Augusto Pereira Vera-Cruz (Senador Vera-Cruz)

Augusto Pereira Vera-Cruz was born on November 18, 1862 and died on December 5, 1933, shipowner, merchant, politician, consular agent of several countries - Brazil, Uruguay, England, Russia - both on the island of Sal and St. Vincent.  In 1890, hurt with the English Ultimatum to Portugal, he asked for the resignation of the post of consular agent of England.

Augusto Vera-Cruz did not attend universities or even schools, but the family education received and a solid cultural formation obtained in a self-taught way gave him weapons that allowed him to succeed. He began to fight for his life very early and, as a simple commercial employee, he rose to be one of the most respected businessmen of S. Vicente, the island to which he moved definitively in 1890.

He was appointed, by Governor Lacerda, mayor of S. Vicente, replacing Sena Barcelos, having held the position from 1898 to 1901. The Banco Nacional Ultramarino appointed him manager of the branch of S. Vicente and, later, of the branch in the city of Praia, where he was in 1911, when he decided to present himself as a candidate for deputy for Cape Verde.

The Republic had been proclaimed in Portugal and a new constitution was to be drafted. Vera-Cruz was elected, like his great-grandfather Martins 90 years earlier, a deputy to the Constituents of 1911. In 1912, he was elected senator by the circle of Cape Verde, a position in which he remained uninterrupted until the overthrow of the new regime in 1926, thus totaling fifteen years as representative of Cape Verde in the Portuguese parliament.

Senator Vera-Cruz was not a passive parliamentarian, and his initiative and persistent action in parliament was due to the foundation of the Liceu Nacional de Cabo Verde. This struggle for which he was touched by his own personal experience, as he had not advanced in studies because he had not had access to secondary education. In addition, he also managed to grant the reform of the lighthouse keepers and that the revenue from telegraphic fees stayed in the province. It was noted in the defense of the Blandy concession, in the fight against the laws of exception, in the defense of the proletariat, in the fight for the development of Porto Grande and in many other causes.