30/9: Echoes of The Colonial Past: From Kormantse to Kromanti

An evening with Raoul de Jong, The Black Archives × LOATAD There is a term which crossed the Atlantic and never was forgotten. An evening with Raoul de Jong · The Black Archives × LOATAD There is a term which crossed the Atlantic and never was forgotten. In the places where enslaved Africans developed a new culture traces of their origins were never fully erased. In Suriname the term Kromanti still lives in the Winti tradition and among the Maroons. In jamaica and other Caribbean people it is part of the collective memory and culture as well. When you look for the source of the term, you have to cross the ocean and arrive on the coast of Ghana, at a town called Kormantse. It lies near the fort once known as Cormantine but renamed Fort Amsterdam by the Dutch. It is one of the sites from which enslaved Akan people were shipped into the trans-Atlantic slave trade, a grave crime against humanity. The enslaved people carried their memory and culture with them into the Americas. In a period when Ghana leads a movement demanding reparatory justice the descendants of those who were taken away are searching for the place their ancestors’ tradition, language and culture came from. What is remembered, and what has been silenced? And what does it mean to carry a name, a language and a memory back to where it began? On Wednesday 30 September, The Black Archives and LOATAD invite you to an evening where these threads meet. Author Raoul de Jong shares the story of his own search for Kormantse, a journey through family memory and his novel Jaguarman and his booklet Kromant. Co-founder of The Black Archives Mitchell Esajas will share his journey on the search for the source of Kromanti which will be shared through a podcast which will be published in 2027. Between Kormantse and Kromanti, we come together to remember and to imagine what healing, reparatory justice and reconnection can look like.