The racial makeup of the Dominican Republic includes many Afro-Caribbean, Métis, Taino descendants, and whites.

At the intermediate level, in South America and on former plantations in and around the Indian Ocean, the descendants of enslaved people are a little harder to define because many people are mixed in demographic ratios with the original slave population. In places where relatively few slaves were imported (e.g., Chile ), few, if any, are considered “black” today. In places where many enslaved people were imported (such as Brazil or the Dominican Republic ), the number is higher, although most identify themselves as of mixed rather than strictly African descent.

After the Americas, Brazil has the largest number of black diasporas outside of Africa. However, in places like Brazil and the Dominican Republic, blackness is more taboo than in, say, the United States. Trey Ellis’s idea of the Cultural Mulatto comes into play because there are blurred lines between what is considered black.

In Colombia, African slaves were first brought to work in the gold mines of the department of Antioquia. After this ceased to be a lucrative business, these slaves slowly moved to the Pacific Coast, where they did not mix with the white or Indian population until today. The entire department of Choco remains a black area. Mixing with the white population occurred mostly on the Caribbean coast, which is still a mestizo area. There was also a large mix in the southwestern departments of Cauca and Valle del Cauca. In these Métis areas the African culture had a great influence.