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African-American history is the portion of American history that specifically discusses the African-American or Black American ethnic groups in the United States. Most African Americans are the descendants of black African slaves forcibly brought to, and held captive in the United States (or British controlled territories that would become the United States) from 1555 to 1865. Blacks from the Caribbean whose ancestors immigrated, or who immigrated to the U.S., also traditionally have been considered African-American, as they share a common history of predominantly West African or Central African roots, the Middle Passage and slavery. African Americans have been known by various names throughout American history, including ''colored'' and ''Negro'', which are no longer generally accepted in English. Instead the most usual and accepted terms nowadays are African American and Black, which however may have different connotations (see African American#Terminology). The term person of color usually refers not only to African Americans, but also to other non-white ethnic groups. Others who sometimes are referred to as African Americans, and who may identify themselves as such in US government censuses, include relatively recent Black immigrants from Africa, South America and elsewhere. African-American history is celebrated and highlighted annually in the United States during February, designated as Black History Month. Although previously marginalized, African-American history has gained ground in school and university curricula and gained wider scholarly attention since the late 20th century. ==African origins== The great majority of African Americans descend from slaves brought directly from Africa to the North American mainland, between 80% to 85% - as shown in existing historical documents, shipping, maritime, and naval records of European and American archives relating to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.〔https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/African_American_Place_of_Origin〕 A minority of African slaves arrived there by the way of the Caribbean and other routes. Originally these slaves were captured in African wars and sold to Arab, European or American slave traders. Slavery within Africa had already existed in varied forms prior to the arrival of the Europeans. However, the existing market for slaves in Africa was exploited and expanded by European powers in search of low-cost labor for New World plantations. In most cases, the people who would become slaves had been kidnapped or falsely charged with crimes.〔Falconbridge, Alexander, ''An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa'' (1788), pp. 13-18.〕 The American slave population was made up of the various ethnic groups from mostly western and central Africa, including the Sahel, although a smaller minority were from, eastern, and south eastern Africa, including the Hausa, Tuareg, Fula, Bakongo, Igbo, Mandé, Wolof, Akan, Fon, Yoruba, and Makua amongst others. Although these different groups varied in customs, religious theology and language, what they had in common was a way a life that was different from the Europeans.〔Carson, Clayborne, Emma Lapsansky-Werner, and Gary Nash. ''The Struggle for Freedom: A History of African Americans''. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2011. ISBN 978-0-205-83242-2〕 However, since a majority of the slaves came from these villages and societies, once sent to the Americas these different peoples did away with tribal differences and forged a new history and culture that was a creolization of their common pasts and present. Slaves from specific African ethnic groups were more sought after and more dominant in numbers than others in certain regions of what later became the United States. More research and study revealed that American plantation owners often tended to have a preference for buying African slaves belonging to specific ethnicities, or from certain parts of Africa - these preferences were highly varied, depending on what part of the American colonies or later the United States were concerned.〔 For instance, the majority of African slaves in Virginia were from the Bight of Biafra (present-day southeast Nigeria). African slaves from Congo-Angola, and later Senegambia, and Sierra Leone, were preferred in South Carolina and were very numerous there. Slaves from Senegambia, Congo, and later the Bight of Benin, were the dominant and preferred African ethnic groups in French and Spanish Louisiana. Many of the much smaller number of African slaves brought to the Northern colonies came from Senegambia and the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana). Most African slaves were male as expected, but significantly, the majority of female African slaves imported to North America were from the Bight of Biafra, and mostly belonged to the Igbo ethnic group - for some reason they were highly sought after by American buyers, especially throughout most of the Southern colonies.〔("The Abolition of the Slave Trade" ), The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.〕 The Bakongo people were part of a large civilization that consisted of around two million people by the 15th century.〔 Many African Americans trace their ancestors to the Kingdoms of Kongo and Ndongo (Congo and Angola). Similarly, many African Americans also trace their ancestors to Senegambia〔http://abolition.nypl.org/essays/us_slave_trade/6/〕 and the Bight of Biafra region of southeastern Nigeria.〔https://tracingafricanroots.wordpress.com/2015/06/24/the-igbo-connection-for-virginia-virginia-descendants/〕 African political organizations were also in a monarchical system similar to the Europeans.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「African-American history」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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