The Decline of External Commerce in Cape Verde in the 17th Century
- Trade
The 17th Century brought enormous problems for Portuguese and Spanish commerce with Africa, due to the predatory actions of the privateers. Despite agreements made between the kings of Portugal, Spain, France and England, and policing by Portuguese warships (galleons, carracks, caravels, bergantines, galleys, barges, large warning caravels), as well as application of the tactic of sailing in groups (convoys of Portuguese and Spanish ships), they broke up the complex system set up by Don Manuel I and completely failed to respect the treaties between Portugal and Spain (Alcáçovas and Tordesilhas) and between the Portuguese monarchs and the Holy See (papal bulls). Some powerful external factors also contributed to this, in the context of the cultural, political, social and religious evolution of the 17th Century, including three key points: The Reformation in 1517, which adversely affected papal authority over states; the emergence of philosophies that went against the state, defending the Jus Communicationnis, meaning free mobility on land and sea; and the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal, who brought advanced nautical knowledge from Portugal to the offices of European governments, and some of whom settled (new Christians) in Cape Verde and Guinea. This was a real revolution, caused by the globalisation due in large part to the discoveries of the 16th Century.
With the decline of the slave trade in Ribeira Grande, which co-incided with the pirate attacks on the city, first by the French, then the English and later the Dutch at the end of the 16th Century and in the following centuries. These attacks hastened the abandonment of the city and the increasing settlement of the inland areas of the islands of Santiago and Fogo, and agriculture took on the main role in the economy of Cape Verde, both to support the population and to feed the little external commerce that survived.
It was then that the Cape Verdean people were confronted with the search for their own identity, obliged to live from the arid land, far from the adverse sea, abandoned by the kingdom (which was now concentrating more on Guinea, which was the centre for the slave trade). Although Ribeira Grande continued to maintain a presence in Guinea, commercial activity became residual. The cities of Praia and Ribeira Grande shrank in population, and the representatives of ship fitters and merchants remained to handle their business. Even the slave ships on the route Europe-Guinea-Spanish Indes went to pay their dues in Cacheu (which became a town in 1605, fortified with over 600 “faithful” under a captain and ouvidor from the rivers of Guinea), without having to enter the port of Ribeira Grande, where the Trading Authority of Guinea was finally closed in 1647.
The 17th Century brought enormous problems for Portuguese and Spanish commerce with Africa, due to the predatory actions of the privateers. Despite agreements made between the kings of Portugal, Spain, France and England, and policing by Portuguese warships (galleons, carracks, caravels, bergantines, galleys, barges, large warning caravels), as well as application of the tactic of sailing in groups (convoys of Portuguese and Spanish ships), they broke up the complex system set up by Don Manuel I and completely failed to respect the treaties between Portugal and Spain (Alcáçovas and Tordesilhas) and between the Portuguese monarchs and the Holy See (papal bulls). Some powerful external factors also contributed to this, in the context of the cultural, political, social and religious evolution of the 17th Century, including three key points: The Reformation in 1517, which adversely affected papal authority over states; the emergence of philosophies that went against the state, defending the Jus Communicationnis, meaning free mobility on land and sea; and the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal, who brought advanced nautical knowledge from Portugal to the offices of European governments, and some of whom settled (new Christians) in Cape Verde and Guinea. This was a real revolution, caused by the globalisation due in large part to the discoveries of the 16th Century.
With the decline of the slave trade in Ribeira Grande, which co-incided with the pirate attacks on the city, first by the French, then the English and later the Dutch at the end of the 16th Century and in the following centuries. These attacks hastened the abandonment of the city and the increasing settlement of the inland areas of the islands of Santiago and Fogo, and agriculture took on the main role in the economy of Cape Verde, both to support the population and to feed the little external commerce that survived.
It was then that the Cape Verdean people were confronted with the search for their own identity, obliged to live from the arid land, far from the adverse sea, abandoned by the kingdom (which was now concentrating more on Guinea, which was the centre for the slave trade). Although Ribeira Grande continued to maintain a presence in Guinea, commercial activity became residual. The cities of Praia and Ribeira Grande shrank in population, and the representatives of ship fitters and merchants remained to handle their business. Even the slave ships on the route Europe-Guinea-Spanish Indes went to pay their dues in Cacheu (which became a town in 1605, fortified with over 600 “faithful” under a captain and ouvidor from the rivers of Guinea), without having to enter the port of Ribeira Grande, where the Trading Authority of Guinea was finally closed in 1647.
