Museum at 2009 CV Independence Day Festival!

This year’s Cape Verdean Independence Day Festival will be held on Sunday, July 5th at India Point Park in Providence. The museum will have a tent staffed by volunteers displaying items from Cape Verdean history. We have grown a lot in the last year and now is a great time to hear about the latest changes at the museum. Stop by to learn more about what we do and our collection. We will also have our newest t-shirts and postcards on sale!

For directions and more about the festival, click ricapeverdeanheritage.com.

Recent Visits and an Elephant Tusk

Virginia Gonsalves and Yvonne Smart from the museum were interviewed recently by students from the Vartan Gregorian Elementary School in Fox Point. The students put together an exhibit and play about the history of their neighborhood. We also had a youth group from Brockton, MA and several classes from the Blackstone Academy in Pawtucket come to see the new additions to the museum this Spring. In early June, Presidente di Camera of São Nicolau made a surpise visit. If you’re interested in bringing your school group, please contact our education coordinator.

In other news, we have received a fascinating 250-year old elephant tusk recovered from the ocean floor around the island of Maio. The tusk, riddled with holes made by decay and sea life, is from the English ship, Princess Louisa which wrecked on a reef off Maio in 1743. It was recovered by explorers from Arqueonautas Worldwide between 1998 and 2000 and donated to us by them. It joins several other artifacts donated to us by Arqueonautas (see earlier announcements in the newsletter).

Rhythm & News: Our 100th Donor!

The Rhythm and Blues Preservation Society of Rhode Island became the 100th donor to the Cape Verdean Museum Exhibit with the gift of a saxophone and other memorabilia belonging to the late musician George Azevedo. Members of the Rhythm and Blues Preservation Society along with Mrs. Marie Azevedo made the presentation to Denise Oliveira, President of the Board of Directors at the museum on April 23rd.

George Azevedo along with his cousin Paul Gonsalves began his career in the 1940s by playing in a small combo that played jazz and rhythm and blues in the Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts area.

Earlier in his career George toured for long stints on the road in the USA and Canada with the Charlie Lewis Band. After marrying his wife Marie in 1951, he stayed closer to home playing locally, working with a number of jump, blues, swing and R & B bands. They included The Clarence “Bubbie” McKay Band, The Duke Oliver Band, The Skyliners, The Nate Robinson Orchestra, The Professor Coates and The Dynamics R & B group. He also jammed with the local saxophonists Joe Livramento and Art Pelosi and Newport Jazz Festival producer and pianist George Wein.

George Azevedo played with many great musicians when they were in the Boston area or playing at the Celebrity Club in Providence. Some of them were Dizzy Gillespie, trumpeter Hot Lips Page, Lionel Hampton, Roy Eldridge, Count Basie and vocalists Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughn and Carmen Mac Rae.

It is said that George Azevedo was a “regular guy” who was comfortable playing with any group, low society, high society or following his roots in local Cape Verdean clubs.

The Boston Globe Reviews the Museum

"The history of that back-and-forth rhythm is traced eloquently in the meticulous displays of the Cape Verdean Museum in East Providence”

Reporter James F. Smith of the Boston Globe came to see us recently and wrote three important articles about Cape Verdeans in New England. The latest one, “A calf sent from Boston allows generations to live in N.E.” focuses on the museum. Read it by clicking here.

“Anyone wanting to learn more about Fox Point or any other aspect of the Cape Verdean community in New England should make sure to visit the Cape Verdean Museum Exhibit... the small but lovingly built collection takes visitors through the history of whaling, emigration and building new lives and communities in the United States.” -- "Cape Verdeans going home again," The Boston Globe, April 27, 2009.

"Cape Verde, rising, with emigres' help," The Boston Globe, April 26, 2009.

Brown University Exhibit on Fox Point

A group from Brown has put together an exhibit entitled, Remember the Old Times: Cape Verdean Community in Fox Point, 1920 to 1945 held at the university’s Carriage House Gallery through October 16, 2009. The show was organized by Professor Steven Lubar in the Public Humanities Department and a group of his students, some of whom came to the museum to talk with us about Fox Point and to make reproductions for their show. As always with researchers, we welcome their interest and are happy to help people learn more about the Cape Verdean community. For more, see the John Nicholas Brown Center.

Recent Donations: Photography

French photographer and anthropologist Viviane Lièvre has donated several beautiful color photos of Cape Verde that she took while researching music on the islands for her book, Cap-Vert, un voyage musical dans l'archipel. We are grateful for her kind donation and these photos are currently on view at the museum.

We have also received two impressive works donated by the Gonsalves Family and artist Richmond Jones from the 2008 show, A Life in Stone: the Cape Verdean Stonemasonry Tradition in Eastern Connecticut. The works, not yet on display, compliment four other photographs that the museum owns from the same show.

We would also like to thank Ray Almeida for the important photographs and documents from his archives that he has sent to the museum this year. Ray Almeida is, among other things, an historian, author, political activist and holder of the Ordem Amilcar Cabral. He was the founding director of Tchuba-The American Committee for Cape Verde.

500-Year Old Shipwreck Artifacts

Arqueonautas Worldwide, a Portuguese deep sea exploration company, has donated several items to us in conjunction with an anonymous donor.

Most of the items, from a rare slave-trade era manillas to a beautiful large copper cooking pot, were recovered from shipwrecks by Arqueonautas marine archaeologists in the anchorage of Cidade Velha off the island of Santiago, Cape Verde in 1998 and are representative of the important cultural-historical background of this Portuguese colonial outpost, which dominated the West-African coast during most of the 16th to 18th. These artifacts are now on display at the museum.

DVDs for Sale

Some Kind of Funny Puerto Rican, A Cape Verdean American Story, a documentary film made by Claire Andrade Watkins is for sale at the museum for $20 US. A portion of the proceeds from these dvds will benefit the Cape Verdean Museum Exhibit. If you are interested, please call the museum at (401) 228-7292 or call (401) 222-4137.