Drift
- Political and Military Organization
However, at the same time as this administrative reorganisation was happening across the archipelago, a dangerous drift was developing in Santiago, which would cause a severe blow to the Cape Verdeanisation that was taking place. Indeed, as previously described, the reduction in the number of people arriving from Portugal to occupy the administrative posts meant that they were increasingly occupied by people of mixed race, to such an extent that by the mid-18th Century very few of these positions, even those of Ouvidor of Governor, were occupied by people sent from Portugal.
During this process an oligarchy emerged, made up of a small number of families, of which one stood out - that of André Álvares de Almada, a prestigious “branco da Terra” (man of mixed race), who wrote an important text on the islands of Cape Verde and Guinea (Tratado Breve dos Rios de Guiné de Cabo Verde - A Brief Treatise on the Rivers of Guinea and Cape Verde). This patriarch and son of Santiago, knight of the Ordem de Cristo, married twice, and each of his two marriages gave rise to a stem of the oligarchy mentioned above. From one of these marriages emerged a lineage which controlled the government of Cape Verde and the instruments of military, judicial and even ecclesiastical power like a monarchy. Working through promiscuous relations with the Canon, this line held power almost continuously from 1646, when Jorge Araújo de Mogueimas, from Almada became capitão-mor of Ribeira Grande then interim governor, until 1764, the year when the terrible “Coronel” António de Barros Bezerra de Oliveira, self-proclaimed “Prince of Cape Verde” and governor of the island, was finally arrested. He did not hesitate to use force and even violent crime to take powers from the Câmara, the Misericórdia , the treasury, justice, the parishes and the Canon himself, until he became the Ouvidor (the Ouvidor, João Vieira de Andrade, arrived in Praia in December 1761 and was assassinated 6 months later) and took over government (the Governor, Marcelino Pereira de Ávila, arrived in March of the same year, and was deposed 23 days later by the power of the military under the command of the Colonel). He was tried in Lisbon, condemned and executed, along with nine more men from the governance of Ribeira Grande. At the orders of the Marquis of Pombal, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, the heads were cruelly returned to Praia, where they were displayed “until time consumed them” as an example to passers-by. This punishment had already been carried out previously on the Távora family in Portugal.
However, at the same time as this administrative reorganisation was happening across the archipelago, a dangerous drift was developing in Santiago, which would cause a severe blow to the Cape Verdeanisation that was taking place. Indeed, as previously described, the reduction in the number of people arriving from Portugal to occupy the administrative posts meant that they were increasingly occupied by people of mixed race, to such an extent that by the mid-18th Century very few of these positions, even those of Ouvidor of Governor, were occupied by people sent from Portugal.
During this process an oligarchy emerged, made up of a small number of families, of which one stood out - that of André Álvares de Almada, a prestigious “branco da Terra” (man of mixed race), who wrote an important text on the islands of Cape Verde and Guinea (Tratado Breve dos Rios de Guiné de Cabo Verde - A Brief Treatise on the Rivers of Guinea and Cape Verde). This patriarch and son of Santiago, knight of the Ordem de Cristo, married twice, and each of his two marriages gave rise to a stem of the oligarchy mentioned above. From one of these marriages emerged a lineage which controlled the government of Cape Verde and the instruments of military, judicial and even ecclesiastical power like a monarchy. Working through promiscuous relations with the Canon, this line held power almost continuously from 1646, when Jorge Araújo de Mogueimas, from Almada became capitão-mor of Ribeira Grande then interim governor, until 1764, the year when the terrible “Coronel” António de Barros Bezerra de Oliveira, self-proclaimed “Prince of Cape Verde” and governor of the island, was finally arrested. He did not hesitate to use force and even violent crime to take powers from the Câmara, the Misericórdia , the treasury, justice, the parishes and the Canon himself, until he became the Ouvidor (the Ouvidor, João Vieira de Andrade, arrived in Praia in December 1761 and was assassinated 6 months later) and took over government (the Governor, Marcelino Pereira de Ávila, arrived in March of the same year, and was deposed 23 days later by the power of the military under the command of the Colonel). He was tried in Lisbon, condemned and executed, along with nine more men from the governance of Ribeira Grande. At the orders of the Marquis of Pombal, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, the heads were cruelly returned to Praia, where they were displayed “until time consumed them” as an example to passers-by. This punishment had already been carried out previously on the Távora family in Portugal.
