Cape Verde

The name “Cape Verde” is so evocative. Discovered by the Portuguese in the 15th century, the islands were uninhabited until colonised, and they became independent of Portugal in 1975. Off the coast of Africa in the North Atlantic, west of Mauritania and Senegal.

Prior to the Portuguese, apparently Pomponius Mela and Pliny the Elder both wrote about the islands, referring to them as the “Gorgades.” According to myth, this is in reference to the Gorgons killed by Perseus. It’s also thought that when Marinos of Tyre wrote about the Isles of the Blessed, he was referring to Cape Verde. This being the case, who doesn’t now want to visit the islands?

And while, yes, the Portuguese “discovered” the islands, their presence in these writings suggests prior discoveries. Folklore also contains suggestions of Arab visits centuries before Europeans arrived. There’s even been a theory (rejected by mainstream historians) that the Chinese visited the islands in 1420. No, I don’t believe it, but there is a sort of poetic fancy to it.

The islands were prosperous under the Portuguese initially—so prosperous that they were a popular target for pirates, including Sir Francis Drake. Prosperity was interrupted, though, when recurrent droughts began in 1747—made worse by deforestation. The end of the slave trade also ended a major source of income for the islands. When whaling ships began visiting the area because of its many whales, many Cape Verdeans joined their crews and emigrated to America. Then, when ocean liners arose, the islands became a popular spot for resupplying ships, again providing prosperity to the region—particularly the harbor city Mindelo on São Vincente. World War II brought a decline in shipping traffic though, and the economy collapsed.

Literacy under the Portuguese was at a higher rate than any of their other African colonies (25 percent, as opposed to 5 percent in what is now Guinea-Bissau). With literacy came awareness of other countries’ independence movements, and so the push for an independent Cape Verde arose. The subsequent liberation war was long—the Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar didn’t want to give up the colonies. It was only after the fall of his regime that Cape Verde gained independence.

Before independence there had been hope for a unity with Guinea-Bissau, but with a coup in the latter country in 1980, the relationship between the two fell apart a little. These days relations between the two countries are good.

For a long time Cape Verde was ruled until a one-party system—this was abolished in 1990, and the first multi-party elections were held in 1991, and the Movement for Democracy party won the day. Subsequent elections were judged free and fair. And—talk about neck and neck—in the 2001 presidential election, Pedro Pires beat Carlos Veiga by twelve votes. Twelve!

Today’s poem is by Onésimo Silveira. I found it online here using google books, back when I was searching for Namibian poets.


A Different Poem

The people of the islands want a different poem
For the people of the islands;
A poem without exiles complaining
In the calm of their existence;
A poem without children nourished
On the black milk of aborted time
A poem without mothers gazing
At the vision of their sons, motherless.
The people of the islands want a different poem
For the people of the islands:
A poem without arms in need of work
Nor mouths in need of bread
A poem without boasts ballasted with people
On the road to the South
A poem without words choked
By the harrows of silence.
The people of the islands want a different poem
For the people of the islands:
A poem with sap rising in the heart of the BEGINNING
A poem with Batuque and tchabeta and the badias of St Catherine,
A poem with shaking hips and laughing ivory.
The people of the islands want a different poem
For the people of the islands:
A poem without men who lose the seas’ grace
and the fantasy of the main compass points.

— Onésimo Silveira