THE CAPE VERDE PACKET TRADE: PART I By Michael Platzer Africa Branch, Office of Technical Cooperation, United Nations
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The campaign LO return the schooner Ernestina , built as the G!oucesterman Effie M . Morrissey, to the United States has aroused widespread community interest in the story of the Cape Ve rde packets of \\¡hich she is the last survivor. Michael Platzer, volunteer
project director for the National Society in this effort, has visited extensively in the Cape Verdean (and 01he1) communities to develop the sto1y from old newspaper c!1iJpings, fellers, journals, scrapbooks and living reminiscence.
It was not al ways so peaceful; Ernestina 's decks shown here on one of her final voyages.
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The last deepwater sailing ships to operate out of United States ports were the packet ships owned and sailed by Cape Verdeans, in a packet trade between Africa and New England. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Cape Verdean seamen had been picked up by passing merchantmen and whaling ships from New England; many Cape Verdeans, as a result, settled in the New Bedford area. They were appreciated for their willingness to work hard for little pay, and .after devastating successive droughts in the islands, there followed the largest voluntary emigration of Africans to the American continent. It is estimated there are now 300,000 Americans of Cape Verdean descent in the Un ited States. All can trace their roots back to a particular valley or village on one of the islands, and most have a relative who was a whaler or fisherman, or who crewed or came over as passenger in one of the o ld sailing ships in this trade. Unable to buy new vessels, the Cape Verdeans used windships which had been discarded by others as no longer being seaworthy. As steamships replaced sailing vessels, old schooners and former whaling ships became available almost for the asking. And as labor was required for the expanding textile mills and cranberry industries of New ¡England, Cape Verdeans bought the old windjammers in order to bring their countrymen to America to work the cranberry fie lds of Cape Cod and mills of New Bedford. During the height of the packet trade ten or more ships made the annual trip between southeastern New England and Cape Verde Islands. They usually arrived in the early summer before the cranberry season began and returned after the harvest in the fall. They carried clothing , household goods,
SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1977
roof tiles, and other American-made products back to the islands. Many homes in cape Verde today bear evidence of this sea connection with America. Since most of these ships left from Brava , the trade was widely known as the Brava Packet trade. Since many Cape Verdeans couldn't afford the passage on the ship, some packet skippers developed a system of smuggling and indentured servitude. Other, more generous arrangements were often made among family members and between families , to finance the long journey. And diaries, photo albums and the living mem o ry of many Cape Verdeans attest to the familial quality to lifeaboard the packets. Peopie had the run of the decks, crossings were made among familiar people , eating familiar food. singing familiar songs. They landed at the Cape Verdean colony in New Bedford or Providence where they were greeted by relatives and friends. So close were the ties between the two places, that southeastern New England came to be called "a suburb of the Islands. " But the going cou ld be rough. They risked the ir lives in the rough Atlantic to come to the United States, and then to return to their native country after small sums of money had been saved. Each voyage was filled with danger, and the men who braved the known risks of sailing leaky, wormed vessels across 3,500 miles of ocean were remarkable men.
Coelho and the Nellie May Antonio Coelho was the first Cape Verdean-American to purchase a vessel to begin the Cape Verde Packet Trade. He bought the Nellie May,. a 64-ton fishing schooner, from John Waters of Newport, hired an old whaleman as captain, and sailed in 1892 from Providence for the Island of Brava. Fifty people
paid $15 each for the passage. Only a few days out, the captain died of a heart seizure. The mate didn't know anything about navigation but tried to steer a course in the general direction of the Cape Verdes. After a month at sea they encountered a steamer and were told they had overshot the islands by 500 miles. Finally, after 45 days at sea , they reached the harbor of Furna on Brava. Coelho hired a new captain and sailed back with the Nellie May to Providence in the spring of the next year. There were 117 passengers and crew aboard, and the schooner arrived in 28 days. The Nellie May made another round trip with Captain Jose Godinho in command. The passage to the Cape Verde Islands took 90 days - one of the most terrible on record for its length and the suffering endured by passengers and crew. Food and water ran out. Two of the crew went mad and jumped overboard. The Captain felt he had not been properly compensated for his troubles; and it is said he deliberately beached the ship so he could buy the Nellie May at auction as a derelict. No one knows what actually happened to the Nellie May. When Godinho returned to the United States he was the owner and captain of another schooner, the George B. M cClellan.
Queen of the Cape Verde Packets Captain Heny Rose was a driver in this trade, who .nade passages still talked about today. Rose made his first trip from Brava to America in 1911 at age thirteen as a mess-boy in the bark Charles G. Rice. He made two more trips in the Rice and one from New Bedford in the Diane. Rose then sailed as mate under Captain Jose Silva in the Emma and Helen. At age 21, he was made master of the Pythian and took her to Cape Verde. In 1922, he was master 19