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CHRONOLOGICAL REFERENCES:
CAPE VERDE/CAPEVERDEAN AMERICANS
The following compilation is a work in progress. The
information has been gleaned from a wide variety of sources, including the
accounts of historians Sena Barcelos, Antonio Carreira, and Daniel Pereira,
ethnographers Felix Monteiro and Luis Romano, official U.S. Customs records, the
research of Richard Lobban, Deidre Meintel, Marilyn Halter, George Brooks, and
other contemporary American scholars, interviews with Cape Verdean-American
community scholars, and many other sources who are listed in the bibliography of
this Home Page. It is intended to provide students of the "Cape Verdean
experience" with a chronological framework within which to understand the many
historic, socio-economic, geo-political, climatic, and other factors
contributing to the emergence of Cape Verdean cultural identity and its
expression in the Islands, in diaspora communities in the United States and
elsewhere. Many events included in this compilation are causally related. Others
are not, and causal relationships should not be inferred. Your comments,
suggested additions, modifications, etc., are solicited and should be addressed
to Ray Almeida at noskunos@erols.com. (Revisions as of March 14, 1997.)
1460 Antonio and Bartolomeo da Noli, Genovese navigators in the service of
Portugal, claim the Cape Verde Islands. The Islands were officially described as
"uninhabited". However, given the prevailing winds and ocean currents in the
region the islands may well have been visited by Moors or Wolof, Serer, or
perhaps Lebu fishermen from the Guine Coast. Folklore suggests that the islands
may have been visited by Arabs or Phoenicians centuries before the arrival of
the Europeans. The Portuguese explorer Jaime Cortesao reported a story that
Arabs were known to have visited an island which they referred to as "Aulil" or
"Ulil" where they took salt from naturally occurring salinas. Some believe they
may have been referring to Ilha do Sal. Whatever the case may have been there
was no population sufficiently well established to resist complete penetration
by the Portuguese.
1462 King Afonso V of Portugal granted the archipelago to his brother Prince
Fernando who later divided the island of Santiago between two land grantees (donatarios).
European settlement began at Ribeira Grande ("the great stream") on the leeward
side of Santiago Island which offered a reliable fresh water supply and a
moderately protected harbor. An assortment of Portuguese exiles and reprieved
convicts, Genovese and Flemish adventurers and Sephardic Jews were included
among the first European settlers.
1466 Settlers in Cape Verde from the Algarve region of southern Portugal
petition the Crown and receive authorization to trade in slaves. In 1469 the
first Crown "contract of lease" for buying and trading in slaves is issued. The
Royal Warrant of 1472 gives "existing inhabitants" (moradores estantes) of
Santiago the privilege of being able to " have slaves, male and female, to work
for them, to enable them to live and settle better". Portugal granted the
authority to trade anywhere in Western Africa except Arguim, on the Mauritanian
coast. The mainland Africans forced into bondage and taken to Cape Verde tended
to be Balanta, Papel, Bijago and Mende peoples from the Guine Coast. The only
restrictions imposed on the Cape Verdean colonists by the Crown was a duty of
25% on all imports from the Coast and strict adherence to the ancient embargo on
the sale of arms, iron, ships, and naval equipment to "heathens".
Many of the early white settlers had been banished to Cape Verde without their
families and formed liaisons with slave women, increasing the mulatto population
sector. Some of the settlers or their mulatto offspring crossed over to Upper
Guinea and formed a class of middlemen (lancados) who would play a pivotal role
in expanding the slave trade and in establishing the "place" of Cape Verdeans in
economic history of West Africa. Many of these middlemen would marry African
women to solidify their social position within various West African societies.
Portuguese political and economic interests in the region most often overlapped
with those of the lan½ados.
1469 - Fernando Gomes, a Lisbon merchant, granted exclusive rights over the
trade in slaves, gold and other valuables of the Guinea Coast on the condition
that he "discover" 100 leagues of the coast and pay a fixed sum to the Crown for
each of the five years of this contract. The area of the coast facing Cape Verde
was exempt from his domain, along with that near the fortress of Arguim, the
first having been allotted to Santiago traders. In 1472, Gomes succeeded in
getting the Crown to expand the scope of his individual trading contract by
restricting trade by Cape Verdeans only to Cape Verdean products. Partnerships
between Cape Verdeans and foreigners were forbidden. This system of would
continue until the mid-seventeenth century.
Slaves sold on the Santiago slave market were categorized in three types. In
order of ascending sale value, these were bocais [from bocal: ignorant], slaves
recently imported who spoke only their native languages; ladinos, slaves of
longer residence in Santiago who had learned Kriolu, had been baptized and
"taught to work"; and naturais [natural: native-born], those born in Cabo Verde
(Carreira 1972: 267 cited in Meintel)
1475-1479 War of the Spanish Succession. Castellan ships pillage Ribeira Grande
and carries off many white inhabitants for ransom and blacks to be sold again
into slavery.
Historical interpretations and historical accuracy are not always one and the
same. Scholarly research has recently been reported by Peter Dickson and
commented on by John Hebert, senior specialist in Hispanic bibliography in the
Hispanic division, Library of Congress in Washington, DC. (Washington Post, Oct.
12, 1995: C5) which raises serious questions and may eventually compell us to
dramatically alter our description of the context of events which led to the
"discovery" of America by Christopher Columbus. These recent findings shed new
light on the life of Columbus before 1492.
1478 Christopher Columbus married into the most powerful family in Portugal, the
Braganza-Norona clan. By 1485 most of the Braganza family (Columbus's in-laws)
had fled Portugal for Spain. They plotted to kill Portugal's King Joao but were
unsuccessful. The King responded by executing the twelve conspirators, ten of
whom were related to Columbus's wife. No evidence has been found to implicate
Columbus in the conspiracy.
King Joao refused to finance Columbus's voyage of exploration. Spain's Queen
Isabel showed a particular interest in Columbus and agreed to finance his
voyages. The mother of Queeen Isabel was Portuguese by birth and of the House of
Branganza and distantly related to the wife of Columbus.
The web of European political relationships and the ideological underpinnings of
European expansion played a major role in setting the stage for social and
economic development in Cape Verde and everywhere else that the European
explorers set foot.
In addition to family relationships it is enlightening to examine the "political
theology" of Spain, Portugal, England, France and most of Europe's royal courts
at that time. Columbus wrote of being "an instrument of God in recovering of
Jerusalem.... The royal mission was presented as divine, universal and directed
toward uniting the world under a single ruler, who was to recapture Jerusalem
from the Moslems, thereby fulfilling history's culmination and end. This vision
was put out competitively by Europe's royal courts, but Castile was seen to be
implementing it most literally at the time - in instituting the Inquisition,
conquering the Muslim KIngdom of Grenada, and, in tandem with sending out
Columbus in 1492, expelling the Jews. (Peggy K. Liss, Washington Post Oct. 19,
1995 p. A22).
1479 The Treaty of Alçacovas and later the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)
established the territorial domains of Portugal and Spain along a longitudinal
line 370 leagues west of Cape Verde.
1483 The first French ships reach Cape Verde.
1492 Christopher Columbus, the Genovese navigator, lands in the Bahamas and
claims the "new lands of the western seas" for Spain. In 1498 Columbus stops in
Cape Verde for provisions on his third voyage to America. During the same period
the expulsion of Jews from Iberia began. Some would eventually migrate to Cape
Verde.
1495 Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Church is established in Ribeira Grande (Cidade
Velha), the first permanent place of Christian worship in sub-Saharan Africa.
Later, a seminary, convent and eventually the first cathedral in Africa were
built.
1497 Vasco DaGama, the Portuguese navigator, stops in Cape Verde on a voyage of
exploration which would take his ships around Africa and on to India.
1502 Santo Domingo, Island of Hispanola, West Indies. The first enslaved
Africans arrive in the New World.
1513 Official census records for the population of Vila de Ribeira Grande only
fifty years after settlement begin to reflect the shape of Cape Verde's future
demography: 162 residents includes 58 "whites," 12 priests, 16 "free blacks,"
soldiers and Portuguese convicts and approximately 13,000 slaves. Between
1513-1515 a total of 2,966 captives were brought to Santiago by 29 vessels.
Many were taken to Portugal, others sold to Spanish ships enroute to the
Canaries or the West Indies. 1520 There were twenty-two ordained Luso-African
priests in Ribeira Grande, many of whom would be sent to do missionary work in
Brazil. 1533 Vila de Ribeira Grande is elevated to the status of a city. A
regional diocese based in Cape Verde is established by Papal decree. 1536
Introduction of the Holy Inquisition and the Jesuit religious order in Portugal.
Large scale persecution of Jews and "New Christians" begins. In 1538 leading
citizens of Cape Verde petitioned the king in a vain attempt to establish the
Inquisition in Cape Verde. They charged that some two hundred so-called "New
Christians" (Christianized Jew or ladinos) were living with Africans on the
Coast in violation of Royal edicts. One motivation for the strong feelings may
have been that these traders or "lan½ados" were successfully competing with Cape
Verde-based business interests and were beyond the regulatory hand of the Crown.
1542 French pirates sink two vessels off of Fogo.
1544 French vessels attack Ribeira Grande, Santiago.
1550 A Bishop takes up residence in Cape Verde with jurisdiction for most of
West Africa.
1560s John Lovell and later George Fenner, both English privateers, make
damaging raids on Ribeira Grande.
1563 The volcano on the Island of Fogo erupts.
Between 1563-1995 the volcano has erupted 29 times.
1580-1582 Bishop Brandao describes "a great famine" in Cape Verde in his letters
to church officials in Lisbon.
1580-1640 Spanish kings rule Portugal. The people of Sao Felipe on the Island of
Fogo refuse to fly the Spanish flag for six years and steadfastly fly the
Portuguese colors.
1582 and 1585 Sir Francis Drake, the English privateer, sacks and burns Ribeira
Grande. Frequent attacks by English, French, and Dutch pirates were occasions
for slaves to runaway to the remote interior regions of Santiago Island where
communities of free Africans were formed as early as the mid-16th century. These
people became known as badius from the Portuguese word for vagabond or runaway.
1582 The Account of the Islands of Cabo Verde by Francisco Manuel Andrade
provides evidence of the growth of slave communities in Cape Verde. Andrade
reports the combined population of Fogo and Santiago as 13,408 persons by
categories. These included 508 "inhabitants" (vezinhos), owning 5,000 slaves and
200 renters owning 1,000 slaves. Settlements in the interior comprised 600
whites and pardos (mixed blood), 400 married free blacks, and 5,000 slaves.
Fogo's population was given as 300 renters and 2,000 slaves. Only 12.7 percent
of the inhabitants of Santiago and Fogo were free persons.
By mid-16th century the weaving craft became well established in Cape Verde. The
indigo-dyed body cloth or pano woven in the Islands became part of the
commodities mix in the currency of the slave trade. African weavers who were
brought to Cape Verde to establish the "weaving craft industry" were Jalof (Walof),
Mandinga, Seninkes, Biafares, Sassos (Susu), Felupes (Fulani), Papeis (Papels),
and Banhuns. Antonio Carreira, the distinguished Cape Verdean historian, writes
that the best weavers were from the Mnadingo people. The body cloths were woven
on horizontal narrow band treadle looms.
1550s-1600s Notwithstanding Royal Portuguese proclamations prescribing severe
penalties, Cape Verdean trade with western Africa significantly expanded as
mutually advantageous commercial relations are established with African groups
associated with the Banyun-Bak, Biafada-Sapi, and Mande networks.
1583 Famine ravages Cape Verde after more than a century of environmental
exploitation irreparably damages the fragile ecosystems of the islands.
1596 King Filipe II of Spain orders the construction of fortifications above
Vila de Ribeira Grande to defend against pirates.
1598 Dutch ships raid Ribeira Grande, Santiago
1605 - 1611 Famine conditions in Santiago are compounded by smallpox and a
plague of blood sucking flies which torments both humans and livestock.
1620 English settlers aboard the ship Mayflower arrive in America and establish
the Plymouth Colony.
1620s English codfishers begin to routinely call at Maio and Sal to take on salt
before sailing on to the rich fishing grounds off of Newfoundland, Canada. So
many English flag vessels came that Vila do Maio became known as Porto Inglez.
About 80 vessels per year were engaged in the salt trade.
1623 Authorities in Vila de Ribeira Grade on Santiago petition the Crown not to
appoint a Royal Governor for Cape Verde. Lisbon responded that "the people are
revolutionary, there are cases of homicide and other crimes, and that the
natives which are many would assassinate the whites which are few and become
heads of the government and will govern". (Barcelos, Subsidios para a historia
de Cabo Verde e Guine, parte 1, p. 228).
1634 Mathias DeSouza described as a mulatto and an indentured servant to Jesuit
priests was among a group of six African passengers to land at the colony of St.
Mary's, Maryland aboard the Ship Arc. After working off his indenture, DeSouza
was a translator for the colonists in their dealings with local Native peoples.
Later DeSouza piloted his own ship. In 1642, DeSouza was elected to serve in the
Maryland General Assembly. There is sufficient reason to assume that he may have
been a Cape Verdean. (Maryland Hall of Records).
1643 Massachusetts Bay colonist Jonathan Winthrop records in his journal that a
ship out of Boston carrying boat staves for sale in England made a voyage to the
Island of Maio in Cape Verde and there purchased "Africoes" which were then
taken to Barbados and sold to purchase molasses for shipment to Boston rum
producers. This is the first recorded incidence of the infamous "triangular"
Atlantic slave trade.
1652 The capital of Cape Verde is moved from Vila de Ribeira Grande to a more
militarily defensible location at Praia.
1654 With the restoration of the Portuguese monarchy and the recovery of the
Portuguese empire in Brazil a dramatic reduction in trade between the merchants
of Portugal and the Islands followed. Hard currency (gold and silver coin) was
drained away. The royal government refused to raise the value of money in
circulation. The Royal monopoly system in the slave trade, transportation and
produce stifled even the smallest local initiatives. A policy of disinterest and
neglect would characterize Portuguese colonialism in Cape Verde for the next
three hundred years.
The island of Fogo distinguished itself as the only Portuguese territory that
never flew the Castellan flag. As a reward the village of Sao Filipe was give
the administrative status of cidade (city) after Portugal regained its throne
from Spain in 1640.
1680 Earthquake and volcanic eruptions in Fogo force many people to abandon
their homes and relocate on Ilha Brava. The Pico volcano on Fogo (2,829m / 9,281
feet high) has a crater of less than 500m in diameter and 180m deep). The
volcano on Fogo would be almost continuously active from the time of Portuguese
settlement in the early 1500s to 1760.
1680 The barafula was the unit of exchange in the Cape Verde islands and on the
Guinea coast. An ordinary Cape Verdean cloth was known as a barafula; one
standard iron bar could be traded for two barafula cloths.
A single goat skin selling for between 160 and 300 reis in the Cape Verdes could
be marketed in Boston for the equivalent of 600 reis (Duncan 1972:171 in Meintel).
Three Spanish Capuchin priests in Bissau (1683-86) were ejected in favor of
Portuguese Franciscans at the behest of a local Portuguese priest, on the
grounds that the Spaniards had not attempted to form commercial ties with local
groups but had "only" tried to convert them. (Rodney 1970:143)
1687 (January 23) Decree of the Portuguese Crown prohibits the sale of the Cape
Verdean-produced cotton body cloths (panos) to foreigners under penalty of
death.
1690 The Governor reported that several years of drought had claimed some 4,000
victims, most of them slaves (Duncan 1972: 235-36).
1693 The cathedral at Ribeira Grande is dedicated. Most of the building's
exterior stone work was transported from Portugal as ship's ballast over many
decades. The long delay in completing the construction suggests a lack of civic
spirit and interest in religious matters. The Bishop of Bahia (Brazil) described
the population of Ribeira Grande in 1552 as "richer in money than in virtue".
Padre Antonio Vieira, the famous Portuguese literary figure of the era, stopped
in Ribeira Grande en route to Brazil. In a sermon in the Cathedral he said that
"the local [Afro-Portuguese] priests are as black as coal [azeviche] but they
are well behaved, knowledgeable and well versed ...and would be the envy of the
priests of our Cathedral [in Portugal]".
It would take the Bishop of Cape Verde until the 1720s before a pastoral visit
would be scheduled to the West African coast. It would take until 1975 and the
independence of Cape Verde before the Catholic Church would appoint a Cape
Verdean to serve as Bishop of Cape Verde.
1700 Governor of Cape Verde complained to the Bishop that marriages had been
celebrated between Cape Verdean women and foreign pirates on Sao Nicolau and
Santo Antao, despite the fact the "His Majesty does not want foreigners, much
less pirates" in the colony. (Barcelos 1900 I:163)
1701 A royal letter directs that slave owners should cease to obstruct marriages
between black freemen and slave women, which they had been doing by setting
exorbitant prices for women's freedom Carreira 1972:282).
1708 Governor Cranston of Rhode Island reported that 103 vessels had been built
in his tiny colony between 1698 and 1708 and in most cases made a slave voyage.
Many of these ships stopped in Cape Verde to trade for salt or buy slaves.
1719 Drought and famine in Santiago.
1740s American ships begin to routinely call at Cape Verde for provisions.
Before 1750 many crewmen aboard Nantucket whaling ships were Cape Verdeans. An
all-male pattern of immigration to America begins.
1747 Crop failure in most of the Islands.
1753 The Provisions of 1753 (revised in 1792) state that it is "illegal for any
foreigner of whatsoever Nation to open a house of business on the island, or
make any stay or sojourn on it for more than 20 days without a special order
from the Government..."
1754 Drought and famine in all of the Islands. High mortality.
1764 Drought and famine. Brava and Boavista suffer the worst of the crisis.
1766-1776 According to Cape Verdean historian Antonio Carreira, the Customs
House records of Praia indicate that about 95,000 pieces of Cape Verdean body
cloths (panos) were shipped to the Guinea Coast as part of the ongoing trade in
slaves during this ten year period alone.
1770 The Lieutenant Captain from Fogo arrives in Brava to restore order
following a riot.
1770s The record of the Connecticut Legislature identifies a certain petitioner
as "Jonah, a black man native to the Cape Verde Islands". By the mid-18th
century a few Cape Verdeans were residing in many Southern New England port
towns.
1773 Famine in Fogo following a devastating locust infestation. The population
of Fogo drops from 5700 to 4200 inhabitants. Incidents of cannibalism are
recorded in official documents. (Antonio Carreira et al).
1774 (September) to 1775 (February) 22,666 people die in the archipelago. Some
people are sold into slavery in exchange for food. All of the livestock died in
Maio and Brava.
1776 The war of independence begins in the English colonies of America.
1788 (August) The log of the sloop Washington out of Boston records the death of
Marcus Lopius, a ship's crewman taken on in Cape Verde. Lopius (Lopes) was
killed by Tilamook Indians on the Oregon coast as he attempted to defend Captain
Grey from attack. The site of the killing was later named Murderer's Cove. The
ship was part of the expedition which "discovered" the Columbia River and opened
up the fur trade in that region. This is the first record of an African in the
Pacific Northwest region.
1790 Drought and famine in Brava.
1791 More than 800 people die from famine in Santo Antao.
1804 Drought and famine conditions in all of the Islands lasts for two years.
1808 United States officially abolishes the importation of slaves. However, the
institution of slavery would continue in the U.S. until President Abraham
Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865.
1810 Drought and famine in all of the Islands. High mortality.
1811 (December 27) Many people protest against new taxes enacted to support the
militia in Santiago. The leaders of the protest were deported as prisoners to
the Governor to Brazil. Barcelos reports that the authorities "did not trust the
creole soldiers because on the day of the riot they declared that they would not
pull the trigger against the rebellions".
The "lack and total abandonment" of public education was such that by the
nineteenth century, very few had any schooling, "including the whites
themselves" (Chelmiki and Varnhagen 1841:192; see also Lima 1844, Part 2: 111-12
cited in Meintel).
1816 Volcanic eruption in Fogo.
1816 Samuel Hodges of Stoughton, Massachusetts, and Manuel Antonio Martins of
Cape Verde establish a "joint business venture" which involved smuggling
American merchandise aboard African vessels to ports up and down the West
African coast. In 1818, in response to the volume of American merchant and
whaling shipping in Cape Verde, the U.S. government establishes its first
consulate and appoints Hodges U.S. Consul.
1822 (January) Rent strike by sharecroppers and tenants against Colonel Domingos
Ramos, President of the District of Engenho in the interior of Santiago. The
protesters were demanding agrarian reform which would transfer title to those
people who actually worked the land.
1823 The Crown is locked in a civil war in Portugal and does not respond to
calls for famine relief in Cape Verde. In the same year three ships arrive from
the United States carrying emergency supplies donated by American civic and
church organizations.
1825-1875 An average of 100 American whaling ships called at Cape Verde each
year.
1825 Famine in Santo Antao. Governor Chapuzet uses the profits from the sale of
the valuable urzela dye to finance emergency relief for victims. Portuguese
Crown responds by removing the Governor from office.
Between 1826 and 1880, 338 American vessels are recorded as having put in to
Maio for salt (Carreira 1971:71 in Meintel).
1830 Drought and famine throughout the country. 30,000 people or 42% of the
total population die.
1830 Manuel Antonio Martins officially established the village of Santa Maria.
Here he bases the first of his salt production businesses. At its peak the
company exports 30,000 tons per year. 1831-1834 Half of the population of Fogo
die from famine.
1830 Portugal outlaws the buying and selling of slaves.
1832 Charles Darwin, the English scientist, stops in Porto Praia, Cape Verde, on
the outward-bound voyage of the HMS Beagle. On his return visit in 1836, Darwin
records in his diary, "We found lying there, as commonly is the case, some
slaving vessels."
1832-33 Famine in Cape Verde. The ship Charles out of Boston arrived in Cape
Verde carrying supplies donated by the people of Boston, Portland, Newburyport,
Charlestown and Ipswich. Later that year the ship Citizen passing in Cape Verde
also discharged some of its provisions. 30,000 people died from the famine.
Santo Antao was the worst affected where 11,000 died out of a population of
26,000.
1835 (March) 225 deportees from Sao Miguel in the Azores stage a protest in
Praia against Portuguese authorities. The protesters sail away to Brava to
escape authorities.
In the first eighty years of the nineteenth century 2,570 European degredados
disembarked on the islands. These included convicted murderers, church robbers,
thieves, counterfeiters as well as alcoholics, deserters, vagrants, prostitutes
and political and religious offenders. Antonio Carreira reports that 2,487 men
and 83 women were landed in Cape Verde as degredados in this period. Note the
insignificant number of women. These persons were sentenced to banishment in
Cape Verde and were distributed throughout the archipelago to avoid the
development of any concentration on Santiago. Eventually, whites helped these
degredados from Portugal for reasons of "esprit de couleur". Most eventually
rehabilitated themselves and became useful members of Cape Verdean society. Most
never returned to Portugal.
1835 (December 26) Slaves from around the island of Santiago converge on Praia
and begin attacking people with the announced intention of "killing all white
landowners". They called on all "free poor" to join them and together "they
would take possession of the island" (Barcelos, parte IV p. 224). A report
prepared by the local Judge affirmed that "the slaves intended to obtain their
freedom and that for this they determined to kill their Lords and afterwards
embark for Guinea". (Barcelos IV, p. 122).
1837 Colonel Honorio Pereira Barreto (1813-1859), a Cape Verdean, is appointed
governor of Portuguese Guinea. Baretto proved to be an efficient defender of
Portuguese economic interests against the encroachments of French and British
traders. The administration of this controversial figure is thought by many to
have actually prolonged the slave trade on the Coast.
1842 Records list 87 American merchant ships trading in the Islands as compared
to 61 Portuguese and 36 British ships. Between 1851 and 1879, 338 American ships
stopped in the Islands to trade for salt.
1842 First commercial printing operation established in Cape Verde.
1843-1859 The anti-slavery Africa Squadron of the U.S. Navy patrols West African
coastal waters from its base at Cape Verde. The USS Constitution("Old
Ironsides") served with this squadron in Cape Verde. Captain Matthew Perry was
the last Commander of the Squadron. Sometime after Perry would command the
famous U.S. mission which opened up trade with Japan. Only 19 slavers were every
actually charged in court as a result of the 16 year largely symbolic and
ineffective operation. Most of those convicted paid light fines and served very
short sentences.
1843 Drought and famine in Santo Antao, Santiago, Sao Nicolau and Brava.
1844 During 1844 and the first third of 1845 forty-two American whaling ships,
one English, and one French entered Cape Verde to fish. Not one Portuguese flag
vessel was recorded. From 1844 to 1891, 166 American whalers were noted (based
in Brava or Sao Nicolau), with one French, one English and six other ships with
Portuguese names.
1847 Volcanic eruption in Fogo.
1850 Drought and famine in Santo Antao, Sao Vicente, Sao Nicolau, Boavista and
Sal.
1852 Volcanic eruption in Fogo.
1853 Drought and famine in Sal and Boavista.
1855 Coal workers in Mindelo, Sao Vicente protest working and wage conditions
established by the English businessmen operating the coaling station. Their
demands for better working conditions were rejected. At its peak, Mindelo was
the 4th largest coaling station in the world. 1859: 167 vessels call at Mindelo.
In 1898: 1503 vessels.
1854-1855 A cholera epidemic in Fogo kills more than 800 people. Many of the
dead bodies found unburied in local homes were fed to the pigs by authorities.
(Antonio Carreira)
1850s Petroleum is discovered in Pennsylvania, providing a cheaper alternative
to whale oil. At the same time the South Seas whaling grounds were rapidly
becoming depleted and the New Bedford fleet was compelled to begin working the
Arctic region. These developments dramatically affected the economics of the
whaling industry and eventually led to its collapse by the beginning of the
American Civil War. As young white seamen made their way into the military or
took more desirable job opportunities onshore, over half of the crew lists would
be filled by Cape Verdeans. The net earnings per voyage of foremast hands aboard
the Yankee whalers in twenty three voyages made by representative vessels during
the years 1836-79 was $30.47.
1850s Manuel Antonio Martins, an affluent Cape Verdean trader and honorary vice
consul of the United States, begins to develop a salt extraction business in
Pedra de Lume, Ilha do Sal. The natural salina is in the floor of an extinct
volcano.
1854-1856 25% of the population of Cape Verde perish in famine. After hearing of
the crisis members of the New York Corn Exchange appoint a commission to collect
funds and provisions. $5,800. was immediately raised in New York City. Citizens
of Alexandria, Va. sent 500 bushels of wheat and the Corn Exchange of Baltimore
sent $1,045 to New York. On July 24, 1856 the New Hand arrived in Cape Verde
with provisions.
1860 The population of the archipelago is recorded as approximately 90,000.
1809-1861 Historian Curtin estimates that approximately one million slaves were
illicitly imported to the Unites States between 1809 and 1861 (1961:13).
1861-1865 Civil War in the United States.
1861 Cape Verdeans were among the crew of the Great Stone Fleet. Old New Bedford
and Fairhaven whaling ships heavily laden with stone sailed to Charleston,SC, in
a desperate attempt to blockade this important Confederate harbor. Ironically,
the action had the unintended effect of dramatically improving navigability in
the Charleston harbor!
1862-1867 The population of Santiago Island diminished by 18,000 and by 29,845
in the archipelago.
1865 (Royal Order 169, October 4, 1865) Banco Nacional Ultramarino is chartered
and begins making loans collateralized on the security of a mortgages on rural
and urban properties. At the end of a very few years the Bank owned most of the
properties in Santiago. The social system in Cape Verde begins to dramatically
change with the shrinking of the class of wealthy landowners and the growth of a
"petty bourgeoisie" due in large measure to the spread of education and later by
the influence of emigration to the United States. The returned literate emigrant
having acquired economic ease and an awareness of his own social esteem by
perseverance and hard work in foreign lands gradually displaced the "county
whites" of Cape Verde from their lofty position. Between 1920 and 1940 the Bank
foreclosed on many properties and took over direct administration or sold them
at auction for a small fraction of their value. Eventually all property values
collapsed ushering in the death of the "haute bourgeoisie".
In spite of the tumult of the credit crisis the land tenure system remained. In
1970 there were 52 large property owners in Santiago with 40 or more tenants
holding 136 properties leased out - for rent or sharecropping - to a total of
11,876 tenants and 13,076 share croppers.
The "invisible earnings" in the form of immigrant remittances from the United
States and elsewhere largely covered the balance of payments deficit.
1867 Eugenio Tavares (1867-1930) is born in Brava. Tavares became the leading
composer of Cape Verdean mornas, a champion of Kriolu language and culture and a
romanticized figure in Cape Verdean lore. Perhaps his most famous work is "Hora
di Bai", the bittersweet "Hour of Leaving" which was traditionally sung at the
docks in Brava as people boarded the America-bound schooners.
1869 U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant arbitrates the long dispute between
Portugal and England and rules "ownership" of Bolama island on the coast of
Guine to Portugal.
1863 Famine throughout the archipelago.
1864 (July- November) Rains come to Cabo Verde. However, lack of seed and tools
prevent farmers from taking advantage of the rains. Food aid arrives from
Lisbon, Madeira and the colony of Sao Tome. Malaria and influenza kill many.
Over a five year period the population of Fogo looses 7000 people. Large scale
immigration begins.
1864 (October 6) The bark Susan Jane arrives in New Bedford carrying the first
Cape Verdean women to immigrate to the USA, ending a century-old all-male
pattern of immigration. Some Cape Verdean scholars look to this date as the
beginning of the Cape Verdean "community" in the United States.
1866 The San Jose Seminary is established in Ribeira Brava, Sao Nicolau, to
train priests, including Africans from Portuguese Guine. The Seminary becomes
the educational center of Cape Verde for the next 75 years.
1865 United States abolishes slavery.
1869 Portugal abolishes slavery. 1870 The population of the archipelago is
recorded as approximately 80,000.
1870 The British establish a transatlantic telegraph cable linking Mindelo with
their international telecommunications system.
1875-76 Poor rains and crop failures devastate Santiago and Santo Antao.
1879 The administration of the colony of Portuguese Guinea is officially
separated from Cape Verde for the first time.
1883 Irregularity of rains bring on a famine. In spite of government aid
programs there is a repetition of the high mortality rates of 1864. Fogo suffers
more than the other islands.
1884-85 Major European powers convene the Berlin Congress to establish the
division of their colonial territories in Africa. The borders drawn on the map
of Africa at this Congress remain largely in tact to this day.
1887 Brazil, the principal buyer of salt in Ilha do Sal, imposes a high customs
duty on imported salt as a protectionist measure for its own emerging national
salt industry. This singular act marks the turning point in the economic history
of Ilha do Sal.
1890 Crop failures throughout the country. Famine in Maio and Brava.
1892 Antonio Coelho buys the Nellie May and becomes the first Cape Verdean to
own and operate a packet ship between Providence and Cape Verde. Many of the old
whaling vessels were bought by Cape Verdeans and put into the Brava Packet
Trade. "The round trip was facilitated by a relatively mild wind and current
pattern: northwest from Fogo or Brava to the Gulf Stream, then north to New
England, east and southeast past the Azores to the northeast trades, then south
to home: 35 days to America, 45 days return, with variation in track and time
according to the season." (Francis M. Rogers, Harvard Encyclopedia of American
Ethnic Groups. Cambridge, MA. 1980)
1894 First Cape Verdean literary journal, Almanach Loso- Africano, published in
Ribeira Grande, Sao Nicolau.
1895 Governor Serpa Pinto officially prohibits popular celebrations on the feast
of Santa Cruz in which local villages dressed in costume and irreverently took
on the roles of the Governor, Judges, the King and Queen and other leading
officials and practiced the ceremonies and African drumming and chanting
referred to as "tabanka".
1885 Manuel Ricardo Martins, born in Maio in 1837, established the first Cape
Verdean Protestant congregation in the United States. From very humble
beginnings the Portuguese Mission of Providence, RI expanded its services to the
Fox Point neighborhood to include an industrial school for women,
"Americanization" classes for new immigrants, Girl and Boy Scout Troops and many
other activities.
1898 Conigo Antonio DaCosta of the Seminary at Sao Nicolau publishes a Cape
Verdean Crioulo translation of the sections of the Lusiadas, the epic poem of
the heroic age of Portuguese exploration by Luis Camoes.
1900s The textile industry boom in New Bedford creates many job opportunities
for immigrant labor. In 1880 there were two mills employing 2,700 workers, and
by 1905 there were 15 mills with almost 15,000 workers.
1900-1903 Drought and famine. 11,000 people or 15% of the population perish.
1900 North Carver, Massachusetts. A fist fight erupts into a riot by Cape
Verdean cranberry workers. Public expression of labor discontent was rare on the
bogs. In 1933 similar dissatisfaction led to a strike.
1902 The beloved poet, Jorge Barbosa (1902-1971) was born in Praia. Barbosa
published his first collection of poetry, Aquipelago, even before the formation
of the literary movement Claridade.
1903 Marcelino Manoel da Graca (1881-1960), an immigrant from his native Ilha
Brava, arrives in New Bedford. In 1919 after working as a cranberry picker and
later as a railroad cook, he establishes a small chapel in a wooden shack in
West Wareham, Massachusetts and called it the United House of Prayer for All
People. While working the railroad he became a charasmatic preacher, and made
many claims of miraculous healing. By the time he opened several churches in
Charlotte, NC and elsewhere he was known as "Sweet Daddy Grace" to his
followers. By the time of his death and internrment in New Bedford, MA., Bishop
Grace had established over 350 congregations with followers numbering over three
million. His worship services included dynamic preaching from the philosophy of
self help was characteristically accompanied by full brass band. During the
Great Depression Bishop Grace's soup kitchens were well used my many of
America's black communities.
1905 Population of the archipelago recorded as approximately 135,000.
1905 Cape Cod, Massachusetts. There are public discussions about the need to
establish segregated public schools to accommodate the growing number of Cape
Verdeans who were "planting roots" in Cape Cod following the cranberry harvest.
In Marion, Massachusetts, a town directive was issued against further employment
of Cape Verdeans in public works. At the Wareham, Massachusetts High School
graduation program the commencement address was entitled "Drifting Backwards" in
which the valedictorian said she "deplored the influx of cheap labor" and
bemoaned the fact that "our poor American girls are obliged to labor side by
side (in the cranberry harvest) with these half civilized blacks." Several years
later (1917) Belmira Nunes Lopes, a Cape Verdean immigrant, gave the valedictory
and spoke on the theme of "The Ideal Town" as one with no prejudice. Lopes went
on to be the first woman of color to graduate from Harvard's Radcliffe College.
[See Laura Pires Hester, 1995]
1905 The Portuguese Catholic congregation of New Bedford Cape Verdeans begin to
express displeasure with treatment which they regarded as racially
discriminatory. Cape Verdean community elders in New Bedford organized and
petitioned the Bishop of the Diocese of Fall River to establish a Cape Verdean
parish. Our Lady of the Assumption Church was established as the first Cape
Verdean Catholic Church in the United States.
1906 As early as 1906 Cape Verdeans from Brava begin to migrate to California
and found work in the reconstruction following the great San Francisco
earthquake. Eventually communities grew in Sacramento, Alameda, and the Napa
Valley. Since the 1960s Cape Verdeans have also been moving to Southern
California.
1907 Cape Verdean novelist, Manuel Lopes born in Santo Antao. His second novel,
Os Flagelados do Vente L'este , (the Flagellated of the East Wind), established
him as a central figure in the literary life of Cape Verde. He was a founding
member of the journal Claridade.
1910 The Portuguese King is assassinated. The monarchy is overthrown. In 1911
the Portuguese Republic is established.
1910 Population of the archipelago is recorded as approximately 140,000. Malaria
and influenza ravage the people.
1910 Workers in the port of Sao Vicente strike for better working conditions and
wages.
1910 (November) Rubon Manel, Santiago. Padre Antonio Duarte Da Graca speaks out
against the arrest and imprisonment of a small group of women for having
illegally harvested wild pulgeira seeds. The collection and export of these soap
producing seeds were controlled by government monopoly. The priests protest
gradually spread into a revolt by many local people who march with swords and
stones and attacked the Cruz Grande prison. Da Graca slogan which resonated with
local villagers was "Now there is no black, no white, no rich, no poor...we are
all equal!". Militia eventually put down the revolt.
1913 1691 Cape Verdeans legally immigrate to the United States. Almost all of
the immigrants from Cape Verde arriving in the USA before 1922 enter through the
ports of New Bedford or Providence.
1914 World War I begins in Europe. Portugal declares its neutrality.
1915 Pedro Cardoso publishes the first book of Cape Verdean poetry in Praia,
Caboverdeanas.
1915 Fishermen in Sao Vicente stage a strike in protest against new taxes
imposed on them.
1916 A total of 1829 legal immigrants from Cape Verde enter the United States.
1917 Cape Verdean Benificente Association founded in New Bedford. The
organization would be the first of many mutual aid societies and voluntary
groups to be founded by Cape Verdeans in America.
1918 Armistice signed ending World War I.
1918 Theophilus Freitas of Sao Nicolau is captain of the New Bedford whaler
Pedro Varela on her last voyage. Other Cape Verdean whaling captains of courage
and perseverance include Teofilo Gonsalez (Gon½alves) of Brava, Luis Oliveira,
Jose Senna, Julio Fernandez, and Jose Perry.
1919 The heirs of Manuel Antonio Martins sell the salina and their salt
production business to a firm from Bordeaux, France and a new company was
established, Societe Salines du Sal. They install a tramway which revolutionized
their ability to transport the salt to the port. The 1100m tramway enabled the
company to transport 25 tons per hour. The company ceased all exportation in
1985. At its peak, the village of Pedra de Lume was an excellent example of a
"factory town". Literally every building, including the general store, the water
supply, workers residences and everything else except the church were owned by
the foreign company.
1920 A total of 1,506 Cape Verdeans legally immigrate to the United States.
1920 The population of the archipelago recorded at approximately 160,000. There
is a dramatic excess of unmarried females on some islands due to immigration
patterns. In Brava the ratio of women to men was 188 to 100.
1920 After several failed attempts to re-start the commercial salt business in
Santa Maria a Portuguese firm establishes the Compania do Fomento. In 1917
Fomento formed a joint venture with a Belgian firm already doing business in the
Congo. This new market played a major role in the economic viability of Santa
Maria until the end of the colonial era.
1922-1966 The United States government enacts new laws to restrict the
immigration of non-European peoples. Cape Verdean immigration to the U.S. was
reduced from a level of about 1500 per year to a mere trickle. These were years
of separation within the Cape Verdean extended family. The intimate cultural
contact between the American community and the villages of the Cape Verde
Islands was dramatically changed as the two communities became isolated from one
another. U.S. immigration records list 22,624 legal arrivals from Cape Verde
into the Port of New Bedford and Providence between 1860 and 1930.
As a direct result of America's "closed door" policy, Cape Verdeans begin to
seek out other countries for immigration. Today there are Cape Verdean
communities in Portugal, France, Italy, Sweeden, Norway, Spain, Luxembourg,
Brazil, Argentina, Angola, Senegal, Cote D'Ivoire and numerous other countries.
1924 American anthropologist, Albert E. Jenks, publishes a report entitled "New
Englanders Who Came From Afric Isles" in which he asserts that the leaders of
the Cape Verdean community in New Bedford began to prefer the designation of
"Cape Verdean" to describe their ethnicity rather than being classed as
Portuguese and as an alternative to being known as "black Portuguese". Since the
early 1920s Cape Verdeans in America have been struggling to be recognized as a
distinct ethnic group with a specific cultural heritage. (see Halter p. 152 ff).
1926 Portuguese economics professor, Antonio Oliveira Salazar orchestrates a
coup d'etat and overthrows the Portuguese government and launches the "New
State" fascist regime. From 1928 to 1974 Salazar and later his protege, Marcello
Caetano, ruled Portugal backed up by a very repressive state secret police
organization, P.I.D.E.
During most of the Salazar regime, tabanka was discouraged, and at times
actively suppressed.
1926 Joao Cristiano DaRosa, a Rhode Island Cape Verdean, establishes the first
Portuguese-language newspaper in America.
1929 Cape Verdean American lawyer and entrepreneur, Roy Teixeira and Albio and
Antonio Macedo join forces to purchase the 300 foot ex-clipper ship Coriolanus,
the largest of the Brava packet ships. In later years Teixeira would be legal
counsel to many of the Cape Verdean packet ship captains.
1930s During the Great Depression an average of 50% of the Massachusetts and
Rhode Island Cape Verdean labor force was unemployed. The average period of
unemployment was 18 months.
Manuel de Graça born in Brava in 1881, immigrated to Massachusetts as a young
boy with his family. Bishop Grace (or "Sweet Daddy Grace" as he was
affectionately called by his followers) established an evangelical church, the
House of Prayer for All People, which by the 1940s had a membership among
African Americans numbering over three million. During the Great Depression
Bishop Grace's soup kitchens were well used in many of America's black
communities.
1930 The Portuguese firm of J. A. Nacimento establishes a tuna fishing and
cannery business in Santa Maria. For most of the 20th century Cape Verde has had
several small tuna canneries which in spite of their archaic equipment and
technology produce products for domestic and export markets.
1931 Famine in Fogo and Santiago.
1932 The Santiago Society of Norwich, Connecticut, is established.
1933 Manuel Q. "Chief" Lido organizes the International Longshoremen's
Association Local 1329 in the Port of Providence, RI. A brother local was formed
in New Bedford in 1936. Cape Verdeans still retain effective control of these
two labor organizations. Julio J. ("Juli") Alves, Sr. (1917-1980) was elected to
lead the union as secretary-treasurer of ILA locals 1413 and 1465 in 1971.
1933 (September) Plymouth and Bristol Counties, Massachusetts. 1500 Cape Verdean
cranberry pickers stage a strike for better working conditions, guaranteed
employment until the end of the season, and the right to organize. Bog owners
bring in private security guards and eventually outside "scab" workers to break
the strike. This would be the first agricultural strike in the history of
Massachusetts.
1933 Antonio DeJ. Cardozo (1904-1984), an immigrant from Fogo and a onetime
cowboy on a Texas ranch, becomes the first student to be granted admission to
the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Cardozo would
become a successful Boston attorney.
1934 The Nantucket Light Ship is struck by a freighter and sinks killing its
mostly Cape Verdean American crew. Attorney Alfred J. Gomes (1897-1974) rallies
the Cape Verdean community to establish the Seamen's Memorial Fund to provide
scholarship assistance. Gomes also organized famine relief campaigns in response
to drought in the islands. Many Cape Verdean organizations support both island
relief and local educational and cultural issues.
1934 (June 7). Protesters carrying black flags march in the streets of Mindelo,
Sao Vicente against the government's lack of response to mounting famine
conditions. Under the leadership of Nho Ambrosino, a popular local leader, the
protesters sack and loot food warehouses and commercial establishments. The
event has been celebrated in Cape Verdean song and art as the "revolution of
Captain Ambrosio".
1934 (November 8). Captain Albertino de Senna of the Manta, the last of the New
Bedford whaling ships, now a Brava packet sets sail from Providence for Cape
Verde. After 107 days the ship was given up for lost. Soon after the schooner
Winnepesauke was also lost with all hands.
1936 The Claridade literary movement is founded in Cape Verde and begins its
exploration of the sources of Kriolu cultural identity and analysis of the
socioeconomic conditions in Cape Verde.
1937 Cape Verdean American Women's Social Club founded in New Bedford. Maria L.
Livramento (from Sao Nicolau) started the club in her home and remains active to
this day.
1939 Soldiers of the Germany's Third Reich invade Poland and World War II begins
in Europe. In spite of its formal neutrality, the Salazar government of Portugal
maintains close ties to the fascist regimes of Spain, Italy and Germany
throughout the War. The German SS actively cooperate with Portugal and train the
Portuguese secret state police.
1939 The government of Benito Mussolini given authorization to build a transit
airport on Ilha do Sal to support Italy's expanding contact with South America.
1941-1943 Famine and drought in all of the islands. Fogo looses approximately
7500 people (31% of its population); Sao Nicolau looses 28% of its population.
1940s-1960s A small segment of the rural "badiu" population on the island of
Santiago engages in periodic spontaneous revolts in opposition to Portuguese
Catholicism and colonial administration.
In the early 1960's the movement took on political significance and its members
were labeled as os rebelados [rebels] by the authorities who were quick to sense
the incipient communism in some of its precepts; formerly, the adherents of the
movement had been called simply increntes [unbelievers].
Among their precepts was a refusal to accept religious rituals performed by
priests; performed their own baptisms, weddings and venerated, in particular, a
copy of the Bible brought from America some years earlier. Adherents worked the
land communally, refused contact with outsiders, and forbade the killing of any
living creature. It was their refusal to deal with money, have contact with
priests, or allow their homes to be fumigated in an anti-malaria campaign that
brought os rebelados to the government's attention. The movements leaders were
eventually arrested, brutally interrogated, and finally dispersed among the
other islands. (J. Monteiro 1974: 107-8 cited in Meintel 1984: 142)
In the 1960s-1970s the Rebelados spiritually embraced the PAIGC anti-colonialist
liberation movement and its founder, Amilcar Cabral. The struggle and the spirit
of the Rebelados revolt is celebrated in the poetry of Corsino Fortes and
others.
1941 With the advent of World War II the shipping traffic calling at Mindelo
slows to 214 vessels ushering in a total economic collapse.
1941-1945 World War II.
1941 Edinburgh, Scotland. Protestant missionaries publish Pedas di Scitura na
Crioulo di Djabraba, selections of Holy Scripture in the crioulo of Brava.
1943 (August 23). A group of men from Brava, some born in America, risked a
clandestine Atlantic crossing aboard the packet Mathilde and set sail for New
England in the middle of World War II. They planned to secure emergency relief
supplies and immediately return to Brava. The Mathilde was lost at sea with all
hands somewhere near Bermuda.
1945 (October 21), New Bedford Standard Times reports " Nearly 150 German
prisoners of war assisted in harvesting the [cranberry] crop this season".
1940s-1950s Luso-African students in Portugal begin to actively network and
embrace the strategy of Pan-Africanism and national liberation. At the forefront
of this movement of African students were Eduardo Mondlane, founder of Frente de
Liberta½ao de Mo½ambique (FRELIMO), Amilcar Cabral, founder of the Partido
Africano da Independencia da Guine e Cabo Verde (PAIGC) and Agustinho Neto,
first president of the Movimento pelo Liberta½ao de Angola (MPLA).
1946-1948 Famine and drought. Santiago looses 65% of its population. Population
of the archipelago drops to 140,000. In 1946 alone 30,000 people or 15% of total
population dies.
1946 Cape Verdean Americans returning from military service in World War II
established the Cape Verdean American Veterans Association, New Bedford. Over
the years the organization has played a central role in advocacy for Cape
Verdean recognition within the USA. Cape Verdeans served in all branches of the
U.S. war effort in the Pacific and in Europe. Most served in segregated black
units. Some of the others with a lighter complexion found themselves assigned by
their superiors to white units.
1946 Portuguese Secret Police (P.I.D.E.) establish a prison at Chao Bom,
Tarrafal, Santiago Island to incarcerate political dissidents and
anticolonialists from Portugal, Cape Verde, Guine and other African colonies.
Ironically, Tarrafal prison would be a great breeding ground for post colonial
leadership in Lusophone Africa and Portugal. The powerful Cape Verdean morna
Seis anos na Tarrafal (Six years in Tarrafal) memorializes the plight of
political prisoners and was very effectively used as an organizing tool during
the years of the anti-colonial struggle.
1947 Baltazar Lopes DaSilva ( 1907-1989) a founding member of the Claridade
Movement, publishes Chiquinho, the first novel by a Cape Verdean author on a
Cape Verdean cultural theme. However it would take until 1987 for a novel to be
published in the Cape Verdean Kriolu language, Odju d'agua by Manuel Veiga.
1949 (February) Collapse of Assistencia, Praia, Santiago. "Assistencia" was the
popular name of the colonial government's soup kitchen and welfare building. The
walls of the building were made of round boulders gathered from the beaches and
held together with very little cement. On day the building collapsed, crushing
hundreds of the city's poorest and most destitute people. The incident has been
celebrated in poetry and song as a metaphor for colonial neglect in Cape Verde.
1949 Ilha do Sal airport was completed by the Portuguese following the Italian
defeat in World War II. By 1949 the airport is fully operational and has been
gradually improved ever since. The airport remains one of the largest employers
in the country and the most important source of foreign revenue.
1951 Eruption of the volcano in Fogo.
1956 Jazz saxaphonist, Paul Gonsalves, son of Cape Verdean immigrants,
(1920-1974), receives major critical accalim for his improvised solo of Duke
Ellington's "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" at the Newport Jazz Festival
(captured on Columbia Records). Gonsalves was Ellington's principal soloist for
over 25 years. (see Hayden 1993 and Barboza 1992 for additional material of Cape
Verdean musicians).
1956 Amilcar Cabral founds the African Party for the Independence of Guine and
Cape Verde (PAIGC). Cabral, born in Guine of Cape Verdean immigrant parents, was
an agricultural engineer, poet, and Pan Africanist. He led the protracted
political and armed struggle for the independence of both Cape Verde and
Guinea-Bissau.
1957 Baltazar Lopes DaSilva publishes O Dialecto Crioluo de Cabo Verde,
spearheading the movement to legitimize and standardize the Kriolu language.
April 3, 1959 Portuguese troops open fire on striking workers at the Pijiguiti
Docks in the Port of Bissau, Guinea killing over 50 people. PAIGC initiates the
13 year armed struggle for independence.
1959-1960 Drought. No mortality recorded. Adequate measures taken by the
government to guarantee minimal food requirements.
April 1961 At a meeting in Casablanca, leaders of the anti- colonialist
movements in all of the Portuguese African colonies act to create the Conference
of Nationalists of the Portuguese Colonies (CONCP). The organization enhances
dialogue and strategic planning among the African anti-colonialist movements.
1960s Revolutionary poetry movement builds opposition to colonialism. Poets
Ovidio Martins, Kaoberdiano Dambara, Corsino Fortes, Onesimo Silveira, Abilo
Duarte and many others used their poetry to raise the popular consciousness and
public debate about conditions under colonialism and the need for change.
Mid-1960s. Charles Fortes leads a movement to organize a Black Coalition in the
State of Rhode Island and forms the Providence Corporation. The group's primary
focus was to pressure for entry of minorities into the building trades, increase
minority enrollment in area colleges and build solidarity across different
segments of the community. Many other Cape Verdean civic action groups would
look to the example of Fortes' leadership.
1964 The schooner Ernestina arrives in New Bedford on its last commercial voyage
to America.
1967 Belgian inventor and industrialist Georges Vynckier built a small guest
house on the beach at Santa Martia, Sal. With investment incentives from
government authorities and the assurances of South African Airways to lodge its
crews, Vynckier began to build Hotel Morabeza. Throughout the period of
sanctions against the apartheid government of South Africa, SAA planes would
make refueling stops in Sal. At its peak there were almost 40 SAA flights per
week in and out of Ilha do Sal. Revenues from these airport services, fuel
sales, and hotel fees were a major source of revenue for the country. (In the
1970s, many of the secret talks which led to normalization of relations between
South Africa and Angola would be hosted by Cape Verde).
1968 Drought in all of the Islands.
1969 Manuel T. Neves begins publishing a tabloid, the Cape Verdean News, Lynn,
Massachusetts.
1969 The Rev. Martin Gomes, a popular New Bedford athlete whose grandparents
were immigrants from Sao Nicolau, is the first Cape Verdean American ordained a
priest in the Roman Catholic Church.
1970 Riots erupt in New Bedford's West End, a predominantly African American
neighborhood, immediately following an unprovoked drive-by shooting of a Cape
Verdean American youth by whites. Cape Verdean and African American community
leaders and youth broaden political alliances to respond to local crisis.
Joaquim A. "Jack" Custodio takes to the radio airwaves and begins a 25 years
career as a "talk show" host and critic of government desegregation and human
rights efforts. Manuel Costa, Sr., becomes first Cape Verdean to run for city
wide office in New Bedford.
1971 Transitional Bilingual Education Act passed by the Massachusetts State
Legislature. In 1975, Cape Verdean parents and teachers of immigrant children in
the Boston Public Schools organized to petition the Massachusetts House of
Representatives to create a Cape Verdean Kriolu language bilingual education
program. The Commissioner of Education officially recognizes Cape Verdean Kriolu
as a "living language in Massachusetts.
1971 Internationally acclaimed rhythm and blues group of five Cape Verdean
American brothers change their stage name from the "Turnpikes" to their family
name, "Tavares". In the course of their career they produced 13 hit records and
have sold over five million recordings around the world.
1972-1976 Mary Santos Barros, daughter of Sao Nicolau immigrants, serves as a
member of the Massachusetts State Board of Education. In 1989 Barros, a
steadfast community advocate, is elected to a seat on the New Beford City
Council.
1972 Salah Matteos, a Cape Verdean American, travels to Guinea Conakry and meets
with PAIGC leadership. Upon his return to America, Matteos established the PAIGC-USA
Support Committee and begins organizing in Southern New England communities. In
the Fall of 1972 he conducts a regional conference in support of PAIGC in
Plymouth, Massachusetts.
1973 Judge James J. Bento (1898-1980) retires from the bench of the 4th District
Court in Plymouth County (Massachusetts.) Bento was active in Cape Verdean
community affairs in the Cape Cod and New Bedford area throughout his life.
January 20, 1973 Amilcar Cabral is assassinated in his Guinea- Conakry
headquarters by agents of the colonial government. ("The criticism by opponents
of the PAIGC was that it was dominated by Cape Verdeans. The effort to divide
Cape Verdeans from Guineans was also an element in the plot to assassinate
Amilcar Cabral...". At secret meetings in New York City, New Bedford,
Massachusetts and Providence, RI, in 1972 and 1973, PAIGC officials were engaged
in building their political support and conducting informational programs. The
Cape Verdean diaspora community and individual families were deeply divided at
this time over the issue of Cape Verdean identity and support for or opposition
to the PAIGC. (see Lobban, Richard in Cape Verde: Crioulo colony to Independent
Nation, 1995, notes p. 11-12)
September 24, 1973 PAIGC declares the independence of the Republic of
Guinea-Bissau. Luis Cabral, brother of the slain Amilcar, is the country's first
president.
February 1974 Cape Verdean-American Federation convention in Providence, RI.
This landmark meeting drew over 800 representatives from Cape Verdean American
communities throughout USA. At the center of conference deliberations were the
questions about the political future of the Islands and the cultural identity of
Cape Verdeans within American society.
April 25, 1974 Portuguese armed forces overthrow the fascist dictatorship in
Lisbon.
1975 (and 1978) adequate rainfall guarantees the harvest in the Islands.
1975 Judge George N. Leighton (Leitao), son of Cape Verdean immigrants, was
nominated by President Gerald Ford to serve as U.S. Distict Courct Judge for the
Northern District of Illinois. Leighton serves on the Federal bench until his
retirement in 1987. He was listed by Ebony Magazine as one of the "most
influential Black men in America".
February 22-23, 1975 Attorneys Aguinaldo Veiga, Roy Teixeira (Sr. & Jr.) and
Antonio DeJ. Cardoso convene the Juridical Congress of World Cape Verdean
Communities at the Sheraton Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts, and declare
independence in exile. These political forces gathered in a desperate attempt to
prevent approaching transfer of power by Portugal to the PAIGC. Outside of the
Sheraton, pro-independence forces from throughout New England rallied in a
demonstration organized by the PAIGC-USA Support Committee. Political divisions
within the Cape Verdean- American community were exacerbated by this event. The
UCID political party developed out of this Congress.
June 25, 1975 Mocambique assumes its independence under FRELIMO. Samora Machel
is the nation's first president.
July 5, 1975. Independence of the Republic of Cape Verde is proclaimed in Praia.
Aristides Maria Pereira is elected the nation's first president. Pereira, born
in Boavista, worked as a telecommunications administrator in Guinea and a
founding member of the Party. He was the Secretary General of the PAIGC after
the assassination of Cabral. Pedro Verona Pires, born in Fogo (1934) and a
commandant of the armed forces in Guinea, was elected prime minister. The United
States joined many governments in according diplomatic recognition to the
Republic of Cape Verde on the day of its independence.
A delegation of six Cape Verdean Americans from Tchuba, the American Committee
for Cape Verde, Inc. (Boston) attend the independence ceremonies in Praia.
Cape Verde assumes its independence with less than three months essential
supplies of food and medicine and a very weak private sector. Unemployment and
popular expectations are equally as high. In a very good year Cape Verde can
expect to produce only about 20% of the food it requires. The role of immigrant
remittances in the national economy takes on a greater importance. By the 1980s
almost 25% of the Gross National Product of Cape Verde is derived from immigrant
remittances.
Cape Verde sends its first Ambassador to the USA. In 1977, a General Consulate
is opened in Boston.
1975 November 11) Angola assumes its independence under the government of the
MPLA. Dr. Agustinho Neto is the nation's first president. Many years earlier
Neto, a Medical doctor, was held as a political prisoner in Cape Verde by the
Portuguese secret police. Many rural Cape Verdeans in Santo Antao and elsewhere
have fond memories of Doctor Neto. Neto died in 1979.
1976 President Aristides Pereira of Cape Verde presents the vessel Ernestina to
the "people of the United States" on the occasion of the bicentennial of
American independence. Built in Essex, Massachusetts in 1894, the restored
Ernestina is today berthed in the Port of New Bedford.
In 1976 the schooner Ernestina sailed from Mindelo enroute to Providence. Less
than a day out of Cape Verde, the vessel was dismasted and forced to return to
Sao Vicente. The historic voyage of re-patriation would have to wait for several
years.
1976 Smithsonian Institution invites the Cape Verdean Folkloric Group from New
Bedford, Massachusetts, to participate in the African Diaspora program of the
Festival of American Folklife on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
1978 Mindelo, Sao Vicente. First conference of International Cape Verdean
Communities. PAIGC-USA Support Committee and Tchuba, American Committee for Cape
Verde, Inc. were invited to form delegations and participate in the conference.
Cape Verdean associations from over 15 nations are represented at the
Conference.
1978 Prime Minister Pedro Pires makes his first official visit to New England
Cape Verdean communities in Boston, New Bedford and Providence.
1978 Extension School of Harvard University offers a course in Cape Verdean
Kriolu.
1978 Cape Verdean immigrant, Alcides Vicente, begins the first regular radio
broadcast in the United States in the Cape Verdean language. The program
services Rhode Island. A few years later, Romana Ramos Silva joins Vicente to
continue the program to the present day. There are Cape Verdean radio and TV
programs throughout the southeastern New England region.
1979 Mindelo, Sao Vicente. Colloquium on Crioulo. Under the direction of Manuel
Veiga, Dulce Almada Duarte and other Cape Verdean scholar-activists present the
first draft of a proposed standardized orthography.
November 1980 Nino Vieira leads a coup d'etat in Guinea-Bissau and overthrows
President Luis Cabral. Cabral receives safe passage to Cape Verde.
The schooner Ernestina sails from Sao Vicente to Newport RI and onto Providence
and New Bedford. The formal repatriation process for the vessel moves forward.
Today the vessel is the centerpiece of the historic Port of New Bedford.
Jan/Feb 1981 Following the split within the PAIGC in Guinea- Bissau, the African
Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV) is created in Praia.
1983 First visit of President Aristides Perreira to New England Cape Verdean
communities in Boston, New Bedford and Providence. Honorary Doctorate degrees
were conferred at Rhode Island College (Providence, RI) and Sacred Heart
University (Fairfield, CT).
1984 (July) Praia. At the invitation of President Pereira, a group of high
school graduates and faculty from the Cape Verdean Bilingual Program of Madison
Park High School (Roxbury, MA), visit Cape Verde. The visit is organized by
Manuel DaLuz Goncalves, Cape Verdean teacher and long time bilingual education
activist.
1986 (October 19) Samora Machel, President of Mozambique, is killed when his
plane explodes under suspicious circumstances.
1987 In the 1980s Cape Verde "attracted the highest per capita international aid
of any West African country.... In 1987, the country received $86 million in aid
- equivalent to half of the gross national product, or $246 in aid for each
islander. (NY Times Mar. 2, 1989: A15.)
1989 Edward Andrade, a Cape Verdean American, and Joao Rodrigues Pires, a Cape
Verdean resident in Praia, establish Cabovideo, a joint business venture
producing weekly television programming in the USA and Cape Verde.
1989 Praia. Conference on Literacy and Crioulo. Continued scholarly elaboration
of a new orthography for Crioulo and its use in adult literacy.
1990 Prime Minister Pedro Pires formally initiates the political opening or "Abertura",
a deliberate strayegy to open up the political process for eventual multi-party
elections in Cape Verde.
1990 The World Bank reported that of the 344,350 population in Cape Verde, 45%
were under 14 years old and less than 6% were over 65 years old. The infant
mortaliy rate of 1,000 live births was 55. Life expectancy at birth was 65
years.
Jan. 13, 1991 First multi-party elections in Cape Verde. Carlos Wahnon Veiga (MpD
- Movement for Democracy) elected Prime Minister.
February 17, 1991 Antonio Mascarenhas Monteiro, former President of the Cape
Verdean Supreme Court, elected President of the Republic.
1993 (November) U.S. Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts makes the first
ever official visit by a Member of the U.S. Congress to Cape Verde. Frank's
congressional district includes the New Bedford-Wareham area which is home to
the largest Cape Verdean American community.
As a result of talks initiated during this visit, a group of private New Bedford
commercial fishing industry representatives begin a dialogue with the Cape
Verdean government to establish a joint fishing venture in West African waters.
In spite of this strong occupational tradition, Cape Verdeans have not been a
part of the fishing industry in New Bedford or elsewhere in the USA.
1994 Cesaria Evora, dubbed the "Barefoot Diva" by French music fans wins a prize
for selling over 150,000 CDs in France. Her triumph signals the arrival of Cape
Verde on the "World Music" scene. (see 1994 World Music (The Rough Guide, pp.
274-281.) In September-October 1995 after signing a contract with Atlantic
Records, Cesaria made her first professional concert tour of the USA and Canada.
1995 Eruption of Pico volcano on the Island of Fogo. (April 2-3).
1995 President Mascarenhas of Cape Verde opens the 1995 Festival of American
Folklife at the Smithsonian Institution. The Cape Verdean Connection program
brings together over 100 musicians and grassroots tradition bearers from Cape
Verde and the Cape Verdean-American community. The Festival draws over one
million visitors to the National Mall and provides Cape Verdeans with the
highest level of visibility they have ever had in the United States.
1995 Cholera epidemic in Cabo Verde. Over 10,000 cases reported. Over 210 deaths
attributed to the epidemic by September 1995. Cape Verdean doctors petition
their Government to take more aggressive action to fight the epidemic.
1995 (October) Cape Verdean President Antonio Mascarenhas Monteiro makes his
first official visit to New England Cape Verdean communities. Mascarenhas was
awarded an honorary doctorate degree by the University of Rhode Island.
1995 (December 17) National elections in Cape Verde. The ruling party MpD
(Movement for Democracy) retains power in Cape Verde.
1996 For the first time Cape Verde sends a team to compete in the Olympic Games
(Atlanta, Ga).
1996 Cape Verdean Americans successfully organized a grassroots campaign to urge
the U.S. government to extend food assistance to Cape Verde for three years
beyond the scheduled termination of the program by USAID. As a direct result of
these efforts, the U.S. committed an additional $5 million dollars in food aid.
In the best of years Cape Verde is seldom able to feed more than 20% of its
population from its own agricultural production.
1997 (January 27) Antonio Laurenco Lopes of Juncalinho, Sao Nicolau celebrated
his 100th birthday at Our Lady of Assumption Church in New Bedford. Tony Lopes
served aboard the whaling schooners William Graber and Claudia. During the 19th
and early 20th century many Cape Verdeans made their way to a new life in
America as crewmen on the Yankee whalers.
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