““By 1870, roughly 284,000 blacks accounted for 12 percent of the population of sixteen Western states and territories. But Negroes actually show up as early as 1790, in a Spanish census, where roughly 20 percent of the populations of San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Barbara, and Monterey acknowledged African ancestry. Until the United States’ conquest of the Mexican territory, about 15 percent of Californians continued to acknowledge African heritage. But with the coming of US rule, the incentive to deny Negro blood resulted in the large-scale “disappearance” of that population. These largely mixed-race people were still there, of course. But now they had stronger reasons to disclaim their African roots.””
![“Since the main problem that American, the Afro- Americans have is a lack of cultural identity. It is necessary to teach [people] that they had some type of identity, culture, civilization before they were brought here.” quote by Malcolm X](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/71c/malcolm-x-213_afros_since-the-main-problem-that-american-the_1983556.jpg)
