[8] They were forcibly taken to Colombia to replace the Indigenous population, which was rapidly decreasing due to extermination genocide campaigns, disease and forced labor.

Enslaved African people were forced to work in gold mines, on sugarcane plantations, cattle ranches, and large haciendas.

[9] In eastern Colombia, near the cities of Vélez, Cúcuta, Socorro and Tunja, Africans manufactured textiles in commercial mills.

Other sectors of the Colombian economy, like tobacco, cotton, artisanship and domestic work would have been impossible without African labor.

In pre-abolition Colombian society, many Afro-Colombian captives fought the Spanish, their colonial forces and their freedom as soon as they arrived in Colombia.

Some historians considered Chocó to be a very big palenque, with a large population of Cimarrones, especially in the areas of the Baudó River.

[citation needed] African people played key roles in the struggle for independence from the Spanish Crown.

After the revolution, (modern day Colombia and Venezuela) created "The Law of July 21 on Free Womb, Manumission, and Abolition of the Slave trade" in the Cúcuta Congress.

[13] In the 1970s, there was a major influx of Afro-Colombians into urban areas in search of greater economic and social opportunities for their children.

This led to an increase in the number of urban poor in the marginal areas of big cities like Cali, Medellín, and Bogotá.

The 1991 Colombian Constitution gave them the right to collective ownership of traditional Pacific coastal lands and special cultural development protections.

[17] Afro-Colombians often encounter a noticeable degree of racial discrimination and prejudice, possibly as a socio-cultural leftover from colonial times.

They have been historically absent from high-level government positions and many of their long-established settlements around the Pacific coast remain underdeveloped.

[17] In Colombia's ongoing internal conflict, Afro-Colombians are both victims of violence and displacement as well as members of armed factions, such as the FARC and the AUC.

Many African Colombians have also been successful in sports, such as Olympic weightlifter Óscar Figueroa and footballer, Patrocinio Bonilla, also known as "Patrón" (believed to have been murdered on August 11, 2020).

It is believed that the Bambuco is a musical genre that inevitability was brought by the Africans when the first slaves arrived at Cauca region.

[23] There is also a relationship between Bambuco and the name of a town in French Sudan "Bambuk," and it has been theorized that this genre comes from that specific region.

[26] This allowed for the Afro-Colombian population to grow in this region of the country and therefore develop within certain cultural characteristics such musical genres of African descent but are born or popularized in Colombia.

In this case, cumbia is a mixture of rhythms from Afro-Colombians and indigenous native Colombiansto bring about a different style.

These Bowie knives are used to cut the grass, and keep yards or streets clean, and therefore this musical genre is associated with a status and also race.

Ever since Afro-Colombians arrived in Colombia in the first decade of the 16th century, they have been considered a minority group by the Colombian government, exposing them to discrimination and inequality.

The main program is the "Admisión Especial a Mejores Bachilleres de la Población Negra, Afrocolombiana, Palenquera y Raizal" which gives admission to about 200 Afro-Colombians per semester into the National Colombian University.

One of these, says WDMIP, are Afro-Colombian communities, who have been strongly impacted by the civil war, mainly because of their vulnerability and lack of protection from the government.

[30] Most of them have been forced to migrate towards bigger cities (like Bogotá, Cali, or Medellín), which has increased their level of poverty (due to the higher cost of living in such urban areas), as well as their exposure to discrimination and violence.

Even though the occurrences of these scenarios has significantly decreased since the peace treaty was signed last year, the people who were displaced continue to be affected by this situation and struggle to go back to their hometowns.

Because of this, many Afro-Colombians have been victims of collateral damage and have been killed due to this war, which has become another major reason for displacement to occur.

Given that a high percentage of Afro-Colombians are extremely poor, young people from these communities are tempted by these options because they see them as the only way out to combat the poverty in which they live.

[33] A recent study conducted by the London School of Economics revealed that Afro-Colombians are at an extreme disadvantage in terms of being healthy when compared to the rest of the Colombian population.

For example, the fact that Afro-Colombians are much poorer than the rest of the Colombian population is one of the main reasons that they are in a position of disadvantage when it comes to seeking health care services and being healthy in general.

These results are not just explained by disadvantages in socioeconomic status, health insurances, or educational level, but by the discrimination that Afro-Colombians experience in their daily lives.