Here's where you sound absolutely ridiculous when you say that Africans and African Americans are not connected. First of all, let's break down the etymology of the word African-American. The definition is literally in the title of the word. An African-American is a person of African descent that currently occupies America. This means that at some point in time, their ancestors occupied Africa. How or when their ancestors got to America varies greatly. Considering Africans and Indians have always been nomadic. They were in America way before 1492. The people that were then labeled Indians by the British settlers are now known as Native Americans. A skeleton that is nearly 10,000 years old was found in Siberia. And it draws an even earlier connection between Native Americans and Africans. The DNA of this skeleton revealed that Africans are the ancestors of Native Americans. Or Indians, whichever one you choose because apparently these labels really do not matter. They're not accurate at all. Research done by archaeologists in linguists have proven that people first came to the Americas over 14,000 years ago. Human bones that were found in Siberia also rebuild that Native Americans carried a mixed gene with genetic ties to Europe and East Asia. These people were called ancient paleo-Siberians. Africans and Native Americans reconnected and interbred many times throughout history before and during slavery. When Columbus came to the Americas, he recorded in his journal the interactions between the Africans and the Native Americans. They traded with one another, interbred, and created legacies. When the Europeans killed off millions of Native Americans, those that lived were enslaved. During the Indian slave trade, Native Americans were dying left and right. They were more susceptible to the diseases that were spread by the Europeans. And the ones that lived were constantly rebelling. Being that the Native Americans were in America first, they already had prior knowledge of the land, so it was easy for them to escape. Whereas the Africans were thousands of miles away from home. The Europeans put an end to the Indian slave trade. They decided that Indians did not make good slaves. They began to only enslave Africans, but the Indians and Africans continued to interbrear and connect. They established a variety of ongoing relations, a variety of foods as well as the containers and utensils used to prepare them. Also reflected joint influence of African and Native American cultures. Another time we connected was during the 18th century. In the 18th century, Indians recognized African people as valuable allies in their struggles against colonial authorities. In the 1700s, Yamasi, Chakta and Cherokee Indians revolted against the British colonialists, and Africans assisted the Indians with their rebellion. And after that war, the Indians assisted enslaved Africans and helped them to escape to state-orgestine Florida. The black seminoles, also known as the Gullah Gichi, are Africans that escaped from the rice plantations in South Carolina, as well as Georgia. And they built their own settlements on the Florida Frontier. They fought a series of wars to preserve their freedom. Although Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, slavery really ended because they couldn't stop the Gullah Wars. The Gullahs built villages surrounded by fields of corn and swamp rice, and they also maintained relationships with the refugee Indians. The Gullahs and the Indians built a life together in the Florida wilderness, raising several generations of children and freedom. The Europeans called the Florida Indians Seminoles, which is short for Simarone, a Spanish word that means wild and untamed. As this sound familiar, the maroons were also called an abbreviation of the Spanish word Simarone. In other words, anyone who was willing to fight for their freedom from the Europeans are considered wild and untamed. This also shows the connection between all of us. Both the Indians and Africans recognized the British Sheddlers and slave owners as their common enemy. General Andrew Jackson led an army into Florida in order to claim it for the United States and war erupted. The Africans and Indians fought side by side once again in a desperate struggle for their freedom. They were defeated and forced to move further south into Central and South Florida. This war was called the Indian and Negro War. In 1835, a Second War broke out and it lasted for six years. 1500 American, not Native American, soldiers were killed. The black Seminoles were the most fierce and when they finally conquered and captured them, they were afraid to return them to slavery. They were worried that these experienced warriors would wreak havoc on their plantations. In 1892, the American army forcibly removed the Africans and Indians to Indian territory, which is present day Oklahoma. Anglo-American colonists were concerned about the connections between the Africans, African-Americans, and Native Americans. They saw the assistance that the Indians gave the enslaved runaways and they feared a black and Indian alliance. White authorities then passed laws to regulate the movement of enslaved Africans. They wanted to limit their contact with the Native Americans. And slave black men were restricted from serving in colonial militias that fought against Indian. They also worked hard to prevent an alliance by offering financial rewards to Indians that returned runaway enslaved Africans. Treaties between colonies and Indian nations required that Indians return runaways to their owners. Despite white authorities working extremely hard to keep us divided, African-Americans and Native Americans still continued to exchange knowledge and relations. Slaveholders could no longer control or tolerate Africans escaping to Seminole, Indian land. They were terrified of a black Seminole rebellion, so they decided to remove all Indians with the passing of the Indian Removal Act in 1830. The Seminoles were only one of many Indian nations that established extensive ties with the Africans and African-Americans. Some Indians were greedy and practiced different forms of slavery against the Africans and African Americans, but more of them regarded Africans as compatriots and allies. It's important to note that only a small amount of actual Indians owned slaves. Many of them even refused to catch and return runaway enslaved Africans. Some of them even formed anti-slavery associations. Characters held more Africans and African-Americans as slaves than any other Indian nation. An estimated amount of 8% of Characters and African-Americans.