Religious, Cultural, and Racial Interactions (College Board AP® US History)

Indigenous People & Africans

• Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans interacted and formed relationships

• People in these two enslaved groups began to marry each other

  • According to European laws, marriages between Africans and Indigenous people were not lawful or legitimate 

  • Children born from these marriages were considered to be enslaved

  • Some Indigenous groups adopted people of African descent into their communities

• African and Indigenous peoples participated in shared acts of resistance against Europeans

  • In 1503: Maroon-enslaved Africans and Indigenous people resisted Europeans on Santo Domingo

  • Late 1600s: Enslaved Africans from South Carolina sought refuge in Spanish Florida and cooperated with groups of Indigenous peoples there

• Africans also lived among Indigenous peoples and worked as traders and translators to protect themselves from enslavement

• Sometimes, Indigenous people and people of African descent were different from each other

  • 1540s: Spanish colonists and priests in the area that is now New Mexico gave some Black people authority over the Indigenous population

    • These Black overseers mistreated the Indigenous people

  • Many Africans in the early colonial Americas believed in animism

    • Others followed Christianity or Islam