Afro-Dominicans (also referred to as African-Dominicans or Black Dominicans) are Dominicans of predominant Black African ancestry. They are a minority in the country representing 7.8% of the Dominican Republic's population according to a census bureau survey in 2022. About 4.0% of the people surveyed claim an Afro-Caribbean immigrant background, while only 0.2% acknowledged Haitian descent. Currently there are many black illegal immigrants from Haiti, who are not included within the Afro-Dominican demographics as they are not legal citizens of the nation. The first black people in the island were brought by European colonists as indentured workers from Spain and Portugal known as Ladinos. When the Spanish Crown outlawed the enslavement of Natives in the island with the Laws of Burgos, slaves from West Africa and Central Africa were imported from the 16th to 18th centuries due to labor demands. However, with the decline of the sugar industry in the colony the importation of slaves decreased. Many of these Africans eventually intermixed with the Europeans, Mestizos, and Natives creating a triracial Creole culture. In the 19th and 20th centuries black immigrants from the French and British West Indies, as well as the United States came to the island and settled in coastal regions increasing the black population. The Afro-Dominican population can now be found in most parts of the country, from coastal areas such as San Cristobal and San Pedro de Macoris to deep inland areas such as Cotui and Monteplata. However, the southeast portion of the country and the border region have the highest concentrations of Black people in the country, while the central Cibao region has the lowest. Presently, the Haitian population makes up the majority of unmixed blacks in the Dominican Republic, but there is a lack of recent official data because the National Office of Statistics (ONE) has not released racial data since 1960, though the Central Electoral Board collected racial data until 2014. The 1996 electoral roll put the figures of "black" at 4.13% and "mulatto" at 2.3% of the adult population. The 1960 population census (the last one in which race was queried) placed it at 10.9%. According to a 2011 survey by Latinobarómetro, 26% of the people surveyed identified themselves as black. History 16th - 18th century In 1502 (or 1503), the Spanish Crown finally acquiesced to the colonists' demands for enslaved Africans. The Santo Domingo colony, the only European possession yet in America,