black president,^[66] because of his warm relations with African Americans, his poor upbringing and also because he is a jazz musician. Christopher Hitchens was offended by the notion of Clinton as the first black president noting "we can still define blackness by the following symptoms: alcoholic mothers, under-the-bridge habits...the tendency to sexual predation and shameless perjury about the same". Some black activists were also offended, claiming Clinton used his knowledge of black culture to exploit black people like no other president before^[67] for political gain, while not serving black interests. They note his lack of action during the Rwanda genocide^[68] and his welfare reform which some claim led to the worst child poverty since the 1960s^[69] along with the fact that the number of black people in jail increased during his administration.^[70]

The question of blackness also arose in Democrat Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. Commentators have questioned whether Obama, who was elected the first black President of the United States, is black enough, as his mother was white American, and his father was a black Kenyan immigrant.^[61][63] Obama refers to himself interchangeably as black and African-American.^[71] "Is Barack Obama the first black President of the United States?"^[72]

Brazil[link]

The topic of race in Brazil is a complex and diverse one.^{[citation needed]} A Brazilian child was never automatically identified with the racial type of one or both parents, nor were there only two categories to choose from. Between a pure black and a very light mulatto over a dozen racial categories would be recognized in conformity with the combinations of hair color, hair texture, eye color, and skin color. These types grade into each other like the colors of the spectrum, and no one category stands significantly isolated from the rest. That is, race referred to appearance, not heredity.^[73]

Jongo, a Brazilian dance of African origin, c. 1822

There is some disagreement among scholars over the effects of social status on racial classifications in Brazil. It is generally believed that upward mobility and education results in reclassification of individuals into lighter skinned categories. The popular claim is that in Brazil poor whites are considered black and wealthy blacks are considered white. Some scholars disagree arguing that whitening of one's social status may be open to people of mixed race, but a typically black person will consistently be identified as black regardless of wealth or social status.^[74][75] Multiracial persons can even reappreciate their African heritage and start to declare themselves as black persons with increasings of social status and education.

Statistics[link]

From the year 1500 to 1850 an estimated 3.5 million Africans were forcibly shipped to Brazil.^[74] It is estimated that more than half of the Brazilian population is at least in part descendants of these Africans. Brazil has the largest population of Afro-descendants outside of Africa. In contrast to the US there were no segregation or anti-miscegenation laws in Brazil and as a result intermarriage has affected a large majority of the Brazilian population. Even much of the white/Asian population has either African or Amerindian blood. According to the last census of the twentieth century 54% identified themselves as white, 6.2% identified themselves as black and 39.5% identified themselves as Pardo (brown) — a broad multiracial category.^[77]

A philosophy of whitening emerged in Brazil in the nineteenth century. Until recently the government did not keep data on race. However, statisticians estimate that in 1835 half the population was black, one fifth was Pardo (brown) and one fourth white. By 2000 the black population had fallen to only 6.2% and the Pardo had increased to 40% and white to 55%. Essentially most of the black population was absorbed into the multiracial category by intermixing.^[73] A recent study found that at least 29% of the middle class white Brazilian population had some recent African ancestry.^[78]

Race relations in Brazil[link]

Afro-Brazilian women during a Candomblé ceremony.

Because of the ideology of miscegenation, Brazil has avoided the polarization of society into black and white. The bitter and sometimes violent racial tensions that divide the US are notably absent in Brazil. According to the census, 6.7% of Brazilians said they were black, compared with 6.2% in 2000, and 43.1% said they were mixed race, up from 38.5%. According to Brazil's minister for racial equality, Elio Ferreira de Araujo, attributed the change to growing pride among his country's black and indigenous communities.^[79]

However, the philosophy of the racial democracy in Brazil has drawn criticism from some quarters. Brazil has one of the largest gaps in income distribution in the world. The richest 10% of the population earn 28 times the average income of the bottom 40%. The richest 10 percent is almost exclusively white. One-third of the population lives under the poverty line, with blacks and other non-whites accounting for 70 percent of the poor.^[80]

Fruit sellers in Rio de Janeiro c. 1820

In the US, black people earn 75% of what white people earn.^[81] In Brazil, non-whites earn less than 50% of what whites earn. Some have posited that Brazil does in fact practice the one-drop rule when social economic factors are considered. This is because the gap in income between blacks and other non-whites is relatively small compared to the large gap between whites and non-whites. Other factors such as illiteracy and education level show the same patterns.^[82] Unlike in the US where African Americans were united in the civil-rights struggle, in Brazil the philosophy of whitening has helped divide blacks from other non-whites and prevented a more active civil rights movement.

Though Brazilians of African heritage make up a large percentage ^[83] the population there are very few black politicians. The city of Salvador, Bahia, for instance, is 80% Afro-Brazilian but has never had a black mayor. Critics indicate that US cities that have a black majority, such as Detroit and New Orleans, have never had white mayors since first electing black mayors in the 1970s.^[79][84]

Black people in Brazil c. 1821

Non-white people also have limited media visibility. The Latin American media, in particular the Brazilian media, has been accused of hiding its Black, Indigenous, Multiracial and East Asian population. For example the telenovelas or soaps are said to be a hotbed of largely light-eyed white and light-skinned mulattoes and mestizos (often deemed as white persons in Brazil if achieving the middle class or higher social status) actors. Most rare empowered persons of color represented in Latin American media possess typically Caucasian features due to a mix of racist standards of beauty, colourism and lookism. Nevertheless, in the last years, the number of empowered afrodescendants (either economically or by other ways) increased in Brazilian media coverage. Despite Brazil also possessing criminal black man stereotypes, it is considered a huge prejudice and mostly not used in a disordered way by the media, in spite of sometimes common "humouristic" sexist jokes and LGBT stereotyping ^[85] and as such lack of politically correctness in native race issues is not a major problem (there are way more stereotypes of Asian people, Europeans or U.S. Americans, for example).

These patterns of discrimination against non-whites have led some to advocate for the use of the Portuguese term 'negro' to encompass non-whites so as to renew a black consciousness and identity, in effect an African descent rule.^[86] It generates criticism since Pardo, or Brown people, is intended to include caboclos (mestizos), assimilated Amerindians and tri-racials, not only afrodescendants — thus Brazilian of some or no recent African descent, as most White Brazilians, become 60–70% of the population, breaking the argument of possible Brazilian one-drop rule since real noticeable mulattoes, cafuzos (zambos) and black persons are a minority and the Brazilian poor represents larger percents in Brazil. As one would expect from an underdeveloped country, there are pockets of poverty in White-majority and Japanese Brazilian-majority areas, rarer in urban developments but common in rural areas. They are even more common among Mestizo-majority areas, and Amerindian communities.

In Asia and Australasia[link]

Siddi folk dancers performing at Devaliya Naka, Sasan Gir, Gujarat.

China[link]

As of August, 2008, The Migration Information Source article noted that "A Nigerian Embassy spokesman estimated that Nigerians possibly make up the largest group of Black Africans in China, with about 2,000 to 3,000 Nigerians in Guangdong in 2006. Most businessmen only stay temporarily."^[87][88]

An ethnic Ati woman of the Philippines. The Negritos were the earliest inhabitants of Southeast Asia.

India and Southeast Asia[link]

The Great Andamanese are one of five Negrito ethnic groups (Adivasi or tribal) native to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; they are among the first inhabitants of what is now India, arriving over 70,000 years ago. They are facing extinction.^[89] The other four ethnic groups are the Jangil, Jarawa, Onge and Sentinelese. By their external physical appearance (phenotype) such people resemble Black Africans with dark skin and sometimes tightly coiled hair. There have been suggestions of a Black African origin. However, in the case of the Andamanese people, a study conducted by the NCBI indicated that the Andamanese people possessed closer affinities with the Southeast Asian population than with the Black African population.^[90]

In South India there are also several communities of Black African descent, such as the Sheedis/Siddis, specifically the Siddis of Karnataka, who descend from Black African slaves. In Pakistan, these descendants are known as the Makrani.

Other black people of Southeast Asia, collectively known as Negritos, include the Semang peoples of Malaysia, the Mani of Thailand the Aeta of Luzon and the Ati of Panay in the Philippines.^[91]

Melanesia[link]

There are several groups of dark-skinned people who live in various parts of Asia, Australia and Oceania who sometimes are referred to as black people. They include the Indigenous Australians, the Melanesians (now divided into Austronesian-speaking populations and Papuans, and including the great genetic diversity of New Guinea), the Semang people of the Malay peninsula, and indigenous first nation Fijians. They are as genetically, anthropologically and culturally related to Africans only as much as all other non-Africans are related to Africans, and because of this it has been deemed controversial to label them black people in the sense of some relation to the native African peoples and the African diaspora that is not similarly present in other Asian, Oceanic or European populations.

In Europe[link]

Portrait of a black woman, Katherine, in Antwerp, 1521, by Albrecht Dürer.

United Kingdom[link]

According to the Office for National Statistics, as of the 2001 census, there are over a million black people in the United Kingdom; 1% of the total population describe themselves as "Black Caribbean", 0.8% as "Black African", and 0.2% as "Black other".^[92] Britain encouraged the immigration of workers from the Caribbean after World War II; the first symbolic movement was those who came on the ship the Empire Windrush. The preferred official umbrella term is "black and minority ethnic" (BME), but sometimes the term "black" is used on its own, to express unified opposition to racism, as in the Southall Black Sisters, which started with a mainly British Asian constituency, and the National Black Police Association, which has a membership of "African, African-Caribbean and Asian origin".^[93]

France[link]

The pioneering Chadian-French rapper MC Solaar.

While census collection of ethnic background is illegal in France, it is estimated that there are about 2.5 – 5 million black people residing there.^[94][95]

Balkans[link]

Due to the Ottoman slave trade that had flourished in the Balkans, the coastal town of Ulcinj in Montenegro had its own black community.^[96] As a consequence of the slave trade and privateer activity, a considerable number of Ulcinj inhabitants until 1878 were black.^[97] The Ottoman Army also sent an estimated 30,000 Black African troops and cavalrymen to its expedition in Hungary during the Austro-Turkish War of 1716–18.^[98]

Eastern Europe[link]

As African states became independent in the 1960s, the Soviet Union offered many of their citizens the chance to study in Russia. Over a period of 40 years, about 400,000 African students from various countries moved to Russia to pursue higher studies, including many Black Africans.^[99][100] This extended beyond the Soviet Union to many countries of the Eastern bloc.

A cultural classification of people as "black" exists in Russia. Certain groups of people who are ethnically different, and generally darker than ethnic Russians are pejoratively referred to as "blacks" (chernye), and face specific sorts of social exclusion (see Racism in Russia). Roma, Georgians, and Tatars fall into this category.^[101] Those referred to as "black" are from the former Soviet republics, predominantly peoples of the Caucasus, for example, Chechens.^[102] Although "Caucasian" is used in American English to mean "white people", in Russian – and most other varieties of English – it only refers to the Caucasus, not European people in general.

See also[link]

Footnotes[link]