Afro-Panamanian are Panamanians of African descent. Afro-Panamanians are 15% of the population and it is estimated 50% of Panamanians have African ancestry. The Afro-Panamanian population can be broken into the "Afro-Colonial", Afro-Panamanians descended from slaves brought to Panama during the colonial period and the "Afro-Antillean", West Indian immigrants from Trinidad, Barbados,Martinique and Jamaica, brought in to build the Panama Canal. Afro-Panamanians can be found in towns and cities Colón, Cristóbal and Balboa, Río Abajo area of Panama City, the Canal Zone, and province of Bocas del Toro.

The first blacks to arrive in Panama came with Vasco Núñez de Balboa, in 1513. Panama was a very important territory because it had the shortest point from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Goods were taken from ports in Portobelo and Nombre de Dios, transported overland to ports in Panama City and reboarded on ships headed to South America. Initially, Indian labor was used. Due to maltreatment and disease, the Indian population was decimated. Bartolomé de Las Casas advocated getting slaves from Africa. By 1517, the trade in Africans were on the way. Initially slaves were used to work and maintain ships and port. It later turned to transporting goods across the isthmus. The transporting of goods was grueling not only the thousands of miles of terrain, but bad weather and attacks by Indians.