Joseph Culture Hill shares the history of George William Gordon through his music

 

An illustration of the George William Gordon monument in Jamaica.

 

Many things inspire writers, and it is always fascinating when they share the source of that inspiration. For me, music has long been one of the strongest forces behind my pen. Listening to Billy Joel’s “Honesty” once pushed me to write the article, “Honesty is mostly what I need from you – Billy Joel.”

The same happened with Joseph Hill of Culture, Anthony B, and Lucky Dube; their lyrics carried messages so powerful that I felt compelled to write articles about their reflections. Music, especially conscious reggae, has a way of awakening the spirit and directing the mind toward truth.

Kromantse to Jamaica: The untold Akan legacy behind the Coromantee revolts

 

An illustration of Akan Coromantee ancestors from Kromantse, Ghana, transported to Jamaica, showing their cultural resilience and role in Maroon resistance.

The history of Kromantse, a coastal village in Ghana’s Central Region, is one of the most powerful and least told stories in the African diaspora. Known historically as Kormantse, the town became one of the major embarkation points for enslaved Africans during the trans‑Atlantic slave trade.

 

European traders used the name Coromantee to describe captives shipped from Fort Kormantse (also called Fort Amsterdam), and these captives were overwhelmingly Akan‑speaking peoples, Fante, Ashanti, and Twi speakers, whose descendants would profoundly shape Jamaica’s history.

 

Why Columbus never discovered Jamaica: The Arawak truth uncovered

 

A photo of Indigenous Arawak people in pre‑Columbian Jamaica, surrounded by tropical landscape, symbolizing truth before Columbus’s arrival.

 

History often celebrates Christopher Columbus as the man who “discovered” the Americas, but this narrative collapses under scrutiny. Long before Columbus’s ships reached the Caribbean in 1494, the island of Jamaica was already home to the Arawak, or Taíno, people, a thriving Indigenous civilization with its own language, agriculture, spirituality, and social structure.

 

To claim discovery of a land already inhabited by a peaceful and organized society is not exploration; it is erasure. The Arawak people were descendants of early migrants from South America who settled across the Caribbean islands centuries before Columbus’s arrival. They cultivated cassava, maize, and yams, built canoes for fishing, and lived in villages led by chiefs known as caciques.