History of São Vicente, Cape Verde

The history of the island of São Vicente, Cape Verde is one of the longest in Cape Verde.

Prehistoric era

During the prehistoric era, around 120 to 118 million years ago, a seamount was formed during the Aptian era.[1] Approximately 9 million years ago, the island may have been formed during the Tortonian era. Rock formations were created including Mindelo formation around 6.5 million years ago and the Monte Verde rock formation. The Praia Grande volcanic flank may have collapsed in around 4.5 million years ago. The last volcanic eruption was about 300,000 years ago.[2] Around the holocene era, its reptiles and insects came to the island along with present-day Santa Luzia along with its flora as likely a couple of trees from its collapsed banks of the rivers of the African mainland, mostly the Senegal River were rafted onto the island when the salinity of the ocean was lower.

During the Ice Age, the island was larger and was about 400 km2 of island and the name known as the Northwest Island once included Santa Luzia, flooding took place and broke up into three main islands and other islands, one became the current island of São Vicente, the flooded areas became the Northwest Bank (Banco or Recife do Nordoeste). Around 5,000 to 4,000 years ago, Ilhéu dos Passaros separated from the island after the small peninsula shrank up to its current size.

Colonial and provincial era

The island was discovered by Diogo Afonso on January 22, 1462, on Saint Vincent's Day. After Santo Antão was inhabited, families ranched on the island around the late 16th or the early 17th century. Drought and dry conditions could not create a permanent settlement on the island. In 1524, a Dutch fleet which had 3,300 sailors, commanded by admiral Jacob Willekens passed through Porto Grande Bay before he captured Bahia in Brazil. The island's first fortification was built in 1734 to protect against British, French and Dutch pirates which was dominant at the time, the island was raided in 1781, it led to a new settlement to be made within the fort. The island was the last uninhabited main island in Cape Verde until 1795, the first settlement of Nossa Senhora da Luz was founded in the east of Porto Grande Bay, its first settlers were mainly slaves that came from the island, the island's population was 120 in 1819, the colonial governor António Pusic brought some families from Santo Antão to inhabit the village, also the village was to receive a new name, the first was Leopoldinha after the empress Maria Leopoldina of Austria, wife of Peter IV of Portugal. After Brazil became independent on September 22, 1822, Portugal lost a colony, in 1835, Englishman John Lewis visited the island for the objective of finding the port's conditions for serving as a scale for English ships for the British India Company. The village became a coal deposit to supply ships on Atlantic routes, it was created by the British to link with other parts of the Empire. After the Portuguese Liberation War was ended, Marquis of Sá da Bandeira adopted the settlement name Mindelo under a decree in 1838 after the military expedition in the beaches of Mindelo, Portugal. In the same year, the colonial capital was to be moved from Praia on Santiago due to a growing population, many people on Santiago did not want the move. the capital stayed in Praia. The population reached around 1,400 in 1850.

Unlike other Cape Verdean islands, slavery was not dominant, first it was ranching before it was populated, then coaling would be used by slaves, finally in 1857, slavery was abolished on the island and was the first in Cape Verde to do so. In the same year, Mindelo was elevated to a town and not long after a city. In 1861, colonial governor Januário Correia de Almeida.[3] built a custom house.

In 1861, yellow fever strucked Mindelo which reduced the poplulation by half, after that, migration from other islands, mostly from nearby Santo Antão restored the population a few years later.

In 1875, Cory Brothers, a coal shipping company opened next to the bay, it increased usage. Ships were stopped in Mindelo for refueling, first 669 ships were refueled each year in 1879, later 1,927 ships stopped in Porto Grande in 1889 and was the highest ever reached. Telegraph activity soared after two submarine or telegraph cables linked with the island in 1874, they are now as communication cables or lines, via Madeira, it connected with Brazil in the capital of Pernambuco, Recife. India Rubber Gutta connected the line to the colonial capital along with West and Southern Africa and the United States in 1884 and in 1885, a line with Cameroon via Bathurst (now Banjul, Gambia, the line was the most used Transatlantic station in 1912 for some time. With it, the population grew from around 1,500 in 1870 to over 6,500 1890. Two lighthouses were built with the last one in 1894. Similar differences between Portugal and the United Kingdom for the Scramble for Africa and higher taxes put by the colonial government, its port could not compete with Las Palmas or nearby Dakar. During the 1890s, hunger and starvation with a famine started to appear and further more continued until the 1950s.

Old postcard of Mindelo from the early 20th century

As ships started to use the Suez Canal and gasoline fuel used for ships increased, the usage of coal dropped, the important port lost a great part of its strategic importance. and so did the island's economy in which hunger and poverty were rising. Into the time when ship services were dropping, people demanded to the Minister of Overseas to create a secondary a school and a foreign language school as it was shown in Revista de Cabo Verde (Cape Verde Review). Later Cape Verde's first cinema opened and was named Eden Park.[4] In 1912, 4,000 coal workers went to strike and occupied the municipal hall at Praça da Republica over a drop in food products due to lack of rain and insufficient work at the port. Later in 1924, the people of Mindelo demanded a petition as the governor accepted a prohibition of alcohol including brandy on the island. After the Great Depression, ship stoppage at the port ceased for a few years, the last coal refueling was done in 1952. Around the 1960s, it had Cape Verde's most active economy, per capita, Sal's economy overcame the island's economy with its airport industry.

Claridade, a literary review published in Mindelo between 1936 and 1960, it was a cultural and a social movement towards and independent Cape Verde

In the 1880s, Mindelo had about a hundred oil running lamp posts. In 1879, Mindelo had 27 streets and a square, it had five places, 11 lanes and an alley. At the commercial and service level, it had 108 taverns and 7 bakeries, 5 restaurants and 3 hotewls.

Water problems occurred in the island, water was supplied from Tarrafal on the adjacent island of Santo Antão, it had wells, 13 were public and 22 were private, in 1886, a canal receiving water from Madeiral and Madeiralzinho, which conceded five years later into the Empresa das Águas da Cidade de Mindelo (City of Mindelo Water Company) which received water to the city and sailors and visitors to Mindelo. Other parts of the island started to be inhabited, in the 1880s, São Pedro, Salamansa and Calhau were founded and after independence in the 1980s, Baía das Gatas was founded after the music festival was first held.

The island of São Vicente was the first island to receive sports, golf was the first sport brought to the island and Cape Verde and later football (soccer) in the start of the 20th century. Mindelense was the first club founded in 1919, it became an official club in May 25, 1922, it was the only club in Cape Verde until Sporting in the colonial (now national) capital of Praia was founded. At the end of the 1920s, FC Derby was founded. a decade later, Académica do Mindelo and Amarante were founded and Académica was the first Portuguese afffilated club on the island.

Aviators Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral and their plane Lusitânia stopped at Porto Grande Bay which was part of their flight to the South Atlantic which started in Lisbon and ended in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at the time the national capital they stopped for repairs.[5]

On June 7, 1934, riots sparked across Mindelo, protesters expressed against hunger caused by food shortages and shops and warehouses were looted, it was the darkest of Cape Verde's history.

Resistance against colonialism were rising, Cape Verde's great authors such as Baltasar Lopes da Silva, Manuel Lopes and António Aurélio Gonçalves made several novels and stories in the review Claridade made in 1936, ideas from Eugénio Tavares, Portuguese and Brazilian literature and Cape Verdean born Portuguese writers were its origins of the review, the review was sporadically published up to 1960.

Musical styles were gaining that time, morna started being imported from Brava and made its own variant in the 1930s. Both have the same tempo, but in the S. Vicente morna the chord sequences have been enriched with the passing chords. The thematic has also been widened to include not only romantic themes and the poetry is not so rigid. Neither makes use of rhymes like the Brava morna. Later in the 1930s and the 1940s, the morna gained special characteristics in São Vicente. The Brava style was much appreciated and cultivated in all Cape Verde by that time (there are records about E. Tavares being received in apotheosis in S. Vicente island[6] and even the Barlavento composers wrote in Sotavento Creole,[7] probably because the maintenance of the unstressed vowels in Sotavento Creoles gave more musicality). But specific conditions in S. Vicente such as the cosmopolitanism and openness to foreign influences brought some enrichment to the morna.

One of the main people responsible for this enrichment was the composer Francisco Xavier da Cruz (a.k.a. B.Leza) who under Brazilian music influence introduced[8][7]

Refineries, desalination plant for water and electricity were completed in the 1960s. The island started to have its own airport near São Pedro in 1960, the city port started to expand in 1962.

In 1968, economic and food aid from Cape Verdean families abroad were sent in Cape Verde in the years before independence.

Modern era

After independence, several streets and institutions were renamed including one that became Escola Jorge Barbosa, one of the recents was Rua Lisboa that became Rua Libertade d'África. The remnants of coal usage on ships disappeared in the mid 1980s as the British coal industry went into decline, this source of income dried up, and Britain had to abandon its Cape Verdean interests — which ended up being the final strike to the highly dependent local economy. Nonetheless, the port continued to be used for imports and some exports and its economy later continued to grow with more institutions opened including Instituto de Estudos Superiores Isidoro da Graça (IESIG), the foundation of Baía das Gatas festival first held in 1984 and later more visitors attended in later editions, a rise of sports clubs including Batuque FC, Barlavento's first Brazilian affiliated club Corinthians São Vicente, the regional football (soccer) cup and the opening tournament competitions were established in 2001 which boosted popularity, later it was done in basketball, in the fall of 2007 as the opening tournament became the association cup, the first football clubs outside Mindelo first participated and the championship features two divisions. The University of Cape Verde was established on November 21, 2006, its campus of ISECMAR later became the School of Maritime Sciences on October 9, 2008. Also the port went under recent expansions and enlargements in 1997 and in 2015. In the mid-2000s, parts of tourism were rising in which several hotels were made including Porto Grande at Lajinha which became Barlavento's tallest building. In 2009, the city's fort underwent a touristic project.

In 2003, Mindelo was cultural capital of the Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP).

In December 2003, Mindelo became the center of the new Roman Catholic Diocese of Mindelo or Barlavento which split from the Diocese of Santiago de Cabo Verde.

Bana was one of the first singers to gain popularity in Cape Verde in the 1960s and later in the 1980s. Later, Cesária Évora, native of the island gained popularity in the 1990s and the 2000s, in 2004 would be the first artist from Cape Verde to enter world stage as her album won the Grammy Award for Best International Album.

The city of Mindelo along with Monte Cara, Porto Grande Bay and Canal de São Vicente

In May and June 2006, NATO maneuvers occurred on the island, 7,800 troops took part in Operation Jaguar,[9] it was one of the operations done on a non-NATO member. On November 12, 2013, Porto Grande Bay was the fifth most beautiful bay in the world.[10]

The consumption and usage including clean energy began, in the early 2000s, the windmill park was established southwest of Mindelo and had small mills that supplied the island's electricity. Around 2011, more windmills were added and were taller.

Demographics

The island's population grew large in the mid to late 20th century, it superseded São Nicolau's population and in the mid-1980s, it became more populous than the neighboring island and is currently the country's second most inhabited island, also Mindelo is being the island's second most populated city and is home to nearly 90% of the island's population. Immigration from the nearby islands of Santo Antão and São Nicolau also grew the island's population.

Population history

Year Population
1819120[lower-alpha 1]
1821295
18401,400[lower-alpha 2]
18701,500[lower-alpha 3]
18906,666[lower-alpha 4]
193014,639[lower-alpha 5]
194015,848[11]
195019,576[11]
196020,705[11]
197031,578[11]
198041,594[11][12]
199051,277[11][12]
200067,163[13]
201079,374[13]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Approximate population
  2. ↑ Approximate population
  3. ↑ Approximate population
  4. ↑ Estimate population
  5. ↑ Estimate population

References

  1. ↑ Muller, R; Sdrolias, M; Roest, W (2008). Age, spreading rates and spreading symmetry of the world's ocean crust. Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems. pp. 1525–2027.
  2. ↑ Ramalho, R (2010). Traces of uplift and subsidence in the Cape Verde Archipelago. 167. pp. 519–538.
  3. ↑ "Nobreza de Portugal e do Brasil", Direcção de Afonso Eduardo Martins Zúquete, Editorial Enciclopédia, 2.ª Edição, Lisboa, 1989, Volume Terceiro, p. 320
  4. ↑ Arenas, Fernando (2011). Lusophone Africa: Beyond Independence. U of Minnesota Press. p. 131. ISBN 978-0-8166-6983-7.
  5. ↑ Pereira, Armand F. ""Summary of the First Southern Atlantic Crossing (1922) by the Portuguese Aviators Gago COUTINHO and Sacadura CABRAL on a Fairey-17 Single Engine Hydroplane"". HoneyMooney.com. Retrieved January 7, 2013.
  6. ↑ Rodrigues, Moacyr e Isabel Lobo, A Morna na Literatura Tradicional — Instituto Cabo-verdiano do Livro, 1996
  7. 1 2 Gonçalves, C. F., Kab Verd Band — 2006
  8. ↑ Martins, Vasco, Música Tradicional Cabo-verdiana Vol. I — A morna
  9. ↑ "Landung auf den Kapverden" [Landing in Cape Verde]. BZ Online (Berliner Zeitung) (in German). 26 June 2006.
  10. ↑ "Porto Grande do Mindelo é a 5ª baía mais bela do mundo" [Porto Grande Near Mindelo, the 5th Most Beautiful Bay in the World]. A Semana (in Portuguese). 12 November 2013. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Source: Statoids
  12. 1 2 SNE, the predecessor to the INE
  13. 1 2 Source: Instituto Nacional de Estatísticas.
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