African Americans or Black Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa. In the United States, the term is generally used for Americans with at least partial Sub-Saharan African ancestry. Most African Americans are the descendants of captive Africans who survived the slavery era within the boundaries of the present United States, although some are — or are descended from — voluntary immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean, Central America, South America, or elsewhere. African Americans make up the single largest racial minority in the United States,[http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U_QTP4&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U&-redoLog=false United States - QT-P4. Race, Combinations of Two Races, and Not Hispanic or Latino: 2000 ] though Hispanics compose the largest ethnic minority.

History

The first recorded Africans in British North America (the future United States) arrived in 1619 as indentured servants who settled in Jamestown, Virginia. They for many years were similar in legal position to poor English indenturees, who traded several years labor in exchange for passage to America. Africans could legally raise crops and cattle to purchase their freedom. They raised families, marrying other Africans and sometimes intermarrying with Native Americans or English settlers. By the 1640s and 1650s, several African families owned farms around Jamestown and some became wealthy by colonial standards. The popular conception of a race-based slave system did not fully develop until the 1700s. During the 1770s Africans, both enslaved and free, helped rebellious English colonists secure American Independence by defeating the British in the American Revolution. Africans and Englishmen fought side by side and were fully intergrated. James Armistead, an African American, played a large part in making possible the 1781 York town victory that established the United States as an independent nation. Other prominent African Americans were Prince Whipple and Oliver Cromwell, who are both depicted in the front of the boat in George Washingtons famous 1776 Crossing the Delaware portrait. By 1860, there were 3.5 million enslaved Africans in the United States due to the Atlantic slave trade, and another 500,000 Africans lived free across the country. In 1863, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation declared all slaves in states that had seceded from the Union were free. Advancing Union troops enforced the proclamation with Texas being the last state to be emancipated in 1865. While the post-war reconstruction era was initially a time of progress for African Americans, in the late 1890s, Southern states enacted Jim Crow laws to enforce racial segregation and disenfranchisement. Most African Americans followed the Jim Crow laws and assumed a posture of humility and servility to prevent becoming victims of racially motivated violence. To maintain self-esteem and dignity, middle-class African Americans created their own schools, churches, banks, social clubs, and other businesses.