Country: Colombia

Group: Afro-Colombian

Date Finalized:

Team: Michael Demangone (Lead), Colleen Clauss, Natasha Chandra, Maya Shrikant

Content Warning: slavery, forced labor, human trafficking, sexual assault

Approximate Time Period: 1500-1851, 2017-present

Afro-Colombians have a long history of racial oppression and forced labor within Colombia, despite being the country’s largest ethnic minority. The sources that detail instances of forced labor are reliable and consistent across the academic landscape making the data quality for this article a 3.

 According to the 2005 census, the Afro-Colombian ethnic group made up 10.6 % of the population in Colombia and is widespread throughout the country. (Minority Rights Group, n.d.). Spanish colonists first brought over African slaves to Columbia in the sixteenth century (Herrera, 2012). As slaves to the Spaniards, Afro-Colombians were forced to labor on plantation mines, mills and in other various areas (Herrera, 2012).  The working conditions on the plantation mines were harsh as they decimated indigenous groups, who’s labor would then be replaced by more Afro-Colombians (Herrera, 2012). Afro-Columbian slaves were also forced into wartime labor as soldiers in the anti-colonial war for liberation in the early 1800s (Minority Rights Group, n.d.). Many blacks were awarded freedom by slaveholders, purchased their own liberty or escaped to achieve freedom prior to formal policy enactment. Eventually, all forms of slavery were legally abolished in modern-day Columbia by 1851 (Brooke, 1994; Herrera, 2012). In more recent times, the guerilla paramilitary tempts the Afro-Colombian community with work involving human-trafficking, prostitution and other laborious tasks that Afro-Colombians feel pressured to take (Minority Rights Group, n.d.). The options for work are overall limited, contributing to the forced labor that the Afro-Colombians undergo in Columbia.

Sources

  1. Minority Rights Group, (n.d.). Afro-Colombians. Retrieved October 26, 2020, from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/afro-colombians/
  2. Brooke, James (1994). Colombia’s Blacks Win Changes – The New York Times. Retrieved October 26, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/29/world/long-neglected-colombia-s-blacks-win-changes.html
  3. Herrera, S. (2012). A history of violence and exclusion: Afro-Colombians from slavery to displacement [Master’s thesis, Georgetown University]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.