Afro-Spaniards are Spanish citizens of

Sub-Saharan African Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the African ...

descent. The term may include Spaniards of

Afro-Caribbean Afro-Caribbean people or African Caribbean are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the modern African-Caribbeans descend from Africans taken as slaves to colonial Caribbean via the ...

and African American descent, but often excludes Black Spaniards of Latin American origin. It almost always excludes Spaniards of North African origin. The specific number of Spaniards of Sub-Saharan Africa origin is unknown due to the fact that the Spanish government does not collect data on ethnicity or racial self-identification.

Defining Afro-Spaniards

There are currently 1,301,296 people residents in Spain who were born in countries of the African continent, excluding the 1,802,810 born in Ceuta,

Melilla Melilla ( , ; ; rif, Mřič ; ar, مليلية ) is an autonomous city of Spain located in north Africa. It lies on the eastern side of the Cape Three Forks, bordering Morocco and facing the Mediterranean Sea. It has an area of . It was par ...

and the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

which are Spanish provinces or part of Andalucia such is the case with Ceuta and Melilla. They are geographically located in Africa. Out of these, 294,343 are Spanish citizens and 1,006,953 are foreign residents. The large majority of these originate in Morocco. There are 934,046 Moroccan born residents in Spain of which 223,590 are Spaniards and 710,457 are foreign residents. However, Moroccans being North Africans, they are usually not considered as Afro-Spaniards unless they are Black Moroccans, or have visible physical features usually associated with Black peoples. Non-Moroccan African-born residents in Spain thus number 367,250 of which 70,753 are Spanish citizens and 296,497 are foreign residents. According to the national statistics agency, in 2019 there were 361,000 residents in Spain whose mother was born in an African country excluding Morocco. Out of these 91,000 were Spanish citizens.

History

African populations have known to exist continuously in what is now Spain since pre-Roman times, with a major influx of Africans occurring during the Islamic period. African admixtureprimarily

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

admixture from North Africais dated to the Muslim period of the

Middle Age In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, and averages from 10 to 12% in the south and west to ~3% in the northeast, dropping to close to 0% in a cluster found in the Basque region. Canary Islander Spaniards have significantly higher levels of both North African and Sub-Saharan ancestry, ranging from averages of 14% to 35% and which originates both in the indigenous Guanche people and the subsequent slave trade.

Notable people

Artists and writers

Juan Latino Juan Latino (born Juan de Sessa; Ethiopia c. 1518 – Granada, c. 1594/1597) was a Spanish professor of Ethiopian descent at the University of Granada during the sixteenth century. He could be considered the first African who studied at a Europea ...

, poet and Renaissance humanist * Juan de Pareja, painter of Morisco origin born in Antequera. *

Elvira Dyangani Ose Elvira Dyangani Ose (born 1974) is a Spanish art curator who has been serving as the director of MACBA Contemporary Art Museum in Barcelona. Dyangani's family comes from Equatorial Guinea, and she was born and raised in Spain. From 2018 to 20 ...

, curator

Explorers and conquistadores

Juan Valiente Juan Valiente (1505? - † 1553, Tucapel) was a Spanish black conquistador who participated in the expeditions of Pedro de Almagro in present-day Guatemala and Chile. Taken into captivity as a slave in Africa, he was transported to Mexico, where ...

Juan Garrido Juan Garrido (– c. 1480 – c. 1550) was a black African-Spanish conquistador. Born in West Africa, he went to Portugal as a young man. In converting to Catholicism, he chose the Spanish name, Juan Garrido ("Handsome John"). Juan Garrido joined ...

Beatriz de Palacios Beatriz de Palacios was a Spanish woman soldier, nurse and explorer of African and Spanish descent who took part in the Spanish conquest of Mexico. She is widely considered to be one of the first biracial people of partial black ancestry to set fo ...

In entertainment and media

Philanthropists

Bisila Bokoko Bisila Bokoko (born June 26, 1974) is a Spanish-born American businesswoman. She is the founder and CEO of BBES (Bisila Bokoko Embassy Services) a New York-based business development agency that represents, promotes and markets brands internatio ...

Politicians

Dolores Johnson Sastre Dolores Johnson Sastre (born 1969), also known as Lola Johnson, is a Spanish politician and journalist. She has been a councilor of the Generalitat Valenciana for the People's Party (PP) in the governments of presidents Francisco Camps and Al ...

Rita Bosaho Rita Gertrudis Bosaho Gori (born 21 May 1965) is an Equatorial Guinean-Spanish politician and activist member of Podemos, serving as Director-General for Equality of Treatment and Ethnic-racial Diversity in the Spanish Ministry of Equality sinc ...

Ignacio Garriga Ignacio Garriga Vaz de Concicao (born 4 February 1987) is a Spanish politician as well as a former dentist and professor. He is known in the Spanish media for being the first notable Afro-Spaniard elected politician within the Vox party. In Oc ...

Luc André Diouf Luc André Diouf Dioh (born 18 January 1965) is a Senegalese-Spanish politician as well as a trade unionist and syndicalist. He is known in the Spanish media for being the first politician of African descent elected from the Spanish Socialist W ...

In sports

Sources

* Appiah, Kwame Anthony; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr.(1999). Africana: the Encyclopedia of African and African American Experience. Basic Civitas Books, pp. 1769–1773. .

References

{{Immigration to Spain

Spaniard Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance ethnic group native to Spain. Within Spain, there are a number of national and regional ethnic identities that reflect the country's complex history, including a number of different languages, both ind ...

Ethnic groups in Spain Spanish people of African descent African diaspora in Europe