São Vicente is one of the Barlavento Islands, the northern group within the Cape Verde archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, off the west African coast. It is located between the islands of Santo Antão and Santa Luzia, with the Canal de São Vicente separating it from Santo Antão.
Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country spanning an archipelago of 10 volcanic islands in the central Atlantic Ocean. It forms part of the Macaronesia ecoregion, along with the Azores, Canary Islands, Madeira, and the Savage Isles. In ancient times these islands were referred to as "the Islands of the Blessed" or the "Fortunate Isles". Located 570 kilometres (350 mi) west of the Cape Verde Peninsula off the coast of Northwest Africa, the islands cover a combined area of slightly over 4,000 square kilometres (1,500 sq mi).
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.[1] 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.
The Tortonian is in the geologic timescale an age or stage of the late Miocene that spans the time between 11.608 ± 0.005 Ma and 7.246 ± 0.005 Ma. It follows the Serravallian and is followed by the Messinian.
Monte Verde is a mountain in the eastern part of the island of São Vicente, Cape Verde. At 744 m elevation, it is the island's highest point. The mountain is located 6 km (4 mi) east of the city centre of Mindelo.
Praia Grande is a large beach on the northeast coast of the island of São Vicente, Cape Verde. It is 1.5 km northwest of the village Calhau. The white sandy beach is surrounded by volcanic rocks. It is accessible by road from Calhau and Baía das Gatas.
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.
Santa Luzia is an island of the Barlavento archipelago in Cape Verde located between São Nicolau and São Vicente, the channel of Santa Luzia separates the island of São Vicente and is 8 km wide. The area is 34.2 km². Like all Cape Verdean islands, it is of volcanic origin. The highest point is Topona. Santa Luzia is 12.4 km long and 5.3 km wide.
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 Liberal Wars 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, north of Porto known as the Landing at Mindelo which occurred in 1832. 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.
Diogo Afonso was a Portuguese explorer.
Saint Vincent of Saragossa, also known as Vincent Martyr, Vincent of Huesca or Vincent the Deacon, the Protomartyr of Spain, was a deacon of the Church of Saragossa. He is the patron saint of Lisbon and Valencia. His feast day is 22 January in the Roman Catholic Church and Anglican Communion and 11 November in the Eastern Orthodox Churches. He was born at Huesca and martyred under the Emperor Diocletian around the year 304.
Jacob Willekens or Wilckens (1564–1649) was a Dutch admiral on a fleet to the Dutch Indies, and a herring seller, who went to sea again at the age of fifty for the Dutch West Indies Company. His most well-known success was undoubtedly the conquest of São Salvador da Bahia, the then capital of Brazil. His fleet, which included Dutch corsair Piet Hein as vice admiral, departed from Texel on December 22, 1623 with between 26-36 ships and 3,300 sailors towards South America. At the beginning of June 1624, they began their attack from sea and soon captured the Portuguese stronghold with little resistance. They occupied Bahia for over a year before the local population took up arms under acting governor Matias de Albuquerque and Archbishop Dom Marcos Teixeira who eventually expelled them with the help of a combined Spanish-Portuguese fleet numbering 52 warships and 12,000 soldiers in May 1625. This was the first major WIC privateering expedition to the region.
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.[2] built a custom house.
In 1861, yellow fever struck 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.
Madeira, officially the Autonomous Region of Madeira, is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal. It is an archipelago situated in the north Atlantic Ocean, southwest of Portugal. Its total population was estimated in 2011 at 267,785. The capital of Madeira is Funchal, which is located on the main island's south coast.
Pernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. The state of Pernambuco also includes the archipelago Fernando de Noronha. With an estimated population of 9.2 million people in 2013, it is the seventh most populous state of Brazil, and is the sixth most densely populated and the 19th most extensive among the states and territories of the country. Its capital and largest city, Recife, is one of the most important economic and urban hubs in the country. As of 2013 estimates, Recife's metropolitan area is the fifth most populous in the country, and the largest urban agglomeration in Northeast Brazil.
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the Bight of Biafra, part of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. Although Cameroon is not an ECOWAS member state, it is geographically and historically in West Africa with the Southern Cameroons which now form her Northwest and Southwest Regions having a strong West African history. The country is sometimes identified as West African and other times as Central African due to its strategic position at the crossroads between West and Central Africa.
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.[3] 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 on 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.[4]
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[5] and even the Barlavento composers wrote in Sotavento Creole,[6] 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[7][6]
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).
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,[8] 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.[9]
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.
The recorded history of Cape Verde begins with Portuguese discovery in 1456. Possible early references go back around 2000 years.
Mindelo is a port city in the northern part of the island of São Vicente in Cape Verde. Mindelo is also the seat of the parish of Nossa Senhora da Luz, and the municipality of São Vicente. The city is home to 93% of the entire island's population. Mindelo is known for its colourful and animated carnival celebrations, with roots in Portuguese traditions.
Sergio Frusoni was a poet and promoter of the Cape Verdean Creole language.
Ribeira, Portuguese and Galician for stream or riverside, may refer to the following places:
Santo Antão is the westernmost island of Cape Verde. At 779 km2 (301 sq mi), it is the largest of the Barlavento Islands group, and the second largest island of Cape Verde. The nearest island is São Vicente to the southeast, separated by the sea channel Canal de São Vicente. Its population was 40,547 in 2015, making it the third most populous island of Cape Verde after Santiago and São Vicente. Its largest city is Porto Novo on the south coast.
São Nicolau is one of the Barlavento (Windward) islands of Cape Verde. It is located between the islands of Santa Luzia and Sal. Its population is 12,424 (2015), with an area of 343 km². The main towns are Ribeira Brava and Tarrafal de São Nicolau.
Santiago is the largest island of Cape Verde, its most important agricultural centre and home to half the nation’s population. Part of the Sotavento Islands, it lies between the islands of Maio and Fogo. It was the first of the islands to be settled: the town of Ribeira Grande was founded in 1462. Santiago is home to the nation's capital city of Praia.
Porto Grande Bay, also Mindelo Bay, is a bay on the north coast of the island of São Vicente, Cape Verde. The main city of São Vicente, Mindelo, is situated at the bay. The Porto Grande Bay is a natural harbour. It stretches between the headlands Ponta João Ribeiro in the northeast and Ponta do Morro Branco in the west. To the northwest it opens towards the Canal de São Vicente, the channel between the islands São Vicente and Santo Antão. The small rocky islet Ilhéu dos Pássaros lies north of the bay.
Ribeira Grande is a concelho (municipality) of Cape Verde. Situated in the northern part of the island of Santo Antão, it covers one fifth of the island area, and is home to nearly half of its population. Its seat is the city Ponta do Sol.
Manuel António de Sousa Lopes was a Cape Verdean novelist, poet and essayist. With Baltasar Lopes da Silva and Jorge Barbosa he was a founder of the journal Claridade, which contributed to the rise of Cape Verdean literature. Manuel Lopes wrote in Portuguese, using expressions typical for Cape Verdean Portuguese and Cape Verdean Creole. He was one of those responsible for describing world calamities of the droughts that caused several deaths in São Vicente and Santo Antão.
Solpontense Futebol Clube is a football club that currently plays in the Second Division of the Santo Antão Island League South Zone in Cape Verde. It is based in the town of Ponta do Sol in the northern part of the island of Santo Antão and being the country's northernmost football club. Its current manager is João Lopes Rodrígues.
Ribeira Grande is the largest town of the Ribeira Grande Municipality on the island of Santo Antão, Cape Verde. It has become a city in 2010. In 2010 its population was 2,564. It is situated in the northeastern part of the island, near the outflow of the river Ribeira Grande and its tributary Ribeira da Torre into the Atlantic Ocean. Neighborhoods include Tarrafal, Rua de Agua, Rua d'Horta and Penha de França.
Porto Novo is a city in the island of Santo Antão, in Cape Verde. It is the seat of the Porto Novo municipality. At the 2010 census, the town had 9,310 inhabitants, which makes it the most populous settlement of the island.
The island of São Vicente in Cape Verde in the westcentral portion of the Barlavento Islands is home to several teams and clubs. The major professional clubs are CS Mindelense, FC Derby, Académica do Mindelo, Batuque FC and Amarante. The island also has a league named the São Vicente Island League, it is the oldest in Cape Verde, first it only had football, later it had basketball, volleyball, athletics and now futsal.
The City center of Mindelo or Morada is the historic center of the Mindelo in the island of São Vicente, Cape Verde. Its population was 1,553 at the 2010 census. It is the place where the island's first settlement was founded in 1793. Many public buildings are situated in the city centre. It lies along the Porto Grande Bay. Adjacent neighbourhoods include Fortinho to the northwest, Alto Miramar to the northeast, Fonte Cônego to the east and Ribeira Bote to the southeast.
The 2018 Taça Nacional de Cabo Verde is the 6th edition of the Taça Nacional de Cabo Verde, the knockout football competition of Cape Verde. The competition, which is played out in a tournament between the cup winners of the nine islands, returns for the first time since 2012.
References
↑ Ramalho, R (2010). Traces of uplift and subsidence in the Cape Verde Archipelago. 167. pp.519–538.
↑ "Nobreza de Portugal e do Brasil", Direcção de Afonso Eduardo Martins Zúquete, Editorial Enciclopédia, 2.ª Edição, Lisboa, 1989, Volume Terceiro, p. 320
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
