The Making of the Cape Verdean is a book written about Cape Verdeans who migrated from the Cape Verde Islands in the late 1800's to the 1970's to New Bedford Massachusetts. The book is based on the historical facts about the Portuguese colonization of the Cape Verde islands and its people located off the West Coast of Africa. The author provides the history of colonization under Portuguese rule of Salazar and how the Cape Verdean people survived famine, imprisonment, torture, politcal unrest and the abandonment of the Portuguese government. In addition, the author gives you a voyeuristic view of what life was like growing up in the Cape Verdean community in New Bedford after they migrated to the United States. This book is a powerful recap of of Cape Verdeans from this period and location. There is no other documentation that captures the Cape Verdeans the way "The Making of the Cape Verdean" does in this book.

The Making of the Cape Verdean

By Manuel E. Costa Sr.

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Jeanne M. Costa
All right reserved.
;ISBN: 978-1-4634-0134-4

Contents

Foreword...........................................................................ixPreface............................................................................xviiAcknowledgments....................................................................xixQuotes.............................................................................3Historical Background of Cape Verde Islands........................................7Cape Verde Islands.................................................................16St. Thiago.........................................................................19St. Vicente........................................................................24Fogo...............................................................................31Brava..............................................................................34St. Antão.....................................................................37Sal................................................................................38St. Nicolau........................................................................39Boa Vista..........................................................................41Maio...............................................................................43Alheu Branco, Ilheu Raza, St. Luzia, & St. Maria...................................44General Information................................................................44Education in Cape Verde............................................................49Marriage and Illegitimacy..........................................................54The Future of Cape Verde...........................................................56Emigration to the United States....................................................61The Saga of the Cape Verdean Stevedore.............................................65Main Street of Cape Verdeans.......................................................67Our Country Cousins—Gente di Matto (People of the Woods).....................79Cape Verdeans and White Portuguese.................................................85Cape Verdeans and Black Americans..................................................89Playing the Dozens.................................................................93The Cape Verdean Man...............................................................95The Cape Verdean Woman.............................................................100Beautiful Cape Verdeans............................................................104Cape Verdean Economic Life—Past & Present....................................108Number Playing.....................................................................114The Cape Verdean & Crime...........................................................119The Cape Verdean Police............................................................121Cape Verdean Music / Canta Reis....................................................123Cape Verdean Social Life...........................................................135On Church, Religion, Death, Marriage & Divorce.....................................144Nostalgia..........................................................................152The Cape Verdean Dietary Habits in U.S.............................................166Home Remedies......................................................................170The Cape Verdean and Education.....................................................172The Cape Verdean and Sports........................................................180Cape Verdean Leadership............................................................184Well-To-Do Cape Verdeans...........................................................188Bibliography.......................................................................199Epilogue...........................................................................203A: Mannie Costa Letters............................................................209B: The Park Wall by Jeanne M. Costa................................................266C: Tables..........................................................................268D: Conta d'Odju: The All Seeing Eye................................................270E: List of Cape Verdean American Businesses........................................272F: Leon Dash Articles..............................................................276G: Poetry by Teobaldo Virginio de Melo.............................................286H: Speech by Amilcar Cabral........................................................288

Chapter One

Quotes

"After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second sight in this American world—Aworld which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the relevant of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the type of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness—an American, a Negro, two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings, two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."

William Edward Burghardt Dubois. The Souls of Black Folk

"A people that denies its past cannot escape being a prey to doubt of its value today and of its potentialities for the future."

Melville J. Herskovits Myth of the Negro Past

"Know the truth and the truth shall make you free"

King James Bible, John 8:32

"Know thyself!"

Socrates

"Perhaps it is too soon to write the history of the liberation of the Portuguese colonials. But those who will one day write it will have to recall a fact of characteristic influence on the development of these struggles, whether in their internal dynamic or in their relation with the outside world: the wall of silence built around our peoples by Portuguese colonialism. And this at a time when the continental 'wind of change' had begun to announce its message of the African awakening and the return of Africans to history.

While hastily modifying the Portuguese constitution so as to escape the obligations of the UN Charter, the fascist colonialism of Portugal also took care to suppress all means of non-official information about its 'overseas provinces.' A powerful propaganda machine was put to work at convincing international opinion that our peoples lived in the best of all possible worlds, depicting happy Portuguese 'of colour' whose only pain was the yearning for their white mother-country, so sadly torn from them by the facts of geography. A whole mythology was assembled. And as with other myths, especially those concerning the subjection and exploitation of people, there was no lack of 'men of science,' even a renowned sociologist, to provide a theoretical basis—in this case, luso-tropicalismo. Perhaps unconsciously confusing realities that are biological or necessary with realities that are socio-economic and historical, Gilberto Freyre transformed all of us who live in the colony-provinces of Portugal into the fortunate inhabitants of a Luso-Tropical paradise.

Not without success, as shown by an incident during the second All-African Peoples' Conference in Tunis during 1960, where we had some difficulty in being heard. One African delegate to whom we tried to explain our situation replied in all sympathy: "Oh, it's different for you. No problem there—you're doing all right with the Portuguese." At least it helped us to see that we could count only on ourselves. So we have intensified our effort to expose Portuguese colonialism, to break through this wall of silence and these lies that surround our peoples.

Yet a few years earlier, in 1954, one man had shown the courage not to believe without seeing for himself, and the audacity to make his way round Portuguese vigilance and to get through this wall. This was an Englishman, the writer Basil Davidson, who, exposing forced labor and racial discrimination in Angola with the irrefutable evidence of his African Awakening, drew world-wide attention to our colonial tragedy. In that moment, when we were still taking our first steps towards organization, when we still felt very alone and quite without means of making our case known to the outside world, this work of Basil Davidson's had a significant influence on us, stimulating those who had decided to go ahead and appreciably encouraging the hesitant. If this puts us in debt of thanks to the author, his best reward will surely have been the Salazar government's action against him.

When in 1960 we decided to strengthen our case abroad, we found his good support in London where indifference of 'the specialists' towards Portuguese colonies was practically complete. (I well remember one of them, smoking his pipe with a distant and abstracted air.) So we have thought it right and necessary that Davidson should be amongst us at this decisive time when, fighting on three fronts, we are face to face with Portugal's genocidal colonial war against Africa. Pioneer and veteran of Portuguese colonial problems, he could not turn his back on this major reality in our history, the armed confrontation with Portuguese colonialism. As in the past he was well informed, but he wanted to see for himself and draw his own conclusions. So he came to visit us, just as we are sure he will visit Mozambique and Angola. And he wrote this book about his visit, asking us to contribute a preface if we wished.

Nobody can accuse this writer of a lack of objectivity: on the contrary. He accepted every risk and fatigue that could bring him into personal touch with the way our people live now. He entered our country three times and stayed as long as he could, talked with anyone he wanted, lived the everyday reality of our life and struggle. Together we used the same boats, the same canoes, the same trails in the bush; we were present at the same meetings; we drank from the same calabash, ate from the same plate, crossed the same countless southern rivers, waded through the same mud, washed in the same water, lay down and rose at the same hour, were escorted by the same fighters. The same ants pestered us, the same bombers bombed us, the very mosquitoes mingled our blood. We admired the same strange landscapes of Boe, looked at the same Portuguese positions, soiled our clothes with the same lateritic earth as red as the blood of our fighters and the soldiers of Portugal.

But Europe, Cartesian and over-developed, demands the most objective objectivity wherever there is war: the wounds and the corpses. Hit or miss, the aircraft came, bombing us day by day. And we saw the same ruined villages, the same populations in flight from the bombs, the same dead burned by napalm, that same fighter scorched to the third degree yet still alive, the same bombs made in the USA dropped by aircraft made in Germany helped by radios made in Britain, the same shells from gunboats and frigates made in France. In smoking fields there was the same courage of our fighters, and their stubborn determination....

At a moment when young people and intellectuals of Europe or the United States demonstrate in favour of national liberation struggles, and when a growing number of journalists and writers find inspiration and themes for work in the little-known sacrifices of our peoples, it may not be out of place to recall that the heroic people of Vietnam will surely liberate itself, that our people will complete their liberation, that all oppressed peoples will rid themselves of imperialist rule. History itself demands no less. In our own interest it seems opportune for us to make here an appeal to rebellious youth and to intellectuals who take the side of the oppressed, and ask them to prepare for new stages in this common fight for progress and the good of mankind. Even in particularly difficult conditions we are achieving our duty to understand the reality of our own country, and transform it towards progress and justice. May others make ready to do the same."

Amilcar Cabral. 1968. Preface in No Fist Is Big Enough To Hide the Sky: The Liberation of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde by Basil Davidson. 1969. Lawrence Hill & Co. Westport, CT.

Historical Background of Cape Verde Islands

Looming out of the Atlantic Ocean like some foreboding apparition is the archipelago of the Cape Verdean Islands. For eons, these 10 islands and 8 islets remained undiscovered by Europeans until Diogo Gomes and Antonio da Nola came upon them purely by accident in the year 1460. Alvise Cadamosta, sailing under the aegis of Prince Henry, the Navigator, also touched here in one of his travels.

This archipelago lies between 14°48' and 17°12'N and between 22°41" and 25°22'W in the Atlantic Ocean. These islands, the possession of Portugal, are situated 370 miles west of Dakar, Senegal. They are divided into two groups, the Northern windward group called the Barlovento and the Southern leeward group called the Sotovento. These islands spread out in the Atlantic covering some 1557 square miles and their composition is of volcanic origin. One such volcano is still active on the island of Fogo. Annually, the average precipitation is 9.5 inches, the mean temperature is 75° F and the humidity makes the climate uncomfortable and unhealthy. The hot, dry climate results from westward blowing winds from the Sahara Desert and this helps set the stage of the Cape Verdean. Because of this unsavory climate there is a prevalence of tropical diseases that cause serious problems for the residents of the islands and the drought last up to three years at a time.

When Europeans found these islands about 1460, they were uninhabited. During the ensuing 500 years, what transpired to the people who came to inhabit the islands is quite unbelievable. How humans can endure and live under such adverse conditions is beyond belief and imagination. The Portuguese are known for their exploits in exploration and colonization, but they were too ambitious when they undertook the task of making the Cape Verdean Islands a paying investment. Then again, it might not have been their idea to gain profit but to expand their empire, because that is all that happened. This, however, happened at the inestimable cost of the Cape Verdean people.

How did these islands come to be the possessions of Portugal? The Cape Verde Islands served as the line of demarcation when Pope Alex VI issued a Bulla in 1493, assigning to Portugal all of the new lands to be discovered East of a line drawn from Pole to Pole, one hundred leagues off the Cape Verde Islands, and to Spain all of the lands West of the line. The Pope, being the head of the Christian world recognized the need to convert heathen people and approved the Portuguese claims to the African coast.

How did people come to settle these forbidden lands where habitation was seemingly impossible? The Portuguese colonizers stole Africans from the Guinea Coast and forced them into servitude in whatever capacity that suited them as a way station for vessels. This became Europe's first colony in Africa. The population there was quite low until slavery became a thriving and profitable business. Thus began the saga of this strange being, the "Cape Verdean." Again, coincidence played a cruel trick on the "Cape Verdean" because his plight began with a series of events that only fate could contrive. This was the time when Portugal was looking at a far off place to exile political undesirables and they were sentenced to be transported to this Godforsaken place, much like the dissenting British who were transported to Australia. The timing was perfect for meeting the demand for slaves in Brazil and the United States.

Another work that bitterly denounces Portuguese real or alleged colonial incompetence and misrule is Joao de Andrade Corvo's Estudos sobre as provinces ultra marinas, a 4 volume work commissioned by the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, published circa 1883-1887. The reader of these volumes will undoubtedly be left with the impression that if the Portuguese colonization was only half as retrograde and inefficient as it is represented having been in these pages, then the sooner the Portuguese left their overseas possessions the better for all concerned.

The greater majority of the educated classes are proud of their past history, and their present achievements overseas they are resolved to abdicate in the foreseeable future.

The above accounts are those of mainland Portuguese people of intelligence and culture and these were the feelings over 300 years ago and the latter account about 100 years ago. The Portuguese know that they haven't done right by the Cape Verdean people but actually demonstrate no guilty conscience in the matter. Clearly, nothing will improve until something is forced to be done by others.

During the era of slave trading, the island of St. Thiago, and then Sao Tome, became slaving depots where slaves from Upper and Lower Guinea, and other parts of the West Coast of Africa were collected and housed, pending dispatch to plantations and mines of South America, Cuba, and possibly the United States. Slave trade and the procurement of slaves was a vicious business with White Portuguese and mulattoes sailing up and down the coast of Africa bartering with African chieftains (otherwise threatening to kill them) and merchants of the flesh. Most commonly, they would dispatch heavily armed envoys into the hinterland to procure their precious cargo by force.

The story of slaves has been written by many authors and the reader who has not read any accounts of inhumane suffering that slaves endured would be appalled to know some of the things that happened. Slaves were captured from rival African tribes and sold to merchants for gaudy bolts of cloth, colored beads, salt, knives, and other metallic objects, but the main interest was rum. In pre-slavery days, rival tribes would either kill or indenture their enemies as prisoners of war. The Atlantic slave trade gave the collaborating African chiefs riches and prestige (not to mention the opportunity to stay alive themselves). The story unfolds in the interior where merchants would ply their "trade," and from there slaves would be bound together and forced to march to a particular port and transported to the Cape Verde Islands. Many never survived the urinating, defecating, vomiting trip. Some chose suicide. Some escaped. Others tried and were horribly maimed, disfigured, or executed to set examples for would-be escapees.

If we think the journey to the Cape Verde Islands was arduous, the accounts of traveling across the Atlantic actually read more like a horror film. People were packed in the holds of ships like sardines, many dying along the way. There was also the danger of being intercepted by British cruisers that were sailing the Atlantic in an effort to curb this illicit traffic. Rather than be apprehended and possibly lose their ships, the slave runners would drop all of their human cargo overboard chained to each other. The accounts involving this nefarious trade are too lengthy to go into in this particular work. Consult your nearest library.

In 1627, Francisco Lobo de Gama, the governor of Cape Verde described St. Thiago as "the charnel house and dung heap of the Portuguese empire." (cited by Hugh Thomas) Its mulatto inhabitants were characterized as being the most vicious and immoral on the face of the earth. Numerous foreign seafarers who called on the islands briefly were usually most uncomplimentary about their inhabitants.

All unmarried White men on Sao Tome, Cape Verde Islands, and other crown colonies were provided with a Negress, avowedly for breeding purposes. When the wife of a merchant died, he took a Negress. This was the accepted practice. The children from these White-Black unions were called mulattoes and were said to be mischievous and difficult to manage.

These latter accounts are from Race Relations in Portuguese Empire 1415-1825, by Charles R. Boxer. He stated, "It is an article of faith with many Portuguese that their country has never isolated a color bar with its oversea possessions and that their compatriots have always had a natural affinity for the contacts with colored peoples."

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Making of the Cape Verdeanby Manuel E. Costa Sr. Copyright © 2011 by Jeanne M. Costa;. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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