Agriculture at Santiago and Fogo

Cotton was the first significant crop in Cape Verde, first in Santiago, then in Fogo (where it was so successful that Valentim Fernandes wrote in his “Relação de Diogo Gomes” (Story of Diogo Gomes): “…a lot of cotton grows on this island, and cotton that is irrigated brings news twice a year, once in December and January, and once in May and June”). This crop would bring such flourishing craftsmanship of cloth, that it became the most important medium of external exchange. A cloth currency (a 15 x 17 cm strip) taking the name of barafula was established, with two barafulas being equivalent to a bar of iron. Maize seeds were imported from the area of Guinea, and were known as zaburros. It was soon planted on the arable land, and until quite recently it was always the preferred basic food in Cape Verde.
In 1582, Francisco de Andrade carried out a census of the population of the inland areas of Santiago, which gives us an idea of the agricultural situation in the last quarter of the 16th Century “...600 white and mixed race, 400 freed slaves, 5,000 slaves”.
With the agitation of the privateer attacks on Ribeira Grande and Praia, the flight of inhabitants of the two cities to the inland valleys intensified. Watered by the springs of the mountains of Pico de António Genovês and the Serra da Malagueta, the most prosperous landowners settled there with their estates and slaves, while the “forros” (freed slaves) occupied the surrounding hills and the more inaccessible mountains that sheltered the fugitives from the prisons, pursued by justice and the runaway slaves.
At this time (at the end of the 16th Century) the settlements of Santa Catarina do Mato, Santiago Maior (Ribeira Seca), S. Nicolau Tolentino (Ribeira de S. Domingos) and S. Jorge dos Picos (Ribeira dos Órgãos) were the most heavily populated, with 80% of the estimated population of approximately 12,000 inhabitants, while S. João Baptista (Ribeira de António), Nossa Senhora da Luz (Alcatrazes), Santo Amaro (Tarrafal) and S. Miguel (Flamengos), housed the remaining 20%.
There was a church in every important settlement, with a priest who quickly tried to start up a set of activities, from offering the sacraments to celebrating mass, making wills and registers, teaching, as well as social action and conflict management.
The irrigated lands (banks and the central plateau in Santiago, the gentle slopes of S. Lourenço do Pico, in Fogo), capable of producing twice a year, had the advantage over the dry lands, which were limited to the rainy season, and gave less certain results. The irrigated lands were filled with vegetable gardens (cassava, cabbage, yam, beans), and tropical and Mediterranean fruit orchards (papaya, banana, melons, figs, grapes…), as well as irrigated sugar cane, banana, yam, cotton and coconut trees (which provided coconuts, wood and fibre for rope). There were not really any large land owners, as the largest estate owners (prominent citizens in Santiago e Fogo) limited themselves to small separated plots with different characteristics on all the agricultural islands: some for planting, others for pasture, others for cotton, or even for vineyards, at that time grown on trellises.
Even so, the most important estate owners started up small industries, including sugar mills with a still, copper cauldron, pan, scale, skimmer, container for catching syrup, boiler for cane juice, sugar mould, the equipment required for milling, boiling and purging this product. This industry required specialised skills, guaranteed by the sugar masters, the most respected and authoritative workers on the estates. Watering often required water collection, storage and then irrigation. Cotton, which was initially sold in bulk to Guinea, was industrialised in Cape Verde, leading to establishment of small industries for spinning and weaving, which brought specialised technicians from the sector (spinners, carders, weavers).
The units of unirrigated agricultural production, used by poor whites and forros (freed slaves),were small and located on slopes, small plateaus and hills, and were limited in their production (maize, beans, arboral rice, cotton, pumpkin), as well as goats, which were very resistant. Production was limited almost exclusively to the rainy season (July to December), and these lands were subject to famine in the dry years, which were frequent in Cape Verde, and which struck the islands 3 times in this period (1570-2, 1580-2 e 1609-11), bringing general poverty, also to the gentry, leading the freed slaves and the poor to emigrate, and leading to the death of many runaway slaves, who were isolated in the mountains and forced to steal from the irrigated plots.
At the end of the 18th Century, the landowners were attacked from above (by the Crown and the Companhia Grão Pará e Maranhão) and from below (desertion of runaway slaves and “forros” (freed slaves) ), with the aggravating factor that the properties were burdened by donatary links, and they went definitively bankrupt and abandoned the lands.
From this point, agriculture became a subsistence activity among the population, that cultivated the traditional products of the country on the divided properties of the islands of Santiago, Fogo, Santo Antão, S. Nicolau and Brava. Crops were subject to the irregularity of the rains until after the last terrible famines of the 40's production deficits were compensated by imports. Finally, at the time of independence, despite exponential demographic growth, work was started to retain rainwater. Following 2000 a program of dam construction was started, which allowed implementation of modern agriculture, which was less dependent on the vagaries of nature.