The statue of Kwakoe in the

Suriname Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; i ...

se capital

Paramaribo Paramaribo ( , , ) is the capital city, capital and largest city of Suriname, located on the banks of the Suriname River in the Paramaribo District. Paramaribo has a population of roughly 241,000 people (2012 census), almost half of Suriname's p ...

is a

monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, historical ...

commemorating the

abolition of slavery Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the political movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world. The first country to fully outlaw slavery was France in 1315, but it was later used in its colonies. T ...

. It was made by the sculptor .

Place and unveiling

The statue is located in

, the capital of

on the corner of Zwartenhovenbrug Street and Dr. Sophie Redmond Street, near the bus station known as ''Ondrobon''. Prime Minister J.A. Pengel unveiled the sculpture on June 30, 1963, as part of the centenary of slave emancipation in Suriname on July 1, 1963. The statue depicts a freed African slave who has broken his chains. Kwakoe means Wednesday in the ritual Kromanti language of the Maroons of Suriname. The abolition of slavery fell on Wednesday, July 1, 1863.

Committee

To realize the statue, a Committee of the Statue of Liberty was set up, a ladies' company led by Mrs. U. Breeveld-Silos. She was one of those who spoke at the unveiling in 1963. The youth choir of the ''‘Evangelische Broedergemeente''’ and the male choir ''‘Harmonie''’ performed and the florist L. de Gapadose offered a wreath in the colors of the Surinamese flag.

Most popular image of Paramaribo

Paramaribo has many statues, but none of them has ever become as popular as that of Kwakoe. It does not represent a historical figure, although it has been said that Kwakoe would have been the first black landowner of Suriname. The statue of Jozef Klas was immediately adopted by the Afro-Surinamese as the best representation of the liberation from their history of slavery. To this day, it is regularly provided with headgear and garments, especially the pangi. These are the colorful shawls that are still worn by the

maroons Maroons are descendants of Africans in the Americas and islands of the Indian Ocean who escaped from slavery, through flight or manumission, and formed their own settlements. They often mixed with Indigenous peoples, eventually evolving into ...

. The Kwakoe statue is regularly the meeting point for ''konmakandras'' (meaning ''

meeting A meeting is when two or more people come together to discuss one or more topics, often in a formal or business setting, but meetings also occur in a variety of other environments. Meetings can be used as form of group decision-making. Definiti ...

'' in the Sranan Tongo language of Suriname), encounters and manifestations.

Jozef Klas

Sculptor and painter Jozef Klas (Hannover 1923 - Paramaribo 1996) also made the statue of Mama Sranan, a unity monument, depicting a woman who keeps her children embraced. This statue did not acquire the same appeal as the Kwakoe monument.Parbode
Kunstschatten: Mama Sranan
d.d. 31-10-2010. After spending several years in the Netherlands, he returned to Suriname. His request for Surinamese citizenship remained unanswered. In February 1978, Klas started a hunger strike and chained himself to the Kwakoe statue.

Kwakoe Festival

Kwakoe is also the name of a summer festival that has been held almost every year since 1975 during a number of weekends in the Nelson Mandela Park in

Amsterdam-Zuidoost Amsterdam-Zuidoost (; "Amsterdam-Southeast") is a borough (''stadsdeel'') of Amsterdam, Netherlands. It consists of four residential neighborhoods— Bijlmermeer, Venserpolder, Gaasperdam and Driemond—as well as the Amstel III/ Bullew ...

in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. It is originally a Surinamese festival but has developed into a multicultural festival in recent years. The name Kwakoe has changed to Kwaku.

Notes