The African diaspora in the Americas is used to refer to people born in the Americas with predominantly African ancestry. Most are descendants of people enslaved and transferred from Africa to the Americas by Europeans, to work in their colonies, mostly in mines and plantations as slaves, between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. At present, they constitute about 18% of the population of the Americas,[citation needed] with the largest concentrations by percentage of population in Haiti (92%), Jamaica (91%), Barbados (90%), Turks and Caicos (90%), Dominica (87%), The Bahamas (85%), Dominican Republic (84%),[13] Saint Lucia (83%), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (66%), Bermuda (55%), Cuba (50%), Puerto Rico (46%), Belize (35%), Trinidad and Tobago (34.2%),[14] Brazil (20.5% mixed + 7% Black), Panama (21%), United States (13.6%),[1] Colombia (10.52%),[5] Costa Rica (8%),[15] Uruguay (4%),[16] Canada (2.9%),[10] and Venezuela (2.8%).[9]

After the United States achieved independence came the independence of Haiti, a country populated almost entirely by Afro-Americans and the second American colony to win its independence. After the process of independence, many countries have encouraged European immigration into America, thus reducing the proportion of black and mulatto population throughout the country: Brazil, United States, Dominican Republic, etc. Miscegenation and more flexible concepts of race have also reduced the overall population identifying as black in Latin America, whereas the one-drop rule associated with Anglo-Saxon culture has had the opposite effect in the United States.

From 21st to November 25 of 1995, the Continental Congress of Black Peoples of the Americas was held. Afro-Americans still face discrimination in most parts of the continent. According to David D.E. Ferrari, vice president of the World Bank for the Region of Latin America and the Caribbean, Afro-Americans have lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, more frequent and more widespread diseases, higher rates of