During Keti Koti we commemorate and celebrate the abolition of slavery in the Netherlands and Suriname. The commemoration is on June 30. We celebrate the liberation party on July 1 with a Keti Koti Festival. On that day in 1863, the Emancipation Act came into force and slavery was abolished in Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles. Keti Koti, pronounced: (kittie’kottie), literally means Chains Broken. In Rotterdam, the monument commemorating slavery is located on the Lloydkade, on the spot where ships of the Rotterdam slave trading company Coopstad and Rochussen left for Africa. Keti Koti Rotterdam is Real Rotterdam Heritage.
