section_path: Demographics/Ethnic groups/Black Creoles
section_name: Black Creoles
paragraph_text: Black Creoles
  
  About 9% of Nicaragua's population is black and mainly resides on the country's Caribbean (or Atlantic) coast. The black population is mostly composed of black English-speaking Creoles who are the descendants of escaped or shipwrecked slaves; many carry the name of Scottish settlers who brought slaves with them, such as Campbell, Gordon, Downs, and Hodgson. Although many Creoles supported Somoza because of his close association with the United States, they rallied to the Sandinista cause in July 1979, only to reject the revolution soon afterwards in response to a new phase of "westernization" and imposition of central rule from Managua. There is a smaller number of Garifuna, a people of mixed West African, Carib and Arawak descent. In the mid-1980s, the government divided the Zelaya Department – consisting of the eastern half of the country – into two autonomous regions and granted the black and indigenous people of this region limited self-rule within the republic.