The Bantu expansion 3000-1000 BC
The Bantu are thought to have originated from the the area of Nigeria/Cameroon, and started their expansion East and South about 5,000 years ago (3,000 BC). They reached the equatorial rain forest 3500 years ago, entering what is now Uganda, 3000 years ago. It is people of this ancestry that comprised the bulk of the slaves transported across the Atlantic, and most black Americans can trace their ancestry to West and West-central Africa.
