The 20 toponymic plaques that narrate the African history of Lisbon have been stored in a room at the Batoto Yetu Portugal association for almost four years. This association works with children, youth, and adults interested in African culture in Caxias, Oeiras. Due to a lack of funds, they awaited the moment they would see the light of day, becoming a part of Lisbon’s toponymy. They will finally be placed in the city streets on January 13th.
Each of these plaques holds a bit of the culture and history of Lisbon: Church of São Domingos, Basilica of Our Lady of the Martyrs, Rua do Poço dos Negros, Campo das Cebolas, Rossio Square, Terreiro do Paço. They were created based on the rare sources that allow the reconstruction of African influence in the city.
Over time, street names started to emerge that commemorated this forgotten population: Queen of the Congo, Preta Constança, Poço dos Negros. However, this wasn’t enough. That’s why in 2020, the Batoto Yetu Portugal association proposed installing 20 toponymic plaques narrating this African Lisbon.
This was a time-consuming process. Since 2020, the plaques have been ready, after Batoto Yetu Portugal secured funding from the BIP/ZIP program of the Lisbon City Council for this project and collaborated with historian Isabel Castro Henriques, an expert in African history, and the Office of Olisiponenses Studies, to move forward. They selected the most relevant locations and wrote texts about the African presence in each of them.
However, the construction of the plaques turned out to be more expensive than initially estimated, causing them to remain stored in Caxias. There were insufficient funds to place them on the city streets.
Batoto Yetu Portugal attempted to reapply for funding, but the Lisbon City Council does not finance the same project twice. The installation cost of each plaque is around 300 euros, so the association needed to raise 6,000 euros, which they achieved through donations from individuals, companies, patrons, and foundations.
With the funds collected, the association faced a series of bureaucratic issues that further delayed the process. Now, thanks to the assistance of various partners, the plaques will finally be installed in the streets on January 13th at 3:00 PM, marking the occasion with an event at Largo de São Domingos.
In addition to the toponymic plaques, a bust of Pai Paulino will also be inaugurated. Pai Paulino, a Brazilian advocate for the rights of Black people, was a well-known whitewasher of Rossio in 19th-century Lisbon, as well as a bullfighter and a regular presence in the city’s processions. The bust is the work of Mozambican sculptor Frank Ntaluma.
These are the locations of African presence in the city, even though there may not be visible marks today. “These plaques reflect a deep connection between the place and Africans, which still persists to this day,” explains José Lino Neves, vice-president of Batoto Yetu Portugal.
The lack of representation in public space
When she was in school, Cátia Domingos, a project manager at the Marvila branch of Batoto Yetu Portugal, didn’t know that there was another history to tell about the Age of Discoveries. In Portuguese history classes, she heard about the great navigators who embarked on voyages and discovered a world beyond borders. They told her that, thanks to these journeys, Lisbon transformed with new trade routes and the aroma of spices. The history written in the books was the one that remained imprinted on the pages.
However, Cátia felt uncomfortable, perhaps even squirming in her chair, when slavery was discussed. One only needed to look at the color of her skin to understand why. Years later, she would discover that this was not the only version of history. There was much more to learn about her roots. “Today, I know that there are other perspectives,” she says.
She knows much of it thanks to Batoto Yetu Portugal, which in 2014 began searching for African roots in dances considered Portuguese. If Africans did not leave visible marks in the city, they left much of their culture in dances, processions, music, and gastronomy. Therefore, it was not difficult to find African rhythm and movement… in Fado.
Fado Dançado (Danced Fado) opened doors for Batoto Yetu Portugal: “We were discovering more information about places and enslaved African people,” says José Lino Neves. It was then that they first contacted historian Isabel de Castro Henriques and, using historical sources, unearthed this history of the African population in the city of Lisbon. The result was a city itinerary, about which Isabel de Castro Henriques wrote, and from which the association began conducting guided tours.
In this itinerary, one discovers the identity of the woman at the base of the statue of Marquês de Sá da Bandeira in D. Luís I Square, Cais do Sodré.
She is “Preta Fernanda,” whose real name is Andresa do Nascimento, a Cape Verdean woman who led a bohemian life in 19th-century Lisbon, gaining influence among intellectuals.
Andresa – or Fernanda – who was never enslaved, opened brothels in the city, bullfighted in Praça de Algés, and some say she was the only woman who did not leave the room when Almada Negreiros read his Futurist Ultimatum in 1917.
In the statue, which lacks African features, Andresa holds her son with an iron shackle broken at the ankle, a symbol of the end of slavery, for which Marquês de Sá da Bandeira fought so hard.
One also discovers why Largo de São Domingos is still a meeting point for the African population today. “People think there is no history there, but there is,” says Isabel de Castro Henriques.
After all, it is where the Church of São Domingos is located, where the Brotherhood of the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary of Black Men was established, providing protection and assistance to Africans for years.
These and other stories have sparked the interest of the population, especially foreigners. However, there was one detail that puzzled those exploring the city: the absence of plaques or markers commemorating these stories and heroes.
The history that didn’t get in the books
The idea for the plaques and the bust originated from this realization. Simply telling the history to those who want to hear it is not enough; it needs to be marked. Even the Africans who grew up on the streets of Lisbon are not familiar with what is, in fact, their history.
This was the case for sculptor Frank Ntaluma, a member of Batoto Yetu Portugal for several years, who was not familiar with the figure of Pai Paulino until he sculpted it.
Frank Ntaluma came to know him better through the sculpture of Bordalo Pinheiro. However, Ntaluma did not want to limit himself to that representation. “Bordalo Pinheiro created an image of him, I followed it a bit, but as an artist and African, I thought that Pai Paulino was not just that”, the sculptor explains. “He was a thoughtful individual.” And that’s how he imagined him in his studio.
Like Ntaluma, José Lino Neves knew little about African Lisbon before these adventures: “I knew there had been slavery in Lisbon, but I had no idea. We didn’t learn anything about this in school,” he states.
Throughout his life, he had heard his father talk about the Poço dos Negros, a pit where the bodies of unbaptized enslaved people were thrown during the Manueline era, and Dr. Sousa Martins, the doctor, scientist, and mixed-race humanist represented in a statue in Campo dos Mártires da Pátria. Little more. Now, he is familiar with this Lisbon that connects to his Cape Verdean roots and wants to bring African history into the present of the city.
With these discoveries, Cátia Domingos no longer feels the same discomfort as she did in history classes. “In school, everything was learned from the perspective of the discoverer,” she says. Something that still hasn’t completely changed, as Isabel de Castro Henriques acknowledges, but now Cátia knows that history goes far beyond what was taught in school. “There was a positive influence from our community on Portugal, and that gives us self-esteem.”
Today, Cátia can imagine the Mocambo neighborhood, this “small village, a refuge” created in 1593, where the African workforce of the city’s wealthier population lived, and where Queen D. Amália I of Congo threw extravagant parties. Near Martim Moniz, the revelry of processions explodes, in which Africans participated with great joy.
But she can also imagine Chafariz d’El Rei before the 1755 earthquake, this place divided between whites and blacks, where the waters of one group and the other could not touch. Or the Tropical Garden of Belém, where the memory of the Exposition of the Portuguese World in 1940 lives, when colonial ideology was reinforced by reenacting the life of African villages and bringing population from the colonies to be presented to the public.
Batoto Yetu Portugal does not want to forget anymore. There is already some change compared to the past, of course. In the 1970s to 1990s, “it was very difficult to break the silence when talking about Africans”, says Isabel de Castro Henriques.
These plaques represent only a small part of African history, but they are another step toward the change that has already begun. They mark a city that remembers and takes pride in its African heroes.
But above all, they mark a city that does not want to repeat the mistakes of the past.
*Article originally publish on April 2th 2022
Ana da Cunha
Nasceu no Porto, há 27 anos, mas desde 2019 que faz do Alfa Pendular a sua casa. Em Lisboa, descobriu o amor às histórias, ouvindo-as e contando-as na Avenida de Berna, na Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
✉ ana.cunha@amensagem.pt
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