...historians tell us that the Portuguese have been part of the life, economy and social culture of the Caribbean since the 15th century. History has it that the first Portuguese to set foot in the West Indies were the sailors on board Christopher Columbus’ three ships—the Santa María, the Pinta and the Nina—which landed on the small island of San Salvador (or Guanahani) in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492. Columbus learnt to become a skilled sailor and map-maker in Portugal, the most important seafaring country in Europe at that time. There he met many experienced sailors, some of whom accompanied him on his maiden voyage to the New World, although he was at the time at the service of the Spanish Crown and not at Portugal’s service. Since the days of Columbus, the Portuguese have emigrated over the centuries in large numbers to the Caribbean for a variety of reasons, mainly religious, political and economic.Source: The Portuguese in the Caribbean.
Portuguese explorers included the famed Vasco da Gama and Henry the Navigator.
Many of the Portuguese left Europe as a result of religious persecution.
The two most important waves of migration to the Caribbean were (i) those of the Portuguese Jews, who immigrated from the 15th to the 19th centuries for religious reasons and (ii) those of the Portuguese from the island of Madeira, who came to the Caribbean in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, also for religious but mainly for economic reasons. These two waves of Portuguese immigrants have greatly im-pacted on the economic and social development of the West Indies. Their influence can still be felt today. The first group of immigrants were Sephardic Jews who left Portugal to escape from persecution by the Catholic Inquisition in that country. It is difficult to give exact numbers of the Portuguese Jews that settled in the Caribbean because they are said to have come between the 15th and 19th centuries, but they certainly came in large numbers (several thousand)...
Practically all countries of the region—from Guyana (then Demerara, British Guiana) to Cuba—received agricultural workers from Madeira. The great majority settled in Demerara and Trinidad (including, in the latter case, the persecuted Protestants of Funchal, who received the protection and assistance of the Greyfriars Presbyterian Church of Port-of-Spain). The rest is history and is well documented in the works of many distinguished descendants of Madeirans, for example, the scholars Sister M Noel de Menezes of Guyana and Dr Jo-Anne S Ferreira of T&T. From their writings, we learn that the Madeiran people moved from the agricultural fields, soon after their arrival in the Caribbean, to enter not only shop-keeping but also other professions and trades. Today, they are in all walks of life, fully integrated into the political, economic and social life of the West Indies, with their important social contribution being felt everywhere in the region.
(The Portuguese in the Caribbean)
So my father, of Italian-Corsican ancestry, married my mother (when she was 19), who was a descendent of the Portuguese settlers in the Caribbean. Both came from "prestigious" European families, who made Trinidad their home.
* "Though few in number, the Portuguese contribution to their adopted homeland is of a significance beyond the small size of the community."
Links:
The Portuguese in Trinidad.
Jo-Anne S. Ferreira, The Portuguese of Trinidad and Tobago: Portrait of an ethnic minority (Culture and entrepreneuship in the Caribbean).
Jo-Anne S. Ferreira, Portuguese in Trinidad.
No comments:
Post a Comment