This is the first of two panels exploring the stories of black migrants and migrant communities in the Atlantic world, focusing on cases of black migrants or migrant communities in or out of the Luso-Hispanic world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We seek to go beyond the rich literature on forced migration during slavery, and engage critical questions about black migration after the end of slavery. How and why did people of African descent decide to migrate? What was the role of race in the decision to migrate and the choice of new residence? What was the political, economic and cultural impact of migration on the new place of residence? And how did migrants adapt to their new environments? We present several cases of black people moving from to or in Brazil or Spanish-speaking America. We focus on migration to and from the Atlantic world while dialoguing with the literature on migration in the wider Atlantic world.