As shown in this map of Black Transatlantic diaspora, 80% of all Africans who were forcibly uprooted from their homes during the 500 years of the Transatlantic slave trade hailed from Kongo-Angola or West-Central Africa.

 

For this reason, Kongolese emigres, culture, and the forms of Catholicism they brought from Kongo were especially influential in New World diasporic settings.