The Raizal are a Black Colombian ethnic group from the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina, off Colombia's Caribbean coast.

In 2005, the Raizal were 57% of the 60,000 inhabitants of the San Andrés y Providencia Department, according to official statistics,[2] but based on the 2015 census, they are now only 39.4% of the population[3] in the archipelago because of migration from and to mainland Colombia.

[4] In 1903, the local Raizal population of the Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands rejected an offer from the United States to separate from Colombia and to imitate Panama.

The first separatists, an underground movement, were led by Marcos Archbold Britton, who addressed a memorandum to the United Nations asking for the inclusion of the archipelago in the list of colonized territories.

[8] On April 28, 2002, the Raizal people signed a declaration of self-determination[9] and asked the Colombian government and the International Court of Justice for a major recognition of their autonomy and for appropriate resources to improve the quality of life in the island.