[3] While Aruba had enslaved Africans,[4] the island had very few slave-based plantations due to its poor soil and arid climate,[5] resulting in Aruba having a smaller population of people of predominantly African descent than most other Caribbean islands.
Most Afro-Arubans today descend from nearby Caribbean islands and nations such as Sint Maarten, Dominican Republic, Suriname, Haiti, Jamaica, Grenada, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius, the Lesser Antilles and South America.
[6] Many Afro-Arubans live in Aruba's second largest city, San Nicolaas, located on the southern tip of the island.
[10] Throughout the 20th century, many immigrants from the British West-Indies (namely from Trinidad and Grenada) settled in San Nicolaas, namely to work in the Aruban oil industry.
In the 21st century, most recent African-descended immigrants to Aruba come from a new inflow of Haitian, Surinamese, Curaçaoan and Dominican labor migrants.