Afro-Hondurans

[5][6][7] One of the first African slaves who arrived in Honduras, Juan Bardales, participated in the Spanish conquest of the province, especially in Trujillo.

[9] By the mid-sixteenth century, between 1,000 and 1,500 enslaved blacks worked in the gold washings of Olancho; these slaves likely hailed from Africa.

Between 1750 and 1779, a larger group of African slaves, Carabali and mondongos (a Kongo tribe) people, were taken to Honduras to build the military fort San Fernando de Omoa, the most important in the region.

After this, these Garifuna, as called themselves, migrated to Trujillo and from there, scattered along the coasts of all the Central American mainland until Costa Rica (without reaching this place), especially by the persecutions to which they were subjected by the Spanish authorities.

Between the late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth century, the British introduced black slaves from Jamaica, Cayman Island and Belize in Honduras.

According to historian Marbin Barahona, the racial mixture enters blacks with whites and Amerindians occurred since the 1520s, due to the decline of the indigenous population, the Spanish immigration scanty, and the meager arrival of African slaves.

The recovery of the hegemony of silver and indigo, the prohibition of non-indigenous groups living in Indian villages, and the population growth recorded in the same century, miscegenation, primarily among Amerindian and Spanish, not only increased significantly at this time but concentrated in certain regions, especially in the current Francisco Morazán Department, and Choluteca and Comayagua departments.

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Spanish authorities considered Honduran even entire regions populated mostly as mulatto, sambo, or brown.

Such is the case of places like Olancho, Yoro, Colon and Atlántida, regions that eventually could have remixed with whites, Amerindians, and mestizos.

[8] The Honduran historian Antonio Canelas Diaz says that by the year 1870, was organized in the city of La Ceiba - the point where, emerged on a large scale banana production in Honduras - a company called "New Orleans and Bay Island Company" whose executives, imported the first black Creoles hired by fruit, since they were labor" [...] more qualified than the Honduran "in banana cultivation, and who had previously worked in their respective nations that sector.

[10] In 1931, the intellectual, Alfonso Guillen Zelaya Honduran, raised the huge black presence on the north coast and the fear that it increased what he called the "black import" Honduras ended up being a country of mulatto people, however, as the country was mostly mestizo and the indigenous population had been growing over the years.

[9] In addition to the Afro-Hondurans that descended from slaves imported by the Spanish, there are other Afro communities in Honduras, also present in Nicaragua y Guatemala: Miskito, Creoles, and Garifuna.

Their territory extends from Cape Camarón, Honduras, to Río Grande de Matagalpa, Nicaragua, along the Mosquito Coast, in the Western Caribbean Zone.

Karl Offen's analysis of this historic data suggests there were about a half-dozen entities, groups who were distinct by their language dialects, who were situated in the river basins.

The region became a haven for northern Europeans, especially Dutch, English, and Welsh privateers during the early seventeenth century, for example, Henry Morgan, Daniel Montbars and William Dampier.

In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the Miskito Zambo began a series of raids attacking Spanish-held territories and the still independent indigenous groups in the area.

In addition, from 1720 onwards, the Jamaican colonial authorities commissioned the Miskito to capture Maroons in the Blue Mountains, as they were effective trackers.

The British established a protectorate over the Miskito Nation, often called the Mosquito Coast (related to the original Spanish name).

The Miskito kingdom aided Britain during the American War of Independence by attacking Spanish colonies to draw off their forces.

In addition to the area's geographic isolation, the Miskito military capacity and British support allowed the people to retain their independence when Spain controlled the Pacific side of Central America.

The Miskito Coast remained independent throughout much of the period of the Federal Republic of Central America, but Nicaragua finally absorbed the territory in 1894.

[citation needed] Great Britain took an interest in the affairs on the Mosquito Coast, as it had trade positions in Belize/British Honduras and Jamaica.

[citation needed] After Nicaragua declared independence in 1821, combined Miskito-Zambo raiders began to attack Honduran settlements.

Like the Garifuna, many work as sailors and emigrated to the United States or Grand Cayman Island with which there are strong trade and cultural relations.

Although the Bay Islands were eventually recognized as Honduran territory by the British in 1861, by the Treaty "Wike-Cross", in 1904, people still continued to believe that these lands were English possessions.

Finally, many black British, before the decline of the banana industry and the emergence of other productive sectors, were emigrating from the 1950s to the United States and enrolled in marine commercial fishing fleets throughout the Caribbean.

As a result of these trips, there are now Garifuna small communities in Los Angeles, New Orleans, and New York City who send monthly remittances to Honduras worth $360,000.

[citation needed] Today the Garifuna in Honduras struggling not to be deprived of their lands on the coast for tourism enterprises and try to keep their customs and culture at all costs.

This music has been released recently by bands mostly Hondurans, including the most famous: Kazabe, Garifuna Kids, Banda Blanca, Silver Star, and Los Roland.

Is difficult to determine the exact number of English-speaking black Garifunas because, in the last decades, the ethnic category has not been considered in national population censuses.

Banner at Carnival de La Ceiba
Victor Trapp Manuel (a Miskito Sambu) representing the Miskito people at a forum of the ACAL conference at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras
A Bay island Creole eating at the Saloon Rotan in Roatán, Honduras .
A Garifuna boy at his house in La Mosquitia, Honduras .