| Group: | Afro-Arubans |
| Langs: | Papiamento, Dutch, Spanish, English |
| Rels: | Christianity |
| Related: | Other Afro-Caribbeans, Afro-Curaçaoan, African people, Afro-Venezuelans |
Afro-Arubans are Arubans who have predominantly African ancestry. Afro-Arubans are a minority ethnic group in Aruba (15% of Aruba's population), although many Arubans may have varying degrees of African ancestry.[1] Like other Arubans, Afro-Arubans speak Papiamento, an Afro-Portuguese creole language commonly spoken on the ABC islands,[2] as well as Dutch, Spanish, English and other languages. Papiamento dates back at least 300 years and is based on African linguistic structures combined with vocabulary from Portuguese, Dutch, and Spanish.[3]
While Aruba had enslaved Africans,[4] most Afro-Arubans today descend from nearby Caribbean islands and nations such as Sint Maarten, Dominican Republic, Suriname, Haiti, Jamaica, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius, the Lesser Antilles, and South America.[5] Many Afro-Arubans live in Aruba's second largest city, San Nicolaas, located on the southern tip of the island.[6]
Africans were brought to Aruba by Dutch settlers during the colonial era,[7] [8] [9] although not in large numbers as in nearby Curaçao and Bonaire.
Many immigrants from the British West-Indies (namely from Trinidad and Grenada) settled in San Nicolaas in the early 20th century, namely to work in the Aruban oil industry. Many brought their local English Creoles and dialects to the town,[10] later developing into what is today known as San Nicolaas English (known locally as Bush English)