The Dawn of the Creole World
- Society
The course of history shaped Ribeira Grande, including the unspeakable tragedy of slavery for millions of human beings over time, who were denied the most simple dignities that are everyone’s right. It became the crucible for a new nation, a result of the fact that the white settlers were almost always men, and nature spoke louder than racial concepts, which in other areas and in other situations prevented mixing.
Contrary to the ideas that persist in the collective memory, Ribeira Grande was a point of progressive rescue, albeit slow, from arbitrary slavery that reigned in the tribes the slaves that arrived there came from, whose chiefs and magic men had the power of life and death over their subjects and followers.
The action of the church, the influence of the ideas of the gospel and the different races living together were influences that slowly had an influence on the slave population in terms of human dignity. A strong attachment to individual freedom and pride that was sometimes taken to the extreme in a deeply religious framework, were weaved together to construct a young people, and they still prevail today as clear and vibrant paradigms at the heart of the country.
As often happens in history, the most pressing difficulties tend to regenerate people and societies, and this is what happened with the decline of Ribeira Grande, which caused a fall in commerce and wealth, as well as the flight of slaves to the inland regions and the subsequent end to slavery (as well as escape, through death, freeing, sale and aging). It also led to demonetarisation, a change from urban dominion to rural dominion, an open conflict between heirs to the nobility and royal officials on one side, and “forros” (freed slaves) and runaway slaves on the other. The ruling class branded them lazy layabouts, who rejected cultural and social integration in the paradigm of a society based on slavery.
Throughout the 16th and 17th, for good or ill, the society of Cape Verde forged a model that made liberty the supreme value of Creole identity, delineating anegalitarian ideology, although the kingdom did not want it, or have means to work against this development (even when the companies, which had absolute power for 20 years from 1757-1777, particularly those of Grão Pará and Maranhão, applied pressure to return to the previous status quo, generally crushing the populations to which they sold at high prices and bought at low prices, while blocking their water-borne commerce with their ships). It remained a society open to the outside, as was proved by the popularity of commerce on the beaches, the proverbial morabeza (openness - always quoted as a characteristic of the people of these islands, despite the existence at some times of armed bands in the mountains and even in the cities) and emigration to innumerable countries, and the people of Cape Verde did not accept situations demanding submission, even if they had to pay for this value with their lives, abandoned to hunger and disease.
The Creole experience should be understood primarily by the action of the forces that created it, such as a definite questioning of of the claims that a man could own another man, before this debate had been explicitly held. It was this sense of independence and liberty that gave a force, meaning and edge to the Creole identity up to the mid 20th Century in the archipelago, although there was no equivalent event to the “Grito do Ipiranga”.
It is not by chance in the 21st Century, as is happening in Brazil, the sense of nationhood of the Cape Verdeans is not the property of one particular sector of society, but of all sectors together, whatever their racial or religious background. The nation of Cape Verde appears entirely ready to live in democracy, as has become clear, although it may be a surprise to some.
Cape Verde has been a crucible for the universalisation of human beings since the start of its existence, and together with the rest of the Creole world it now has a mission ahead of it that belies its size, the mission to bring new worlds to the world, not in the sense of discovering new lands, but by developing new people, with innovative ideas.
The course of history shaped Ribeira Grande, including the unspeakable tragedy of slavery for millions of human beings over time, who were denied the most simple dignities that are everyone’s right. It became the crucible for a new nation, a result of the fact that the white settlers were almost always men, and nature spoke louder than racial concepts, which in other areas and in other situations prevented mixing.
Contrary to the ideas that persist in the collective memory, Ribeira Grande was a point of progressive rescue, albeit slow, from arbitrary slavery that reigned in the tribes the slaves that arrived there came from, whose chiefs and magic men had the power of life and death over their subjects and followers.
The action of the church, the influence of the ideas of the gospel and the different races living together were influences that slowly had an influence on the slave population in terms of human dignity. A strong attachment to individual freedom and pride that was sometimes taken to the extreme in a deeply religious framework, were weaved together to construct a young people, and they still prevail today as clear and vibrant paradigms at the heart of the country.
As often happens in history, the most pressing difficulties tend to regenerate people and societies, and this is what happened with the decline of Ribeira Grande, which caused a fall in commerce and wealth, as well as the flight of slaves to the inland regions and the subsequent end to slavery (as well as escape, through death, freeing, sale and aging). It also led to demonetarisation, a change from urban dominion to rural dominion, an open conflict between heirs to the nobility and royal officials on one side, and “forros” (freed slaves) and runaway slaves on the other. The ruling class branded them lazy layabouts, who rejected cultural and social integration in the paradigm of a society based on slavery.
Throughout the 16th and 17th, for good or ill, the society of Cape Verde forged a model that made liberty the supreme value of Creole identity, delineating anegalitarian ideology, although the kingdom did not want it, or have means to work against this development (even when the companies, which had absolute power for 20 years from 1757-1777, particularly those of Grão Pará and Maranhão, applied pressure to return to the previous status quo, generally crushing the populations to which they sold at high prices and bought at low prices, while blocking their water-borne commerce with their ships). It remained a society open to the outside, as was proved by the popularity of commerce on the beaches, the proverbial morabeza (openness - always quoted as a characteristic of the people of these islands, despite the existence at some times of armed bands in the mountains and even in the cities) and emigration to innumerable countries, and the people of Cape Verde did not accept situations demanding submission, even if they had to pay for this value with their lives, abandoned to hunger and disease.
The Creole experience should be understood primarily by the action of the forces that created it, such as a definite questioning of of the claims that a man could own another man, before this debate had been explicitly held. It was this sense of independence and liberty that gave a force, meaning and edge to the Creole identity up to the mid 20th Century in the archipelago, although there was no equivalent event to the “Grito do Ipiranga”.
It is not by chance in the 21st Century, as is happening in Brazil, the sense of nationhood of the Cape Verdeans is not the property of one particular sector of society, but of all sectors together, whatever their racial or religious background. The nation of Cape Verde appears entirely ready to live in democracy, as has become clear, although it may be a surprise to some.
Cape Verde has been a crucible for the universalisation of human beings since the start of its existence, and together with the rest of the Creole world it now has a mission ahead of it that belies its size, the mission to bring new worlds to the world, not in the sense of discovering new lands, but by developing new people, with innovative ideas.
