Colonialismpoetteacherco-founder of the Centre for African StudiesSão Tomé nationalistpolitical prisoner
Born
30 April 1926, São Tomé (São Tomé and Príncipe)
Died
9 March 2010, Luanda
A poet from São Tomé whose Lisbon home, on Rua Actor Vale, housed the Centre for African Studies from 1951. Arrested in 1965 and imprisoned in Caxias, she later wrote the words of the anthem of São Tomé and Príncipe.
She was born in São Tomé on 30 April 1926 and came to Lisbon to study, enrolling for a degree in Arts.12 Her poems began to be read from 1946, at the gatherings in the home of Luís Espírito Santo.2 At the university and at the House of the Students of the Empire she mixed with the future leaders of the liberation movements — Amílcar Cabral, Agostinho Neto, Mário Pinto de Andrade, Francisco José Tenreiro, Marcelino dos Santos, Noémia de Sousa.125
In 1951 she was at the founding of the Centre for African Studies, which was set up in the house where she lived, at Rua Actor Vale, 37, at the top of the Alameda — a large house run by an aunt, “Aunt Andreza”.234 Talks on linguistics and history were given there, and a political awareness of colonialism and “assimilationism” took shape.1 Some time later she gave up her course, for political and financial reasons.1
In January 1953 she returned to São Tomé, where she worked as a teacher and journalist. That year she wrote the poem “Trindade”, which denounces the Batepá massacre of 5 February.1 On 4 December 1965 she was arrested in São Tomé and imprisoned in the fort-prison of Caxias, accused of “inciting subversion in the archipelago”.12
After independence, in 1975, she was Minister of Education and Culture, Minister of Information and Culture and President of the National Assembly of São Tomé and Príncipe, and wrote the words of the national anthem, “Independência Total” (Total Independence).12 She died in Luanda on 9 March 2010.21
From the archives
In other archives
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A medical student in Lisbon from 1948, he was active in the House of the Students of the Empire, the MUD Juvenil and the Centre for African Studies. Arrested several times by the PIDE in Lisbon, he was the first president of independent Angola.
An agronomy student in Lisbon from 1945, he met Agostinho Neto, Mário Pinto de Andrade and Marcelino dos Santos at the House of the Students of the Empire, and was one of the leaders of the Centre for African Studies. He founded the PAIGC and was assassinated in Conakry in 1973.
A Mozambican poet, she lived in Lisbon from 1951 to 1964, published in the House of the Students of the Empire’s “Mensagem” and attended the Centre for African Studies, until her opposition to the Estado Novo (“New State”) forced her into exile in Paris.
A chemical engineer and underground PCP activist, she was in charge of the Eastern Zone of the Lisbon Local Committee, “the most important working-class zone of the capital”. Arrested by the PIDE in 1957, she was, in Caxias, one of the authors of the letters of the Caxias Manifesto.
A communist activist arrested in 1961 with her two small children, whom she kept with her in Caxias. She spent six years and seven months in prison and took her own life in 1970, her nervous system weakened by the years in jail.
A mechanic imprisoned in Caxias, he posed for months as a “rachado” (turncoat), at the PCP’s request, to prepare the escape of 4 December 1961, and it was with him at the wheel of Salazar’s armoured car that eight prisoners got out of the fort.
Notes on the sources2
Whether she was a founder of the Centre for African Studies, as Wikipedia says: António Tomás Medeiros recounts that the Centre was run by Mário Pinto de Andrade, Amílcar Cabral, Francisco José Tenreiro and António Domingues, and that it was set up in the house where she lived through Mário de Andrade.
Her age at death: 82, according to Memória Comum; the dates in Wikipedia (30 April 1926 and 9 March 2010) give 83.
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