Remembering without Remembering: the Kongo, enslavement, absence, presence, resistance.

This below is a largely AI generated summary of my talk at the Liverpool Slavery Museum.

This is a profound exploration of the Kongo Kingdom’s experience and legacy in relation to the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, and its enduring cultural, ecological, and geopolitical impacts. It highlights the often overlooked role of Central Africa, specifically the Kongo region, in the history of enslavement and resistance, challenging dominant West African-centered narratives. The narrative intertwines personal reflections, historical facts, and Afro-analytic perspectives to deepen understanding of memory, trauma, and survival within the Kongo context.

Introduction to the Kongo and Its Historical Context

The Kongo Kingdom, existing from circa 1390 to 1857, encompassed parts of present-day Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Republic of Congo, and Gabon. It was a sophisticated and mostly independent state before becoming a vassal to Portugal and later divided by colonial powers after the Berlin Conference of 1884/1885. The Kongo’s integration into Atlantic trade circuits began in the late 15th century, with millions of enslaved Africans forcibly taken from this region, profoundly shaping the demographics of the Americas.

Approximately half of enslaved Africans brought to the Americas originated from the Kongo Kingdom, esp. Angola and the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo, underscoring the Kongo’s significant yet underrepresented presence in the transatlantic slave trade. In the southern United States, the Kongolese represented the largest single group among enslaved Africans, as in Haiti, Cuba, and quite significantly Brazil which during the trade, received more enslaved Africans than any other country.

The Absence and Erasure of the Kongo in Historical Narratives

Despite its critical role, the Kongo is largely absent from public memorialization and mainstream discourses on enslavement.

Several reasons contribute to this erasure, including the dominance of West African narratives, the linguistic and cultural imperialism favoring Anglophone scholarship (while the Kongo was non-Anglophone), the overshadowing of the atrocities of Belgian colonialism under Leopold II, and the ambiguous use of the term “West Central Africa” which dilutes the distinct identity of Central Africa and the Kongo.

Popular culture perpetuates colonial tropes through works like Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Tintin au Congo, further obscuring authentic Kongo histories. Films about the slave trade tend to focus on West African contexts, neglecting the Kongo.

Personal and Scholarly Engagement with the Kongo

The author shares a personal journey to the land of their ancestors, reflecting on the emotional and spiritual weight of visiting sites like the slave port of Louango, which has largely vanished physically and in memorialization. This absence underscores a collective denial and dissociation linked to trauma, shame, and internalized racism as well as neocolonial interests. The author’s experiences reveal the challenges of confronting disavowed histories of atrocities and the protective silences surrounding them.

Memory, Trauma, and Endurance: Theoretical Frameworks

The talk explores concepts of memory and intergenerational trauma, particularly through the lens of post-memory—a term coined by Marianne Hirsch (2012) describing how, in the context of the Holocaust descendants internalize the trauma and memories of their forbears despite not having experienced the traumatic events directly. The author critiques and expands this framework using Afro-analytics (Kinouani, 2024) by emphasizing intuition and non-rational knowledge transmission mechanisms, rooted in African and specifically Kongolese epistemologies.

Through auto-ethnographic notes related to intuition and premonition of theft, the author hypothesizes that inherited memory and trauma function as community protection mechanisms de-emphasising the roles of fantasy and the imaginary.

This intuition is linked to the violent history of colonial extraction and dispossession experienced by the Kongo people as well as the author family’s history. Afro-analytics conceptualizes that there are memory bearers (Nzonzi, griot-like figures) within family and communities who have experienced atrocities, they are designated to carry and transmit collective histories and suffering. This bodily archival mechanism connects the living and ancestors, sustaining community knowledge and resilience.

Cultural Endurance through Music and Tradition.

Kongolese cultural traditions have profoundly influenced music genres across the Americas and the Caribbean, notably the development of jazz and the continuation of customs like electing a Congo king, celebrated with African rhythms in ceremonies such as the Brazilian congada. The transatlantic exchange of musical forms like rumba fostered connections between enslaved peoples and their ancestral homelands, reinforcing identity and resistance.

Ecological and Environmental Memory

The author discusses the concept of ecological trauma/ endurance and a form of environmental memory/ecological memorialization, possibly symbolised by natural growths like a bamboo-like tree at the former Louango port, points to the inseparability of body, subjectivity, water, and land in memory and resistance.

Geopolitical Endurance and Contemporary Realities

The legacy of colonialism and the slave trade continue to shape the Kongo region geopolitically. Resource extraction, population displacement, and labor exploitation have persisted from colonial times to the present, with in particular, the DRC experiencing ongoing violence, human trafficking, and forced labor linked to its valuable mineral resources like cobalt. The war in the DRC, causing millions of deaths, mirrors historical patterns of colonial brutality and enslavement underscoring necropolitical dynamics. These realities reveal the continuity of ‘the past’ and the challenges to sovereignty and peace in the region.

Endurance of Life and Beauty Amidst Atrocities

Despite the immense suffering and erasure, the Kongo and its peoples endure, embodying resilience and beauty. The author recounts encounters with the region’s breathtaking landscapes and art, which evoke profound emotional responses and symbolize resistance and defiance. This enduring otherworldly beauty tells a story of survival and cultural vitality that persists against historical and ongoing horrors.

This comprehensive analysis emphasizes the complexity of the Kongo’s historical experiences in their multifaceted legacies. It challenges dominant narratives and calls for deeper recognition of Central Africa’s crucial role in the history and legacy of enslavement and colonialism.