In terms of phenotype. Kobe bryants features are not consitent with East Africans therefore one can "assume" before even going inot genetic tests that it is most likely he is not of southern African origins or east African origins. same goes for Kevin Garnett.

You start from the outside and work your way in.

i am sorry but still do not agree
i maintain that the randomness greatly reduces the probalities of accurate estimates

we are not talking about stable families living in a community who travel within a limited range,
we are talking about the cross from Africa to America, then back to african after the slave trade and then back to america
to flee civil wars and colonialism, (some slaves went back to Africa and then back again )
i do not believe the DNA samples can be accurate enough to down size that kind of movement to just ONE TRIBE

talking about facial features, some times i agree yes they can be traced but to a particular REGION NOT TRIBE

I am not trying to win any arguement here. The fact that you do not believe that DNA can trace ancestry to a minimal accurate point doesn't mean its not been proven or is not true. Of course there are elements to the experiment that can be questioned but much less when it comes to DNA.

Again you can trace someone's ancestry first to the continent(Obvious phenotype outwardly features) , then the region most of their genes are concentrated in then to particulars where their clusters exist the most whether you agree or not. I suggest you google Y chromosone DNA and see what I am talking about.

You are able to tell the genetic difference between a Yoruba and an Igbo from a senegalise or zambian. If you can do that. you can trace back further as well the ancestry of AA regardless of the admixtures which you are assuming took place at a rampant rate from slavery up until 1960 when interacial dating was permitted in the US.

Prove your point.

These guys are cousins.  Infact Will Smith is from Ekpan.  Real waffi boy, see his behaviour, From soaps to comedy , to stand up comedy , to Rapping , to real films.

Warri no dey carry last!

IS THERE ANY OF THOSE CELEBRITIES THAT COMES FROM ILESHA, MAYBE ICE CUBE

morpheus24 when you say
"You are able to tell the genetic difference between a Yoruba and an Igbo from a senegalise or zambian. "

i totally agree , because those are regions wide apart,

but when u look at a Kenyan girl beleive me you will know immediately she is from Est Africa
but whether is is from Kenya , Uganda Rwanda or Burundi will be diffeicult since these people
have teh same physical features, if she comes from a lineage that has been mixed for 100 years
believe me the DNA samples will point to the East of Africa, possibly the country if it come down to it , but
not the Massai , Kikuyu, or luo

anyway i rest my case

I seem to remember there was a program not long ago, where various US entertainers actually had DNA testing to find out where they originated in Africa. TD Jakes, the preacher traced his to the Igbos.

There was a similiar program in the Uk and those individuals did in fact trace the tribe they came from, not just the country or region. On of my Carribean friends did the same and she was able to trace the tribe she came from.
Its plausable that many individuals will descend from more than one tribe or region.

@Emad, most people could see the difference between a kenyan and a Ugandan. They don't really look that similiar to me. Its more likely that someone who is not around a varied group of East Africans who will think they all look the same or similiar.

Its like west Africans, we may all look alike to an East African person, but we know that many times you can tell the difference between a Nigerian and Ghanaian, or a Senegalese person from a Camerounian.

londoner just to point out one thing

i have a colleague who is from the Bamileke tribe in Cameroon
When NIgerians ( igbos meet him ) they always start talking to him in
Igbo, then he has to explain that his Father is Bamileke and his mother is
Congolese, he is in no way related to Igbos

one thing is certain, he does look like a Peron from the Central West of africa

Emad:

londoner just to point out one thing

i have a colleague who is from the Bamileke tribe in Cameroon
When NIgerians ( igbos meet him ) they always start talking to him in
Igbo, then he has to explain that his Father is Bamileke and his mother is
Congolese, he is in no way related to Igbos

one thing is certain, he does look like a Peron from the Central West of africa

He is physically similar to anyone close to his region. he could like wise have resembled a calabar person. It doesn't change his genetics. Genotype(the make up of an individual) preceeds phenotype(The physical appearanceof an individual). Likewise a British person can look very similar to an Irish person doesn't mean their genetics are the same, just means they are similar.

londoner:

I seem to remember there was a program not long ago, where various US entertainers actually had DNA testing to find out where they originated in Africa. TD Jakes, the preacher traced his to the Igbos.

There was a similiar program in the Uk and those individuals did in fact trace the tribe they came from, not just the country or region. On of my Carribean friends did the same and she was able to trace the tribe she came from.
Its plausable that many individuals will descend from more than one tribe or region.

@Emad, most people could see the difference between a kenyan and a Ugandan. They don't really look that similiar to me. Its more likely that someone who is not around a varied group of East Africans who will think they all look the same or similiar.

Its like west Africans, we may all look alike to an East African person, but we know that many times you can tell the difference between a Nigerian and Ghanaian, or a Senegalese person from a Camerounian.

They are still doing the test now and again though the test has reasonable sampling questions it is quite accurate to a point.

East and West Africans are more genetically similar to each other than say an arab. There may be physical characteristics that are prevalent in each group that distinguish them from one another but still doesn't change their genetics.

To get back to the topic. It is not impossible for an AA to trace his ancestry to the Igbo of Nigeria. Many brazilian blacks can trace their culture and genetics primarily to the Yoruba, Mozambique and Angolan ethnic groups despite the admixture with indians and portuguese

@ emad, ofcourse, there will be times when people will look similiar, both within regions and across them. Thats is not to say that tribes and countries dont often have distinct features that tell them apart. i too have come across many Camerounians who i have mistaken for Igbo, but I haven't even mistaken a Camerounian for a Senegalese,Ghanaian or even a Yoruba.

@ morpheus, I know it doesn't change their genetics, I wasn't trying to make that claim.
In fact, my friend who is Jamaican actually traced her DNA to Mozambique, even though many believe descendents of slaves only come from West African peoples. Migration has always played a part on the continent, and its an important factor of human interection that we underestimate, especially when we talk of the slave trade.

Let's not lose sight of the point of this debate here. commonsense should tell us that a whole mind-boggling 60% of African Americans cannot possibly be of Igbo descent like the poster claims here. And I SERIOUSLY doubt that all these celebs are of Igbo descent. Real funny. absurd. bizarre. unfounded. laughable. ludicrous. ridiculous.

12 million africans were sold into slavery, all of them were from a total of 45 african ethnic groups from 29 countries. are we saying that almost 8 million of those slaves were of the Igbo ethnic group alone? How plausible is that?

As a matter of fact, only 14.6%l of the slaves taken from africa to the americas (as a whole!) were from nigeria, cameroun, Gabon and Equitorial Guinea. Meaning Nigeria had just a fraction of the 14.6%, and the Igbo ethnic group, a fraction of that fraction of the 14.6%. vous comprehendez? 60%? pardon me, just can't stop giggling

carmelily:

Let's not lose sight of the point of this debate here. commonsense should tell us that a whole mind-boggling 60% of African Americans cannot possibly be of Igbo descent like the poster claims here. And I SERIOUSLY doubt that all these celebs are of Igbo descent. Real funny. absurd. bizarre. unfounded. laughable. ludicrous. ridiculous.

You seem to be in the same boat in regard to having lost light of what this discussion was based on. I didn't say that 60% of AA were simply of Igbo descent but rather 60% of us are of majority Igbo descent. Majority so does not equate to being wholly so as it seems you are suggesting that I've stated. Common sense should tell you that in which evidence is telling you and most, if not all, of the LESS LIBERALIZED studies are showing that AA are in fact amongst the least tribally amalgamated groups slave descendants in the west.

We are believed to be majoritively made up of only 10 African ethnic groups, and out of them the Igbo were the most prominent in number followed by an Angolan ethnic group and then following not too distant in number behind them was a particular Senegabian group. After that, the numbers amongst the remaining groups were very small in comparison to the other three mentioned.

12 million africans were sold into slavery, all of them were from a total of 45 african ethnic groups from 29 countries. are we saying that almost 8 million of those slaves were of the Igbo ethnic group alone? How plausible is that?

Your numbers are way off here. It was just over 12Million who were believed to have survived the journey to the Americas after having been sold off to the Europeans, though in total number nearly 3 times as many were actually sold off to them and out of that only 12Mill survived the journeys across the ocean. Now remember that that is 12Mill as a whole in which was brought to the AMERICAS and not just the US. Brazil and the Caribbean received by far the largest number of slaves.

Brazil alone received half of them at nearly 6.3Million, and the Caribbean Islands took in around 3.5Million; these numbers are far, far, far more than what the US took in. The US took in only an estimated total of 550,000 Africans while the remainder of the Americas took in the rest. Now one must ask why was it that the US despite its large swaths of land and need to develop it did they not import just as many Africans as Brazil and the Caribbean.

Well, it was because the Americans were extremely selective about which slaves they wanted, while the Caribbean and South American owners were not so selective in that they ran a system in where for the most part, your average slave would survive no longer than 10 years after getting off the slave ships and into the plantations. With such high death rates, they couldn't afford to be picky. The Americans ran a restoration and or preservation system, if you will, this system was designed to work the slaves just enough to get the job needed done done, though not so hard as to rapidly kill them off like the situation was like in the Caribbean and South America. This in the long run saved them money by allowing the small number of slaves they acquired to grow themselves.

Early in the process the Americans observed the slave population in the well established Caribbean and South American plantations and through this observation they made determining decisions on what particular Ethnic groups would work best in their North American environment and American slave system; they first started out with a tiny group of Angolans from 2 different ethnic distinctions, they started out with Angolans first because it was a group of about 35 Angolan slaves in which were first brought the American's first successfully establish settlement of James Town in about 1609 upon a Dutch ship, and Angolans were heavily numbered amongst those slaves who were settled in the Spanish settlement of Augustina in Florida started some 75 years prior to the foundering of James town.

In about 1610 major Ethnic rivalry broke out in the area in what is today South Eastern Nigeria and the area in were Senegal and Gambia now lye. Waring conflict generates war prisoners, and a mass of refugees and refugees are easy pickings for slave catching profiteers. By 1613 4 major slave ports were established along the bight of Biafria and Benin coastline and in time nearly 1/4 of all the surviving slaves to have been brought to the Americas would be exported out of this region, via the profiteering greed of very wealthy and power African priest known as Aros who ran the trading of slaves from the bush and battle fields into the hands of the Europeans with an Iron fist all along the West African coast.

The Igbo with their loosely unified governing structure and docile military uniformity made for apparent easy picking for the ruthless and very powerful Aros who earlier in the 1600's and lat 1500's had a fall out with the Aro over their (Igbo) trading/marketing operations along the coastal villages in which cut into the Aro's Profits. This situation led the Aro to use their influence within the coastal region to spread disastrous rumors about the Igbo marketeers in the region much the same way the Nazi's did with the Jews in Germany. This wasn't hard to do the Igbo case much like the German Jew case, in that their were already reverberating feelings about Igbo profiteering/high marketing presence in the region already amongst the Native ethnic groups to the areas, all it really took was a spark to set off the teetering volatile situation.

The Aro, set off that spark, and along with it provided the funds, weapons and guidance to eliminated the Igbo from the region, and push them all back into the hinterlands. Swaths of native ethnics turned on the Igbo in the region and began refusing to by their goods, and later this action lead to wide spread acts of actual physical violence against the Igbo community in the are, in which lead to retaliatory acts against coastal Ethics presiding in Igboland, then in little time full blown war broke out between the two lands, and the Europeans were right their to sign contracts with the Aro slime to bring in ship loads of Igbo captives to the newly established slave ports for big profits.

The European bargained off cannon and guns galore to coastal tribes who under the guidance of the Aro used them to Haul in loads of Igbo captives, and some others, like the Ibibio who aided the Igbo. The Portuguese were the first ones on the scene to take advantage of the freshly obtained slaves, they began hauling slaves out of the region first, taking them to mostly South America, though at the time there also was a high demand for new batches of slaves in Haiti and so the Portuguese took swathes of them their as well.

At around this same time the Americans began making their journey to the Caribbean to obtain better understanding of which slaves would work best for their system, and in observing these loads of freshly shipped in Igbo and learning about where they come from and skills they possess, along with fitness, they figured that they would be very ideal for their system. Some where bought their in Haiti and brought to the Virginia where their they were put to the test of the American system in which they passed with flying colors, and plans were soon put in place via connection with the Dutch to have loads more brought in in that they figured that they would use the Igbo as the keystone of their Agrarian and Urban development.

Thirdly, you are mistaking in regard to your country and ethnic group differentials, in that you are forgetting that at that time their were no nations as we now them today on the African continent. Igboland, for instance, at that time extended well into what is today Cameroon. Many Cameroonians are actually of full and or significant Igbo descent. Hundreds of thousands of Igbos actually live in Cameroon and are not descendants of Nigerian Igbos. They are the descendant of those Igbos who lived on the Cameroonian side of the line drawn up by the Europeans in Berlin when they began cutting the continent up into Colonies, and in the mids of this, native established nations like Igboland were intermittently cut in half.

One half of Igboland went to the Brits, and became part of their Nigerian Colony and the other went to the Germans and became part of their Cameroon Colony. This type of thing happened all over the continent, so you CAN NOT inject todays national borderlines in Africa in this discussion when speaking of were particular tribes were taken from, because where many of them are known to be primarily today is not the same as were they were primarily know to be from back then.

As a matter of fact, only 14.6%l of the slaves taken from africa to the americas (as a whole!) were from nigeria, cameroun, Gabon and Equitorial Guinea. Meaning Nigeria had just a fraction of the 14.6%, and the Igbo ethnic group, a fraction of that fraction of the 14.6%. vous comprehendez? 60%? pardon me, just can't stop giggling

LOL. That is hilariously false information. I don't know where you got it from, but you need to throw whatever source it did come from in the trash, TODAY!!. Nearly 20% came from out of the bight of Biafra alone my friend, most were Igbo though not all; many Ibibio, Kalabari, Efik and others in time were also taken. Now that's just that regional area; the Delta area and the western ports have not been included. In total over 1/3 and nearly 2/5 of all slaves taken to the Americas actually came from NIGERIA alone. Then and still to this day Nigeria had and still maintains the largest population on the continent by far, and as we all know, the rule of marketing is balanced on the laws of supply and demand. The Americas needed alot of slaves and the current Nigerian regional ethnic groups had a alot of people. So where do you think the Europeans would naturally go to most often to mean their demands? This aint rocket science folks.

Brazil took in over 6.3 Mill slaves and it's Afro population has been historically known to be heavily influenced by Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa and other Nigerian ethnic customs. How do you think this has become to be. Well, it is so because of that 6.3 Mill slaves taken there over 3Mill are believed to have come from Nigeria. Why do you think the presence of Igbo customs in Haiti are so prevalent? It's because hundreds of thousands of Igbo were taken there. Why is it that it is the Igbos presence here in the US that can be most easily traced and seen today?

It's because just less than 2/3 of the slaves brought here were Igbo. Now remember that only about 550,000 slaves were ever brought here, so 2/3 is only about 183,300 Igbo. Brazil and Haiti took in multiple times that amount a piece.

Hero your speach is too longggggggggggggggggggg

see the kind of trouble one man's sick words can cause , people writting presidential speeches

@ Hero
see how u dey make my head spin with ur_{let me borrow Emad's words} presidential speech.
abeg sumarise

Hero:

You seem to be in the same boat in regard to having lost light of what this discussion was based on. I didn't say that 60% of AA were simply of Igbo descent but rather 60% of us are of majority Igbo descent. Majority so does not equate to being wholly so as it seems you are suggesting that I've stated. Common sense should tell you that in which evidence is telling you and most, if not all, of the LESS LIBERALIZED studies are showing that AA are in fact amongst the least tribally amalgamated groups slave descendants in the west.

We are believed to be majoritively made up of only 10 African ethnic groups, and out of them the Igbo were the most prominent in number followed by an Angolan ethnic group and then following not too distant in number behind them was a particular Senegabian group. After that, the numbers amongst the remaining groups were very small in comparison to the other three mentioned.

Your numbers are way off here. It was just over 12Million who were believed to have survived the journey to the Americas after having been sold off to the Europeans, though in total number nearly 3 times as many were actually sold off to them and out of that only 12Mill survived the journeys across the ocean. Now remember that that is 12Mill as a whole in which was brought to the AMERICAS and not just the US. Brazil and the Caribbean received by far the largest number of slaves.

Brazil alone received half of them at nearly 6.3Million, and the Caribbean Islands took in around 3.5Million; these numbers are far, far, far more than what the US took in. The US took in only an estimated total of 550,000 Africans while the remainder of the Americas took in the rest. Now one must ask why was it that the US despite its large swaths of land and need to develop it did they not import just as many Africans as Brazil and the Caribbean.

Well, it was because the Americans were extremely selective about which slaves they wanted, while the Caribbean and South American owners were not so selective in that they ran a system in where for the most part, your average slave would survive no longer than 10 years after getting off the slave ships and into the plantations. With such high death rates, they couldn't afford to be picky. The Americans ran a restoration and or preservation system, if you will, this system was designed to work the slaves just enough to get the job needed done done, though not so hard as to rapidly kill them off like the situation was like in the Caribbean and South America. This in the long run saved them money by allowing the small number of slaves they acquired to grow themselves.

Early in the process the Americans observed the slave population in the well established Caribbean and South American plantations and through this observation they made determining decisions on what particular Ethnic groups would work best in their North American environment and American slave system; they first started out with a tiny group of Angolans from 2 different ethnic distinctions, they started out with Angolans first because it was a group of about 35 Angolan slaves in which were first brought the American's first successfully establish settlement of James Town in about 1609 upon a Dutch ship, and Angolans were heavily numbered amongst those slaves who were settled in the Spanish settlement of Augustina in Florida started some 75 years prior to the foundering of James town.

In about 1610 major Ethnic rivalry broke out in the area in what is today South Eastern Nigeria and the area in were Senegal and Gambia now lye. Waring conflict generates war prisoners, and a mass of refugees and refugees are easy pickings for slave catching profiteers. By 1613 4 major slave ports were established along the bight of Biafria and Benin coastline and in time nearly 1/4 of all the surviving slaves to have been brought to the Americas would be exported out of this region, via the profiteering greed of very wealthy and power African priest known as Aros who ran the trading of slaves from the bush and battle fields into the hands of the Europeans with an Iron fist all along the West African coast.

The Igbo with their loosely unified governing structure and docile military uniformity made for apparent easy picking for the ruthless and very powerful Aros who earlier in the 1600's and lat 1500's had a fall out with the Aro over their (Igbo) trading/marketing operations along the coastal villages in which cut into the Aro's Profits. This situation led the Aro to use their influence within the coastal region to spread disastrous rumors about the Igbo marketeers in the region much the same way the Nazi's did with the Jews in Germany. This wasn't hard to do the Igbo case much like the German Jew case, in that their were already reverberating feelings about Igbo profiteering/high marketing presence in the region already amongst the Native ethnic groups to the areas, all it really took was a spark to set off the teetering volatile situation.

The Aro, set off that spark, and along with it provided the funds, weapons and guidance to eliminated the Igbo from the region, and push them all back into the hinterlands. Swaths of native ethnics turned on the Igbo in the region and began refusing to by their goods, and later this action lead to wide spread acts of actual physical violence against the Igbo community in the are, in which lead to retaliatory acts against coastal Ethics presiding in Igboland, then in little time full blown war broke out between the two lands, and the Europeans were right their to sign contracts with the Aro slime to bring in ship loads of Igbo captives to the newly established slave ports for big profits.

The European bargained off cannon and guns galore to coastal tribes who under the guidance of the Aro used them to Haul in loads of Igbo captives, and some others, like the Ibibio who aided the Igbo. The Portuguese were the first ones on the scene to take advantage of the freshly obtained slaves, they began hauling slaves out of the region first, taking them to mostly South America, though at the time there also was a high demand for new batches of slaves in Haiti and so the Portuguese took swathes of them their as well.

At around this same time the Americans began making their journey to the Caribbean to obtain better understanding of which slaves would work best for their system, and in observing these loads of freshly shipped in Igbo and learning about where they come from and skills they possess, along with fitness, they figured that they would be very ideal for their system. Some where bought their in Haiti and brought to the Virginia where their they were put to the test of the American system in which they passed with flying colors, and plans were soon put in place via connection with the Dutch to have loads more brought in in that they figured that they would use the Igbo as the keystone of their Agrarian and Urban development.

Thirdly, you are mistaking in regard to your country and ethnic group differentials, in that you are forgetting that at that time their were no nations as we now them today on the African continent. Igboland, for instance, at that time extended well into what is today Cameroon. Many Cameroonians are actually of full and or significant Igbo descent. Hundreds of thousands of Igbos actually live in Cameroon and are not descendants of Nigerian Igbos. They are the descendant of those Igbos who lived on the Cameroonian side of the line drawn up by the Europeans in Berlin when they began cutting the continent up into Colonies, and in the mids of this, native established nations like Igboland were intermittently cut in half.

One half of Igboland went to the Brits, and became part of their Nigerian Colony and the other went to the Germans and became part of their Cameroon Colony. This type of thing happened all over the continent, so you CAN NOT inject todays national borderlines in Africa in this discussion when speaking of were particular tribes were taken from, because where many of them are known to be primarily today is not the same as were they were primarily know to be from back then.

LOL. That is hilariously false information. I don't know where you got it from, but you need to throw whatever source it did come from in the trash, TODAY!!. Nearly 20% came from out of the bight of Biafra alone my friend, most were Igbo though not all; many Ibibio, Kalabari, Efik and others in time were also taken. Now that's just that regional area; the Delta area and the western ports have not been included. In total over 1/3 and nearly 2/5 of all slaves taken to the Americas actually came from NIGERIA alone. Then and still to this day Nigeria had and still maintains the largest population on the continent by far, and as we all know, the rule of marketing is balanced on the laws of supply and demand. The Americas needed alot of slaves and the current Nigerian regional ethnic groups had a alot of people. So where do you think the Europeans would naturally go to most often to mean their demands? This aint rocket science folks.

Brazil took in over 6.3 Mill slaves and it's Afro population has been historically known to be heavily influenced by Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa and other Nigerian ethnic customs. How do you think this has become to be. Well, it is so because of that 6.3 Mill slaves taken there over 3Mill are believed to have come from Nigeria. Why do you think the presence of Igbo customs in Haiti are so prevalent? It's because hundreds of thousands of Igbo were taken there. Why is it that it is the Igbos presence here in the US that can be most easily traced and seen today?

It's because just less than 2/3 of the slaves brought here were Igbo. Now remember that only about 550,000 slaves were ever brought here, so 2/3 is only about 183,300 Igbo. Brazil and Haiti took in multiple times that amount a piece.

I'm very impressed. Your information is pretty accurate. Are you a history major or something cos you seem to know more about the history of slavery in America than most Nigerians. I think before we start arguing with Hero's well researched claims of 60% celebrities being Igbo we should really do our own research on slavery and make sure we know exactly what we are talking about.

Rubbish!! how can you judge from their facial structures and all that. man get your facts right _{which you can never get} before coming here and posting a controversial topic

@bebure

He didn't say 60% of celebrities are Igbo. Read the speech again.

i think we are getting paranoid about a few matters

what do you mean

i mean that the eposter seems t o think almost every successful african american is of igbo descent

TD jakes really lokks ibo in the pic
see head

Morpheus24

I most say . . .that i respect your flow of analysis . . .it carries alot of depth.

well done.

Yup, Hero was absolutely right. I read a piece in which talked about this.

@ Emad,
You sound so uninformed. Don't let your tribalism make you sound like an illiterate. You need to get informed about genetics.

The poster said that they are of Igbo descent. Meaning they have significantly Igbo genes in their DNA. This does not mean that they are not mixed. The word he used is "descent."
Besides somebody can descend from many different tribes.

Read more about an issue before you argue.

Hero:

You seem to be in the same boat in regard to having lost light of what this discussion was based on. I didn't say that 60% of AA were simply of Igbo descent but rather 60% of us are of majority Igbo descent. Majority so does not equate to being wholly so as it seems you are suggesting that I've stated. Common sense should tell you that in which evidence is telling you and most, if not all, of the LESS LIBERALIZED studies are showing that AA are in fact amongst the least tribally amalgamated groups slave descendants in the west.

We are believed to be majoritively made up of only 10 African ethnic groups, and out of them the Igbo were the most prominent in number followed by an Angolan ethnic group and then following not too distant in number behind them was a particular Senegabian group. After that, the numbers amongst the remaining groups were very small in comparison to the other three mentioned.

Your numbers are way off here. It was just over 12Million who were believed to have survived the journey to the Americas after having been sold off to the Europeans, though in total number nearly 3 times as many were actually sold off to them and out of that only 12Mill survived the journeys across the ocean. Now remember that that is 12Mill as a whole in which was brought to the AMERICAS and not just the US. Brazil and the Caribbean received by far the largest number of slaves.

Brazil alone received half of them at nearly 6.3Million, and the Caribbean Islands took in around 3.5Million; these numbers are far, far, far more than what the US took in. The US took in only an estimated total of 550,000 Africans while the remainder of the Americas took in the rest. Now one must ask why was it that the US despite its large swaths of land and need to develop it did they not import just as many Africans as Brazil and the Caribbean.

Well, it was because the Americans were extremely selective about which slaves they wanted, while the Caribbean and South American owners were not so selective in that they ran a system in where for the most part, your average slave would survive no longer than 10 years after getting off the slave ships and into the plantations. With such high death rates, they couldn't afford to be picky. The Americans ran a restoration and or preservation system, if you will, this system was designed to work the slaves just enough to get the job needed done done, though not so hard as to rapidly kill them off like the situation was like in the Caribbean and South America. This in the long run saved them money by allowing the small number of slaves they acquired to grow themselves.

Early in the process the Americans observed the slave population in the well established Caribbean and South American plantations and through this observation they made determining decisions on what particular Ethnic groups would work best in their North American environment and American slave system; they first started out with a tiny group of Angolans from 2 different ethnic distinctions, they started out with Angolans first because it was a group of about 35 Angolan slaves in which were first brought the American's first successfully establish settlement of James Town in about 1609 upon a Dutch ship, and Angolans were heavily numbered amongst those slaves who were settled in the Spanish settlement of Augustina in Florida started some 75 years prior to the foundering of James town.

In about 1610 major Ethnic rivalry broke out in the area in what is today South Eastern Nigeria and the area in were Senegal and Gambia now lye. Waring conflict generates war prisoners, and a mass of refugees and refugees are easy pickings for slave catching profiteers. By 1613 4 major slave ports were established along the bight of Biafria and Benin coastline and in time nearly 1/4 of all the surviving slaves to have been brought to the Americas would be exported out of this region, via the profiteering greed of very wealthy and power African priest known as Aros who ran the trading of slaves from the bush and battle fields into the hands of the Europeans with an Iron fist all along the West African coast.

The Igbo with their loosely unified governing structure and docile military uniformity made for apparent easy picking for the ruthless and very powerful Aros who earlier in the 1600's and lat 1500's had a fall out with the Aro over their (Igbo) trading/marketing operations along the coastal villages in which cut into the Aro's Profits. This situation led the Aro to use their influence within the coastal region to spread disastrous rumors about the Igbo marketeers in the region much the same way the Nazi's did with the Jews in Germany. This wasn't hard to do the Igbo case much like the German Jew case, in that their were already reverberating feelings about Igbo profiteering/high marketing presence in the region already amongst the Native ethnic groups to the areas, all it really took was a spark to set off the teetering volatile situation.

The Aro, set off that spark, and along with it provided the funds, weapons and guidance to eliminated the Igbo from the region, and push them all back into the hinterlands. Swaths of native ethnics turned on the Igbo in the region and began refusing to by their goods, and later this action lead to wide spread acts of actual physical violence against the Igbo community in the are, in which lead to retaliatory acts against coastal Ethics presiding in Igboland, then in little time full blown war broke out between the two lands, and the Europeans were right their to sign contracts with the Aro slime to bring in ship loads of Igbo captives to the newly established slave ports for big profits.

The European bargained off cannon and guns galore to coastal tribes who under the guidance of the Aro used them to Haul in loads of Igbo captives, and some others, like the Ibibio who aided the Igbo. The Portuguese were the first ones on the scene to take advantage of the freshly obtained slaves, they began hauling slaves out of the region first, taking them to mostly South America, though at the time there also was a high demand for new batches of slaves in Haiti and so the Portuguese took swathes of them their as well.

At around this same time the Americans began making their journey to the Caribbean to obtain better understanding of which slaves would work best for their system, and in observing these loads of freshly shipped in Igbo and learning about where they come from and skills they possess, along with fitness, they figured that they would be very ideal for their system. Some where bought their in Haiti and brought to the Virginia where their they were put to the test of the American system in which they passed with flying colors, and plans were soon put in place via connection with the Dutch to have loads more brought in in that they figured that they would use the Igbo as the keystone of their Agrarian and Urban development.

Thirdly, you are mistaking in regard to your country and ethnic group differentials, in that you are forgetting that at that time their were no nations as we now them today on the African continent. Igboland, for instance, at that time extended well into what is today Cameroon. Many Cameroonians are actually of full and or significant Igbo descent. Hundreds of thousands of Igbos actually live in Cameroon and are not descendants of Nigerian Igbos. They are the descendant of those Igbos who lived on the Cameroonian side of the line drawn up by the Europeans in Berlin when they began cutting the continent up into Colonies, and in the mids of this, native established nations like Igboland were intermittently cut in half.

One half of Igboland went to the Brits, and became part of their Nigerian Colony and the other went to the Germans and became part of their Cameroon Colony. This type of thing happened all over the continent, so you CAN NOT inject todays national borderlines in Africa in this discussion when speaking of were particular tribes were taken from, because where many of them are known to be primarily today is not the same as were they were primarily know to be from back then.

LOL. That is hilariously false information. I don't know where you got it from, but you need to throw whatever source it did come from in the trash, TODAY!!. Nearly 20% came from out of the bight of Biafra alone my friend, most were Igbo though not all; many Ibibio, Kalabari, Efik and others in time were also taken. Now that's just that regional area; the Delta area and the western ports have not been included. In total over 1/3 and nearly 2/5 of all slaves taken to the Americas actually came from NIGERIA alone. Then and still to this day Nigeria had and still maintains the largest population on the continent by far, and as we all know, the rule of marketing is balanced on the laws of supply and demand. The Americas needed alot of slaves and the current Nigerian regional ethnic groups had a alot of people. So where do you think the Europeans would naturally go to most often to mean their demands? This aint rocket science folks.

Brazil took in over 6.3 Mill slaves and it's Afro population has been historically known to be heavily influenced by Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa and other Nigerian ethnic customs. How do you think this has become to be. Well, it is so because of that 6.3 Mill slaves taken there over 3Mill are believed to have come from Nigeria. Why do you think the presence of Igbo customs in Haiti are so prevalent? It's because hundreds of thousands of Igbo were taken there. Why is it that it is the Igbos presence here in the US that can be most easily traced and seen today?

It's because just less than 2/3 of the slaves brought here were Igbo. Now remember that only about 550,000 slaves were ever brought here, so 2/3 is only about 183,300 Igbo. Brazil and Haiti took in multiple times that amount a piece.

This is both historically, and scientifically valid. Thank you very much.

I am so dissapointed about Nigerians judging from issues you drag within urselfs, African-Americans are of different origins and you cant get the maths because alot of datas to prove it accurrately are not available, Stop saying that shit that they of Ibos or Yoruba or Hausa descent without those claiming thesame, This is complex and its not good for us Africans, Too low for any tribe to be claiming such, Black people generally had a horrible past and less information to share from these past, Who gives a shit where they came from because as long as those guyz are concerned,they only believe in America and not the poverty impoverished continent,

how do we know all these celebs are of igbo descent??
most AA have european blood too.


blair underwood got his DNA tested and it was traced to igbo.

Ray is from Nigeria!

This is true, I've heard that most of us are of Igbo descent as well.

Na wa o . . . every tribe is trying to claim succesful celebrities to their's . . . LOL . . .If they were criminals, they would send them to other tribes or deny them. . . LMAO . . .