History

History, Jamaican Ancestry

From Asante to Maroon: The African Roots of the Jamaican People

Leave a Comment / History, Jamaican Ancestry /

The majority of Jamaicans are descendants of Africans forcibly brought to the island between the 17th and 19th centuries during the transatlantic slave trade. Although European slave traders grouped them as “Africans,” these men, women, and children came from a range of distinct ethnic groups, nations, and cultures across West and Central Africa. The largest contributions came from the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana), the Bight of Biafra (primarily Nigeria), and West-Central Africa (especially Congo and Angola regions).

History

Chains of Empire: Who Enabled the Slave Trade and Why It Happened – A Deeper Look into Jamaica’s African Origins

1 Comment / History /

Jamaica’s African heritage is not accidental—it is the result of centuries of calculated, systemic exploitation known as the transatlantic slave trade. This wasn’t a tragedy that “just happened.” It was a deliberate global enterprise, engineered by powerful economic and political forces, and supported by local African collaborators, European elites, and colonial administrators alike.

To understand why enslaved Africans were brought to Jamaica and who allowed it to happen, we must pull back the curtain on a vast, brutal machinery that turned human lives into currency, empires into superpowers, and Africa into a bleeding continent.

History

Mountains, Maroons, and the Might of Cudjoe

Leave a Comment / History /

Long before Jamaica gained independence in 1962, freedom was already being carved into the island’s mountainous heart by self-liberated Africans who refused to bow to colonial chains. At the forefront of this fierce resistance stood Captain Cudjoe — a warrior, strategist, and the legendary leader of the Leeward Maroons. His legacy is one of defiance, diplomacy, and deep ancestral pride. Known also as Codjoe, Cudjo, or Kojo (an Akan name given to boys born on Monday), this Jamaican hero helped shape a unique chapter in Caribbean history — one written not by colonial rulers but by the blood, courage, and determination of a free African people.

History

Garnet Silk: The Messenger, the Martyr, the Voice of a Nation

Leave a Comment / History /

On a warm Jamaican night in December 1994, a house went up in flames in Mandeville. Inside that house were two souls — one an elder, Etiga Dulcie Grey, and the other, a son, a prophet, a beloved voice of a generation: Garnet Silk. The world lost more than just a singer that night. It lost a man sent to heal, to uplift, to guide. It lost a voice that could cradle sorrow and summon joy in the same breath. It lost a light that burned too brightly to last long.