{"id":2353,"date":"2025-02-11T02:38:27","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T02:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firstblacks.org\/?p=2353"},"modified":"2025-04-04T01:40:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T01:40:40","slug":"the-growth-of-the-black-population-in-la-espanola-in-the-1500s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firstblacks.org\/en\/summaries\/the-growth-of-the-black-population-in-la-espanola-in-the-1500s","title":{"rendered":"The growth of the black population in La Espa\u00f1ola in the 1500s"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The growth of the black population in La Espa\u00f1ola in the 1500s<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\"\"Since the arrival of the first known Blacks on the island of La Espa\u00f1ola during the two decades following Columbus’ 1492 expedition, the long term trend\u00a0in population of Black African ancestry in the island-colony was predominantly one of growth throughout the century. This\u00a0growth\u00a0accelerated\u00a0until the early 1540s, when the population\u00a0apparently exceeded\u00a040,000 individuals. This was\u00a0followed by a relative diminution in the second half of the century\u00a0when the number of Blacks\u00a0generally fell below those of the first half,\u00a0beginning with a sharp fall of about 50% to about 12,000 in the late 1540s. An\u00a0alternation ensued\u00a0between phases of\u00a0ups (most notably in the 1580s) and downs during the subsequent five decades, resulting a relative stabilization at between 13,000 and 10,000 people.\u00a0The\u00a0graph in this page,\u00a0constructed by the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute\u00a0with\u00a0data from the existing scholarship,\u00a0clearly shows these trends.<\/p>

After the 1510s the population of Black African ancestry in La Espa\u00f1ola was never smaller than, roughly, 10,000 individuals.\u00a0After that, Afro-descendants\u00a0became\u00a0a permanent demographic majority that at\u00a0times may have been relatively less numerous but always outnumbered the white population. This\u00a0initiated a trend in\u00a0racial demographics of predominance of population of Black African ancestry –with a variety\u00a0of skin shades\u00a0generated by\u00a0increased mixing of natives, Blacks and\u00a0whites\u00a0that has persisted into the twenty-first century.<\/p>

These general \u00a0figures so far available about the Black population of La Espa\u00f1ola during its first century as a colonial society\u00a0were\u00a0mainly collected by Dominican scholars using for the most part estimates contained in secondary sources\u00a0such as\u00a0reports and letters by individual colonial officials and private residents.\u00a0A lot of additional archival research remains to be done to assess these estimates with more quantitative accuracy\u00a0against other kinds of data contained in primary sources, and\u00a0more importantly, to determine\u00a0the reasons for the\u00a0sequence of relative contraction and\u00a0expansion\u00a0cycles of the Black-mulatto population observable in the second half of the century, but there has been\u00a0a general near-unanimity\u00a0in Dominican scholarship as to the general trends described above.<\/p>

In any event, in view of these data, it seems beyond discussion that La Espa\u00f1ola was not only the first place where Black Africans and\/or their descendants established themselves in the Americas, but also the first place in the continent where,\u00a0at least during the entire first century of implementation of the colonial system associated\u00a0with Western European imperialistic expansion, they were a demographic majority.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The growth of the black population in La Espa\u00f1ola in the 1500s Since the arrival of the first known Blacks on the island of La Espa\u00f1ola during the two decades following Columbus’ 1492 expedition, the long term trend\u00a0in population of Black African ancestry in the island-colony was predominantly one of growth throughout the century. This\u00a0growth\u00a0accelerated\u00a0until […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-summaries"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe growth of the black population in La Espa\u00f1ola in the 1500s - First Blacks in The Americas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/firstblacks.org\/en\/summaries\/the-growth-of-the-black-population-in-la-espanola-in-the-1500s\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The growth of the black population in La Espa\u00f1ola in the 1500s - First Blacks in The Americas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The growth of the black population in La Espa\u00f1ola in the 1500s Since the arrival of the first known Blacks on the island of La Espa\u00f1ola during the two decades following Columbus’ 1492 expedition, the long term trend\u00a0in population of Black African ancestry in the island-colony was predominantly one of growth throughout the century. 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