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TRANSFORMATION OF “OLD” INTO ATLANTIC SLAVERY: ISLANDS, C. 1500–1879

By

Lumumba Hamilcar Shabaka

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

History- Doctor of Philosophy

2013 ABSTRACT

TRANSFORMATION OF “OLD” SLAVERY INTO ATLANTIC SLAVERY: CAPE VERDE ISLANDS, C. 1500–1879 By

Lumumba Hamilcar Shabaka

This dissertation explores how the integrated the Cape Verde archipelago into the cultural, economic, and political milieu of Upper Coast between 1500 and 1879. The archipelago is about 300 miles off the coast of ,

West . The Portuguese colonized the “uninhabited” archipelago in 1460 and soon began trading with the for slaves and black African slaves became the majority, resulting in the first racialized Atlantic slave society. Despite cultural changes, I argue that cultural practices by the lower classes, both slaves and freed slaves, were quintessentially “Guinean.” Regional fashion and dress developed between the archipelago and mainland with adorning and social use of panu (cotton cloth). In particular, I argue Afro-feminine aesthetics developed in the islands by freed black women that had counterparts in the mainland, rather than mere creolization.

Moreover, the study explores the social instability in the islands that led to the exile of liberated slaves, slaves, and the poor, the majority of whom were of African descent as part of the Portuguese efforts to organize the Atlantic slave trade in the Upper

th Guinea Coast. With the abolition of slavery in Cape Verde in the 19 century, used freed slaves and the poor as soldiers and a labor force to consolidate

“.” Many freed slaves resisted this mandatory service. The transition to “legitimate trade” also sent “” merchants to the “Portuguese Guinea” to pursue commercial activities, while maintaining commercial and family ties with the archipelago, which reinforced cross-cultural exchange.

DEDICATION:

Pa juventudi di Kabuverdi, specialmenti kes diskonhecidu, UNIDADI E LUTA, NHÔS ÓRA DJA TXIGA!

iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, nothing in my life would be possible without the sacrifices of my loving and supportive mother. I am eternally grateful for her selflessness in providing all that she did despite our limited resources. Es trabadju é simbulu di nha luta, mison ki nha herói

Amílcar Cabral dexa pa nôs tudu.

To my wife Marie Alexandre-Shabaka, who, without her unfailing support, I could not have finished this dissertation. To my beautiful and energetic children, Amara and Amilcar, I am sorry that Papa did not always play with you when you wanted, but I hope that this modest work will make you proud someday.

Also, I want to thank my committee members, Dr. Nwando Achebe, Dr. Peter

Beattie, and Dr. Folu Ogundimu. I am very grateful to Dr. Walter Hawthorne, my advisor, for his staunch support in this long and arduous journey. Since the day I met him at Ohio University, he has shown interest in my work and encouraged me to apply to

Michigan State University. I thank the History Department for the graduate assistantships that made my graduate studies possible.

I am grateful to our Africanist bibliographers, Dr. Peter Limb and Dr. Joe Lauer, who were always responsive to my requests. I also want to thank the staff at the Michigan

State University Library for their assistance in finding materials so desperately needed.

Many thanks for the financial support of the U.S. Department of Education with the generous fellowship of the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad; as well as the African Studies at Michigan State University award of Foreign Language

Areas Studies to study Mandinka; and the Center for Advanced Study of International

v Development at Michigan State University to study Portuguese during an intensive summer program to hone my language skills. I also thank Dr. Jorge Brito, rector of the Piaget , for writing me the letters of affiliation.

In Cape Verde, I want to thank all my family and friends, who supported me in so many ways it would take another volume to name them all: my uncle Caetano da Graça

Cardoso, his wife Mafalda Cardoso, my cousin, Ornela Veronica Ferreira Cardoso,

Fatinha Cardoso, Soraia Cardoso, Daniel Cardoso, Silvana Semedo, Noel Carvalhal

Fernandes, Ludimilla Cardoso, Moises Carvalhal Fernandes, Maria Dosanjos Fernandes,

Joe Cardoso, Indira Tatiana , Flavio Delgado, Dr. José Carlos Gomes dos Anjos.

Tudu mosinhus e mosinhas di Varzea, specialmenti CV Wine. Nhôs tudu obrigadon pa nhôs morabeza!

I also want to thank the staff at the Arquivo Histório Nacional de Cabo Verde, especially the President, Sandra Mascarenhas, and the staff--- Sandra Helena Gomes

Rosa, Carla Gomes, Madalena M. Varela, Maria da Luz, Eugenia Miranda, António

Sanches, Maria Teixeira, Maria Odete Neves, Roberto Lopes, Vital de Pina, Samira Sá

Nogueira, Felisberta Landim, Maria José Almeida, Ana Mafalda Monteiro, José Maria

Almeida. Carla Gomes was extremely helpful with some of the paleography.

At the Biblioteca Nacional de Cabo Verde, I thank Joaquim Morais, the president, and the staff, especially Sheila Antunes. Muitu brigadu!

To my in-laws, thank you for your support, especially Maryse Alexandre, Saber

Anosier, Suline Guerrier, Antoine Guerrier, Jean Alexandre, and his wife, Sheila

Alexandre.

vi Of my professors, colleagues, and friends, I want to thank Dr. Bala Saho, and his wife Binta Sanyang, Dr. Jill Kelley, Dr. Mathew Pettway, Dr. Peter K. Mendy, Dr.

Richard Lobban, Dr. Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, Dr. Jean G. Blaise, Dr. Pierre Orelus,

Salahudin Omowale Matteos, Professor Darius A. Burton, Dr. James Pritchett, Victor

Manuel Carvalho de Melo (“Toto”), and Dr. Solomon Addis Getahun for their support and friendship. I salute Professor Ernest Wambia-dia-Wamba for being a deep source of inspiration.

Many thanks to my entire family, especially my sisters in the states, Estela

Rodrigues, Benvinda Fernandes, Isolete Fernandes, Ester Fernandes, Raquel Rosario, and to my cousins Ezekiel Vasconcelos, Danny Vasconcelos, Alcindo Vasconcelos. Special gratitude is extended to Dr. Assan Sarr for reading two chapters, and providing very critical feedback and encouragement. I also thank Dr. Mariana P. Candido for reading and commenting on a chapter and her unsolicited show of support. Of course, all errors are solely mine.

vii TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ……………………………………………………………………...x

LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………..xi

INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………….……....1 Historiography……………………………………………………………………….....6 Summary of Chapters…………………………………………………………………27

CHAPTER 1 COTTON AND DRESS IN UPPER GUNIEA COAST AND CAPE VERDE, c.1500-c.1600………………………………………….………………………………..31 and Changing African Aesthetics on the Upper Guinea Coast……………...41 Early Atlantic Slave Trade in the Upper Guinea Coast…………………………….46

CHAPTER 2 PANU: SLAVE TRADE, DRESS, AND FASHION IN CAPE VERDE, c.1600-c.1800s………………………………………………………………………….75 Panu: Economic and Social Affects in Cape Verde…………………………………81 Female Dress and Fashion in Cape Verde Islands, c. 1647–c. 1721………………..93 Male Dress and Fashion in Cape Verde Islands, c. 1647–c. 1721…………………103 Women and Dress in Cape Verde during 1800s………………………...... 111

CHAPTER 3 SOCIAL UNEASE IN A SLAVE SOCIETY: FLIGHT, ‘SOCIAL BANDITRY’, AND RELIGIOUS HETERODOXY, c.1700-c.1800……………...... 126 Rise of Brankus di Terra: Fear, “Race,” and Governance………………………...127 Popular in Santiago Island………………………………………………..155 Precarious Control: and Selling Free People……………………………..174

CHAPTER 4 ENDING SLAVERY IN CAPE VERDE: , CRIME, AND , c. 1856-c.1876 …...…………………………………………………184 Creation of the Junta………………………………………………………………...187 Manumission and Ambivalent Freedom……………………………………………192 Crime and Punishment: Slaves, Libertos, and (Poor) Free………………………..214

CHAPTER 5 KINSHIP, ABOLITION, COMMERCE AND COLONIZATION OF PORTUGUESE GUNIEA, c.1830-1879………………………………………………228 State of Portuguese Guinea…………………………………………………………..232 Kinship and Connections between Cape Verdeans and Luso-Africans/Africans...236 Portuguese Hunger for Land and Access to Rivers………………………………...253

viii

CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………281

APPENDIX……………………………………………………………………………..285 Glossary….…………………………………………………………………………….286

BIBLIOGRAPHY…..…………………………………………………………………..289

ix LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Slave Children Recorded in the County Administration of the City of , 1863, March 1-30, 1863………………………………………………..197

Table 2. Pedro Semedo Cardozo’s Slaves’ Background ……………………………204

Table 3. Francisco Alberto Azevedo’s Slaves………………………………………..212

x LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Cape Verde Islands and Upper Guinea Coast………………………………3

Figure 2. Clothing Styles of Wolof Kingdom, Late Seventeenth Century…………..32

Figure 3. Clothing Styles of Women of Kazegut (Bijago Island), c.1728……………32

Figure 4. Panu di terra…………………………………………………………...... 61

Figure 5. Inhabitants of the Cape Verde Islands …………………………………....99

Figure 6. “A Man and Woman of the Island of St. John (Brava)”………………...106

Figure 7. “A Man and Woman of the island of St. John in their Best ”……106

Figure 8. “Habits des negres du cap verd”………………………………………….109

Figure 9. Inhabitants of Cape Verde Islands………………………………………..110

Figure 10. “Woman and Children of -Grande”……………………………....116

Figure 11. “Felupe”……………………………………………………………...... 122

Figure 12. Deceased body of Blim Blim, Papel Ruler of Biombo wrapped in panus for burial, w/d………………………………………………………………162

Figure 13. Esteiradas de Bananeiras de Santiago, w/d……………………………...162

Figure 14. Eighteenth Century Dutch Engraving of the Island of Santo Antão…..178

Figure 15. Three Social Classes in Cape Verde: Slave-Owner, Freed Slave, and Slave………………………………………………...185

Figure 16. Sá de Bandeira, Praça of ………………………………………..189

Figure 17. A Mandinka Chief, 1850………………………………………………….265

xi INTRODUCTION

In 1580, André Donelha, an elite “Cape Verdean,” was in Casão, a trading center on ’s . There he came across Gaspar Vaz, a tailor and button- maker, who was a slave, owned by his neighbor on Santiago Island. Donelha was uneasy to find the slave dressed in “Mandinka clothing,” that is, a Muslim robe probably made from panu. Vaz assured Donelha that he was a Christian, which he was known back in

Santiago. To prove this, he lifted his robe to show his doublet (a European close fitting jacket) and Virgin Rosary, which he used, everyday in prayer to the Christian God.

Vaz said he was the nephew of the Mandinka satigi (chief) of the trading town and did not want to offend his uncle. However, he promised Donelha that once he became chief, he would revert to his Christian identity. As a satigi, Vaz said he would send slaves to

Cape Verde to learn and he would retire in the islands. They quickly became friends. Using his Mandinka name, Vaz became an interpreter for Donelha in

River region. Vaz bought commodities for Donelha at lower than were charged to strangers. In short, Vaz was a cultural broker, someone with deep knowledge of two cultures and who was able to shift identities in to operate effectively between them.

He was at once Muslim and Christian, slave and free, “Cape Verdean” and coastal

African, Kriolo (a person from a trading center and conversant in the Kriolo language of trade) and Mandinka. These were the lingua francas between rivers of Gambia and

Cacheu during this period.

This story reveals several surprising things about Cape Verdean society during the period. First, this story illustrates a vibrant trade in slaves and other goods between the

1 islands and mainland (known as Upper Guinea) enabled a back-and-forth movement of goods, ideas, and peoples. Many people were just as knowledgeable as Vaz about the coast as the islands (which, I will argue, were culturally part of a single broad region).

Second, during this period, people expressed their identities in a number of ways, particularly through the clothes they wore. Cultural brokers like Vaz changed identities as quickly as they changed shirts, demonstrating who they were through dress as well as language and professions of religious affiliation. Third, this flexibility of identity led to cross-cultural exchanges that cannot be summed up under the oft-used term

“creolization.” Vaz, a Mandinka, was a slave in Cape Verde but a freeman in his homeland.. In fact, there were slaves who became wealthy and eventually freed themselves in Cape Verde, returning to the coast as merchants. Therefore, African slaves and their descendants, while appearing to become ladinos (acclimatized to European culture), still carried their cultural practices, although modified, in Cape Verde. Donelha knew Vaz as the slave of his neighbor, and thus it is doubtful that Vaz was proclaiming a

Christian identity to other slaves. This was the idiom of Luso-Africans, group that

Donelha belonged to, and not necessarily slaves and freed slaves.

2 Figure 1. Cape Verde Islands and Upper Guinea Coast - For interpretation of the references to color in this and all other figures, the reader is referred to the electronic version of this dissertation.

(Source: http://placesbook.org/cape-verde)

Cape Verde was the first slave society in which Europeans were on top of the

1 social ladder and black Africans, as slaves, were at the bottom. From Santiago Island, the Portuguese initiated an increasingly intense scale of trade, in which slaves became the primary commodity. Given this reality, what type of interaction did Cape Verde have with mainland Upper Guinea during the Atlantic slave trade era? How did Africans and their descendants react to slavery in the archipelago? What dress and fashion did slaves and freed slaves employ? What were the religious beliefs and practices? In answering these questions, I examine the interaction between the coastal mainland from Senegal

River to regions, called by various names such as Upper Guinea Coast,

Western Africa, Rios de Guiné, Rios de Guiné de Cabo Verde, and the Cape Verde

1 Trevor P. Hall, “The Role of Cape Verde Islanders in Organizing and Operating Maritime Trade between West Africa and Iberian , 1441–1616.” PhD diss., John Hopkins University, 1993, 632.

3 Islands from 1500s to 1879. I end at this fate because it is when the slave trade to Cape

Verde became illegal.

The dissertation focuses on the archipelago of Cape Verde, mainly on Santiago and Fogo, which had the largest concentration of slaves and connection with the mainland. Where appropriate I will also use examples from other islands that show development of cultural similarities and particularities among the islands. This is a social history of how commerce affected the sociocultural and political development of the islands.

First, coastal African sensibilities continued in Cape Verde, mainly with slaves and forros but also brankus di terra (“whites of the land”) and some filhos de terra

(“children of the land” or native-born). There was an incorporation of some European cultural forms, but that did not mean the “Europeanization” of the population. Rather than the unilateral and linear picture that creolization would posit, Mariana Candido and

2 Roquinaldo Ferreira view creolization as a cross-cultural exchange. Although this certainly occurred, there remained two (or more) parallel cultural , often with a clear demarcation of cultural practices and beliefs. In Cape Verde, a cross-cultural exchange occurred in which the lower classes molded social practices derived from coastal Africans, whereas the upper class developed more of a creolized culture. New cultural practices emerged in the mainland and the islands in response to the slave trade.

In Cape Verde, there was change as well as continuity in dress and religious beliefs and

2 Mariana Candido, An African Slaving and the Atlantic : and Its Hinterland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Roquinaldo Ferreira, Cross- Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World: and during the Era of the Slave Trade (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012)

4 3 practices. I argue that this was due to the transformation of “African” slavery in Cape

4 Verde, which was integrative and flexible, into a more rigid Atlantic slavery.

Second, this dissertation shows how economic deterioration led to the rise of the brankus di terra and social banditry and the need to control free slaves and the poor with various forms of punishment, including exile. and famine was a major impetus

5 for this. The Cape Verde archipelago is part of the Sahelian climate and thus, a major drought in Western Africa wreaked severe environmental devastation on the archipelago, and the Portuguese settlement had already disturbed the ecological balance.

Third, with the creation of the Junta for Protection of Slaves and Freed Slaves, slaves and freed slaves continued to protest by lodging complaints and paying for manumission. Libertos (liberated slaves) had to provide mandatory service to their former owners, which placed them in an ambivalent status between slavery and freedom, which they vociferously challenged by direct confrontation, violence, and refusal to obey orders.

The creation of the Junta was the result of pressure from British efforts at abolition and colonization. Portugal’s response included the creation of institutions intended to abolish slavery and the slave trade in Cape Verde and Portuguese Guinea, while safeguarding

Portuguese trading posts (feitorias) and their expansion into new territories. The abolition

3 Production of hides and husbandry, which occurred in the islands, also needs studies to understand African contributions to these sectors. Africans brought to Cape Verde their knowledge of , their songs, agricultural skills, kinship, craftmaking etc. All these African contributions to the archipelago’s culture have not been thoroughly examined to date. The lacunae are profound in terms of African contribution. 4 Suzanne Miers and Igor Kopytoff (ed.), : Historical and Anthropological Perspectives (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977). 5 The is the between the Saharan and Savanna of Africa. It is semi-arid, with low rain .

5 of slavery and slave trade also caused the exiling of libertos to Upper Guinea along with

Cape Verdean military and merchants, some of who were slave owners in Cape Verde.

6 Thus, the Atlantic slave system was expanded to Upper Guinea. Thus, slavery, slave trade coexisted with -like slavery in the pontas (small or estates) in

Portuguese Guinea. Therefore, this study contributes to the scholarship on the slave trade, culture, race and slavery, , resistance, and manumission as well as the abolition of slavery in African history and the Atlantic world.

Studying Cape Verde, one begins to understand that the African disaspora has deep roots. Therefore, it begs the reconceptualization of Africa, as “traditional,” that is, static and changeless, “Old World” versus “New World.” Cape Verde became integrated

7 into the Upper Guinea Coast, where the dominant political reality was “pre-colonial.”

Cape Verde was also close to the African mainland, unlike the to the

Americas. Portuguese feitorias abounded in Upper Guinea and there was a constant back and forth movement between the coast and Cape Verde Islands.

Historiography

Whereas debates on creolization, cultural survivals, and recreation have focused

8 mainly on the Americas, my study examines Cape Verde (an “uninhabited” African

6 Walter Rodney, “African Slavery and Other Forms of Social Oppression on the Upper Guinea Coast in the Context of the Atlantic Slave-Trade,” Journal of African History 7, no. 3 (1966): 431–43; Paul Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery: A in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 7 Toby Green, ed., Brokers of Change: Atlantic Commerce and Cultures in Precolonial Western Africa (London: The British Academy; published by arrangement by Oxford University Press, 2012), 5. 8 Later, I will discuss arguments that others visited and even settled, before Portuguese arrival.

6 archipelago, although some would call it part of a group of Atlantic islands) and mainland Upper Guinea Coast. These debates have not usually included the African

Atlantic, such as Cape Verde, which was a sort of prototype for Atlantic history. Cape

Verdean society was born between the “Old” and “New” . With the exception of few studies, most of the above-mentioned schools of African cultural transmission focus on Bight of (Lower Guinea) and West (e.g., Congo, Angola, and

Benguela). Concerning the Upper Guinea Coast, Hawthorne argues against creolization, but he emphasizes continuity (the “Guinean” core) and creolization (change) with slaves

9 brought from Upper Guinea to Amazonia in northeast Brazil.

On the other hand, Heywood and Thornton assert that the kingdoms of Angola and Kongo experienced a sort of creolization that was essentially Europeanization. Mário

Antonio de Oliveira argues that , Benguela, and nearby the interior was a “Creole island” (ilha crioula) that was the result of Portuguese culture’s ability to adapt to an

10 African milieu. Heywood argues that Angola had a Creole culture, but that it was

11 largely African based rather than European. Newitt asserts “that many of those who left

Portugal also left behind their Portuguese Christian identity . . . and it is not surprising

9 Walter Hawthorne, From Africa to Brazil: Culture, Identity, and n Atlantic slave trade, 1600–1830 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). For a compromise between creolization and recreation, see, Kalle Kananoja, “Central African Identities and Religiosity in Colonial Minas Gerais,” PhD diss., Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland, 2012). 10 Mário Antonio de Oliveira, “Luanda: ‘Ilha’ Crioula’” (, Portugal: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1968). 11 Linda Heywood, “Portuguese into African: The Eighteenth-Century Central African Background to Cultures,” in Linda Heywood (ed.), Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Dispora (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 92.

7 that deserters from Portuguese fleets in the sixteenth century should have adopted local

12 .”

José Lingna Nafefé argues that the ‘tangomaus’ (or ‘lançados’) ability to negotiate their identities in Western Africa allowed for the eventual emergence of Creole

13 society in the region. Seibert argues that Creole culture did not develop in Upper

14 Guinea or West Central Africa, but in São Tomé e Princípe and Cape Verde. Seibert

15 claims that that cultural creolization occurs with the “ethnicization and indigenization.”

In the precolonial period, Africans did not have a reified sense of ethnicity until European colonial domination. Amselle perceptively argues that corporate identities were not fixed,

16 but constantly negotiated and renegotiated over time. Some Africans tended to identify

12 Malyn Newitt, A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion, 1400–1668 (London: Routledge, 2005), 255. 13 José Lingna Nafafé, Colonial Encounters: Issues of Culture, Hybridity and Creolisation, Portuguese Mercantile Settlers in West Africa (Frankfurt am Main, : Peter Lang, 2007), 1–9; Nafafé, “Lançados, Culture and Identity: Prelude to Creole Societies on the Rivers of Guinea and Cape Verde,” in Creole Societies in the Portuguese , ed. Philip J. Havik and Malyn Newitt (Bristol, UK: University of Bristol, Department of Hispanic, Portuguese, and Latin American Studies, 2007). Walter Rodney, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970), 200–22. 14 Gerhard Seibert, “Creolization and Creole Communities in the Portuguese Atlantic: São Tomé, Cape Verde, the Rivers of Guinea and Central Africa in Comparison,” in Brokers of Change: Atlantic Commerce and Culture in Precolonial Western Africa (London: The British Academy; published by arrangement with Oxford University Press, 2012), 36–40. 15 Seibert, “Creolization and Creole Communities in the Portuguese Atlantic,” 30. 16 Jean-Loup Amselle, Logiques métisses. Anthropologie de l’identité en Afrique et ailleurs (: Payot, 1990); Logics: Anthropology of Identity in Africa and Elsewhere, trans. Claudia Royal (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998).

8 17 at the kinship lineage level, then village and perhaps, a pan-identity. Kinship was one among many identities and was not necessarily the salient marker. Although new identities arose in Cape Verde, breaking with so-called “original” identities was common enough in Africa history: an individual could have multiple and porous identities.

Mansoancas, for instance, were neither Balanta nor Mandinka, but something new.

Specifically, the historiography of Cape Verde focuses on Europeanization,

Africanization, and creolization, with the majority of historians emphasizing the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, while positing the earlier period in a linear trajectory.

According to Augusto Mesquitela Lima, scholars are mainly concerned with neatly

18 tracing what is “African” and “European” in Cape Verde. Mesquitela Lima notes that indigenous development is usually excluded from the debate.

Recently, scholars have linked multiple cultural interactions in Upper Guinea as the basis for later creolization with the Portuguese. Wilson Trajano Filho argues that the development of Creole society in Guinea- was the result of the encounter between

19 Portuguese and Africans. Filho employs “creolization as a root metaphor to refer to a process of cultural and social change involving masses of people with different bonds of

20 social, cultural and political belonging.” Filho emphasizes that the basis of this creolization was predicated on shared histories of the region, in terms of “ethnic” groups

17 James Sweet, Domingos Álvares, African Helaing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World (Chapel Hill: University of Press, 2011), 15–16. 18 José Maria Semedo and Maria R. Turano, Cabo Verde: O Ciclo Ritual das Festividades da Tabanca (Praia, Cape Verde: Spleen Edições, 1997), preface. 19 Wilson Trajano Filho, “Polymorphic Creoledom: The “Creole” Society of Guinea- Bissau,” PhD diss., University of Pennslyvania, 1998, iii. 20 Filho, “Polymorphic Creoledom,” 60.

9 relatedness (joking relations), certain groups shared political culture (rotation of successive king from different kin group) and the importance of blacksmiths, for instance. According to Filho, long-distance traders were central to the creolizaiton process in Upper Guinea, in which the landlord and stranger relationship symbolized,

21 because the newcomer assimilated, to some extent, yet retained his culture. This allowed for the continuing introduction of new ideas. Filho calls this “primary

22 creolization,” with the Mande being a major catalyst.

Building upon tbe idea of “primary creolization,” Green suggests that European

Jews were able to adapt to this “intercultural” atmosphere created by Mande traders.

23 Green argues that the Jews’ adaptability in Portugal was essential in Africa. According to Green, New Christians (cristão novos) played an important role in the societies of

Cape Verde and Upper Guinea Coast, particularly in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, that led to “creolization,” i.e., the adaptation of African and European elements. For the Jews, this creolization was a cultural and economic rebellion against the Iberian hegemony of Portuguese Crown, which tried to control them and others by imposing a Catholic cultural norm via the . By the beginning of seventeenth century, the European settlers of Cape Verde consisted mostly of cristão novos, and this coincided with a decline of the slave trade in the archipelago and the emergence of an

21 The strangers were usually all men, whether from the Atlantic or the interior. 22 Filho, “Uma Experiência Singular de Crioulização”, 13–14. Brasilia, Brazil: Universidade de Brasilia; published at www.unb.br/ics/dan/Serie343empdf.pdf. 23 In All Can Be Saved, Stuart Schwartz argues that the common people, particularly Jews and , were crucial in creating religious tolerance in Iberia and their empire. This argument complements Tobias Green’s theory of the doubleness of Jewry in Iberia. Also see The Forgotten Diaspora, which argues that Jewish traders in Cotê Petite influenced African religions to form some syncretic local religions.

10 elite Creole class. Green contends that cristãos novos had a sense of doubleness that was central to the formation of a Creole identity. Green goes on to say that mixed cultural

24 groups influenced the development of the trans-Atlantic Slave trade. Green emphasizes that creolization was vital to this process, with Jews and the Mande acting as cultural brokers on the mainland. Green defines creolization on Cape Verde as a space in which no prior settlement existed; thus, it inevitably meant that different cultural and linguistic

25 elements merged to form anew culture in the new soil. Although Green shows the importance of Cristaos novos in the rise of a new elite class, it is interesting that the

Mande influence of Cape Verde seems dminished by his focus on the elite class. The

Mande, as cultural brokers, are only important to Green for fostering commerce on the mainland.

Iva Cabral suggests that there were three types of elites—social, racial, and economic—that governed from the fifteenth through the nineteenth

26 centuries. In the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries, the elites were essentially

Portuguese royal elites (réinos). There was no intermediary group between slaves and the royal elites; there were a few free blacks and poor whites who worked for the merchants

24 Toby Green, The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, 10–14. 25 This is similar to Megan Vaughan’s definition of creolization in . See Tobias Green, “Masters of Difference,” 27; Megan Vaughan, Creating the Creole Island: Slavery in Eighteenth-Century Mauritius (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), 2– 3. 26 Iva Cabral, “Elites atlântica: Ribeira Grande do Cabo Verde (séculos XVI–XVIII),” Serviço de Documentação e Informação Parlamentar Assembleia Nacional de Cabo Verde, in http://cvc.instituto-camoes.pt/eaar/coloquio/comunicacoes/iva_cabral.pdf; for information specifically about filhos de terra, see Iva Cabral, “Dos povoadores aos “filhos da terra”: a dinâmica da sociedade caboverdiana,” Serviço de Documentação e Informação Parlamentar Assembleia Nacional de Cabo Verde.

11 and ship-owners. The second elite, filhos da terra, consisted of native white and mestiços

(mixed race) who appears at the end of sixteenth and the beginning of seventeenth centuries; they had no royal lineage and little economic power, but they traded with

Guinea. The previous two types of elites were urban and cosmopolitan. At the beginning

27 of seventeenth century, the filhos da terra were mulatoes and blacks who began to trade directly with the Americas from the Guinea Coast as well as with intermediaries from Guinea Coast and Cape Verde. From the perspective of the Portuguese, these elites were “illegitimate” offspring who dominated the local militia and chamber (i.e., local administration). By the mid-seventeenth century, a third elite arose, the brankus di terra

(whites of the land), described as mestiço (mulatos and black) by Cabral. Their power

28 came from positions in the local administration and militias. Cabral and Green claim that this was the true Cape Verdean elite. According to Green, the rise of Krioulo (i.e.,

Kabuverdianu) as a language in the mid-seventeenth century “[was] both symptomatic of and decisive in the development of an autonomous cultural identity in

29 Cape Verde.” Brankus di terra switched from the slave trade to renting land for agricultural production. Thus, according to Cabral, by the eighteenth century, Santiago was a non-slave society because the bulk of population (mostly vadio [ex-slaves and

27 It should be noted that mulatoe has a derogatory implication due to its origin from the word mule, suggesting an infertile offspring. Nevertheless, Portuguese also associated negro and preto, which slave status and inferiority. Thus, “black” does not connote positivity during the past, at least, with the official power structure. 28 Toby Green, “Emergence of a Mixed Society in Cape in the Seventeenth Century,” 219. 29 Tobias Green, “The Evolution of Creole Identity in Cape Verde,” in The Creolization Reader, Studies in mixed identities and cultures, ed., with an introduction, by Robin Cohen and Paola Toninato (New York: Routledge, 2010), 159.

12 escaped slaves]) were free. Brankus di terra were intermediaries between the vadio and metropolis in maintaining the for the Portuguese Crown. Both Green and Cabral assert that these elites were crucial in developing the Cape Verdean identity.

Although one must acknowledge Green’s assertion that the Jews, as a culturally mixed group, were essential for the development of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, it is perhaps an exaggeration to emphasize their centrality in the cultural formation of Cape

Verdean society, because free mixed and blacks as a class were decisive in maintaining the islands as a Portuguese colony. More significant, slaves and forros were essential, especially in Santiago and Fogo, in the development of local or popular culture, and they settled on the other islands in archipelago. Although focusing on brankus di terra is useful for understanding the elites’ power contestation and their role on culture, examining the slaves’ and forros’ reaction to this power structure provides a more nuanced picture of the social and cultural development of the bulk of the population that made up this society.

Some have tried to diminish the impact of slavery and slave trade. For instance, on June 10, 2009 the Portuguese government cohosted with some Portuguese universities a contest “The Seven Portuguese Wonders in the World” that omitted the history of slavery and the slave trade on the Web sites of places nominated such as Ribeira Grande, of Santiago Island, Cape Verde, Castle (Castle São Jorge da Mina), as well as

30 Luanda and Island. On the Web site it stated, “The Seven Wonders demonstrates the Portuguese pride in their history, in their patrimony without frontiers. A people that built twenty-seven monuments in three different continents and this people

30 Petition to the Portuguese government “The Contest: The Seven Portuguese Wonders Ignores the History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.” June 15, 2009.

13 31 are we—the Portuguese.” Unfortunately, Manuel Veiga, the prominent linguist and promoter of Kabuverdianu language, then Minister of Culture of the of Cape

Verde, praised the selection of Ribera Grande (now known as [Old City]), because Cape Verde was anxiously awaiting for UNESCO to decide if Cidade Velha

32 would be listed as a World Heritage Site. Given prior colonial historiography and the downplaying (or even denial) of slavery and slave trade in Cape Verde, Veiga’s disregard for historical truths and accuracy, but rather elevated status for the city sounds logical, given Cape Verde’s objective of securing this international recognition. Indeed,

Humberto Lima argues that António Carreira’s historical characterization of Cape Verde

33 as a slave society and slavery was wrong. Cape Verde was not a slave society because drought and the failure to create plantation-regime like those in , Brazil, and

Jamaica. Second, the physiognomies of the population of Cape Verde are also different from those places, because was prominent due to freed slaves (i.e., women) “co-mingling” with European men. Third, according to Lima, Cape Verdean language and culture was derived mainly from Portugal. According to Lima, Carreira’s

Cabo Verde: Uma Sociedade Escravocrata mainly focuses on Santiago (and to a lesser extent, on Fogo), which had the largest slave population. Lima claims that by the seventeenth century, Cape Verde was no longer a slave society, given that the overwhelming majority of the population were freed slaves. Augusto Mesquitela Lima

31 http://www.7maravilhas.sapo.pt/#/o-que-ja-fizemos/7-maravilhas-de-origem- portuguesa-no-mundo/ 32 http://www.asemana.publ.cv/spip.php?article42504 http://www.rtp.pt/noticias/index.php?article=219453&tm=37&layout=122&visual=61 33 Humberto Lima, “O Erro de A. Carreira,” Cultura=Kultura Cabo Verde no. 2 (1998): 33–43.

14 goes even further by casting doubt on the appropriateness of calling what existed in the archipelago slavery.

Lima’s depiction is skewed in several ways. First, as noted above, Humberto

Lima’s definition of slavery refers only to large plantation-like regimes that did not predominate in Cape Verde. Hence, Lima implicitly suggests the “American” slavery that portrayed by Western media. Second, Lima exaggerates the level of biological miscegenation during the early period. Iva Cabral and Claudio Furtado note that the population in 1731 (30,850) was 2.5 percent white, 29 percent mixed, 51.5 percent

34 liberated slaves, and 17 percent slaves. Although slavery dropped to only 15–20 percent of the population in Santiago and Fogo, respectively, and much less on the other islands, it was still central in terms of the organization of society. The economy centered on providing provisions for incoming ships and the island was used as way-station for slave traffickers to the Upper Guinea, Lower Guinea, and Central Africa, although the

35 number of ships varied. However, the and famine caused deaths of many slaves and escape into the interior, there was a constant replenishment. Indeed, slavery was not completely abolished until 1878.

Second, Brankus di terra was a social category that reflected economic and

34 Iva Cabral et Cláudio Furtado, Coordenadores do Programa MOST da UNESCO no Cabo Verde Março de 2006. “Estados-Nação e Integração Regional na Africa do Oeste: O Caso de Cabo Verde.” http://portal.unesco.org/shs/en/files/10780/117552077611historique_capvert_ptg.pdf/hist orique_capvert_ptg.pdf. 35 For more on the definition of slave society versus a society with slaves, see Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: the first two centuries of slavery in North America (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Press, 1998), 15–216.

15 36 cultural status rather than exclusively skin color. Hence, although the 2.5 percent listed above could be misleading, nevertheless, even if they were white in the biological sense, it was a low number. Furthermore, the white population was reduced due to diseases, , and , which allowed for the rise of brankus di terra that was not based on skin color. Basically, racially mixed and blacks replaced white Iberian Portuguese in the local government and militias and thus became “whites.”

Third, Humberto Lima ignores the morphological and syntactical structure of

Kabuverdianu, which resembles West Atlantic languages, such as Mandinka, Wolof, and

37 Temne. During the early period, Wolof slaves arrived in Ribera Grande; some went to

38 Iberia and Valencia. Lima’s emphasis be on the lexicon, over 90 percent of which is derived from Old Portuguese. Lima downplays the deep African base of Cape Verdean culture and assumes all modern-day practices were derived from Portugal during the slave period.

The issue is a framework that places the Iberian Portuguese in for the saga of Cape Verde. Of course, historiography has changed quite a bit since independence, but the sentiment and ideological perspective lingers on. Hence, the slaves and forros have not received an in-depth examination, except in António Carreira’s works, particularly

Panaria Caboverdeana-Guineense: aspectos históricos e sócio-económicos (1968) and

36 Today, djan branku dja (I’m whitened) means that one has improved his or her social status and conveys nothing of the skin color of the individual. However, the fact that social categories was racialized shows the racism and white supremacy of the ideological underpinning of its origins. 37 Jürgen Lang et al (eds.), Cabo Verde: Origens de sua sociedade e do seu crioulo (Tübingen, Germany: Gunter Narr, 2006), 53–90. 38 Hall, “The Role of Cape Verde Islanders,” 228–9.

16 Cabo Verde, formação e extinção de uma sociedade escravocrata (1460–1878) (1983).

Moreover, a revisionist historical reinterpretation appeared in the História geral de Cabo

Verde (1991), edited by Luís Albuquerque and Maria Emília Santos, which deals with slave trade and slavery within the political, economic, and social dimension. Toby

Green’s brilliant book, The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, recognizes—and gives homage to—the slaves in Cape Verde, but his focus was on Jews and African merchants as well as the politics that fostered the trading networks that led to the rise of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Amílcar Cabral, the legendary leader of the struggle for independence in Guinea-

Bissau and Cape Verde (Partido Africano de Independência de Guiné e Cabo Verde), insists on the “Africanity” of Cape Verde in the face of colonial propaganda about about lusotropicalismo (i.e., multiculturalism, multiracialism, and racial democracy). This followed by Portuguese view that Cape Verde was not “indigenous” and therefore, not

“African” due to over 500 years of Portuguese domination via slavery and colonialism.

However, Cabral argued for a different view of Cape Verde’s the cultural situation:

It is the transfer of African cultural reality to the islands. Then came contact between this African culture with other cultures from outside, from Portugal and elsewhere. . . . The culture of the people of Cape Verde is quintessentially African: in beliefs it is identical—in Santiago there is the polon which some still regard as sacred tree. The polon is not common because of the many droughts. But those, which still exist, are sacrosanct. There is moreover morundade sorcery. “Spirits” which walk at night, flying creatures, which make up an interpretation of life’s reality, which 39 almost totally matches that in Africa—not, to speak of the casting spells.

This was the mass, which were descendants of black African slaves from Upper

Guinea. For the Portuguese, however, Cape Verde was the par excellence of

39 Amilcar Cabral, Unity and Struggle (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979), 56– 57.

17 40 lustropicalismo in Africa. This “progressive assimilation” Amílcar Cabral said had failed, and that, “It reaches the highest degree of absurdity in the case of Portugal, with

41 Salazar’s assertion that Africa does not exist.” In fact, some intellectuals, like Baltasar

Lopes da , argues the dilution of “Africa” in Cape Verde with few vestigial

42 remnants. Green correctly emphasizes that the colonial historiography of Cape Verde exemplified Portuguese initiatives and presence; postindependence, however, Cape

Verdean scholars have begun to rewrite their history, despite the burning and

43 disappearance of vital documents from, the early period. Like the debate in the African diaspora about the survival of African cultures, this debate was dominated by Portuguese . In the postcolonial period, there has been an attempt to show the Africanity of Cape Verde. On the other hand, Roger Sansi-Rocca argues “ and Africa have always been as Creole as the Americas, in spite of the laborious task of historical erasure

44 taken by nationalist narratives for centuries.” Sansi-Rocca suggests that although

Africa can claim a “primordial” past, places like Brazil and Cape Verde are condemned

40 Sérgio Neto, Colónia mártir, colónia modelo: Cabo Verde no pensamento ultramarino português (1925–1965) (, Portugal: Imprensa Universidade de Coimbra, 2009) 41 Amilcar Cabral, “National Liberation and Culture,” Transition no. 45 (1974): 12. 42 Gabriel Fernandes, A diluição da África: uma interpretação da saga cabo-verdiana no panorama político (pós)colonial (Florianópolis, Brazil: EDUFSC, 2002); for contemporary debate about historical legacy of race and racism in Portuguese-speaking world, see Francisco Bethencourt and Adrian J. Pearce, Racism and Ethnic Relations in the Portuguese-Speaking World (London: The British Academy; published by arrangement by Oxford University Press, 2012). 43 Green, “Masters of Difference,” 5–16. 44 Roger Sansi-Roca, “The Fetish in the Atlantic,” in Cultures of the Lusophone Black Atlantic, ed. Nancy Priscilla Naro, Roger Sansi-Roca, and David H. Treece (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 3.

18 45 because of their creoleness (i.e., mixture). Although the word “creole” is too broad,

Africanists have demonstrated that Africa did experience cultural change in agriculture, religion, settlement patterns, and social organization (e.g., age groups), but these transformations were more internally dictated than drive by outside forces. Creolization has also been tied to “Europeanization,” i.e., the rest of world’s people have become shadow to the grand Eurocentric meta-narrative, particularly when discussing the slave trade. For , there appears to be a similar debate. Deborah Fahy Bryceson points out that in the first half of the twentieth century, the historiography of East Africa

46 exhibited two divides: Islamic urban coast and agricultural African hinterland. In the postcolonial period, the revisionist slant was to show the Africanity of the coastal region of East Africa. Bryceson argues that it is neither African nor Arab, but a fusion that

47 resulted in a Creole culture.

Others have taken a more sophisticated approach, such as Peter Mark, in their description of identity formation. Mark defines Luso-African identity in terms of dress,

48 language, occupation, and architecture, i.e., creolization from Upper Guinea Coast,

Cape Verde, and Brazil. Mark differentiates the social classes and “ethnic groups” in mainland Upper Guinea; however, Mark describes Cape Verde as simply Luso-African because of an architecture (sobradus [mansions]) reserved for the elites, but this obscures

45 Sansi-Roca, “Fetish in the Lusophone Atlantic,” 20. 46 Deborah Fahy Bryceson, “Swahili Creolization: The Case of Dar es Salaam,” in The Creolization Reader: Studies in Mixed Identities and Cultures edited by Robin Cohen and Paola Toninato (London: Routledge, 2009), 364–75. 47 Notwithstanding identifying Kiswahili as a Bantu language, which was not always the case. 48 For similar argument of Mark as it relates to architecture, see Jay Edwards, “Architectural Creolization,” in The Creolization Reader, 219–34.

19 the complex social stratification and divided belongings and loyalties. In Cape Verde, for instance, by focusing on only elite architecture, Mark ignores funcos, circular dwellings/slave huts, that abounded there and their connection with those on the mainland. Marie Louise Stig Sørensen, Christopher Evans, and Konstantin Richter

49 maintain that labeling Cape Verdean society as Luso-African is problematic. Certainly, slaves and maroon communities did not identify as “Portuguese,” i.e., Luso-Africans.

Those that identified as “Portuguese” were elites and their “Portuguese” identity become more emphatic once in the Upper Guinea for strategic reasons. A self-proclaimed

“Portuguese” identity for trading purposes seems to have been an integral part of the

Portuguese Empire. For instance, Stefan Halikowski Smith argues that creolization occurred in Ayutthaya, Asia, because “dark-skinned mestiços” identified as

“Portuguese,” which was based on dress, nominal Christian identity, and, in particular,

50 their ability to speak “creolised .” Thus, “Portuguese” identity was tied to dress, religion, and language, rather than skin color—a definition that Mark and Smith have in common. The issue remains discerning its applicability to different social classes without excluding other social realities.

Creolization—or, more appropriately, the conditions for cultural production and reproduction—came about via violence, otherization, and an emphasis on differences, despite the rhetoric of multiculturalism or coexistence, as exemplified by the Antillean

49 M. L. S. Sørensen, C. Evans, and K. Richter, “A Place of History: Archaelogy and Heritage at Cidade Velha, Cape Verde,” Slavery in Africa: Archaelogy and Memory, ed. P. J. Lane and K. C. MacDonald (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 50 Stefan Halikowski Smith, Creolization and Diaspora in the Portuguese Indies: The Social World of Ayutthaya, 1640-1720. (Leiden, The : Brill, 2011), 2.

20 51 defenders of créolité or lustropicalismo with its variant of convivencia (coexistence).

Agreeing with Stuart Hall, Green emphasizes that creolization was intertwined with

52 “inequality and hierarchization.” According to Green, the ascendant racist European empires saw the process of creolization as a negative one (degeneration), but this view shifted to a more positive one with the publication of Martin Bernal’s Black Athena: The

53 Afroasiastic Roots of Classical Civilization (1991), which explains that was a hybrid or mixed culture made up of ancient Egyptian and European elements.

Mariana Candido also emphasizes that crioulo in Portuguese has a negative connotation, but she posits creolization as cross-cultural exchange, in which Africans were influencing

54 55 Portuguese as well. Like Hall, Green, Palmié, Hawthorne, Barry, and Rodney,

Candido emphasizes that Atlantic slave trade was violent, and resulted in the militarization of Africa. In this space, there were changes among peoples with divided

51 Vaughan, Creating The Creole Island, 264–5; Stephan Palmié, “Creolization and Its Discontents, or Is there a in the middle?” (Paper presented at the Conference on Creolization, University College, London; Pier M. Larson, Ocean of Letters: Language and Creolization in an Indian Ocean Diaspora (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009),18–19; for the oneness argument of Creole culture, see Edouard Glissant, Le discours antillais (Paris: Éditions du Seuil); Jean Bernabé, Patrick Chamoiseau, Raphaël Confiant, eds., Éloge de la créolité (Paris, Gallimard, 1993); Celia Britton, Edouard Glissant and Postcolonial Theory: Strategies of Language and Resistance (Charlottesville: University Press of , 1999). 52 Green, “The Emergence of a Mixed Society in Cape Verde,” 230; Stuart Hall, “Créolité and the Process of Creolization,” in Cohen and Toninato (eds.), The Creolization Reader, 26–38, 29. 53 Green, “The Emergence of a Mixed Society in Cape Verde,” 230. 54 Mariana Candido, An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World: Benguela and its Hinterland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 11. 55 Nevertheless, Hawhorne does not believe that this necessarily led to the devastation and depopulation or underdevelopment for Balanta, but rather their population increased; see Walter Hawthorne, Planting and Harvesting Slaves: Transformations along the Guinea-Bissau Coast, 1400–1900 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003).

21 loyalties and different notions of belonging. Some theories of creolization argue that the development of shows the existence of this profound change, but these views ignore other areas of people’s lives.

Rather than focus solely on the violent aspect of slavery (e.g., waging war, raiding villages), this study analyzes the continuing resistance, as David Richardson illustrated

56 when still on African coast frequently happened, but now in Cape Verde, which was very close to the coast. Although slave resistance is a major focus of the African diaspora, the slave uprisings, rebellion, and social banditry must be seen within the social context of the Upper Guinea that was linked with Atlantic currents. Eric Robert Taylor maintains that, given European slave traders’ writings and analysis from the Transatlantic

Slave Trade database, slaves in the Upper Guinea had a higher rate of rebellion on the coast, “three to five times higher” and “more severe as well, with a much higher

57 incidence of death.” Hawthorne underscores that the (or Dark

Crossing) did not render a complete “social death” because slaves recreated corporate

58 identity or “social recarnation” that they maintained once in Brazil. Dunkley theorizes

56 David Richardson, “Shipboard Revolts, African Authority, and the African Slave Trade,” William and Mary Quarterly 58 (2001): 69–92. 57 Eric Robert Taylor, If We Must Die: Shipboard Insurrections in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade (Baton Rouge: State University Press, 2006), 63; Ismail Rashid, “‘A Devotion to the Idea of Liberty at Any ’: Rebellion and Antislavery in the Upper Guinea Coast in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” in Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies, ed. Silviane A. Diouf, (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003). For similar argument about slaves’ idea about freedom, see Daive A. Dunkley, Agency of the Enslaved: Jamaica and the Culture of Freedom in the Atlantic World (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013), 1. 58 Walter Hawthorne, “‘Being Now, As It Were, One Family’: Shipmate Bonding on the Slave Vessel Emilia, in and throughout the Atlantic World,” Luso- Brazilian Review 45, no. 1 (2008): 59.

22 that “slave freedom as the knowledge and conviction of enslaved people that they were

59 free” enabled the slave’s agency in manifesting different forms of resistance. Hence, it is important to understand the different forms of resistance, whether overt or covert, and how they informed cultural development, because resistance can be seen as an act of

60 culture. Consequently, my study focuses on the different classes to deepen our understanding of the historical processes. Social instability, heterodoxy, the rise of the brankus di terra, marronage, and social banditry in Cape Verde were part of a broad range of agency that contested the power structure that informed cultural formation.

For African history, studying Cape Verde Islands demonstrate Africa in transformation—some scholars note that “change” in Africa occurred the colonial period.

Some scholars might believe, because Portugal, colonized, without “indigenous” culture(s), it renders it a diasporic place comparable to islands. Indeed, Michel

Cahen writes, “The Cape Verdean society is completely different from any society of the continent: no lineage kinship, no tribes, no traditional chiefs, no clans and their food

61 taboos, no ethnicities, no age classes.” Cahen uses these as a benchmark without seriously interrogating these categories, particularly if any of these institutions continued in transformed forms, because his focus is the contemporary period, by emphasizing no prior settlement and hence, discontinuity. As Jacques Depelchin notes, African

59 Dunkley, Agency of the Enslaved, 1. 60 Employing Amilcar Cabral’s ideas that liberation is an act of culture; see Amilcar Cabral, “National Liberation and Culture,” 12–17. 61 Michel Cahen, “Anticolonialism and : Deconstructing Synonymy, Investigating Historical Processes; Notes on the Heterogeneity of Former African Colonial Portuguese Areas,” in Sure Road? Nationalism in Guinea, Angola and Mozambique edited by Éric Morier-Genoud (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2012), 1– 30.

23 historiography has been caught between the syndrome of discovery and , which equates to discovering “different” or exotic realities on the continent and its

62 opposite version is exposing ‘repugnant’ cultural practices that merit abolishing. Like

Conrad, the “real” Africa, in a distorted and Eurocentric view, is far away from the coast, in the interior—the “heart of darkness.” Thornton underscores that Dona Beatriz Kimpa

Vita, who led the Antonian Movement in the Kongo Kingdom, is largely ignored in popular history because it is too familiar and not exotic—in other words, it is not

63 “traditional” Africa. Thus, it is in dress and religion that we witness the transformation of African socieities during the Atlantic slave trade, particularly because dress expresses identities—religious, gender (masculinity, femininity), and profession, as well as status, power, and prestige.

Jean Allman suggests that dress shows how power is “constituted, articulated, and

64 contested” in which “bodily praxis as political praxis, fashion as political language.”

The body becomes the center stage on which this power dimension is explored via economics, politics, gender, and generational divide. There is a lack of studies about fashion in Africa, because the two main approaches, cultural/historical and anthropological/ethnographic, ascribe fashion to the rise of capitalism and Western modernity, whereas the non-Western world is attributed with dress and costume. The latter represents more “traditional” and “precivilized” societies. However, Jean and John

62 Jacques Depelchin, Silences in African History: Between the Syndromes of Discovery and Abolition (Dar es Salaam, : Mkuki na Nyota, 2004), 1–21. 63 John Thorthon, The Kongolese Saint Antony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684–1706 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1–2. 64 Jean Allman (ed.), Fashioning Africa Power and the Politics of Dress (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 1.

24 Comaroff suggest that modernity in , for instance, played out a conflict of

65 how the Tswana bodies “were to be clothed and presented” under colonial rule. Hence, the Comaroffs problematizes the binary of fashion versus dress as it relates to modernity.

Indeed, during the Atlantic slave trade, African dress was not static but dynamic, and modernity did not start with colonialism in African history. This dissertation contributes to this debate by demonstrating how profoundly dynamic fashion was in

Africa, long before the rise of late nineteenth-century European colonialism. Barbara

Burman and Carole Turbin contend that dress and textiles can “reveal dimensions of political and social transformations that cannot be discerned in observed social

66 behaviour or verbal and written articulations.” Precisely because of this, Jean Allman persuasively argues that dress and clothing is an alternative archive with which to interrogate the subjectivities of the so-called subalterns. Allman further notes that dress and clothing also challenge the gendered divide of public/political as male and private/personal as female. Laura Fair shows that how Zanzibari women’s political praxis

67 via dress related to emancipation and citizenship. Judith Byfield shows how the

Abeokuta Women’s Union regulated clothing to unify socioeconomic differences as part

68 of nation building and nationalism. Moreover, the local context determined the

65 Jean and John Comaroff, Revelation and Revolution: Dialectics of Modernity on a Southe Afrian Frontier, vol. 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 222. 66 Barbara Burman and Carole Turbin, “Introduction: Material strategies Engendered,” Gender and History 4, no. 3 (2002): 375. Emphasis added. 67 Laura Fair, “Remaking Fashion in the Paris of the Indian Ocean: Dress, Performance and Cosmopolitan Identity in Early Twentieth Century ,” in Jean Allman (ed.), Fashioning Africa, 13–30. 68 Judith Byfield, “Dress and Politics in Post-World War II Abeokuta (Western ),” in Jean Allman (ed.), Fashioning Africa, 31–49.

25 meaning of clothing. For instance, “If Westernized inspired dress in 1950s colonial

Angola embodied nation, in Tanzania and , in the form of the miniskirt, it

69 threatened patriarchal authority in profound ways.” The tradition of incorporating

European clothing into local African contexts has a long history that begins with the

Atlantic slave trade.

My dissertation fills a void because most researchers do not visit Cape Verde to work on period prior to the twentieth century. My primary source was the National

Archive in Praia, Cape Verde. I utilized notary records, including marriage, death, and baptismal certificates; Secretaria Geral do Governo (General Secetrary Govern), which included reports about economics, politics, trade, religious, and social issues by the local administration; and the Secretario General Governo, which has two divisions: livros

(books) and caixas (boxes). The latter covers Cape Verde from the seventeenth century to

1975, when Cape Verde became independent. I also consulted Boletim Offical do

Governo Provincial de Cabo Verde, which was initiated in the 1842 to provide more detail accounts on a trisemester basis. Moreover, the Boletim de Propaganda, although it focused on the twentieth century, allowed for some comparison with earlier periods, thus

70 enabling me to understand the changes and continuity better. Unfortunately, the voices of slaves and libertos are not always readily available in the historical records; rather, others discuss them, and inevitably those discussions are filtered through others’ biases and choices concerning what should be written. Yet, the Junta did record their complaints

69 Allman (ed.), Fashioning Africa, 6. 70 Even João Lopes Filho’s Abolição da escravatura: subsídios para o estudo is an institutional history and does not interrogate the social lives of slaves nor their complaint before the Junta for manumission, which is a rich source that partially demonstrates what slaves wanted and what they were able to achieve, at least during the nineteenth century.

26 and desires, at least as it related to issues of manumission and treatment. Despite these limitations, the slaves’ actions sometimes speak clearly about their interests and perspectives. Nothwithstanding António Carreira’s pioneering work about slavery in

Cape Verde, those in the Lusophone world have not done any in-depth research about slavery and the slave trade in Cape Verde despite its connection with the Upper Guinea

Coast. Cape Verdean scholars tend to focus on the post-abolition period, because there are abundant materials in Cape Verde. Finally, with the elevation of Cidade Velha to a

World Heritage Site, there needs to be more investigations of the time of slavery, because the details of the laboratory that gave rise to the first slave society of black Africans slaves (rather than multiracial slavery) was a turning point for Atlantic slave trade.

In addition to the previously mentioned sources, I used published primary sources by elite Cape Verdean, Portuguese, but Dutch, British, Brazilian, and French traders.

Summary of Chapters

Chapter 1, “Cotton and Dress in Upper Guinea Coast, 1500–1600,” provides the historical background of fashion in the Upper Guinea by highlighting the local adornments, non-Islamic and Islamic, from the mid-fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries. The chapter briefly explores the cotton–slave trade (i.e., Portuguese/Cape

Verdean merchants selling raw cotton in exchange for slaves with African traders). This was the precursor to the panu (cotton cloth)–slave trade between Cape Verde and Upper

Guinea. In Cape Verde, enslaved Africans, mostly from Upper Guinea, produced panu, which Portuguese merchants traded for slaves in the Upper Guinea. The making of panu

27 in Cape Verde was based on a gendered division of labor derived from an African

“knowledge-system.”

Chapter 2, “Panu: Slave Trade, Dress, and Fashion in Cape Verde, c.1600– c.1800s,” focuses on the development of cotton cloth as fashion in Cape Verde and how gender and class influenced this process. The manner and the type of panu worn varied by , because people with means, such as some manumitted slaves, particularly black women, used silk, damask, and other types of finery. I argue that the use of panu in

Cape Verde was continuation of the Guinean “cultural core,” particularly among freed black women. It also illustrates the economic and social affects of panu on Cape Verdean society during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The population used panu as a local currency, for cultural practices (e.g., funeral rites, carrying babies) and ascribing social order and ranking, as well as a commodity for exchange with Upper Guinea.

Chapter 3, “Social Unease in a Slave Society: Flight, ‘Social Banditry,’ and

Religious Heterodoxy, 1700–1800,” examines the social life of slaves and manumitted individuals and how elites and state and religious institutions interacted with them.

During the eighteenth century, the Cape Verde Islands were undergoing a political, economic, and social upheaval due to the rise of a new social class and the end of slavery.

The social hierarchy of the had been weakened and the Church was in disarray, due to poor finances and priests involved in slave trade and committing

“blasphemous acts.” Manumitted male slaves were demanding the right to marry enslaved women and their freedom; others were organized in bands causing mayhem in the form of robbery, killing, and attacking properties. Famine caused people to sell slaves and free people to European traders. The local authorities utilized laws and the military to

28 control this volatile situation. They arrested and fined fugitive slaves and those assisting them and selling people “illegally.” They exiled captured social bandits, usually freed slaves, to Upper Guinea as soldiers.

Chapter 4, “Ending Slavery in Cape Verde: Manumission, Crimes, and

Punishment, 1856–1870,” explores the abolition of slavery in Cape Verde between 1856 and 1870 under the new Junta for the Protection of Liberated Slaves and Slaves. The process emphasized compensation for the masters and the baptism of minors as the eligibility for “freedom,” but slaves and “freed” individuals used the new mechanism to file complaints and challenge notions of freedom and rights as part of their resistance to harsh treatment and unfair laws. It also delves into how the , through local colonial administration, the Catholic Church, and the Junta, tried to control and manage slaves and manumitted individuals in Cape Verde through the use of public works, whippings, hangings, and exile.

Chapter 5 examines the notion of kinship, abolition, commerce, and colonization on the Upper Guinea Coast in relation to Cape Verde in first seventy years of the nineteenth century. Notions of kinship between strangers’ (Portuguese/Cape Verdeans) and Africans were essential in fostering trade relations that could tap into African and global trading networks. In Upper Guinea, some Cape Verdean merchants had slaves and others working the farms to produce items for trade with the littoral communities. These slaves would be liberated as the Portuguese Empire was ending slavery in Cape Verde.

The burgeoning colony of “Portuguese Guinea” employed exiled convicts, slaves, manumitted slaves, and poor individuals to wage war on old African “friends” or “allies.”

29 These military and administrative personnel experienced disease, lack of resources, and fierce African resistance.

The Conclusion shows how Africans incorporated elements of European clothing into their own fashions without abandoning African aesthetics. Furthermore, the conclusion problematizes the Luso-African identity by highlighting the fact that individuals assigned to this category came from different social strata. Thus, contact zones in Atlantic Africa did not follow a linear progression toward “creolization” or

“Europeanization.”

30 CHAPTER 1

COTTON AND DRESS IN UPPER GUINEA COAST, 1500–1600s.

Before the rise of the Atlantic slave trade on the Upper Guinea Coast, dress in cotton cloth tended to be the preserve of the elite class in highly stratified kingdoms, especially those of the Wolof, Fula, and Mandinka. Moreover, in small-scale societies with semi-centralized institutions, such as Kasanga, Beafada, and Bañun, male chiefs adorned themselves in panu di lambú, which was similar to the Roman toga but shorter.

In more thoroughly small-scale or stateless societies, such as Bijagos, Balanta, Floup, and

Nalu, people tended to wear goatskin, grass, or a small piece of cloth across their midsection. There was great diversity in dress in Upper Guinea, but with gradual

Islamization of the northern part of the region, especially with the aristocratic circles already adopting cotton cloth by the mid-fifteenth century and the subsequent growth of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, a larger community began to adopt cotton cloth as the

71 preferred means of clothing. This change resulted in the transformation of dress and fashion from skirts usually made of grass, to textiles, which included cotton, silk, linen, wool, and damask.

71 Colleen Kriger, Cloth in West African History (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2006), 67–109.

31 Figure 2. Clothing Styles of Wolof Kingdom, Late Seventeenth Century

(Source: D. O. Dapper, Description de l’Afrique…Traduite du Flamand [Amsterdam, st 1688; 1 ed., 1668], 234.)

Figure 3. Clothing Styles of Women of Kazegut (Bijagos Island), c.1728

(Source: Jean-Baptiste Labat, Nouvelle Relation de l’Afrique Occidentale [Paris: Chez G. Cavelier, 1728], between pages 184 and 185)

The early slave trade and focus on cloth and panus were based on the preexisting

72 African trade network, which, I argue, allowed for the development of “Guinean” fashion and dress in Upper Guinea and Cape Verde. The Portuguese produced panu in

Cape Verde for economic advantage due to African cultural preferences to ensure

72 Linda A. Newson, “Africans and Luso-Africans in the Portuguese Slave Trade on the Upper Guinea Coast in the Early Seventeenth Century,” Journal of African History 53, no. 1 (2012): 24.

32 positive commercial relation In turn, the Portuguese relied on African knowledge of panu production and slave laborers to manufacture panu for their commerce with Upper

Guinea. Hence, trade in panu from Cape Verde to Upper Guinea expanded its use of panu on the African continent. It shaped and reproduced a regional dress within a diverse cultural landscape of fashions and dresses. Green’s notion of creolization, in which mixed cultural groups (specifically Luso-Africans and Mande traders), functioning as cultural

73 brokers, laid the basis for the rise of the Atlantic slave trade, is well conceived, for

Cape Verde the African knowledge and preferences was central to panu production in the

74 archipelago, European traders provided cotton cloth among other commodities that was already circulating in an elaborate trading network that allow culturally mixed traders to facilitate the rise of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

This chapter provides a historical background of the dressing practices in Upper

Guinea by highlighting the Islamic and the non-Islamic styles. Second, it explores the cotton-slave trade, the precursor to the panu-slave trade, which laid the basis for the cultural exchange between Cape Verde and Upper Guinea. In this initial phase, the

Portuguese provided raw cotton from Cape Verde along with manufactured goods from

Europe. In turn, European/Cape Verdean traders received slaves, beeswax, and other items. Eventually, the Portuguese began to focus on panu production because it provided

73 Robin Law and Kristin Mann highlight the fluid cross-cultural communities between Bahia and the Bight of Benin formed an Atlantic community; Robin Law and Kristin Mann, “West Africa in the Atlantic Community: The Case of the Slave Coast,” William and Mary Quarterly 56, no. 2 (1999), 307–34. 74 Toby Green, The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300-1589 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

33 greater value in their exchanges with Africans on the mainland. This chapter traces the development of the panu-slave trade from Cape Verde to Upper Guinea.

The rise of the Atlantic slave trade centered, in part, on the elaborate panu production by enslaved Africans and their descendants, initially on the islands of Fogo and Santiago of Cape Verde Islands. This chapter examines panu manufacturing, which

75 was the domain of highly skilled female and male slaves.

The making of panu in Cape Verde was based on a gendered division of labor

76 derived from an African social practice or “knowledge-system.” With African social practice as central in the encounter with the Europeans, scholarship on the African

77 Atlantic focuses on agricultural production, identity formation, and cultural change as an African response to their needs, rather than mere incorporation into an ever-expanding

78 world system. In spite of these pioneering scholarship of Africans responses to the

75 To make panu, female slaves collected cotton, spun and dyed it, then male slaves wove cotton yarn on a horizontal loom into bands 5–6 inches wide by 5–6 feet long. T. Bentley Duncan, Atlantic Islands: Madeira, the , and the Cape Verdes in Seventeenth-Century, Commerce and Navigation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 219. 76 Judith Carney argues that a knowledge system on risiculture was transferred from Upper Guinea to South Carolina; Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001). 77 In West and Central Africa, this was the contact zone that Africans had with Europeans during the Atlantic slave trade. 78 Walter Hawthorne, Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves: Transformation along the Guinea-Bissau Coast, 1400–1900 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003); Peter Mark, “Portuguese” Style and Luso-African identity: precolonial , sixteenth- nineteenth centuries (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002); G. Ugo Nwokeji, The Slave Trade and Culture in the Bight of Biafra: An African Society in the Atlantic World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Green, The Rise of the Trans- Atlantic Slave Trade; John Thornton, A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250– 1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); James H. Sweets, Domingos Álvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World (Chapel Hill:

34 Atlantic slave trade, on the African Atlantic, there has been little sustained study of the

79 material culture and aesthetics during the Atlantic slave trade.

In contrast, there is a growing body of literature on the African diaspora in the

Atlantic basin, the entire Atlantic World including the Americas, Europea and Africa, that has focused on material culture, including the aesthetics of music, fashion, and dress during the Atlantic during slavery. Indeed, Crickett Harmer argues that “cloth politics” was vital to the rise of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, for Africans and Europeans. For instance, cloth was main ingredient for the canvas used on slave ships, and that enslaved

Africans and their descendants used their sewing skills to purchase their freedom in the

80 Americas. To bridge this divide between the African diaspora and their homeland, the

African Atlantic should also be scrutinized to understand cultural continuity, change, and exchange. This will allow for an analysis of aesthetic development and/or cross-cultural

University of North Carolina Press, 2011); Rebecca Shumway, The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2011); Roquinaldo Ferreira, Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World: Angola and Brazil during the Era of the Slave Trade (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Mariana P. Candido, An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World: Benguela and Its Hinterland (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 79 António Carreira, Panaria Cabo-Verdiano-Guineense: Aspectos históricos e sócio- economicos (Lisbon, Portugal: Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, 1968). Liza A. Gijanto, “Change and the Era of the Atlantic Trade: Commerce and Interaction in the Niumi Commercial Center (The Gambia),” Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University, 2010; Akinwumi Ogundiran and Toyin Falola (eds.), Archaelogy of Atlantic Africa and the African diaspora (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007); Pascal Bokar Thiam, From Timbuktu to the Mississippi Delta: How West African Standards of Aesthetics have Shaped the Music of the Delta Blues (San Diego, CA: Cognella, 2011); Christopher DeCorse, West Africa during the Atlantic Slave Trade: Archaelogical Perspectives (London: Leicester University Press, 2001); Robert Farris Thompson, Aesthetic of the Cool: Afro-Atlantic Art and Music (Pittsburgh, PA: Periscope Publishing, 2011). 80 Crickett Harmer, “The Effects of ‘Cloth Politics’ in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: Cause, Cash, Commodity and Comfort,” http://discoverarchive.vanderbilt.edu/handle/1803/3095?show=full.

35 exchange between the Black Atlantic and the Atlantic Africa. Research on the African diaspora regarding fashion and dress, for example, usually rely on modern ethnological and anthropological work, rather than historical interpretation, to link the African diaspora with the African homeland. For instance, Buckridge points out that the

81 supposedly “traditional” African head wrapping can be found in Jamaica. John

Thornton, however, suggests that head wrapping was the result of cultural change in

Atlantic Africa during the era of the Atlantic slave trade that was transported with

82 African captives to the “New World.”

António Carreira, T. Bentley Duncan, George Brooks, and Colleen Kriger explore the economic and cultural aspect of panu in Upper Guinea during the era of the Atlantic slave trade. Carreira and Brooks show the importance of panu di terra (cotton cloth from

Cape Verde) in the economic and sociocultural context of Upper Guinea and Cape Verde.

Building on Carreira’s thesis, Duncan demonstrates that the economic side of panu di terra was important in the purchasing of slaves by Portuguese/Luso-African “Cape

Verdean” merchants. Yet, neither Carreira nor Duncan links it to a rise of an Afro-

83 Atlantic feminine aesthetics, which John Thornton alludes to but does not develop.

This “transformation” of African aesthetics was more of incorporation of European

81 Steeve O. Buckridge, The Language of Dress: Resistance and Accommodation in Jamaica, 1760–1890 (Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 2004). 82 John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 233. 83 Thornton, Africa and Africans, 230–34; see George E. Brooks, “Artists’ Depictions of Senegalese Signares: Insights Concerning French Racist and Sexist Attitudes in the Nineteenth Century,” Genève-Afrique, 18, no, 1 (1980): 75–90. For Angola, see Mariana P. Candido (2012), “Aguida Gonçalves da Silva, une dona à Benguela à fin du XVIII siècle, Brésil(s) Sciences humaines et sociales, no. 1 (May): 33–53.

36 elements and reconfiguration of African aesthetics. Individuals expressed their identities via dress, religious affiliation, the consumption of particular food, and their profession.

For examples, Liza Gijanto makes the following observation concerning the Mande people in the Juffure Village, on the north bank of the Gambia River, as well as nearby settlements of San Domingo and Lamin Conco:

Despite direct access to trade materials, this community was comprised of discriminate consumers whose choice of specific commodities was done in a way that fit within preexisting forms of display. Therefore, material categories highlighted in this analysis represented both the use of European imported goods into everyday expressions of wealth as well as the translation of this into previously established practices—specifically practices associated with public display such as personal adornment and 84 foodways.

Residents or “Luso-Africans” from Santiago Island settled in Juffure and Albreda, and founded San Domingo and Sika along the Gambia River as merchants trading of

85 cloth and cotton textiles. Kriger refers to the long-standing tradition of cloth making in

West Africa, including Upper Guinea, Bend to basin and Nok regions, which

86 later developed Atlantic connections.

84 Gijanto, “Change and the Era of the Atlantic Trade,” abstract; for a similar argument about food in the Coast, see J. D. La Fleur, Fusion Foodways of Africa’s in the Atlantic Era (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2012). Emphasis added. 85 Francis Moore, Travels into the inland parts of Africa: Containing a description of the several nations for the space of Six Hundred Miles up the River Gambia (London: printed by D. Henry and R. Cave, 1738), 70–72; Curtin, Economic Change in Precolonial: Senegambia in the Era of the Slave Trade (Madion: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975), 97; Gijanto, “Change and the Era of the Atlantic Trade,” 72. 86 Colleen E. Kriger, “‘Guinea Cloth,’ Production and Consumption of Cotton Textiles in West Africa before and during the Atlantic Slave Trade,” in The Spinning World: A Global Textile 1200–1850, edited by Giorgio Riello and Prasannan Parthasarathi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 107–11. For fashion, cloth, dyeing and politics in Africa, see Judith A. Byfield, The Bluest Hands: A Social and Economic History of Women Dyers in Abeokuta (Nigeria), 1890–1940 (Portsmouth, NH:

37 Before the arrival of the Portuguese, Africans prized textiles and clothing items, such as the Wolof xereos (plain white cotton cloth) and Mandinka bantan (silk cloth).

White symbolized purity, which made it an important color on the coast and elsewhere.

The newcomers did not drastically alter the trading networks or introduce radical new commodities; they tapped into a vibrant cultural and economic trade network. African elites and rulers came to value panu, which was the only way “Cape

Verdean”/Portuguese merchants could to compete with English, French, and Dutch

87 traders. In 1471, in what became the El Mina or a mina do ouro (the gold mine) in modern , the Portuguese mariners Fernandes and Esteve located a place that had

“‘huge quantities of the purest gold and could be exchanged for cheap trade goods of

88 cloth and metal.’” In Upper Guinea, the Portuguese derisively called these northern

Europeans “foreigners” because the former jealously defended Guiné as their own, since the papal bull of the 1481 granted them exclusive rights to the east of the meridian line and the islands of Cape Verde. These “foreigners” sought to include panu as part of their commodities, because African rulers preferred this commodity in their commercial transactions. “Trading material goods and trading slaves were both international activities in the pre-industrialized era. Europe exported a wide variety of goods to Africa during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The largest volume of trade

Heinemann, 2002); and Carolyn Keyes, Adire: Cloth, Gender and Social Change in Southwestern Nigeria, 1841–1991 (University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1993). 87 George Brooks, Landlords and Strangers: Ecology, Society, and Trade in Western Africa, 1000–1630 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), 166. 88 Stephanie E. Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 11.

38 goods at the time was cloth, and ‘a whole world of textiles of dozens of types by the

89 seventeenth century.’”

Local aristocratic families, including elite women, had the finest dresses, whereas commoners and slaves were plainly dressed, such as in Wolof, Mandinka, and Fula communities. Due to the egalitarian nature of small-scale societies, members dressed alike. Across the region, the ways individuals dressed was influenced by their age as well as marital status. For example, unwedded women went bare except for loincloth or cotton cloth, but not all coastal communities adhered to this social practice and fashion. In some communities, such as Beafada, matrimony required that women adorn themselves with a large panu shawl to symbolize their new social status.

In the Senegambia region, which had a longstanding relationship with Sanhanja

Muslim traders, the dress of the aristocratic class had already been Islamized by the time

Europeans reached the region. In 1455, Alvise da Cadamosto visited Zucholin, king of the . The king’s retinue was all dressed in fine garb. The aristocrats and important people wore cotton shirt and breeches. The Wolof grew cotton in the Senegal

90 River region and Wolof women spun the cotton into a cloth about a “span in width.”

Cadamosto thought that they did not possess the knowledge “to card it for weaving.”

Instead, they sewed four or five bands (or strips) together to make larger panu. These cotton shirts extended to the thigh; the sleeves were wide and reached the elbow. The

89 Harmer, “The Effects of ‘Cloth Politics’ in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade,” 4. 90 A General Collection of Voyages and Discoveries, made by the Portuguese and , fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (London: W. Richardson; J. Bew; T. Hookham; J. and T. Egerton; and C. Stalker, 1789), 61–62. This gendered aspect of the spinning the cotton shirt also speaks to the gendered nature of cloth making, which was transplanted to Cape Verde; G. R. Cone (ed. and trans.), The Voyages of Cadamosto (London: Hakluyt Society, 1937), 31–32.

39 91 Wolofs also manufactured large cotton breeches made of about forty palmi. Cadamosto wrote, “When they are girded round the waist, they are much crumpled and form a sack in front.” The huge petticoat-like shirt and voluminous pants amused Cadamosto, whereas African rulers, chiefs, and provincial leaders sauntered with an ostentatious demeanor believing their attire was the most exquisite garb in the world. Like any elite class, they boasted about their dress, because it revealed their superior rank in society.

In contrast to the elites, the dress of commoners in centralized societies in the

Senegambia region, such as the Jolof kingdom, utilized goatskin to cover their mid- section. Married and single women wrapped a cotton cloth around their waist that reached the middle of their legs, and wore a girdle beneath. For the commoners, both sexes went and wore no headgear. In 1587, André Almada, a mestiço Cape

Verdean from Ribeira Grande, Santiago Island, wrote that the Wolof in Senegal made

92 black and white cloth with a variety of patterns by dyeing it with .

In what is now Gambia, Cadamosto noted that, “They [Mande] do not go naked, like the Negroes of Senegal, but cover themselves with cotton cloth; and by reason of the

93 abundance of this production, the women are equally adorned.” At this time, the

Gambian region had a relatively abundant cotton supply, which allowed the Mande to manufacture ample cotton cloth.

91 The measurement for palmi varied across place and period, but it is estimated that 10 palmi equaled about 2 meters. Cadamosto does not specify if it was a man or a woman that made the cotton breeches. 92 André Alvares Almada, Brief Treatise on the Rivers of Guinea. Translated by P. E. H. Hair (Liverpool, UK: University of Liverpool, Department of History, 1984), Ch 2, f.18– 19. 93 A Collection of Voyages, 79.

40

Islam and Changing African Aesthetics on the Upper Guinea Coast

With the gradual process of Islamization in the Senegambia region of Upper

Guinea, an Islamic material culture affected the upper social strata of Wolof, Mandinka, and Fula societies. As such, African rulers began to don shirts and pants, but this did not appear to be uniform among these communities. In this region, Islamized Africans and

94 Portuguese traders brought about change in coastal people’s dress.

Islam also influenced Iberian dress. For example, the Portuguese brought cloths, particularly the blanket from southern Portugal, but also Islamic-inspired

95 clothing, such as alquicés, bedéis, alzimbas, and ferragoilos, from North Africa. In the

Senegambia, most European travelers noticed the Islamic dress of the African aristocracies; thus, cloths traded by the Portuguese were already in circulation, at least to some extent, via the trans-Saharan trade.

Moreover, Labelle Prussin persuasively argues that the Sanhanja (Berber), as propagators of Islam, merchants, and pastoralists, who moved livestock from one grazing ground due to seasonal change, spread “Judaic threads” into the West

African tapestry. According to Prussin, Jewish patterns influenced the Portuguese

Alentejo cloth design, which in turn, contributed to one of the patterns in panu di terra.

Before the downfall of the Moorish Empire, the cultural exchange between Muslims,

94 Carreira, “A Urzela e o pano de vestir—dois produtos de exportação,” Revistq do Centro de Estudos de Cabo Verde, Série Ciências Humanas, Praia 1, no. 1 (1973): 24. 95 Spelt also as bedees (bedéis) is a short tunic, see Malyn Newitt (trans.), The Portuguese in West Africa, 1415–1670: A Documentary History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 78. Alzimba was also called zuba was a Moorish silk coat or “surcoat” or an outer garment in The Voyages of Cadamosto, 68.

41 96 Christians, and Jews, especially in Andalusia in , was significant. During the eleventh century, Gellar avers that Islamic traders and introduced Islam to the Fulas, under War Jabi (the Fula ruler of , northern part of Senegal), before the

Almoravid (i.e., the ) extended their empire into and Spain during the last

97 quarter of the eleventh century. Nonetheless, the Islamic influence on clothing was limited to the aristocratic class, and these patterns were woven into the variety of textile designs. This influence was restricted to the Senegambia during the sixteenth century.

Concerning aristocratic dress of the Wolof on the Cape Verde peninsula, in 1602 Pieter de Marees wrote that these rulers wore caps, long cotton shirts, square leather bags as protective amulets on their arms and legs, and a “paternoster made of Seahorse

98 [] teeth” on their necks.

Hats were another important marker of social status. During the early sixteenth century, Koli Tengela, king of the Denanke Kingdom or as the Portuguese called it, the

Empire of Great Fulo), wore an elaborate hat while on a military expedition against the

Jolof Empire. Unus Jata, a Mandinka , recalled, “Koli Tengela left Denya. He came with a nine-cornered hat and a pair of trousers called bibirikin. The hat had nine different colors. They made it in the shape of a mansa’s hat, but it had nine corners and was made

96 Stuart B. Schwartz, All Can Be Saved: Religious Tolerance and Salvation in the Iberian World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008). 97 S. Gellar, Senegal: An African Nation between Islam and the West (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), 2–3. 98 Pieter de Marees, Description and Historical Account of the Gold Kingdom of Guinea (1602), translated from Dutch and edited by Albert van Dantzig and Adam Jones (London: British Academy; published by arrangement by Oxford University Press, 1978), 11.

42 99 of cotton cloth. That was their symbol of leadership.” Mansa means “king” in

Mandinka, which suggests that invoking the Fula king’s hat, that symbolized his leadership with the Mandinka, who were the elite class of the Empire, that was the most powerful political entity, was to convey the Fula king’s extraordinary authority.

The wearing of hats was a widespread phenomenon in Upper Guinea among hierarchical and small-scale societies. In Upper Guinea, Almada noted that African men were known for snatching the hats off the heads of Europeans, and he suggested that

100 these were acts of bravery linked to being a man. Among the Balanta, after the (fanado) in which a male becomes an elder, the initiate dons a red cap to display his achievement. The color red was important because it was difficult to make in Africa.

“Any fabrics that contained a dense red were prized. Scarlet red was produced in

101 Europe in a brighter shade then local African dyers could achieve.” The king of Benin

102 Empire controlled who could wear scarlet wool.

Hairstyles also could indicate one’s social standing. For instance:

In those days, all the men grew great big tufts of hair on their heads. It was not plaited. When the Wolof woman came to Bankere and observed this practice, she said to her husband, ‘You look like every one of your followers. You all have this great big tuft of hair. Let me plait your hair so that you will look different from them. When visitors come to your town

99 The Empire of Great Fulo was in the region of what is now northern Senegal. Donald R. Wright, Oral Traditions From the Gambia, Vol. I: Mandinka (Papers in International Studies Africa Series No. 37) (Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies Program, 1979), 31. Donald R. Wright interviewed Unus Jata in 1974 and 1975. A bibirikin was most likely a fashionable trouser reserved for kings. 100 Walter Hawthorne and Clara Carvalho, “Guinea-Bissau,” in Berg Encyclopeida of World Dress and Fashion. Africa (Oxford: Berg, 2010), 258–3. 101 Harmer, “The Effects of ‘Cloth Politics’ in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade,” 2. 102 Kriger, Cloth in West African History, 36.

43 103 they will know who is the leader.’

Thus, hats, hairstyles, pouches, and other accessories indicated who held power. These societies conceived of power on political and supernatural grounds that granted legitimacy to the ruler. Moreover, dress illustrated masculinity and femininity, which was central to performance of identities. Carreira presupposes that panu was used by elites of hierarchical society, such as the almamy (Islamic rulers), rulers, chiefs, and baloubeiros

(healers). It is possible that this assertion is more applicable at the beginning of the panu- slave trade, but with the centuries of trading with Upper Guinea, the panu di terra became available to common people, especially in the region. Of course, the most expensive panus remained almost exclusively for the elites in Upper Guinea, but given the diversity and price range of panu, it became more accessible to ordinary people.

In small-scale societies in Upper Guinea, dress was less elaborate due in part to the ecological, political, and sociocultural structure. Cotton was scarce south of the

Gambia River, which meant it had to be imported from their neighbors to the north.

Given their numerous independent compounds (moranças or kundas), there was greater diversity of local dresses. In the sixteenth century, along the Upper Guinea Coast, numerous groups went or covered themselves with leaves or animal hides. Almada noticed that the Bañun and Kasangas dressed alike in shirts, used “wrap-around cloths[,]

104 and some” donned “breeches.” Sometimes, the breeches were made of goatskin or palm-leaves. The Beafada men dressed like the Bañun and Kasangas, but they had a greater tendency to adorn themselves with goatskin. Beafada “nobles wear an iron ring on

103 Wright, Oral Traditions From the Gambia, Vol. I, 35. 104 Almada, A Brief Treatise, Chap. 9, 78.

44 their thumb.” Beafada women wore “short cloths” that reached “midway down the leg.”

Perhaps due to customs related to the age-groupings, girls utilized small pieces of cloth to conceal their midsections, but, after marriage, they dressed like the aforementioned adult women.

Although the Nalus lived in close proximity to the Beafadas, they dressed and spoke a different language. The Beafadas had assimilated some Mande culture, though they retained their own distinct identity. The Nalus who lived inland, in Bisegue (near the

Grande River), interacted with the Beafadas, but were aloof to whites. With their pierced noses, Nalu men concealed their midriff, but left their scrotums hanging out. The Nalu made many “designs,” beauty marks, or “scarifications” on their legs and neck, and the

105 women made marks on their faces. Perhaps, the beauty marks showed their totemic

106 clan, personal history, and other social markers that their communities understood.

Nalu women, whether married or single, wore only a goatskin loincloth. Almada also reckoned that the Nalus, Bagas, Cocolins, and Sapes understood each other and dressed alike in shirts and breeches. In Papel communities, a noble wore cotton cloth, but the poor wore goatskin; if they could not obtain goatskin, they made their dress from cide, a

107 tree indigenous to Upper Guinea.

Thus, there were a plethora of fashions and styles of dress among small-scale societies, and panu was becoming a central part of cultural expressions. Like the

105 Almada, A Brief Treatise, Chap. 13, 1. 106 A similar group, Manjacos, had beauty marks see, António Carreira, “Mutilações étnicas dos Manjacos,” Boletim Cultural de Guiné Portuguesa 16, no. 61 (1961): 83–102. 107 Manuel Álavres, Minor and a Geographical Account of the Province of Sierra Leone. Translated by P. E. H. Hair (Liverpool, UK: University of Liverpool, Department of History, September 30, 1990), Chap. 8, 1.

45 centralized societies in the region, hats, hairstyles, jewelry, particularly those tied to supernatural beliefs, played a key role in the dress and fashions of these communities.

However, African groups, like Nalu, Buramos, Floup, and Balanta had tended to have more body marks, than Islamized Africans, particularly body designs and filed teeth.

Early Atlantic Slave Trade in the Upper Guinea Coast

In the on the Rivers of Guinea, stretching from to Sierra Leone, some utilized cotton to make cloth, whereas other Africans exchanged the cotton for slaves, ivory, cotton cloth, or iron. At this time, Portuguese subjects traded Fogo cotton

108 for slaves, ivory, panu, and iron like some of their African counterparts. The former returned to Ribeira Grande with slaves and cotton cloth. Along the Casamance and

Gambia Rivers and coast, Portuguese subjects bartered iron bars along the coast for slaves, kola, cloth, and beeswax. Masatamba, king of Kasa, had good relations with the

Portuguese subjects of Cape Verde and the latter traded iron, along with commodities, for slaves, whereas along the Gambia River, Portuguese/Cape Verdeans obtained diverse items, including cotton, gold, and slaves.

Along the Gambia River and in Portual and Joal (in what today is Senegal), there was a lively commercial activity by a vibrant small Portuguese/Cape Verdean community that in 1606 Pieter Van Den Broecke, a Dutch trader on his way to Angola, was shocked

109 to discover. The Portuguese authorities derisively called them lançado, meaning those banished to distant land, but they were mostly New Christians that had escaped the

108 Torrão, “O Algodão da Ilha do Fogo,” 48. 109 Pieter Van Den Broecke, Journal of Voyages to Cape Verde, Guinea and Angola (1605–1612). Translated and edited by J. D. La Fleur. (3rd Series No. 5). (London: Hakluyt Society, 2000), 41.

46 Portuguese Inquisition. “They gather here around 100 to 150 slaves, which they ship to

[Cacheu] or [São Domingos, Buguendo], and from there embark for the West Indies, where they gather together a great fortune from the slaves and then return, when they

110 have been pardoned, to Portugal to retire.”

In the African form of economies, these exiles tried to accumulate capital in the

111 form of slaves, and subsequently convert these to “imperial currency.” If successful, they sought a pardon from the Crown and a return to Portugal. Lançados were usually unsuccessful, but rather they preferred to stay in Upper Guinea or move to Brazil, rather than return to Portugal. In 1623, while along the Gambian River, Jobson, an English trader, noticed that lançados self-identified as “Portingales,” who purchased slaves from

112 local ruler and sold them to Spanish ships destined to the Caribbean.

Besides Portuguese in Cacheu purchasing slaves directly from African communities, lançados came to the market in Cachen with slaves from Gambia and

Casamance. Thus, slaves leaving the port of Cacheu did not necessarily from the , but may have come from as far away as Portudal and Joal. Not all of these slaves were bound to the West Indies—some trickled into Cape Verde. By the sixteenth century, the majority of slaves coming to Cape Verde were predominantly from the Casamance to the limits of Nuno River in Sierra Leone.

In the Guinala region, circa seventeenth century, the Beafada held a market event called “Bijorei,” which was quite popular, reportedly drawing 12,000 people. In the

110 Broecke, Journal of Voyages, 41. 111 Broecke, Journal of Voyages, 41. 112 Richard Jobson, The Olden Trade, or a Discovery of the River Gambra (London: Nicholas Okes, 1623), 35–40.

47 113 market, merchants sold slaves, cows, food items, and clothes. Trajano Filho argues the diverse crowd exchanged not only merchandises, but ideas as well; the market

114 represented a place of “archetypal agents of creolization.”

By the early sixteenth century, the Portuguese had established two main ports or centers in panu-slave trade: Rio Grande de Buba (Big River of Buba) and Biguga and

Cacheu, which the Portuguese called São Domingos. In Cacheu, African merchants provided Buramos, Bijagós, Nalus, and Mandinkas Beafada slaves in exchange for cotton

115 cloth, food, iron, horses, cows, kola, and calfs. The Portuguese from Cape Verde provided the cotton cloth, horses, and iron. The kola came from Sierra Leone and panu di terra circulated from the Gambia region to Sierra Leone.

By the late sixteenth century, there was an active textile industry in the Cacheu region. Francisco de Andrade said that cotton from Fogo and the Gambia region were

116 imported to manufacture clothes, which were sold to communities along the coast.

The dye used to make cloth came from groups such as the Bagas and Cocolins, who were located further south. They made dye from certain trees, such as ivy, by crushing the

117 leaves were crushed into heaps resembling sugar and then wrapped in cabopa leaves.

Merchants along the Nuno River exported this dye to Cacheu, where the Portuguese purchased high-quality indigo, which was imported to Cape Verde for the textile

113 Arquivo Histórico Colonial, Boletim do Arquivo Histórico Colonial (BAHC), Vol. 1, 1950 (Lisbon, Portugal: Articor, 1950), 90. 114 Filho, “Polymorphic Creoldum,” 64–65. 115 BAHC, vol.1, 90. 116 MMA, 2 series, Vol. 3, 105; Torrão, “O Algodão da Ilha do Fogo,” 48. 117 Almada, A Brief Treatise, Chap. 13, 3–4.

48 industry. The weavers in the Cacheu region employed the dye to make black cloth, which was the popular—and preferred—color.

By the seventeenth century, panu di terra had surpassed all other fabrics, including European, Indian as well as indigenous textiles in popularity. In 1612, the Papel

King of Bussis on island of Pecixe, near Bissau, purchased luxury goods from European merchants. The Papel king, “in order to dress well he cuts up silks and other expensive cloths, and does so more lavishly . . . quantity of silks and other textiles sent to him by his

118 admirers in this Guinea.” Donelha marveled at the king’s collections, and indicated that the Papel King was an ostentatious dresser.

Within this house he keeps many trunks and boxes full of different articles of clothing, such as very elaborate smocks, doublets and breeches, [also] sheets, coverlets and canopies made of different pieces of silk, and items in gold and silver. These goods, apart from the ones left him by his uncle and predecessor, he has brought and continues to buy from the Portuguese who come there with their ships to obtain slaves.

By 1615, Avity, a French explorer, wrote that residents of Ribeira Grande manufactured panu di terra, which was sold in Upper Guinea.

Luso-Africans from Santiago had good relations with the Papel state of Cacanda in the Cacheu region. They lived in Vila Fria (“Cold Settlement”) and dressed

119 extravagantly in silk, damask imported from and . Out of the 1,500 people in this town, consisting of Iberian Portuguese and natives from Santiago, there were 500 soldiers. It was also probable that panu was part of the elaborate dress of the Luso-

118 Álvares, Ethiopia Minor, Chap. 8, 3. 119 Newitt, The Portuguese in West Africa, 207–8.

49 120 African elites in Vila Fria. In the seventeenth century, in the market place in Bissau, the Balanta traded cows, goats, and other items with Papels in exchange for “Santiago

121 cloth and oil.” Like the Diola, the Balanta did not directly deal with “white” men, such as lançados and Luso-Africans, some of who were brown and black but culturally

122 different. Africans identified those involved in the slave trade as as cannibals whether

Europeans or Africans. Luso-Africans and lançados exchanged beads, Indian and

European textiles, panu, salt, wine, and grogu (brandy produced by slaves in Cape

Verde) with African merchants in exchange for captives.

During the mid-seventeenth century, European travelers described the pervasiveness of wearing of panu among other clothing items, which reflects the transformation of fashion due to the vibrant trade in cloth. Thornton refers to the dress of signares (female Franco-African merchants, who were cultural brokers) as exemplifying

Afro-Atlantic feminine aesthetics, but this aesthetics was also linked to internal fashion.

In 1615, Father Manuel Álvares emphatically asserted that Wolof women were the most fashionable in “Guinea,” particularly those in the Kingdom of Lambaia [Lumbaay],

123 which was the main city of the inland kingdom of Bawol. The women of Lumbaay produced cotton yarns. In Senegambia, dyers utilized pure indigo (indigo tinctoria),

124 which came from the interior of the savanna region.

120 Given that the phrase means “cold town,” perhaps there was a need to dress modestly. 121 Álvares, Ethiopia Minor, Chap. 11, 1. 122 Hawthorne, From Africa to Brazil, 88. 123 Álvares, Ethiopia Minor, Chap. 1, 7–8, 12. 124 Pieter van den Broecke, Pieter van den Broecke’s Journal of Voyages, 40, 1n.

50 Álvares wrote that by the seventeenth century the production of cotton and textiles had increased in the region. In 1668, Le Maire wrote that female commoners in

Senegambia wore a cotton cloth like a petticoat around their waists, but wrapped it around their bodies when the weather was cooler “The girls and boys go quite naked to the age of eleven or twelve. The women and men adorn their arms and legs with corral,

125 and bracelets of gold, silver, tin, and copper, according to their ability.”

At the end of the seventeenth century, Portuguese/Luso-African traders had made significant inroads in establishing themselves. In fact, this was the beginning of “coastal colonialism,” but African communities and rulers still controlled the coastal territories at this time. Powerful kings like the Papel from Pecixe demanded tribute from “strangers.”

On September 26, 1670, Príncipe Regente D. Pedro noted that Portuguese paid, via the captain-major of Cacheu, tribute to the “Black King” of “forty of cotton, one hundred sixty barrels of wine, one hundred eighty cruzados (then Portuguese currency)

126 and imported money valued at five hundred and seventy-nine thousand réis.” The representatives of the Portuguese Empire negotiated with European cloths, panu, and

127 grogu to satisfy African taste.

125 Jacques-Joseph Le Maire, A new voyage to the East-Indies in the years 1690 and 1691 being a full description of the isles of , Cicos, Andamants, and the Isle of Ascention by Monsieur Duquesne ; to which is added, a new description of the , Cape Verd, Senegal, and Gambia; done into English from the Paris edition (London: Printed for Daniel Dring, 1696), 73. 126 BAHC, Vol.1, 103. 127 Concerning alcohol and slave trade by the Luso-, see José Curto, Enslaving Spirits: The Portuguese-Brazilian Alcohol Trade at Luanda and Its Hinterland, c. 1550– 1830 (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2004).

51 African captives hailing from Upper Guinea arrived at the Cape Verde Islands with their cultural heritage. The Cape Verde archipelago is situated between 283 and 448 miles off the west coast of Senegal in the . It consists of ten islands divided into the barlavento (windward) islands of São Vicente, São Nicolau, Santo

Antão, Boavista and Sal, and Santa Luzia, and sotavento (leeward) islands of Maio,

Santiago, Fogo, and Brava. In the and 1470s, animal husbandry and cotton

128 cultivation began in Cape Verde. According to royal letters, there was indication of spontaneous growth of cotton in the islands as early as 1472. A royal letter of September

129 30, 1481 authorized Pedro Lourenço to contract whomever wanted to trade the cotton.

Christopher Columbus noted the existence of cotton in Cape Verde in 1490, followed by

Duarte Pacheco and Valentime Fernandes in the early sixteenth century. By the late fifteenth century, the local landowners had begun the cultivation of cotton in Fogo and

Santiago.

According to Torrão, in the sixteenth century, Cape Verde exported cotton to

Upper Guinea and (to a lesser extent) Europe. In addition, they used it to produce panu di

130 terra. When it comes to the transition to the production of this, Torrão does not provide any specific period in the establishment this textile industry in Cape Verde. There

128 Concerning cotton, see João Barreto, Historia da Guiné, 1418–1918 (Lisbon, Portugal: Edição do Autor), 70; and Edmund Correia Lopes, Escravatura: Subsídios para a sua Historia (Lisbon, Portugal: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1944), 52; concerning horses, see Hall, “The Role of Cape Verde Islanders”; and George Brooks, Landlords and Strangers: Ecology, Society and Trade in Western Africa, 1000–1630 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), 127. 129 António Carreira, “A Urzela e o pano de vestir,” 22. 130 Maria Manuel Torrão, “Subsídios para a História Geral de Cabo Verde: O Algodão da Ilha do Fogo: Uma Matéria-Prima de Produção Afro-Europeia para uma Manufactura Africana,” 3, nos. 5/6 (1990): 48.

52 are three proposed periods for the development of cotton textile industry in Cape Verde.

First, Green assumes that by 1480 cotton textile production was in full swing on Fogo

131 and Santiago. Second, Kriger claims that Cape Verde established its cotton textile

132 industry only after mid-sixteenth century. Third, António Carreira suggests that by

133 1517 producing this lucrative item was a reality in Cape Verde. Carreira refers to an anonymous Portuguese pilot who passed Cape Verde circa 1520–40, and who referred not only to the existence of planting cotton as well as the great diversity of designs and

134 colors of panu exported to Upper Guinea. The pilot wrote that in Santiago, “They the cotton, which produces well, and afterwards, it is collected; they manufacture them to make diverse types of colored panus, which are all exported to the coast of

135 Africa in exchange for slaves.” We can estimate that there was a transition to panu making between 1480 and 1520. Carreira suggests that by 1582, there was a dramatic increase in the slave population:

The population of Santiago and Fogo grew quickly in the first years. Simão Barros has estimated about 8,000 souls in 1468. This apparently

131 Toby Green, “Building Slavery in the Atlantic World: Atlantic Connections and the Changing Institution of Slavery in Cabo Verde, Fifteenth-Sixteenth Centuries,” Slavery and Abolition 32, no. 2 (2011): 232. 132 Coleen Kriger, “Cotton Textile Production in West Africa, 1000–1450,” in The Spinning World: A Global History of Cotton Textiles, 1200–1850, edited by Giorgio Riello and Prasannan Parthasarathi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 116. 133 António Carreira, Panaria Cabo-Verdeano Guinneense (Praia, Cape Verde: Instituto Caboverdeano do Livro, 1983), 2. 134 Carreira, “A Urzela e o pano de vestir” in Revista de Centro de Estuos Cabo Verde, Série Ciências. Humanas (Praia, Cape Verde, 1973), 22. 135 Viagem de Lisboa à ilha de S. Tomé: escrita por um piloto português; tradução da língua italiana para portuguesa por Sebastião Francisco de Mendo Trigoso, with an introduction and notes by Augusto Reis Machado (Lisbon, Portugal: Portugália Editora, 194?). For an English translation, see Newitt, The Portuguese in West Africa, 154.

53 includes the whole population, free and slave, including slaves for . Even so, it seems exaggerated. Brásio, excluding the slave population, gives 162 individuals in 1513 in Ribeira Grande—58 white male ‘inhabitants’ (not showing families), 56 natives of Portugal, 12 priests, 4 single white women, 16 black men and 16 black women. By 1549, the “inhabitants” of the two Captaincies [Ribeira Grande in the south and Alcatraz in the north both in island of Santiago] had reached 1,200; by 1572, it had risen to 12,000 and by 1582 to 15,700. The data for 1513 and for 1549 make no allusion to those of mixed descent—mestiços and pardos—who are singled out only in 1582, “600 white and Pardo men,” with “400 free married blacks” (in the inland parishes of Santiago) and 300 “inhabitants” on Fogo. In Ribeira Grande and Praia, the “inhabitants” 136 totaled 708, and the slaves, acclimatized or newly arrived, 13,700.

In 1582, Francisco de Andrade, captain major of Santiago, provided the following census: of the slaves on Santiago Island, there 5,700 slaves in Ribeira Grande, 1,000 in

Praia and 5,000 in the interior; and 2,000 on Fogo Island, for a total of 13,700; in the interior of Santiago, there were 400 married manumitted slaves; 508 moradores

(residents) and vizinhos (neighbors) in Ribeira Grande; 200 in Praia; 600 in the interior of

137 Santiago; and 300 in Fogo, for a total of 1,608 moradores and vizinhos. The identification of moradores and vizinhos was not solely based on skin color, and could have included individuals of African descent. Hence, with black African slaves, the textile industry was fully operational in Fogo and Santiago islands.

The Portuguese used cotton, panu, horses, salt, hides, European and Indian textiles, and grogu to initiate a commercial relationship with communities in this part of

Africa. According to Torrão, contrary to what happened in other parts of Africa in the

136 António Carreira, The People of the Cape Verde Islands, Exploitation and , translated from the Portuguese and edited by Christopher Fyfe (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1982), 6. 137 Francisco de Andrade, “Relação de Francisco de Andrade sobre as ilhas de Cabo Verde,” in António Brásio, ed., Monumenta Missionaria Africana, 2nd series, (Lisbon, Portugal: Agência geral do ultramar/Academica Portuguesa de História, 1964), Vol. 3: 97–107.

54 sixteenth century, in the Cacheu region, Africans imported raw material from Cape Verde

138 islands to sustain their textile industry. Moradores exported Fogo cotton to the regions of Gambia as well as Casamance. Although cotton was grown in Santiago, Fogo was the principle source of cotton production. There were two trade routes: Lisbon–Fogo–Guiné–

Lisbon and Santiago–Fogo–Santiago–Guinea. Ribeira Grande sent slaves and corn to

Fogo via the second circuit in return for cotton. Ribeira Grande port received slaves from

Upper Guinea; slavinesin Santiago cultivated the corn sent to Fogo. Due to the paucity of historical documentation, it is unclear which circuit was more popular. However, given that Ribeira Grande was such a strategic outpost for the Portuguese Empire during its maritime expansion, ships used the second circuit more frequently. According to the accounts from Europeans explorers and merchants, ships stopped more often in Ribeira

Grande for provisions, before sailing on to the Americas, central Africa.

Nonetheless, Fogo was unable to provide all the cotton requested by the captains of ships going to Cacheu. Given the high demand and popularity of cotton in Gambia,

Casamance, Cacheu, and Upper Guinea in general, officials of Casa da Mina urged the cotton farms of Fogo to become financially independent to mitigate the contraband trade by residents in Ribeira Grande. The lucrative markets for cotton in Upper Guinea caused an increase in the price of slaves. This might be another reason for the transition to panu as the main export to Upper Guinea—to secure greater value in the barter exchange system.

138 Torrão, “O Algodão da Ilha do Fogo,” 49. Was this unique or were there other cases of Africans importing raw materials from Europeans? In general, the historiography of the Atlantic slave trade argues that Africans imported manufactured goods.

55 Broadly speaking, the cotton-slave trade between Cape Verde and Upper Guinea was part of a larger commercial network in which slaves eventually became the main commodity for European merchants. As such, the Iberian Portuguese in Cape Verde made a transition from providing cotton for panu to securing slaves from Upper Guinea, because it provided a competitive advantage, particularly given that Portuguese did not have abundance of iron and other goods compared to other Europeans.

By the early sixteenth century, the Portuguese had introduced indigo to the

139 archipelago. Because Almada wrote that Cacheu imported indigo from Nalus in the

Rio Grande, it might have come to the islands via Cacheu or Guinala. The knowledge of dyeing indigo must have come from Upper Guinea, because the Portuguese used to

140 dye cloth in Portugal. Portuguese had intense interaction and contact was with Africa, which suggests that slaves derived from Upper Guinea came with this skill of dyeing indigo Upper Guinea. Knight suggests that in the British Atlantic planters sought West

Africans who had knowledge of growing indigo in places like Barbados, Antigua,

139 Carreira, “A urzela e o pano de vestir,” 23; António Carreira and Raymond Mauny suggested it was the who introduced weaving and cotton to West African. In Pieter Van Den Broecke’s Journal, La Fleur suggested that Asia is the origin for “pure indigo” (Indigo tinctoria), cotton (Gossypium). and loom used in the West African textile industry. In Wikipeida, “gossypium” is believed to be derived from the word “goz,” which describes a soft substance. Daniel Pereira argued that (i.e., pure indigo) was originally from India and made its way to Africa via the Arabs. The latter call it “nil” (blue). Moreover, the word “indigo” may have been deirved from the word “indium,” which the ancients coined this substance because of its association with India, notes Pereira. The Portuguese and Castilian retained word “anil” from “nil” for indigo; Daniel Pereira, Estudos da História de Cabo Verde, 2nd ed. (Praia, Cape Verede: Alfa-Comunicações, 2005), 309. 140 Pereira, Estudos para historias de Cabo Verde, 302.

56 141 Carolinian, and French Caribbean. Knight acknowledges that dyeing indigo knowledge derived from the mainland to Cape Verde Islands, then to the Americas,

142 where it flourished in beautifying cloths. Thus, the importance of African expertise becomes apparent.

In 1587, Almada, an elite mestiço Cape Verdean, reported that from the São

Domingos River (also known as the Cacheu River), those African communities supplied

143 more slaves to Cape Verde. From the port of Cacheu River, enslaved Africans that landed in the port of Ribeira Grande, Santiago were “Banhuns [Bañun], Buramos

144 [Brame/Bran], Casangas [Kasanga], Jabundos, Falupos, Arriatas, Balantas.” Bañun

145 were also excellent weavers and linguistic evidence that Bañun slaves were influential in Fogo, perhaps, comes through with the word, “Djagasidu derived from Bañun, means

146 mixed.” For example, the representative dish of Fogo is Djagasida, a dish of farinha

(corn or flour), beans, pork, and collard greens.

141 Frederick C. Knight, “In an Ocean of Blue: West African Indigo Workers in the Atlantic to 1800,” in Working the Diaspora: The Impact of African Labor on the Anglo- American World, 1650–1850 (New York: New York University Press, 2010), 87–109. 142 Knight, “In an Ocean of Blue,” 93. 143 António Brásio, Monumenta Missionaria Africana (MMA II): Africa occidental, 2nd series, (Lisbon, Portugal: Agência Geral do Ultramar, Divisão de Publicações e Biblioteca; Centro de Estudos Africanos da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, 1958), vol. 3, 27. 144 Brásio, MMA II, Vol. 3, 27. 145 Brooks, Landlords and Strangers, 89–90. 146 Havik, “Kriol without Creoles,” 31n, 67.

57 A significant number of slaves in Cape Verde must have been Buramos, given

147 that they were a prominent component of early Spanish . In 1606, Baltasar

Pereira said that Buramos were Papels, and other scholars have shown that Buramos are

148 part of the sociolinguist group Papel-Mancanhan-Mandjaco. Buramos dominated the

Cacheu region and received cotton from Cape Verde and the Gambian region to make cotton cloth. During the colonial period, panu in Guinea-Bissau was associated with

Mandjaco-Papel. As such, it was not the exclusive realm of Mandinka and Wolof specialties. Weaving technology was a widespread knowledge in Upper Guinea, rather than dominated by one group, just like various communities on the coast practiced risiculture.

The production of panu involved five phases: (1) cultivation and harvest, (2) collecting cotton, (3) carding and spinning it, (4) dying, and (5) weaving it to make elaborate cloth strips. This entire process linked labor to social practices and beliefs that

149 created a social world. Carreira notes that there were two places in which the process was done: in ofinicais (workshops) and and domestic settings. In both cases, the work was performed outdoors. In the ofinicais, slaves worked on horizontal looms in the farms or casa-grande (mansions) of slaveholders. The horizontal looms were replica of their

147 Rachel Sarah O’Toole, “From the Rivers of Guinea to the Valleys of Peru, Becoming a Bran Diaspora Within Spanish Slavery,” Social Text 25, No. 92 (2007): 19–36. 148 Quoted in Avelino Teixeira da Mota, ed., Jesuit Documents on the Guinea of Cape Verde and the Cape Verde Islands, 1585–1617. Translated by P. E. H. Hair (Liverpool, UK: University of Liverpool, Department of History, 1989), doc. 16. 149 António Correio e Silva, “A Sociedade Agrária Gentes das Águas,” in História Geral de Cabo Verde, Vol. II, 2nd ed., arrangment by Maria Emília Madeira Santos, (Lisbon, Portugal: Centro de Estudos de História e Cartografia Antiga Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical; Praia: Instituto Nacional de Investigação Cultural Cabo Verde, 2001), 315–23.

58 counterparts from Upper Guinea. Initially, the looms were likely imported directly from this region and only latter did slaveholders purposely purchased African captives, who were artisan makers of this machine. On the farms, cotton and indigo were produced on site. These farms tended to be in the interior of Fogo and Santiago Islands, where fertile land was plentiful. Some slaveholders had as many as thirty slaves just for weaving panu.

In domestic settings, there was usually one loom, but up to two in the

(backyard). The looms were usually in the rural area of small proprietors or casa de morada (residential homes). Production capacity in domestic settings was less than in oficinais. Sometimes slaves had other agricultural labor to perform. Production also depended on the availability of the materials, such as cotton. There was panu for local use as well as for exchange on the Guinea coast, but slave weavers also manufactured table napkins, towels, and bed sheets.

The gendered division of manufacturing panu in Upper Guinea continued in Cape

150 151 Verde. Slaves or people of low social status dominated the weaving profession. It was the female slave that collected the indigo leaves to make the dye. In addition, female

150 Carreira, Panaria, 53; Thomas Bentley Duncan, Atlantic Islands; Madeira, the Azores, and the Cape Verdes in seventeenth-century commerce and navigation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 219–22. 151 António Carreira, “Aspectos da Influência da Cultura Portuguesa na Área Compreendida entre o Rio Senegal e O Norte da Serra Leoa.” Separata da «Actas do Congresso Internacional de Ethnografia», Promovido Pela Câmara Municipal de Santo Tirso, de 10 a 18 de Julho de 1963, Vol. 4 (Lisbon, Portugal: Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, 1965), 37. Duncan, however, noted that Walter Rodney would disagree with this assertion as well as others.

59 152 slaves also collected cotton and spun it into the threads used in the final product. Male slaves worked the looms and turned the cotton thread into intricate patterns.

The process was tedious and elaborate. The collection process was labor intensive. First, female slaves collected the indigo leaves in huge baskets, and then carefully selected the best foliages that were not too green or becoming yellow. Next, they made the dye in a manner similar to what was done on the mainland. When they returned home with plenty of indigo leaves, they placed leaves into the pilon (mortar and pestle), and pounded the leaves until they were turned into a pasty substance. Perhaps this

153 was accompanied by singing, as was customary in Cape Verde. Then, the indigo was allowed to dry for days in the sun before female slaves stored them ensure their

154 preservation, given that caused their dyeing quality to significantly diminish.

The process of making good indigo consisted of dumping the sun-dried indigo into a pot of cold water until it dissolved. After burning jatropha to produce ashes, the latter was mixed with the indigo water. The amount of water determined how strong or weak the ink would be. The liquid was stirred for seven or eight days and left alone for two days to air, after which it was ready for use.

There was a great diversity of geometric patterns of panus, which were largely derived from Upper Guinea, but there were some Portuguese influences, especially from the region of Alentejo, which had Moorish and Jewish influences. For example, there

152 Senna, Dissertação sobre as ilhas de Cabo Verde, 62. However, Cadamosto noted that Wolof men could also perform the spinning, which he noted was a woman’s task. 153 Oswaldo Osório, Cantigas de Trabalho, Tradições orais de Cabo Verde. Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações do 5 Aniversário da Independência de Cabo Verde-Sub- Commissão para a Cultura. 154 Senna, Dissertação sobre as ilhas de Cabo Verde, 32.

60 were Christian emblems, such as the cross, incorporated into the panu di terra. Carreira listed twenty-nine styles of panu including agulha (needled); barafula (panu rolled); bicho/bixo (literally “bug”); bicho de lista; bicho de retróz (twisted bug or shape); bicho ordinário (ordinary “bug”); boca branca (“white mouth” or plain white); bumy (burnt);

155 fio de lã or de lã (wool yarn or thread); and gala/galam. The panu di galã (or

156 galam/galan) might have been based on a Gajaaga cloth called guude gajaaga.

According to Duncan, lançados bought products like “banded cloth (galans) from

157 Senegal to “barter in Guiné.” Was this pattern of Galan reproduced in Cape Verde because of its popularity on the coast?

Figure 4. Panus di terra

(Source: Ethnographic Museum of Praia. Photograph by the author, May 2012.)

The social context and structure of the society determined to some extent how panu was made in Cape Verde. There were three social categories involved: donatário,

155 António Carreira, Panaria, Cabo-Verdeano-Guineense (Praia, Cape Verde: Com o Patrocínio das Comunidades Económicas Europeias; Instituto Cabo-Verdeano do Livro, 1983), 99–129. 156 The Gajaaga are Soninke, who were also called the “Galam” and they were famous for their dyed cotton. Philip Curtin, Economic Change in Precolonial Africa: Senegambia in the Era of the Slave Trade (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975), 212. 157 Duncan, Atlantic Islands, 215.

61 morgado, and senhor. Donatários were were nobles or aristocratics who received territories or islands from the Portuguese Crown. Morgados were large landowners, and usually the oldest son would inherit property. Senhors were prominent men, mostly slaveholders. According to Carreira, these groups fueled the development of panu di terra, because of the economic benefits and hence they had some input into the geometric designs. For instance, the slaveholders introduced Islamic patterns in the panu di terra.

Because of the great diversity in designs, the use of indigo, and panu laced with silk and linen, there reached a point that it was considered superior to the textiles in Upper

Guinea, which was driven by mercantilist entrepreneurial spirit.

Enslaved Africans from Upper Guinea brought to Cape Verde, not only knowledge about textile cloth production, but also aesthetics. For instance, in 1594,

Francesco Carletti, who purchased seventy-five African captives in Cape Verde, recounted they were generally nude or scantily clad with a piece of cotton cloth, leather, or leaves to cover their midsections. Perhaps, the captives managed to secretly accessorize in a unique manner, but Carletti was aware that most captives did not bother to conceal their genital area, while others:

Display a certain gallantry in their own manner and attach a ribbon or threads made of glass to their member and tie it back between their thighs, hiding it in such a manner that it becomes impossible to tell if they are male or female. Others decorate it with the horn of some animal or with seashells. Others cover it and conceal it entirely with little rings made of bone or even woven grass, while others paint it or rather dye it red, yellow 158 or green with some mixture.

Some made an effort to get unique materials to cover their genitals, whereas others made no effort to hide their genitals. Carletti’s descriptions highlighted the

158 Newitt, The Portuguese in West Africa, 15. Emphasis added.

62 differences in dress among the slaves, and provide clues to aesthetics of the captives.

Although they were housed separately according to their sexes in burracoons, “crowded like animals,” and branded on their arms, chest, or back, some were resolute and determined to adorn themselves as best they could, which is a subtle form of resistance.

In doing so, some individuals were not oblivious to their aesthetics after they became captives.

Moreover, these descriptions of decorating and hiding their midriffs might reflect the humanity of captives trying to maintain their sense of dignity, but how and what they chose to decorate themselves with arguably reflected their aesthetics. It was typical for

Bijagos, Nalus, Baga, Temnes (Sapes), and other groups from the nearby areas to use animal horns and leaves to paint their bodies. Hence, these African captives most likely originated from south of Cacheu and Bissau regions, such as Bijagos and the Grande and

Nuno Rivers. As Almada attested, another popular port for slaves to Cape Verde was on the Grande River, which corroborates the possibility that these captives originated from

159 this region. Unfortunately, except for this brief description of slave dress, the lack of documentation on the lowest classes makes only conjecture possible. Indeed, given their servile class, most slaves were poorly dressed, which I will discuss later. In contrast, there were free Africans in Cape Verde, and given that they represented aristocratic families, heads of lineage, and other powerful political entities they presumably wore fine garments. For instance, in 1488, Bumi Jeléen, a Wolof prince known as Bemoim by the

159 Almada, A Brief Treatise, chap. 11, 116, 118.

63 Portuguese, arrived in Portugal on a diplomatic mission, and was dressed like a member

160 of the Portuguese nobility.

By this time, Cape Verde had a significant slave population, but there were free

Africans (not including manumitted slaves) in Cape Verde in the late sixteenth century.

These Africans came to Cape Verde not in chains, but as African lineage heads and aristocratic families and entrusted their children to Portuguese merchants in order them to become “Christian,” which meant learning how to read and write in Portuguese. This would allow them to serve as cultural brokers for fostering diplomatic and commercial relations. José da Silva Horta asserts that Christianity allowed for a “common

161 ‘language.’” Others took refugee from the political strife that resulted in lost of political power. For instance, “From a Guinea point of view,” Nafafé maintains, Dom

162 João Bemoji’s baptism was “for commercial and diplomatic reasons.” Hawthorne and

Havik also argue that Kristons (i.e., Christianized Africans) did not make a fundamental

163 break with ancestral religions.

To learn French and English, Africans from would travel to

164 and England, but to learn Portuguese, one only needed to travel the short distance to

Cape Verde. Portuguese/Cape Verdean traders from Santiago use to trade with Wolofs

160 MMA II: Vol. I, 529–63. 161 José da Silva Horta, Evidence for a Luso-African identity in “Portuguese Accounts on ‘Guinea of Cape Verde’ (Sixteenth–Seventeenth Centuries),” History in Africa 27 (2009): 99. 162 Nafafé, Colonial Encounters, 106. 163 Hawthorne, From Africa to Brazil, 225–33; Havik, “Gendering the Black Atlantic,” 317–8. 164 Almada, Brief Treatise, Part I, 21.

64 and Serers that lived in the Cape Verde Peninsula of modern Senegal, supposedly had sold slaves due to famine on the Cape Verde islands, but the French and English replaced the Portuguese and dominated the slave trade in Senegambia by the late sixteenth

165 century. Because of this reality, Almada, a slave trader from Cape Verde, resented

166 that French and English ships stopped at Santiago on their way to the Americas. Given this power shift, there was a reorientation to trading south of the Zinguichor. Green observes that in the mid-sixteenth century, the Portuguese moved south of the Gambia because the patrineal Serer and Wolof societies tended to make it difficult to have settled

167 a diaspora mercantile class, which was essential for the expanding slave trade. Once again, African internal politics pushed the Portuguese further south, as happened as well with the emerging British, French, and, eventually, Dutch presence.

For instance, during the mid-sixteenth century on the Upper Guinea Coast, the

Sape King established an alliance with the Luso-Africans. The former had fled from

Mane invasion in Sierra Leone. Some Sapes settled in Cacheu region in separate villages next to Luso-Africans and Papel communities. The Papel had forged an alliance with

Luso-Africans-Sape. By establishing close proximity to Luso-African settlements, Sapes thought that they too could have access to commodities and regain power that the

Atlantic had provided other African coastal communities.

165 Almada, Brief Treatise, Chap. 2, 21–23. 166 Almada, Brief Treatise, Chap. 2, 21. 167 Green, The Rise of Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, 206–7.

65 With the Mande invasion to the coast in 1545, once powerful lineage heads, such

168 as “Sapes” or Temne, found themselves facing annihilation. Due to maltreatment by the conquering Sumbas [Mande group], two Sape kings, Beca Caia and Beca Bore

(Caia’s cousin), fled along with their families and some vassals to board Portuguese

169 commercial ships that had arrived from Santiago. The Sape kings managed to escape with gold and ivory, which they knew were commodities that Portuguese merchants would gladly accept, if they could not provide slaves, because these items could be traded for slaves further north. Perhaps, from near Nuno River, the Portuguese took them to the

São Domingos River. The Sapes settled in a area ruled by a Papel king who had good trade relations with Portuguese. As evidence of these good relations, Sapes constructed their villages in proximity to the town of the tangomaos (Africanized Portuguese outcasts). Donelha claimed that Brizida Beca Caia, daughter of Beca Caia, became a

Christian and went to Santiago. In 1583, due to a catastrophic famine, Brizida returned to

168 Horta, Evidence for a Luso-African identity, 113. Walter Rodney emphasized that the Sapes was one nation or polity with various groups, such as Bulloms, Temnes, Limbas, Bagas, Nalus, Cocolis, and Landumas, see Rodney, “A Reconsideration of the Mane Invasions of Sierra Leone,” Journal of African History 8, no.2 (1967): 219–46; Peter Mark suggests that Almada is not precise with the term “Sapes,” and referrs to several groups: “In this kingdom of the Sapes are the following nations of people: Bagas, Tagunchos [?], Sapes . . . Temenes, Limbas . . . and all these understood each other.” Mark notes that Almada’s description of the Sape is “inconsistent” because in Chapter 13, he differentiates between Sapes and Bagas, such as “the Baga blacks extend as far as Cape Verga where the Sapes begin” (p. 6).“Portuguese” Style and Luso-African Identity, 152–3. For evidence of Zape or Sape diaspora in New Spain (colonial ), see Nicole von Germeten, “Juan Roque’s Donation of a House to the Zape Confraternity, Mexico City, 1623,” in Afro-Latino Voices, Narratives from the Early Modern Ibero- Atlantic World, 1550-1812, edited by Kathryn Joy McKnight and Leo J. Garofalo (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2009), 83–103. 169 André Donelha, Descrição da Serra Leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde (1625), edited by A. Teixeira da Mota and P.E.H. Hair (Lisbon, Portugal: Junta de Investigações Científicas do Ultramar, 1977), 108–14. Donelha claims that in the ancient language of Sape, Beca, meant king

66 São Domingos, where her father was still living. This suggests that Beca Caia maintained contact with her daughter while she was resident in Santiago. After the famine had

170 passed, Brizida Beca Caia returned to Santiago. Therefore, while in the São

Domingos area, André Donelha claimed to have seen Beca Caia, which meant that

Donelha sought him out for assistance as a cultural broker.

Beca Bore entrusted one of his sons to Jorge de Sequeira, a captain in Ribeira

Grande, who was trading along the São Domingos River. Jorge de Sequeira became his godfather (padrinhu), which was represented not only the Catholic understanding of the role but the African notion of fostership as well. According to Donelha, the boy was known as Ventura de Sequeira, which shows that he adopted his godfather’s and took on a “Christian” name to reflect his new identity. Unlike Brizida Beca Caia, his

African name remains unknown. Donelha claimed they were schoolmates and that

Ventura de Sequiera learnt to read and write in Portuguese very well. These skills would be put to use as clerk when dealing with the Portuguese traders on the coast. Unlike other

Africans that Donelha termed “heathen” (gentio), he praised the Sapes as endowed with awesome gifts and the skill to learn anything as though he had a special relationship with them. Given the Luso-African-Sape alliance, Donelha perhaps felt a special connection due to his trading relationship with that nation. Horta argues that Donelha and Almada had a doubleness of identity: although part of the Portuguese Crown, their interests,

170 Malyn Newitt surmises that Brizida is a corrupt form of the “Brigida”; see Newitt, ed. and trans., The Portuguese in West Africa, 1415–1670: A Documentary History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 80.

67 171 especially commercial, diverged with the Portuguese royal court. Indeed, Donelha came from a family deeply involved in commercial activities on the mainland:

In the 1560s, Donelha’s father, who then resided in Sierra Leone, purchased three enslaved ‘Manes’ and allowed them to be baptized and to receive Christian names. Later in his life, the three Manes became Donelha’s informants, providing him with information about the Mane invasions, or movement of Manes and Sumbas into Sierra Leone. Before 1574, Donelha also traveled to Sierra Leone, embarking with Governor Antonio Velho Tinoco’s fleet and sailing to Cape dos Mastos and São 172 Domingos/Cacheu, Grande de Guinhala, and the Sierra Leone Rivers.

In 1583, Ventura de Sequeira returned to Guinea and became king following the death of his uncle, king Beca Caia, who had succeeded his father, Beca Core. Ventura de

Sequeira tried to impose Christianity on his subjects, and the Temne of the town rebelled with the help of his cousin, Brizida Beca Caia (although he was a Christian herself).

Donelha lamented that the tangomaus did not assist Ventura de Sequeira, which could have made a difference. This reveals several things. First, although the Temne kings were nominally Christians, the commoners were not ready to use Christianity as a “common language” for relations with the Portuguese. The Temnes were displaced migrants and perhaps sought to maintain a distance from these “foreigners.” Or perhaps they believed that abandoning their ancestral beliefs and rituals was sacrilegious. Second, that Brizida would side with the other Temnes implies a power struggle. Could Ventura de Sequeira’s name reveal that he had a transformative conversion (unlike his cousin) and thus, she would not support him when he tried to force Christianity on their lineage? Third, the

171 José Silva Horta, A “Guiné do Cabo Verde”: Produção Textual e Representações (1578–1684) (Lisbon, Portugal: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Fundação para a Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior, 2011), 81–101. 172 Edda L. Fields-Black, Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and African Diaspora (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 96.

68 tangomaus did not want to disturb the established alliances with African lineages and perhaps believed that Ventura de Sequeira was more of a competitor than an ally, because he had good relations with people in Santiago, who considered the tangomaus as rivals and as Christian backsliders. Green, however, persuasively suggests that the tangomau

(lançados) wanted to control the kola trade from Sierra Leone that was traditionally

173 supplied by the Sapes to the Cacheu region.

Because Brizida Beca Caia and Ventura de Sequeira both returned to Santiago, they probably were not on good terms. While Donelha did not provide Brizida’s circumstance in Santiago, he remarked that Ventura was a poor man among the whites in

Santiago. Donelha wrote that with the good luck of the death of a relative who was king in another part of Sierra Leone, as a vassal to Mane power, Ventura de Sequeira was in line to become ruler. Donelha emphasized that Ventura de Sequeira was his friend and asked Donelha to “to get a ship and to join him (which I had no license to do).” If unable to spread Christianity, Donelha claimed that Ventura de Sequeira would prefer to return to Santiago if he could obtain a decent living. Donelha hoped that the Cape Verdeans would settle in Sierra Leone to evangelize the people to Christianity. The fact that

Donelha wrote that he did not have a license to get a ship and join him underscores his frustration with the metropolis. We do not know what happened to Ventura de Sequeira in the Sierra Leone region.

According to Almada, the kings of Bolons, sub-group of the Sapes nation, surrendered to the Portuguese rather than Sumbas, who were notoriously known for eating their defeated enemies. The king’s wives and his people were sold as slaves but the

173 Green, The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, 249.

69 king was sent to Misericordia in Santiago but the Portuguese did not know he was a king and sold him into slavery in Santiago. The Bolon king was allegedly an obedient slave that traveled to Lisbon, where “he was baptized and named Pedro.” As a result, António

174 Velho Tinoco, the Iberian Portuguese governor of Cape Verde, later freed him and his

175 fellow Bolons, but he preferred to be a slave than be free. Rather than doubt Almada’s claim, we should try to contextualize what freedom might have meant during the onset of the Atlantic slave trade and on-going established Saharan slave trade in Upper Guinea.

Freedom was relative during that period and reenslavement was a constant fear for

Africans in Upper Guinea; even kings and powerful people were enslaved. For example, in 1730, Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, a Fula slave trader, ironically became enslaved

176 177 himself. Despite the fluidity identity in Senegambia (as some have proposed), racial difference was developing, though it was different from the rise of racism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Nevertheless, some Temne were free, whereas others were slaves in Santiago. As stated in the introduction, the had some influence on Kabuverdianu.

174 Horta suggest that Tinoco, as an Iberian Portuguese (réinois), had different interests than Luso-Africans in Santiago; see Horta, A “Guiné do Cabo Verde,” 166–207. 175 Almada, A Brief Treatise, Chap. 17, 33. 176 Bruce Hall, A History of Race in Muslim West Africa, 1600–1960 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Chouki El Hamel, Black Morocco: A History of Slavery, Race, and Islam (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Bernard Lewis, Race and Color in Islam (New York: Harper, 1971); Jonathon Glassman, War of Words, War of Stones: Racial Thought and Violence in Colonial Zanzibar (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011); John Hunwick, “Arab Views of Black Africans and Slavery,” http://www.yale.edu/glc/events/race/Hunwick.pdf. 177 Peter Mark and José da Silva Horta, The Forgotten Diaspora: Jewish Communities in West Africa and the Making of the Atlantic World (Cambrige: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 53.

70 Unlike the sobradu (mansion-like dwelling) that Park Mark refers to as part of the traits of Luso-African identities, the funcos predominated among the poor in Cape Verde prior to the twentieth century, but Almada described them as palaver house of Sape kings.

While in Guinea, André Donelha said he had spoken with Fulas, Wolofs, and

178 Mandinkas and allegedly some were Christians who had married in Santiago. If this occurred, did the Church sanction it and did imply becoming “Christian” in the eyes of the local Catholic Church? Why did they marry in Cape Verde rather than in their homeland? Whom did these Africans marry in Santiago? Did they marry Africans schoolmates and, if so, was it from the same ? Did they marry

Portuguese/Cape Verdean people? Were the marriages to establish diplomatic relations between Cape Verde and African principalities? Scholars have noted that in Upper

Guinea Coast Africans from small-scale societies allowed their daughters to marry

“strangers” to create better relations.

In addition to Africans who went to study in Santiago, there were transient

African traders. According to Almada, Beafadas could speak Portuguese and some dressed like the Portuguese, such as tungumás (free African women), who were cultural

179 brokers for Portuguese. Grumetes (Christianized African men) and tungumás traveled the rivers of Guiné, such as the Rio Grande and the Cacheu, and to Santiago Island with

Portuguese subjects (mostly Luso-Africans) when trading. Havik emphasizes that the tungumás, as part of Kristons, with their status between heathens and Portuguese (Roman

Catholics), played a prominent role in the trading network from the interior of Upper

178 Donelha, Descrição da Serra Leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde, 122. 179 Almada, A Brief Treatise, Chap. 11, 107.

71 180 Guinea to the Cape Verde islands. Almada noted that their kinship lineage had to acquiesce to this, which underscores that African lineages sought kinship or fostership with European traders. Hence, during the sixteenth to the seventeenth centuries, free

African visited Cape Verde constantly, apparently without fear of enslavement. “As trade settlements [Portuguese and Cape Verdeans] began to develop on the coast and river banks in the sixteenth century, their social and cultural interaction with the African populations surrounding these small nuclei imprinted specific characteristics on each community, marked by close relations based upon kinship, wardship, intermarriage, and

181 clientship with ‘ethnic’ societies.” In addition, a linguistic connection emerged as well, with a Portuguese-based Creole, called Krioulo/Kriol. Bart Jacobs argues that

Creole of Santiago spread to the Upper Guinea Coast that resulted in an Upper Guinean

182 Creole While Jacobs’ argument is debatable; their linguistic similarities are more than just coincidence. There was intense commercial interaction between the islands and the coast. The slave database shows, for instance, that Cape Verde and the Upper Guinea

180 Philip J. Havik, “Gendering the Black Atlantic: Women’s Agency in Coastal Trade Settlements in the Guinea Bissau Region,” in Women in Port: Gendering Communities, Economies, and Social Networks in Atlantic Port Cities, 1500–1800 edited by Douglas Catterall and Jodi Campbell (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2012), 318; Philip J. Havik, “Walking the Tightrope: Female Agency, Religious Practice, and the Portuguese Inquisition on the Upper Guinea Coast (Seventeenth Century),” in Bridging the Early Modern Atlantic World: People, Products, and Practices on the Move, edited by Carolina A. Williams (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009), 173–91. 181 Havik, “Gendering the Black Atlantic,” 317. 182 Bart Jacobs, “Upper Guinea Creole: Evidence in Favor of a Santiago Birth,” Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 25, no. 2 (2010): 289–343.

72 Coast dominated the Atlantic slave trade to Cartagena between 1573 and 1592, accounted

183 for 35 voyages out of the 42 identifiable ones.

To sum up, in the early phase of trade with coastal Africans, the Portuguese inserted themselves into existing trade networks that enabled the development of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The Portuguese responded to African preferences by providing first raw cotton, then panu, in the initial phase of the Atlantic slave trade. Therefore, the development of new fashion and dress sensibilities relied on long-established African preferences, incorporating initially Islamic, then European clothing elements. On the coast, Africans also responded by incorporating European clothing into their African fashion and dress to convey African notions of power and wealth that predated the arrival of the Europeans (Gijanto, 2010; Hawthorne and Carvalho, 2010), without necessarily becoming Atlantic Creoles or Europeanized. Grumetes, tungumás, and lançados also participated in cross-cultural exchange, including fashion and dress.

Cape Verde, as one of those the first black African slave-based societies of the

Atlantic slave trade, affected popularity of cotton cloth in Upper Guinea, particularly from Casamance to Cacheu. African knowledge of panu making, transferred from Upper

Guinea to Cape Verde, allowed for this cross-cultural exchange. Hence, the dress and fashion that developed in Cape Verde had deep roots in the fashion and dress on the

183 David , “The First Great Waves: African Provenance Zones for the Transatlantic Slave Trade to Cartagena de , 1570–1640,” Journal of African History 52 (2011): 16. With the union of the Portuguese and Castile Crowns between 1580 and 1640, Cape Verde’s strategic role in transshipment of slaves to to Spanish was significant; see Linda A. Newson and Susie Minchin, From Capture to Sale: The Portuguese Slave Trade to Spanish South America in the Early Seventeenth Century (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007). See, António Carreira, “Tratos e Resgates dos Portugueses nos Rios de Guiné e Ilhas de Cabo Verde nos começos do século XVII,” Revista de História Económica e Social no. 2 (1978): 91–103.

73 coast. During this early phase, free Africans arrived in Cape Verde to learn Christianity, i.e., to read and write in Portuguese and Krioulo as well to conduct business with the new strangers. They would be chalonas (interpreters) and cultural brokers between their lineages and the whites from the . Although Almada referred to Kristons’ dress as

“Portuguese,” this was the idiom of trade. After trading with Europeans, African rulers quickly removed their European clothing and opted for local dress. Thus, rather than creolization, this was a cross-cross cultural exchange. Tangomaus dressed in local attire, particularly when they were in the hinterland, removed from Portuguese detection.

74 CHAPTER 2

PANU: SLAVE TRADE, DRESS, AND FASHION IN CAPE VERDE, c. 1600–c. 1800

Panu was widely becoming popular and accessible to the population on the Cape

Verde Islands in the 1600s. European travelers began to describe the dress of black

184 women. For men in Cape Verde, European travelers did not describe any unique forms of dress, but noted some rather ragged European clothing as well as panu. Of course, the manner and the type of panu worn varied by social classe, which included slave, manumitted, free, and female slave-owners. An ecosystem prone to drought (and, therefore, famine) affected the production of panu and its availability. People with means, such as some manumitted slaves, particularly women, and slaveholders used silk, damask, and other types of finery. In Cape Verde, the intense trade in panu enabled the rise of certain fashions created by black women. What fashions did these black women create? How did they relate to the dress in Upper Guinea? Did race, class, and/or gender play a part in the development of fashion and dress in Cape Verde? What was the role of

184 In other parts of the Atlantic, European male travelers made similar observations; see Douglas L. Wheeler, "Angolan Woman of Means: D. Ana Joaquina dos Santos e Silva, Mid-Nineteenth Century Luso-African Merchant-Capitalist of Luanda," Portuguese Studies 3, (1996): 284–97; Julio de Castro Lopo, "Uma Rica Dona de Luanda," Portucale 3 (1948): 129–38; Carlos Alberto Lopes Cardoso, “Ana Joaquina dos Santos Silva, industrial Angolan da segunda metade do século XIX,” Boletim Cultural da Câmara Municipal de Luanda 3 (1972): 5–14; "Free Women of Color in Central Brazil, 1779– 1832," in Beyond Bondage: Free Women of Color in the Americas, ed. David Barry Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004); Selma Pantoja, “Gênero e comércio: as traficantes de escravos na região de Angola,” Travessias. Revista de Ciências Sociais e Humanas em Língua Portuguesa nos. 4/5 (2004): 79–97; David Wheat, “Nharas and Morenas Horras: A Luso-African Model for the Social History of the Spanish Caribbean, c. 1570–1640,” Journal of Early Modern History 14 (2010): 137-38; Silvia Hunold Lara, “The Signs of Color: Women’s Dress and Racial Relations in Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, ca 1750–1815,” Colonial Latin American Review 6, no. 2 (1997): 205–24.

75 panu in the development of fashions in the archipelago? This chapter explores these questions, using a European traveler’s account as well as collections from Secretaria

Geral do Governo (General Governor Secretary) for the colonial province of Cape Verde.

This chapter begins with an examination of the economic and social affects of panu in Cape Verdean society during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In part, panu served to ascribe social order and ranking as well as serving as currency. Next, the chapter explores the rise of “Afro-Atlantic feminine aesthetics” in Cape Verde, particularly in terms of dress and fashion. Next, it compares female dress with male fashions and dress. In the Atlantic African islands, freed African women often wore an elaborate array of layered clothing accompanied by fine jewelry that included large dangling earrings, bracelets, and necklaces, and a intricate harido topped with a head

185 wrap. Next, the chapter consider the creation, in 1755, of the Companhia de Grão

Pará e Maranhão (Company of Grão Pará and Maranhão; CGPM) to illustrate that panu continued to be an important commodity for the Atlantic slave trade with Cape Verde and the mainland to send slaves to Brazil. It also provides some statistics that demonstrate the centrality of this commodity in the overall trade. Finally, the chapter describes the social importance of this popular fabric in Cape Verde and Upper Guinea. Because in the

Atlantic world, whether in Atlantic Africa or African diaspora in the Atlantic basin

185 John Thornton mistakenly notes it was the island of Sal: Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic world, 1400–1800, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 232. There are three objections to his. First, Ligon noted the island where they saw this mistress was the island that had attack, which was Santiago. Second, Ligon said that Bernard Sousa de Mendes wanted to take them to Sal, but that they did not anchor there. Third, the black lady dressed extravagantly was not Mendes’s mistress, but rather the governor’s mistress; see Karen Ordahl Kupperman, ed., A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados (Indianapolis: Hackett, Inc., 2011), 29–54.

76 Africans and their descendants used fabrics, the chapter suggests that future studies needs to go beyond the resistance and accommodation model in the historiography of the

African diaspora in the Americas. Fashion and dress was also about showing power and wealth, and this tradition predated the rise of the Atlantic world. The social use of fabric was more than just a response to Portuguese colonialization, but reflected cultural continuity as well as changes affected by ecological and climatic factors.

John Thornton alludes to the development of a “Afro-Atlantic feminine

186 aesthetic.” For Thornton, the transformation of African aesthetics began in places like

187 Cape Verde. Thornton assumes that the use of head wrapping was probably a

Christian influence and that before the Atlantic slave trade, African women displayed their intricate hairstyle, which included elaborate braiding patterns, rather than cover

188 it. Given that Islam arrived as early as 1100 C.E. in Senegambia in Upper Guinea, head wrapping could be derived from the Islamic influence that spread throughout the region. On the other hand, the development of head wrapping could have originated from

189 tall elaborate hairstyles that were already in practice. Thornton adds that the braiding hairstyle that Richard Ligon, a British traveler, described in Cape Verde was slightly

186 Thornton, Africa and Africans, 2nd ed., 230. 187 Thornton, Africa and Africans, 2nd ed., 232. 188 In the Islamized areas of the Upper Guinea, we do not know for certainty if this assertion is applicable. Moreover, the correlation that Christian influence led to women covering their head is not necessarily convincing, but since Africans had elaborate hairstyles that were quite high, we need more research to understand how the covering of the head came about, if possible. 189 Roy Sieber and Frank Herreman, eds., Hair in African Art and Culture (New York: Museum of African Art, 2000).

77 different than the braiding patterns found in Gambia. Finally, Thornton felt that the loose fitting blouses and various combinations of clothing also reflected creolization.

In studies of the African diaspora in the Americas, scholars have argued that slaves, freed Africans, and their descendants (particularly women) used clothing as resistance, accommodation, and assimilation, but there are no studies that focus on a specific region of Africa and trace this to the Americas. As for Atlantic Africa, the few studies that highlight women’s involvement during the era of the Atlantic slave trade show their economic involvement in the slave trade, but there has been no attention to

190 their fashion and dress. Chapter 1 and this chapter attempt to do both by exploring the dress in Upper Guinea, and then tracing how it changed—or did not change—in the Cape

190 Bruce L. Mouser, “Women Slavers of Guinea-,” Women and Slavery in Africa, ed. Claire C. Robertson and Martin A. Klein (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983); George E. Brooks, Jr., “A Nhara of the Guinea-Bissau Region: Mãe Aurélia Correia”; Robertson and Klein, 295–319; and “The Signares of Saint-Louis and Gorée: Women Entrepreneurs in Eighteenth-Century Senegal,” . Studies in Social and Economic Change, ed. Nancy J. Hafkin and Edna G. Bay (Stanford, CA: Stanford Press, 1976): 19–44; E. Frances White, Sierra Leone’s Settler Women Traders: Women on the Afro-European Frontier (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1993); Philip J. Havik, Silences and Soundbites: The Gendered Dynamics of Trade and Brokerage in the Pre-Colonial Guinea-Bissau Region (Münster, Germany: L Lit, 2004). For dress and fashion in Africa see, Jean Allman, ed., Fashioning Africa: Power and the Politics of Dress (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004); Suzanne Gott and Kristyne Loughran, Contemporary African fashion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010): Foreword by Joanne B.Eicher; Christa Clarke, Power Dressing: Men’s Fashion and Prestige in Africa (Newark, NJ: Newark Museum Association, 2005; Daphne H. Strutt, Fashion in , 1625–1900: An Illustrated History of Styles and Materials for Men, Women and Children, with Notes on , Hairdressing, Accessories and (, South Africa: A.A. Balkema, 1975); Relebohile Moletsane, Claudia Mitchell, and Ann Smit, Was It Something I Wore?: Dress, Identity, Materiality (Cape Town, South Africa: HSRC Press, 2012); Roslyn Adele Walker, African Headwear: Beyond Fashion: August 14, 2011– 1, 2012 (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art, 2011); Hans Walter Silvester, Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa, trans. David H. Wilson (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2009); Roy Sieber and Frank Herreman, Hair in African art and culture (New York: Museum for African Art, 2000).

78 Verde Islands. Although the Cape Verde Islands has many similarities with the

Caribbean islands and is a “diasporic” place, its political culture remained

191 quintessentially Upper Guinean. Wilson Trajano Filho wrote that:

Underneath the similarities with other diaspora cultures, the Creole society that emerged in the Cape Verde Islands is essentially linked to West African societies by two types of structural similarities. First, for a long time it had the same structure of social reproduction as the mestiço settlements in the fortified riverine villages of the Guinea coast. Cape Verde sent people (soldiers, civil servants and traders), knowledge and goods such as cloth, distilled drinks, beads and European manufactured products to these areas and in return received dye, rice and people (slaves), as well as values and social practices. Second, it shared with African political cultures the structural features governing formation and 192 reproduction of social units.

Thus, he contends that the centuries of cross-cultural exchanges between the islands and the mainland renders Cape Verde more of African frontiers model than a

Caribbean model. Kopytoff defines the African frontiers model as describing a place where African immigrants and exiles recreate a cultural life that preserves more of their

“traditional” culture rather than a major break with the previous culture Filho qualifies the model for Cape Verde by arguing that the substrata of Cape Verdean cultural formation is consistent with the political culture of Senegambia, despite the Europeanized outer layer. Thus, my study implicitly problematizes the notion of diaspora and notions of

“Africa.”

In Cape Verde, the development of Afro-Atlantic feminine aesthetics was not simply creolization, i.e., the transformation of local or ethnic dress into a mixture of

European and African elements, nor was it a recreation of an ethnic dress and fashion.

191 Wilson Trajano Filho, “The Conservative Aspects of a Centripetal Diaspora: The Case of the Cape Verdean Tabancas,” Africa 79, no. 4 (2009): 522–3. 192 Filho, “The Conservative Aspects of a Centripetal Diaspora,” 522–3.

79 The two schools of thought, creolization and Africanization, presuppose that European and African cultures were unchanging before and during the era of the Atlantic slave trade. For instance, Islamic influence and later -Christian influence affected dress as well as fashion in Upper Guinea, but the locals did not abandon their local dress. In the

Iberian Peninsula, Islamic and Jewish fashion influenced Iberian fashion and dress. In

Cape Verde, Afro-Atlantic feminine aesthetics was the adoption and modification of fabric and panu, in particular, within the broader Guinean context of fashion and dress, which included African notions of power and wealth, but integrated European elements, particularly among the upper class. In Upper Guinea, elites used more panu than commoners; its usage was becoming widespread among communities in the region. For

Cape Verde, European outsiders associated freed black women with a particular fashion

193 and dress, which Thornton coins as the rise of an “Afro-Atlantic feminine aesthetic.”

Class, gender, and race affected, to some extent, how different groups dressed in Cape

194 Verde. Men of African descent who were slaves usually wore panu as shawls, while their free counterparts wore ragged European clothing. Thus, freed male slaves tended to assimilate Europeanized dress and fashion. As in Upper Guinea, poor children tended to

193 Cf.: the rise of Atlantic slavery and racial theories in Cape Verde, see Toby Green, “Building Creole Identity in the African Atlantic: Boundaries of Race and Religion in Seventeenth-Century Cabo Verde,” History in Africa 36 (2009): 103–25; Green, “Building Slavery in the Atlantic World: Atlantic Connections and the Changing Institution of Slavery in Cabo Verde, 15th–16th Centuries,” Slavery and Abolition 32, no. 2 (2011): 228–45. 194 Laura Fair shows how after abolition, former slaves used “Arab” clothing to show their free and privileged status; see Laura Fair, Pastimes and Politics: Culture, Community, and Identity in Post-Abolition Urban Zanzibar, 1890–1945 (Oxford: James Currey, 2001).

80 195 be naked in Cape Verde. Nonetheless, girls occasionally wore panu as wrappers or wrap skirts around their waist.

Panu: Economic and Social Affects in Cape Verde

By the 1600s, Cape Verde islanders had established a trade in panu with ports on the mainland, such as Cacheu, a strategic location on the coast, where they had built trading factories (feitorias) with African rulers’ permission from and regular tribute payments. In 1615, Avity, a French traveler, described the economic vitality of Ribeira

Grande, a thriving port with about 500 families, excluding the slave population. Like most Portuguese cities, Ribeira Grande had a municipal council, the Misericórdia

(charity organization), the hospital, confraternities, and Portuguese was the official

196 197 language of administration. In addition, the town had military fortifications to

195 Pagne was French for panu; in English, “wrappers.” In African languages, there are various names. 196 Liam Matthew Brockey, ed., Portuguese Colonial Cities in the Early Modern World (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2008). Another feature was military fortifications. For port cities in Cape Verde, see António Correia e Silva, Espaço urbanos de Cabo Verde: o tempo das cidades-porto (Lisbon, Portugal: CNCDP, 1998); Fernando de Jesus Monteiro dos Reis Pires, Da Cidade da Ribeira Grande à Cidade Velha em Cabo Verde: Análise Histórico-formal do espaço urbano séc. XV–XVIII (Praia, Cape Verde: Universidade de Cabo Verde, 2007); Pires, “Ribeira Grande/Cidade Velha de Santiago de Cabo Verde— História e Património, situação actual,” in África Arquitetura e Urbanismo de Matriz Portuguesa ed. José Manuel Fernande (Lisbon, Portugal: Universidade Autónoma, 2011), 15–23; Pires, “Ribeira Grande de Santiago, Cidade Velha,” in Património de Origem Portuguesa no Mundo: arquitectura e urbanismo: África, Mar Vermelho e Golfo Pérsico, director. Arrangement by José Mattoso. Vol. José Manuel Fernandes (org.), (Lisbon, Portugal: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2010), 306–12; Konstantin Alexander Richter, “The Historical Religious Buildings of Ribeira Grande: Implementation of Christian Models in the Early Colonies, 15th til 17th Century, on the Example of Cape Verde Islands,” Vol. I (Ph.D. diss., Universidade da Madeira, Madeira, Portugal). Christopher Evans, Marie-Louise Stig Sørensen, and Konstantin Richter, “An Early Christian Church in the : Excavation of the Nª S.ª da Conceição, Cidade Velha, Cape Verde,” in Brokers of Change, 173–92.

81 defend it from pirates. In Ribeira Grande, “[t]hey have cotton, the cloth [panu] whereof,

198 they sent upon the coast of Africke.” Despite the decline of Ribeira Grande to the early slave trade, it was not an economic backward. Indeed, in 1623, the Dutch shipmaster Dierich Ruiters described the commerce in Ribeira Grande:

The trade we call “coastal” is mostly undertaken, in small ships, pinnances and launches, by Portuguese who live on Santiago Island. First, they load these with salt, which they conveniently obtain for nothing on the island of Maio and Sal [in Cape Verde islands] and they sail to Serra-Lioa with the salt and trade it for gold, ivory and kola. Then from Serra-Lioa they sail again to Joala and Porto d’Ale [in Senegal], where they trade a portion of the kola for cotton cloths. They also sometimes trade ivory obtained in 199 Serra-Lioa for Cape Verde cloths. From there they sail again east to Cacheu where they trade the rest for their kola and their remaining goods for slaves. They acquire fifty to sixty slaves in exchange for the goods for they have obtained by trade along the coast and each slave is worth to 200 them 150 reals, or pieces-of-eight.

Cacheu was a major trading center that connected the Biafada-Sapi, Bañun-Bak, and Mande trade networks, which existed before the Portuguese and the Cape Verdeans tapped this elaborate commercial web. The Biafada-Sapi network extended east to the

Geba River and south to the . The Biafada controlled what is now the

197 Concerning forts and empire, see Eric Klingelhofer, ed., First Forts: Essays on the Archaeology of Proto-Colonial Fortifications (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010). 198 Avity, Pierre d’, sieur de Montmartin, The estates, empires, & principallities of the world: Represented by ye description of countries, maners of inhabitants, riches of prouinces, forces, gouernment, religion; and the princes that haue gouerned in euery estate. With the begin[n]ing of all militarie and religious orders. Translated out of French by Edw: Grimstone, sargeant at armes (London: Printed by Adam: Islip; for Mathewe: Lownes; and Iohn: Bill, 1615), 167. 199 George Brooks believes that they are made in the Cape Verde peninsula of Senegal, but I disagree and think it suggest the panu made in Cape Verde islands. 200 George Brooks, “Cacheu: A Papel and Luso-African Entrepôt at the Nexus of the Biafada-Sapi and Banyun-Bak Trade Networks,” in Mansas, Escravos, Grumetes e Gentio: Cacheu na encruzilhada de civilizações, arrangement by Carlos Lopes(Bissau, Guinea-Bissau: Instituto Nacional e Pesquisa, 199 ), 193.

82 southern part of Guinea-Bissau; the Sapi controlled what is now Guinea-Conakry/Serra

Leone. The Bañun and dominated the Bañun-Bak network, which extended from the Cacheu River to the Casamance River, Gambia River, Petite Côte, and Cape

Verde peninsula of modern Senegal. The Mande trade network connected these two trading networks between the Gambia River and Futa Djallon area of present day republic of Guinea-Conakry into the interior of Upper Guinea.

Indeed, Linda A. Newson and Susie Minchin underscored how the Crown tried to benefit from this trading network:

The collection of remained with a Crown administrator or a contratador based in Cape Verde, so that in theory ships trading on the Upper Guinea Coast were required to pass through Santiago in order to pay any taxes due. Although the Crown initially backed the control exercised by Cape Verdeans over trade on the Upper Guinea Coast, no effective machinery existed to enforce it. As such, it was common for ships to sail direct from Spain or Portugal to Cacheu and from there to the 201 Indies without stopping at Santiago in Cape Verde.

By 1644, Newson and Minchin highlight that the requirement for payment was abolished due to lack of control. Not only was it difficult to control ships coming from

Portugal or Spain, filhos de terra challenged the Iberian Portuguese’s dominance of the local administration in Santiago Island and overtly competed with them in the commercial networks on the coast. Green describes this tension:

In 1652, a rumour spread that the Creoles were rebelling and planning to kill all the whites, which was the cause of great panic in Ribeira Grande. By 1664, seven years after the inquisitorial trial against Luis Rodrigues began, there were no more than fifty-five white residents of Santiago. In this year, Rodrigues Viegas and his brother led a band of assorted “white and black insolent criminals,” parading through the streets of Ribeira Grande with armed militias, utterly beyond the reach of Portuguese law.

201 Newson and Minchin, From Capture to Sale, 30.

83 Rodrigues Viegas was said to be fomenting an armed uprising, 202 pressganging people in the villages to join his force.

In 1670, to obtain revenue and regulate trade, Manuel Pacheco de Melo, governor and captain general of Cape Verde, imposed a on goods imported and exported from

203 the praça of Cacheu. Cape Verdean merchants traded panu, cotton, and wine to

Cacheu and traders in exchange for slaves, ivory, and wax. In 1670, a roll of panu from

Cape Verde was worth 300 réis. The average price of one young male slave was 900 réis.

A barrel of wine cost 1,200 réis; a bag of cotton cost 600 réis. A quintal of ivory fetched

600 réis; a quintal of wax was 450 réis. In addition to using panu to barter for slaves and other goods in the Portuguese-controlled archipelago, soldiers and local administrators

(filhos de folhas) serving the Portuguese crown sometimes received payment in barafula, which was three panus bounded into one. Africans also utilized panu as currency in

Upper Guinea. On July 23, 1676, for each slave leaving the port of Cacheu, the Company of Cacheu, owned by António de Barros Bezzerra and Manuel Preto Valdez, paid three

204 barafula to the major-captain of the praça for military maintenance. This revenue

205 allowed that each soldier received monthly six barafula. Besides the lack of

Portuguese currency in Cape Verde and the mainland, panu was popular in the region as

202 Green, “The Emergence of a Mixed Society in Cape Verde,” 231. 203 Boletim Arquivo Histórico Colonial (BAHC), Vol.1 (Lisbon, Portugal: Arquivo Histórico Colonial, 1950), 104. 204 Secretaria Geral do Governo (SGG), Liv 0001, “Ordens das Cortes Copiadas a Mando do Desembargador Sindicante Custódio Correa de Mattos. Inclui Coresspondência c/autoridades Internas e Externas, Provisões, treslados, Provimentos entre Outros. (N.º-A-42); 1674/Nov-1754; 174/200-cópia manuscritas, folhas 28–29, Arquivo Histórico Nacional de Cabo Verde (AHNCV). 205 BACH, Vol.1, 1950, 113–4.

84 currency and for social ceremonies and daily uses. Thus, the Portuguese colonial administration utilized panu as a currency in Cape Verde and along its trading posts on the coast, which underscores that this African practiced influenced the Portuguese.

Far to the south, around the port of Benguela in present-day Angola, similar

206 207 processes were unfolding. There the soldiers traded textiles and gunpowder, which were used as payment, despite restrictions regarding the selling of firearms and gunpowder to Africans, for slaves. Besides Africans purchasing Asian textiles in

208 209 Angola, Dampier bought some panu di terra to trade with them in Angola. It also reached Brazil and Cartegena. This shows that aeshethics from the Upper Guinea

210 remarkably inspired the emergence of an Atlantic aesthetic. The Atlantic slave trade not only connected Africa with different parts of the Americas and Europe, but linked different African regions that historically did not have direct trade networks, such as

206 Mariana Pinho Candido, Fronteras de esclavización: esclavitud, comercio e identidad en Benguela, 1780–1850; traducción del ingles, María Capetillo Lozano, 1st ed., (Pedregal de Santa Teresa, México, D.F.: El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios de Asia y África, 2011), 190–201. 207 John Laband, Bringers of War: The Portuguese in Africa during the Age of Gunpowder and Sail from the 15th to 18th Century (Barnsley, UK: Pen and Sword Books, 2013); Peter K. Mendy, “The Tradition of Resistance in Guinea-Bissau: The Portuguese- African Encounter in Cacheu, Bissau and ‘suas dependênicas,’ 1588–1878,” in Mansas, Escravos, Grumetes e Gentio, 137–69. 208 Roquinaldo Ferreira, “Dinâmica do Comércio Intra-Colonial: Geribitas, Panos Asiáticos e Guerra na Tráfico Angolano de Escravos (Século XVIII),” in O Antigo Regime nos Trópicos: a Dinâmica Imperial Portuguesa (séculos XVI-XVIII), ed. João Fragoso, Maria de Fátima Silva Gouvêa, and Maria Fernanda Baptista Bicalho (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Nova Fronteira, 2001), 339–78. 209 William Dampier, A Voyage to New Holland, &c. in the year, 1699. Wherein are described, the Canary-Islands, the Isles of Mayo and St Jago. Vol. III (London: printed for James Knapton, 1703), 32. 210 This would also include music; Pascal Bokar, From Timbuktu to the Mississippi Delta: How West African Standards of Aesthetics have Shaped the Music of the Delta Blues (San Diego, CA: Cognella, 2011).

85 Upper Guinea Coast and Central Africa. The result was that colonial authorities became heavily involved in the slave trade. The Portuguese Empire, due to its policy of not

211 providing steady cash salary pushed officers into the slave trade.

The Portuguese royal court attempted to have a monopoly trade with Cape Verde and the coast to prevent competition from other European rivalries. Nevertheless, Filipa

Ribeiro da Silva, Catia Antunes, José Horta, and Peter Mark have written about the commercial links between Portuguese and other Europeans, particularly Jews from the

212 Netherlands. Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, Toby Green, and Mariana Candido show

211 Concerning individuals as contraband in Iberian imperial world, see Ronaldo Vainfas, arrangement by Georgina Silva dos Santos and Guilherme Pereira das Neves, Retratos do Império, Trajetórias individuais no mundo português nos séculos XVIa XIX (Niterói/Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Editora da Universidade Federal Fluminense, 2006), 99–153. 212 Cátia Antunes and Filipa Ribeira da Silva, “Amsterdam merchants in the slave trade and African commerce, –1670s,” Tijdschrift voor sociale en enconomische geschiedenis 9, no. 4 (2012): 3–30; Ribeiro da Silva, “Dutch Trade with Senegambia, Guinea, and Cape Verde, c.1590–1674,” in Brokers of Change, 125–44. Ribeiro da Silva, Dutch and Portuguese in Western Africa: Empires, Merchants and the Atlantic System, 1580–1674 (Leiden, The Netherlands: 2011); Ribeiro da Silva, “Crossing Empires: Portuguese, Sephardic, and Dutch Business Networks in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1580– 1674,” The Americas 68, no. 1 (2011): 7–32; Antunes, Globalisation in the Early Modern Period: The Economic Relationship between Amsterdam and Lisbon, 1640–1705 (, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2004); Tobias Green, “Further Consideration of the Sephardim of the Petite Cote,” History in Africa 32 (2005): 165–83; Linda M. Rupert, “Trading Globally, Speaking Locally: Curaçao’s Sephardim in the Making of a Caribbean Creole,” Jewish Culture and History 7, no. 1–2 (2004): 109–22; Bart Jabos, “The Dutch in Seventeenth-Century Senegambia and the Emergence of Papiamentu,” in Brokers of Change, 193–216; Heater Dalton, “‘Into speyne to selle for slavys’: English, Spanish, and Genoese Merchant Networks and their Involvement with the ‘Cost of Gwynea’ Trade before 1500,” in Brokers of Change, 91–124; Mark and Horta, The Forgotten Diaspora; David Wheat, “The Afro-Portuguese Maritime World and the Foundations of Spanish Caribbean Society, 1570–1640” (Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 2009); Christopher Ebert, “European Competition and Cooperation in Pre-Modern Globalization: ‘Portuguese’ West And Central Africa, 1500– 1600,” African Economic History 36 (2008): 53–78.

86 that the Portuguese also traded extensively with Spanish, French, and English merchants,

213 despite innumerous prohibitions.

Linda A. Newson reveals that Luso-Africans, unlike their African counterparts,

214 imported wine, beads, and textiles from Europe to trade on the coast. Moreover,

Newson explains that given the importance of clothing (panu) and cloth (barafula) trading was not simply exchange of European commodities for slaves, “but rather both

215 parties participated in an active trade in local products.” Finally, Africans in Upper

Guinea relied on locally produced textiles and clothing rather than those from Europe in the early seventeenth century, which contradicts the argument that Africa was dependent on European textile imports. Hence, in African and Luso-African settlements trade with

Iberian Portuguese shows cultural cross-cultural exchange was ongoing. Sansi-Roca argues that in the Cacheu praça, “Europeans also wore Muslim amulets under their rosaries. By the mid-seventeenth century, Mandingo magic was clearly in use by the

Portuguese. In 1656, in Cacheu, Ambrósio Gomes, ‘a white man,’ tied some magical strings he got from the Mandingos around the arm of Crispina Peres, a woman

216 who was giving birth, to protect her.” Because racial categories were not synonymous with phenotypes, Sansi-Roca should have interrogated the category “white” that Luso-

213 Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, A Nation upon the Ocean : Portugal’s Atlantic Diaspora and the Crisis of the , 1492–1640 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Green, The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade; Candido, “Benguela et l'espace atlantique sud au dix-huitième siècle,” Cahiers des Anneux de la Mémoire 14 (2011): 223–44. 214 Linda A. Newson, “Africans and Luso-Africans in the Portuguese Slave Trade on the Upper Guinea Coast in the Early Seventeenth Century,” Journal of African History 53 (2012): 1–24. 215 Newson, “Africans and Luso-Africans,” 23. 216 Sansi-Roca, “The Fetish in the Lusophone Atlantic,” 24.

87 Africans invoked, particularly on the mainland. On the other hand, Havik traces Gomes’s ancestry as having “Sephardic-New Christian roots on his father’s side, and African descent on the side of his mother, who was a famous healer. Ambrósio Gomes, the wealthiest slave merchant in the region, had been acting commander of Cacheu and an

217 administrator of the Companhia de Cacheu.”

Nevertheless, the Portuguese sought to control the trade via charter companies, but there were difficulties. A royal decree of February 6, 1687 prohibited Portuguese subjects on the islands or the Upper Guinea Coast from trading panu and clothes with

218 other European traders; the penalty for violating this decree was death. This decree, coupled with recurring drought and famine, would have catastrophic economic repercussions in the next century.

A letter of , 1743 to the royal court, João Juazarte Santa Alviria, the governor of Cape Verde, lamented that famine, the trade ban on panu with other

219 European merchants, and slave ships avoiding tariffs had caused “misery” in Santiago.

Alviria was so moved by the suffering that he wrote, “We weep about our poverty with tears of blood.” As with countless other famines, population losses throughout the colonial period in Cape Verde varied from island to island, but often it ranged between 20

220 and 40 percent: the phrase “tears of blood” captured the anguish. Ovídio Martins, a

Cape Verdean , wrote, “We are the lashed from the east wind . . . the goats have

217 Havik, “Gendering the Black Atlantic,” 345. 218 SGG, Liv0002, 1676–1747, “Ordens, bandos, cartas patentes, provisões, regimentos,” 292 fls., cópias manuscritas, n.º antigo 8, folha 7v-8, AHNCV. 219 SGG, Liv 0001, f.84–86, AHNCV. 220 K. David Patterson, “Famine, and Population in the Cape Verde Islands, 1580–1900,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 21, no. 2 (1988): 291–313.

88 221 taught us to eat rocks, so not to perish,” lucidly encapsulating the centuries of deaths brought about by slavery, forced migration from their homeland to labor in a resource- poor environment under colonial domination.

In May 1753, Custódio de Correa Mattos, the Investigative Judge

(Desembargador Sindicante) of Ribeira Grande, wrote that ships coming from Portugal routinely anchored in Fazenda Real de Ribeira Grande to load up with panu before moving on to Upper Guinea. However, Mattos complained that the Portuguese then purchased slaves with the panu on the coast, but did not return to Cape Verde, but their

222 ships sailed directly to Brazil and Maranhão. Apparently, the authorities did not demand immediate payment once ships arrived from Portugal because it depended on the number of slaves purchased from the coast; Portuguese and other European merchants evaded even paying the authorities in the praças on the coast. It is likely that officials owned some of the ships or were bribed and therefore did not enforce the payment.

Although the periodic famines resulted in much suffering, the trade ban on panu with “foreigners” undoubtedly exacerbated the fragile economy of the archipelago.

Given the distance from the metropolis, and the presence of rapacious officials, trade in contraband thrived in the islands, funneling away any potential accumulation of revenue.

The colony also lost tariffs when ships sailed directly to the coast and evaded Ribeira

Grande altogether. “The dispatched no ships to patrol the archipelago,

221 Ovídio Martins, «Os Flagelados do Vento Leste». 100 Poemas (, The Netherlands: Edições Caboverdianidade, n.d.), 11. 222 Luiz de Bivar Guerra, “A Sindicância do desembargador Custódio Correia de Matos às Ilhas de Cabo Verde em 1753 e o regimento que deixou à Ilha de São Nicolau,” in Stvdia-Revista semester-n.º 2-Julho 1958 (Lisbon, Portugal: Centro de Estudos Históricos Utramarinos), 177.

89 enabling pirates of many nationalities to pillage the defenseless inhabitants, a menace that

223 continued until the .” Moreover, passing ships that reached Guinean ports, unless they required additional provisions or more slaves, simply sailed to the Americas to Europe. As the slave trade declined, the customhouse suffered losses. Moreover, moradores concentrated in contraband, focusing less on agricultural production, which further decreased food availability on the islands.

Officials such Mattos were preoccupied with finding ways to accrue revenue for the local administration. If slave ships stopped in Ribeira Grande before sailing to the

Americas, they left some slaves behind, which replenished the available slave labor.

Portuguese ships hailing from Portugal or other parts of the Empire did not pay the 10 percent . Likewise, the law obligated that all residents of the islands pay 5 percent on trade goods, whether they sold commodities to Portuguese nationals or “foreigners.”

Common trade goods included cotton, panu, cattle, lambs, horses, donkeys, pigs, goats,

224 beans, corn, tobacco, and dye.

Thus, if ships from Europe were not allowed to purchase one of the archipelago’s most valuable commodities, panu, and if Ribeira Grande did not receive tariffs from ships heading to Brazil, then the economy was in duress. Given that Cape Verde experienced periodic pirate attacks, without tariffs and taxes from maritime trade and

225 agricultural products, there was not enough capital to maintain the fortifications. Lack

223 George E. Brooks, “Cabo Verde: Gulag of the South Atlantic: Racism, Fishing Prohibitions, and Famines,” History in Africa 33 (2006): 114. 224 Guerra, “A Sindicância do desembargador Custódio de Correia de Matos,” 242. 225 SGG, Liv 0001, f.85v–86, AHNCV.

90 of trade and famine resulted in mass poverty, the deterioration of the cathedral and houses of the elites, and a general instability.

These conditions made panu less available. Given that local authorities used panu as currency for paying bureaucrats and soldiers, it partially disrupted the social hierarchy

226 because the latter groups were essential for the administration of the colony. The majority of soldiers were Africans born in the archipelago who played a decisive role in maintaining the social order, particularly given the massive number of slave flight into the mountainous interior of Santiago. It is possible that the soldiers did not have the barafula to trade with passing ships for basic foodstuffs and clothing, which would have resulted in some soldiers wearing tattered shirts, pants, and hats—some went nude. In order for the elites to maintain the social hierarchy, each member had to dress according to their social rank; soldiers’ uniforms tended to include finery such as silk, as well as pants, shirts, and . Alviria complained that the unpaid, poorly dressed soldiers ventured into the interior of Santiago Island where they assaulted and robbed people.

Moreover, the governor noted that the soldiers were not practicing Christian rituals, such as attending mass, and they were behaving like heathens.

These unruly soldiers were dangerous because by the 1600s, the scattered maroon communities in Santiago made up the majority of the population in Santiago, which

227 threatened political stability. The local governors were usually Iberian Portuguese; therefore, the loyalty of soldiers, composed of mostly of island-born African descent was

226 Zelinda Cohen, Os filhos da folha (Cabo Verde—sécs XV–XVIII) (Praia, Cape Verde: Spleen Edições, 2007). 227 Iva Cabral, “Elites atlânticas: Ribeira Grande do Cabo Verde (séculos XVI–XVIII),” 6, http://cvc.instituto-camoes.pt/eaar/coloquio/comunicacoes/iva_cabral.pdf.

91 228 crucial for ensuring the social of the. In addition, filhos de terra that managed the local administration were in the majority mestiço (mixed) as well as blacks. In 1690, according to Du Quesne, a French merchant on his way to “East Indies,” could not distinguish if it were soldiers or slaves that robbed for “knives, ribbon, needle, but chiefly

229 for biscuits for which they readily give oranges, goiaves, , and other fruits.”

Given their ragged and partially naked appearance, the European travelers perceived these soldiers as “ slaves” who always carried “bows and arrows.” The impression is that they not only procured weapons, but also food to alleviate their miserable condition.

From the elites’ perspective, dress should indicate clear social ranking, particularly between slaves and soldiers. Having undisciplined soldiers and increasingly indistinguishable dress among the population meant that the social order was becoming unstable. This supports Peter Linebaugh, Marcus Rediker and Emma Christopher’s argument that class solidarity superseded color in the Atlantic world during the slave

230 trade era.

In short, by the mid-seventeenth century, the rise in smuggling and contraband in

Ribeira Grande meant that little custom tax was paid. Moreover, desertification caused not only famine, but also a drop in panu production. Thus, Cape Verdean/Portuguese merchants in Cape Verde lost their competitive edge vis-à-vis their European

228 Iva Cabral, “Elites atlânticas,” 6; Maria João Soares, ““Crioulos Indómitos” e Vadios: Identidade e Crioulização em Cabo Verde-Séculos XVII-XVIII,” 3–5, http://cvc.instituto- camoes.pt/eaar/coloquio/comunicacoes/maria_joao_soares.pdf. 229 Du Quesne, A New Voyage to the East Indies, 19. 230 Emma Christopher, Sailors and Their Captive Cargoes, 1730–1807 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (: Beacon Press, 2000).

92 counterparts in Upper Guinea. Second, the barafula used to pay filhos da folha and soldiers was not available.

Female Dress and Fashion in Cape Verde Islands, c. 1647–c. 1721

As noted above, freed black women in Cape Verde appeared to have developed a particular fashion and dress, an Afro-Atlantic feminine aesthetics. In 1647, Ligon described this unique aesthetic of free black woman, who he erroneously called a

“mistress” of the governor, in Ribeira Grande, Santiago Island. Perhaps, she was not a mistress given that she lived openly with him and there is no mention of the governor

231 having a wife. Moreover, Ligon only describes her as anonymous black mistress; perhaps, for Ligon, it was not conceivable for a black woman to be legitimate and genuine lover or partner of a white man. Her garments indicated that the mistress was a powerful woman of elite social status. Ligon wrote:

She wore on her head a roll of green Taffeta, striped with white and Philliamort [grayish color], made up in the manner of Turban, and over that a sleight veil…On her body next her linen, a Petticoat of Organge Tawny and Sky color; not done with straight stripes, but waved; and upon that a mantle of purple silk, ingrayled with straw color. This Mantle was large, and tied with a knot of very broad black Ribbon, with a rich Jewel on her right shoulder, which came under her left arm, and so hung loose and carelessly, almost to the ground. On her Legs, she wore buskins of wetched Silk, decked with Silver lace, and Fringe; Her shoes, of white leather, laced with sky color; and pinked between those laces. In her ears, 232 she wore large Pendants, about her neck, and on her arms, fair Pearls.

Several social aspects are revealed in this description. First, the taffeta served as a head wrap, which was probably made of panu laced with silk. The extra veil suggests a

231 Candido Mariana P., «Aguida Gonçalves, marchande de Benguela à la fin du XVIII siècle». Brésil(s). Sciences humanines et sociales no 1 (mai 2012): 33–54. 232 Richard Ligon, A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados (1657); edited, with an introduction, by Karen Ordahl Kupperman (Reprint; Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2011), 54–55.

93 233 religious aspect, or might it have been to protect her from the dust. The linen could have been a panu or imported fabric, with its wavy design and bright colors. The purple mantle used as a shawl appears to be another type of panu that was traditionally used to cover the body. Arlindo Mendes argues that the wearing of cotton cloth to cover the female body in the interior of Santiago in today’s society is a practice that derived from

234 the slavery era.

This elegantly dressed black woman who lived with the governor shows the social and cultural dynamics of the society. As noted above, class was more important rather than color. Perhaps, if high officials had intimate relations with local women it gave them access to local networks of power, or legitimized their colonial positions in Cape Verde.

For the local women, it was about network building (like the nharas and signares in

Upper Guinea) and displaying their wealth, power, and freedom. Employing nhara/signares as a theoretical framework, David Wheat states that in Spanish Caribbean during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, some women of African descent had social upward mobility based upon relationships with Iberian men that included church-

235 sanctioned marriage and concubinage. Few women in Cape Verde dressed in this

233 Cape Verde receives dust from the Harmattan, which is when winds blow from the spreading to Western Africa between the end of November and the middle of March. 234 Arlindo Mendes, “Significado da sulada em Santiago: um reparo etnográfico,” Revista de Estudos Cabo-Verdianos no. 3 (2009: 79-106). Mendes argues that shawls are important part of rural life in Santiago, because women use it for variety of purposes, in labor, carry babies, protecting themselves from inclement weather. 235 Wheat, “Nharas and Morenas Horras,” 137–38.

94 236 elegant manner. The choices that Africans and their descendants made, however, were also guided by their cultural sensibilities in which adornment and dress was a form of

237 resistance, accommodation, and assimilation. Besides, the climate of Cape Verde was much more similar to Upper Guinea than Portugal.

In another passage, when Ligon went to fetch water in a valley in Ribeira Grande, he described young women, about 15 years of age, who wore a dress like the “mistress,” but not as extravagant, indicating these women were not part of the low class. Both girls had silk striped petticoats with linen cloth that reached the middle of their legs “tied with a Ribbon on the right shoulder, which coming under the left arm, hung down carelessly somewhat lower than the Petticoat, so as a great of the natural beauty of their backs and

238 necks before, lay open to the view, their breast.” These women were free blacks and

239 had a small piece of silver or tin that symbolized the “badge of their freedom.”

236 Silvia Hunold Lara, “The Signs of Color,” 205–24; Lara shows that to maintain the hierarchy in the Portuguese Empire enacted laws to restrict the dress of slave women that would conform to their rank in society. In North America, the Slave Act of 1735 banned slave women from dressing in a fashion considered above their rank; see Haulman, The Politics of Fashion, 25; Olwell notes that slaves can wear, “negro cloth, duffels, coarse kearsies, osnabrugs, blue linen, checked linen, coarse garlix or calicoes, checked cottons or scotch plaids”; Robert Olwell, Masters, Slaves, and Subjects: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina Low Country, 1740–1790 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 63; Jonathn Prude, “To Look upon the ‘Lower Sort’: Runaway Ads and the Apperance of Unfree Laborers in America, 1750–1800,” Journal of American History 78, No. 1 (1991): 124–59. 237 S. O. Buckridge, The Language of Dress: Resistance and Accommodation in Jamaica, 1760–1890 (Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 2004); Shane White and Graham White, Stylin’: African-American Expressive Culture from Its Beginnings to the Zoot Suit (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 1998). 238 Ligon, A True and Exact , 59–60. 239 Ligon does not specify how he knows this piece of silver or tin around their legs symbolized their freedom. Ligon implies that the Portuguese gave it to them alluding to manumission.

95 Hairstyle was an integral part of the Afro-Atlantic feminine aesthetics. In 1647,

Ligon distinguished between hairstyles in Cape Verde and the mainland:

Their hair not shorn as the Negroes [Africans] in the places I have named [Morocco Guinny, Binny, Cutchow, Angola, Aethiopia, ] close to their head; nor in quarters, and mazes, [reference to plaiting pattern popular in Upper Guinea Coast] But in due proportion of length, so as having their shortening by the natural curls, they appear as wires, and artificial dressings to their own faces. On the side of their cheeks, they plat little of it, of purpose to tie small Ribbon; or some small beads, of white 240 Amber, or blue bugle, sometimes of the rare flowers that grow there.

Thornton argues that this difference shows that creolization was occurring in

Cape Verde. There were some changes, but to reduce it to creolization is conflating change with something totally new. Although the hairstyle was not a replica of styles that

Ligon believed existed on the mainland, such as in Gambia, the braiding of hair and adorning it with an ornament was the preferred style, which was derived from “Guinean” sensibilities. On the coast, it was common for both sexes to decorate their hair with various adornments and this aesthetic continued in the archipelago. This phenomenon was widespread in the region: in 1682, Le Maire observed that men and women in

241 Gambia used coral and other items in their hair. Because the environment was different in Cape Verde, Africans and their descendants relied on local sources for their decorations, and when possible, slaves and freed individuals recreated a material culture that spoke to their Guinean roots.

Jane Stevenson speculates whether Ligon’s description of female dress in Cape

Verde is accurate, given that Ligon was part of the English gentry (despite describing

240 Ligon, A True Exact History, 58–59. 241 The Voyages of the Sieur Le Maire to the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, Senegal, and Gambia, Jan 1682, 72–73.

96 himself as a disgruntled outcast of British society). For Stevenson, Ligon’s description of women wearing silk and sophisticated dress in Cape Verde was rather a reflection of his background rather than reality. It was also an expression of an encounter with the “other,” which tends to be more explicit when expressed through the lens of gender. For instance, studies by Jennifer Morgan (relating to the Americas) and Pamela Scully and Clifton

Crais (South Africa) show European travelers’ encounters with the “other” were

242 racialized and gendered. Indeed, Ligon was curious to see if this “beautiful” black

“mistress” had pearl white teeth such as Europeans fancied back in Europe. He was disappointed when he came close to the woman. Because traveling literature trope reflected elite European men’s background, Stevenson doubts that most women in Cape

Verde dressed as Ligon suggested because around hundred years later (ca. 1746) Antoine

François Prévost d'Exiles (better known as Abbé Prevost), a French novelist, described women in Cape Verde dressed in plain white sarongs with white cloths over their

243 shoulders. Notwithstanding the some valid criticism of this trope, Stevenson misses the point of historical interpretation: Ligon described a woman of high status, whereas

Abbé Prevost described women of low status, who could even have been slaves—and it was a century later, which I will discuss later.

242 Jennifer Morgan, “‘Some Could Suckle over Their Shoulder’: Male Travelers, Female Bodies, and the Gendering of Racial Ideology, 1500–1770,” William and Mary Quarterly 54, no. 1 (1997): 167–92; Pamela Scully and Clifton Crais, “Race and Erasure: Sara Baartman and Hendrik Cesars in Cape Town and London,” Journal of British Studies 47, no. 2 (2008): 301–23. 243 Jane Stevenson, “Richard Ligon and the Theatre of Empire,” in Shaping the Stuart World, 1603–1714, The Atlantic Connection, ed. Allan I. Macinnes and Arthur H. Williamson (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2006), 298.

97 Numerous other Europeans passing through Cape Verde described similar dress and fashion. For instance, on December 9, 1672, John Fryer departed England aboard the

Unity to travel to Asia, specifically Persia and India, for trade. On his way, Fryer stopped

Santiago in early 1673 for provisions. Fryer wrote that the women had “a clout rolled up like our water-bearer” with their backs and breasts exposed. The women also fastened panu around their waists and it hung down to their feet. They also wore bracelets,

244 necklaces, earrings, and long veils that cover them from their head to their feet. The rise of this Afro-feminine aesthetic probably was connected to what Green describes as

Consolidation of female brokerage and agency in commercial transactions in the Cape Verde islands in the seventeenth century is contemporaneous with the documented rise of similar features in the Atlantic trading ports of Western Africa such as Cacheu. . . . Among peoples of the region such as the Balanta, many women took advantage of this situation to leave their moranças and tabankas and to settle among the Luso-African traders. It was in the seventeenth century that this phenomenon first seems to have become especially widespread, and the contemporaneous rise of the phenomenon on both the islands and the African coast indicates again how tied, both commercially and culturally, were the zones of brokerage of the 245 Cape Verde islands and of the African mainland.

The Afro-Atlantic feminine aesthetic illustrated the social prestige of female brokerage and agency in Cape Verde with their economic ascendancy. In June 1681,

Governor Manuel Costa Pessoa complained that, “Cape Verdean Creoles no longer paid any attention to the demands of Portuguese authority, refusing to take their turns in the militia and being virtually above the law, since if he sent people to arrest them they

244 John Fryer, A New Account of East-India and Persia: In Eight Letters Being Nine Years Travels, Begun 1672, and Finished 1681. (London: Printed by R.R. for RI. Chiswell, at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1698), 9–10; 245 Green, “The Emergence of a Mixed Society in Cape Verde,” 226.

98 246 always returned empty-handed.” During this tumultuous period, European travelers begin to describe a particular fashion and dress among black women. Although Ligon did not provide the following image (Figure 5), it might offer clues to this unique development.

247 Figure 5. Inhabitants of the Cape Verde Islands

Figure 5 shows a woman of African descent and high social standing in Ribeira

Grande. Her head is wrapped with a handkerchief and she is dressed in a long, flowing gown covered with a mantle. She has a necklace and shoes, but the man next to her does not wear shoes. The man wears overalls topped with a blazer and a hat. This woman is less colorful than the one described by Ligon, but it reveals the basic features of the gendered aesthetics.

The Afro-Atlantic feminine aesthetic consisted of braided hair, a head wrap, big earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and a petticoat. Portuguese feminine attire included

246 Green, “The Emergence of a Mixed Society in Cape Verde,” 233. 247 Another digitized image of the National Archive of Cape Verde, but without reference to original source. This image might be from a European traveler’s account, but judging from other images and descriptions I have seen, the image is from the latter of half of the eighteenth century. It depicts an elite woman of African similar to the signares in Senegal. I have been unable to locate its original source. However, the caption indicates that it is from the Cape Verde Islands.

99 248 wearing intricate hair braiding, head wrappers, and large earrings. It is difficult to ascertain how widespread the wearing of these elaborate dresses by free African women and their descendants was in Cape Verde. In 1690, after arriving in Santiago, Abraham

Du Quesne, a French traveler, noticed that women only wrapped white or blue panu around their waist, left their upper body bare, the head uncovered, and their feet unshod, but “only sometimes wearing an ordinary handkerchief round their heads, and for the

249 most part gold rings, or three wooden pins in their ears.” In a church in Praia, he saw a

“negress women half-naked.” Du Quesne also mentioned they walked with a “great air”

250 or ostentatious flair, usually smoking with a tobacco pipe. European travelers also noticed the culture of tobacco smoking by women on the Upper Guinea Coast. Duquesne, however, lamented that the archipelago had experienced four years of drought before his arrival; presumably, the drought affected the availability of panu. When Du Quesne mistook the lieutenant for the governor, the locals replied that the latter resided in

Santiago, i.e., Ribeira Grande, the colonial headquarters. There were 300 houses and most of the residents were Portuguese, “who dress after their own,” while the rest were black, who were “naked.” The evidence indicates that Portuguese women in Ribeira

Grande did not dress in the manner of Afro-Atlantic feminine aesthetics.

248 “An Account of the Manners, Customs, Dress, and Diversions of the the Portuguese”. Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure, June 1747–Dec. 1803; 102, British Periodicals, 88. 249 Abraham Du Quesne, A New Voyage to the East-Indies in the years 1690 and 1691 being a full description of the isles of Maldives, Cicos, Andamants, and the Isle of Ascention…; to which is added, a new description of the Canary Islands, Cape Verd, Senegal, and Gambia done into English from the Paris edition. 1696, Copy from the British Library, 19–20. 250 Du Quesne, A New Voyage to the East-Indies, 19.

100 Around 1721, George Roberts, a British sailor, noted similar dress and fashion throughout the archipelago. Pirates captured Roberts, and though they eventually released him and his ship, they did so without provisions, but he managed to reach Santo

251 Antão. Roberts sailed further south, and was shipwrecked near , a port city in

Brava, from whence he traveled through various islands over the course of the next two years. Because of his long stay, Roberts was able to provide a detailed overview of female dress in the islands, which I quote at length:

The women, when dressed, have cotton cloths; and, according as they are industrious or nice in spinning, some finer, some coarser, some with one, some two or three of those cloths wrapped about them like petticoats, and tied with a girdle above the hips, or sometimes without a girdle, the corner of the cloth only tucked in; their shirts are made like a man’s shirt, but cut off so short, that it don’t reach low enough to tie under their girdle; the wrist-bands, collar, and neck, of the highest sort, especially the younger, are wrought in figures, with silk of divers colors, with the needle; but the poorer, particularly the older sort, content themselves with blue cotton thread to work their bosoms, collars, etc. with; over their shirts they wear a waist-coat, with sleeves to button at the arms, not above four inches deep in the back part, but long enough before, to tie with strings under their breasts; and over all, a cotton cloth, in manner of a mantle; which the married women generally have of a blue color, and the darker the blue, the richer its reckoned; but the maidens and gay young wives, or widows, wear blue and white cloths, some figured, as they call it, others spotted: some are so nice as to have white cotton; but rather, if they can get them, linen Handkerchiefs wrought along the edges, and sometimes the corners only, with silk, mostly red, green, and blue, the first being the color most admired among them, as well as by all the inhabitants of those islands in general, the latter being the only color they can dye, which they vary to 252 several degrees, by making it darker or lighter.

251 The Four Years Voyages of Capt. George Roberts Being A Series of Uncommon Events, which befell him In a Voyage to the Islands of the Canaries, Cape de Verde, and Barbadoes, from whence he was bound to the Coast of Guiney. (London: Printed for A. Bettlesworth, at the Red Lyon, in Pater-Noster-Row, and J. Osborn, at the Ship, at St. Saviour’s Dock-Head, near Horsely-Down. 1726), information part of the title page after the map of Cape Verde Islands. 252 The Four Years Voyages of Capt. George Roberts, 395. Emphasis added.

101 The above descriptions of dress illustrate several things. First, cotton cloth for women was a basic component of dress, which was combined with a short shirt, over which they worse a “waistcoat,” and, finally, what Roberts described as a mantle, most likely a barafula (larger cotton cloth). Second, marital status affected women’s dress. For the barafula, married women wore dark blue (the darker the better, perhaps). However, unmarried and young women wore barafulas that were blue and white, with linen handkerchiefs with edges laced with red, green, or blue. As on the coast, red was the preferred color. Age also affected how women dressed. Poorer women, particularly the elderly, utilized blue cotton panu without any silk on the collar or arm to cover their bosom.

Hence, women of African descent’s choice to adorn themselves with specific

253 items must be seen as part of a “visual world” that escaped European travelers. Silvia

Lara notes that artist representation of female slaves and free black women did not always imply imperial biases, but in the images were “invisible” objects that were signs of cultural affirmation (i.e., the “visual world”); slave owners, European travelers, and the metropolis were often clueless regarding its significance. This visual world consisted of panus, tobacco pipes, and gris-gris (protective amulets) that linked the African diaspora with their homeland. Philip Morgan refers to this difference as “anti-language”

254 that signifies “anti-establishment.” The difference in aesthetics speaks to cultural heritage or memory. The exquisitely clad black woman was a partner of the governor of

253 Silvia Hunold Lara, “Mulheres Escravas, Identidades Africanas” in Grupo de Trabalho 3, http://www.desafio.ufba.br/gt3-006.html#1. 254 Philip Morgan, Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 605.

102 Cape Verde; thus, her elaborate dress could indicate a range of possibilities—a powerful woman, Guinean aesthetics, and the benefits of sexual relation with a powerful colonial

255 authority.

Male Dress and Fashion in Cape Verde Islands, c. 1647–c. 1721

The only detailed description of male dress we have is Ligon’s description of soldiers in Ribeira Grande, Santiago, in 1647:

Coverings their heads, were not unlike Helmets; of blue and white striped silk, some tawny, and yellow, others of other sorts of Colors; but all of one fashion of the King’s guard: loose sleeves, which came to their elbows; but large and gathered so as to fit loose from their arms; with large skirts, reaching down to the middle of their thighs; but these of a different color from their suits, their breeches indifferently large, coming down below the knee; and the upper part, so wrought with Whalebones within, as to keep them hollow, from touching their backs; to avoid heat . . . upon their legs, buskins of the color of their suits, yet some made a difference: their shoes colored for the most part; some white, but very few black. Their weapons, 256 as Swords, Pistols, Muskets, Pikes, and Partisans, kept very bright.

The passage reveals that military men dressed in elegant uniform with silk as a sign of prestige. Moreover, their shirts had “loose sleeves” and pants “indifferently large,” which resembled the baggy, loose fitting of Islamic attire of Upper Guinea.

Moreover, the breeches were fastened with whalebones, which were abundant in the region, kept the pants loose, creating a cooling affect. Nonetheless, these men were not representative of male dress in the archipelago.

In 1672, Fyer reported that in Santiago, men, unlike women, obtained European clothing from passing ships. European travelers provided images that depicted black men

255 Walter Hawthorne, From Africa to Brazil, 175; Isabel P. B. Fêo Rodrigues, “Islands of Sexuality: Theories and Histories of Creolization in Cape Verde,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 36, no.1 (Special Issue: Colonial Encounters between Africa and Portugal) (2003): 83–103. 256 Ligon, A True and Exact History, 57.

103 wearing short panu or loincloth that were part of the servile class. At port cities, manumitted slaves and free poor class eked out an existence at the port cities of the islands and adopted European clothing. For instance, in 1683, the governor of Sal Island had given the captain of European boat three or four thin goats in exchange of a coat, “for

257 he had nothing but a few rags on his back, and an old hat.” The population of Sal was small; there may have been only a few hundred permanent residents along with transients from São Nicolau and Santo Antão. Hence, the governor of Sal did not have much recourse given an unstable population; he relied on European passing ships, which were infrequent, to provide him with various commodities. In contrast, the three or four men that accompanied the governor of São Nicolau Island on European ships “were all indifferently well cloathed and accoutred with swords and pistols; but the rest that accompanied him to the sea-side which were about 20 or 30 men, were but in a ragged

258 garb.”

In 1699, William Dampier, a British captain, reported that of the 230 inhabitants of Maio some had clothing, whereas others went about naked. Islands like Maio did not produce cotton cloth, but depended on passing ships for trade. Residents of Maio provided salt to English, French, and other European nationals for food plus ragged clothing. Praia had “bullocks, hogs, goats, fowls, eggs, plantains, and cocoa-nuts, which

257 William Dampier, Dampier’s Voyages; consisting of a New Voyage round the world, a Supplment to the Voyage round the world, Vol. 1 (London: E. Grant Richards, 1906), 101. 258 Dampier, Dampier’s Voyages, Vol. 1, 103.

104 they” that they traded “for shirts, drawers, handkerchiefs, hats, waistcoats, breeches, or . .

259 . cloth, especially linen” because it was suitable to the weather.

Unlike Sal and Maia, Brava Island was isolated, and the dwellers depended more on local production of panu, if any. In 1723, Roberts said that the inhabitants of Brava

260 were all blacks, who were less than 200 in number. The majority of the inhabitants were poor black refugees, who may have been slaves and manumitted individuals who escaped famine in Fogo by boarding a passing Portuguese ship in the late seventeenth

261 century. It was probably around 1680 when Fogo’s erupted, which also resulted in the island’s name, which means, “fire” in Portuguese. Sixty years prior to the arrival of the refugees of the famine, only two black families were “lived wholly in heathenism.” The new arrivals taught these families weaving. Roberts published two pictures of the inhabitants (Figures 7 and 8): one picture shows a man and a woman dressed in only loin-cloths with the man holding a long spear and the woman with a bracelet on each wrist; in the other picture, which Roberts referred to as their “best habits,” they are wearing long cotton cloths.

259 Dampier, Dampier’s Voyages, vol. 1, 104. This importing of European clothing continues, particularly used ones at affordable prices; Today, Santiago women are major transnational enterpreneurs, see Marzia Grassi, Rabidantes: comércio espontâneo transatlântico em Cabo Verde (Praia, Cape Verde: Instituto de Ciências Sociais e Spleen Edições, 2003). For Africa in general, see A. Brooks and D. Simons, “Untangling the Relationship between Used Clothing Imports and the Decline of African Clothing Industries,” Development and Change 43 (6) (2012): 1265–1290. 260 Roberts, The Four Years Voyages, 422. 261 To this day, Fogo and Brava have a special relationship, and Bravan , especially Eugenio Tavares, refer to Fogo as their lover.

105

Figure 6. “A Man and Woman of the Island of St. John (Brava)”

(Source: The four years voyages of Capt. George Roberts, between pages 422 and 423.)

Figure 7. “A Man and Woman of the island of St. John in their best habits”

(Source: The four years voyages of Capt. George Roberts, between pages 422 and 423.)

An online database with digitized images entitled “The Atlantic Slave Trade and

Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record,” operated by the University of Virginia noted that Figures 6 and 7 were included in Daniel Defoe’s The Four Years Voyages of

Capt. George Roberts. According to the database, the images were “presumably produced by the publisher to accompany this fictional account by Defoe. Perhaps they

106 262 were derived from another, unidentified, source.” The unidentified source is from the true account of George Roberts. Indeed, these images corroborate other travelers’ accounts. Roberts wrote that the inhabitants learned to make panu from new settlers, i.e., the freed slaves from Fogo. This description of freed blacks astute in the art of weaving supports the fact that Fogo was known for having excellent weavers. It also corroborates the view that the 1680 volcanic eruption in Fogo forced residents to flee to nearby

263 Brava, which is only twelve miles away. Toby Green quotes George Robert’s travel writings concerning the days when Santiago was a major center of the Atlantic slave

264 trade to the Caribbean. Maria João Soares and Maria Manuel Torrão also refer to this

265 demonstrates for the Mande presence in Cape Verde. Indeed, Roberts referred to the

Mandinka influence by citing local inhabitants of Fogo and Santiago, in particular, having similar physiognomy with the mainland Mandinkas and that the creole they spoke

266 was significantly laced with Mandinka words Mandinka cloth was the batan (white cotton textile), which was also part of the textile industry in Cape Verde. Roberts was

262 http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery/details.php?categorynum=2&theRecord=150 &recordCount=20. Daniel Defoe, The four years voyages of Capt. George Roberts…Written by himself (London, 1726), between pp, 422 and 423. (Copy in the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University). For a discussion of how Defoe arranged his account, see Manuel Schonhorn, “Defoe’s Four Years Voyages of Capt. George Roberts and Ashton’s Memorial,” in Literature and Language 17, no. 1 (1975): 93–102. 263 Orlando Ribeiro, A Ilha do Fogo e as suas erupções, 2nd ed. (Lisbon, Portugal: Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, Memórias Séries Geográfica I, 1960), 200. 264 Green, The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, 1. 265 Soares and Torrão, “The Mande Through and In the Cape Verde Islands,” 145. 266 George Roberts, The four years voyages of Capt. George Roberts: being a series of uncommon events which befell him…/written by himself (London: Printed for A. Bettesworth, 1726), 151, 163.

107 probably aware of the Mandinka kingdom, , which was a powerful political force in Upper Guinea.

As discussed earlier, in 1746, Abbè Prevost published an image captioned “Habits des negres du cap verd,” (habits of the blacks of Cape Verde) showing locals in white sarongs that Stevenson referred to in order to show that Ligon’s description of

267 sophisticated dress in Cape Verde was more of the latter’s imagination. The image is not from Cape Verde Islands, but from the Cape Verde peninsula, which in French is referred to as Cap Verd, whereas the archipelago is referred to as Iles de Cap Verd.

According to many scholars, Cape Verde Islands derived its name from the Cape Verde

Peninsula. Moreover, Abbè Prevost reproduced the original image in a modified form

268 from A New General Collections of Voyages and Travels (1745). When the images provided by George Roberts are compared with Abbè Prevost’s image the similarities of their dress becomes apparent. In both images, the individuals had wrapped cloth around their bodies to keep warm, which corroborates my argument of cultural continuity,

267 Stevenson is not the only scholar; Linda M. Heywood and John K. Thornton, Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585–1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 17, 33, 38, 40, 41, 277, 305, 308, 313. On page 308, the locals that Broecke referred to as offering virgins were from the Cape Verde Penninsula of Senegal and not Cape Verde Islands, for example. See J. D. La Fleur (ed. and trans.), Pieter van den Broecke’s Journal of Voyages to Cape Verde, Guinea and Angola 1605-12 (London: Hakluyt Society, 2000). Their reference to John Hawkins’s kidnapping refers to Cape Verde Islands. Toby Green also argues that Cape Verde has been ignored or misrepresented in the Anglophone world; see Green, “Masters of Difference,” 2–3. 268 A new general collection of voyages and travels; consisting of the most esteemed relations, which have been hitherto published in any language; comprehending everything remarkable in its kind, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America Volume 2 (London: Printed for T. Astley, 1745–47), between pages 656 and 657. See online image at Gale Cengage Learning Eighteenth Century Collections Online; hard copy is available at Michigan State University, Special Collections.

108 particularly with low class groups, unlike manumitted males slaves or poor laborers working at port cities, who had access to tattered European clothing.

Figure 8. “Habits des negres du cap verd”

269 (Source: Histories générale des voyages, vol. 2, between pages 467 and 468)

In contrast, Figure 9 reveals at least two social classes. The black man wearing a necklace and a loin cloth with a plain panu wrapped around him appears to be lower class whereas the man with the hat tied with a ribbon or garland is wearing short trousers and an open shirt with a small band of panu tied around his waist—he might be a sailor. The other men in the image appear dressed in work attire because they have spears and loincloths to conceal their bodies while they are harpooning for fishes.

269 The Arquivo Histórico Nacional de Cabo Verde (Historic Nacional Archive of Cape Verde) also provided this image in a digitized form, but without any reference to the original document. I looked at the original in Abbè Prevost, Histoire generale des voyages, ou nouvelle collection de toutes les relations de voyages (Paris: Chez Didot, 1747), between pp.467-468; see online image at Gale Cengage Learning Eighteenth Century Collections Online as well as hard copy from Michigan State University, Special Collections.

109

270 Figure 9. Inhabitants of Cape Verde Islands

The above image shows that an “Afro-Atlantic masculine aesthetics” or that dress expressed black men’s masculinity and status, but European men travelers were not intrigued with them. As numerous feminist scholars have shown, the encounter with the

271 “other” expresses is usually unambiguously conveyed in a gendered perspective.

Freed black men with some degree of high status tended to wear European clothing, but they included panu as well as a hat as accessories. Hats were popular in both Portugal and the Upper Guinea Coast, and they showed masculinity and prestige on the coast and the islands. Black men of low status wore breeches or loincloths, used panu as shawls, and sometimes wore necklaces. Their dress reflected the non-Islamized small-scale societies of Upper Guinea.

270 This image is from an unidentified source possessed by the National Archive in digitalized form. However the depictions of turtles hints that this image is probably Sal and Maio, where Europeans purchased turtles before heading to the Caribbean.. However, some scholars have argued that European depictions did not always correspond to the reality on the ground, see Silvia Hunold Lara, “Customs and Costumes: Carlos Julião and the Image of Black Slaves in Late Eighteenth-Century Brazil,” Slavery and Abolition 23, no. 2 (2002): 123–46; Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (New York: Routledge, 1992). 271 Joan W. Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” American Historical Review 91, no. 5 (1986): 1053–75.

110 Women and Dress in Cape Verde during 1800s

The Portuguese Empire attempted to influence the types of clothing worn, especially on important occasions. When the Portuguese king, Dom Jozé, died on June 9,

1777, there was a royal decree for the islands regarding the proper mourning of the king

272 273 and the dress required for each social class. Andrade de Valle de Sorª Mª , a representative of the king, wrote to the authorities in Ribeira Grande that the mourning should extend for one year, but within that time span, the first six months should be more

274 formal and the rest “alleviated.” The decree specified the dress of each class. Military officers should wear black ties, pants, and socks, with crape design on the left shoulder of the uniform the side that soldiers carry their swords. Local officials and well-dressed men should wear a black crape on their hats. Poor men should don black bonnets. Women of high status should wear a black dress, black vest, and a black cape, while adult females of low status should be dressed in panu and a black handkerchief. Moreover, the poorest of the poor women should wear black panus and were permitted to wear white scarves on their head, but they should be shrouded in black. The royal decree ordered the captain- major and the local judges to punish violators with three months of with a fine of

275 twelve réis. Poor people could hardly follow the decree, but it does illustrate the fantasy of the authorities in Lisbon. Although their colonies were far-flung, this decree

272 SGG, Livro 0013, “Bandos e editais Publicados na Ilha de Santiago. 1769/Dezembro–1778/Setembro; fl 37v, AHNCV. 273 The abbreivations could be short version of Soroya Maria, but I am not certain. 274 SGG, Livro 0013, f.37v. 275 SGG, Livro 0013, f.37v.

111 shows Lisbon’s preoccupation with imperial social order and hierarchy encompassed fashion and dress throughout their empire.

From the Lisbon’s perspective, the use of basic panu as a wrap or shawl was for the poorest of the poor. In 1818, Manuel Roiz Lucas de Senna wrote that the “use of panu” was not only commonplace among slaves, but among also the poor population in

276 Santiago. Senna justified this as an old practice derived from “pagan” roots, i.e.,

Guinean. Despite the outsider’s association of panu with low class and backwardness, in the islands people continued to value the different types of cotton cloth. Depending on the type of cloth, prices ranged from expensive to inexpensive. Poor quality panu sold for

277 2,000 réis, whereas the most expensive were 18,000 réis. During celebrations, an

278 outfit could cost 90–100,000 réis, which included gold earrings and necklaces. Using panu was symbol of prestige during the seventeenth century, whereas in the nineteenth century, it was associated with servile classes, slaves and the poor, who were usually dark skinned or “black.” Mixed-race or female mulatoes dressed more in European style.

In early nineteenth century, black women’s dress continued to consist of the cotton cloth as a wrap, a sarong on the shoulders, and headgear. Senna, a Brazilian administrator temporarily based in Praia, describes it:

The manner to dress the pano is wrap it once around the waist reaching the ankles . . . is it bounded and secured with the bottom part pulling against the top part; if not careful can trip on the cloth; this first pano is used to show off the wealth and a fine shirt is used with it. Another pano covers

276 Manuel Roiz Lucas de Senna, Dissertação sobre as ilhas de Cabo Verde 1818. Annotation and comments by António Carreira (Edition Funded by the President of the Republic of Cape Verde, 1987), 65. 277 Senna, Dissertação sobre as ilhas de Cabo Verde, 65. 278 Senna, Dissertação sobre as ilhas de Cabo Verde, 65–66.

112 the body under the shoulder to the arm. The pano is not wore on the head rather a kerchief resembling a crown-like image; this type of adornment is common, because these same ladies wore the attire inside their houses as 279 well and only when they leave the they dress like “people.”

However, what is novel is the insinuation that “elite” women dressed more like

European when they left their house, and that “African” dress was confined to the house.

For example, when going to Catholic mass, even a wealthy woman used a very expensive

280 panu as rug to kneel and pray so as not to roughen her body. Perhaps, there were few or no pews of the floor in the colonial church. One of her slaves laid the panu on the floor as a carpet. The other slaves covered her body with another panu. Senna does not show her dressing in an Afro-Atlantic feminine aesthetic. The cotton cloth was simply used as an accessory.

European and Brazilian travelers’ accounts identified women who dressed in the

Afro-Atlantic feminine aesthetic as black. Slave women did not dress in this manner, because their social status was the lowest in society. Senna suggests that it was more

281 desirable by the elites for female slaves to conceal part of their bodies. The essential area to conceal was from the waist down. The wind pulled the poor quality panu loose and revealed the skin. A female slave’s attire could also reflect the reputation of his or her owner. Therefore, according to Senna, domestic female slaves when undertaking an errand, sending a message, or venturing outside the house dressed in the female

282 slaveholder’s finest panu as symbol of the owner’s wealth. Although slaves and the

279 Senna, Dissertação sobre as ilhas de Cabo Verde, 66. 280 Senna, Dissertação sobre as ilhas de Cabo Verde, 96. 281 Senna, Dissertação sobre as ilhas de Cabo Verde, 61. 282 Senna, Dissertação sobre as ilhas de Cabo Verde, 61.

113 poor majority utilized basic panus, slaves of poor owners usually went naked, barefooted, or wore rags.

However, the age of the slaves also determined what they wore. slaves wore rags until 7 or so; after that they were given hand-me-down “suits” from the slaveholder’s house. This practice might have reflected customs from the Upper Guinea Coast in which children did not wear clothing until they reached a certain age. In other words, slavery practices in Cape Verde had aspects that harkened back to Guinea in the Atlantic form of

283 slavery. In this new society, dress continued to reflect the social hierarchy, or an individual’s place within it. However, Afro-Atlantic women, either freed or born free in

Cape Verde, followed a unique fashion to assert their social mobility in a slave-based society, in which racialized slavery was the norm, but with flexibility, because even a few blacks owned slaves. Afro-Atlantic women tended not to imitate European fashion, but created a fashion expressing their Guinean roots.

The Atlantic slave trade on the Upper Guinea Coast resulted in a regional dress among the Afro-Atlantic women involved (directly or indirectly) in the slave trade. In

Upper Guinea, including Cape Verde, Afro-Atlantic women were cultural brokers facilitating trade between locals and “strangers.” During the nineteenth century, in Cape

Verde, European travelers were explicitly identifying Afro-Atlantic feminine aesthetics as exclusively representative of the female black body. In 1818, on their voyage to the

Zaire River, when they stopped in Praia, and

283 António Correio e Silva argues that rest on the seventh day of the week in the Atlantic slave system was taken from slave system in mainland Africa and was transmitted to the Americas via Atlantic islands, such as Cape Verdea and São Tomé.

114 noted that a “half-cast” female equated her fashion of “shift and petticoat” as “à la

284 negresse.”

In 1856, Valdez noted that in Tarrafal, Santiago, and “nhanhas, or white and

285 mulatto ladies, were dressed in European style, although not quite à la mode de Paris.”

That same year, in Fogo, Valdez noted that, “The inhabitants manufacture galans, pannos d’obra, and counterpanes of various qualities and prices, according to the mandingas

286 system.” Although this description is from the nineteenth century, it might speak to an earlier Mande influence. Does this mean that panus were designed “according to the mandingas system?” Valdez was biased because he thought that the Mandinkas were more civilized than the gentios (heathens, pagans)—i.e., Africans who practiced ancestral/—because of their dress, entrepreneurship, “industriousness,” and

“cleverness,” and because they allegedly spoke Arabic. Hence, by the turn of the nineteenth century there was a clear distinction that blacks wore panu because they were poor) and derived this practice from their “pagan” roots.

284 James Hingston Tuckey, Narrative of an Expedition to Explore the River , usually called the Congo, in South Africa, in 1816, under the direction of Captain J.K. Tuckey; [to which is add the journal of Professor Smith] (London: Cass, 1967), 14. 285 Valdez, Six Years of a Traveller’s Life in Western Africa, vol. 1, 117–118 286 Valdez, Six Years Travelers, vol. 1, 148.

115

Figure 10. “Woman and Children of Porto-Grande”

(Source: Élisée Reclus, Africa and Its Inhabitants, Vol. II [London: H. Virtue and Company, 1899, frontispiece])

Although Figure 10 was published in 1899, it appears tp be consistent with

Senna’s description from the early 1800s and earlier. João Lopes Filho refers to the

287 picture in his book as the “primordial” dress in the islands, which alludes to

“African,” i.e., the “traditional” or pristine African past that the islands are no longer part of. The caption, “Women and Children of Porto-Grande,” refers to the famous port of

Mindelo City, São Vicente. In contemporary Cape Verdean society, however, most people of Mindelo, particularly the elites, project more a Europeanized lifestyle, whereas

Santiago was the most “African” of the archipelago. Nonetheless, today’s conception as well as an ideological bent may distort our understanding of the past. At any rate, the illustration demonstrates that panu was still popular in the late nineteenth century.

Age played an important role in how an individual would adorn a panu. An adult woman wrapped her head in addition to a panu di bambú strapped around her body to secure the baby. In addition, she wore a fine shirt with another type of panu wrapped

287 Filho, O Corpo e o Pão.

116 around her waist as a petticoat. In Figure 10, there is a young woman with her head wrapped and a panu around her waist with oval patterns, but her upper body is bare. The third person standing was presumably a young girl, but she has no head wrap, only a plain panu fastened around her waist.

Despite the importance of panu in the economic and social realms in Cape Verde, there is little evidence for quantitative analysis before the creation of Company of Grão

Pará and Maranhão (CGPM) in 1755. As a result, we cannot assume that CGPM increased panu production. It is interesting, however, that we get a glimpse into the importance of panu, with its precarious dependence on ecological factors, in Cape Verde in 1721, before CGPM’s meticulous documentation, when George Roberts wrote:

But the last drought, all their cotton , in a manner, were dry’d up, so that that cotton, which was before the chief product of their island, is now a good commodity to carry there: and this scarcity of cotton here, and at St. Jago, and the understanding that the French ships, which traded there formerly, used to buy those cloths, as did likewise the French and English at St. Jago, they procur’d an order, with a penalty on any one on these islands, who sold cloth to any but subjects of Portugal; which order is strictly observ’d by the officers of the customs at St. Jago, tho’ not much minded here, by reason there are no duties paid at 288 this island [Fogo], and consequently no customhouse, or office.

Perhaps, CGPM caused a surge in panu production in Cape Verde for exportation to the Upper Guinea Coast for slaves destined for Brazil. CGPM devastated the local economy, which caused vociferous protests from local bureaucrats, because the company had a monopoly on trading with the archipelago and Portuguese Guinea. Unlike the local bureaucracy, which kept lousy and dubious records (unsurprising given the number of officials involved in smuggling), CGPM maintained organized accounts of its commercial transactions.

288 Roberts, The Four Years Voyages, 418–9.

117 CGPM’s statistics provide a window into panu production. From 1757 to 1782,

133,265 panus reached Upper Guinea. Out of that, 66,948 panus reached Cacheu from

289 Cape Verde. According to these sources, 64,681 known origin of panus, the majority was from Fogo. It accounted for 43,696 panus, whereas Santiago registered 19,272 and

290 Brava 1,713. Even before the establishment of the company, Roberts noted the importance of Fogo in cotton and cloth production:

Planted cotton in abundance; and this was the greatest mart [sic, market] for cotton cloths of any of the Cape de Verde Islands, and here the Portuguese European ships used to trade for cargoes of barafools for Guinea. The free Blacks, for the most part, are tenants to the whites, who have taken up most of the land, especially near the sea; some whites having thirty or forty slaves, and some of the free black have slaves, which they purchase for cotton cloths, which pass there in room of money, a cloth being valu’d, and passing current among them for 1000 reas [sic 291 réis]

Between 1758 and 1782, the annual average number of panus exported to Upper

292 Guinea, mostly Cacheu and Bissau, was 5,255. Cacheu received 65,455 panus; Bissau received 65,916. The cost for panu from Fogo was higher than the rest, because the authorities levied higher tariffs on panus from that island. From Fogo, for each panu ordinários the local administration levied a tariff of 45 réis, whereas the other islands

289 António Carreira, As Companhias Pombalinas: de Grão-Pará e Maranhão e Pernambuco e Paraíba. Lisbon, Portugal: Editorial Presença, 1982. However, in the 1969 edition, As Companhias Pombalinas de Navegação e Tráfico de Escravos Entre a Costa Africana e o Nordeste Brasileiro. Centro de Estudos da Guiné Portuguesa, he cites 64,948 panos departing from Cape Verde to Cacheu. In 1973, he noted that 64,948 panos reached Cacheu, whereas 68,149 reached Bisau and 169 for Sierra Leone. 290 Carreira, As Companhias de Grão Pará, (1969), 238; (1982), 213. 291 George Roberts, The Four Years Voyages, 418–9. 292 Carreira, A Companhia Geral do Grão-Pará e Maranhão:Volume II: Documentos (O Comércio Intercontinental Portugal-África-Brasil Na Segunda Metade do Século XVIII) (São Paulo, Brazil: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1988), 171.

118 paid only 30 réis for the same kind of cotton cloth; in Fogo, the tariff for panus agulha

(needled cotton cloth) and de vestir (to wear) was 67.5 réis, but the other islands paid 45 réis; in Fogo, the tariff on panus di bicho (animal shapes), retrós and finos (fine ones),

293 was 90 réis, whereas the remaining islands paid 60 réis for the same type of panus.

During the eighteenth century, panu exported to Upper Guinea was a valuable

294 commodity for the CGPM. Whereas 2,157,370 kilograms of orchil was valued at

477,000 réis, 133,265 panus earned 630,758 réis for the treasury in Ribeira Grande. From

1797 to 1803, the number of panus exported varied. For instance, in 1799, Bissau

295 received 19,736; Cacheu recorded 3,343, and 150 reached Lisbon. In 1798, Basto, the governor of Cape Verde, noted that panu was valuable for procuring slaves in the praças

296 of Cacheu and Bissau by CGPM. That same year, Basto estimated that around 2,000

297 panus were sold there. In the early nineteenth century, Feijó estimated between 4,000

298 and 5,000 panus were exported annually. Carreira argues that Praia’s export statistics were closer to Feijó’s estimate, i.e., around 3,872 between 1797 and 1803. In contrast,

CGPM’s records indicate that 5,255 panus were actually exported annually to Bissau and

Cacheu. Between 1797 and 1803, there were eight preferred designs: agulha, ordinário, bicho (all types), fio de lã (wool), restrós, quadrado (squared), listra de fora (all types),

293 Carreira, A Companhia Geral do Grão-Pará e Maranhão, 171. 294 Carreira, As Companhias de Grão Pará, (1969), 236. 295 António Carreira, “A urzela e o pano de vestir—dois productos de exportação,” in Revista do Centro de Estudos de Cabo Verde 1, no. 1, (1973): 26. 296 Carreira, “A Urzela e o pano de vestir,” 25. 297 Carreira, “A urzela e o pano de vestir,” 26. 298 João da Silva Feijó, Ensaio económico sobre as ilhas de Cabo Verde-1797, in Memórias da Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Tomo V, 1815.

119 and galã (all types of banded cotton cloth). The most sold was agulha (needled type; 44 percent), ordinário (ordinary patterns; 15.3 percent), and bicho (animal-like designs; 11.9 percent). The panus de ronco was a luxury panu, which sold fewer because it was very

299 expensive; retros cost 3,000 to 5,000 réis. These percentages show that the most expensive panus de ronco were sold in limited numbers, to usually elites, and that agulhas were more common. Thus, in Upper Guinea, commoners could afford to purchase panus from Cape Verde.

Although we have statistics that refer to Fogo and Santiago as major producers of panu, São Antão was another island that manufactured the commodity. Some documents confirm that CGPM obtained panus there as well. During the mid-nineteenth century, in

300 São Antão locals made pannos d’Agulha and sold them to Guinea. According to

Francisco Travassos Valdez, in 1856, however, São Nicolau had the third best artisans

301 (after Santiago and Boa Vista). Hence, cotton cloth production in Fogo appeared to decline in the mid-nineteenth century. There are no statistics to show the quantity of São Nicolau.

In the 1600s, Fogo was the main producer of panu, followed by Santiago and

Brava. This continued in the 1700s (as the records of CGPM corroborate), but by the early 1800s, Fogo’s production was on the decline. Perhaps São Antão had replaced

Fogo, but further studies need to explore this. By the 1800s, the use of this cotton fabric had spread throughout the archipelago. Even in the relatively late settlement of Mindelo,

299 Carreira, “A Urzela e o pano de vestir,” 26–27. 300 Valdez, Six Years of Travelers, vol. 1, 50. 301 Valdez, Six Years of Travelers, vol. 1, 63.

120 São Vicente, in the late 1700s, panu was popular, particularly with women of color. The diffusion of panu had a social significance in Cape Verde, which further linked it to the social practices in Upper Guinea. Although Fogo was the center of cotton as well as textile production, we do not know how the people dressed there and if the decrease in the manufacturing of the cotton cloth affected dress and fashion there.

The social use of panu went beyond fashion. Women used panu to carry babies; unlike the few Europeans in the islands, African descent individuals, the majority of the population, used it as a currency; people utilized it as a shawl for mourning, and to wrap

302 the deceased. Carreira notes there were over 100 types of panu, each of which served particular purposes. The one for mourning was called panu di luto (mourning cloth): one

303 side is black and other is light blue. Dyeing one panu with indigo did this and after it dried, a white strip of cloth was stitched with it.

Furthermore, there are numerous expressions using the word “panu” that reveal the profound sociocultural influence of this textile in Upper Guinea and Cape Verde.

304 Between Guinean and Cape Verdean Creoles, marra panus means, “to get married.”

Marra panu (literally “tie the cloth”) conveys the union of two things. “In western Africa

Cabo Verdean panos set the standard for ceremonial occasions, bridewealth exchanges,

305 and funeral shrouds—status markers for the dead and the living.” Among the Wolof in

302 May 2011 in Arribada, Santiago. 303 Senna, Dissertação sobre as ilhas de Cabo Verde, 33. 304 Boletim da Sociedade de Geographia de Lisboa (Lisbon, Portugal: Imprensa Nacional, 1885), Series 4, Nº 3, 153. 305 Brooks, Landlords and Strangers, 166. David Ames, “The Use of a Transitional Cloth-Money Token among the Wolof,” American Anthropologist 57 (1955): 1016–24.; Carreira, Panaria, 1968; Curtin, Economic Change in Precolonial Africa, 1975.

121 306 Senegal and Gambia, cloth has been important in the rituals of the life cycle. For example, cotton cloth is traditionally wrapped around the body in Islamic funerals, and it is used for swaddling an infant in the naming ceremony.

In Upper Guinea, there were three types of panu: panu di bisti (dress panu), panu

307 di bambú (cloth wrap for baby), and panu di lambú (shoulder cloth), which was used

308 for men as a shawl or toga.

Figure 11. “Felupe”

(Source: Élisée Reclus, Africa and Its Inhabitants, Vol. II, [London: H. Virtue and Company, 1899, between pages 180 and 181].)

Figure 11 shows Felupe wearing panus in the Guinea-Bissau region circa 1899.

The Felupe man in the middle was the chief because he wore a tall European hat, which was a symbol of the Atlantic, demonstrating his extensive power. The Felupe leader has a

306 David Gamble, The Wolof of Senegambia (London: International African Institute), 62–69. 307 Bambú is a Krioulo word that means, “to carry,” and is derived from Mandink. 308 António Carreira, “A Urzela e o pando de vestir,” 21.

122 spear and dagger, and a shield hanging over this shoulder. The imposing figure was wearing a white and black striped panu di lambú. On the right side of this image another

Felupe, armed with a musket, wore a smaller version of the panu di lambú and an earring.

On the left side of the picture is another male warrior/soldier, who is armed with a musket and wears a necklace and bracelets.

According to João Lopes Filho, by the mid-nineteenth century, Cape Verdean male “work cloth” was Europeanized, but female clothing tended to show more diversity,

309 was less Europeanized, particularly among the poor. In Cape Verde, panus was in ceremonies such as funerals, marriages, and for social visits, whereas on the mainland, women utilized it in “marriage, baptism, festive or solemn ceremonies, mass, procession,

310 cordial visits, and receptions.”

In Cape Verde, freed African women and their descendants exhibited an Afro-

Atlantic feminine aesthetic that showed an African form of wealth and power that illustrated their freed status and social standing. This, in turn, dovetailed with the social hierarchy of the archipelago. In Upper Guinea and Cape Verde, the lower classes, especially slaves, utilized plain panus. In Cape Verde, black women who exhibited an

Afro-Atlantic feminine aesthetic were called donas or nha. Their counterparts on the mainland were called nharas and signares, respectively, for the Luso-Africans and

Franco-African women. The Afro-Atlantic feminine aesthetic began in Africa, and may have been a template that developed in various local forms in Spanish Caribbean,

Cartagena, Brazil, and other parts of the Americas, where a large population of Africans

309 Filho, O Corpo e o Pão, 30–33. 310 Carreira, “A urzela e o pano de vestir,” 22.

123 and their descendants lived. During the era of the Atlantic slave trade, panu reached places such as Brazil, Cartagena, and Angola. Did David Wheat’s morena horra possess an Afro-Atlantic feminine aesthetic? It appears that the signares of Saint Louis and Gorée

Island of French Senegal had commercial and kinship connections in the French

Caribbean. Did the signares, as resourceful entrepreneurial African women, spread this dress across the ocean? Future research should focus on the dress of Africans in the

Atlantic basin: coastal Africa and African diaspora developed and any cross-cultural exchange in that realm. This is important in the historiography of the Atlantic slave trade because it reveals linkages in aesthetics. Recent studies on the impact of the Atlantic

311 slave trade in Atlantic Africa have focused on African cultural responses. In the Black

Atlantic, studies have shown the importance of dress and fashion as resistance, accommodation, and assimilation, but we still lack detailed studies that link an African diaspora with a specific region. Rather, scholars tend to invoke “Africanism” as a sort of a monolithic African culture or mixing of African traditions without considering a particular region. However, studies on rice knowledge transfer and religious practices and

312 beliefs in the Africa diaspora show direct links with specific Africa regions.

311 Hawthorne, Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves, 2003; Silviane A. Diouf (ed.), Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2003); G. Ugo Nwokeji, The Slave Trade and Culture in the Bight of Biafra: An African Society in the Atlantic World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Rebecca Shumway, The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2011); Green, The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade; Ferreira, Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World. 312 Judith Carney, Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001); James Sweet, Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441–1770 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003); Edda L. Fields-Black, Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora (Bloomington: Indiana University

124

Press, 2008); Hawthorne, From Africa to Brazil: Culture, Identity, and an Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600–1830 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

125 CHAPTER 3 SOCIAL UNEASE IN A SLAVE SOCIETY: FLIGHT, “SOCIAL BANDITRY,” AND RELIGIOUS HETERODOXY, c.1700–c. 1800

With the rise of branku di terra in the mid-seventeenth century, as shown in chapter 2, the social terrain would dramatically change by the 1700s. This period saw the intensification of mercantile capitalism, which resulted in a surge in scale of the Atlantic slave trade, which in turn transformed the nature of slavery in Cape Verde from a more flexible type, an “African” form, into the more rigid Atlantic type. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Ismail Rashid also argues that the increase in slave uprising and fugitive slave communities on the Upper Guinea Coast was “part of [a] continuous thread of antislavery in the continent” demonstrating Africans did not accept servitude prior to

313 European abolitionism. The transformation of slave trade and slavery precipitated overt resistance, rather than subtle cultural resistance, such as in fashion and dress, though that continued as well.

During the 1700s, Cape Verde was undergoing a political and social upheaval due to the rise of a new social class, the brankus di terra (whites of the land), and challenges to the slave system. Manumitted slaves were demanding to be allowed to marry enslaved women; freed and fugitive slaves were organized in bands causing mayhem, in the form of robbery, killing, and attacking properties. There were maroon communities, particularly in the interior of Santiago Island. The social hierarchy of the Catholic Church had been weakened and was in disarray due to poor finances, priests involved in slave trade as well as committing sexual and “blasphemous acts.” Famine also put pressure on

313 Ismail Rashid, “‘A Devotion to the Idea of Liberty at Any Price,’” 132.

126 people to sell free and slaves to mostly British merchants, whereas others were forced into slavery. Given this atmosphere, the predominance of the brankus di terra in positions of the local administration created hysteria from Portuguese colonial officials.

Rise of Brankus di Terra: Fear, “Race,” and Governance

Long before the discourse of eugenics and scientific racism in the late nineteenth

314 and early twentieth centuries, during the eighteenth century, some Portuguese officials in Cape Verde linked the rise of a group of people of African descent, mostly mulattoes

315 and blacks, in positions of power to the social instability of the colony. During the

1960s, C. R. Boxer refuted Salazarist propaganda that argued racial harmony by suggesting that race relations was more complex in the Portuguese Empire, because it

316 consisted of violence via conquest to facilitate “a maritime and commercial empire, called thalassocracy. Nonetheless, he noted that there were fewer conflicts with Africans in Upper Guinea. Boxer argued

Uninhibited sexual intercourse between Black and White did result in the creation of a thoroughly Portuguese Mulatto population, on the Cape Verde Islands and on those of São Tomé and Principe in the . Whereas on the mainland it was more a matter of the Portuguese traders and adventures becoming Africanized than of the Negroes becoming Europeanized, the racial fusion in the islands resulted in the 317 dominance of European cultural traits.

314 María Elena Martínez, Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza De Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008). Richard Graham, ed., The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870–1940 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990). 315 James Sweet, “The Iberian Roots of American Racist Thought,” William and Mary Quarterly 54, no. 1 (1997): 143–66. 316 C. R. Boxer, Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, 1415–1825 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), 2. 317 Boxer, Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, 13.

127 While Boxer acknowledged that manumission was prevalent in the Portuguese

Empire, he argued that racial mixing did not mean absence of “racial prejudice” by

Portuguese men. Deirdre notes that consistent with the Iberian model of slavery system, in Cape Verde there was a propensity for manumission, acceptance of racial mixing, resulting in a significant mestiço population; moreover, there was a nominal common religion of Catholicism and slave and masters were in close proximity because lack of a large complex plantation regimes in Cape Verde. Despite all these features in Cape

Verde, Deirdre persuasively contends that this did not promote a utopian and mild form

318 of slavery. Given the smaller and dispersed slave populations and close proximity to their owners, Meintel suggests a cross-cultural exchange in the slave–master relationship in Cape Verde, and she argues that slave resistance and rebellion was less probable given

319 the . She maintains there were occasional escapes to the interior given pirate raids and that whites’ fear were due to their small numbers in comparison to non- whites. Rather I argue that that the fear was due to slave resistance and rebellions, which have not been written about too much given the lack of documentation and focus on the elite class.

On April 16, 1731, José da Costa Ribeiro, the general auditor of Cape Verde

(Ouvidor Geral das ilhas de Cabo Verde), wrote that the five inhabited islands, Santo

Antão, São Nicolau, Boa Vista, Maio and Brava, lacked judicial administration so that neither the governor nor the magistrate of the island of Santiago had control of these five

318 Deirdre Meintel, Race, Culture, and Portuguese Colonialism in Cabo Verde (Syracuse, NY: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, 1984), 74–87. 319 Meintel, Race, Culture, and Portuguese Colonialism in Cabo Verde, 86.

128 320 islands Santo Antão had more than 300 houses (fogos) in Ribeira Grande, not to be confused with town of the same name on Santiago Island. In São Nicolau, the town of

Ribeira Brava had 200 houses with an additional 60 houses on the outskirts of the town.

The royal authorities decided that there should be ordinary judges (juízes ordinarios), aldermen, and officers for the local administration. The general auditor of Cape Verde,

Ribeiro, believed that Santo Antão and São Nicolau had a sufficient stable population to establish twelve officials per island to serve for a period of three years. There were few

“white men from the [Portuguese] kingdom,” but there were plenty of brankus di terra

321 “that were “actually mulatos and many blacks.” Riberio was worried that the small population of Iberian Portuguese men that were about forty to fifty in total population in

322 those five islands had died given their old age—usually they were ages 50 and above.

Ribeiro wrote that he saw aldermen that could not read in Santiago, which he noted was also the case in Portugal. Ribeiro recommended the exclusion of brankus di terra in local elections. Brankus di terra were already serving in the local administration of Praia as well as Ribeira Grande of Santiago, particularly in the judicial and agricultural ministerial positions, and blacks were guards at customs, attorney’s assistants

(procuradores do auditorio), warders, porters, ensign captains, lieutenants, and warrant

320 SGG, Liv 0001, “Ordens das Cortes Copiadas a Mando do Desembargador Sindicante Custódio Correa de Mattos. Inclui Correspondência c/autoridades Internas e Externas, Provisões, treslados, Provimentos entre Outros.” (N.º-A-42); 1674/Nov-1754; 174/200-cópia manuscritas, f.101–103. 321 SGG, Liv 0001, f.101. In the Sahel Region of Upper Guinea, besides the Portuguese introduction of “race,” Tuareg/Arabs had their own history of racial discourse; see Bruce Hall, A History of Race in Muslim West Africa, 1600–1960. 322 SGG, Liv 0001, f.101v.

129 323 officers. Moreover, the soldiers were black, usually without shoes or shirts, but when guarding their captains, they wore shirts and shoes. Given the small population of whites and the rise of the brankus di terra, blacks replaced the whites in the management of the farms in Santiago. Ribeiro wanted to prevent from occurring in the five islands, which had happened in Santiago, Maio, and Fogo, for instance.

Although there were plenty of people to cultivate the land, Ribeiro lamented that manumitted blacks, who were “numerous,” lived in the rural and mountainous areas and

324 did not desire to work throughout the archipelago. The authorities believed that these freed blacks lived like “heathens,” and that most stole and few worked, i.e., few worked for landowners. The owners of the farmlands, or former slaveholders, did not have slaves to labor for them and they had become poor. A freed black received ten tostoens (copper

325 metal coins) equivalent to 800 reis for attending to grazing livestock, chopping sugar cane, and cropping. According to royal correspondence, they refused to work or provide services to landowners, and allegedly preferred to walk nude and rob, especially when it

326 was suggested they should work. In addition to robbery, killings and the selling of

327 cows were mentioned, but that there were no arrests because blacks did not arrest

323 SGG, Liv 0001, f.101. 324 SGG, Liv 0001, f.101v. 325 In colonial Brazil, circa 1695–1833, tostão, singular of tostões, was 80 réis; see Claudio Amato, Irlei S. Neves, and Arnaldo Russo, Livro das moedas do Brasil: 1643 a 2004. 11th ed. (São Paulo, Brazil: Stampato, 2004). I would assume that the value was about the same in colonial Cape Verde. 326 SGG, Liv 0001, f.101v. 327 The theft of cows plagues the islands to this day. In Upper Guinea, decentralized societies, such as Balanta, stole cows as part of rites of rituals to offset individuals accruing too much wealth in those egalitarian societies.

130 blacks. Allegedly, there were more than 300 criminals roaming Santiago. Ribeiro may have been white, and born and raised in Portugal, given his high position and his ideas on race. His racial analysis was akin to the fracist metropolitan perspective, because he denied that brankus di terras were whites and his report is fixated on skin color as the cause of the deterioration of the islands and the soldiers’ behavior.

In reality, the soldiers were ill equipped, living in squalid and wretched conditions, and were not motivated to arrest people, regardless of the skin color. In the Atlantic world and Africa, manumitted slaves did not want to work for the former masters, but wanted to reintegrate with their kin and create their own social space. Ribeiro acknowledged that these black “criminals” attended mass, but the only “remedy for these

328 evils” was to send “anew white men to populate the islands.” Thus, criminals were not restricted to people that robbed, killed, or practiced blasphemous rituals, but those that rejected work from slaveholders. According to Ribeiro, the only way to stem the rise of vadios (vagabonds) and gentilidade (heathenism) in Santo Antão and São Nicolau was to elect Iberian Portuguese (or whites, as he referred to them) as ordinary judges and in positions in the chambers in both islands. He cited Fogo as an example because there there was no military regiment. Ribeiro suggested that the appointed clerk should collaborate with the judiciary as well as the inspector that valuates the currency

(almotaçaria) as was the practice in Portugal. Ribeiro also suggested that the selection of warders as well as judges for orphans should be done by those “most capable” of assisting the people. The clerk and the manager (feitor) in each island should be elected by the government or by the officials of the chamber; and that the clerks and overseers of

328 SGG, Liv 0001, f.101v.

131 the islands should provide assessment of the agricultural conditions to the local

329 administration in Santiago. For Ribeiro, the local authorities must know the about the economic realities of Santo Antão and São Nicolau. Each ombudsman of the islands was to collect income annually and submit an allowance to the exchequer in Ribeira Grande,

Santiago. For Santo Antão and São Nicolau, Ribeiro recommended having a regular clergyman to attend to more than 1,000 inhabitants, which he felt needed spiritual guidance. The two priests’ expenses would be covered by the tithes. “Each island of

Boavista, Maio and Brava should annually elect a judge and for the presidential judge

330 chosen among important men of each islands approved by the auditor.” All candidates should be white men from Portugal to prevent further deterioration of the islands, and this was intended to thwart the rise of brankus di terras as well as establishing effective control in islands and protect them from the British presence, which Portugal considered interference in their political space. Perhaps this was a lesson learnt from their loses to the Dutch in the seventeenth century, which occurred in Elmina of the Gold Coast region and their temporary lost of Pernambuco in Brazil and Luanda in Angola. Another response was the creation of the Company of Grão Pará and Maranhão (CGPM) in 1755 to provide Portuguese settlers in the Amazonian captaincies of Grão Pará and Maranhão due to active resistance of indigenous population there as well as reestablishing

Portugal’s presence in Upper Guinea during the ascendancy of French and British

331 commercial activities.

329 SGG, Liv 0001, f.101v. 330 SGG, Liv 0001, f.102. 331 Hawthorne, From Africa to Brazil, 61.

132 The rise of blacks, mulattoes, or people suspected of Jewish or Muslim descent

332 was a concern for the authorities. In Cape Verde, it was not just Jewish and black identities that were racialized, but from the evidence above also Muslim identities, and

Green underscores that “otherization” in Cape Verde remained couched in religious purity and not skin color like in the Caribbean. The fear of Muslim identities in Cape

Verde has not been explored and must be linked to Iberians’ experience of being colonized by the Moors, or, perhaps more important, their interaction with Muslim

Africans in Senegambia. Although the rhetoric of racial identities was linked to religion, the main concern was about blacks and mulattoes assuming position of power. On August

14, 1761, a royal letter recommended that the governor of Cape Verde “consider José de

Evora de Macedo as captain for the white regiment rather than Colonel Antonio de

333 Barros Bezerra who guarded the city of Ribeira Grande.” In 1764, Francisco Pereira] da Fonseca, an official in Ribeira Grande, referred to the still prevalent suspicion of

334 officials having descended from “New Christian, Muslim or mulatto.”

“Whiteness” was preserved among the elites, particularly brancos de réinos

(whites of the kingdom) when it came to marriage. Filhos de terra, whites born in Cape

Verde, preferred that their daughters marry white men, especially those from Portugal.

332 For the development of race and religion link in Cape Verde, see Toby Green, “Building Creole Identity in the African Atlantic: Boundaries of Race and Religion in 17th Century Cabo Verde,” History in Africa 36 (2009): 103–25; Green, The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Cf this works by Green with, Chouki El Hamel, Black Morocco: A History of Slavery, Race, and Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 333 Secretaria Geral do Governo (SGG), Livro 0007, “Registo de Ordens, Alvarás, Patentes e Provisões; 1754/Dezembro/19-Março, 27, 1772. 174 fls; cópias manuscritas.” 334 SGG, Liv 0004, f.234–235v.

133 335 There was a “superwhite” power structure, particularly given the few whites, but with the rise of brankus di terra that began to change. The governors were always from

Portugal and the first line of the military (primeira linha) was Iberian Portuguese.

Although favoring manumission of mulattoes as early as the sixteenth century, in 1767,

Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Paço declared that the Law of September 19, 1761 should favor emancipation of mulatto slaves in the Americas, Africa, and Asia arriving in

336 Portugal. In 1721, manumitted slaves in Brava told George Roberts that they were fortunate to be free and in Cape Verde because on the mainland blacks were being taken

337 away as slaves by whites every year. While governor in 1834, Martinho, who was

Iberian Portuguese, noted that people in Santiago firmly believed that “O Pico d’Antonia,

[peak of Mountain of Anthony], who has delivered us from there and get rid of the white

338 devil.” The heat from out of the top of the mountain would cause fever, usually killing the Portuguese, which was part of a sociopsychological struggle.

It was from this perspective that an anonymous person, who claimed to be “loyal to the Portuguese Crown,” wrote in 1784 that tradition in Santiago claimed that Wolof were the original inhabitants before the Portuguese arrived, but these black families were

335 Brooks, Cabo Verde and Western Africa, 32. 336 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho & Outros Textos, Daniel A. Pereira, apresentação, notas e comentários, (Praia, Cape Verde: Instituto Camões-Centro Cultural Português, 2008), 115. 337 The Four Years Voyages of Capt. George Roberts, 181. 338 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 47. Pico d’Antonio in Santiago is revered today.

134 339 Christianized. The tradition highlighted that within the Jolof Empire, on the mainland of the Upper Guinea, there was a power struggle for the succession of king in which a defeated faction fled on a canoe to retreat to a safer location within the empire, but instead landed in Santiago, island of Cape Verde, due to the turbulent wind currents.

340 According to Jorge Querido, this oral history originates with André Donelha. In 1625,

Donelha described a dispute concerning the royal succession among the Wolof king and vassals in which the king ordered the killing of his rival, the “Jonais” generation, including men, women, and children, but some were able to escape and embarked on a canoe with family, slaves, and ivory, and ended up in the Cape Verde Islands either

341 before 1460 or around the discovery of Cape Verde by the Portuguese. Avelino

Texeira da Mota argues that Donelha compressed the sequence of events and implicitly

342 dismisses the idea that the Jonais took refuge in Cape Verde around this time. In 1797,

João da Silva Feijó, a Brazilian naturalist, gave a similar version but this time it was the

343 Floups that had attacked the Wolofs. In 1810, António Pusich mentioned that Wolof internecine fighting caused Wolof refugees to settle in Santiago before Portuguese

339 Anonymous writer, Notícia Corográfica e Cronológica do Bispado de Cabo Verde, ed. António Carreira (Lisbon, Portugal: Instituto Caboverdeano de Livro, 1985), 20. 340 Jorge Querido, Um Demorado Olhar sobre Cabo Verde: O País, sua Génese, seu Percurso suas Certezas e Ambiguidades (Lisbon, Portugal: Chiado Editora, 2011), 41. 341 Audré Donellia, An Account of Sierra Leone and the Rivers of Guinea of Cape Verde (1625), ed. Avelino Teixeira da Mota with notes and English translation by P. E. H. Hair (Centro de Estudos de Cartografia Antiga, No 19) (Lisbon, Portugal: Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, 1977), 137. 342 An Account of Sierra Leone, f.220, 285. 343 João da Silva Feijó, Ensaios e Memórias Económicas sobre as Ilhas de Cabo Verde (Século XVII), Apresentação Notas e Comentários de António Carreira. (Praia, Cape Verde: Instituto Caboverdeano do Livro, 1986), 1–2.

135 344 345 arrival. In 1841, José C. C. Chelmicki reiterated this story, but it was Lopes de

Lima in 1844 that dismissed Donelha’s claim and ever since the majority of scholars have

346 maintained the Portuguese (or at least Europeans) discovered Cape Verde.

Nonetheless, in a geographical dictionary about the Portuguese Empire published in

1850, Joze Maria de Souza Monteiro, Honorary General Secretary of the Province of

Cape Verde, agreed that João da Noli discovered Santiago in 1460, and though Monteiro dismissed the claim that the Wolofs settled on Santiago Island before the Portuguese arrived, he felt compelled to include this preposterous idea because it was “generally

347 believed by the people of Santiago.” Green argues these two historiographical views existed because during the colonial period the discourse centered on Portuguese

“discovery” and initiative, and post-independence the possibility was raised of a pre-

348 Portuguese settlement (or at least knowledge of the islands). Yet the aforementioned

344 António Carreira, “Conflitos sociais em Cabo Verde no século XVII,” Revista de História Económica Social nº 15 (1985): 63–88. 345 Chelmicki and Varnhagen, Corografia cabo-verdiana (1841), 4. 346 See Toby Green for a discussion of the historiography of Cape Verde as influenced by Salazar’s propaganda, “Masters of Difference. Creolization and the Jewish Presence in Cabo Verde, 1497-1672,” Ph.D diss., University of Birmingham, Birmingham, England, 2006), 5–16. 347 Joze Maria de Souza Monteiro, Diccionario Geographico das Provincias e Possessões Portuguezas no Ultramar (Lisbon, Portugal: Typographia Lisbonense, 1850), 482. Wolof influence on Santiago Creole is evident, but usually it is attributed to slaves brought from the mainland by the Portuguese. There are villages in the interior of Santiago with place names of “Jalalo.” Could this be a of “Jolof,” “Jeloff,” and other spellings? There are place names with distinctive African toponyms, such as Jabundo, Casança (Kasanga), Jarakunda, and Cocoli. For a discussion of place names as historical evidence, see Stephan Bühnen, “Place Names as an Historical Source: An Introduction with Examples from Southern Senegambia and Germany,” History in Africa 19 (1992): 45–101. 348 Green, Masters of Difference, 5.

136 authors noted that locals on Santiago believe this, despite the imperial discourse to erase this memory away during the colonial period. Rather, it is in post-independence, that the locals on Santiago did not possess this memory. Hence, Green believes it to be a postcolonial (re)construction approach, which ignores the fact that this ideological battle went on during the colonial period as well.

In the post-independent era, however, Jorge Querido remembers us that the Arabs

349 knew about Cape Verde before the Portuguese stumbled upon it. Richard Lobban also underscores the possibility that visitors prior to the European arrival include Hanno the

Phoenician in the fifth century B.C.E., Lebou fishermen from Senegal, Malian sailors under Mansa Ulli, and medieval Arab mariners coming down the coast and seeing

350 smoke rising from Fogo. A recent archeological excavation in , São

Vicente, revealed that the island had a stable settlement during the seventeenth century, though at first João Luís Cardoso and António Manuel Monge Soares believed that this

349 Querido, Um Demorado Olhar, 44. Querido mentions that the twelfth-century Arab geographer Edrissi, noted that Arabs expelled by the Reconquista in 1154 in Lisbon led and arrived in the Canaries and had knowledge of other lands in the “interior of the ocean.” Querido also cites in the 14th century, an Egyptian Omari, wrote that in 1354 that the king of , Mansa Musa I, informed, an Egyptian, Ib Amir Hadjid, that the people of Senegal had “commercial contact” with some distant islands away from the mainland. 350 Richard A. Lobban, Jr, “Were the Portuguese the First To Visit Cape Verde (1),” Cimboa 5, no. 6 (1998): 10. Lobban suggests that archaeology may help to give some hard evidence, but unfortunately archaeological excavation have focused on Portuguese activities. Recently, however, research was done in Salamansa, São Vicente, to address this issue. Moreover, Daniel Pereira noted how some Cape Verdean fishermen in simple canoes were lost at sea for 45 days and then reappeared off the coast of Brazil, which suggests that Africans on the coast with canoes were capable of traveling to the islands as well as other visitors, see Subsídios para a História de Cabo Verde e Guiné, 2nd ed., vol. I, 21n, 484. Pereira also notes that he remembers as a youngster when local fishermen disappeared on several ocassions, but it was learned that they had reached the coasts of Senegal, Gambia, or Guinea-Bissau. He also notes why the reverse is possible.

137 settlement was African in origin because carbon-14 dating estimated it was circa 1450–

1500; upon further excavation, the archaeologists suggested that was Portuguese in origin

351 but with African pottery made in the settlement to suggest African presence as well. In addition to Ribeira Grande, Santiago, archeological excavations need to be done in other places. In the historiography of Cape Verde, this is a controversial issue: mainstream

Cape Verdean scholars side with the idea of a European discovery, but prominent scholars, such as António Carreira and António Correio e Silva, do not rule out the possibility of a small African settlement in the interior of Santiago prior to the Portuguese arrival. João Lopes Filho remarked on the impossibility of such settlement and stated that

352 this oral tradition served another purpose, such as mythology. The debate continues in

353 disparate forms. Historians cannot dismiss this as hearsay or even mythology, but rather as part of the political contestation of the period. Therefore, this oral tradition was part of an ideological battle that included other forms, such as flight, the demand for

354 rights, and other coping strategies under slavery and colonialism.

351 João Luís Cardoso and António Manuel Monge Soares, “A estação arqueológica de Salamansa (ilha de São Vicente, República de Cabo Verde,” Revista Portuguesa de Arqueologia 13 (2010): 168. 352 Personal communication at the National Archive in Praia, Cape Verde circa September 2011. 353 The Antoni da Noli Academic Society claims that the society’s namesake is the discoverer of Cape Verde; see http://adenoli.com/. Professor Marcello Ferrada de Noli is the founder of the society and honorary president. As his surname implies, Ferrada de Noli is a descendant of Antóni da Noli. 354 Bruce Mouser, “Rebellion, Marronage and : Strategies of Resistance to Slavery on the Sierra Leone Coast, c.1783–1796,” Journal of African History 48 (2007): 27–44; Jean Allman, Susan Geiger, and Nakanyike Musisi, eds. Women in African Colonial Histories (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002); John Hope Franklin, Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Hilary

138 Slaves were not only taking flight, but also using the legal system to obtain manumission and asserting the rights that accompanied their “freedom.” On February 7,

1701, Portuguese authorities responded to a report written by Antonio Dias do Amaral, clerk of Chamber of Ribeira Grande, Santiago Island, about demands made by pretos

355 forros (freed black males). The pretos forros wished to marry and those already married to female slaves petitioned to be liberated from captivity. The pretos forros sought godparents, friends, or parents to file petitions on their behalf. Perhaps they did not have the money or were not literate. These people were part of a kinship in which they were relatives or friends of either the female slaves or the pretos forros. The slaveholders deemed the request to sell their female slaves a “repugnant” idea, which caused them to demand an exorbitant price. The Portuguese Crown argued to the auditor of Cape Verde that the slaveholders’ attitude was “a disservice to Our God” and that the

356 king “favored freedom and equally matrimony.” Portugal coaxed the slaveholders to set a fair price, one in which the value was not solely based on the slave price in Cape

Verde, but also on the slave’s “quality of service.” The monarchy, as father of the

357 Empire, preferred his (male) dependents to be married, which was incompatible with slavery. In addition to these justifications for permitting the manumitted slaves legal

McDonald Beckles, Natural Rebels: A History of Enslaved Black Women in Barbados (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1989). 355 Secretaria Geral do Governo (SGG), Liv 0004, Alvarás, Ordens, Decretos e Provisões da Corte: Contem abecedários no fim. Ago/1699-05/Mar/1776; 343/387 fls; cópias manuscritas, f.97v-98. Arquivo Histórico Nacional de Cabo Verde. 356 SGG, Liv0004, 97v–98. 357 Kirsten Schultz, Tropical Versailles: Empire, Monarchy, and the Portuguese Royal Court in Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1821 (New York: Routledge, 2001).

139 matrimony, there was fear that these slaves might create problems. Certainly, they could join the different bands and even go into the interior to join maroon communities.

Manumission, however, seemed the best mechanism to appease slaves individually to prevent flight, which created independent communities, at times, and simply engendered unrest within the urban spaces. Thus, as late as 1750, Dom Joseph, king of Portugal, wrote that a case of a female slave of Bahia, Brazil, that was granted freedom should be “applied to all other similar cases in Porto, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and

358 other parts” of the Portuguese Empire, which the authorities in Ribeira Grande duly noted should be compiled with. It was the responsibility of Dr. Manoel Gomes de

Carvalho, the King’s Counsel, to disseminate the information of this decree to all the

Portuguese possessions.

During the eighteenth century in Cape Verde, slaves obtained manumission via payment and inheritance. It is possible that slave sailors tried to use the decree of 1761.

On June 4, 1776, João do Sylva Vasconcellos, secretary of the governor, maintained that complying with the royal decree of September 19, 1761, meant that slave sailors coming from the Americas to Portugal were not exempted from performing their maritime

359 obligations. Otherwise, slaves that landed in the ports of Portugal must be freed in conformity with the charter. João do Sylva Vasconcellos emphasize that the decree of

1761 did not mean that slave sailors employed on commercial ships or any other

360 activities as residents of the Americas were not under the provision of the said charter.

358 SGG, Liv0004, ff.219–222. 359 SGG, Lv0013, ff.34. 360 SGG, Lv0013, ff.34–34v.

140 Sylva Vasconcellos also emphasized that the authorities in the ports of Ribeira Grande and Praia must conduct a thorough examination of the ship’s list of names—slaves, their

361 owners, and free people—in the same manner as was done for non-Portuguese ships.

Hence, the slave sailors were to perform their duties and return from whence they came from. The authorities of Ribeira Grande and Praia were ordered to be on notice and enforce this decree. On May 20, 1776, the commander of the praça of Bissau was warned about slave sailors working for the Portuguese Empire should not be freed upon reaching

362 the port of Bissau. Cristina Nogueira da Silva and Keila Grinberg argue that the decrees of 1761 and 1773 was to rid Portugal from the social stigma of a black presence rather than advocating abolitionism, but these were unintended consequences of slaves

363 filing for freedom suits. This combined with the internal dynamics of the society to favor manumission in Cape Verde.

On May 2, 1778, in Ribeira Grande, Santiago, the authorities noted that Sebastião

364 de Barros, a black man and a carpenter, was the slave of Donna Maria de Barros.

Colonel João Freire Andrade, the nephew of Dona Barros, claimed that her aunt wrote a legal contract on March 10, 1779 that Sebastião, her slave, should be freed, but it

365 stipulated that he must live in “her company.” Dona Barros refuted this assertion about a previous contract that she donated her slave to her nephew Andrade. Dona Barros

361 SGG, Lv0013, ff.34v–35. 362 SGG, Lv 0012, ff.135. 363 Cristina Nogueira Da Silva and Keila Grinberg, “Soil Free from Slaves: Slave Law in Late Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century Portugal,” Slavery and Abolition 32, no. 3 (2011): 431–46. 364 SGG, Lv0011, ff.23. 365 SGG, Lv 0011, f.23.

141 maintained that a subsequent contract (of April 20, 1775) removed any conditions about

366 his liberty and that Sebastião should serve on the “re-edification of the Cathedral.”

Sebastião used the six days of pay to feed his wife and four young children. Apparently,

367 Colonel Andrade was “malignant and persecuted him and he fled.” Colonel Andrade, as a powerful person, managed to get an order for Sebastião’s arrest. Moreover, Sebastião quarreled about only receiving three vintéis per day to support his family. It was ordered that Sebastião be paid to support his family and that he had liberty and, as such, could

368 work as a free person. Others did not pursue legal recourses to address their social status as slaves, but took flight, sometimes temporarily and sometimes permanently.

369 A major attraction could have been maroon communities like Julangue,

370 located in the interior of Santiago during the early 1700s. These rebel slaves were causing problems for landowners and menacing people on the roads. In 1709, Governor

Gonçalos Lemos Mascarenhas sent a military force led by Captain Francisco Araújo

Veiga, Major Sergeant Belchior Monteiro, Ordinary Judge António de Souza, and

Captain of Infantry Francisco Soares with more than 400 militiamen. In 1710, Xavier

Lopes Vitella, general auditor (ouvidor-geral), noted that Julangue had some 600 slaves, which meant the expeditionary force was not successful. As late as 1719, the military

366 SGG, Liv0011, f.23v. 367 SGG, Liv0011, f.23v. 368 SGG, Liv 0011, f.23v–24. 369 “Julangue” is a Mande ethnonym. They may have been recent arrivals from Upper Guinea. 370 António Correia e Silva, “Da Contestação social à transgressão cultural: forros e fujões na sociedade escravocrata cabo-verdiana com referência aos modelos atlânticos,” Anais 3, no. 1 (Abril 2001): 7–18.

142 expeditionary force was still fighting the rebel maroon community. Although the local militiamen captured Domingos Lopes, one of Julangue leaders, the group continued for several years after their violent confrontation with the local military force. The name of the maroon corresponded to the locality they occupied in of Santiago (i.e.,

Santa Catarina). Correia e Silva believes that they existed for at least fifteen years.

Although maroon-like communities existed in the interior of Santiago, there were also temporary flights by slaves that warranted the attention of the authorities. As Flávio

Gomes has argued, there exist few studies devoted to petite marronage or temporary

371 flight and this applies to Cape Verde, particularly Santiago, Fogo, and São Antão.

Rather than a move away from the permanent flight, it is important to understand the interrelationship between the two, which corresponds to an urban and rural division, as

372 studies of African cities show that this was/is a relationship between the two areas.

In the case of Cape Verde, the maroon communities in the interior of Santiago allowed for social banditry to flourish in Ribeira Grande, Praia, and other urban spaces because slaves and forros used this unstable atmosphere to create niche for themselves, instead of disappearing into the mountainous interior of Santiago. Moreover, the constant pirate attacks, passing ships, diseases, droughts, and famines made Cape Verde a highly volatile colony despite the royal administration and military. By the 1700s, the islands were in a precarious situation, which the Portuguese authorities in Lisbon felt were due to the rise of brankus di terra. According to Flávio Gomes, “there are official reports of

371 Flávio Gomes, “Africans and Petit Marronage in Rio de Janeiro, ca. 1800–1840,” Luso-Brazilian Review 47, no. 2 (2010): 77. 372 Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, The History of African Cities South of the Sahara: From the Origins to Colonization. Translated by Mark Baker (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2005).

143 small, mobile bands of fugitives called ajuntamentos, especially in the urban centers of

373 Rio de Janeiro, Lima, Salvador, and Recife.” In Cape Verde, particularly

Santiago, the situation appears to be similar, if not worse given that the island is only

382.6 square miles, and that there was no significant white population and the forro population in some islands was greater than the entire white, mestiço, and enslaved population combined. For instance, in Santiago in 1731, there were a total of 17,709 inhabitants: 390 brankus (whites; 2.2%), 2,519 mestiços (14.22 %), 11,919 forros

374 (67.3%), and 2,881 slaves (16.28%). In order to manage this volatile situation,

Portugal banned nonmilitary officials from traveling with weapons, fined people who assisted fugitive slaves, punished both with , fined those that assisted in their escape, and used the Church to assist in capturing fugitive slaves.

On August 12, 1725, the bishop of Cape Verde wrote to the Portuguese authorities in Lisbon, and the latter contacted Sebastião Bravo Botelho, general auditor of

Cape Verde, on October 17, 1725, to inform him that there would be an appointment of a

375 priest for each parish of Santiago Island. People who assisted fugitive slaves would pay a fine of 12,000 réis for each slave or they should return the slave to ecclesiastical judges so that the runaway slaves could be “publicly whipped in the streets as ordered by

373 Gomes, “Africans and Petit Marronage in Rio de Janeiro, ca. 1800–1840,” 75. 374 Artur Teodoro de Matos, “Santo Antão De Cabo Verde (1724–1732): da ocupação inglesa à criação do regime municipal. Mutações políticas, recursos económicos e estruturas sociais,” in A dimensão atlântica da África Reunião Internacional de História de África. Rio de Janeiro 30 October to 1 November 1996 (São Paulo: CEA/USP, SDG/Marinha, CAPES, 1997),192 375 SGG, Liv 0001, f.97–97v.

144 376 the judges.” Moreover, the bishop was concerned with priests that “offended the royal jurisdiction but also the local hierarchy, particularly as it regards to obeying the royal decree, which the royal authorities considered as party of the ‘natural and civil rights.’”

A major reason for a slave’s recourse to petite marronage was physical abuse. In

Praia, on February 28, 1771, João Francisco Porto, secretary of the local government, contended that in Santiago there was “pernicious abuse” of whipping slaves, and that the

377 working conditions of slaves violated the law. The report said the treatment of the slaves was “abominable,” and that this caused flight and recommended that “civil society should return the slaves and excuse or advice” the slaveholders about their maltreatment of the slaves and shame them. There was no detailed description of the harsh treatment in the report. Senna Barcelos, however, wrote that in “1718, Teixeira Sarmento accused

Dona Isabel de Barros of chaining her slaves for a long period of time and whipping them daily. A pregnant slave of Dona Barros was tortured with fire and ember placed on her

378 belly and roasted her until she died.” The report of February 28, 1771 asserted that

379 the public good “should prevail” rather than providing hideouts for slaves. Porto, the general secretary, ordered that all dwellers in Santiago must return fugitive slaves hidden in their houses and notify the respective slaveholders. The penalty for disobeying this decree was imprisonment and a fee determined by the slave-owners. The local authorities

376 SGG, Liv 0001, f.97–97v. 377 SGG, Liv 0013, f.15–16. 378 Christiano José de Senna Barcellos, Subsídios para a História de Cabo Verde e Guiné, 2nd ed., vol. I, parts I and II (Praia, Cape Verde: Instiuto da Biblioteca Nacional e do Livro, 2003), 414. In f.220, Daniel Pereira note that Barcellos does fully describe the violence of this attack by not citing correctly the original paragraph, which notes that the intestines of the pregnant slave were roasted while she was alive (507). 379 SGG, Liv0013, f.15.

145 fined the accomplice 20,000 réis, half of which went to the local government and the rest to the person who “denounced” the accomplice. Finally, the latter would be exiled to a deserted island of the archipelago (most likely Santa Luzia or São Vicente). The local authorities also promised the militia and the junta reward of 12,000 réis for capture of

380 fugitive slaves. The local administration ordered that the local churches announce thrice during mass as well as post on the scotia (the deep concave of the church’s

381 column) the notice to apprehend fugitive slaves. Despite this draconian decree, on

August 7, 1777, the local government in Ribeira Grande deplored that dwellers in

Santiago continued to harbor fugitive slaves, which they argued went against “common

382 good.” As such, the local administration increased the fine to 20,000 réis to be paid soley to the government for first time offenders.

The local administration also focused their attention on vadios (vagabonds and runaway slaves). On , 1774, Governor Salanha Lobo put the military apparatus on high alert to immediately arrest any “idle vadios” in Santiago that did not

383 work on a farm or were squatting without paying rent. In addition, Salanha Lobo ordered military personnel to arrest “pesky” thieves and assailants that were rampant during this tumultuous period.

It appears that social bandits that robbed and assailed landowners were rampant, particularly among the forros. On January 9, 1775, Salanha Lobo ordered the colonels, led by Colonel José Maria Cardozo, to arrest thieves as well as assailants that had formed

380 SGG, Liv0013, f.16. 381 SGG, Liv0013, f.16. 382 SGG, Liv0013, f.38v. 383 SGG, Liv0012, f.91.

146 bands in the interior of Santiago, particularly a group led by Mathias Pereira in the parish

384 of São Miguel. Salanha Lobo said that Mathias Pereira was a threat to public order because he murdered, performed serious robberies, and made grave insults. These social bandits should be arrested and incarcerated, but Lobo enjoined the military not to cause any deaths. Perhaps this was to prevent them from being glorified as heroes or martyrs by fellow forros. The colonels were apparently successful in arresting Mathias Pereira and

Lourenço Roiz [Rodrigues], his accomplice, as a report by an ordinary judge of Ribeira

385 Grande included their arrest for that year in 1775.

Besides groups of armed freed slaves and members of the poor causing social instability, there were individual acts by slaves. In 1775, the authorities noted that many

386 people committed arson in Santiago. Jzabel, a female slave owned by Colonel Manoel de Semedo of , set fire to his house, but they imprisoned her and she died in prison. A slave owned by Colonel also committed arson; Victoria

Lopes burnt a tailor’s house and she was jailed in Praia; Phellippe Vão, from São

Martinho, on the outskirts of Praia, had his house burnt by an unknown perpetrator. What emerges is that the arsonists were either female and/or slaves.

Hence, slaves and freed people utilized strategies of flight, manumission, robbery, and violence (e.g., assault, murder, and arson) to protest and to improve their lot in life.

Violence in the form of armed groups was something that the local administration tried to control, because those that controlled the instruments of destruction ultimately were the

384 SGG, Liv0012, f.95. 385 SGG, Liv0012, f.100v. 386 SGG, Lv0014, f.141.

147 most powerful and kept the colony together, but intermediaries (e.g., filhos de folhas

[bureaucrats], clerks, judges, Church hierarchy) were important.

To prevent slaves from escaping, Portugal tried to monopolize the weapons circulating in the islands by passing a law to prevent slaves or the general population possessing firearms. The authorities also referred to a law of August 13, 1719, that stipulated that any person accompanied by two slaves on Santiago Island should be

387 unarmed, whether in the city of Ribeira Grande, the town of Praia, or other areas. On

August 30, 1719, the royal authorities in Lisbon responded to a letter written on April 30,

1719 from the local administration of Ribeira Grande regarding groups of slaves parading or accompanying their masters with weapons and “committing serious acts with

388 them.” The slaveholders were in bitter dispute, and the forros tended to take advantage of the situation. The recommendation was to have thirty to forty garrisoned soldiers patrolling the street during the day and night. In addition, the decree outlawed more than two slaves armed to accompany their owners in public. The authorities decried the public parading of armed black men, which often included people of high status of the islands participating with their own slaves. Residents were promenading armed with

389 blunderbusses, swords, assegais, and long knives. In Ribeira Grande, Major Captain

João Nunes Castanho allowed “his blacks” (i.e., slaves)—or rather ordered them—to

387 SGG, Lv0013, f.33. 388 SGG, Liv0002, f.136–7. 389 SGG, Liv0002, f.136. For a discussion of weapons coming into the region, see Mark and Horta, The Forgotten Diaspora, 103–34; and Hawthorne, Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves, 96–98.

148 390 roam from house to house, farm to farm, etc. It does seems that the social disorder, pervasiveness of weaponry, and violence during the eighteenth century was not exaggerated.

Three years later, João Nunes Castanho was still a bothersome figure for the authorities at Ribeira Grande. On April 9, 1722, João Felles da Silva and Antonio

Rodrigues da Costa, officials in Ribeira Grande, wrote to the royal authorities in Lisbon

391 regarding João Nunes Castanho. They informed Portugal of the arrest of Castanho and his confinement at Fortaleza de São Verissímo (Fortress of Real Saint), one of the

392 smaller fortifications in Ribeira Grande. He had been arrested because he was publicly parading with his armed slaves, causing a disturbance and commotion as well as breaking the law. Castanho, however, escaped from prison, and fled to the island of Maio. This suggests that Castanho had support from elements of the local militia. The Lisbon authorities demanded that Castanho be taken alive and sent to Portugal to face justice.

On April 6, 1776, the local administration in Ribeira Grande emphasized the existence of the prohibition of November 5, 1770, regarding the importation of weapons and explosives, because there was the continued circulation of “offensive weapons,” such

390 SGG, Liv0002, f.136. 391 SGG, Liv0002, f.154v. 392 The main fortification was Forte Real de São Felipe in Ribeira Grande, with seven smaller fortifications. According to Charles Akibodé, in terms of churches and fortifications, during the fifteenth and sixteenth century, Ribeira Grande had the most military and religious institutions per square mile during the early modern, which is after the late . As noted by Manuel Riebeiro, António Carreira, Daniel Pereira, and, more recently, Toby Green, Cape Verde was a major geostrategic trading post for the Portuguese Empire, which had colonies in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Cape Verde was an important node connecting these disparate colonies and trading networks.

149 393 as knives, assegais, and manducos. In the late sixteenth century, Almada noted that

Africans in Upper Guinea used weapons such as short swords, knives, spears, shields,

394 and clubs called manducos. There were armed bands that assaulted, robbed, killed, and stole from houses, farms, and in the streets. The authorities worried about armed bands with knives, assegais, and manducos that threaten “public tranquility.” The recommendation was for utter vigilance with severe for those found with these weapons. The local authorities in Ribeira Grande notified the Junta of Justice,

Agriculture, and War to immediately arrest those apprehended with these dangerous weapons.

To counteract this potential threat, on April 6, 1776, the governor asked the major sergeant of Ribeira Grande to compile a list of available men from Ribeira Grande and

São João for and to submit it to the secretary of governor no later than

May 1776 to assist Major Captain Miguel Barboza in his efforts to control the

395 situation. The instruction stated that any person above 10 years, but not “decrepit,” should be counted, which included officials, soldiers (whether retired or discharged), and all freed slaves that were cattle herders. The colonial administration was desperate for

393 SGG, Lv0013, f.32v. Manduco is defined as a medicinal tree from “Guiné” in the Portuguese Online dictionary, http://www.priberam.pt/dlpo/default.aspx?pal=manducos. One can surmise that African-style military fighting was used, given African weapons. Studies of the Atlantic world have shown that African military tactics were common in Brazil, Haiti, Cartagena, etc.; see Hebe Mattos, “‘Black Troops’ and Hierarchies of Color in the Portuguese Atlantic World: The Case of Henrique Dias and His Black Regiment,” Luso-Brazilian Review 45, no. 1 (2008): 6–29; John Thornton, “African dimension of the ,” American Historical Review 96 (1991): 1101–13; Thornton, “‘I Am the Subject of the King of Congo’: African Political Ideology and the Haitian Revolutio,” Journal of World History 4 (1993): 181–214. 394 Almada, Brief Treatise, 78. 395 SGG, Liv0012, f.129.

150 soldiers given the highly violent atmosphere. About sixty years later, Joaquim Pereira

Martinho, governor and military commander of Cape Verde in 1830s, believed that the soldiers were “depraved, drunks, debauchees and thieves and only were good for robbing residents as well as indulging in batuques (drumming and dances) with black

396 prostitutes.”

On , 1777, the local authorities in Cape Verde emphasized that residents were noncompliant with the previous laws that banned the possessing weapons because it

397 risked public safety. It also reemphasized that people traveling with more than two slaves should not have these arsenals. Perhaps the fear was that armed bandits would free the slaves, which would result in acquiring more firepower. Whatever the motives were, when the authorities arrested these people, some were sent to Upper Guinea.

Portugal began sending exiled convicts (degredados) to Upper Guinea during the establishment of the colony of Cape Verde. It appears, however, that during the 1700s the authorities sent more convicts or to the praças of Upper Guinea to expel unwanted elements to serve as foot soldiers in a dangerous and precarious environment.

Armed bandits, thieves, and other supposedly dangerous elements were ideal candidates for Upper Guinea.

In 1778, CGPM ended its slave trade, which resulted in Portugal creating a single administrative province of Cape Verde and Portuguese Guinea. That placed the governor of Cape Verde in charge of Portuguese Guinea and the captain majors had to answer to him. The movements of people, which included the forced migration of slaves, convicts,

396 Memória sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Marinho, 93. 397 SGG, Lv0013, f.37.

151 and goods between the Cape Verde archipelago and Portuguese Guinea, deepened the political and cultural connection between the two places. The colonial administration in

Cape Verde kept in constant contact with their counterparts in Portuguese Guinea. On

May 10, 1774, Saldanha Lobo wrote to Governor Sebastião da Cunho Souto Mayor of

398 Bissau that Cape Verde would send degradados to serve in his praça. The praças of

Geba had “rebellious” peoples, with numerous Africans who traded with the English and

399 the French. Mayor was advised to control the settlement of Geba, because it was far from Cacheu, but closer to Bissau. Cacheu did not have enough people to send to assist the Geba settlement. Nevertheless, Geba’s proximity to the town of was causing

400 problems for the CGPM, particularly by enabling the constant flights of slaves. Lobo promised that in the next report he would provide the names of the degradados that

Captain António Florenço would send to Portuguese Guinea.

In January 1770, twelve people were exiled to Bissau: Francisco Pereira, age 50, tailor, sentenced tp ten years; Pedro Rodrigues, age 23, carpenter, sentenced to ten years;

Thomaz Garcia, age 33, tailor, sentenced to ten years; Luís da Silva, age 38, sawyer, condemned for ten years; José Roiz de Araújo, age 35, locksmith, sentenced for five years; António Roiz, age 22, brazier, condemned for ten years; José António, age 34, mason, five years; António Martins, age 30, quarryman, perpetuity in Bissau; José

398 SGG, Liv0012, f.82. 399 SGG, Liv0012, f.112. 400 SGG, Liv0012, f.114–114v.

152 Soares, age 28, mason, life-sentence; Francisco da Costa, age 43, shoemaker, sentenced

401 to ten years; João Roiz Mofedo, age 43, shoemaker, perpetual exile.

On February 29, 1775, the local authorities wrote to Major Sergeant António de

Araujo Castro, ordinary judge of Praia requesting that he submit a report about the

402 prisoners, especially thieves and the worst criminals to be exiled to Guinea. On May

15, 1775, the secretary of the governor requested that all ordinary judges in Praia

403 promptly submit reports on people in Praia’s jail. The secretary again emphasized that the prisoners were “pesky thieves, vagabonds, except criminals who killed, caused arson, leaders of bands, and people who sell free people as though they were slaves and receive

404 products for the sale.” The authorities were not always consistent concerning their criteria in selecting prisoners to be sent to the mainland, but political expediency was the norm rather than the decrees.

Therefore, convicted exiles also consisted of those who had been charged with killing people. On July 28, 1775, the royal authorities highlighted the arrest of some

405 people in Cape Verde. Magdalena Sanches, native of Santiago, with more than two collaborators, was charged with murdering six people by tricking them, and the authorities arrested and imprisoned her and her accomplices. Mathias Pereira, a native of

Santiago, led an armed group that attacked residents; his sidekick was his brother,

401 António Carreira, “Os Portuguêses nos Rios de Guiné (1500–1900)” (Lisbon, Portugal: Author’s edition, 1984), 147; original AHMF-CGPM-XV/R/19. 402 SGG, Liv0012, f.103–103v. 403 SGG, Liv0012, f.115v. 404 SGG, Liv0012, f.115v–6. 405 SGG, Liv0015, f.139–40.

153 Mathias Pereira; Domingos Pereira was their cousin who also was part of the group. The local militia arrested João Domingo, a native of São Nicolau, because he murdered a

Frenchman, who had been shipwrecked on the island of Santa Luzia, an uninhabited island, while Domingos was robbing the Frenchman’s commodities. It does not mention whether or not they were sent to Upper Guinea, but given the fact that prisoners were often recruited as degredados, perhaps some of them were eventually sent to Portuguese

Guinea.

In July 1775, the commander of Cacheu pleaded with the authorities in Cape

Verde not to send more people because there were not “sufficient guards and food was

406 lacking.” The commander complained that authorities from Cape Verde sent useless people who were criminals, who disperse due to not having sufficient provisions in a land of abundance; he cited Manoel José de Matos who can “prove and testify that people

407 desire to .” In Cape Verde, the local authorities stressed that those on the mainland must retain the praças of Farim while at war, and the governor of Cape Verde

408 stated that he was confident they would prevail despite the difficulties. He insisted that the praças as well as other settlements remain intact, notwithstanding the stiff competition from well-supplied British and French traders. The praças of Bissau continued to face fierce African resistance from groups such as Papel and

409 Antieleres/Anteleres in 1795.

406 SGG, Liv0012, f.127. 407 SGG, Liv0012, f.127. 408 SGG, Liv0012, f.128. 409 SGG, Liv0018, f.79–79v.

154 In addition to European rivalry and African resistance, the administration faced internal problems. For instance, on November 6, 1774, the former administrators, including the major captain of the Cacheu praças, were involved in a dispute aboard the ship Chalupa, which had brought the cargo of Bergantim Frances, a merchant. The administrators and António da Costa Alvarenga, a prominent trader, confiscated the items

410 and divided them among themselves. Because some of the merchandise belonged to the royal authorities, they ordered an investigation into this to prevent contrabands, unruliness, “delinquency,” lawlessness among the Portuguese in Upper Guinea, because they thought it threatened commercial activities of the Portuguese kingdom.

Thus, the administration in Cape Verde faced challenges of slaves taking flight, armed groups, drought, famine, contraband trade, and social instability in the praças of

Guiné. There were religious struggles and resistance. The local Catholic Church had priests that behaved in non-conformity or blasphemously according to Catholic standards,

411 nor did common folks embrace the orthodox teachings of the Church.

Popular Religion in Santiago Island

On July 20, 1701, the Chamber of Ribeira Grande wrote to Lisbon complaining about the doctrinal requirements and “instructions” of the Catholic faith that the bishop of

410 SGG, Liv0012, f.128. 411 For a discussion about popular religion in African islands, see Arlindo Manuel Caldeira, “Medo e religião popular na ilha de Ano Bom. Uma aproximação (séculos XVI–XIX),” paper presented at the Congresso Internacional,”Espaço Atlântico de Antigo Regime: poderes e sociedaes” (Lisbon, Portugal, November 2–5, 2005);Alain Romaine, Religion populaire et pastorale créole à I’île Maurice (Paris: Karthala, 2003). Moreover, there are historiographies of popular religions in Iberian Peninsula and its colonies in the Americas, such as Laura de Mello e Souza, The Devil and the Land of the Holy Cross: , Slavery, and Popular Religion in Colonial Brazil, trans. Diane Grosklaus Whitty (Austin,TX: University of Texas Press, 2003)

155 412 Cape Verde demanded slaves exhibit to their owners in order to be baptized. The caveat was that if slaves were not “sufficiently” knowledgeable within six months then they were prohibited baptism and would not granted freedom. The edicts encouraged slaveholders to teach their slaves Christian doctrine, but slaves who were unable to learn or who refused to become Christians should be tolerated as the last recourse. The onus

413 was on priests to find ways “to conserve their souls.” At the early stages of slavery in

Cape Verde starting in 1460, Green argues that it represented more of the Old World form of slavery, which was quite flexible, but in the early sixteenth century it became

414 more of an Atlantic type of chattle slavery. He refers to a case about a slave who was allowed to accept or reject Christianity. In the above case, the break with the Old World was never complete in Cape Verde, because this option remained, even during the

415 eighteenth century. Nevertheless, to implement the proselytizing of Africans, freed or enslaved, was was not easy of the lack clergymen in the archipelago.

In May 1753, in São Nicolau, for instance, many priests died and replacing them

416 was slow due to Ribeira Grande receiving the news late. Clergymen faced physical

412 SGG, Lv0004, f.107v. 413 SGG, Lv0004, f.108v. 414 Toby Green, “Building Slavery in the Atlantic World,” 234. Also, the New World also influenced the Old World, i.e., African domestic forms of slavery was impacted by the Atlantic form. Actually, Green argues that Walter Rodney was correct in the case of the Upper Guinea when he argued that the Atlantic slave trade influenced the labor regimes and dependency systems that region. 415 The “Old” World was never really old but dynamic, always changing—not from mere imposition, but on its own terms, and Cape Verde became integrated into this part of the “Old” worlds 416 Luiz de Bivar Guerra, A Sindicância do desembargador Custódio Correia de Matos às Ilhas de Cabo Verde em 1753 e o regimento que deixou à Ilha de São Nicolau (Lisbon,

156 and financial hardships. In Lisbon, on July 23, 1676, the royal court wrote to Governor

João Cardozo Pissarro of Cape Verde, urging the regular payment of the local Catholic hierarchy to ensure they could perform their service to God to spread Christianity in the

417 islands as well as the mainland. Between 1697 and 1701, Bishop Dom Frei Vitoriano

Portuense proposed that slaves be instructed in Christianity and baptized by using African

418 interpreters, just as was being done in Angola. Dom Portuense supposedly converted

419 the kings of Bissau. The record shows that efforts to baptize these exportable slaves

420 were not successful. According to António Carreira and António Correio e Silva, ladinos (assimilated slaves), who still spoke African languages and Krioulo, instructed

421 boçales slaves, who were not acquainted with European culture and language. In Cape

Verde and the mainland, these interpreters were known as chalonas. Slaves that were not

Portugal: Stvdia-Revista semester-n.º 2-Julho 1958, Portugal, Centro de Estudos Históricos Ultramarinos), f.175–180. 417 SGG, Liv 0001, “Ordens das Cortes Copiadas a Mando do Desembargado Sindicante Custódio Correa de Mattos. Inclui Correspondência c/autoridades Internas e Externas, Provisões, treslados, Provimentos entre Outros. (N.º-A-42); 1674/Nov-1754; 174/200- cópia manuscritas, f.29. 418 SGG, Liv 0001, f.38-38v. 419 As Viagens do bispo D. Frei Vitoriano Portuense à Guiné e a cristianização dos reis de Bissau, compilado por Avelino Teixeira da Mota. (Lisbon, Portugal: Junta de Investigações Científicas do Ultramar, 1974). 420 SGG, Liv 0002, 1676-1747, “Ordens, bandos, cartas patentes, provisões, regimentos,” f.5v, f.19, f.22, f.24v, f.27. 421 António Carreira, Cabo Verde, formação e extinção de uma sociedade escravocrata (1460-1878) (Praia, Cape Verde: Com o patrocínio da Comissão da Comunidade Económica Europeia para O Instituto Caboverdeano do Livro, 1983), 279–80. António Correio e Silva, “A sociedade Agrária, Gentes das Àguas: Senhores, Escravos e Forros,” in História Geral de Cabo Verde, 2nd ed., vol. II, Coordenação de Maria Emília Madeira Santos, (Lisbon, Portugal: Centro de Estudos de História e Cartografia Antiga, Instituto de Investigaçào Científica Tropical; Praia: Direcção Geral do Património Cultural de Cabo Verde, 1991), 310.

157 re-exported to the Americas, Carreira argues had more time for indoctrination and baptism in the islands. These scholars emphasize that ladinos acculturated the boçales slaves suggesting a unilateral exchange rather than mutual influence. Because ladinos and boçales both spoke African languages, there was a reenforcement of cultural and linguistic ties rather than a Christianization of the boçales. Because these slaves stayed in

Ribeira Grande for six months to a year, ladinos might not have been as effective with them. Moreover, ladinos were in constant contact with African slaves on the mainland, which supports the idea of a constant cultural exchange with slaves in Cape Verde and those being reexported to the Americas. The boçales must have had some influence in the development of popular , but due to the paucity and fragmentary nature of the sources, we can only surmise. The snippets allow for some understanding, if not a general overview. Early in the seventeenth century, Jesuit priests in Cape Verde

422 rebuked the blacks (and those whites) that consulted a jabacouse (traditional healer).

In 1605, Guerreio, one of the Jesuits priests wrote:

One superstition in particular, emanating from the mainland of Guinea, had [grown] out many roots here [Cape Verde], not only among the , of which there are a very large number, but also among many whites. This superstitious practice involved the presence here of many feiticeiros (magicians/witches) and diviners, known here as jabacouces. Their teaching persuaded the people that when anyone fell sick and was dying, other feiticeiros, whom they could name, though they did not, were consuming the person’s body, and extracting his soul and placing it where they wished; but if they were well paid they would put the soul back again. When individuals fell sick these were the doctors who offered cures, by giving them remedies taught by the devil. At times the devil spoke to them openly, in a voice which bystanders could hear, and he put

422 “The Mission to the Cape Verde Islands and the Mainland of Guinea” (Book 4, Ch. 8), in Jesuit Documents on the Guinea of Cape Verde and the Cape Verde Islands, 1585– 1617: in English translation. Documents assembled by the late Avelino de Teixeira da Mota and translated by P. E. H. Hair ([Liverpool?]: Issued by the Dept. of History, University of Liverpool, [1989]), 2.

158 into their heads many other notions of brutish confusion and 423 imbecility.

African-based practices continued into the next century. For instance, on October

15, 1723, a royal letter responded to complaints about processions of the festivals of São

Thiago and São João, and groups of liberated blacks and slaves who would usually

424 march until they reached the Horta de Larangeira (Orange Orchard). The group resembled a military formation of governors, lieutenant general, colonels, first sergeants, first-captains, infantry captains, and other officers. These “officials” marched with soldiers in all the festivals. The governor allowed a procession in which slaves and freed people could be armed. Whites also participated in these events by joining them as spectators. The crown feared potential disturbances and informed the local authorities to prohibit these types of processions. Barcellos wrote that the “governor of armed blacks,

425 with his authority, ordered his subordinate in formation.” Slaves were so devoted to this socioreligious ritual that abandoned service to their slaveholders on that special occasion and faced the condemnation of their owner. According to Barcellos, these groups were “barbaric” because the leader of the group ordered his subordinates to murder residents, which posed a threat to the colony. This might have been more of a fear than a reality on the part of the elites. The leader of the group called “governor” could threaten the stability on the days of Saint festivals, particularly those of Saint James (São

Thiago) and . Barcellos suggested that the procession resembled a paramilitary

423 Jesuit Documents on the Guinea of Cape Verde and the Cape Verde Islands, 2. 424 Christiano Senna Barcellos, Subsidios para a história de Cabo Verde e Guiné, 2nd ed., vol. I, 426. 425 Barcellos, Subsidios para a história de Cabo Verde e Guiné, 426.

159 force because they paraded on horses and on foot, wearing masks, speaking the Creole of blacks from Guiné, and shouting incomprehensible phrases. This reference to their speaking a Creole from Guiné was either to underscore that they were recent arrivals or that they continued to practice what the authorities considered fetish. The wearing of masks speaks to similar mask ceremonies practiced by groups, such as Diola, Balanta and

Mandinka, on Upper Guinea, regarding rites of passage, the birth of newborn, marriage, etc. The descriptions of these processions, during official Saint Festivals, illustrates that the local authorities were ambivalent about slaves’ participation, because it was potentially a site of rebellion.

João José Reis shows the ambivalence of the authorities in Brazil toward batuque

426 (African drumming and dance). Some authorities believed that they should allow slaves to practice this as a safety vale, but other officials feared that mingling slaves, freed people, and spectators could create a site in which they could plot rebellion. In

Cape Verde, the local governor might have allowed this cultural manifestation, but distant Portugal received reports that it was causing too much commotion.

In Cape Verde, officials were ambivalent about other cultural manifestations. On

July 26, 1762, João Vieira de Andrade, the general auditor, wrote to King Dom José about certain “repugnant” socioreligious manifestations that had already been prohibited:

427 O da Esteira, O do Reynado, O de foro ou mel. O da Esteira (the mattress), also known as choru (mourning), was a ritual of mourning the dead, which a mattress was laid

426 João José Reis, “Batuque: African Drumming and Dance,” in Diasporic Africa: A Reader, ed. Michael Gomez, (New York: New York University Press, 2006), 46. 427 Original AHU, Cabo Verde, Papéis Avulsos, Cx.27, Doc.53. Daniel Pereira, “Alguns usos e costumes da ilha de Santiago (1762–1772),” in Estudos da História de Cabo Verde (Praia, Cape Verde: Alfa-Comunições, 2005), 340–3.

160 428 out for people to sit and receive visitors in the house of the deceased family member.

In Santiago, various social groups practiced this ritual, including clergy, officials, and

429 commoners. The ceremony began the day the person perished. Participants would wail and speak to the dead, give messages, and write letters to dead relatives to accompany the

430 recently deceased. In Cape Verde, locals thought that the dead person became part of the living-dead as part of the spirit or invisible world. In addition, they held a feast in which they drank and engaged in sexual intercourse between men and women who were

431 not partners or married to each other. In the late seventeenth century, Almada wrote that the Beafadas of Rio Grande held funerals accompanied by a large crowd with

432 drumming and soldiers dancing in which they asked the dead who killed them. In

1696, Dom Frei Vitoriano Portuense, the bishop of Cape Verde, wrote that the Papel

433 wrapped their dead in lots of panu for burial. The practice of covering the dead with panu for burial is still done on the island of Santiago. Although this religious belief and practice had a Guinean core, others were types of cultural convergence of commonalities

434 found in African and European practices.

428 SGG, Liv0013, f.18. 429 SGG, Liv0013, f.18v. 430 SGG, Lv0013, f.18. 431 Pereira, “Alguns usos e costumes da ilha de Santiago,” 337. 432 Almada, Brief Treatise, 105. 433 As Viagens do bispo D. Frei Vitoriano Portuense, 108–9. 434 Matt Schaffer, “Bound to Africa: The Mandinka Legacy in the New World,” History in Africa 32 (2005): 321–69.

161

Figure 12. Deceased body of Blim Blim, Papel Ruler of Biombo wrapped in panus for burial, w/d

(Source: As Viagens do Bispo D. Frei Vitoriano Portuguense À Guiné e A Cristianização, between pages 108 and 109)

435 Figure 13. Esteiradas de Bananeiras de Santiago, w/d

In 1764, Dr João Gomes Ferreira, Cavalry in the Christ Order, judge and general auditor, noted similar complaints lodged by the former general auditor, João Vieira de

435 Ficheiros de Arquivo Histórico Nacional de Cabo Verde, Praia.

162 436 Andrade. Ferreira wrote that with the death of his neighbor, Dona Antonia, her family sent her body on the frigate, Penha de França, in which they wailed for eight days. The governor of Cape Verde sent his bodyguard along with his son, Ciprião Alvarez, to stop the wailing. The military contingent guarded the deceased’s house by encircling it. They accompanied the grieving family to the grave, whereupon water was doused on the

437 deceased as part of the farewell ritual. This family was one of the elites, but what they were practicing was deeply rooted in practices from Upper Guinea. It appears that even the governor tolerated this ritual by providing a military escort and protection for the family.

As early 1607, there is evidence of choru practice when Father Manuel noted that the burial of Father Pero Neto on August 13 was a big event. Father Neto was “buried on

438 the bier belonging to the Misericordia.” The distinguished personalities of Santiago

Island carried him; behind them, the clergy of the chapel accompanied them, followed by all the fraternities bearing their crosses. This prestigious bunch of elites, religious and secular, appeared to perform elements of choru, which came from Guinea. Manuel de

Almeida said that the “the weeping of the people when his burial was completed . . . not only resounded throughout the city but lasted until the night. The loudly-expressed exclamations of grief were so many.” Thus, it was not only on the mainland that groups such as tangaumos that were Africanized. This was not creolization as that Thornton, Heywood, and Berlin described, but a cross-cultural exchange in which

436 Pereira, “Alguns usos e costumes da ilha de Santiago,” 340–3. 437 Pereira, “Alguns usos e costumes da ilha de Santiago,” 343. 438 Jesuits Documents, ch. 26, 5.

163 the masses retained their Guinean sensibilities and even influenced those in power.

Roquinaldo Ferreira and Mariana Candido describe similar practices in Benguela and

Luanda, respectively, as creolization, but not as Westernization, rather as cross-cultural exchanges in which Africans and Europeans borrowed cultural elements from one

439 another in constantly unfolding processes.

O de foro ou mel was another socioreligious ritual that shows a cross-cultural exchange. It was when the Church remembered the dead on Thursday of Ash Wednesday each year. After going to church, participants returned home to a -like atmosphere. The male participant gave his wife or partner honey, called foro or mel, and the female recipients were obligated to have sex, or else a divorce or repudiation would be forthcoming. It was full of sexual orgy, practiced by all social groups, including married, single, liberated, slave, sick, or elderly. The transformation of the original

Catholic practice was that mel was a symbolic offering to women, but became dessert and, rather than the traditional Catholic practice of fasting, participants celebrated by having an extravagant feast. O foro or mel appears to be a convergence of African and

Catholic practices.

439 Ferreira, Cross-Cultural Exchange, 5–6, 246–8; Candido, An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World, 11–12. I prefer to move away from the term “creolization,” because it has so many definitions, and, in Portuguese, it has a negative connotation. Some Cape Verdeans argue that people were called crioulos, because they were servants (criados) of slave-owners, who were usually Europeans. However, today, most Cape Verdeans refer to themselves, culture, and language as krioulo, which some of them suggest is a mixture of European and African, or simply call themselves mulatoes. For debates about Cape Verdean identity, see José Carlos Gomes dos Anjos, Intellectuais, Literatura e Poder em Cabo Verde: Lutas de Definição da Identidade Nacional (Porto Alegre, [Brazil]: UFRGS/IFCH; Praia, Cape Verde]: INIPC, 2002); Gabriel Fernandes, Em busca da nação: notas para uma reinterpretação do Cabo Verde (Florianópolis, Brazil: Editora da UFSC; Praia, Cape Verde: Instituto da Biblioteca Nacional e do Livro, 2006).

164 Other religious manifestations that were examples of cross-cultural exchange were brotherhoods that Ferreira described as “the Kings of the Brotherhoods of Piety of

440 Rosary, Deliverance, and Saint Sebastian in which they are given court titles.”

Ferreira contended that from the holy week of Thursday until Sunday of Easter participants begged for charity with small images in their hands. They held vigils, ate, drank, and slept at churches (as well as outside of them) to perform mass and show devotion to their saints. They raised charity to manumit slaves, which mean that participants had kinfolks in bondage.

On September 16, 1772, the local administration wrote another letter about

441 outlawed cultural practices, which again included Choru, Zambunos, and Reynado.

Reynado appears to be a sort of cultural convergence. It was a festival of kings and

442 queens on Sundays and saint’s days. Some African slaves coming to Cape Verde had traditions of kingship, such as the Bañuns, Brame, Wolof, Mandinka, and Beafadas, which meant that they instilled this idea into there religious-cultural practices. Without receiving mass, the participants departed from the church/chapela in a parade with playing music with drums and accordions the entire day; at night they congregated at their houses to eat and drink, which infuriated the authorities. The music of these

440 Pereira, “Alguns usos e costumes da ilha de Santiago,” 340–3. 441 SGG, Lv0013, “Bandos e editais Publicados na Ilha de Santiago. 1769/Dezembro– 1778/Setembro;” f.17–18. 442 Some argue that “” might have originated from reynado; see Daniel Pereira, “Alguns usos e costumes da ilha de Santiago (1762–1772)” in Estudos da História de Cabo Verde (Praia, Cape Verde: Alfa-Comunições, 2005), 338; Wilson Trajano Filho, “Por Uma Etnografia da Resistência: o caso das tabancas de Cabo Verde”; José Maria Semedo and Maria R. Turano, Cabo Verde: O Ciclo Ritual das Festividades da Tabanca (Praia, Cape Verde: Spleen Edições, 1997), 60.

165 processions was probably perceived as “demonic” by the local authorities in Cape Verde, which caused them to report them to this to Lisbon. For example, suggestive of this reality in the Portuguese Empire, Rogério Budasz argues that in Brazil, white Portuguese and Brazilians perceived the music in African religions and the music of black Catholics

443 as indistinguishable. The Catholic hierarchy believed that they should tame music of black Catholics to rid it of its “demonic” dimension. At the end of the year, the Reynado concluded with a mass as well as coronation of blacks by the pastor. Afterwards, the participants returned to their homes to make an altar for prayer, then engaged in

“excessive” eating and drinking that continued throughout the night. Women congregated at a house and men visited with rum and copulated with preferred woman. In Santiago, the authorities feared social disorder with the celebrations of the zambunos, another festive ritual, which I will discuss later, and Reynado, which participants performed

444 publicly or inside houses at night.

Sweet notes that during the eighteenth century in Portugal a slave believed that blue and white bead was “truly Cape Verdean Mandingas” to convey the object’s potency

445 and efficacy. Sansi-Roca also noted that, “In 1700, a Capeverdean slave, Francisco,

443 Rogério Budasz, “Black Guitar-Players and Early African-Iberian Music in Portugal and Brazil,” Early Music 35, no. 1 (2007): 13. 444 SGG, Lv0013, f.17. 445 Sweet, “Slaves, Convicts, and Exiles: African Travellers in the Portuguese Atlantic World, 1720-1750,” in Bridging the Early Modern Atlantic World: People, Products, and Practices on the Move, edited by Carolina A. Williams (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009), 196; originally from Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Inqusição de Lisboa, Coimbra, Processo, No.1630; concerning African religious influence in Portugal, see Daniela Buono Calainho, “Jambacousses e Gangazambes: feiticeiros Negros em Portugal,” Afro-Ásia nos. 25–26 (2001): 141–76; Calainho, Metrópole das mandingas: religiosidade negra e inquisição no Antigo Regime (Lisbon: Garamond, 2000); A. C. de

166 was selling a variety of bolsas (pouches) in Lisbon that protected its owners from fights,

446 helped to win games and to seduce.” Sansi-Roca claims that the Mandingas bolsas in the Portuguese Empire came to symbolize “making feitiçaria” (witchcraft that transcended a particular group). Sweet wrote,

By the early 1700s, the bolsa de mandinga was the most widely used talisman in the Portuguese-African diaspora and could be found in such far-flung places as Bahia, Madeira, Luanda, Mazagão, and ; most bolsas consisted of a piece of leather or cloth filled with various substances—herbs, roots, sticks, rocks, hairs, feathers, animal skins, 447 powders, and relics from the Catholic Church.

In Upper Guinea, the bolsa de mandinga also contained Arabic writing, which coastal

Africans believed to have magical powers.

The zambunos was performed in praças das armas (squares of arms). The

448 practitioners and spectators would exclaim “Holy Mary from sunset until dawn.” The punishment for performing this was four months in prison for the first offense; the

449 punishment for a second offense depended on “the circumstances.” Zambunos appears to be a type of ritual performed with music and perhaps accompanied with dance or spirit possession, but we cannot know for sure, because the report lacks details.

Flávio Gomes emphasizes that “the movement of groups of fugitives and petit marronage in Rio de Janeiro, including suburban parishes . . . also indicate connections between the spheres of work and slave leisure culture in the urban and semi-urban areas

C. M. Saunders, A Social History of Black Slaves and Freedmen in Portugal, 1441–1555 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); T. F. Earle and K. J. P. Lowe, eds., Black Africans in Renaissance Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 446 Sansi-Roca, “The Fetish in the Lusophone Atlantic,” 24. 447 Sweet, “Slaves, Convicts, and Exiles,” 193. 448 SGG, Lv 0013, f.17v. 449 SGG, Lv 0013, f.17v-18.

167 of the city with the highest concentration of Africans in the Americas at the dawn of the

450 nineteenth century.” Perhaps, in addition to being a socioreligious ritual, zambunos was also a form of leisure to escape the harsh realities of daily life.

Some scholars might argue that these cultural manifestations were a creolization, a merging of cultures. Perhaps there was a parallel world in which people would cross boundaries when useful. There was simultaneous borrowing and incorporation of different cultural practices, but also continuing regional cultural practices from slaves and their descendants from the Upper Guinea. The sociocultural transformation was not creolization but the creation of broad Upper Guinea cultural elements within the new cultural milieu. Hence, Catholicism was never practiced with the orthodox beliefs and rituals that the Catholic Church advocated. The local Catholic hierarchy was not unified, despite Portugal’s desire to spread Christianity throughout Cape Verde and the Upper

Guinea coast.

The local hierarchy of the Catholic Church experienced internal disputes and contestation with secular imperial rule. The Catholic Church excommunicated some priests. Catholicism in the archipelago itself was, at best, practiced by the few elites, whereas the rest practiced a popular religion of Guinean-derived practices that at times were intertwined with Catholic practices. Some might describe this as syncretism or creolization, but it was rather two parallel universes, sometimes coexisting in harmony and other times with tension. Internal control and the rivalry with secular imperial institutions remained a primary concern for the local Catholic Church and local administration.

450 Flávio Gomes, “Africans and Petit Marronage in Rio de Janeiro, ca. 1800–1840,” Luso-Brazilian Review 47, no. 2 (2010): 75.

168 On December 6, 1724, Sebastião Bravo Botelho, the general auditor of Cape

Verde, wrote to João Felles das Sylva and Dr. Joseph Gomes de Azevedo, members of

Overseas Council, complaining that the general curate (vigario geral) of the island of

451 Cape Verde had “usurped [the] jurisdiction” of the Overseas Council. The general curate convicted Antonio Cabral, who was under the command of Lieutenant General

João de Barros de Souza Bezerra; if the prison term was not obeyed then the excommunication of soldiers would ensue and that they were obligated to assist the

452 ecclesiastic officials to apprehend someone. Sylva and Azevedo accused the general curate of interfering in nonreligious matters because he was confronting a ship captain in the port of Ribeira Grande. The Council noted that the bishop of Cape Verde would

“recommend” that general curate should be removed from not only Cape Verde, but also the Portuguese Kingdom if he was found guilty of “usurping” the power of the

453 Council. The local hierarchy of the Catholic Church was not unified and some officials of the local church meddled on matters relating to commercial activities.

Perhaps, the general curate was one of those local Church officials that had some commercial interests, which would most likely have been in the slave trade.

On May 25, 1725, Dom Frey José de Santos Maria, the bishop of Cape Verde, wrote to Costa and Dr. Azevedo who relayed the bishops’ concern to Sebastião Bravo about the problems of the most “grave crimes by criminals” within the Church

451 SGG, Lv0001, f.98–98v. 452 SGG, Lv0001, f.98. 453 SGG, Liv0001, f.98–98v.

169 454 hierarchy. The crimes pertained to killing people and things related to agriculture, which usually revolved around issues of slaves and farmland. Because they were prominent within the Church hierarchy; they were not prosecuted, but this portrayed a depraved Church for Santos Maria. The bishop emphasized that the curate houses were not for “rogues” and to expel all clergymen involved in criminal activities The Overseas

Council threatened that if the bishop’s request was not implemented, they would enjoin

455 the “arrest of all the criminals in the curate’s house.”

Issues of criminality as well as other social vices manifested as neglect of religious duties and practices, which the royal court in Lisbon depicted as spiritual decadence. On January 11, 1744, in Lisbon, Thome Joaquim da Costa Corte Real, a member of the Overseas Council, noted that the governor’s “little reform, laxity of life of the people of the islands, principally residents of the island of San Thiago and the dissolution of respect for secular and divine ecclesiastical laws, scandals and numerous offenses committed, especially pernicious sins done by high officials, which brings

456 shame and horror, which only facilitated bad examples of Catholic principles.” Lisbon ordered the local Church hierarchy to “introduce in the churches spiritual practices at competent hours and some devotional exercises and penitence led by prudent, spiritual

457 clergymen.” Costa Corte Real appealed to the governor to provide assistance to the reverend bishop and Church to mitigate these “abuses and scandals.”

454 SGG, Liv0001, f.98. 455 SGG, Lv0011, f.98. 456 SGG, Liv0001, f.88v. 457 SGG, Liv0001, f.89.

170 Some of these “abuses and scandals” were not only Catholic priests’ participation in the slave trade, but political intrigues as well as sexual relationships. In Lisbon, on

February 28, 1794, Antonio Gaspar, a member of the Overseas Council, responded to the petition of Dona Violante Freire de Andrade, the widow of Colonel Manoel Gonçalves de

Carvalho from Santiago Island. The petition was against Father Bonifacio de Santa Rosa

Sabugal, a native from Portugal, accusing him of committing acts contrary to the “good

458 of religion and the state” in her house. In Ribeira Grande, Dona Andrade and Colonel

459 Carvalho had raised Maria Sabado, who “was a crioula born in the island into

460 slavery,” and provided Maria with “political and religious instructions.” This suggests that Maria was being groomed to fulfill an important position in the household. Dona

Andrade emphasized that Colonel Carvalho had raised Maria as his child, probably to emphasize that Father Sabugal’s “despicable” act was tantamount to violating their daughter, rather than a mere slave. Dona Andrade said that accommodations were usually

458 SGG, Lv0011, f.150. 459 According to António Carreira, Sabado (Saturday) signifies that she was most likely born on that day and that whomever gave her that surname was retaining an African- derived manner of naming. In the nineteenth century, “Maria Sabado” was a common name among female slaves and liberated female individuals. 460 SGG, Lv0011, f.150. Although other slaves are referred to as either slaves or blacks (negros), this particular slave was referred to as crioula, which meant that she was a domestic slave or servant for the family, rather than one of the black slaves who were born in Cape Verde; Toby Green argues that crioulo, meaning those born abroad, originated in the Americas; see The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, 273–6. Green argues that slaves displaced by the violence of the slave trade came to identify themselves as Creole; Concerning the different types of violence in Africa, see Sabelo J. Ndlvou- Gatsheni, ‘Logic of Violence in Africa’, Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies Working Paper No. 2, (Open University, February 2011), www.open.ac.uk/Arts/ferguson-centre/working-papers.

171 461 provided to priests, which allowed Father Sabugal to have contact with the crioula.

Father Sabugal not only deflowered Maria Sabado, but also continued to secretly enter the house at night and sleep with Maria, and he impregnated her. Although Maria was 36 years old, Dona Andrade complained that they were living in concubinage, because

Maria was a slave, and therefore a dependent of the household. Maria Sabado was sneaking to various farmhouses and finally resorting to Colonel João Freire de Andrade’s

(Father Sabugal’s brother) farmhouse, which was “more than six leagues” from the

462 city of Ribeira Grande. Dona Andrade emphasized this distance because it was not near enough for her to apprehend her slave. In addition to his rendezvous with her slave,

Father Sabugal stole items from Dona Andrade’s house.

Dona Andrade believed that if she sent Maria Sabado to Maranhão, she would

463 “terminate the concubinage” (i.e., the relationship). Perhaps because Maria Sabado was her slave, Dona Andrade thought that she could sell the crioula to ships sailing to

Brazil. With the assistance of Major Sergeant João de Spinola da Veiga e Almada, Dona

464 Andrade sent Maria to Maranhão to “lessen her passion.” Their conduct was so

“reprehensible” that the governor of Cape Verde wanted to arrest them because Father

Sabugal and Maria had stolen things and killed Domingos Vidal of the convent. Dona

Andrade, however, also realized being almost 70 years old, that Maria Sabado should return from Maranhão to “succeed” her. Dona Andrade described Father Sabugal as “a

461 SGG, Lv0011, f.151. 462 SGG, Lv0011, f.151. 463 SGG, Lv0011, f.151. 464 SGG, Lv0011, f.151v.

172 465 revolting man, troublemaker of peace, and friends of vices and causing disorder.”

Dona Andrade requested that the authorities punish Father Sabugal, send him to Portugal, and prohibit him from returning to the islands. Another important case of intimate relationships between a slave and a priest concerns that of João Pereira Barreto. “In 1772

João Pereira Barreto was born on the island of Santiago out of a relationship between a

466 ‘mulatto priest’, and ‘a female slave.’” During the 1770s and 1780s, João Pereira

Barreto was a clerk in praça of Cacheu. João Pereira Barreto sired the (in)famous governor of Portuguese Guinea, Honório Pereira Barreto. This was not new, because as early as 1662, there was a trial of Luís Rodrigues, a Catholic priest of Cape Verdean origin in Guinea, was accused of engaging in promiscuous activities with Kriston and

467 gentio women. The accused had already been denounced and condemned for similar practices on the Island of Santiago and exiled to Farim. His mother was Cape Verdean and his father was related to the Portuguese nobility. Crispina Peres, a tungumá or free

468 woman and her family were mentioned in the trial of the “Cape Verdean” priest. This priest also joined social gatherings that included African rituals ceremonies practiced by

African communities on the coast.

465 SGG, Lv0011, f.151v. 466 Philip J. Havik, Silences and Soundbytes: The Gendered Dynamics of Trade and Brokerage in the Pre-Colonial Guinea Bissau Region (Munster, Germany: Lit Verlag, 2004), f.396, 207; Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Guiné, Cx. 21, 17-7-1816 (Lisbon, Portugal); see Barreto, Memoria Sobre O Estado Actual de Senegambia Portugueza, 1938: 179. 467 Philip Havik, “Walking the Tightrope,” in Bridging the Early Modern Atlantic World, 181; IANTT, Inquisição de Lisboa, Processo 8626, Luis Rodrigues (1662). 468 Havik, “Walking Tightrope,” 182.

173 Thus, the local Catholic hierarchy was under tremendous duress and did not have worry about ensuring orthodox practices and beliefs, which perturbed the bishops and the royal court in Lisbon. The local Catholic hierarchy had limited focus on maintaining internal control and offering services to the elites, who had a nonchalant attitude towards religious affairs. In addition, the tension between secular and religious institutions preoccupied their attention. Portugal’s major challenge was social management and control of the colony, given the assertiveness of brankus di terra, manumitted slaves demanding their rights, and constant slave flight. To add to this arduous task, drought and famine pressured people to sell themselves and unscrupulous profit-seekers engaged in forcibly selling free people and slaves to competing European rivalries, particularly the

English.

Precarious Control: Famine and Selling Free People

Brooks explains that major droughts and famines in Upper Guinea between 1620 and 1860, coupled with the increased demand for slaves resulted in families selling their

469 relatives, but it is difficult to quantitatively estimate. In Cape Verde, this was also the case, along with reports of kidnappings by English slave traffickers. While the current vogue in the historiography of the Atlantic slave trade argues for African agency, scholars like Walter Rodney, Boubacar Barry, Walter Hawthorne, and Toby Green persuasively illustrate that the increase cycle of violence in the Upper Guinea, ignited by this trade, severely limited African options. Mariana Candido makes a similar argument for Benguela and Central Africa as a whole. Candido refutes the view that focuses

469 George Brooks, Eurafricans in Western Africa: Commerce, Social Status, Gender, and Religious Observance from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003), 102–3.

174 exclusively on African agency in the enslavement process, and instead shows that the

Portuguese colonization of Benguela was a foothold on the continent rather than just the coast, and was used as a pretext for waging war in the interior in order to kidnap

470 Africans. Patrick Manning contends that war and raiding destroyed food crops, exacerbating the effects of the droughts and famines in West Central Africa.471 Hence, by contextualizing the droughts and famine in Cape Verde, we can assume that the overuse of land, particularly for cotton growing, had disastrous consequences. Challenging

António Carreira and others that there was a demise of plantation slavery model in Cape

Verde during the eighteenth century or before, Rudolphe Paul Widmer cogently argues with detail examples that this only occurred in the mid nineteenth century with the

472 official push toward abolition. Slaveholders might lose slaves due to drought and famine, but they would replenish their supply. Although other studies have emphasized the importance of immigration to the mainland during the fifteenth century and the abandonment of slaves, the record shows that there were constant efforts to procure more slaves. I argue that the area of enslavement extended from the mainland to the islands.

In 1702, the royal court informed Dom Antonio Salgado Ambrasio in Cape Verde that Portuguese ships heading to the port of Cacheu could pay in the form of “wheat,

473 barley, rye, corn, vegetables, biscuit, sugar cane, cheese, and butter,” which suggests that the crises started around this period. In 1719, a major famine occurred throughout the

470 Candido, An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World, 145–8. 471 Patrick Manning, Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 56–7. 472 Rudolphe Paul Widmer, “Structures coloniales et crises agricoles,” 1. 473 SGG, Lv0001, f.24v–25.

175 archipelago, eventually resulting in famine related-deaths: an astonishingly high 44

474 percent of the population died in 1773. In 1774 to 1775, the total population decreased from 50,639 to 28,368, with Santiago the most severely affected, dropping from 24,358

475 476 to 11,580. In Cape Verde, the affects of the droughts and famine are well known and as a result migration has been a central theme, but no studies have focused on forced

477 migration or the selling of people because of famine during the era of the slave trade.

The reexportation of slaves passing through Cape Verde from the mainland must be distinguished from free people or slaves in Cape Verde kidnapped by voracious locally based merchants as well as Europeans. Some families sold their children into slavery, others volunteered themselves, and some even resorted to cannibalism to survive. Passing ships took advantage of the situation to capture more slaves, rather than venture onto the mainland for slaves, which could take months as well as the risk of the disease-prone

474 Mark Langworthy and Timothy J. Finan, Waiting for rain: agriculture and ecological imbalance in Cape Verde (Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 1997), 61; E. F. Moran, “The Evolution of Cape Verde’s Agriculture,” African Economic History 11: 71. 475 Rudolphe Paul Widmer, “Structures coloniales et crises agricoles,” 11. 476 From “The Future of the Discipline” in the December 2012 issue of Perspectives on History, “Human Agency in the Anthropocene” Dipesh Chakrabarty employs the concept anthropocene coined by Eugene F. Stoermer and popularized by Paul Krutzen that the recent caused by will impact thousand of years to come and that this new phenomenon shows that humans are geophysical force, which has been ignored in the history of humans, as a single entity rather than the different polities, which is still important. In African history, human beings causing environmental ruined, which led to centuries of change is not new. With the Portuguese arrival in Cape Verde, they destroyed the ecological balance of the ecosystem, which resulted in the desertification of the islands. In addition, desiccation of the green pasture into North Africa resulting in the Sahara desert has received scholarly anlaysis in African history as well as the drought and famine related to rain level with relation to the human dimension to this climatic change. 477 The focus has tended to be on forced migration as contratadores to São Tome.

176 rainy season. Other inhabitants of Cape Verde may have been tricked into being sold (i.e.,

478 kidnapped).

In Africa, European travelers noted the selling or pawning of children due to the

479 famine. On November 23, 1743, the counselors of the Overseas Council reported that

Francisco de Lima e Mello, major-captain of Santo Antão, and Themothea Sanches, ecclesiastical bailiff (meirinho do eccleziastico), traded orchil plants and slaves to

English merchants with Conel, an Irish slave trader, who had lived in Santo Antão for

480 some years. The Overseas Council argued that the slave trade was done with

“infidels,” i.e., non-Catholics. The Portuguese deemed other Europeans “strangers” in

Upper Guinea, because the Portuguese believed it was their domain. The selling of orchils was done by contract, in which Europeans would ask for a certain amount and it

481 would be produced. Lima e Mello hired “degraded Catholics to a deserted island, which was lacking in spiritual guidance and food to collect the orchil, a type of dye, in

482 which they faced constant risk of death.” The deserted island was probably Santa

Luzia, which is still uninhabited today. The forced laborers picked and collected orchils

478 During the nineteenth century, slaves and fugitive slaves went on board US whaling ships. Complaint of Gevernor General of Cape Verde to U.S. , July 24, 1835; See, Letter of F. Gardner to John C. Calhoun, March 20, l845; Letter of William Peixoto to U.S. Department of State, October 20, 1848; W. H. Morse to Daniel Webster, January 29, 1852, National Archives, Consular Records in Santiago. Information accessed from, http://www1.umassd.edu/specialprograms/caboverde/whale.html. 479 Paul E Lovejoy and Toyin Falola, Pawnship, slavery, and colonialism in Africa (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2003). 480 SGG, Lv0011, “Decretos, Alvará, provisões, cartas patentes e cartas régias. 1769/março/17-1798/ outubro/12. 235 fls; cópias manuscritas;” f.87v. 481 SGG, Lv0011, f.87v. 482 SGG, Lv0011, f.87v.

177 in inaccessible areas to furnish the required quota for Lima e Mello’s administrators who then traded the collected plants. In previous years, the “harshness of exile” had caused numerous deaths due to famine, resulting in actual parents “eating their children” and manumitted slaves from Santo Antão selling their children to Lima e Mello to “mitigate”

483 the situation.

484 Figure 14. Eighteenth Century Dutch Engraving of the Island of Santo Antão

The captain-major sold and exchanged orchil plants with the Portuguese and other

European slavers. The Portuguese authorities urged the necessity of collecting taxes on this commerce and that the donatario (owners of large land of Santo Antão) ought to pay

485 taxes to the customhouse in Santiago on all commodities exported or imported. On

November 16, 1743, the Portuguese Crown recommended that the auditor of agriculture in Ribeira Grande Brava, the main town of São Nicolau, be informed about the situation so they could send a manager to collect taxes from the guilty parties in Santo Antão. The manager would also investigate the trading of slaves to foreigners. The Portuguese

483 SGG, Lv0011, f.87v. 484 Figure 30 in Cardoso and Soares, “A estação de Salamansa,” 210. 485 SGG, Lv0011, f.87v.

178 authorities were not concerned with the selling of people, but with the legality of this contraband and with collecting unpaid trade taxes. A mercantile monopoly was the main objective of their efforts, and they were concerned with the meddling in the internal affairs of a Portuguese colony. English ships constantly visited Boa Vista and

Santo Antão, perhaps, in fact, more often than Portuguese ships.

The local administration took measures to counteract the effects of the famine by calculating the population so they could distribute adequate quantities of food. On July

28, 1774, Saldanha Lobo wrote a letter to advise the curates of the parishes of Santiago to

486 determine the population of the island. The next month, Saldanha Lobo urged that

“all the inhabitants” must be counted, including those in semi-urban areas, suburbs, houses, “huts” (funcos), and households, and including cattle herders, boçal slaves, and minors. Because the food crisis continued unabated, in December 1774, Saldanha Lobo requested that all the curates of Santiago Islands announce during mass and to post on the doors of the churches information about food assistance for those deprived of

487 sustenance. Saladnha Lobo instructed his secretary to send a report with information about poor farm owners and slaveholders that owned twelve or fewer slaves would receive food aid. The list should also include “widowers, secluded women (mulheres

488 recolhidos), and all the poor.” The local authorities instructed the parishes to distribute provisions, then the next month to distribute more rations. The needy were

486 SGG, Lv0012, f.87–88. 487 SGG, Lv0012, f.93v–95. 488 SGG, Lv0012, f.94v.

179 given documents as evidence that they lacked money to purchase victuals. Despite this effort, the selling of free people continued in the archipelago.

In July 1775, in Ribeira Grande, the local authorities charged Manoel Andre

Ramalho and João Remualda, both native of São Nicolau, of selling free people to the

489 English as though they were slaves. José Roballo de Gamboa, a major sergeant stationed in Brava, noted that they were arrested in January 1775. On August 7, 1775,

Major Sergeant Gamboa also wrote that a father sold his daughter to an English trader,

490 and others sold manumitted slaves to the British as well. The authorities also pleaded an investigate into the departure of local people of Cape Verde with Europeans under dubious or ambiguous circumstances, which they suspected was kidnapping.

To counteract the selling of individuals, the local administration began to focus on islands away from the headquarters in Santiago. For instance, in August 1775, José

Cardozo, a warrant officer (ajudante) of Brava and Fogo, mentioned that a ship

(chalupa), the Nossa Senhora da Nasaret, under Captain Fernando Dias, arrived with

491 1,400 alqueires of corn for Fogo and Brava. Dias also arrived with 1,500 alqueires of

492 corn for Brava the previous year. In October 1775, a major captain of Fogo wrote to

Ribeira Grande that the locusts had destroyed the seeds in Fogo, resulting in the population requiring food assistance, which came from Lisbon, but what was sent was

489 SGG, A1(R) A1, Liv0014, “Promocões, cartas patentes (confirmação e petições. 1774/janeiro/26-1778; 99-268; copias manuscritas, f.39. 490 SGG, Lv0015, f.9v. 491 SGG, Lv0015, f.7. 492 SGG, Lv0015, f.9.

180 493 insufficient for Fogo, Brava, Maio, and Boa Vista. São Nicolau was also affected by

494 the famine, but the authorities did not respond quickly, which accounted not only for the selling of free people but acts of cannibalism as well. In November 1775, Fogo authorities arrested Domingos Antunes, native of Brava, because he sold free people to

495 an English ship in Fogo. The local authorities also hinted that some people “deserted” the island of Fogo by sailing with European ships, and those residents were selling free

496 people.

David Barry Gaspar examines the legality of twenty-seven slaves brought to

497 Antigua in 1724 who claimed they were free people from Cape Verde. The British slave trader, “Roure explained that he had foolishly entered into some shady dealings with Father Deogue [Diogo], a priest in the Cape Verde Islands, who agreed to sell him

498 several blacks, who were clearly saleable as slaves, at a very reasonable price.” On

January 5, 1776, the authorities in Lisbon admonished the major captain of Fogo to stop

493 SGG, Lv0015, f.27v. 494 SGG, Lv0015, f.29v. 495 SGG, Lv0015, f.28–28v, f.30. 496 SGG, Lv0015, f.28v; during the nineteenth century, many Cape Verdeans from Brava would offer their service to passing American whaling ships. Today, the majority of Cape Verdean are primarily from Brava and Fogo because of this history. 497 David Barry Gaspar, “‘Subjects to the King of Portugal’: Captivity and Repatriation in the Atlantic Slave Trade (Antigua 1724),” in The Creation of the British Atlantic World, 93–114; Similar cases in other parts of the Atlantic see, Roquinaldo Ferreira, Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World, 88; Lyman Johnson, “A Lack of Legitimate Obedience and Respect: Slaves and Masters in the Courts of Late Colonial ,” HAHR 87, no. 4 (2007): 631–58; David Wheat, “A Spanish Caribbean Captivity Narrative: African Sailors and Puritan Slavers, 1635,” in Afro-Latino Voices, ed. Kathryn McKnight and Leo Garofalo, 195–214. 498 Gaspar, “‘Subjects to the King of Portugal,’” 100.

181 whoever was selling free people, as slaves to other European nations, because the

499 provisions sent were ample for the population. If true, this suggests that some greedy individuals to were taking advantage of the situation. On January 5, 1776, Fogo received

6 barris (equivalent of 954 liters) of flour; 1208 algueires of beans (l algueire was one- sixtieth of moio); 60 quintaes (or 4 arrobas, equivalent to 60 kilograms) of biscuit, and

500 120 algueires of corn. Brava Island received 6 barris of fine biscuit, 3 barreias of

501 flour made in Cape Verde, 20 quintais of biscuits, and 120 alqueires of corn.

Violence and flexibility sustained the development of the Atlantic slave trade in general and colonial Cape Verde in particular. With maroon communities in the interior of Santiago, the Portuguese Crown offered manumission to mitigate this threat. The rise of the brankus di terra caused tremendous tension as well as internecine fighting, it culminated in a delicate balance of power. The social stratification of power prevented the large fugitive slave communities from having total control of the colony. Moreover, it does not appear that these maroon communities were interested in obtaining political power in the archipelago, but sporadically attacked urban centers to eke out a living.

The specter of enslavement was constant in Cape Verde, given its geostrategic location as well as its chronic drought, famine, and colonial neglect. There are no statistics to ascertain the percentage of those enslaved via kidnapping or due to famine, but the accounts discussed in this chapter attest to this phenomenon, which the colonial government protested as enslavement. For others, there were instances where

499 SGG, Lv0015, f.36. 500 SGG, Lv0015, f.33. 501 SGG, Lv0015, f.33.

182 enslavement appeared to be welcomed rather than perish from hunger. Although some might have learned to eat rocks or dried food, such as couscous, as reserves for a future crisis, as famine and drought were called, some also decided to be “eaten” by the Atlantic slave trade.

183 CHAPTER 4

ENDING SLAVERY IN CAPE VERDE: MANUMISSION, CRIME, AND PUNISHMENT, 1856–1876

Although manumission in Cape Verde started as early as the late fifth century, the

Junta Protectora dos Escravos e Libertos (Committee for the Protection of Slaves and

Freed Peoples) was a legal apparatus to end slavery in Cape Verde was not established until 1856. It was a legalistic, gradual process in which local abolitionists seemed almost

502 absent, and the process focused on the remuneration of slaveholders. Apparently, the

Junta was presided over by powerful men, perhaps mostly brankus (whites) and mestiço

503 (mixed), who possessed slaves, rendering them far from impartial. On September 4,

502 For the perspective of Portuguese Empire about abolition see, João Pedro Marques, Sá da Bandeira e of im da escravidão: Vitória da moral, desforra do interesse. (Imprensa de Ciências Sociais Series. (Lisbon, Portugal: Instituto Ciencias Sociais, 2008); Marques, The Sounds of Silence, Nineteenth-century Portugal and the Abolition of the slave, trans. Richard Wall (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006); Seymour Drescher and Pieter C. Emmer, Who Abolished Slavery? Slave Revolts and Abolitionism. A Debate with João Pedro Marques (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010); João Filho Lopes, Abolição da escravatura: subsídios para o estudo (Praia, Cape Verde: Spleen, 2006). For material specifically relating to Cape Verde, see, Bernardo de Sá Nogueira de Figueiredo, who spearheaded the gradual abolition of slavery in the Portuguese Empire has places named after him: a street in Lisbon, a town square of Mindelo has his bust of him, and Angola has a region named after him. 503 This is not to imply that only whites and mestiços were slavesowners; in early 1600s, the Jesuit priest Father Barreira noted that “negros” owned slaves in Cape Verde. See, Antonio Carreira, Notas Sobre O Tráfico Português de Escravos (Lisbon, Portugal: Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1983, 2º ed.), 95-96. Carreira argues that people of all color, white, brown, and black, as well as rich or not-so-well-off owned slave. Even freed slaves would try to obtain slaves, if possible, because it symbolized high status in Cape Verde and other cases in Atlantic world (e.g., Brazil). Carreira believes that slavery was the order of the day, and those that wanted slaves did not consider color a barometer of difference or identity. However, who became slaves was racialized.

184 504 1857, the Praia City County Administration listed the population of the town of Praia as the follows: 221 Europeans; 1,302 “indigenous”; and 472 slaves out of 1,995

505 inhabitants.

Figure 15. Three Social Classes in Cape Verde: Slave-Owner, Freed Slave, and

Slave

(Source from the National Archive of Cape Verde.)

Figure 15 shows that the three classes corresponded to three different clothing styles. The slaveholder, usually of European descent, is dressed in European clothing.

Freed black women and female slave wear some type of panu clothing. Europeans tended to assume the highest echelons of power in Cape Verde and some were slaveholders.

Thus, the Junta’s descriptions of the stories and complaints must be read with skepticism without dismissing all the stories, such as the sketches of the plight of slaves, otherwise

504 This would only correspond to the , which is the main business district area of Praia today. 505 Boletim Official do Governo Geral a Provincia de Cabo Verde (BOGGCV), Numero 18, 1857, 91.

185 these marginalized people would remain nameless and voiceless in the annals of Cape

506 Verdean history. The baptismal records, book of slave registry, and the Boletim

Official Governor Geral de Provincia de Cabo Verde (Official Bulletin of the Province of Cape Verde), and the Junta’s deliberations allows some micro-history and biographical outlines that help us understand macro-structural developments, which is new to the study of slavery in Cape Verde.

In this chapter, the focus is on the creation of the Junta and the social consequences for slaves, freed people, and slaveholders. First, an introduction of the establishment of the Junta is provided. Second, the chapter explores the issues of the manumission of minors promulgated by a new law, which required baptismal and

507 godparents to purchase their godchildren’s freedom. Third, the social effects of the

Junta is interrogated, particularly the issues of manumission, inheritance, and complaints.

Fourth, the chapter examines the issues of crime, punishment, and exile as they related to slaves, freed people (liberto), and freeborn people. Within the abolition strategy of the

Portuguese Empire, Cape Verde’s strategy for ending slavery was similar to the gradual and legalistic abolition of slavery in Angola, São Tomé, and other Portuguese possession, particularly with the omnipresent specter of the British Empire exerting pressure on the

Portuguese Empire to end the slave trade. Moreover, the exiling of “criminals” to Upper

Guinea followed patterns to that of other Portuguese possessions, such as Brazil, São

Tomé, and Angola, as well as Portugal itself.

506 Cláudio Alves Furtado, “Raça, Classe e Etnia Nos Estudos e Em Cabo Verde: As Marcas do Silêncio,” Afro-Ásia 45 (2012): 143–71. 507 For baptismal and manumission under Portuguese colonial rule, see, José C. Curto, ““As If From A Free Womb”: Baptismal in the Conceição Parish, Luanda, 1778–1807,” Portuguese Studies Review 10, no. 1 (2002): 26–57.

186 Creation of the Junta

On March 1, 1856, António Maria Barreiros Arrobas, general governor of Cape

Verde, noted that the Ministry of Trade of Marine and Overseas enacted the Decree of

December 14, 1854, which was to promote the freeing and protection of slaves and freed

508 persons in overseas provinces. In order to verify the manumission of slaves, the

509 Decree stipulated that slaveholders must register a title for their slaves. This would create the only substantial slave census for Cape Verde.

On November 12, 1856, in Praia, Barreiros Arrobas, governor general of Cape

Verde, demanded that “all the authorities” of his government cooperate with the

“solicitations” made by the interim president of the Junta to comply with the Decree.510

As the architect of the Decree, Bernardo de Sá Nogueira de Figueiredo (but commonly referred to as Sá de Bandeira), in December 1856, reaffirmed that the Junta was created

with special coffers, to apply manumission for infants age 5 (or younger) along with baptism and payment of 5,000 réis to the slave owner in compliance with Article 30 of the Decree; help slaves; promote freedom of slaves; calculate each semester a disposable amount for next the semester to apply for manumission; they should make semiannual reports in compliance with Article 44 by providing detailed accounts of cases of 511 manumission.

The state imposed a tax of 200 réis on each freed slave, regardless of age or sex, although

512 individuals age 50 and older were exempted.

508 BOGGCV, Numero 185, 1856, 793–4. 509 BOGGCV, Numero 187, 1856, 815. 510 BOGGCV, Numero 200, Anno 1856, Sexta Feira 14 de Novembro, 919. 511 BOGGCV, numero 11, 1857, 50–51. 512 BOGGCV, numero 52, 1869, 302.

187 Another focus of the law was to control the movement of slaves and end internal slavery in the archipelago. There were a series of decrees December 10, 1836, July 25,

1842, February 21, 1851, and finally, March 17, 1852), which basically stated that families that owned slaves could travel intra-island, but only with two slaves per family,

513 and only with the consent of the slave owner. Entering and departing the different islands, the slaveholder’s family had to provide title of the slaves. In March 1857,

Arrobas notified the local authorities that the ordinance of the Ministry of Marine and

Overseas, no. 44 (March 10, 1857), “prohibited the entry of slaves to the island of São

Vicente,” whether from other islands from Cape Verde or the pontas [estates] of

514 Portuguese Guinea.” Although slavery and the entry of slaves were prohibited there, manumission records reveal that slaves were liberated in São Vicente, which meant that some slaves did enter the island. São Vicente was the last of the inhabited islands to be settled, beginning in the late 1700s. The justification for barring slavery and entry of slaves was that São Vicente had been selected to become the new capital and form a new economy based on supplying (and functioning as a telegram center) to passing

European ships, particularly the British. Indeed, Sá de Bandeira renamed the town from

Leopoldina to Mindelo. In the praça of Mindelo, there is a bust in his honor.

513 BOGGCV, numero.177, 1855, 746. 514 BOGGCV, numero.177, 1855, 746.

188

Figure 16. Sá de Bandeira, Praça of Mindelo

(Source: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/8299984)

Enacting these laws, however, would prove difficult, especially in the initial phase, because making the Junta functional was a gradual process, and the appointments and nominations of officials became bureaucratic problems. On September 14, 1858 and

July 3, 1860, Pedro Marciano de Freitas Abreu, acting deputy crown attorney and

515 agriculture, was nominated to be secretary of the Junta. On December 19, 1861,

Carlos Augusto Franco, general governor of Cape Verde, said that Abreu’s first position was “incompatible” with the other two nominations. In the meantime, Abreu’s

516 replacement was Carlos Augusto.

Even after appointing a presiding officer for the Junta, on December 3, 1863,

Governor Franco proclaimed that the establishment of the Junta was not functional,

515 BOGGCV, numero 50, 1861, 229. 516 He should not be confused with the governor of Cape Verde, Carlos Augusto Franco.

189 517 despite the Decree of 1856. Franco said that this was a great “public failure” and that the local administration did not fulfill the mandate of the Royal Decree. Franco said that the Junta should be operational within two months. In part, the difficulty in implementing the Decree was due to reluctant officers and noncompliant subjects.

On February 25, 1859, for instance, the administration of the island of Maio noted that freed slaves resisted providing the mandatory seven years of service. “The

Administration of of Maio noted that the Ministry of Marine and Overseas stipulated that freed slaves under Article 29 and the only paragraph of the decree of

December 14, 1854 that slaves who obtained their freedom by the general law charter must serve mandatory seven years of service in conformity with regulation of October 25,

518 1853.”

There was a clarification of the law and Decree, which stated, “Besides slaves belonging to the state, and in the provinces, slaves under the custody of the local chambers/ and charity organization (Misericordias), upon obtaining

519 freedom, they must also serve the state or corporation.” The corporations were private entities not controlled by the state, such as properties of slave owners, which included slaves. Perhaps, these seven years of service or apprenticeship for freed slaves to their former owners created a dependency and paternalistic relation between the two sides. In

Post-emancipation period, some slaves adopted their master’s surname and remained

517 BOGGCV, numero 1, 1864, 1. 518 SGG Cx. N.º 576, P-04, avulso. Correspondência Recebida do Junta Protectora dos Escravos e Libertos, Fevereiro-Dezembro 1857, 7 peças (avulso): originais e cópias manuscritos; Praia, Instituto de Arquivo Histórico Nacional de Cabo Verde (AHNCV). 519 BOGGCV, Numero 199, 1856, 910.

190 very close to the family, maybe, due to survival strategies. For instance, Américo C.

Araújo, a native of Fogo recalls:

At the home of my paternal grandfather’s cousins, there was (I am ashamed to say) a slave who took as his legal name the name of one of my grandfather’s cousin, Alberto Barbosa Vicente, adding Junior to that name. His real African name, however, was Colán, and that was what he was known by in everyday living. Colán lived to be well over one hundred years old, so that I remember him from when I was a little boy. He must have been in his nineties, but was very vigorous and still worked as a butcher in the town’s slaughterhouse. Colán remained close to the family of his former master, passing on his for them through generations, including mine. He always watched over us, and we felt secure when we knew he was around. He passed on to his own children his love for us. To this day, they always seek us out whenever we go to Cape Verde, or send 520 us their regards through others.

521 In Cape Verde, slaves had been manumitted since the , but there was no legal framework that adequately addressed the treatment of slaves, freed and the eventual abolition of slavery. During the nineteenth century, the laws became clearer on slave

522 treatment. The Decree of 16 January 1837 stipulated that subdelegates of ordinary judges did not have jurisdiction to rule on matters pertaining to slaves fleeing their master to abstain from performing their obligations, but issues related to farming was the

520 Américo C. Araújo, Little Known, The European Side of Cape Verde Islands: A Contribution to the Knowledge of a People (New Bedford, MA: DAC, 2000), 175; also see 177–8. 521 António Carreira, Cabo Verde: formação e extinção de uma sociedade escravocrata (1460-1878) (Praia, Cape Verde: Instituto Caboverdeano do Livro, 1983); António Brásio, História e missiologia: inéditos e esparsos (Luanda, Angola: Instituto de Investigação Científica de Angola, 1973); Green, “Building Slavery in the Atlantic World”, 227–45. 522 The British efforts at abolition might have had some influence on this new legal precision that delineated the process of slaves seeking legal recourse and the programmatic implementation of abolishing slavery in the Portuguese Empire.

191 523 responsibility of the court judge. However, with the creation of the Junta, these issues would eventually be resolved though with slow-pace and favored the slave-owners.

Manumission and Ambivalent Freedom

The Law of July 24 and 25, 1855 declared that children of slave women born in

524 Portuguese overseas possessions were free. The Ministry of Marine and Oversea notified the Junta to comply with the law of June 30, 1856, which concerned the

525 manumission of slaves and children of slave women, by September 1857. Sá de

Bandeira emphasized that it was via baptism and payment that the children of slaves would be manumitted. The Decree of December 14, 1854, Article 6, title 2 stated that slaves that “belonged” to churches were also free.

Although Church records show that children of slave mothers were being baptized before this law was enacted, the incentive was now linked to the mother’s womb, i.e., slave child must be age 5 or younger, were eligible for manumission via baptism but with compensation due to the slave owner. Hence, baptism alone did not mean a slave child would be released from bondage or repatriated to his or her kin group. The law of manumission was based on remunerating the slaveholder. The local Church and the State continued to collaborate, just like when both sanctioned slavery, and now they were working together to abolish slavery. At the beginning of colonization of the Cape Verde with Catholicism as the official state religion, baptism meant becoming part of a new community with a new identity (i.e., African slaves were christened with a Christian

523 BOGGCV, numero.204, 1856, 945. 524 BOGGCV, numero 203, 1856, 939. 525 SGG Cx. N.º 576, P-04, avulso.

192 526 name). Now, it was being used as moral rhetoric to end their enslavement and create a new bourgeois colonial order.

The important people in the baptismal records were the godparents, who usually provided payment for the manumission. The notion of kinship as relates to godparents in these baptismal acts is not straightforward, but the godparents’ significance becomes apparent as some names reappear in baptismal manumission cases. Although there is a clear Catholic dimension, godparents were not seen exclusively from Catholic perspective, but rather in terms of fostership and kinship groups that were common in

Upper Guinea. In the secular realm, godparents served as part of a social network, and cemented social bonding and mutual aid. Thus, the following stories of slave children’s baptism represent the new initiative of abolition of slavery in Cape Verde with godparents playing a decisive role.

The Church was an important institution in ending slavery in Cape Verde and propagating the ideal identity of the masses. In January 1853, in the Nossa Senhora da

527 Graça (Our Lady of Grace) Church in Praia, M. Carmo, a female slave of Gregorio

528 Xavier, had a baby boy named Joaquim. On April 3, 1853, Joaquim was baptized and his godparents, Francisco João Pereira and Antonia Gonçalvez Pereira, paid 10,000 réis for his “freedom [liberdade] and manumission [alforio].” The sum was twice the amount

526 António Correia e Silva, “A sociedade Agrária, Gentes das Àguas: Senhores, Escravos e Forros,” in História Geral de Cabo Verde, 2nd ed., vol. II. Coordenação, Luís de Albuqerque and Maria Emília Madeira Santos (Lisbon, Portugal: Cenro de Estudos de História e Cartografia Antiga, Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical; Praia: Direcção Geral do Património Cultural de Cabo Verde, 1991), 313. 527 This is most likely Maria. 528 Cx. Nº.1, Peça N.º2, Conservatória dos Registos Centrais, 3.

193 for the prescribed manumission of children; however, this was before the creation of the

Junta. Perhaps liberdade was to remove the mandatory apprenticeship and alforio included mandatory service.

Some cases demonstrate baptism of slave child linked to manumission without providing any details about compensation, but clearly identified the godparents as an indication of compensation. In the Lady of Our Grace Church in Praia, on April 16, 1856,

Olimpia, slave of Gilberto da Silva, baptized her daughter Bernandina, who was born in

529 1855. With the agreement of the slave owner, the godparents, Bernando Jozé da Silva and Theresa Cacilda Medina “freed” Bernandina, but it does not state the amount paid.

For instance, on February 14, 1856, Domingas de Affonseca, slave of Marcelino Antonio

530 do Affonceca, gave birth to a boy named Valentin. In February 1856, his godparents,

Valentin Tavares Correia and Maria Jozé Ferreira, baptized him, enabling his manumission. Perhaps the mother named her son after the godfather. In a similar case in

531 March 1856, Jusana, slave of Antoni Francisco Costa, gave birth to Luisa. In June

1856, his godparents, João Cabral Franco and Guiomas Leopodina Abreu, baptized

Luisa, resulting in his manumission. However, the Junta also made payment: the law stipulated that if the godparents could not remunerate the slaveholders, the Junta would.

Although some slave owners did grant freedom without payment, baptismal records indicate that compensation was the most common path towards “freedom.”

529 Cx. Nº.1, Peça N.º2, Conservatória dos Registos Centrais, 37. 530 Cx. Nº.1, Peça N.º2, Conservatória dos Registos Centrais, 35. 531 Cx. Nº.1, Peça N.º2, Conservatória dos Registos Centrais, 37.

194 Other cases were implicit about payment by either godparents or the Junta by noting that slave children were manumitted in “accordance to the law.” i.e., baptism and remuneration. On January 19, 1857, in the same church in Praia, Isabel, slave of

532 Henrique José d’ Oliveira, baptized her daughter Mariana. The baptismal record stated that the child was freed in accordance with the law, which meant that her godparents,

Antonio Diogo and Maria das Dores Nascimento d’Oliveira, both natives of Portugal,

533 paid the required amount. Also in 1857, Lourenço Antonio de Lima and Henriqueta

Pereira da Fonseca freed their goddaughter, Elena, a daughter of Arcangela who was a

534 slave of Valentim Tavares Corrêa, in the same manner via baptism. Another example is from May 15, 1857: Maria Fonseca, who was a slave, gave birth to Amelia and with baptism on July 26, 1857, her baby was “freed in accordance with the law” by her

535 godparents Jozé Joaquim and Rita Gomes.

Other cases illustrate that godparents paid for manumission because local authorities received a receipt for the transaction. For instance, in January 1859,

Domingas, a slave of Luis Antonio Fortes, gave birth to Paulo, whom she baptized in

536 May 1859 at the church in Praia. That the “receipt” of payment presented to Luis

Antonio Fortes by Luis Mendes Lopes in accordance with the law testified to Paulo’s

532 Cx. N.1, Peça N. 2, Livro de 1855, f.46. 533 Cx. N.1, Peça N. 2, Livro de 1855, f.46. 534 Cx. N. 1, Peça N. 2, Livro de 1855, f.48. 535 Cx. N. 1, Peça N. 2, Livro de 1855, f.55. 536 Cx. N. 1, Peça N. 2, Livro de 1855, f.76.

195 537 manumission. His godparents, Pilinio Mendes and Maria Mendes Lopes, who were both from Praia, paid 5,000 réis, the amount stipulated by law. In addition, in July 1861,

Maria de Conceição, a slave of Pedro Luiz Cordeiro, had a baby girl named Henriqueta, and her godparents, Antonio João Menezes and Maria Purgueira de Jezus, paid Cordeiro

538 5,000 réis with baptism to manumit her in January 1862.

In September 1862, Maria Felicidade, a slave of Major Crato, gave birth to

Carolina, who was baptized. Crato received 5,000 réis, and Carolina was freed in October

539 1862. Major Jozé Xavier Crato was a prominent member of the military and a slaveholder, which I will discuss below (and in the next chapter). In May 1869, Major

Crato freed some of his other slaves, but the document does not indicate who remuneration, if any, for Francisco, Francisco dos Santos, Marçallo, Policarpo, Luiz

Antonio, Joaquim Pedro, Theodoro, Caetano, Felicidade, Antonia, Joanna, Violante,

540 Lucio, and Eugenia.

Other acts of manumission did indicate any godparents, compensation, or reference to “the law,” which suggests that slave owners granted manumission on their own volition, but this was the most unlikely path towards ‘freedom.’ In May 1858,

541 Banlha/Ganlla, a slave of Manoel Saches Freire, gave birth to a boy, Christened José.

537 Cx. N. 1, Peça N. 2, Livro de 1855, f.76. 538 Cx. Nº. 1, Peça N.º 2, Livro de 1855, f.130. 539 Cx. Nº. 1, Peça N.º 2, Livro de 1855, f.145. 540 BOGGCV, Numero 38, 1869, 226. 541 Cx. Nº. 1, Peça N.º2, Livro de 1855, f.66.

196 542 In June 1858, José was “freed in the act of baptism with the consent of his owner.”

Likewise, in May 1862, Maria da Graça, slave of Luis João Pinto, gave birth to Eugenia.

543 By receiving a baptism in August 1862, her slave owner manumitted Eugenia. Neither case acknowledged any godparents or reference to “the law.” Unless the Junta recompensed the slaveholders, the latter gratuitously freed their slaves.

Table 1. Slave Children Recorded in the County Administration of the City of Praia of Santiago, March 1–30, 1863

Number Number Male Female Amount of Observations Of Slave of Emolument Holders Register for each ed Freed slave Persons 70 126 65 61 500 réis Amount Retained by the Junta: 31,500 réis

(Source: Boletim Official do Governo Geral da Provincia de Cabo-Verde, N. º 14, 1863, 76.)

“Freedom” was an ambivalent notion, because manumission did not mean the end of service to the owner or the state. In the Atlantic world, it was usually an apprenticeship of seven years, which was to inculcate the bourgeois notion of work and citizenry, because freed slaves tended to work for self-sustenance. The meaning of citizenship and freedom was still tied to religion, race, class, and social origin. In January

1863, the Junta stated that it should use the money in its coffers to free slaves, because slaves were petitioning for assistance on a daily basis, but the Junta also was cognizant of

542 Cx. Nº. 1, Peça N.º2, Livro de 1855, f.66. 543 Cx. Nº. 1, Peça N.º2, Livro de 1855, f.145.

197 544 its budgetary limitation in order to have money for other expenses. Privately owned slaves could purchase their freedom, but state-owned slave were automatically manumitted. Freed slaves carried a carta de liberdade (freedom letter) to prove their new status. Conflict and tension ensued due to price dispute for manumission and when libertos, freed slaves, had to perform the mandatory seven years of service. Slaves also filed petitions about harsh treatment and refused to do work, and slaves attempted to benefit from the new legislations by interpreting the new laws to their advantage. Finally, the government also emancipated some slaves when the Junta and individual efforts were not enough, particularly regarding special cases.

In March 1859, the Junta demonstrated the difficulty in complying with the

Ordinance of the Ministry of Marine and Oversea (Ministerio da Marinha e Ultramar).

The case involved ten freed slaves that were to serve as sailors (marinheiroz d’ Armada) under the commander of the Sado War Brig (Commandante do Brigue de Guerra

545 Sado). In accordance with Article 29 of the Decree of December 14, 1854, the local administrator of the island of Maio (Concelho de Maio) stipulated that the freed slaves

546 should follow this order. In Maio, Manoel Loff, a liberto, pulled out a knife and demanded his freedom rather than becoming a sailor. The local authorities of Maio deemed Manoel Loff’s reaction as menace to the social harmony of the island and

544 SGG, Cx. N.º 576, P-09, Correspondência Recebida do Junta Protectora dos Escravos e Libertos da Provincia de Cabo Verde, Janeiro-Outubro 1865, 3 peças; originais e cópias manuscritos. 545 SGG Cx. N.º 576, P-04, avulso; about African slave sailors, see, Mariana P. Candido, “Different Slave Journeys: Enslaved African Seamen on Board of Portuguese Ships, c.1760–1820s,” Slavery and Abolition 31, no. 3(2010): 395–409. 546 Those freed had to provide seven years of service.

198 submitted a petition to the Junta. Libertos contested this type of freedom, which was an apprenticeship. The local authorities of Maio sent Manoel to Praia, the capital, on the schooner Abelha for deliberation by the Junta, claiming that his act disturbed “public tranquility.”

In May 1858, the reverend bishop of Cape Verde presided over a complaint by

547 Pedro Semedo Cardozo that his liberto, Antonio, “refused to work.” The Junta stated that libertos might be reluctant to work, but that the law obligated them for continued service. Once manumitted, libertos were sometimes sent to another island to complete their service. For instance, in 1868, the Junta mentioned that some freed slaves were sent

548 to Sal, which included Cecilio, a liberto of Pedro Semedo Cardozo.

The colonial government implemented “public works” by conscripting members of the lower classes. In July 1864, on Maio Island, the colonial state used slaves for

549 “public works” because their owners could not sustain them during the “crisis,” i.e., the chronic drought and famine in the archipelago. However, 156 slaves were “excluded” from this work, because former slaves “complained” that their slave owners abandoned

550 them anticipating the rainy season (as aguas). The Junta emphasized the potential for

547 SGG, C. N.º576, P-05, Correspondência Recebida do Junta Protectora dos Escravos e Libertos, Junho-Dezembro 1858, 5 peças (avulso); originais e cópias manuscritos; AHNCV. 548 SGG, Cx.576, P-12, avulso. 549 SGG, Cx. N.º 576, P-08. 550 In Kabuverdianu, as aguas not only means “rains” but the time of planting and connotes hope and inspiration, because with rain there is opportunity and the possibility for reaping the harvest and, therefore, an abundance of food. The chronic drought, which has historically led to famines, created a certain type of fatalistic and perhaps nihilistic attitude. Perhaps, as aguas is its counterpart.

199 “robbery” by and of depraved slaves. Given the owner’s negligence for food provisions during famine, slaves rebelled by using violence to survive.

The Junta’s greatest complaints concerned disputes over the price of manumission, because slaves were anxious to take advantage of the law to quickly secure their freedom. Lucas Augusto, a slave of Libania Amarante Augusto, exemplifies the struggle for adequate compensation. In December 1864, the Junta considered Lucas

Augusto’s petition regarding the price of his manumission. Libania requested 20,000 réis

551 for freeing Lucas, who apparently found this too expensive. The Junta resolved the quarrel, but as a liberto he still had to agree to the seven years of mandatory service to his

552 former owner. From Praia, the Junta sent Lucas Augusto to Sal. Perhaps the Junta paid for the remaining amount, and Lucas worked in Sal collecting salt, which was one of the main exports of that island. There were several prominent slaveholders that had a significant number of slaves and there were disputes over price, and I will provide details about these cases.

In São Nicolau Tolentino Parish, part of Praia County in Santiago, Dona Maria de

Santa Frederico was a prominent woman and slaveholder. In the Lusophone Atlantic world, people used the title dona to indicate respect for women of high status. Dona

Frederico had at least twenty-one slaves. In a baptismal record of São Nicolau Tolentino,

551 SGG, Cx. N.º 576, P-09. 552 SGG, Cx.576, P-12, Correspondência Recebida do Junta Protectora dos Escravos e Libertos da provinica de Cabo verde, Janeiro-Dezembro 1868, 8 peças, f.6; originais e cópias manuscritos. AHN, Praia.

200 553 it notes that she was “the fourth in filiations of all the parish.” Perhaps Dona Frederico was a Church enthusiast, but she was also very concerned with the material goods of life.

In December 1868, the Junta had a hearing concerning a petition made by Paulo, a slave of Dona Maria de Santa Frederico, in a dispute regarding the price for

554 manumission. Eduardo José Rodrigues Fernandes, secretary of the Junta, who owned

555 at least two slaves, had written to the judge of São Nicolau Tolentino Parish (Maria de

Santa Frederico’s residency at Agoa de Gato fell under that jurisdiction) to uphold or

556 dismiss the amount of 40,000 réis, which the Junta deemed fair. In 1868, in São

Nicolau Tolentino Parish, Joaquim Pereira de Carvalho was the justice of the peace (juiz de paz) and José Antonio Frederico and Francisco de Barros Souza were the

557 substitutes. The judge that Fernandes wrote to was probably Carvalho. At any rate,

Paulo had paid 30,060 réis for his freedom, but the slave curator explained that his owner

558 demanded 80,000 réis. In December 1868, the Junta said that the price was

“excessive”; the local judge of São Nicolau Tolentino and Junta finally agreed to a

559 “maximum” price of 40,000. Dona Maria de Santa Frederico consented to the new price, prompting the Junta to demand that Paulo give the remaining balance of 9,940 réis.

At the end of the deliberations, the Junta recommended that the governor uphold the

553 n.23, peça 2, Registo Civil da Praia,156. 554 SGG Cx. N.º 576, P-04, f.9. 555 BOGGCV, Numero 38, 1869, 226. 556 SGG Cx. N.º 576, P-04, f.11. 557 BOGGCV, Numero 48, 1868, 202. 558 SGG Cx. N.º 576, P-04, f.9 559 SGG Cx. N.º 576, P-04, avulso.

201 decision rather than “nullify” it, and they extolled the slave owners because Dona

560 Federico acquiesced to the ruling.

561 562 Dona Frederico’s female slaves, Marcella, Frederico, and Cecilia

563 Frere, had children. Despite the fact that the children had been baptized, there are no indications that Dona Frederico emancipated them. In October 1854, Marcella gave birth

564 to twins, Luis and Maria. In January 1855, Marcella baptized her twins. Their godfather was Luis João de Carvalho, a resident of Penda, and the twins had two godmothers, Maria Claudio Semedo, a resident of Tamosisra, and Luduvina Lopes, a resident of Pinha. The document does not explain the reason behind the selection of two godmothers but only one godfather. The baptism of the twins in 1855 occurred before the

Law of the Womb of 1856.

Even with the enactment of the Law of the Womb, the children of Dona

Frederico’s female slaves remained in slavery. In May 1864, her slave, Carlota Frederico, had a baby girl, Maria. In May 1864, Carlota baptized her daughter with the assistance of her godfather, Ijedoro Rodrigues, and her godmother, Maria Rosa Gomes; both were from São Nicolau Tolentino and native to the island of Santiago. Again, there was no manumission. In February 1868, Cecilia Frere gave birth to a boy, Nicolau. In April

1868, Cecilia Frere baptized Nicolau; again, the child remained in bondage. However, in

560 SGG Cx. N.º 576, P-04, f.10. 561 Caixa n.23, peça 1, Registo Civil da Praia, 98. 562 Caixa n.23, peça 2, Registo Civil da Praia, Assentos de Baptismos, de S. Nicolau Tolentino, 08 de Setembro de 1858 a 20 de Março de 1870, 90. 563 Caixa n.23, peça 2, Registo Civil da Praia, 156. 564 Caixa n.23, peça 1, Registo Civil da Praia, 98.

202 May 1869, Dona Frederico liberated the following slaves: Felicianno, Adrianno,

Agostinho, Guilherme, Serafim, Cezar, Augusto, Anastacia, Jezuina, Julia, Maria

565 Guilhermina, Luiza, Joanna Ribeiro, José, Virginia, Catharina, Gloria, and Marcella.

It is most likely that Marcella was the mother of Luis and Maria.

Pedro Semedo Cardozo was slave-owner and a resident of Colegio in São Nicolau

566 Tolentino Parish. There was a João Jose Semedo Cardozo, resident of Colegio, who

567 was most likely his relative. The slave census of 1856 indicated that Pedro Semedo

Cardozo owned twenty-seven slaves. With the addition of Felizberta, he owned twenty-

568 eight, which was quite high for the Cape Verdean context.

565 BOGGCV, Numero 38, 1869, 227. The document is silent about restitution. 566 Caixa N.º 23, peça 02, Registo Civil da Praia, Assentos de Baptismos, Freguesia de S. Nicolau Tolentino, 08 de Setembro de 1858 a 20 de Março de 1870, 200 Folhas. Originais Manuscritos, folha 178 verso. 567 Caixa N.º 23, peça 02, Registo Civil da Praia, f.117. 568 Hence, twelve of the slaves were from Guiné.

203

Table 2. Pedro Semedo Cardozo’s Slaves’ Background

Name Born Age Skin Color Occupation 569 Mathias Guiné 40 preto farmer Dionizio Guiné 40 fula farmer Pedro São Tiago 41 fula farmer Francisco São Tiago 21 fula carpenter Noberto São Tiago fula farmer Candido Guiné 46 fula pastoralist Cezilo São Tiago 24 fula Jozé Guiné 20 fula Thomas Guiné 74 farmer Ambrozio São Tiago 3 preto Claudino São Tiago 2 preto Nicolau São Tiago Five months mulata Felipa São Tiago 47 preta Violante São Tiago 31 preta Jezufina São Tiago 21 preta Luiza Guiné 24 preta Camila São Tiago 18 preta Theodora São Tiago 15 fula Maria da Guiné 47 preta Conceição Constança São Tiago 26 preta Gregoria São Tiago 28 preta Thereza São Tiago 22 Joaquina Guiné 34 preta Francisca Nº 1 Guiné 34 preta Francisca Nº 2 Guiné 32 preta Marcelina Guiné 10 preta Roza Guiné 36

The census indicated that Roza paid 30,000 réis for her manumission on July 4,

570 1867. However, the road to manumission for Roza was a decade-long legal battle. In

1857, when Metheuz Severino de Avellar was curator of slaves and libertos, he noted that

569 In general, there was a three-color code system in the slave census: preta (black), mulata (light-skin), and fula (brown). The Portuguese believed that some ethnic Fula were not “jet black,” whereas slaves, whether born in Cape Verde or from Upper Guinea, were sometimes described as cor fula (fula color). 570 SGG\F2.2\Lv0863, folha 11 frente (f)-f.14v.

204 Roza, a slave owned by Pedro Semedo Cardozo, went to Avellar’s house and gave him

20,000 réis in the presence of Thomas da Costa Ribeiro and Evaristo António Ramos de

571 572 Figueiredo to buy her freedom. Avellar wrote to Cardozo inquiring about the price that Cardozo required for Roza’s freedom.

About ten years later, in July 1867, the Junta was considering the circumstances of this case, because the amount given to the former curator of slaves was a matter of contention. Avellar testified that he delivered 20,000 réis to Cardozo; Roza stated that she had given 90,000 réis to Avellar. Evaristo António Ramos de Figueiredo allegedly received “a certain amount” from Roza. Cardozo claimed to have kept 20,000 réis for manumission. Roza paid more to Evaristo, who transferred the money to her slave owner, but Cardozo said that 5,006 réis remained for Roza’s emancipation. It is difficult to discern the truth, but after ten years, Roza was insisted on her position, despite facing very powerful men. If she was fabricating the story, she was quite courageous.

Pedro Semedo Cardozo’s female slaves had children. The mothers baptized their children, yet Cardozo did not manumit them, which implies that he demanded indemnification. For example, Cardozo’s female slave Francisca Semedo had a baby boy,

573 574 Anibal. In October 1858, Anibal’s godparents, Thomas da Costa Ribeiro and

571 These two men must have been of high social standing in Praia. 572 SGG, Cx.576, P-011, Correspondência Recebida do Junta Protectora dos Escravos e Libertos da Provincia de Cabo Verde, Incl. regulamento da Junta Dezembro 1866– Setembro 1867, 7 peças; originais e cópias manuscritos. 573 Caixa, n.23, peça 2, Registo Civil da Praia, Assentos de Baptismos, Freguesia de S. Nicolau Tolentino, 08 de Setembro de 1858 a 20 de Março de 1870, f1. Originais Manuscritos. 574 This must be the same Thomas da Costa Ribeiro who was present when Roza, a slave of Pedro Semedo Cardozo, paid Avellar for her freedom.

205 Henriqueta Leopoldin de Mendonça, both from Colegio and natives of Santiago, baptized her at the São Nicolau Tolentino Church, yet without obtaining freedom.

In a baptismal record, Maria Joaquina was listed as a native of Guiné and a

575 “servant of Pedro Cardoso.” In January 1868, Maria gave birth to a baby boy,

576 Sebastino, described as being born a slave. In June 1868, in the São Nicolau Tolentino

Church, Father Pedro Rodrigues Tavares baptized Sebastino. “The godparents were José

Bernardo Rodrigues, a farmer, resident of Fegueira Branca and Roza Maria Tavares,” a

577 slave of Father Tavares, a resident of Colegio, both natives of Guinea. In July 1870,

578 Maria Joaquina gave birth to a baby girl. Joaquina, however, was listed as resident of

São Felippe and liberto of Pedro Semedo Cardozo. With her “freedom,” she no longer lived in Colegio with her master. Presumably she still worked from him, but preferred to live in a different place. In July 1870, in Our Lady of Grace Church in Praia, Father

Simeão Gomes Correa, baptized and christened the baby girl as Maria. The godfather was

João Tavares and the godmother was Joanna Maria; both were single and farmers.

Finally, in December 1868, Felizberta, a female slave of Semedo Cardozo, had a

579 baby boy. In February 1869, the boy was christened Januario. His godparents were

Lucio Lopes and Archangela Lopes, both single and residents of Colegio. Once again,

575 Caixa, n.23, peça 2, Registo Civil da Praia, 161v. 576 Caixa, n.23, peça 2, Registo Civil da Praia, 161v. 577 Caixa, n.23, peça 2, Registo Civil da Praia, 161v. The mother and the godparents of Sebastino were from Guiné. Perhaps this was similar to what Walter Hawthorne argues, i.e., that Upper Guinean slaves in Maranhão married slaves from their region rather than marrying strictly from their own ethnic groups; see, Hawthorne, From Africa to Brazil, 179–81. 578 Caixa, n.1, peça 2, Livro No.3, Registo Civil da Praia, 77. 579 Caixa, n.23, peça 2, Registo Civil da Praia, 178v.

206 Cardozo did not grant manumission. As one can see, for most slaveholders compensation was essential for manumission.

Slaves also tried to manipulate the new laws in their interest. For instance, the

Junta wrote that,

The slaves are indolent by nature, and the laws are incomprehensible to them; they understand that they have legal protection, and they assume they should not work for their owners and that slave owner cannot obligate them to work, because they will not obey the owners, which results in disobedience. The owners punishes them, but slaves argued that the laws 580 prohibit them being physically punished.

The Junta emphasized that slaves should be protected in conformity with the new law, but they should also be punished when they commit a crime. According to the Junta, “in

Angola, S. Thome and other Portuguese possessions, where there is still slavery, they are

581 corporally punished, in accordance to the crime they committed.” The Junta articulated religious and moral parameters to restrict any severe physical punishment in according with with Decree of December 16, 1854.

Besides issues of money, the Junta received complaints from slaves and other entities. In Praia, on April 9, 1859, Thereza, a slave owned by Maria da Conceição, filed a complaint with the governor general counsel (Conselheiro Governador Geral) that

Maria “maltreated” her by inflicting injuries. Subsequently, the case was sent to the

Junta. Maria claimed that Thereza “slowly” inflicted injuries to her hands and feet with

580 SGG, Cx. N.º 576, P-09. 581 SGG, Cx. N.º 576, P-09.

207 582 the purpose of not doing work. Maria da Conçeião allegedly claimed that her neighbor Maria Ignocencia witnessed this and notified another neighbor, José Sanches.

Apparently, a person named Barbara also “testified” that Thereza “was not touched and not even threaten[ed].” Maria Ignocencia confirmed Maria da Conçeião’s statement.

When the Junta interrogated Thereza, she confessed to the falseness of her complaint.

The Junta said that this black woman “was so perverse” that she stole 600,000

583 réis from her owner’s money hidden in a tin can on top of a table a few days later. She fled to the backyard of the house with the tin can, cracked it open, and stole and hid the money. Apparently, Maria da Conçeião confronted her, but Thereza did not confess. Her owner found most of the money buried but Thereza adamantly denied any guilt. The rest of the money was found with a third person. The Junta recommended an adequate punishment. The punishment might have been corporeal or some jail time, which was common for individuals convicted of crimes.

The Junta also heard cases about the legality of the enslavement of some slaves.

On May 3, 1862, in Praia, the Junta began deliberating the legal status of Domingos, a

584 slave of Agostinho José Rodriguez, resident of Santiago. They made their decision on

May 8, 1862. The Junta noted that the secretary of the general governor had not registered Domingos. Domingos was a native of Bissau, but was not counted by customs

582 SGG, C. N.º576, P-06, Correspondência Recebida do Junta Protectora dos Escravos e Libertos da provincia de Cabo Verde, Março-Junho 1859, 6 peças (avulso); originais e cópias manuscritos; AHNCV. 583 SGG, C. N.º576, P-06. 584 SGG, Cx. N.º 576, P-04, Correspondência Recebida do Junta Protectora dos Escravos e Libertos, Fevereiro–Dezembro 1857, 7 peças (avulso): originais e cópias manuscritos AHNCV.

208 585 when he entered Cape Verde with Lieutenant Colonel Aloves da [Piola Deziasasky].

586 Domingos came from Bissau in 1845 on the Portuguese war grig, Vouga. The Junta argued that it did not have the documents to determine his freedom. If the documentation of his registration existed, it was “inadvertently” given to the curator of slaves. In other words, the bureaucracy could not locate his documents, which made determining his status difficult. Eventually, the Junta noted that a certain certificate demonstrated that

587 José was “imported by contraband.” The Decree of 1836 banned the importation and exportation of slaves in Portuguese possessions. Because of this, the Junta decided that

Domingos technically arrived as a free person. Moreover, Agostinho José Rodriguez did

588 not have the right to register Domingos with the Slave Registry. On May 23, 1862,

Junta said that Agostinho should properly register Domingos and “obtain clarification in

589 the documents.”

Even slaveholders petitioned the Junta for assistance. On January 14, 1862,

Antonio da Costa Ferreira Borges petitioned the Junta to have José, a liberated slave who

585 SGG, Cx. N.º 576, P-07, Correspondência Recebida do Junta Protectora dos Escravos e Libertos, Janeiro–Dezembro 1862, 7 peças (avulso): originais e cópias manuscritos AHNCV. 586 SGG, Cx. N.º 576, 07. 587 SGG, Cx. N.º 576, 07; António Carreira, “O Tráfico clandestine de escravos na Guiné e em Cabo Verde no século XIX,” in Raízes, n.º 5/6, 1978, Ano 2, Praia: Imprensa Nacional. Perhaps José was a victim of this clandestine slave trade, which was mainly from Nunes River of the Upper Guinea that was sent to Cuba and Brazil. Caetano José Nosoliny was a prominent slave trader with family connections in Santiago. 588 SGG, Cx. N.º 576, 07. 589 SGG, Cx. N.º 576, 07.

209 590 was a native of Bissau, to be sent to his homeland. Jose was hospitalized, but Borges complained that this was a financial burden for him. Hence, Borges argued that his former slave was “deranged” and he pleaded with the Junta to assist José’s return to his homeland where he could best convalesce. Borges might have been more concerned about what this freed slave was costing him than José’s heath. The document does not provide José’s ethnic group or his exact homeland in the Guinea-Bissau region.

Moreover, the document is silent about his age or if he had another name. José had been in Cape Verde for about seventeen years.

The Junta also paid for the manumission of adults. Gregorio was a native of

591 Santiago, age 26, black, and owned by João Cabral Franco. On April 26, 1863, in the praça across the street from Our Lady of Grace Church in Praia, Franco auctioned

Gregorio to Francisco Cardozo de Mello. With Mello’s death, his son, Francisco, inherited Gregorio. On December 3, 1867, Gregorio paid 50,000 réis, with the Junta providing 15,000 réis, for his manumission. In another case, the Junta manumitted Luiz, who was the slave of Jozé Monteiro d’ Almeida, a resident of São Thiago Corado Parish

592 on July 14, 1866. Luiz was a mason, a native of Guiné, and age 26 with “facial markings.”

Although issue of inheritance, such as the case of Gregorio, could be straightforward, other cases were complicated and people sought assistance from the

Junta. On , 1869, the Junta considered an application by Dionizia Sanches

590 SGG, Cx. N.º 576, 04. 591 SGG\F2.2\Livro (Lv) 0863, 27 v. 592 SGG\F2.2\Lv0863, 29v.

210 Lopes and Maria dos Reis da Fonseca that demanded “manifesto” (pronouncement) concerning three freed slaves, Athanasio, Antonio, and Lucas, who were owned by

593 Antonio Lopes da Costa. The three slaves submitted documents requesting their freedom. The Junta noted that due to the “instructions of May 28, 1868 [they] denied the solicited registration because there was a lack of endorsement of past manifestos by the

594 requesters.” This referred to Article 6 of Decree of October 28, 1857, which stipulated that a new “possessor” must register the slave as evidence before manumission. Because

Antonio Lopes da Costa died after the proclamation of the Decree of February 25, 1868,

595 the documents were deemed “insufficient.” The Junta noted that Antonio Lopes da

Costa had died “more than four years ago,” which meant Dionizia and Maria’s petition for these slaves was legally difficult to succeed. The resolution was that “legitimate heirs to the couple’s assets” prevailed rather than the unlawfully submitted manifesto.

On October 2, 1865, the Junta said that a plethora of slaves lodged grievances

596 daily about lack of sustenance as well as maltreatment. The Junta emphasized that when both sides of the stories (from slaveholders and slaves) were heard that the majority of the complaints were false. The Junta adjudication was quite prejudicial because those deliberating were well established and some were slaveholders.

In addition to manumissions being issued by the Junta, the governor-general also provided freedom letters for slaves. In 1856, Francisco Alberto Azevedo, a resident of

593 SGG, Cx. N.º576, P-07, f4. 594 SGG, Cx. N.º576, P-07, f4v. 595 SGG, Cx. N.º 576, P-07, f.4v. 596 SGG, Cx. N.º 576, P-09, Correspondênicia Recebida do Junta Protectora dos Escravos e Libertos da Provincia de Cabo Verde, Janeiro–Outubro 1865, 3 peças; originais e cópias manuscritos.

211 Praia, had six slaves. Four of them were from Guiné and the other two, Viriginia and

Julia, were born on São Tiago Island. Both under age 5, which suggests that their parents were one of his Guinean female slaves, Constança and/or Jozepha.

597 Table 3. Francisco Alberto Azevedo’s Slaves

Name Born Age Color Jozé de Guiné 20 fula Azevedo Pedro Guiné 20 preto Constança Guiné 30 fula Jozepha Guiné 30 preto Virginia São Tiago 4 preto Julia São Tiago 1 preto

598 The governor-general issued a freedom letter for Pedro. In May 1863, the local authorities altered this information in the slave census of 1856, which means that Pedro was freed between 1856 and 1863. In January 1857, Francisco Alberto Azevedo freed his female slave, Constança, but the local authorities only added this information in the slave

599 census in May 1867. This was when the push to end slavery in Cape Verde was well underway and keeping updated records became crucial.

Others, nevertheless, were only freed when their owners perished, such as in

November 1859, wben the death of Maria da Penha Franco, a resident of Praia, freed

600 Rufino in her will. The latter was a male, from Guiné, age 35, and described as black.

Also, bizarrely in November 1859, Maria da Penha Franco Jaz, who was a slaveholder,

597 SGG\F2.2\Lv 0863, f.4f–4v. 598 SGG\F2.2\Lv 0863, f.2v. 599 SGG\F2.2\Lv 0863, f.2–2v. 600 SGG\F2.2\Lv 0863, folha 8 frente-f.8 v.

212 601 passed away. (This is not to be confused with Maria da Penha Franco who passed away on the same date.) In her will, Jaz emancipated Forentina, a woman, age 45, from

Guine, and also labeled black. Dona Anna de Mendonça, a resident of Colegio, divided

602 some of her slaves among her relatives in her will. According to the slave census of

1856, Dona Mendonça had eleven slaves: Paulo Semedo, Manoel, Maria, Jozepha, Maria

603 da Boa Esperança, Izabel, Aniceta, Felisberta, Ignes, Bernardina, and Sabina. Ignes was 20 years of age, born on São Tiago Island and described as fula. In May 1855, Ignes

604 had a baby named Bernardina, who was baptized in June 1855. The godparents were

Paulo Nunes and Maria Luanta, both residents of São Nicolau Colegio. Neither the baptismal record nor the slave census mentions her being manumitted. When Dona

Mendonça died, in February 1866, her daughter, Dona M. ª [Maria] Semedo Ferreira, inherited Izabel, who was from Guiné, age 50, and Ignes, a native of São Thiago, age 20, and described as fula. In February 1866, Pedro Semedo Cardozo inherited Felizberta, a

605 female slave from Guiné, age 21, and black. Therefore, manumission camegradually: despite founding of the Junta in 1856, slavery was not completely abolished until 1876.

Although obtaining freedom could be a legal nightmare, libertos, former owners, and the state had different notions of “freedom.” Thus, “freedom” created tensions and

601 SGG\F2.2\Lv 0863, folha 9 frente-f.9 v. 602 1856/03-1856/05, SGG\F2.2\Lv0863, Registo de escravos do Concelho da Vila da Praia (n.º2), Santiago, folha (f) 2. Originais manuscritos, n.º antigo 327. 603 SGG\F2.2\Lv0863, folha 2 frente and 2 verso. 604 Caixa n.23, peça 1, Registo Civil da Praia, Assentos de Baptismos, Freguesia de S. Nicolau Tolentino, 25 de Abril de 1849 a 28 de Janeiro de 1857, 105v. originais manuscritos. 605 SGG\F2.2\Lv0863, 2v.

213 conflicts. The state and the elites used free labor for their personal interests, and legal institutions, such as the Junta, usually provided control mechanisms. The colonial state inculcated that an exemplary “free” people were good citizens who perform work for the polity and those who freed them, whether state, private owners, or charity organizations.

The Catholic Church was instrumental in developing the “free” citizenry by serving as the institution via which manumission was conducted via baptism, but along with the state, it upheld the compensation to the slave-owners. It was, perhaps, a Portuguese

Catholic bourgeois notion of citizenry, which is different from the Weberian notion of a

Protestant work ethic. In the history of the Portuguese Empire, the discourse about the criminal exiles (degredados) was usually laced with religious overtones of impurities that required spiritual purification. James Sweet believes, that “The logic of banishment mirrored that of purgatory: Once cleansed of one’s sins after a period of strict penance, a

606 convict could reenter society and live an upright godly life.” Thus, slaves as heathens

(gentios) once freed (liberto), needed tutelage to become true citizens, i.e., civilized, which the mandatory service for freed persons entailed to accomplish.

Crime and Punishment: Slaves, Libertos, and (Poor) Free

The Junta meted out punishment not only to libertos who were “lazy” but also to those who committed “crimes.” There is a direct link between slaves and prisoners, because the curator of slaves was also the curator of poor prisoners (curador de escravo e presos pobres). Other institutions, such as the judicial system, also controlled “deviant” behavior through public executions, fines, exile, and imprisonment. The main culprits— and receivers of punishment—were slaves, libertos, and poor freeborn, who represented

606 James Sweet, Domingos, Álvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press), 186.

214 the bulk of the population. Rebellious people and those deemed criminals in Cape Verde

607 were a reservoir of foot soldiers. On June 5, 1855, the Junta of Justice deliberated the

608 cases of accused people that included free, slaves, and libertos. The members of the

Junta of Justice were from the elites of the society: the president (who was the general governor counsel [Conselheiro Governador Geral]); Dr. judge of rights of Leeward

County (Juiz de Direito da de Sotavento); a judge (Juiz), and referendary

(Relator) of the criminal cases from Windward Chamber (Comarca de Barlavento); Dr.

José Maria Pinto da Costa, deputy attorney of the Windward Region (Delegado do

Procurador Regio de Barlavento); judge and teferendary of the processes from the

Leeward Region; additional judges were Lieutenant-Colonel Francisco de Paulo Brito,

609 Lieutenant-Coronel Henrique José d’Oliveira, Major Antonio Ferreira Quaresma,

Second Lieutenant Antonio Teive de Vasconcellos (as secretary). Captain Izidoro José de

Sousa Carvalho replaced Second Lieutenant Vasconcellos as secretary due to an

“impediment.” From June 1860 through April 1861, Dr. José Maria da Costa presided over the cases from the Leeward Islands County (Comarca de Sotavento).

Exile in the Portuguese Empire was used extensively and later colonial powers, such as the British and the French, used it in Africa and other regions. Just like in Brazil

607 Peter Beattie, The Tribute of Blood: Army, Honor, Race, and Nation in Brazil, 1864– 1945 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001; Beattie, “‘Born Under the Cruel Rigor of Captivity, the Supplicant Left It Unexpectedly by Committing A Crime’: Categorizing and Punishing Slave Convicts in Brazil, 1830–1897,” The Americas 66, no. 1 (2009): 11– 55. 608 Boletim Official do Governo Geral de Cabo-Verde (BOGGCV), 1856, Numero 187, 819. 609 In 1868, Henrique José de Oliveira was the equivalent of the mayor (president de camara municipal) of Praia. In 1868, Egidio Antonio de Souza, treasurer of the Junta, had died and the Junta nominated Henrique José de Oliveira as treasurer.

215 and Portugal, degredados were sent to Africa; Cape Verde sent them to mainly

Portuguese Guinea. In Brazil, there were loose vagrancy laws that restricted movements

610 and gathering of people to acquire people to serve in Angola. The number of convicts sent to West Africa shows that the colonial government desperately needed foot soldiers in the praças, especially those who were resistant to , i.e., Africans. In Cape

Verde, sending exiles to the mainland started with the colonization of the archipelago during the late fifteenth century. Exile was an important factor for commercial activities

(i.e., slave trade and “legitimate” trade) and to wage a war of terror to that eventually would consolidate Portuguese Guinea. In October 1861, in Praia, Carlos Augusto Franco, governor of Cape Verde, emphasized the need to establish with “urgency” a regular means of communication between the fledgling Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde. (The

611 Bissau war schooner would provide communications. ) Finally, the governor suggested that regular communication would be good not only for the two colonies, but for commerce, which had declined in recent times.

In Cape Verde, criminals were sent to Portuguese Guinea, which continued the centuries old cross-cultural exchanges of ideas, items, and people between the coast and

612 the islands. For instance, on March 1, 1853, Custodio Correâ “enlisted” and served

610 Roquinaldo Ferreira, Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World: Angola and Brazil during the Era of the Slave Trade (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012) 192–3. 611 BOGGCV, N.42, 1861, 181. 612 In fact, it continued during the colonization of Guinea-Bissau with soldiers from Cape Verde participating in the war of conquest and seventy-five percent of the chefe de post (intermediary colonial bureaucrats were Cape Verdeans); see Peter Mendy, “Amilcar Cabral and the Liberation of Guinea-Bissau: Context, Challenges, Lessons for Effective African leadership,” African Identities 4, no. 1 (2006): 10.

216 until March 1, 1860. Claudio Sanches, Gaspar Antonio José, and Manoel Roballo served

613 seven years. The colonial secretary general document does not allow us to determine if they were exiles, but many soldiers were. In Portuguese Guinea, some slaveholders from Cape Verde commanded the fighting forces of degredados that consisted of free poor individuals, slaves, and libertos.

In 1861, for instance, Major José Xavier Crato, a major slaveholder and graduated major of battalion of artillery of Cape Verde (Mayor Graduado do Batalhão d’Artilheria

614 de Cabo Verde) was nominated to be auditor for the War Councils. In February 1863,

Major Crato, acting as interim governor of Portuguese Guinea, ratified an old treaty of

615 1843 with the Felupe of Matta de Putama, which I will discuss in detail in chapter 5.

From at least 1862 to 1865, Major Jozé Xavier Crato led numerous military expeditions and signed treaties with African rulers. During this period, the Portuguese were at war with several African groups for which they desperately required foot soldiers.

For instance, in the military fort (presidio) of Geba, they were in conflict with the nearby

616 Beafadas of Badora. Major Crato was selected to head a delegation to Geba. From the

Portuguese perspective, this antagonism by Beafadas attacking the fort stifled trade, particularly because Cape Verdean/Portuguese merchants on the estates (pontas) had

613 Although records described these soldiers as having enlisted, they could have been exiled convicts, particularly given the fact that they each served exactly seven years. As noted above, liberated slaves had mandatory service of seven years. 614 BOGGCV, N.º 46, 1861, 215. 615 SGG, Cx. Nº 347, Peça 3; 1/41, “Tratados e contratos do Governo da Guiné Portuguesa, 1828–1879.” 1.5cm; originais e cópias manuscritos. 616 BOGGCV, N.º5, 1862, 27, Continuado do numero antecedente.

217 established themselves in the slave trade and were making the transition to “legitimate trade.”

The crimes for which exile could be imposed varied from minor to serious offenses, such as stealing, assault, political dissent, murder, and rape. A prominent case handled by the Junta concerned libertos from São Nicolau Island. In December 1857,

João Antonio Leite, an administrator for the Saint Nicholas County (Concelho de São

Nicolau), lodged a petition about libertos who had “abandoned” their masters and were

617 “robbing in the streets” and “turned vagabonds.” Leite requested that the Junta to deal with this “scandal” to bring “calm to the inhabitants of that island.” In December 1857,

Reverend Robert Fernandes Pinto, president of the Junta, wrote that it was beyond his authority to determine the “necessary punishment” for the libertos. Therefore, Pinto submitted the case to the governor general counsel (Conselheiro de Governador Geral) in

618 December 1857. In January 1858, Arroba, the governor of Cape Verde, wrote to the

Portuguese government seeking “authorization” for the Junta to send the libertos to a

619 “military colony” in the Rio Grande. The document is silent about the authorization, but given that there were cases from the Junta of Justice about exiled convicts sent to

West Africa, and that a major slaveholder, Major Crato, led a military expeditionary force from Cape Verde to Portuguese Guinea, it is highly unlikely that this request was denied.

At any rate, there are several cases of degredados sent to Upper Guinea or, as the record indicate, West Africa. Both serious and minor offenses received sentences of

617 SGG Cx. N.º 576, P-04, f.22–23. 618 SGG Cx. N.º 576, P-04, f.22–f.22v. 619 SGG Cx. N.º 576, P-04, f.22.

218 exile, which suggests that the criteria were flexible. For instance, in June 1855, the Junta of Justice found Tertuliano Pereira, a freeborn man and native of Brava Island, guilty of

620 theft and exiled him to Guinea for fifteen years, including one year of imprisonment.

In August 1859, the Junta of Justice charged João Furtado, a slave, with “injuring, which caused a death,” and in July 1860, sentenced him to “fifteen years to West Africa, with

621 work.”

In March 1858, the Junta of Justice indicted Victorino Cabral for causing an

622 injury that resulted in death of someone. In November 1860, they condemned

Victorino to five years exile to West Africa with imprisonment. There is a glaring discrepancy between Victorino Cabral and João Furtado’s sentences for similar crimes.

Furtado’s status as a slave might have affected his sentence or the person he killed was of relatively high class.

Frustrated homicide was the only other crime that a convicted individual received a longer period of exile. In January 1861, the Junta of Justice convicted Candido Timas

623 for “frustrated homicide,” with perpetual exile to West Africa. Others convicted of involuntary homicide were not permanently exiled to West Africa; evidently “frustrated homicide” and “involuntary homicide” were judged differently. “Frustated homicide” is when a person wrongs a second party, and the second party, due to frustration, kills a third party. “Involuntary homicide” is killing someone unintentionally. In the above

620 Boletim Official Governo Geral de Provincia de Cabo Verde (BOGGCV), 1855, Numero 187, 819. Housed in the Biblioteca Nacional e Livros de Cabo Verde, Praia. 621 BOGGCV, 1860, Numero 19, 83. 622 BOGGCV, N.º 21, 1861, 91. 623 From a legal perspective, it is a death that was unintended and not premeditated.

219 cases, the people that they killed were not mentioned in the proceedings; their backgrounds are unknown.

The Junta of Justice also sentenced people to exile for stealing, burglary, rape, and political dissent. Those convicted of burglary or stealing were often, exiled. In

January 1861, for instance, the Junta of Justice convicted Diogo de Sequeira for stealing

624 and gave him three years of exile to West Africa.

Exile was also a potential punishment for crimes of assault. Maria Gordiana was

625 indicted twice, in August 1859 and November 1859, for wounding someone. In July

1860, the Junta of Justice found Gordiana guilty, sentencing her to three years exile in

West Africa. Women were rarely exiled, but exile could be a consequence of commiting a severe crime. In December 1859, the Junta charged Ezequiel de Pina with injuring an individual; in November 1860, the court judge handed down a sentence of eight years

626 service in West Africa. In December 1860, Paulo Tavares was convicted of inflicting wounds on an unidentified individual and received five-year sentence to West Africa.

Banishment was not just to territories, but on the sea as well. For instance, in

627 January 1857, Francisco d’Araujo e Castro was charged with homicide. While his case was pending, Francisco was charged with another homicide in November 1858. In

December 1860, the Junta of Justice combined the charges, and sentenced him to ten

624 BOGGCV, N.º 21, 1861, 91. 625 BOGGCV, N.º 19, 1860, 83. 626 BOGGCV, N.º 21, 1861, 91. 627 BOGGCV, N.º 20, 1861, 87.

220 628 years of exile to East Africa, including five years of imprisonment. In July 1860, José

Senteio was convicted of killing an individual due to inflicted injuries; in December

1860, Senteio was sentenced to five years of exile as a soldier to East Africa, which

629 included two years of prison. In addition, on August 12, 1860, Roque Monteiro was charged with robbery; on November 15, 1860, he was found guilty and sentenced to five

630 years in East Africa, including time in prison. Perhaps Portuguese activities in East

Africa required degredados.

Another form of exile was at sea. In September 1860, Izidoro de Oliveira, Manoel

631 da Graça, and Antonio Mendes were charged with burglary. In March 1861, Izidoro de Oliveira and Manoel da Graça received sentences of “eight years of public works in the Overseas.” Antonio, however, was sentenced to eight years to East Africa, with three

632 years of jail time. Izidoro and Manoel may have served as sailors, while Antonio was banished to East Africa, which was uncommon, but he was not alone.

One case shows a politically motivated conviction. In March 1860, the court

633 judged charged Miguel Gomes, a Migeulinho (political dissident) with “injury.” In

November 1860, he was sentenced to West Africa for three years. Miguelinhos were of the 1817 Pernambuco Revolution that desired Pernambuco, a captaincy in northeastern colonial Brazil, to independent from Portugal. With the independence of

628 BOGGCV, N.º 21, 1861, 91. 629 BOGGCV, N.º 20, 1861, 87. 630 BOGGCV, N.º 20, 1861, 87. 631 BOGGCV, N.º 21, 1861, 91. 632 BOGGCV, N.º 21, 1861, 91. 633 BOGGCV, N.º 19, 1860, 83.

221 Brazil in 1822, in Praia, the capital of colonial Cape Verde, there was some agitation to

634 separate from Portugal and become a territory of the independent Brazil. Furthermore,

Roquinaldo Ferreira shows that the Brazilian quest for independence had a direct impact

635 on the Portuguese province of Angola. The African-Portuguese world had deep connections due to the existing trade (primary slave) network, primarily slave trade.

Notions of honor that related to female sexuality, perhaps, prevailed in the Afro-

Luso Atlantic world. There is one case in someone was exiled for rape, which shows that the authorities were preoccupied with the notion of honor. In December 1860, the Junta of Justice convicted Manoel Varella of rape and sentenced him three years of service in

636 West Africa unless he married the violated woman. The filing of the suit could imply that notions of honor existed, particularly because the Junta of Justice deliberated and gave a harsh sentence. Interestingly, though, it also suggests that the honor of women could be restored via marriage. Hence, the crime was not violating a woman, but perhaps having sexual relations without Church sanction, i.e., marriage.

At any rate, in the Portuguese Empire, degredados were common. Labelling degredados, that included slaves, libertos, and New Christians, as Luso-Africans, as creolized individuals, is historically inaccurate. By categorizing all residents from Cape

Verde in Upper Guinea as Luso-Africans, George Brooks, Peter Mark, and José Horta ignore erases the class dimension of the social stratification that existed within the

634 Daniel A. Pereira, Das relações históricas Cabo Verde-Brasil (Brasília, Brazil: Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão, 2011), 53–54. 635 Ferreira, Cross-cultural exchange in the Atlantic World, 127–29. 636 Unfortunately, I did not find any documents that shows what he actually chose to do, i.e., exile or marriage.

222 Portuguese praças of Upper Guinea that included, slaves, libertos, New Christians and

637 merchants. Although the concept of “race” was malleable in Upper Guinea for degredados, class was still a factor. In contrast, labeling Cape Verde a “Luso-African” society would be even more problematic then categorizing degredados sent to Upper

Guinea as such, because of race, class, and gender factors. In other words, this label homogenizes the social strata within Cape Verdean society with elites as representative of the entire society.

In Cape Verde, part of the elite’s efforts, which identified as Luso-Africans, meted out the death penalty to instill fear among the masses to maintain order and control. In June 1855, the Junta of Justice found José Luiz, a slave and native of Boa-

638 Vista, guilty of aggravated homicide. José Luiz received the death penalty and he was to be executed in Boa-Vista. In July 1855, Julio da Nora, a slave native of Sal, was convicted of aggravated homicide and was sentenced to death. He was to be executed in

Sal. Presumably, this was to make an example of him to his fellow slaves on the island— terror utilized to establish and maintain social order and hierarchy. Not all slaves, however, were found guilty.

637 George E. Brooks, Eurafricans in western Africa: commerce, social status, gender, and religious observance from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century (Athens: Ohio University Press 2003); Peter Mark, “Portuguese” Style and Luso-African Identity: Precolonial Senegambia, Sixteenth–Nineteenth Centuries (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.); José da Silva Horta, “Evidence for a Luso-African Identity in ‘Portuguese’ Accounts on ‘Guinea of Cape Verde’ (Sixteenth–Seventeenth Centuries),” History in Africa 27 (2000): 99–130. 638 BOGGCV, Numero 187, 1856, 819.

223 In October 1861, the Junta of Justice charged Lazaro Vaz and Florencio de Brito

639 of assassinating José Antonio Braga, native of Portugal. Lazaro Vaz (or Lazaro

Mendes Vaz) was described as a resident of Ribeirão-Chiqueiro single, a farmer, and native of Santiago. Florencio de Brito, a slave, was listed as single and a native of Fogo

Island, but when he was arrested he resided on the Military Hospital Street in Praia. Vaz was condemned to death in the form of a public execution at the pillory in the main square in Praia. Brito was condemned to a lifetime of public works at sea. In other words, he was a slave sailor.

Even high status people did not always escape the law. Before becoming president of the Junta of Protector of Slaves and Freed People, Eduardo José Rodrigues

Fernandes was the clerk (escrivão) for the Leeward County (Comarca de Sotavento). In

June 1855, the Justice of Junta delivered their verdict regarding a crime by Eduardo José

640 Fernandes and João Sanches, both listed as free and natives of São Tiago. They charged Eduardo with illegally obtaining a horse from João Sanches and committing a

641 crime with it. The Junta of Justice sentenced Eduardo to three years in prison and fined him 5,000 réis, but fined João only 1,200 réis without imprisonment.

Slaves were also fined as well as receiving prison terms and labor service. In

March 1854, Henrique Lopes, who was freeborn, and Valeiro, a slave, were charged with

642 “voluntary homicide.” In November 1860, they were given sentences of a lifetime public work. Surprisingly, they were not exiled to West Africa. In February 1860,

639 BOGGCV, N.º 44, 1861, 198. 640 BOGGCV, Numero 187, 1856, 820. 641 BOGGCV, Numero 187, 1856, 820 642 BOGGCV, N.º 19, 1860, 83.

224 643 Bertoldo, a slave, was charged with “resistance,” and he was sentenced to “one year of prison with work and [a] 100 [réis] fine for three months.” In July 1860, the Junta of

644 645 Justice indicted Gregorio Nozolini Franco, a slave, with “wounding” someone, and he was sentenced to serve “two months prison with work.” In August 1860, José

646 647 Manjaco, a slave, was charged with “injury.” Manjaco, his last name, is an ethnonym of Africans who historically resided in the northeast of modern-day Guinea-

Bissau. In November 1860, José Manjaco was sentenced to one month of prison with

648 work. In January 1860, José de Brito, a slave, was charged with “flight and burglary.”

In January 1861, José Brito was sentenced to “eight months of prison, with labor.”

Finally, in February 1861, João Lopes, a liberto, was charged with arson, and was

649 sentenced to “perform public works for a lifetime.”

The Junta of Justice, however, did dismiss cases against freeborn people and slaves, but the latter appear to receive more stringent punishments. In June 1855, for instance, the “process” against Cazimiro de Pina, a slave and native of Santiago, who was

643 BOGGCV, N.º 19, 1860, 83. 644 Perhaps, a family related to Nozolini owned him, who was a powerful Cape Verdean and Luso-African family based on the Upper Guinea Coast and Cape Verde. Perhaps, a Nozolini lady married into the family then-governor of Cape Verde, Carlos Augusto Franco. 645 BOGGCV, N.º 19, 1860, 83. 646 The consequence of racial slavery and colonialism is that today it is commonplace in Cape Verdean society for mainland black Africans to be (derisively) referred to as Manjacos. 647 BOGGCV, N.º 21, 1861, 91. 648 BOGGCV, N.º 21, 1861, 91. 649 BOGGCV, N.º 21, 1861, 91.

225 650 accused of homicide, was “judged null.” However, in June 1855, Maria Clara da

Neves and Antonia Serafim dos Santos, free women from São Nicolau, along with

Victora and Felippe, slaves and natives of São Nicolau, were all accused of breaking and entry and assaulting the home-dweller. Neves and Santos were acquitted due to lack of proof, while Victora and Felippe were “condemned to three months of prison with

651 work.”

Nevertheless, it is risky to generalize that slaves and libertos received tougher sentences. In June 1855, Alexandre, a slave and native of Santiago, and Domingos José

Tavares Sanches, a freeborn man and also a native of Santiago, were acquitted of

652 robbery. That same month the Junta of Justice “nullified” the allegation of “tentative stealing” against Felix José dos Santos, who was freeborn, and Domingos, liberto, who were both from Santiago.

Even when female slaves were accused of crimes, the verdicts were not uniform.

On April 18, 1860, a group of four slave women, Caetana, Maria de Santa, Floripa, and

Eduarda, were charged with the crime of “inflicting wounds” (ferimentos). In October

1860, Caetana and Maria de Santa were convicted of eight days in prison with work, but

653 Floripa and Eduarda were “absolved due to lack of evidence.” In July 1860, Elias, a

654 slave, was indicted of robbery, but she was absolved due to lack of proof. In May

650 BOGGCV, Numero 187, 1856, 820. 651 BOGGCV, Numero 187, 1856, 820. 652 BOGGCV, Numero 187, 1856, 820. 653 BOGGCV, N.º 19, 1860, 83. 654 BOGGCV, N.º 19, 1860, 83.

226 1860, João de Barros, a slave, was charged with stealing, but was exonerated in January

655 1861 due to insufficient evidence.

In summary, the Junta of Protection of Slaves and Libertos ushered in the end of slavery in Cape Verde, even though it was gradual, legalistic, and elitist driven. The

Catholic Church and the state collaborated to end slavery in Cape Verde, but with financial recompense for the slaveholders. Furthermore, libertos had to serve seven years of service to the state or private entities, probably to instill notions of wageworker, rather than free peasant. A popular form of punishment was “public works,” which the state used to implement major projects or control the libertos, slaves, and the poor majority.

Exile, as punishment, was important to recruit desperately needed foot soldiers to wage war of terror to conquer independent African polities to effectively establish Portuguese

Guinea. Some studies of the colonization of Portuguese Guinea tend to depict the soldiers from Cape Verde as collaborators, without showing the nuances. Inevitably, there were deep cross-cultural exchange between Cape Verde and Upper Guinea, specifically the

Guinea-Bissau region, which continued after the end of the slave trade.

Besides mere passive agents in history, slaves and libertos used the new law and institution to gain greater freedom and more rights for themselves or just to improve their lot in life. Godparents were vital in manumitting their godchildren, which underlined the sense of kinship and social bond between them. Moreover, slaves, libertos, and the poor were intricately connected in terms of the “justice” meted out against them.

655 BOGGCV, N.º 21, 1861, 91.

227 CHAPTER 5

KINSHIP, ABOLITION, COMMERCE AND COLONIZATION OF PORTUGUESE GUINEA, c. 1830–1879

Notions of kinship between Cape Verdeans and Luso-Africans in Portuguese

Guinea enabled an interaction between the mainland African and Atlantic trade networks.

They continued to foster the rise of legitimate trade with Cape Verdeans relocating to the coast to engage in commercial activities, particularly with the production of .

These Cape Verdean male traders had partnerships and relationships with coastal women, which resulted in children. The local African women, as partners, were cultural brokers that facilitated the Cape Verdeans gaining access to lineage leaders and rulers to have access to land and trading privileges. The children of the unions further cemented this relationship and legitimacy by having direct links with the coast and the Cape Verde

Islands. In Portuguese Guinea, some of these elite Cape Verdean merchants and officials were slave smugglers and had slaves in their praças and pontos throughout what became

Portuguese Guinea that performed various jobs, growing peanuts, serving as guides in navigating the myriad rivers, and fighting in the colonial expeditionary force. These military units also included from the province of Cape Verde degredados. Usually, these were slaves, libertos, and the poor as free labor and soldiers to wage war on African old

“allies.” Besides the aforementioned, in Portuguese Guinea, Kristons, (also known as

“Christianized” Africans) and grumetes (cabin boys) lived in the Portuguese praças serving as porters, sailors, and interpreters. During the expansion and consolidation of

Portuguese Guinea (1828–1870s), interpreters facilitated the signing of treaties between

Africans and Portuguese were usually grumetes. Some degredados and grumetes,

228 however, deserted the praças, which shows that their role were more than just collaborators. Moreover, the slaves in Portuguese Guinea were emancipated, but had to serve mandatory service to their owner. Those beyond the control of Portuguese Guinea, in the pontas (small plantations), these slaves, who were much more than thoses within the colonial territory, were not liberated, but worked on agricultural production, food crops, and peanuts.

In the historiography of the colonization of Portuguese Guinea, there are two approaches: one emphasizing the intermediary roles, and the other emphasizing African resistance. René Pélissier approaches the colonization of Portuguese Guinea from the classic paradigm: resistance and collaboration by Africans, with an emphasis on primary

656 resistance. Peter Mendy explores resistance in all its forms from primary (early),

657 secondary (later), including religious rebellion. In contrast, Joshua Forrest, Philip

Havik, Peter Mark, and George Brooks tend to show the intermediary roles. Joshua

Forrest argues that a strong rural civil society and interethnic alliance rendered the

658 colonial state weak in Guinea-Bissau. Walter Hawthorne suggests more differentiation among Luso-Africans, Cape Verdeans, and Portuguese colonial agents

659 (usually governors) regarding their attitudes as well as policies. Philip Havik argues

656 René Pélissier, História da Guiné, Portugueses e Africanos na Senegâmbia (1841– 1936), Vol. I, (Lisbon, Portugal: Editorial Estampa, 1989), 24. 657 Peter Mendy, Colonialismo Português em África: A Tradição de Resistênica na Guiné-Bissau (1879–1959) (Bissau, Guinea-Bissau: Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisa, 1991), 38–67. 658 Joshua B. Forrest, Lineages of State Fragility: Rural Civil Society in Guinea-Bissau (Athens: Ohio University, 2003). 659 Walter Hawthorne, “History and Identity in Senegambia and on the Upper Guinea Coast,” Review of Eurafricans in Western Africa: Commerce, Social Status, Gender, and

229 that the stranger–landlord model might be appropriate at the beginning of contact but

660 does not capture the gendered dynamics of the Afro-Atlantic dimension.

The binary depiction of colonizer and colonized has long been discredited; scholars have shown that there were also colonized colonizers (i.e., go-betweens or intermediaries. Grumetes blur the lines in the colonization process, because they participated yet sometimes abandoned colonial efforts. Grumetes corresponded to what

Benjamin N. Lawrance, Emily Lynn Osborn, and Richard L. Roberts depict as intermediaries, interpreters, and clerks who functioned as cultural brokers between

661 colonized and colonizer. David Robinson argues for accommodation theory, which emphasizes that Africans and the French in the colonies of Senegal and Mauritania

“bargained” rather than the binary model of resistance that shows some Africans as

662 resisters and others as collaborators. In pursuing their interest, they bargained for their interests than surrendering or fighting.

Religious Observance from the Sixteenth to the Eighteen Century by George E. Brooks; Lineages of State Fragility: Rural Civil Society in Guinea-Bissau by Joshua B. Forrest; “Portuguese” Style and Luso-African Identity: Precolonial Senegambia, Sixteenth– Nineteenth Centuries by Peter Mark, Africa 74, no. 3 (2004): 462. 660 Philip Havik, Silences and Soundbytes: The Gendered Dynamics of Trade and Brokerage in the Pre-Colonial Guinea Bissau Region (Munster, Germany: Lit Verlag, 2004), 22. Leopoldina Ferreira (1871–1959) or affectionately known as “Nha Bijago,” was another nhara with Cape Verdean connections; see, António Júlio Estácio, “Nha Bijagó”-Respeitada Personalidade da Sociedade Guineense (1871–1959), http://triplov.com/guinea_bissau/antonio_julio_estacio/nha_bijago/nha_bijago.pdf, obtained Saturday, April 26, 2013. 661 Benjamin N. Lawrance, Emily Lynn Osborn, and Richard L. Roberts, eds, Intermediaries, Interpreters, and Clerks: African Employees in the Making of Colonial Africa (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), 4. 662 David Robinson, Paths of Accommodation: Muslim Societies and French Colonial Authorities in Senegal and Mauritania (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000).

230 In a similar vein, Eve M. Troutt Powell demonstrates that colonized Egyptians, as part of an Anglo-Egyptian consortium, were part of the colonization of , in which racial difference and the enslavement of the Sudanese constituted ingredients of Egyptian identity and nationalism. Cape Verdean elites, the slave traders and military commanders, were those colonized colonizers who invoked racial, religious, and cultural difference with Africans, derisively called gentios.

None of these paradigms captures the complexity of the Cape Verdean roles, because as colonized colonizers, there was great diversity within that group. In fact, the term “Luso-African” is nebulous because it includes Cape Verdeans of different classes, religious convictions, occupations, and racial backgrounds with Luso-Africans born and raised on the mainland. The degredados from Cape Verde were usually libertos and part of their mandatory service after manumission was to serve the colonial state or their former owners. Libertos did not receive full citizenship, and were in an ambiguous category between freedom and slavery. As Cláudio Alves Furtado, a Cape Verdean scholar, underscores, Cape Verdean scholars have tended to articulate a singular national identity and culture, dismissing social differentiations, such as class, race, and

663 ethnicity. This chapter attempts to depict the nuances of the colonized colonizer, a motley group of historical actors with divergent interests, yet living under an imperial power structure that dictated the limits of their agency. Although African resistance was unequivocal, grumetes and degradados exploited this reality to serve their interest.

This chapter examines notion of kinship, the abolition of the slave trade, commerce, and the colonization of Portuguese Guinea in relation to Cape Verde between

663 Cláudio Alves Furtado, “Raça, Classe e Etnia nos estudos sobre e em Cabo Verde: as marcas do silêncio,” Afro-Ásia 45 (2012): 143–4.

231 the 1820s and the 1870s. First, it lays out an overview of Portuguese Guinea. Second, it explores the kinship ties between Cape Verdeans and Luso-Africans on the mainland, which intensified during the onset of Portuguese territorial expansion. Third, it focuses on the abolition of slave trade and manumission in Portuguese Guinea, which was caused partially by the British presence in the area. Fourth, the Portuguese reacted to this pressure by signing treaties with African rulers and communities to secure their influence. It shows that interpreters, particularly the grumetes, were important in facilitating the treaties. These treaties entailed commercial benefits for the Portuguese as well as the usurpation of African sovereignty and territories. This turned into an open war of terror against independent African communities, euphemistically called “pacification campaigns.”

State of Portuguese Guinea

During the early 1820s, Martinho suggested that Portuguese Guinea was in a deplorable state because Portugal neglected to establish sound administration and relied on a few scoundrels who provided some benefits to workers of the Portuguese Overseas

664 Secretary. Martinho wrote that with only 8 million réis for Cacheu and Bissau he was able to amass 200 well-armed soldiers, “well disciplined, uniformed and fed.” Whereas, by the 1830s, there was only about forty to sixty soldiers, who were “miserable, shoeless blacks” that meandered in the “bush begging for their sustenance.” The smugglers had a stronghold and conducted contraband slave trade in ports near the praça of Bissau and

Cacheu. The smugglers were “independent” and Portugal was too weak to punish them.

According to Martinho, the Portuguese personnel sent to Portuguese Guinea were

664 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 106.

232 “mechanical scallywags, idlers, drunkards, gamblers, intriguing, demoralized,” and

665 therefore, it was better to recruit foreigners from Malta, Cadiz, and Marseille. Gambia under British rule and Senegal/Gorée under French control, Martinho believed, were better governed. The British and French had a well-trained African army, a functioning

666 customhouse, and scrupulous European personnel, and profited from their trade.

According to Martinho, the Iberian Portuguese population in Portuguese Guinea did not

667 exceed more than six, who he despised because they colluded with the blacks.

As stated in chapter 4, during the mid-nineteenth century, in Cape Verde, the local government urged regular communication between the islands and the coast, which

668 Franco, then governor of Cape Verde, acknowledged was beneficial for commerce. In addition, Franco emphasized that the disorganization of Portuguese Guinea must be

669 resolved immediately. In part, this was also due to the lack of “frequent

670 communication” between praças of Cacheu and Bissau. Evidently, some governmental officials participated in trade and other activities rather than administration.

In 1861, for instance, Francisco Alves Barbosa, head clerk of the Bissau customhouse,

665 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 107–8. Martinho was speaking from experience since he served in Angola, Mozambique and Goa. 666 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 104–5. 667 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 105. 668 BOGGCV, 1861, No. 42, 181. 669 BOGGCV, 1861, No. 42, 181. 670 Peças Officiaes Cuja Publicação Se Achva em Atraso, Continuando do numero antecedent: BOGGCV, Numero 11, 1862, 89.

233 671 requested for a three-month leave of absence to resolve a business venture in Praia. In

Bissau, the court condemned João Antonio Lopes da Costa, the clerk of county

672 administration and the municipal commission, of “abuse of authority.” The colonial government in Cape Verde emphasized the lack of implementation of public instruction

673 by the different counties of Portuguese Guinea. Consequently, these types of behaviors promoted inefficiency and poor “moral education.” Moreover, the governor of

Cape Verde recommended establishiung a public force for the security of the Bissau

674 praça. Furthermore, a leaky roof of the gunpowder storage required repair, the cost of which was estimated at 24,800 réis. Other maintenance in military installations required

675 work that would cost 158,580 réis. Finally, there were few provisions for soldiers

676 based in Portuguese Guinea. In Cacheu and Bissau, the military force was relatively superior to other garrisons, such as Geba and Ziguinchor. In order to increase revenue, in

1862, Franco urged the implementation of the 1858 legislation land tax as well as tariffs

677 on healthy slaves in Portuguese Guinea. The traders in Bissau, however, opposed this

678 tariff in 1863.

671 BOGGCV, 1861, No. 45, 199. 672 Continuado do numero antecedente, BOGGCV, Numero 5, 1862, 28. 673 Continuado do numero antecedente, BOGGCV, Numero 5, 1862, 38. 674 Peças Officiaes Cuja Publicação Se Achava en Atraso Continuando do Numero Antecedente, BOGGCV, Numero 8, 1862, 55. 675 BOGGCV, Numero 9, 1862, 59. 676 BOGGCV, Numero 10, 1862, 73. 677 BOGGCV, Numero 13, 1863, 69; BOGGCV, Numero 35, 1863, 167. 678 BOGGCV, Numero 14, 1863, 73.

234 Another major concern was the health services for Portuguese Guinea and Cape

Verde. In July 1862, the Ministry of Overseas Trade underlined the gravity of the public

679 health problems on the islands Sal, Santo Antão, Fogo, Cacheu and other locations.

Because these places lacked health professionals, when a epidemic broke our in

1856, for example, it devastated Cape Verde and killed the only surgeon in São

680 681 Vicente. A greater proportion of the population who died from cholera was slaves.

Moreover, the government recalled the 1845 epidemics of cholera morbus, yellow fever, scurvy, and pernicious [anemia], during which thousands of people in Cape Verde and

682 Portuguese Guinea died. According to Portuguese authorities, in Igboland, in 1859, around 1,000 people died supposedly without recourse to medical help. Therefore, the authorities stressed that Cape Verde should have a solid health . In March

1862, António Maria Maurity resigned his interim governorship position due to health

683 reasons. In the Cacheu praça, people did not have access to Western biomedicine,

684 which meant the death of many people. In contrast, Bissau had a pharmacy, but transporting medicines to other Portuguese settlements was difficult. Carlos Frederico

679 BOGGCV, Numero 7, 1862, 40. 680 BOGGCV, Numero 7, 1862, 40. 681 BOGGCV, Numero 191, 1856, Sexta Feira 6 de Junho, 850; Henrique Lubrano de Santa-Rita Viera, O História de Medicina em Cabo Verde (Praia, Cape Verde: Instituto Caboverdiano do Livro e do Disco, 1987), 291. 682 BOGGCV, Numero 7, 1862, 40. 683 Continuado do numero antecedente, BOGGCV, Numero 5, 1862, 36. 684 BOGGCV, Numero 13, 1863, 69.

235 685 Hopffer underscored that a clinic in Cacheu would cost 20,000 réis a month. Given the reality, Portuguese subjects presumably relied on African medicine.

The fledging colony also experienced problems regarding primary education

686 Bissau. They did not possess a building, an instructor, or pedagogic materials. João

Marques de Barros, a wealthy merchant and nephew of Caetano Nozolini, offered his house for a year; João da Cruz e Silva, a vicar, volunteered to be the instructor for a

687 primary school. Due to the lack of educational facilities on the coast, for studies that were more advanced and qualifying examination, the children of the elites from

688 Portuguese Guinea went to Province of Cape Verde. For example, Heitor da Silva

Barreto, who was 14, went to Cape Verde to continue his primary educaiton, and

689 Lourenço Justiniao Padrel, age 12, went to study French.

In addition to these internal challenges, African communities also hampered the expansion and consolidation of Portuguese Guinea.

Kinship and Connections between Cape Verdeans and Luso-Africans/Africans

Reminiscent of Luso-tropicalist trope of racial democracy, António Carreira suggests that a Cape Verdean epitomizes the “fusion of Portuguese blood in the tropics,” and is emblematic of “the history of Portuguese expansion in West Africa is,

685 BOGGCV, Numero 13, 1863, 69. 686 Continuado do numero antecedente, BOGGCV, Numero 5, 1862, 37. 687 Continuado do numero antecedente, BOGGCV, Numero 5, 1862, 37. 688 BOGGCV, Numero 10, 1863, 58. 689 BOGGCV, Numero 10, 1863, 58.

236 690 simultaneously, the history of penetration of Cape Verdean in the African continent.”

691 Black and mestiços Cape Verdeans were essential in the Portuguese commercial penetration on the coast because Europeans were few and more susceptible to local

692 diseases. During the era of the Atlantic slave trade, some Cape Verdeans would play significant roles as colonizers of Portuguese Guinea, particularly as soldiers and merchants.

The Nozolini were a powerful and influential family in Fogo, Cape Verde, and

Portuguese Guinea. Nozolini was a lieutenant colonel in the praça of Bissau and a major slave smuggler, which I will discuss below in this section. In 1846, Caetano José

693 Nozolini sent winnowed rice—separated grain from the husk--- weighing 625 arrobas

690 António Carreira, Aspectos da Influência da Cultura Portuguesa na Á Compreendida entre o Rio Senegal e O Norte da Serra Leoa (Subsídios para o seu estudo). Separata da «Actas do Congresso International de Ethnografia», Promovido Pela Câmara Municipal de Santo Tirso, de 10 a 18 de Julho de 1963. Volume Quarto (Lisbon, Portugal: Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, 1965), 2. 691 Historically, it is more appropriate to describe them as Portuguese subjects, since they were under Portuguese control, but I opt cautiously for the category, “Cape Verdean” to convey the cultural formations that proceeded independence. 692 Carreira, Aspectos da Influência da Cultura Portuguesa, 2. 693 There are variations of the spelling of “Nozolini”/”Nosolini”/”Nosoline”/”Nazolini”/”Nozoliny.” In Ceméterio de Preto [Black Cemetary] in São Filipe, Fogo, there is a Caetano José Nozoliny, who was born on April 16, 1854 and died April 22, 1928. Was this a relative of Caetano José Nozolini? Given that he was interned in the Black Cemetary, was Nozoliny the slave Nozolini? They were not the same person: Caetano José Nozolini was in Portuguese Guinea well before José Caetano Nozoliny was born. In the Black Cemetary, there is an Ana Luzia Nozoliny who was born March 25, 1854 and died October 12, 1943. Given that the Nozoliny and not Nozolini/Nozoline are buried in Black Cemetery and not one Nozolini/Nozoline was found lends credence to Philip Havik’s assertion that in Guinea-Bissau Nozoliny are reputed to be the descendants of slaves; see Havik, Silences and Soundbytes, 554n, 287. However, António Carreira spelled the name of the notorious Caetano José Nozoliny, rather than Nozolini. Thus, it is difficult to confirm Havik’s comments. Nevertheless, in the baptismal records of the daughters of Caetano José Nozolini, his surname and that of

237 694 to alleviate the suffering in Fogo (“his country” ) that was occurring because of colonial indifference and racism. His father, a sailor from , married an “heiress” from

695 Fogo. According to Joaquim Pereira Martinho, then governor of Cape Verde,

Nozolini married Aurélia Correia, a member of an aristocratic family from Island

696 in the Bijago archipelago. In 1843, while in Praia, their daughter, Dona Eugenia

697 Aurelia Nozolini, born in Bissau, married António Joaquim Ferreira of Lisbon. Upon her marriage, she received a rice and groundnut ponta Casaria (or Casadia) at Ametite in

698 Portuguese Guinea. In the 1850s, a governor of Cape Verde who visited the ponta

699 noted their hospitality. In 1856, another daughter of Nozolini, Dona Getrudes Aurelio

Correio Nozolini, native of Bissau but living in Praia, married José Fernandes da Silva

700 Leão of Setubae, Portugal. Hence, in Cape Verde, Luso-African women from Guinea appear to have associated with Iberian Portuguese men in Cape Verde, who were quite influential there. In the baptism records, both women were referred to with the honorific title of dona, which indicated their powerful status in colonial Cape Verdean society. his wife are spelled with a “y,” but the letters “y” and “i” were interchangeable in Portuguese paleography. 694 SGG, Cx n.º 347, peça n.º 5, 1/3, “Correspondência da Guiné-Bissau, Janeiro- Outubro 1846; 3 peças; originais manuscritos.” Folhas avulsas. 695 Turano, ‘Il verde mare delle tenebre,’ 67. 696 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho & Outros Textos, Daniel A. Pereira, apresentação, notas e comentários (Praia, Cape Verde: Instituto Camões-Centro Cultural Português, 2008), 103. 697 SGG, Caixa n.7, peça n. 44, Registo Civil da Praia, Assentos de Casamentos, Freguesia de Nossa Senhora da Graça, 6 de Abril de 1807 a 22 de Maio de 1864, f.209. Originais manuscritos. Arquivo Histórico Nacional de Cabo Verde, Praia. 698 Havik, Silences and Soundbytes, 513n, 273; original (AHU, CV, P.21, 4-9-1856). 699 Havik, Silences and Soundbytes, 513n, 273; original (AHU, CV, P.21, 4-9-1856). 700 SGG, Caixa n.7, peça n. 44, Registo Civil da Praia, f.254.

238 On the other hand, Luso-African women from Guinea also married Cape

Verdean-born men. For instance, in April 1871, Guilhermina Maria de Carvalho and

701 Gregorio Pereira Furtado de Mendonça married in Praia. Guilhermina was a native of

Nossa Senhora da Luz (Our Lady of Light) parish of Ziguinchor; Gregorio was native of

702 São Nicolau Tolentino (Saint Nicolas Tolentino) parish of Santiago Island.

Guilhermina’s parents were Caetano Alberto de Carvalho of Guinea and Anna Balbina de

Carvalho of Santiago Island, which means that Guilhermina had Guinean and Cape

703 Verdean ancestry. Most likely, these grooms were brankus di terra. As Philip Havik noted, the gender dimension of the Afro-Atlantic trade favored African and Luso-African women because their societies were receptive to women as traders. Given that

Guilhermina was in Cape Verde and married to a Cape Verdean-born man probably enabled her to climb the social ladder and take advantage of her Guinean roots. However,

Luso-African men from Portuguese Guinea were absent in marriage certificates in Cape

Verde. Cape Verdean men, like Caetano José Nozolini, may have sent their daughters for schooling and to look after their businesses back in Cape Verde.

On the mainland, given that African sovereignty was preeminent, preto and mestiço Cape Verdeans as well as Portuguese men overwhelmingly married—or had intimate relation with—local Luso-African and African women, which provided access to networks, among other things. The record is silent on Portuguese and/or Cape Verdean

701 SGG, Caixa n.7, peça n. 45, Registo Civil da Praia, Assentos de Casamentos, Freguesia de Nossa Senhora da Graça, 20 de Junho de 1864 a 20 de Dezembro 1881; f.22; originais manuscritos incompletos. 702 SGG, Caixa n.7, peça n. 45, Registo Civil da Praia, f.22. 703 SGG, Caixa n.7, peça n. 45, Registo Civil da Praia, f.22.

239 women marrying Luso-African or African men in Portuguese Guinea. We can infer that elite Cape Verdean mestiços and pretos and Portuguese women did not travel in large

704 numbers to Upper Guinea; and if they did, they were already in relationships. Maybe their purity (“whiteness”) and respectability were under patriarchal supervision to prevent contamination in the tropics or uncivilized lands.

In Cape Verde, it was not only elite men, whether Cape Verdean or Portuguese, wedding elite Luso-African women from Guinea, but also people of low status did likewise. In 1816, for instance, Luís Gomes, a slave, and Antonia de Barros, free person,

705 both from Guinea, married in Praia. Perhaps they married because both were from

Guinea. However, there must have been a motive for the slave owner of Luís to allow the wedding, such as a reward for loyalty and diligence. In 1817, Matheus Cardozo, a native

706 of Guiné, and Sepriana Cardozo, a native of Santiago Island, married in Praia. The groom was from Guinea, which problematizes the Havik’s gender analysis. Was Matheus a Luso-African, and if so was he marrying an elite or low-status woman? Sepriana must have been an elite woman, because she was not listed as a slave or liberto, whereas

Matheus seems to have been Luso-African, because he was born in Guinea, but went to

Cape Verde and married a free woman in Praia, the capital. Another interesting marriage

707 in Praia was between João da Silva and Catharina Correa, both from Guinea, in 1871.

João was baptized in Guinea, whereas Catharina was baptized in Cacheu. The marriage

704 The poor classes of Cape Verde who did immigrate as either forced laborers or escaping famine were not readily identifiable by elites recording events in Portuguese Guinea. 705 SGG, Caixa n.7, peça n. 44, Registo Civil da Praia, f.177. 706 SGG, Caixa n.7, peça n. 44, Registo Civil da Praia, f.177. 707 SGG, Caixa n.7, peça n. 45, Registo Civil da Praia, f.23.

240 certificate described their parents as gentios, i.e., Africans who had not been assimilated into Portuguese culture and Christianity. Although we do not know their ethnicity, they were probably Kristons (Christianized Africans), who married due to religious and a broad regional Upper Guinea cultural affiliation. Gerhard Seibert argues that the Kristons from Guinea Bissau region never were completely “ethnicized” to a new ethnic identity,

708 because they were aware of their Beafada ancestry. Kristons and grumetes were socially mobile in the Portuguese Empire. All these marriages show the cementing of kinship between the mainland and the islands, which would be a decisive for establishing commercial network, despite the islanders’ meager resources.

With the transition from slave trade to “legitimate” trade, there was deepening of cultural exchange between Cape Verde and the mainland, particularly with the rise of peanut production. Cape Verdeans settled in Santa Maria, in Gambia; Ziguinchor, Selho, and Coldá, in Casamansa River; Bolor, Ossor, São Domingos, Cacheu, and Farim, in

Cacheu River (Farim); Bissau, Sambelchior, Jabadá, Geba, and Bafatá, in the region; Buba, Bafatá of Buba, and Bolola, in the region of the River Grande (also known as the Buba, Guinala, or Bolola River); and in settlements near the rivers of Nuno and

709 Pongo in former French Guinea. According to António Carreira, between 1830 and

1885, Cape Verdeans or their descendants in Portuguese Guinea owned the majority of

708 Gerhard Seibert, “Creolization and Creole Communities in the Portuguese Atlantic: São Tomé, Cape Verde, the Rivers of Guinea and Central Africa in Comparison,” in Brokers of Change, Atlantic Commerce and Cultures in Precolonial Western Africa, ed. Toby Green (London: British Academy, 2012; published by arranged by Oxford University Press), 50. 709 Carreira, Aspectos da Influência da Cultura Portuguesa, 2.

241 710 the eighty pontas or feitorias (trading posts) in Rio Grande de Buba. The Portuguese,

French, and English also owned some feitorias as well. The names of the pontas

(feitorias) were based on the owners’ origins, such as

São Filipe, Santo Antão, Santiago, Santa Luzia, Brava, Fogo and Boa Vista, all names of towns and islands of the archipelago; Santa Maria, São João, São Jorge, São Miguel, Nossa Senhora da Ajuda, São Francisco, were names of places in some of the islands and saint devoted to by Cape Verdeans; Ponta Benjamin had names or of Cape Verdean 711 family well known; Ponta Oeste, in the island of , was the property of a notable family, part of them Cape Verdean family of Osório da Silva Leão; Gã Major, belong to Aurélia Correia, who was married to 712 Caetano José Nosolini.

Carreia argues that the Portuguese and Cape Verdeans were catalysts for the spread of Portuguese and Luso-derived surnames in Portuguese Guinea, especially in

Cacheu, Geba, Bolama, and Bissau, which included “Barreto, Barreto da Costa, Barreto de Carvalho, Gomes Barbosa, Carvalho or Carvalho de Alvarenga, Monteiro Barbosa,

Barbosa, Correia, Gomes, Soares, Gomes de Araújo, Santy, Fernandes, Barbosá, Corêa,

713 Suarez, Fernande, Gomis, Prera, Santo.” Although Luso-Africans and Cape Verdeans had deep kinship ties, Carlos Lopes argues these groups had common as well as divergent

710 Carreira, Aspectos da Influência da Cultura Portuguesa, 2–3. 711 António Carreira was born in Fogo in the early 1900s, but left around age 8 and moved to Portuguese Guinea and grew up in the interior. His father was Portuguese and his mother was from Fogo. Carreira was fluent in Fula and Mandinka and understood Mandjaco. Thus, some of his writings about this were based on personal experiences. 712 Carreira, Aspectos da Influência da Cultura Portuguesa, 3. 713 Carreira, Aspectos da Influência da Cultura Portuguesa, 4–5. Leopold Sedar Senghor claims that his surname is from the Portuguese word for “mister” (Senhor); see, Pélisser História da Guiné, preface, 19; Moreover, the Manjaco surname “Mendy” is believed by some to be from the Portuguese “Mendes” and “Wade,” common surnames in Senegal, could be derived from the British surname Wade.

242 714 interests. For instance, Luso-Africans dominated the feitorias in Cacheu, Zinguinchor, and the mouth of the Gambia River, whereas Cape Verdeans controlled the feitorias in

Bissau and Rio Grande.

One of the most infamous Luso-Africans of Cape Verdean and Guinean ascendancy was Honório Pereira Barreto. In April 1813, Dona Rosa de Carvalho

715 Alvarenga, a native of Ziguinchor, gave birth to Honório Pereira Barreto in Cacheu.

His father was João Pereira Barreto of Santiago Island. Given his privileged Luso-

African status, as a young teenager, Barreto initially matriculated at the University of

Coimbra, one of the oldest universities in Portugal. In 1829, Barreto returned to his native land to manage the family enterprise after his father’s death. His rise to power in

Portuguese Guinea was remarkable. Barreto began an ombudsman of Cacheu; in 1850, he became governor of Portuguese Guinea. Given that his mother’s background was from

Ziguinchor, it is not surprising that Barreto was “known as the defender of Casamance,

716 which was lost due the metropolitan’s indifference.” By the time of his death from malaria cachexia in Bissau in April 1859, Barreto’s positions included lieutenant colonel of the province of Cape Verde, Commander of the Order of Christ, Knight of the Orders of Christ and the Tower and Sword.

714 Carlos Lopes, “Construção de Identidades nos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde,” Africana Studia, N.º 6, 2003, Edição da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto), 59. Lopes refers to “Luso-African” as “Afro-Portuguese,” which is an older term. 715 Maria Cristina Neto, Os Negros em Portugal-sécs.xva-xix (Commissão para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 1999), 228. 716 Neto, Os Negros em Portugal, 228.

243 From Portuguese Guinea, elite Cape Verdeans, some Luso-Africans, and a few

717 Europeans would send food aid to the islands of their birth. In 1860, a subscription that raised donations to buy rice in Bissau for Brava. Subscribers included J. M. Barros, J.

M. de Macedo [João Monteiro de Macedo], French anonymous, F. Jackson, J. J. Vera-

Cruz, G.C. Pinto, F. J. Benicio [Francisco José Benicio], P. G. Barboza, L. C. Teixeira,

C. Martins, M. A. Medina, D. M. de Moraes, J. F. S. Leão, C. G. Barbosa Junior, L. J.

Barbosa, L. A. Augusto, J. J. Oliveira, O. J. Araujo, A. L. Lima, C. Medina, and F.

718 Macedo. With the exception for the Frenchman, the subscribers were from Brava or had kinship connections. Havik suggests that public subscriptions were held because

719 individuals did not own ships to send fresh crops to the islands. Their names reflect the prominent surnames that Africans in Portuguese Guinea would end up adopting.

These elite Cape Verdeans and Luso-Africans became quite involved in slave smuggling, under the creeping British surveillance. As stated in chapter 4, the British abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807 had a crippling effect not only in the

Americas, but also in Africa, such as Upper Guinea. The British, supposedly in consultation with the faring (king), of Binagar and Beafadas, agreed to the abolition the

720 slave trade and slavery in Binagar and Beafadas. There were six specific stipulations.

717 To this day, from the Cape Verdean diaspora continue to be a major source of assistance for Cape Verdeans. 718 Boletim Official,de Governo Geral de Provincia de Cabo Verde (BOGGCV), Numero 7 (1861): 27; Biblioteca Nacional e Livros de Cabo Verde, Praia, Santiago, Cabo Verde. 719 Havik, Silences and Soundbytes, 295. 720 SGG, Livro 0700, “Títulos e papeis legais que provem a posse legal das possessões portuguesas adquiridas na Costa da Guiné e no Arquipélago dos Bijagós. 1830/maio/07- 1839/junho/05. 22/97 flas; cópias manuscritas, f.8v.

244 First, the British prohibited agricultural activities by anyone, native of Ghinala or otherwise, in occupied territories of Ghinala. Second, the social classes would remain as it were, but slaves (for exports) or domestics (slaves) would be “conducted outside the

721 frontier of Ghinala.” Third, it prohibited Africans in Bolama, Ghinala, and all the adjacent islands under British control from engaging in the slave trade. Fourth, British vassals that wished to establish trading posts must pay value for the property. Fifth, the sovereignty of Bolama, Ghinala, and adjacent islands would be ceded to Great Britain “to establish settlement, forts, cultivation and other establishment for private or public use of

722 Serra Leone.” Sixth, King Niobona Mattehora ceded his territories to the British in

August 1792 (ratification of the treaty was in June 1827). The British also directly dealt with the Portuguese on the coast, resulting in series of treaties culminating in the Luso-

British Commission, based on Boavista, which was intended to prevent Portuguese subjects from engaging in the slave trade, particularly in Sierra Leone region, that began in the 1830s. At the same time, the Portuguese became more defensive with British encroachments, ostensibly to end the slave trade and slavery in Upper Guinea—but possible a pretext to occupy “historic” Portuguese possessions. Even so, Cape Verdean,

Luso-African, and Portuguese merchants evaded efforts to end the slave trade.

In 1863, Major Crato, interim governor of Portuguese Guinea, was skeptical of

723 the abolition of the trade on the coast. As discussed in chapter 4, Major Crato was a prominent slaveholder from Santiago. Crato was believed that officials in Portuguese

721 SGG, Livro 0700, f.8v. 722 SGG, Livro 0700, f.8v. 723 SGG, Cx. n.º 347, peça 7.

245 Guinea were more interested in the slave trade or commerce than ensuring the functioning of the fledging colony. Some of these officials, such as Nozolini, were prominent merchants, and dealt in contraband slaves. The transition from slave trade to legitimate trade actually facilitated slavery within Africa. Portuguese Guinea fined two

724 captains, American and Portuguese, for smuggling various commodities. Although the British pressured the Portuguese to cease the illicit trade, it persisted with Portuguese,

American, Cape Verdean, and Brazilians as well as in indigenous coastal communities.

In 1858, a decree required that the slave owners register their slaves, including the

725 sex and residency. In Portuguese Guinea, especially Cacheu, Bissau, Farim, and Rio

Grande de Bolola, the administration recorded lists of manumitted slaves, without providing those still enslaved. The praça of Bissau in 1869 had thirty-three liberated

726 slaves. That year, there were only ten manumitted slaves in the Rio Grande de

727 Bolola; the garrison of Geba, plantations of São Belchior, and Chime manumitted

728 only six slaves. In 1869, the praça of Cacheu had 112 liberated slaves, which was the

729 most of any area. This illustrate that Cacheu was a major commercial region for the

Portuguese because slave labor was significant there to help operate the trading posts there. George Brooks argues that “the founding and rapid growth of Cacheu at the close

724 SGG, Cx. n.º 347, peça n.º 5, 1/3, “Correspondência da Guiné-Bissau, Janeiro- Outubro 1846; 3 peças; originais manuscritos, folhas avulsas. 725 BOGGCV, 1863, numero 35, 167. 726 BOGGCV, 1872, No.35, 193. 727 BOGGCV, 1872, No.39, 215. 728 BOGGCV, 1872, No.39, 216. 729 Boletim Official do Governo Geral da Provincia de Cabo-Verde (BOGGCV), no. 37 (1872): 204.

246 of the sixteenth century derived from the Cacheu River being a meeting place of the four most important commercial networks in western Africa: Beafada-Sapi, Banyun-Bak,

730 Mande, and Cabo Verdean-lançado.”

In 1869, the overwhelming majority of libertos of the praça of Cacheu had only first names; European or “Christian” names accounted for 105. Those with African names were Ajaque, Sam-frança, and two individuals with the name Cumbá, and the rest were Jabú, Maladó, and Taço. Others had African-derived surnames, such as Maria

Sabbado, which was common in Cape Verde as well. Renowned merchants usually were usually both sold and employed slaves. For example, José Dias de Moura had at least seventeen slaves; Eugenia Guilhermina Miranda Lopes had at least eleven slaves;

Francisco José Benicio had at least fourteen slaves; José da Silva Santos Costa had at least eight slaves; Dona Luiza Dias de Moura had at least eight slaves. Paulo Monteiro d’Affonseca had at least seven slaves. In praça of Cacheu, slaves fled to Africans villages, such as Cacanda, which was dominated by the Papel community, but they were

731 captured and resold.

João Monteiro de Macedo (March 12, 1852–February 21, 1925) was a prominent merchant from Fogo based in Portuguese Guinea. In Fogo, Macedo’s tomb is at the

White Cemetery (Cemetário de Brancos) in São Filipe, the main city of Fogo, Cape

730 George E. Brooks, “Cacheu: A Papal and Luso-African Entrepôt at the Bexus of the Biafada-Sapi and Banyun-Bak Trade Networks,” in Mansas, Escravos, Grumetes e Gentio: Cacheu na encruzilhada de civilizações (Bissau, Guinea-Bissau: Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisa, coordenação Carlos Lopes, 1993), 175. 731 SGG, Cx. n.347, folhas avulsas.

247 732 Verde. The White Cemetery was for white people, originally Iberian Portuguese, which symbolized their wealth as well as their efforts to maintain their purity through this spatial separation, even in the afterlife. Even among the whites, Macedo’s was the “cream of the crop” with his huge . Macedo’s wife was Ana Botelho de Macedo

(January 2, 1854–August 8, 1927). They had four children: Maria, Luiza, Antonio, and

Abilio. In island of Fogo, there was a Feliberto Monteiro de Macedo, described as native

733 from Guinea and listed as a godfather to a slave. Perhaps, Feliberto Monteiro de

Macedo was a relative of João Monteiro de Macedo. In 1870, in Rio Grande de Bolola,

734 Macedo manumitted two slaves, Uecadó and Fula. In addition, in 1870, in the praça of Bissau, João Marques de Barros manumitted Izabel Sabbado, Adelaide, Canhanguete, and Agostinho Intimbi, but in 1872, Macedo purchased their service from Barros, since

735 as libertos they had to complete the seven years mandatory service.

A less well-known merchant from Fogo was Cezar Gomes Barboza, who was

736 marrived to Anna Teixeira Barboza. In 1870, Cezar manumitted Tai in the praça of

737 Bissau. On July 9, 1871, Anna gave birth to João Gomes Barboza, who was born on board the Brigue Ligeiro on July 9, 1871, but died that year. His parents buried him in the

White Cemetery of Fogo. Almost certainly, Cezar Gomes Barboza and Anna, his wife,

732 I visited the cemetery in June 2012. 733 Caixa n.º2, peça n.º 9 Registo Civil do Fogo, Assentos de Baptismos, Freguesia de Nossa Senhora da Conceição, 05 de Maio de 1852 a 06 de Abril de 1862, f.77v. originais manuscritos, Arquivo Histórico Nacional de Cabo Verde, Praia. 734 BOGGCV, 1872, no.39, 215. 735 BOGGCV, 1872, Nº 35, 193. 736 I visited the White Cemetery in Fogo in June 2012. 737 BOGGCV, 1872, No.35, 193.

248 were either visiting or permanently returning home from Portuguese Guinea. Officials in

Portuguese Guinea sometimes requested leaves of absence for commercial or health reasons.

Another merchant from Fogo in Portuguese Guinea was Caetano Carlos de

738 Medina, who was married to Isabel Teixeira. Their son, Adriano Carlos Medina, was buried in the White Cemetery. Adriano was born March 28, 1887. His place of birth was not listed—this was done only for those born outside of the island, which suggests that his parents came back home from Portuguese Guinea. Adriano’s wife was Amalia, who was the daughter of Maria Marcelina Nozolini and António José Barbosa. Fogo oral tradition emphasizes that these families actually had cousins marry cousins to preserve their wealth and whiteness.

Caetano José Nosolini was a resident of Bissau and Joaquim António de Matos was a resident in Ponta Oeste (). Both were coronels of the second line, which was reserved for those born in Cape Verde, (whereas the first line was only for

Iberian Portuguese). Joaquim António de Matos had a son, Joaquim António Pusich de

739 Matos, who resided in island of . Martinho claimed that the Portuguese had claim to the islands of Galinhas and Bolama, but the English confiscated Galinhas because of Caetano Jozé Nozolini, “one of the most rascal of smuggler from Portugal in

740 her colonies,” for possessing slaves for domestic use and export. The British seized

738 BOGGCV, no. 35 (1872): 193. 739 Carreira, “O Tráfico clandestine de escravos na Guiné e em Cabo Verde,” 17; Brooks, Eurafricans in Western Africa (2003); Havik, Silences and Soundbytes (2004); Hawthorne, Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves (2003). 740 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 102.

249 the island of Bolama, claiming it in an act of abolitionism, which Martinho contemptuously denied: he felt it was a pretext to diminish Portuguese Guinea. Martinho argued that Caetano José Nozolini’s association with a “black woman from the Bijagos

741 enabled his fortune.” Nozolini supposedly wooed her away from another Portuguese

742 and they had a “mulatto” girl. African women enabled strangers like Nozolini to tap an elaborate African network, while Nozolini provided the Atlantic connection from the

Americas and Portugal. Nozolini had “powerful protection from Manoel António Martins

743 and [Pinto] the Secretary of Overseas.” Backed by powerful white men, Nozolini violated the Decree of December 10, 1836, which regulated slavery with Portuguese colonies and prohibited the slave trade outside of Portuguese territory. Martinho argued that he was the main supplier (along with a man named Fontes) of a “society of

744 smugglers of slaves to São Thiago de Cuba.” Turano emphasized that Nozolini “sent ships both in Cuba and in Brazil by buying goods from the British on the Gambia River and paying with checks from reputable company in London (e.g., Baring Brothers) and

745 subsequently exchanged these goods for slaves in its territories.” Nozolini ignored the orders from Martinho and with Fontes and Pinto provided slaves to Don Jozé Benso of

741 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 103. 742 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 103. 743 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 103. 744 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 103. 745 Turano, ‘Il verde mare delle tenebre,’ 67.

250 746 São de Cuba. Honório Pereira Barreto, a powerful slave trader based in Casamance,

747 assisted Nozolini in smuggling before replacing him as governor of Bissau in 1850.

In March 1844, the [Mandinka] king of Corubal acknowledged that Mamoto

Sanha, his predecessor, had “ceded” land to Lieutenant Colonel Caetano José Nozolini

748 “to build a house and cultivate the land.” In fact, Nozolini bought the land from

749 Mamoto Sanha to establish a settlement, fortifications, and trading . It included parts of the Rio de Corubal and Chime River, with two isles north to the mouth of Geba

750 River. In appreciation, Nozolini gave Sanha 400 patacas, a currency that circulated in the Portuguese Empire. Nozolini gave Sanha’s successor a gift of dress “equivalent to the value of four slaves.” Two African dignitaries signed their names in Arabic scripts to the treaty, which shows that they were Islamized.

Nozolini owned a Frenchman, named Noumaige, but rather than repay him, he tried to assassinate the Frenchman, triggering disastrous retaliation against the Portuguese by the French from the colony of Senegal, which compelled Martinho to make

751 restitution. Another the elusive smuggler was Chaves of Lisbon, who was based in

Cacheu. In 1872, the praça of Cacheu, “heirs of António dos Santos Chaves” had only

752 one liberto. Unless both smugglers were stopped, Martinho lamented, Portuguese

746 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 103. 747 Turano, ‘Il verde mare delle tenebre,’ 68. 748 SGG, Cx. n.347, peças 3, folhas avulsas. 749 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça 3, folhas avulsas. 750 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça 3, folhas avulsas. 751 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 103. 752 BOGGCV, no. 37 (1872): 204.

251 753 Guinea would be ungovernable. Before his appointment, Martinho argued that 16,000 réis was spent on Portuguese Guinea, but troops only had an “old map,” which they

“fooled the governor general with,” and that the troops collaborated with Junta of

754 Agriculture in stealing. Although he reduced the expenditure to 8,000 réis, Martiho believed that it was judiciously spent.

In addition to Fogo’s connection with the slave trade from Portuguese Guinea, there were other islands. The Luso-British Mixed Commission identified Santiago residents who were involved in illicit slave trade to Cuba and Brazil. They included

Francisco Cardoso de Melo, his brother Thimóteo Cardoso de Melo, Luis Pereira de

Melo, João José Cláudio de Lima, José Caetano Henriques dos Reis, Manuel de Brito

Lima, António Dionízio Furtado, João Batista Ferreira dos Santos, João António Ribeiro,

755 and Fernando de Sá Brandão.

Joye Bowman notes that:

In some parts of Portuguese Guinea, especially on Bolama Island and in the neighboring region of Forria, merchant elites reorganized themselves and their supporters to meet simultaneously the new demands for “legitimate commerce” and also those of the trade in human beings. Between 1840 and 1885 many of these merchants doubled as owners of plantations or feitorias, which employed both contract and slave labor to produce peanuts, coffee, sugar cane, tobacco and cotton. By the 1860s, 756 peanuts had become the most important of these exported cash crops.

753 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 103–4. 754 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 104. 755 Carreira, “O Tráfico clandestine de escravos na Guiné e em Cabo Verde, 17. 756 Joye Bowman, Ominous Transition: Commerce and colonial expansion in the Senegambia and Guinea, 1857–1919 (Aldershot, UK: Avebury, 1997), 3.

252 Portuguese Hunger for Land and Access to Rivers

With the encroachment of French and British agents into Portuguese Guinea,

Portugal tried to renew the treaties that Barreto and others had succeeded in securing with

African rulers during the 1820s until his death in 1859, because the French and British were attempting to establish treaties with these communities. According to Martinho, governor of Cape Verde from 1835 to 1836, Portuguese Guinea consisted only of pontos militares (military stations) in the region of the Rio Geba, Casamance, and São

757 Domingos, which included Bissau, Fá, Geba, Farim, Ziguinchor, and Cacheu.

Marinho thought that the combined land area of these pontos was about a third of the area of Paço (3.49 square kilometers). Portugal did not control the rivers of Casamance and

São Domingos and paid adacha (tribute) to the king of Matta for ships anchoring in

758 Cacheu. The Portuguese presence equated to coastal colonialism, but it was not the classical territorial colonialism that went into the hinterland. During the early 1800s,

Portugal was interested in buying land rather than fighting an outright war with Africans.

In 1828, the Portuguese bought land from King Damião, who controlled the island of

Canhabaca, Bolama and King Fabião of Beafada who ruled in the in Rio Grande region to build new installations, in the “rear of praça of Bissau to secure Portuguese dominion

759 and fruition of Bolama.” The Portuguese tried to secure Bolama and initially

757 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho,101. 758 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 101. Daniel Pereira notes that that “adacha” was probably a corruption of the Portuguese word “taxa” (tribute, tax etc.); see Carreira, Aspectos da Influência da Cultura Portuguesa, 22–38. 759 SGG, Livro 0700, “Títulos e papeis legais que provem a posse legal das possessões portuguesas adquiridas na Costa da Guiné e no Arquipélago do Bijagós. 1830/maio/07– 1839/junho/05. 22/97fs.; cópias manuscritas; f.1v

253 attempted to base their colonial capitol there, in part due to the location and Britain’s efforts in suppressing the slave trade. In order to cope with this and the transition to legitimate trade, the Portuguese decided on a strategy that involved linking specific points between Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde.

In terms of geostrategic positions, Marinho wrote that the island of São Vicente was par excellence as it relates to maritime as well as commercial activities because it was the “center for the archipelago of Cape Verde and the coast of Africa from Senegal

760 to the Nuno River.” Marinho also thought that the second most important geostrategic location of the region was Ilheo do Rey, which was an island in Guinea-Bissau. These two trading posts would be linked in two circuits: coming from Europe landing in São

Vicente, then arriving in Ilheo do Rey and departing from Ilheo do Rey on the African

761 coast, refueling in São Vicente before going to Europe or the Americas. The creation of Porto Grande in Mindelo, São Vicente, would link Europe with that part of Africa and vice versa. Portuguese believed that São Vicente had good climate and one of the best bays in the world. They counted on having French, British, and American ships stationing there rather than risk the “unhealthy” and “dangerous” environments on mainland

762 Africa.

To implement this strategy, Barreto signed an accord with Ondató [Oudotô], principal king of Bissau Island in 1838, in which the Portuguese “purchased” Isleo de

760 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 89. 761 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 89. 762 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 86–88.

254 763 Rey, adjacent to praça of Bissau and part of the Geba River. Barreto wrote that the equivalent value was eight slaves because “that was the only way Africans

764 understood.” In terms of the momentary value of the time, it was about 4,000 réis

765 along with additional enticements for Ondató and his province chiefs. From the

Portuguese perspective, this was a strategic location because the island of Bissau was

“situated at the mouth of the Geba River and the praça of Bissau” at the heart of a

766 booming trade network. Among the Europeans, Portugal proclaimed that

“Portuguese” dominated the trade in this region. From an Atlantic perspective, this might be true, but from an African viewpoint, the Kaabu kingdom in the interior was the dominant power in the region. When the French began to encroach from Goreé, Martinho

767 led an expeditionary force to assert the Portuguese sovereignty of Bissau. The British occupied the Iheo de Rey on the condition that they conserve the sacred trees of the isle,

768 where the Papel held “religious ceremonies in every twelve years.” The Portuguese

769 had negotiated this earlier with the Papel.

There were problems with construction of houses and fortification in the praça of

770 Bissau. In a Portuguese settlement in Bissau, for example, the houses were so close to

763 SGG, Livro0700, f.10–f.10v; SGG, Cx. n.347, peça n.º1, folhas avulsas. 764 SGG, Livro 0700, f.10v–11. 765 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 102. 766 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça n.º1, folhas avulsas. 767 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 102. 768 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça n.º1, folhas avulsas. 769 SGG, Livro 0700, f.10v. 770 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça n.º1, folhas avulsas.

255 the ditch that land was almost nonexistent. Portuguese Guinea had insufficient control over the settlement, allowing Portuguese subjects to collaborate with different groups based on their own interests. Martinho lamented that the settlement “feared and respected” their African neighbors, particularly the Papel, rather than the Portuguese

771 authority. According to Martinho, “Africans only respect force and as a result

Portuguese subjects and commerce in Bissau are always subject to caprice of the African rulers.” Because of this, Martinho contended, “African subjects as well as Portuguese

772 subjects do not deserve protection and all of them are indolent and thieves.”

Martinho’s view was tainted by his view as an Iberian Portuguese who was a recent arrival to the coast. Nonetheless, Iheo do Rey had natural defenses because it was

“isolated” and only required two gunboats to defend; in contrast, Bissau was expensive to

773 defend. Martinho argued that it was a “salubrious” climate, unlike Bissau, which was

774 surrounded by rice paddies, which attracted mosquitoes. Before relocating there,

Martinho recommended the construction of a fortification and a warehouse as essential for the storage of merchandise. The Portuguese also advocated that the isle be their new headquarters, which required that the Portuguese and the Africans have amicable

775 relations. Restoration of the Portuguese position was wrought with difficulties given their unsuccessful attempts at the collection of tariffs from Europeans and Africans.

Martinho noticed that the island of Galinhas was an ideal place for a settlement because it

771 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça n.º1, folhas avulsas. 772 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça n.º1, folhas avulsas. 773 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 102. 774 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 107. 775 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça n.º1, folhas avulsas.

256 was flat, abundant in trees, had natural defenses, and had high-quality clay for the

776 production of potteries and construction in Ilheo de Rey. Moreover, it was ideal for growing cotton, sugarcane, coffee, and manioc (rather than relying on only rice, which

777 produced so many mosquitoes).

The Portuguese sought to establish alliances, treaties, and amicable relations with various independent communities in order to have unhindered access from the Geba to the Casamance Rivers. The Portuguese had to deal with resilient small-scale and centralized coastal communities. Although some African communities demanded more in the treaties, particularly from smaller and weaker groups, but other groups asked for limited concessions.

In 1835, Barreto had signed a treaty with Jagulo, king of Bolor, through which the

778 Portuguese acquired fortified territories in Bolor in the northwestern part of present- day Guinea-Bissau. There were ten articles to this treaty. First, Jagulo ceded to Portugal the fortified territory to the limits of the Bolor River “for ever, without restriction.”

Second, non-Portuguese ships must pay fees to the customhouse of Portuguese Guinea.

Third, although Portuguese subjects could conduct trade on their farms in Bolor territory, other Europeans were restricted to trade on board their ships. Fourth, Portuguese ships were not required to pay for anchorage, but other European ships were obligated to give

“to the king of Bolor a bar of iron, a bottle of gunpowder and two bottles of aguardente.”

Fifth, Portuguese Guinea must annually render to the king of Bolor four barrels of iron,

776 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 107. 777 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 107. 778 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça n.º 3; 1/41, “Tratados e contratos do Governo da Guiné Portuguesa, 1828–1879,” 1.5cm; originais e cópias manuscritos. Folhas avulsas.

257 eight bottles of aguardente, four bottles of gunpowder. Given the increased cycle of violence and the commercial opportunities of the Atlantic slave trade, Africans employed iron for manufacturing weaponry and agricultural tools to boost food production in order to feed exportable slaves; and the old imported European guns were useless without gunpowder. The chiefs, kings, and lineage heads drank the alcohol as well as using it for religious ceremonies. Sixth, the Portuguese must defend the Bolor territory from internal and external enemies. Seventh, Portuguese should punish any individual who attempted to assault or harm the king or people of Bolor as well as any Floup, an ethnic group in the area that harms subjects of the Portuguese fortified area. The Floup did not initially

779 participate in the slave trade, but were hostile and shunned Europeans. Eighth, the king of Bolor must relinquish any fugitive from Portuguese Guinea (hence people such as degregados, slaves, libertos, and grumetes were fleeing from Portuguese Guinea). Ninth,

Portuguese subjects of the fortified territory in Bolor must be accompanied by African citizens of Bolor to visit other areas. During the era of the Atlantic slave trade, in small- scale societies, Africans traveling outside their villages and towns usually went in groups

780 and were armed, and Portuguese subjects were no exception to this rule, because most were mestiços and pretos, meaning that they were not “white” and could be enslaved.

Tenth, “When a director of the bulwark territory of Bolor was nominated by Cape Verde,

779 This hostility continued into the nineteenth century. See, Linares, “Deferring to Trade in Slaves: The Jola of Casamance, Senegal in Historical Perspective,” History in Africa 14 (1987): 113–39; Baum, Shrines of the Slave Trade. 780 Marrtin Klein, “State of the Field: Slavery” from Organization of American Historian, http://156.56.25.5/meetings/2004/klein.html. See Hawthorne, Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves; Andrew Hubbell, "Patronage and Predation: A Social History of Colonial Chieftaincies in a Chiefless Region--Sourougdougou ( ), 1850– 1946,” Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 1996.

258 they were obligated to give the king of Bolor a uniform consisting of red frock coat, yellow buttons, ordinary hat, a panu, a long shirt, a handkerchief, but if the director was

781 nominated by Cacheu then, they do not have to provide a uniform.” Perhaps the ruler of Bolor believed that Cape Verde had access to foreign trade goods and reflected

African thinking that the archipelago also produced quality fabrics. As mentioned in chapters 1 and 2, the color red was prized because it was difficult to make in Africa; the

European hat was a symbol of the Atlantic. Along with the other items, all were for

African rulers.

Further north was the Casamance region, where the Portuguese had a weaker presence and the French were steadily asserting themselves. In August 1836, Honório

Pereira Barreto, a counselor in Cacheu, and Francisco Carvalho de Alvarenga, the delegate of counselor and lieutenant commander of the Portuguese garrison in

Ziguinchor, signed a treaty with Hiabune, a king in Casamance, along with other lesser

782 kings there. African kings granted territories in the area of Casamance River to

Portugal allowing them to build a new military post. A priest presided over the ceremony and sang litanies for the occasion and afterwards, Barreto boldly shouted out three times who dare opposed the Portuguese possessing this land to finalize the process.

Nonetheless, other African communities were not pleased about the Portuguese

783 presence. In 1845, Zigoches, thought to be Bañuns by Carreira, who lived on the left

781 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça n.º 3; Folhas avulsas. 782 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça n.º 3, Folhas avulsas. 783 Carreira, “O fundamento dos etnónimos na Guiné Portuguesa,” in Garcia de Orta, vol.10 (n.º 2) (Lisbon, Portugal: 1962), 317, 322. Carreira suggests that Ziguinchor derives its name from this group.

259 bank of the Casamance River, attacked a Portuguese canoe and took the crew

784 . De Carvalho Alvarenga requested support from Crato, governor of Cacheu.

785 Crato in turn requested military assistance from Dom José Miguel de Noronha, who was brigadier governor of Cape Verde. Zigoches killed a crewman because they said the

786 Portuguese murdered one of theirs and that this is the custom of their land. Crato demanded that the Zigoche who performed the retaliatory killing and escaped to Farim to come before the Portuguese authorit. However, once the suspected aggressor arrived, the

Zigoches declared war against the Portuguese during the rainy season, which was not the custom given that it made fighting difficult with traveling and malaria was rampant.

Crato believed that the war against the Zigoches could not be sustained because the

Portuguese were already at war with another group and few residents remained in the presidio of Ziguinchor. With many dead, the war waned, but the Zigoches attacked again a canoe used by Honório Pereira Barretto who was traveling to the port of Gemberem.

The Zigoches held the crews for ransom and sold the confiscated commodities. Crato led an expedition to recapture the crew. In the end, the Zigoches disappeared from

Portuguese surveillance.

Given that the Portuguese did not have a stronghold in Casamance and faced independent African communities on the march towards Ziguinchor, they tried to establish alliances in some strategic areas. In 1870, the Portuguese signed a treaty with

784 SGG, Cx n.º 347, peça n.º 4 ½, “Correspondênica recebida do governo da praça de cacheu; agosto-dezembro 1845; 2 peça; cópias manuscritos.” Folhas avulsas. 785 http://arqhist.exercito.pt/germil/details?id=94149. 786 SGG, Cx n.º 347, peça n.º 4 ½; folhas avulsas.

260 787 the Baiotes of Nhambalam. The Portuguese had not had relations with the Baiotes

788 since 1843. The Portuguese were eager to reestablish friendly relations because the area of the Baiotes had plenty of trees for timber. Moreover, it was easier to navigate through Baiote land to Ziguinchor River to assist and supply Portuguese garrison in

Ziguinchor that were facing stiff French competition.

In 1835, Martinho wrote that he “took” the Geba River because “all the gold, ivory, and gum that is exported to Casamance River come from Geba.” He would have

“absorbed all the riches of Casamance River and as such, accumulate all the commercial

789 operations.” The Geba River was at the crossroads of the Bañun-Bak, Mande, and

Luso-African trading networks. Nonetheless, Martinho’s claim that he annexed the Geba

River was nothing but imperial hubris. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,

Havik argues,

The silence surrounding Geba is due to the fact that the site was situated on the interface between two geo-political areas, where states or ‘empires’ met. In fact, the lack of attention paid to the town also owes a great deal to the existence of two imperial traditions, one African and associated with Soninké and Mandé expansion to the coast, and the other Euro-Atlantic and Afro-Portuguese, that penetrated the continent via its many rivers and 790 creeks, thus relegating Geba to an academic no-man’s land.

787 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça 3, folhas avulsas. 788 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça 3, folhas avulsas. 789 Memórias Sobre Cabo Verde do Governador Joaquim Pereira Martinho, 102. 790 Philip J. Havik, “The Port of Geba: At the Crossroads of Afro-Atlantic Trade and Culture,” Mande Studies 9 (2007): 21.

261 In Mandinka oral tradition, Kelefa Saane, a celebrated heroic prince of Kaabu, who as a

791 young man molested princely women, was sold into slavery in Geba. This tradition hints that Geba could have been an important slave port during the era of the Atlantic slave trade. Between 1840 and 1888, Carreira note that a surge in slave trade ensued

792 because of the war by the Fula against the Mandinka and the Beafadas. During the nineteenth century, the empires of the Portuguese and the Madinka, one coming from the seas and the other from the interior, would overtly interact, engendering cooperation as well as conflict.

The Portuguese increasingly interacted with the provinces of the Kaabu kingdom, which was experiencing internal dissent against the mansa, ruler of the empire, based in headquarter of Kansala. In June 1836, Major Captain João Nunes de Britto, a merchant

793 and commander in the district of Geba, was part of the Portuguese delegation. The

Portuguese delegates met all the chiefs of the tabanka of Bricama at the mouth of the

Geba River. According to Britto, the chiefs of the Bricama announced the end of salt transport on the river. There was plenty of salt on the north bank of the Geba River,

794 where a plethora of hostile kingdoms existed. Before his coronation, King Faranba alerted his neighbors and distant Mandinka polities of the deteriorating social scenery negatively affecting commerce. However, he did not appeal to the ruler of Bricama, because King Faranba had animosity toward Bricama that came from their reluctance to

791 Gordon Innes (ed. and tr.), Kelefa Saane: his career recounted by two Mandinka bards (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1978). 792 Carreira, “O Tráfico clandestine de escravos na Guiné e em Cabo Verde no século XIX” in Raízes, n.º 5/6, 1978, Ano 2 (Praia, Cape Verde: Imprensa Nacional), 32. 793 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça n.º 3; Folhas avulsas. 794 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça n.º 3; Folhas avulsas.

262 aid the king. In earlier days, Faranba said there was peace with all the inhabitants, because the Soninkes (non-Islamic Mandinkas) worked within their profession, and mouros (Juula; itinerant Mande Muslim traders) safely traveled. The Fula were treated well, all had their “agency,” and in his land, there was tranquility, lack of robbery, and hospitality to the white Christians, his neighbors, who ply the river in their canoes full of

795 money. Due to the amicable relationship, the Portuguese could produce as much salt as they needed, and they were allowed to sail as far as the ports of Bafata and Gansumá.

According to Britto, Faranba appealed for an alliance with the Portuguese, but Brito believed that Faranba was being duplicitous. Although he desired peace, Britto believed that the Portuguese should not have a partnership with Kaabu because of Faranba’s inconsistency. Britto argued that the people of Geba might not bother “whites that were masters of the seas, while Africans were masters of the land.” After Faranba’s coronation, the delegates’ of the king of Bricama came with gifts of brandy to request an alliance with the people of Kaabu against the Futa-Fulas, who desired war.

By the 1840s, the Mandinka states or vassals of Kaabu became less cooperative and more belligerent. In December 1845, the Mandinkas of Canico, which borders

Casamance, attacked and burnt the settlements of the Portuguese in Lavapés, near the

796 Portuguese garrison in Farim, and captured more than twenty Portuguese subjects.

Crato responded to the plea of the Portuguese commander based in Farim and arrived with eighteen people. The Mandinkas freed some people when Crato arrived. There was a gathering with the people of Sancalanco, Dugutato, and the ruler of Fejangoto town,

795 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça n.º 3; Folhas avulsas. 796 SGG, Cx n.º 347, peça n.º 4 ½; folhas avulsas.

263 797 which was “contiguous with the garrison.” The ruler of Fejangoto had an “offensive and defensive alliance” with the Portuguese in Farim, but the ruler of Fejangoto and other

Mandinkas pleaded with the Portuguese not to wage war. The latter said that the

Mandinkas of Canico should release all the captives and surrender the stolen merchandise taken in Lavapés and never “insult” the Portuguese again, unless they wanted war. The

Portuguese were vulnerable and they tried to reinforce a strong wall by fastening pano to the stalks, but there were few provisions and the dwellers were despondent.

In December 1845, the king of Fejangoto came along with others, including some

798 from Canico, and negotiated the return all the prisoners and some commodities. On

January 2, 1846, the Portuguese received the remaining items. The king of Fejangoto did not want the mouros of Canico to speak without the presence of Mandinkas, the “masters of the land.” The mouros, as Muslims, might have had an antagonistic relationship with

Portuguese, who they viewed as competitors. The Portuguese demanded the perpetrators turned over to them or else the affair was not resolved for them. So, on January 8, 1846,

King of Fejangoto and the Mandinkas of Sancalanco asked Crato to return to Cacheu because the Mandinkas of Canico refused to return. They feared being arrested by him,

799 because there “did not exist casus belli” and that his presence was “impeding” trade.

The Mandinkas prohibited the Christians from returning to Lavapés, which suggests that

797 SGG, Cx n.º 347, peça n.º 4 ½; folhas avulsas. 798 SGG, Cx n.º 347, peça n.º 4 ½; folhas avulsas. 799 SGG, Cx n.º 347, peça n.º 4 ½; folhas avulsas.

264 the mouros were influential. Figure 17 shows a Mandinka chief from the Guinea-Bissau

800 region in Islamic robe “accompanied by his sword bearer.”

Figure 17. A Mandinka Chief, 1850

(Source: Brantz Mayer, Captain Canot; or, Twenty years an African slaver…[New York, 1854], facing title page.)

In addition to the growing tension with some of the Mandinkas on the other side of the bank of the Geba River, the Balantas were a formidable group that the Portuguese

(and the Mandinkas) had to confront. The people of Faramcunda had to rescue the captives and stolen goods, because the Balanta usually sold the confiscated cows. They also abducted whites because they cut down trees in the and other places. Balantas redeemed the captives after receiving the monetary equivalent of one slave as well as sixteen bottles of brandy and twenty-four panus. The Geba River was not safe because

800 http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery/details.php?categorynum=2&categoryName= PreColonial%20Africa:%20Society,%20Polity,%20Culture&theRecord=96&recordCoun t=261.

265 enemies, such as Balanta, Zigoches, and Papels, would attack and confiscate goods, and

King Faranba regretted the deterioration of social relations and this was a huge impediment to Portuguese commercial activities.

In the region of the Geba River, the Balanta were the major producer of salt, which they traded with the Mandinka. Brito emphasized that making salt was more appropriate on north bank rather than the south bank of the Geba River (the Portuguese did not have access to the north bank because African groups blocked them). Because the

Portuguese wanted to profit from the salt production in Geba River, they strategized ways to benefit the salt production by the Balanta. The Portuguese reasoned that it was futile to attempt tax Balanta salt production because they did not have the manpower to enforce

801 it. The Balanta communities were well-organized, armed, and fierce, and even the

Kaabu Empire was unable to conquer these small-scale societies. The Ministry of Navy and Overseas reasoned that they should tax the product in transit from production site to the marketplace. The Ministry continued by noting that “friendly relations” will deteriorate due to the necessity of commerce and insisted that a systematic taxation of goods that operate within Portuguese Guinea is necessary, even if the Portuguese did not

802 participate.

In order for treaties with an array of African communities that often spoke different languages to be signed, an interpreter was essential. Interpreters were also cultural brokers, because they facilitated dialogue by conveying messages in culturally

801 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça n.º 1. “Documentos Relativos a ilha de Bissau: correspondênica Recebida do Ministério de Marinha e Ultramar [s.d.] 2 peças; original e cópia manuscritos. Folhas avulsas. 802 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça n.º1, folhas avulsas.

266 sensitive ways. Christianized African men (grumetes or Kriston) were facilitated communication between Africans and Portuguese/Luso-Africans/Cape Verdeans. The existence of these interpreters dispels the notion that African rulers signed treaties without understanding the content, although cultural differences may have persisted in

803 terms of what “land concessions” meant. These interpreters spoke various languages, including Kabuverdianu/Guineense, Mandinka, Bijagó, Fula, Papel, and Beafada. In both

804 Cape Verde and Upper Guinea, interpreters were called cholona/cholonar/tcholonar.

In the 1660s, Francisco de Lemos Coelho referred to children, usually boys, which

Bijagós would give to the Portuguese to raise and teach Christianity so they could serve

805 as chalona. During the slave trade, Europeans utilized chalonas to trade on the mainland, whereas in Cape Verde, slaves that spoke Portuguese-based Creole and

African languages served as chalonas for boçal slaves.

In June 1856, André Gomes facilitated an agreement between Barreto and

Mamuto Jassi, the Beafada ruler of Cubuia, who accompanied by his confidant, Tio Gaje

806 Jabi. André Gomes was the grumete judge of grumetes living inside the fort’s wall

803 Toby Green, Philip Havik, José Lingna Naféfe, and Peter Mendy emphasize that the Portuguese breached these contracts, causing African retaliation. 804 Carreira, Aspectos da Influência da Cultura Portuguesa, 43; Carreira believes chalona derives from Balanta or Bijagó, signifying an interpreter and translator. During the , Carreira also noted that the among Balanta and Christians in Guinea-Bissau the word was widely used. 805 Francisco de Lemos Coelho, Duas descrições seiscentistas da Guiné; manuscritos inéditos publicados com introdução e anotações históricas pelo académico de número Damião Peres. (Lisbon, Portugal, 1953), 43. 806 SGG, Cx. N.º 347, peça n.º 3, folhas avulsas.

267 807 (intra-muros) of Bissau. In all likelihood, Gomes knew Beafada as well as Guineense in order to translate for both parties. Given that the Beafada ruler of Cubuia had a

Mandinka name, Mamuto Jassi, it is possible another African language utilized was

Mandinka. Today, Kristons (or grumetes) in Guinea-Bissau speak Beafada, Fula, and

Guineense.

The parties held the discussion at the ponta Boa Esperança (Good Hope) at the feitoria of Nhara Eugenia Nozolini Ferreira (which also shows that she had some influence because the meeting was on her ponta). Nhara Ferreira was also the daughter of the notorious José Caetano Nozolini and Nhara Aurélia Correia, which is emblematic of her deep Cape Verdean and Guinean roots, respectively. Perhaps both parties deemed her a respectable and neutral third party, at whose ponta they could meet without fear of attack. Given Havik’s description of nharas as mothers, traders, queens, and partners, it possible that both sides perceived Nhara Ferreira as a mother or matriarch, and thus trustworthy.

In June 1856, Mamude Sambu translated for Barreto and Semsa Mané, the

808 Beafada ruler of Caúr, along with his subordinates of Ualito Sambu and Anga Jassi. If

Mamude Sambu was a grumete, he did not adopt a Christian name and he might have been related to Chief Ualito Sambu, who grumetes invoked to legitimize their intermediary roles. The encounter was on Francisco de Paulo Ferreira’s feitoria, located in Sabadá in Rio de Bolola. Ferreira signed this treaty, which delineated the protection of

Portuguese subjects and their land. Like other treaties, it emphasized continuing

807 I use Guineense to identify Guinean Creole, rather than the conventional use of Kriol. 808 SGG, Cx. N.º 347, peça n.º 3, folhas avulsas.

268 friendship, protection for Portuguese subjects and their land, and Portuguese control over fiscal matters in the area. In short, Portuguese colonialism was trying to spread peacefully through treaties.

In addition to the Rio Grande region, Casamance, and the region of the Geba

River, the Portuguese deemed the archipelago of Bijagó an important commercial center.

In 1861, Bonifacio Rodrigues served as interpreter for the Bijagó delegations and

Portuguese representatives, who were led by Pedro Augusto Macedo de Azevedo, interim secretary of government. Macedo de Azevedo had been commissioned by lieutenant colonel of general staff army, António Candido Zagalo, who was also governor of Guinea

809 Portuguese. Present was André Gomes, the judge of grumetes living inside fort’s wall of Bissau; Francisco Fernandes, judge of grumetes residing outside the fort’s wall (extra- muros) of Bissau; Gregorio Rodrigues, judge of grumetes of Bandim; and Ainquemé

Lopes, grumete judge (juíz do povo) of Orango. Havik emphasizes that appointed grumete judges invoked kinship ties with African dignitaries in their palaver to establish

810 their legitimacy. “For example, Ainguené Lopes, the juiz do povo of Orango, was a

811 cousin of the oloño Oranto.” From these three pontas and Oranto, an island of the archipelago of Bijagós, some grumetes accompanied the delegation. They even “acted as

812 secret police chiefs.” Hence, grumetes were vital to the daily functioning of

Portuguese Guinea.

809 SGG, Cx. N.º 347, peça n.º 3, folhas avulsas. 810 Havik, Silences and Soundbytes, 136. 811 Havik, Silences and Soundbytes, 136, 280n; original, AHU, CV, P.25, 30-1-1856; P.33, 31-3-1862. 812 Havik, Silences and Soundbytes, 137.

269 Present for the Bijagó delegations were Orantó of Orango, King of Orango; King of Ambircu sent Endacunú Lopes, grande (chief) of Orango; Ambrosio Uramiaque

Lopes; Nhequitigu, nephew of king of Orango; Uquebe, brother of King Oranto; Entadi, king of ; Oranto of Sogá, King of Sogá; and King of Uracaná sent a “Jacintho.” Some of the Bijagó dignitaries had Portuguese surnames, in particular Lopes, which suggests spread of Portuguese influence. Despite adopting Portuguese surnames, these Bijagós evidently did not speak Portuguese and Upper Guinea Creole or perhaps, they demanded interpreters as part of protocol in negotiating to convey their powerful status.

All the interpreters signed with an “x,” demonstrating that literacy was not essential for trade. However, some Futa-Fulas signed using Arabic scripts, but they were

813 not interpreters. Although the Portuguese had some people that were multilingual and thus could facilitate trade with many African communities, they had trouble in almost all other realms, such as administration, army personnel, or disease control.

In 1853, the authorities in Cape Verde sent military reinforcements to the praça of

814 Bissau on board the Progresso de Bissau. In October 1855, Honório Pereira Barreto

815 signed a treaty with the Papel representatives of Biang. The Papel king of Biang was not present because, according to Papel custom and belief, the king would perish if he left his territory. (This custom might have been established to prevent others from assuming

813 It would be interesting to found out if these treaties were written in Arabic via the interpreters who facilitated their understanding of the contracts. See, George E. Brooks and Bruce L. Mouser, “An 1804 Slaving Contract Signed in Arabic Script from the Upper Guinea Coast,” History in Africa 14 (1987): 341–7. 814 SGG, Cx n.º 347, peça n.º 6, 1/7, “Correspondência recebida de Bissau marco- outubro 1853; 7 peças; originais manuscritos.” Folhas avulsas. 815 SGG, Cx. n.347, peça n.º 3. Folhas avulsas.

270 the kingship in a vacuum.) Despite his absence, the treaty gave a major concession: the use of the right bank of the mouth and beyond of the Bassarel River. The stipulation prohibited foreign ships (including the Manjacos, their neighbors) from disembarking, but only allowed them to pass through on canoes. The Portuguese were politically in charge of the territory, but they were not allowed to confiscate Papel rice, farmlands, or palm oil; the Papel would continue to farm and do, as they liked on their land and river.

Another condition was that if the Papel king died, the Portuguese will provide a calico- lined coffin with two fine panus for his burial, fifty drags of powder, and “twelve

816 gallons/twenty four bottles of brandy.” Leão Gomes, a judge of grumetes, served as

817 interpreter. Because Bassarel was a strategic estuary, in 1863, Crato renewed the treaty of 1843 originally signed with King Gamgobó of Matta of Putama, who ceded

818 land, including the mouth of the estuary of Bassarel. The peace did not last.

In 1861, war broke out between the praça of Cacheu and Churo, Pucau, and

819 Cacanda. The Portuguese claimed that Papel of Cacanda declared war on the praça.

The document does not provide the reason for the war, but it would appear that it was related to the Portuguese incursion into African affairs. In 1862, there was a governmental a meeting to review the proposal sent by the general governor of Cape

820 Verde regarding the war with the Papel of Cacanda. Those present were Crato, interim

816 Papel associated fine panu with the Portuguese and Cape Verde. SGG, Cx. n. 347, peças n. 3. Folhas avulsas. 817 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça n. 3, folhas avulsas. 818 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça n. 3, folhas avulsas. 819 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça n. 3, folhas avulsas. 820 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça n. 3, folhas avulsas.

271 governor; Pedro Augusto, interim secretary; Manoel Joaquim Pedro, military expeditionary commission; the governor of Cacheu; a custom officer; and the bishop of

Portuguese Guinea. To enter the praça, the Portuguese stipulated that Africans from

821 Churo, Cacanda, Pucau, and Matta must leave their weapons outside the praça. A major concern for the Portuguese was that the Papel of Churo, Cacanda, Pucau, and

822 Matta not trade fugitive slaves from the praça of Cacheu.

Among the participants in this meeting were notable traders, such as Francisco

José Benicio, José da Silva Santos Costa, Carlos Honório Barreto, and Raphael Mendes.

Mendes argued that the proposal to remove the locals of Cacanda from their land would

823 be vehemently resisted by the group. Mendes emphasized that the inhabitants of

Cacheu knew him and that he understood the customs of the coastal people. Crato said that he knew that customs of the Africans well because he had lived in Cacheu for fifteen

824 years and that the Africans would reject these terms. The recently appointed governor of Cacheu, Manoel Joaquim Pedro, an Iberian Portuguese, acknowledged that he had little understanding of coastal practices, but the group “unanimously” disapproved of the

825 proposal by the governor of Cape Verde. The input of the traders was vital to the colonial authority’s approach. This illustrates the classic interaction between colonialism and commerce, which underpinned the establishment of Portuguese Guinea.

821 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça n. 3, folhas avulsas. 822 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça n. 3, folhas avulsas. 823 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça n. 3, folhas avulsas. 824 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça 3, folhas avulsas. 825 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça 3, folhas avulsas.

272 On the night of January 17, 1866, a Papel from Churo killed an individual in the praça of Cacheu. Present to mediate this conflict, for the Portuguese contingent, were

João Carlos Cordeiro, interim governor of Cacheu, and merchants José Dias de Moura,

Manuel da Luz Ferreira, Francisco José Benicio, Veuceslau da Silva Ferreira, Joaquim

Antonio Timas, and Anna Charsis Freire Monteiro. Present for the Papel were Cachola,

Notem, Bolanhe, and Lariero, all chiefs of Churo and Noviche along with Felippe, rulers of Plunde. The ruler of Churo had died and they had not elected his successor, and the

826 ruler of Plunde was too weak and feeble to negotiate. The interpreter was Adrião

Corrêa, a grumete from the praça of Cacheu.

In African custom, the rulers of Churo kneeled and implored the Portuguese for peace and friendship. They acknowledged the violation of the agreement and emphasized that culprit was “banished from his country, village” and that his abode had been burnt to

827 the ground and they “voted for ostracism.” Article 3 of the treaty stipulated that

Papels from Churo accused of insulting or physically harming individuals from the praça of Cacheu and its dependencies must be submitted to the Portuguese authorities “without any delay.” Article 4 dealt stated that any Papel of Churo who inflicted “stealing, robbery and homicide and any other infraction” by a Papel of Churo on Portuguese subjects must face Portuguese law. If the Papels of Churo did not comply, a clause allowed apprehension or ransoming of the alleged criminal or any individual from Churo. The last article noted that the governor of Cacheu would also punish any individual(s) under

826 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça 3, folhas avulsas. 827 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça 3, folhas avulsas.

273 Portuguese jurisdiction that violated these laws. Hence, the enforcement of these articles would empower the Portuguese authorities and supersede African sovereignty.

Historically, the Beafada groups dominated the Rio Grande region, despite the

Fula settlement in the area during the fifteenth century and encroaching Kaabu Empire.

Indeed, the Beafada assimilated some Mandinka and Fula cultures, but remained a distinct group. During the 1840s, Portuguese relations with the Beafada were not all hostile. In 1844, Mamudo Sanho, the Beafada king of Badora, “ceded” the territories of

Fá and Ganjarra to the Portuguese to allow fortifications to protect the pontos

828 (plantations). According to the Portuguese, Mamudo Sanho relinquished all areas under his control in the Geba River region to them. In return, the Portuguese would offer a monthly tribute of twelve bottles of aguardente. The main beneficiary was Caetano

Nozolini, who established trading factories there. With Portuguese encroachment in

Beafada territories, the Beafadas became more defensive. Although Barreto signed a treaty with Selemany Jaby, Beafada ruler of Bolola, in 1856, some Beafada entities resisted the Portuguese.

In 1861, the Portuguese captured a mouro in Begine in a war against the Beafadas

829 of Badora. In October 1863, the Muslim chief (Mór Grande) died of cardiac hypertrophy in the military hospital in Bissau. The Portuguese deemed that the “hostility”

830 of Beafadas of Badora was harmful to their commercial interest in the Geba River.

The Portuguese putatively regretted this situation and myopically reminisced that they

828 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça n.º 3; Folhas avulsas. 829 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça 7, fohas avulsas. 830 Continuado do numero antecedente, 25: BOGGCV, Numero 5, 1862.

274 had “always” lived in tranquility with the people of Upper Guinea. The Portuguesem demonstrating their imperial arrogance, considered the Beafadas of Badora in “rebellion.”

Crato, as president, would head the commission to Geba along with prominent traders,

831 including Gregorio Corrêa Pinto, José Joaquim d’Oliveria, and José Pedro da Silva.

The objective of the commission was to “guarantee the commercial interest of Portuguese subjects,” such as the unimpeded navigation in the Geba River and Portuguese rights to

832 small plantations in Fá, Ganjarra, and all other areas.

By 1861, the colonial government in Cape Verde confirmed the nomination of

833 José Lourenço d’Araujo as the chief-resident of the colony in Rio Grande. The

Portuguese effort at territorial expansion caused irrevocable damage, because the

Beafadas saw this as interference on their land. In 1863, Crato urged that all the available

834 degredados be sent to the “colony of Rio Grande.” As discussed in chapter 4, the government of Cape Verde had made a formal request to Portugal to authorize sending rebellious libertos from the island of Sal to perform public works in Rio Grande colony.

The degredados chopped down the trees to make wooden beams and sailed on a big boat

835 owned by José Lourenço d’Araujo. Araujo asked Felippe Eugenio Vieira, who lived in the colony, about the quantity of woods transported by the group. In 1863, Manoel

Bernardes, a degredado, was suspected of burning down the house of José Lourenço

831 Continuado do numero antecedente, 25: BOGGCV, Numero 5, 1862. 832 Continuado do numero antecedente, 25: BOGGCV, Numero 5, 1862. 833 BOGGCV, Numero 9, 1861, 33; Biblioteca Nacional e Livros de Cabo Verde, Praia, Santiago, Cabo Verde. 834 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça 7, folhas avulsas. 835 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça 7, folhas avulsas.

275 836 d’Araújo. The degregados were handling the wooden beams to bring it closer to mouth of the river. In order to do this, dried grass or plants were laid on the path, which caught fire. Wood was an important material for construction, and the Portuguese kept surveillance of timber production levels to prevent misappropriation. They were in a hurry to build strong fortifications because the French colony of Senegal was sending

Franco-Africans to secure a foothold in the area.

In 1868, the French colonial administration sent Adolfo Demay, a Franco-

African, along with David James Laerrance and Francis Lacrecence requesting a meeting

837 with Gage Nanchim, ruler of Bolola. Nanchim refused to receive them, but Demay returned with the intention of negotiating a contract “for the navigation and domination

838 of the Rio Grande for the Senegalese government.” Given this persistency, Nanchim notified the Portuguese leading to a new treaty. Nachim asserted that he took his authority from Jaby, his predecessor, and would uphold the old treaty. João Monteiro de

839 Macedo, a merchant from Fogo, was one of the signatories.

Moreover, with the disintegration of the Kaabu Empire circa 1856, the Almamy of Futa-Djallon had become the sole African hegemony in the interior, fighting the independent Beafadas in the Rio Grande region. In 1870, Portuguese Guinea, led by

Manoel dos Santos Oliveira, first lieutenant of Cape Verde based, made an alliance with

Soury Sedy, Futa Fula chief, ruler of Laiché, chief commander of arms for the Almamy

836 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça 7, folhas avulsas. 837 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça 3, folhas avulsas. 838 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça 3, folhas avulsas. 839 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça 3, folhas avulsas.

276 840 to “protect” the Beafada of Buba. Prominent Portuguese traders were present, including José Lourenço d’Araujo, José Joaquim Pires da Coasta, Jaime Marques de

Barros, Manoel da Silva Fracceo, and Ambrozio Carvalho de Alvarenga, to protect

Portuguese commercial interests. In the treaty, one of the five clauses that Sedy insisted

841 on enabled the “progress and protection of Portuguese commerce.” Another clause stipulated that Fulas and mouros that become residents of Buba must provide tribute to the ruler of Buba. It also stated that Fulas could travel in Buba territory with their commodities. Besides trade issues, the treaty emphasized the protection of the Beafada nation. Portuguese Guinea was attempting to contain the expansionist Fula Empire by using vulnerable political entities as buffer zones. At this point, Portugal tried to accommodate the jihadist Fula rather than face direct confrontation. In addition to the

Futa-Fulas, the Portuguese were facing challenges from the French and British, who were trying to buy land and make alliances with African rulers in the region.

In January 1870, in Cacheu, a fight broke out between the resident grumetes and

842 soldiers. Captain Alvaro Telles Caldeira, governor of Portuguese Guinea, arrived to quell the confusion, but the grumetes killed the governor and injured some of the soldiers.

In order to “pacify” the district and punish the grumetes of Cacheu, in February 1871,

Cape Verde sent military reinforcements consisting of two gunboats, the Zarco and the

843 Tejo. The gunboats were also used to attack the Papels of Cacanda, next to the praça

840 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça 3, folhas avulsas. 841 SGG, Cx. n. 347, peça 3, folhas avulsas. 842 BOGGCV, 1871, numero 6, 28. 843 BOGGCV, 1871, numero 6, 28.

277 844 of Cacheu. The grumetes took refuge in the Papel settlement of Cacanda, which was

845 only two kilometers from the praça of Cacheu, in an almost impenetrable . In

Cacheu, the Portuguese lamented that Africans that had “insulted” them sought refuge

846 there. Papels of Cacanda constantly launched attacks against the praça of Cacheu.

Before this excursion, only once did Portuguese forces penetrate the bush, and they were ambushed with gunfire. The Papels of Cacanda were described as “brave people, seasoned, dexterous, starting very young handling weaponry and gymnastic

847 exercises.” Maybe, this culture of war was engendered or facilitated by the centuries of violence brought by the slave trade.

In 1871, all the praças and fortified locations of Portuguese Guinea contributed military assistance, and about 200 foot soldiers went to Cacanda. The colonial governor of Cape Verde exclaimed that the “superior command of Portuguese officials and

848 sailors.” With reconnaissance done by Marques and Saint-Maurice, who knew their way to Cacanda, and a map that had been developed for the first time, Portuguese forces

849 went deep into the village of Cacanda. Although the Portuguese force claimed they were “victorious and punished the Papels of Cacanda,” they ironically highlighted their retreat because the Papels brutally retaliated, which contradicts Portuguese proclaimed victory. In short, the Portuguese forces continued to encounter fierce resistance and suffer

844 BOGGCV, 1871, numero 13, 68. 845 BOGGCV, 1871, numero 13, 74. 846 BOGGCV, 1871, numero 13, 68. 847 BOGGCV, 1871, numero 13, 74. 848 BOGGCV, 1871, numero 13, 68. 849 BOGGCV, 1871, numero 13, 74.

278 major military defeats. Peter K. Mendy notes that the 1878 “massacre” of more than fifty

Portuguese soldiers in Bolor occurred “on the eve of the notorious European scramble for colonies in Africa, and dealt a heavy blow to Portuguese national pride and dreams of an

African empire.” João Barreto tells us that, as a result, the Lisbon authorities found themselves compelled to “pay more attention to matters of Guinea.” This came to entail the separation of the few fortified settlements, know as praças and presídios, from Cape

850 Verde, on March 18, 1879.

In conclusion, this chapter has explored the issues of kinship, abolition, commerce, and colonization in Portuguese Guinea. With the rise of peanut production and the transition to legitimate trade, residents of Cape Verde, particularly Fogo and

Santiago, settled and traded in contraband in Portuguese Guinea. Perhaps the assertion of whiteness by Luso-Africans during the nineteenth century, in reaction to British and

French attacks on their “Portuguese” identity, should be seen in relation to many merchants from Fogo who were identified as brankus di terra on their island, and who had tremendous social capital. Their “whiteness” justified their involvement in competing with French, British, and even Iberian Portuguese in commerce, including the slave trade.

Moreover, British abolitionism had a huge impact on Portuguese claims to

Portuguese Guinea, because Portuguese subjects were deeply involved in the slave trade.

The British used this as pretext to confiscate territories that Portugal hadproclaimed as their own. Portugal also competed with French colonial expansionism. The fiercest resistance, nevertheless, came from African communities. They had to deal with the Fula

850 Peter K. Mendy, “The Tradition of Resistance in Guinea-Bissau: The Portuguese- African Encounter in Cacheu, Bissau and ‘suas dependênicas,’ 1588–1878,” in Mansas, Escravos, Grumetes e Gentio, 137.

279 expansion, Kaabu, and small-scale societies along the Casamance to Grande River regions. In Portuguese Guinea, subjects such as libertos from Guiné, degredados (mostly libertos from Cape Verde), and grumetes constantly deserted and fled to African communities. In addition, Portuguese Guinea was internally disorganized because officials were heavily involved in commerce, particularly slave trafficking. Diseases affected the duration of stay by high officials. The health infrastructure lacked adequate resources to deal with debilitating illnesses. In addition, they could not even provide primary education; therefore, prominent students traveled to Cape Verde to complete certain courses. However, with interpreters and reinforced armies, Portuguese Guinea continued to negotiate and fight with the Africans. By 1879, the colony of Portuguese

Guinea was administratively separated from the province of Cape Verde to focus on ensuring the viability of the fledging colony. By 1876, Portugal finally succeeding in abolishing slavery in its territories, which were also a watershed mark for Portuguese colonial expansion in Africa, which began on the coast, and then extending into the interior, with continued African opposition.

280 CONCLUSION This dissertation explored the how the Atlantic slave trade between Cape Verde and the Upper Guinea Coast fostered a cross-cultural exchange in which Cape Verde was an integral part. It shows that economic and cultural interpretations are neither exclusionary nor antagonistic, but complementary for understanding the interplay between the two realms in the development of cultural and political practices. The study proposed five historiographical areas of contribution.

First, fashion and dress began to change with the arrival of Islam in Upper Guinea and the Atlantic slave trade. Although Islam brought certain types of dress, it did not displace preexisting fashions in Upper Guinea worn by islamicized elites. As Mandinka in the Senegambia testified, the fashion of wearing protective amulets did not disappear but was combined with the Muslim robe. As for the Atlantic influence, in Upper Guinea, particularly in coastal communities, chiefs and leaders incorporated European clothing without abandoning African clothing. Although there were diverse styles of clothing, there were some commonalities, such as the importance of cotton textile, hats, and hairstyles. Textiles, including panu, became popular in the region. In part, the Atlantic slave trade stimulated the spread of this fashion to a large segment of the population.

Second, with the rise of the Atlantic slave trade, the fashion and dress of Upper

Guinea spread to Cape Verde. As Carreira underscored, African slaves with African knowledge produced panu, which triggered the rise of the Afro-Atlantic feminine aesthetic. It was not creolization, but cross-cultural exchange—the incorporation of

European elements with Guinean cores, such as jewelry, elaborately designed panus, and multilayered clothes. Moreover, head wrapping was not necessarily a Christian influence,

281 but could have been Islamic or the convergence of Islam and preexisting African coiffures.

Third, the development of Cape Verdean society, particularly those with large numbers of slaves, such as Santiago Island, Fogo, and São Antão, required both violence and flexibility. In addition, desertification caused the weakening of the slave system in

Cape Verde. The specter of enslavement, however, was constant in Cape Verde given its geostrategic location as well as chronic droughts and famines and colonial neglect.

Rapacious merchant islanders sought to enslave others to make a quick profit. British merchants also stopped for human cargoes before making the long trip to the Caribbean.

Bureaucratic documentation, including the colossal Trans-Atlantic Slave Database, does not account for kidnapping. Toby Green has shown that the number of people during the early period of the trans-Atlantic slave trade has been underestimated. Rather than emphasizing the economic impact, the sociocultural dimension was also affected, particularly strategies to cope with kidnapping. During this period, convicted criminals were sent to Guiné, which continued the cross-cultural exchange.

There needs to be more studies on race and racial difference during the Atlantic slave trade and trans-Saharan slave trade, particularly in light of the recent scholarship by

Bruce Hall and Chouki El Hamel. Hall notes that Arabs and Tuareg have invoked racial difference in Muslim West Africa. Hamel shows that slavery was racialized in Morocco, despite the Islamic message about the emancipation of humanity. Both studies show that in Saharan and Sahel regions of Africa, black meant slavery. The Portuguese injected racial ideas and racialized slavery in Cape Verde, which also spread to their settlements on the coast. . Some scholars have argued that there is a link between Arab and European

282 forms of racial difference, given the Moor’s long domination of the Iberian peninsula.

Thus, James Sweet argues that the Muslim influence in the Iberian peninsula influenced their thinking about race. Bernard Lewis shows that in the Islamic world a differentiation among slaves’ skin color became apparent by the ninth century. James Webb argues that the term bidan (white), which was used in southern Mauritania by the

851 Mauers/Bebers/Tuaregs, was more of a cultural construct than based upon skin color.

Horta and Mark note in passing the similarities between bidan and “white” Portuguese as

852 it related to the Saharan and Atlantic trades, respectively. For Cape Verde, branku di terra would also correspond to a cultural and economic class and/or social status. Given these similarities, comparative studies of the introduction of “race” by the Portuguese and

Arabs in the Sahel zone would better our understanding of the historical development of

“race” in the region.

Fourth, in studies of the colonization of Portuguese Guinea, there has been a homogenization of Cape Verdeans, particularly before the abolition of slavery in Cape

Verde in 1876. Libertos from Cape Verde and Portuguese Guinea and “liberated”

853 Africans in Sierra Leone were in a similar position between “freedom” and slavery.

Benjamin Lawrence shows that the legacies of slavery and the slave trade in colonial

851 James Webb, Desert Frontier: Ecological Change along the Western Sahel (1600– 1850) (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995). 852 Horta and Mark, Forgotten Diaspora, 9n, 54–55. 853 Philip R. Misevich, “On the Frontier of ‘Freedom:’ Abolition and the Transformation of Atlantic Commerce in Southern Sierra Leone, 1790s to 1860s,” Ph.D. diss., Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 2009).

283 854 Africa affected labor recruitment. The abolition of the slave trade and the transition to legitimate trade actually caused a temporary increase or “domestification” of Atlantic slave systems in Africa, which future studies should explore.

Finally, slavery preceded colonialism in Africa. However, Roquinaldo Ferreira,

Mariana Candido, and Hilary Jones illustrate that Angola, Benguela, and Saint Louis, respectively, have shown that this view belies the different historical processes occurring in Atlantic Africa. In addition to these three colonies, Cape Verde must be included in the historiography of the Anglophone world (see the recent work of Toby Green). After all, the Dutch settled in southern Africa and unleashed a cycle of violence that was similar to the Atlantic slave system, but that is usually excluded from studies of Atlantic slavery.

Therefore, settler colonialism must been seen as tied to the Atlantic slave trade and the

European imperialism that predated the . Where colonial imposition was possible, Atlantic slavery and colonialism were occurred. Saint Louis under the

855 French and Cape Verde under Portugal were launching pads for the territorial colonialism that was preceded by coastal colonialism, which, in turn, created Portuguese

Guinea, Senegal, and, eventually .

854 Benjamin N. Lawrance and Richard Roberts, Trafficking in Slavery’s Wake: Law and the Experience of Women and Children in Africa (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2012), 2. 855 Hilary Jones, “Citizens and Subjects: Métis Society, Identity and the Struggle Over Colonial Politics in Saint Louis, Senegal, 1870–1920,” Ph.D. diss., Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 2003, Abstract section; Ibrahima Seck, “The French Discovery of Senegal: Premises for a Policy of Selective Assimilation,” Brokers of Change, 149–70.

284

APPENDIX

285 Glossary

The language is listed in parenthesis for the words in this glossary. Kabuverdianu, the language of the Cape Verdean people, commonly called Krioulo, i.e., , developed during the era of the Atlantic slave trade. Kabuverdianu is mutually intelligible with Guineense or Guinean Creole.

Boçales (Portuguese). An unacculturated slave.

Brancos de reínos (Portuguese). Whites of the Portuguese kingdom. Also called réinos.

Branku di terra (Kabuverdianu). “Whites of the land.” Refers to a cultural and economic group that replaced European and their descendants in local positions in Cape Verde and coastal Upper Guinea.

Capitão mor (Portuguese). Captain major.

Chalonas (Kabuverdianu/Guineese). Interpreters.

Convivencia (Portuguese/Kabuverdianu). “coexistence.”

Cristãos Novos (Portuguese). “New Christians.” Iberian Jews that were forced to convert to Christianity.

Degredados (Portuguese). “Exiled.”

Dona (Portuguese/Kabuverdianu). A title used to express respect to important women.

Feitorias (Portuguese). Small plantations or farms.

Filhos de folhas (Portuguese). “Children of the pages.” In Cape Verde, bureaucrats that worked for the local administration.

Filhos de terra (Portuguese). “Children of the land” were whites born in Cape Verde or Upper Guinea Coast.

Fula (Kabuverdianu). Brownish complexion—not to be confused with the ethnic group.

Funcos (Kabuverdianu). Circular houses used by the poor in Cape Verde.

Gentios (Portuguese). “Heathens” or “pagans” to describe Africans not Christians or Muslims.

Grogu (Kabuverdianu). Distilled brandy produced by slaves in Cape Verde.

286 Grumetes (Portuguese/Kabuverdianu/Guineense). “Cabin boy.” Africans who worked for Europeans.

Guiné (Portuguese/Kabuverdianu/Guineense). The Portuguese eventually used it to refer to Upper Guinea Coast, although the use was beyond this region. Also referred to as Rios de Guiné or Rios de Guiné de Cabo Verde.

Jabacouce (Kabuverdianu/Guineense). Healer.

Ladinos (Portuguese). Slaves acclimatized to Iberian culture.

Libertos (Portuguese/Kabuverdianu). Manumitted slaves that had to provide mandatory service.

Lançados (Portuguese). From lançar, to throw or launch. Portuguese/Cape Verdean who “threw” themselves onto the coast.

Lusotropicalismo (Portuguese). Portuguese colonial concept that proposed racial democracy in the tropics by Portuguese comingling with non-whites.

Manduco (Kabuverdianu/Guineense). Club used by Africans to fight in Cape Verde and Upper Guinea Coast.

Mansa (Mandinka). King.

Mestiços (Portuguese). “Mixed race.”

Misericordia (Portuguese). A charity institution that helps poor and sickpeople.

Nharas/ña/nha (Guineense/Kabuverdianu). A respected women.

Panu/panu di terra (Kabuverdianu). Cotton cloth made in Cape Verde.

Polon/Pilon (Kabuverdianu). Mortar.

Pontas (Portuguese). Small plantations or estates.

Pretos forros (Portuguese). Freed black male.

Praças (Portuguese). Town squares in Portuguese coastal towns.

Réis (Portuguese). Imperial Portuguese currency.

Signares (Wolof). Respected female merchants of mixed descent.

Sobradus (Kabuverdianu). Mansions in Cape Verde, especially in Fogo.

287 Tangomaus (Portuguese/Guineense). Origin is not clear, a Portuguese or Cape Verdean who completely into local coastal culture.

Tungumás (Guineense). Free African women who were cultural brokers for the Europeans.

Vadío (Portuguese). Fugitive slaves or freed slaves not willing to work for former slaveowner.

288

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