Joseph Perry Barboza referred to his father as Ilustrisimos Señor José Arsenio Perera Barboza. According to our family tradition, Arsenio owned a farm on the island of Brava, Cape Verde and served as a judge on the island for many years. His mother was Ignez da Rosa and was Arsenio’s second wife. His first wife was Henriquetta Coelho. If you know any of these people or have information that could help our family connect with our relatives in Cape Verde, please contact me!
The island of Brava is located in the extreme southeast end of the Cape Verde archipelago. It is the smallest inhabited island in Cape Verde. Although the entire island is active volcano, there have been no historical eruptions. Joseph Perry and his family lived in São João Baptista, a freguesia (civil parish) of Cape Verde. São João Baptista covers the eastern part of Brava and the parish seat is Nova Sintra, the largest town on the island.
Brava was discovered by Portuguese explorer Diogo Afonso in 1462. There is no evidence of human settlement prior to the arrival of the Portuguese. Around 1620, the settlement of the island began with the arrival of colonists from Madeira and the Azores. Due to the eruption of Pico in 1680, a volcano on the neighboring island of Fogo, Fogo’s inhabitants all relocated to Brava and many of them stayed. A close relationship between the island and the states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island developed by the end of the 18th century as whaleboats from New Bedford and Rhode Island started to use the island as a supply stop in the mid Atlantic. Little by little, being excellent mariners, the men from Brava began to find work aboard the whaleboats. May of them eventually settled in the Massachusetts and Rhode Island area where, even today, there is the largest Cape Verde community abroad.
The Cape Verde islands became part of the Portuguese empire in 1495. A majority of today’s inhabitants are of mixed Portuguese and African ancestry. Positioned on the great trade routes between Africa, Europe and the New World, the islands became a prosperous center for the slave trade, but suffered economic decline after the slave trade was abolished in 1876. They were a location of exile for political prisoners of Portugal and a place of refuge for Jews and other victims of religious persecution during the Spanish-Portuguese Inquisition. In the 20th century, Cape Verde served as a shipping port.
However, throughout the colonial period, Cape Verde remained a relatively isolated part of the Portuguese empire. Historically, the share of Portuguese born settlers on the island was very low – probably never surpassing more than 5% of the total population except perhaps during the first century of colonization. The racially mixed offspring of individuals of West African descent (primarily Mali and Senegalese) and individuals of Western European descent form the majority of the population. Unlike Brazilians or Angolans, the mother tongue of Cape Verdeans is not Portuguese, but rather Kabuverdianu or Kriolu. It is Portuguese-based, but modified by many Upper Guinean influences. Based on my personal AncestryDNA results, the racially-mixed heritage of the region is very much a part of our family story.
The African colonization of Cape Verde is significant. Despite its important role in the slave trade, a clear majority (>80%) of Cape Verde’s population was no longer enslaved at least since the census of 1731 and most likely since the late 1600’s. The so-called Badiu’s on the island of Santiago probably formed some of the earliest Maroon communities in the Afro Diaspora, fleeing and defying colonial rule as early as the early 1500’s. In addition, there was a high incidence of manumission for both black and racially mixed Cape Verdeans throughout this period. Finally a large number of free Upper Guineans voluntarily settled in Cape Verde starting as early as the 15th century. For much more information about the history of African settlement of Cape Verde, visit https://tracingafricanroots.wordpress.com.
In 1951, Cape Verde’s status changed from a Portuguese colony to an overseas province, and in 1961 the inhabitants became full Portuguese citizens. So Joseph Perry along with all his brothers and sisters were residents of the Portuguese-held colony, but Portuguese citizenship was not conferred until long after their immigration to the United States. An independence movement led by the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau (another former Portuguese colony) and Cape Verde (PAIGC) was founded in 1956. Following the 1974 coup in Portugal, after which Portugal began abandoning its colonial empire, the islands became independent (July 5, 1975).