Cabo Verde: Gulag of the South Atlantic: Racism, Fishing Prohibitions, and Famines

[Off São Tiago Island, March 1456] We found so great a quantity of fish that it is incredible to record.²

[Praia, São Tiago, April 1816] The strictest precautions are taken against the evasion of slaves on board foreign vessels that touch here, and particularly by not allowing boats of any kind to the inhabitants, the want of which gives to the port the appearance of a deserted settlement.³

I

Numerous species of fish swim in Cabo Verdean waters, and the two streams of the Canary Current flowing past the archipelago nourish some of the richest marine resources on the globe. Yet, for centuries Portuguese colonial officials leagued with plantation owners to prohibit Cabo Verdeans from owning fishing craft and other vessels to prevent the escape of slaves, mutinous soldiers, exiled criminals, and political deportees. Denied the bounty of the sea and afflicted by multi-year droughts, tens of thousands of destitute people perished during famines. Cabo Verde during Portuguese rule was a gulag.⁴

II

The ten islands and eight islets in the horseshoe-shaped archipelago are of volcanic origin, specks of rock projecting to the surface from deep Atlantic waters (map 1). First sighted by Europeans during the 1450s, the uninhabited archipelago was named with reference to the latitude of Cape Verde, the westernmost part of the African continent some 600 kilometers to the east. Some islands were indeed "green" when first colonized, but their reckless exploitation rapidly and irreparably damaged fragile ecosystems.

The Cabo Verde archipelago spans the latitudes of the Sahel and southern Sahara, with similar sparse and irregular rainfall regimes. The archipelago is sited along the northernmost margins of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), where the cool rain-bearing winds of the South Atlantic seasonally collide with hot dry winds coming from the Sahara. What precipitation the archipelago may receive is borne by Atlantic winds that blow weakly and unpredictably from the southwest from July to October—for Cabo Verdeans "the time of possible rainfall." Rains may fail for a year, or several years, and droughts and famines can afflict a few islands or the entire archipelago.

Most favored are the Sotavento group (Leeward Islands), which receives sufficient precipitation in non-drought years to cultivate crops—and for malaria-bearing mosquitoes to breed along stream beds and ecological niches. Most years, rainfall is limited to a few days in August and September, when 20% to 50% of annual precipitation may come in heavy squalls causing flash floods that erode the land. The runoff from denuded and porous sandy soils constitutes an irretrievable loss of land and water resources, unless soils are contained by laboriously constructed terraces.

During the remainder of the year, the high peaks of Brava, Fogo, and São Tiago capture moisture condensing from clouds that pass across the islands without precipitating rainfall. These mountainous islands have steep slopes separated by narrow valleys creating mosaics of micro-climates. The Barlavento group (Windward Islands) receives less rainfall, and moisture is quickly evaporated by the desiccating northeasterly winds blowing from the Sahara. In some years Sal and Boa Vista receive no precipitation, and São Vicente, Santa Luzia, and the southern slopes of Santo Antão and São Nicolau are almost waterless.⁵

The Cabo Verde archipelago is located at the crossroads of the Atlantic between the continents of Africa and South America, strategically sited to

Figure 1.

Currents, Trade Winds, and ITCZ around Cabo Verde Archipelago

serve as an entrepôt for Portuguese trading voyages to West and West Central Africa, a plantation colony for growing tropical crops, and a supplier of provisions for vessels bound to Brazil and the Indian and Pacific oceans. Prince Fernando, Afonso V's brother, was granted the archipelago, and the first settlers of São Tiago included Portuguese, Genoese, and Flemish adventurers; reprieved convicts; and Sephardic Jews fleeing persecution.

In 1466, when Fernando failed to recruit a sufficient number of settlers, Afonso V accorded the inhabitants the right to trade anywhere...