Afro-Jamaicans

Afro-Jamaicans are Jamaicans of predominant African descent. They represent the largest ethnic group in the country.

The ethnogenesis of the Black Jamaican people stemmed from the Atlantic slave trade of the 16th century, when enslaved Africans were transported as slaves to Jamaica and other parts of the Americas. During the period of British rule, slaves brought to Jamaica by African slave traders were primarily Akan, some of whom ran away and joined with Jamaican Maroons and even took over as leaders.

Origin
West Africans were enslaved in wars with other West African states and kidnapped by either African or European slavers. The most common means of enslaving an African was through abduction.

Ethnicities
Based on slave ship records, enslaved Africans mostly came from the Akan people (notably those of the Asante Kotoko alliance of the 1720's: Asante, Bono, Wassa, Nzema and Ahanta) followed by Kongo people, Fon people, Ewe people, and to a lesser degree: Yoruba, Ibibio people and Igbo people. Akan (then called Coromantee) culture was the dominant African culture in Jamaica.

Originally in earlier British colonization, the island before the 1750s was in fact mainly Akan imported. However, between 1663 and 1700, only six per cent of slave ships to Jamaica listed their origin as the Gold Coast, while between 1700 and 1720 that figure went up to 27 per cent. The number of Akan slaves arriving in Jamaica from Kormantin ports only increased in the early 18th century. But due to frequent rebellions from the then known "Coromantee" that often joined the slave rebellion group known as the Jamaican Maroons, other groups were sent to Jamaica. The Akan population was still maintained, since they were the preference of British planters in Jamaica because they were "better workers", according to these planters. According to the Slave Voyages Archives, though the Igbo had the highest importation numbers, they were only imported to Montego Bay and St. Ann's Bay ports, while the Akan (mainly Gold Coast) were more dispersed across the island and were a majority imported to seven of 14 of the island's ports (each parish has one port).

The majority of the house slaves were mulattoes. They were also Brown/Mulatto or mixed-race people at the time who had more privileges than the Black slaves and usually held higher-paying jobs and occupations.

Myal and Revival
Kumfu (from the word Akom the name of the Akan spiritual system) was documented as Myal and originally only found in books, while the term Kumfu is still used by Jamaican Maroons. The priest of Kumfu was called a Kumfu-man. In 18th-century Jamaica, only Akan gods were worshipped by Akan as well as by other enslaved Africans. The Akan god of creation, Nyankopong was given praise but not worshipped directly. They poured libation to Asase Ya, the goddess of the earth. But nowadays they are only observed by the Maroons who preserved a lot of the culture of 1700s Jamaica.

"Myal" or Kumfu evolved into Revival, a syncretic Christian sect. Kumfu followers gravitated to the American Revival of 1800 Seventh Day Adventist movement because it observed Saturday as god's day of rest. This was a shared aboriginal belief of the Akan people as this too was the day that the Akan god, Nyame, rested after creating the earth. Jamaicans that were aware of their Ashanti past while wanting to keep hidden, mixed their Kumfu spirituality with the American Adventists to create Jamaican Revival in 1860. Revival has two sects: 60 order (or Zion Revival, the order of the heavens) and 61 order (or Pocomania, the order of the earth). 60 order worships God and spirits of air or the heavens on a Saturday and considers itself to be the more "clean" sect. 61 order more deals with spirits of the earth. This division of Kumfu clearly shows the dichotomy of Nyame and Asase Yaa's relationship, Nyame representing air and has his 60 order'; Asase Yaa having her 61 order of the earth. Also the Ashanti funerary/war colours: red and black have the same meaning in Revival of vengeance. Other Ashanti elements include the use of swords and rings as means to guard the spirit from spiritual attack. The Asantehene, like the Mother Woman of Revival, has special two swords used to protect himself from witchcraft called an Akrafena or soul sword and a Bosomfena or spirit sword.

John Canoe
A festival was dedicated to the heroism of the Akan king 'John Canoe' an Ahanta from Axim, Ghana in 1708. See John Canoe section.

Jamaican Patois
Jamaican Patois, known locally as Patwa, is an English creole language spoken primarily in Jamaica and the Jamaican diaspora. It is not to be confused with Jamaican English nor with the Rastafarian use of English. The language developed in the 17th century, when enslaved peoples from West and Central Africa blended their dialect and terms with the learned vernacular and dialectal forms of English spoken: British Englishes (including significant exposure to Scottish English) and Hiberno English. Jamaican Patwa is a post-creole speech continuum (a linguistic continuum) meaning that the variety of the language closest to the lexifier language (the acrolect) cannot be distinguished systematically from intermediate varieties (collectively referred to as the mesolect) nor even from the most divergent rural varieties (collectively referred to as the basilect). Jamaicans themselves usually refer to their use of English as patwa, a term without a precise linguistic definition.

Jamaican Patois contains many loanwords of African origin, a majority of those etymologically from Gold Coast region (particularly of the Asante-Twi dialect of the Akan language of Ghana).

Proverbs
Most Jamaican proverbs are of Asante people, while some included other African proverbs.

Jamaican mtDNA
A DNA test study submitted to BMC Medicine in 2012 states that "....despite the historical evidence that an overwhelming majority of slaves were sent from the Bight of Biafra and West-central Africa near the end of the British slave trade, the mtDNA haplogroup profile of modern Jamaicans show a greater affinity with groups found in the present-day Gold Coast region Ghana....this is because Africans arriving from the Gold Coast may have thus found the acclimatization and acculturation process less stressful because of cultural and linguistic commonalities, leading ultimately to a greater chance of survivorship and a greater number of progeny."

More detailed results stated: "Using haplogroup distributions to calculate parental population contribution, the largest admixture coefficient was associated with the Gold Coast(0.477 ± 0.12 or 59.7% of the Jamaican population with a 2.7 chance of Pygmy and Sahelian mixture), suggesting that the people from this region may have been consistently prolific throughout the slave era on Jamaica. The diminutive admixture coefficients associated with the Bight of Biafra and West-central Africa (0.064 ± 0.05 and 0.089 ± 0.05, respectively) is striking considering the massive influx of individuals from these areas in the waning years of the British Slave trade. When excluding the pygmy groups, the contribution from the Bight of Biafra and West-central rise to their highest levels (0.095 ± 0.08 and 0.109 ± 0.06, respectively), though still far from a major contribution. When admixture coefficients were calculated by assessing shared haplotypes, the Gold Coast also had the largest contribution, though much less striking at 0.196, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.189 to 0.203. When haplotypes are allowed to differ by one base pair, the Jamaican matriline shows the greatest affinity with the Bight of Benin, though both Bight of Biafra and West-central Africa remain underrepresented. The results of the admixture analysis suggest the mtDNA haplogroup profile distribution of Jamaica more closely resembles that of aggregated populations from the modern-day Gold Coast region despite an increasing influx of individuals from both the Bight of Biafra and West-central Africa during the final years of trading enslaved Africans.

The aforementioned results apply to subjects whom have been tested. Results also stated that black Jamaicans (that make up more than 90% of the population) on an average have 97.5% of African MtDNA and very little European or Asian ancestry could be found. Both ethnic and racial genetic results are based on a low sample of 390 Jamaican persons and limited regional representation within Jamaica. As Afro-Jamaicans are not genetically homogeneous, the results for other subjects may yield different results.

Jamaican Y-DNA
Pub Med results were also issued in the same year (2012): "Our results reveal that the studied population of Jamaica exhibit a predominantly South-Saharan paternal component, with haplogroups A1b-V152, A3-M32, B2-M182, E1a-M33, E1b1a-M2, E2b-M98, and R1b2-V88 comprising 66.7% of the Jamaican paternal gene pool. Yet, European derived chromosomes (i.e., haplogroups G2a*-P15, I-M258, R1b1b-M269, and T-M184) were detected at commensurate levels in Jamaica (10.1%), whereas Y-haplogroups indicative of Chinese [O-M175 (3.8%)] and Indian [H-M69 (0.6%) and L-M20 (0.6%)] ancestry were restricted to Jamaica. African paternal DNA 66.7% European paternal DNA 10.9% Chinese paternal DNA 3.8% Indian paternal DNA 1.2%

Jamaican autosomal DNA
The gene pool of Jamaica is about 80.3% Sub-Saharan African, 10% European, and 5.7% East Asian; according to a 2010 autosomal genealogical DNA testing.

Notable Afro-Jamaicans

 * Billy Strachan
 * Adrian Mariappa (Jamaican mother)
 * Alex Marshall
 * Andre Blake
 * Damion Lowe
 * Devon Williams
 * Dexter Lembikisa (Jamaican mother)
 * Dujuan Richards
 * Garath McCleary (Jamaican father)
 * Tyson Beckford (Jamaican mother)
 * Naomi Campbell (Jamaican parents)
 * Ian Wright (Jamaican parents)
 * Jamal Lowe (Jamaican parents)
 * John Barnes (Jamaican mother)
 * Ladale Richie
 * Dexter Blackstock (Jamaican father)
 * Frank Bruno (Jamaican parents)
 * Lewis Hamilton (Jamaican father)
 * Ainsley Maitland-Niles (Jamaican parents)
 * Andre Wisdom (Jamaican parents)
 * Anton Walkes (Jamaican father)
 * Bobby De Cordova-Reid (Jamaican parents)
 * Brandon Clarke (Jamaican father)
 * Cheyna Matthews (Jamaican father)
 * Chinyelu Asher (Jamaican father)
 * Craig Eastmond (Jamaican parents)
 * Danny Gabbidon (Jamaican father)
 * Danny Simpson (Jamaican father)
 * Darius Vassell (Jamaican parents)
 * Darren Mattocks
 * Demar Phillips
 * Deshorn Brown
 * Dever Orgill
 * Djed Spence (Jamaican father)
 * Fraizer Campbell (Jamaican parents)
 * Giles Barnes (Jamaican parents)
 * Javain Brown
 * Jermaine Beckford (Jamaican father)
 * John Barnes (Jamaican mother)
 * Junior Morias
 * Kasey Palmer (Jamaican parents)
 * Kevin Lisbie (Jamaican parents)
 * Marcus Barnes (Jamaican parents)
 * Mason Greenwood (Jamaican parents)
 * Matty McNeil (Jamaican father)
 * Buju Banton
 * Beenie Man
 * Big Youth
 * Black Uhuru
 * Usain Bolt
 * Paul Bogle
 * Yohan Blake
 * Dennis Brown
 * Bounty Killer
 * Sol Campbell (Jamaican parents)
 * Capleton
 * Daniel Caesar (Jamaican father)
 * Chalice
 * Jimmy Cliff
 * Kevin Michael Richardson (Jamaican father)
 * Derek Cornelius (Jamaican mother)
 * Desmond Dekker
 * DJ Kool Herc
 * Ricardo Fuller
 * Ricardo Gardner
 * Marcus Garvey
 * Chris Gayle
 * Beres Hammond
 * Kamala Harris (Jamaican father)
 * Heavy D (Jamaican parents)
 * Patrick Ewing
 * Patrick Ewing Jr. (Jamaican parents)
 * George William Gordon
 * Marion Hall
 * Jason Puncheon (Jamaican parents)
 * Toots Hibbert
 * Joseph Hill
 * Kofi Cockburn
 * I Wayne
 * Inner Circle
 * Yazmeen Jamieson (Jamaican father)
 * Grace Jones
 * Vybz Kartel
 * Koffee
 * Jonathan Lewis (Jamaican father)
 * Bob Marley
 * Damian Marley
 * Ziggy Marley
 * Morgan Heritage
 * Mustard
 * Claude McKay
 * The Notorious B.I.G. (Jamaican parents)
 * Lee "Scratch" Perry
 * Mike McCallum
 * Colin Powell (Jamaican parents of mixed African and Scottish ancestry)
 * Sheryl Lee Ralph (Jamaican mother)
 * Shabba Ranks
 * Lennox Lewis (Jamaican parents)
 * Danny Ray (Jamaican parents, based in the United Kingdom)
 * Trevor D. Rhone
 * Joey Badass (Jamaican father)
 * Capital Steez (Jamaican parents)
 * Floyd Mayweather Jr. (Jamaican grandmother)
 * Busta Rhymes (Jamaican parents)
 * Queen Nanny
 * Pop Smoke (Jamaican mother)
 * Shaggy
 * Errol Spence Jr. (Jamaican father)
 * Samuel Sharpe
 * Raheem Sterling (Jamaican parents)
 * Mike Tyson (Jamaican father)
 * NLE Choppa (Jamaican mother)
 * Uncle Luke (Jamaican father)
 * Super Cat
 * Third World
 * Peter Tosh
 * Tyson Beckford (Jamaican parents)
 * Lani Guinier (Jamaican father)
 * Bunny Wailer
 * Ella Mai (Jamaican mother)
 * Courtney Walsh
 * XXXTentacion (Jamaican parents)
 * Aljamain Sterling (Jamaican parents)
 * Jamelia (Jamaican parents)
 * Emily Maddison
 * Callum Robinson (Jamaican father)
 * Dujon Sterling (Jamaican parents)
 * Deanne Rose (Jamaican parents)
 * Jamoi Topey
 * Mustard (record producer) (Jamaican parents)
 * Labrinth (Jamaican parents)
 * Lamar Walker
 * Lauren James (Jamaican father)
 * Alvas Powell
 * Kerry Washington (Jamaican mother)
 * Donovan Ruddock
 * Pete Rock (Jamaican parents)
 * Lamont Bryan (Jamaican mother)
 * Leon Bailey
 * Pepa
 * Matt Phillips (Jamaican father)
 * Max Aarons (Jamaican father)
 * Mel Gaynor (Jamaican father)
 * Omar Richards (Jamaican parents)
 * Owayne Gordon
 * Peter-Lee Vassell
 * Reece James (Jamaican father)
 * Rimario Gordon
 * Rolando Aarons
 * Sanchez Watt (Jamaican father)
 * Sean Johnson (Jamaican Father)
 * Shane Paul McGhie (Jamaican father)
 * Tashan Oakley-Boothe (Jamaican parents)
 * Tyrick Mitchell (Jamaican parents)
 * Ndamukong Suh (jamaican mother)
 * Havana Solaun (Jamaican mother)
 * Isaac Hayden (jamaican mother)
 * Jobi McAnuff (Jamaican father)
 * Jourdaine Fletcher
 * Justin McMaster (Jamaican parents)
 * Khari Stephenson
 * Olufolasade Adamolekun (Jamaican mother)
 * Nathaniel Adamolekun (Jamaican mother)
 * Wes Morgan (Jamaican parents)
 * Pete Wentz (Jamaican mother)
 * Rachelle Smith (Jamaican parents)
 * Roy Hibbert (Jamaican father)
 * Shenseea (Jamaican mother)
 * Tajon Buchanan (Jamaican parents)
 * Zavon Hines
 * Omari Caro (Jamaican father)
 * Konya Plummer
 * Deneisha Blackwood
 * Melvin Brown (Jamaican father)
 * Khadija Shaw
 * Asafa Powell
 * Robin Fraser
 * Colorado Murray
 * Cory Burke
 * Chavany Willis
 * Keithy Simpson
 * Konya Plummer
 * Nathaniel Mendez-Laing (Jamaican father)
 * Ricardo Thomas
 * Tori Kelly (Jamaican & Puerto Rican father)
 * Kemar Lawrence
 * Musashi Suzuki (Jamaican father)
 * Nkrumah Bonner
 * Renaldo Cephas
 * Debora Anne Dyer (Jamaican parents)
 * Demarai Gray (Jamaican parents)
 * Mark-Anthony Kaye (Jamaican parents)
 * Morgan Gibbs-White (Jamaican father)
 * Michael Hector (Jamaican father)
 * Richard King
 * Romario Williams
 * Shamar Nicholson
 * Simeon Jackson (Jamaican parents)
 * Tayvon Gray (Jamaican parents)
 * Trivante Stewart
 * Vyan Sampson (Jamaican parents)
 * Zsa Zsa Utari (Jamaican mother)