Arsénio Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo

Arsénio Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo (* 1792 in Funchal , † 1869 in Luanda ) was a Portuguese slave trader , local politician and entrepreneur who worked mainly in the Angolan capital Luanda. He was also a lyric poet and a freemason and in 1848 he was the first to aim to build a railway in Angola .

Life

From birth in 1792 to arrival in Luanda in 1837

Carpo was born as Arsénio Santos in 1792 in Funchal on the Portuguese island of Madeira , the son of a poor bricklayer. Not much is known about his childhood and education. He later went to Lisbon , where he was arrested during a raid in connection with a planned conspiracy against Gomes Freire de Andrade . After imprisonment in the Castelo de São Jorge he came back to Madeira, where he embarked in 1820 for Rio de Janeiro , which had been the capital of the Portuguese colonial empire since the Portuguese royal family fled from the Napoleonic invasion . There he probably put his maiden name Santos off and took his more pompous and upscale classical education pretending name Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo.

On his return to Madeira, he was arrested there in 1823 when he was planning an uprising against the central government in Lisbon. He was sentenced to five years in exile in Angola . There he turned to the slave trade . After completing his sentence, he returned to Brazil . This time he settled in Recife , where he further expanded his business with the slave trade, which had been illegal since the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In the mid-1830s he was the owner of several ships that operated between Angola, Uruguay , Brazil and Cuba .

From 1837 until his arrest and release in 1846

In 1837 he moved to Luanda, where he became Angola's largest slave trader. He also expanded his political and social significance, on the one hand by supporting a number of charitable buildings and facilities in Luanda, on the other hand by skillfully influencing politics in favor of the slave trade. One of the reasons why the governor António de Noronha was recalled was Carpo's letter to the royal court in 1839, accusing Noronha of various obstacles to Angola's economic development. This had been the enforcement of the international abolition agreement that had been in force since 1815 and made it difficult for the slave traders to do business. At the same time, Carpo won the trust of British envoys and business people in the region. He was significantly involved in the negotiating commissions that agreed to implement the abolition in Angola, but provided for long transition periods.

Carpo became mayor of Luandas, and in 1842 he was appointed general commander of the districts of Bié , Bailundo and Huambo , which in reality was only an honorary title. In 1843 he was awarded the Portuguese Order of Christ with the rank of commander. However, since he took sides with the Setembrist , he increasingly drew the resentment of the cartist government of Cabral , which came under increasing international pressure, and therefore increasingly vehemently against the slave trade. Carpo's business friends and fellow Freemasons were able to delay his arrest for a long time, until a new governor, Pedro Alexandrino da Cunha, took up his post in Angola in mid-1845 and had Carpo arrested a little later. He was charged with illegal slave trafficking, tax evasion, abuse of office, bribery and disregard of royal laws. As soon as he was imprisoned again in the Castelo de São Jorge in Lisbon, business friends and Freemasons in political circles and in the press created a climate that favored his release. A strong motive was probably Carpos' threat to reveal the identity of all businessmen who were also involved in the slave business while in custody. On March 20, 1846, the Supreme Court acquitted Carpo for lack of evidence and doubts about the jurisdiction of the courts in Lisbon. Finally, the responsible military council exonerated him from the charge of disobedience to the queen.

From his return to Angola in 1846 to his death in 1869

After his release, Carpo found himself largely destitute, and a civil war broke out in Portugal as a result of the Maria da Fonte uprising . Carpo then fled to Ponta Delgada on the Azores in February 1847 . From there he tried to gain new business and political influence. However, after the civil war ended in favor of the Cartists and Cabral took power again, Carpo left the Portuguese Azores. He settled in London , where he knew Portuguese business people, and wrote letters to the Prime Minister Sá da Bandeira in Lisbon with various proposals . So he suggested u. a. the establishment of a Portuguese-East African trading company ( Companhia Africana Ocidental Portuguesa ) based in Luanda, and in 1848 he and other businessmen developed the idea of ​​a steam locomotive-operated railway connection from Luanda to Calumbo (now a municipality in the Viana district ).

His proposals received no official support. Only after the end of the governor da Cunha's term of office was Carpo able to return to Luanda in March 1849. After hastily reactivating his old possessions and relationships on site, he embarked for Rio de Janeiro in June 1849, where he also tried to revive his old connections and interests. The government of the now independent Empire of Brazil did not allow him to do so, and in September 1849 they expelled him. He returned to Luanda empty-handed in November 1849. His economic situation continued to deteriorate until a merchant finally brought charges against him at the end of 1851. a. for self-inflicted and fraudulent bankruptcy, taking possession of foreign land, and forgery of documents. He was found guilty, his title revoked and sentenced to the island of São Tomé . After an application to Lisbon, Carpo was moved to Lisbon at the end of 1852, again to the Castelo de São Jorge. There, with the help of old friends, he managed to have his sentence canceled and released early in mid-1853. He returned to Luanda, where the slave trade had now finally ceased, and he could not achieve a new business rise. He managed to become commandant of Ambaca at the end of 1853 , which he remained at least until May 1854, when Livingstone arrived there. In the emerging prospecting fever, Carpo also acquired mining rights and operated a copper mine in Golungo Alto from 1856 to 1857 and a silver mine near Duque de Bragança (today Calandula ). However, the results fell far short of expectations, and Carpo was forced to seek employment with the Portuguese crown. But it was one of his established business connections that ensured him and his family a modest existence from 1857 onwards. The trading house Oliveira Machado from Lisbon hired him in May 1857 as a representative in Luanda, where he was now back in the city's business circles. He also made a name for himself as a citizen of the city engaged in charitable work, and in 1858 he even organized an aid campaign for Lisbon, which was ravaged by a yellow fever epidemic. In 1861 he was a member of the eleven-member commission that prepared the appearance of the Portuguese colony Angola at the London World's Fair in 1862 . In the last years of his life he invested in increasing trade with the Angolan hinterland. Caravans were used to bring goods such as gunpowder and jewelry into the interior of the country, and goods such as ivory, natural rubber or wax were returned to the coastal cities in exchange . In 1869 Arsénio de Carpo died in Luanda.

reception

Arsénio Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo is a typical example of a new elite that formed in the colonies of the European colonial powers and that hoped for a new, more open society. Carpo became known not only for his successful work as a businessman, but also as an uncomfortable poet and journalist, as an unconventional and rebellious subject, and as a non-profit citizen. Some characterize him as an example of a progressive Creole activist for the freedom of newly emerging nations, while others see him as a failed profiteer of the slave trade, overtaken by progress.

Since, above all, his influential time as a successful slave trader is well documented, Carpo often offers itself as a research object to also examine the intellectual changes in European overseas holdings, especially from the middle of the 19th century.

In Luanda, a street is named after Arsénio Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo.

Bibliography (selection)

• Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo, Arsénio: Dedo de Pygmeu. Lisbon 1843, self-published by JJ Andrade e Silva
• Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo, Arsénio: Resposta à Refutação Antecedente. Lisbon 1846
• Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo, Arsénio: Projecto d'uma companhia para o amelhoramento do Comercio, Agricultura e Industria na Província de Angola, que se deve estabelecer na cidade de São Paulo de Assumpção de Loanda. , Lisbon 1848
• Castro, Luís António Carvalho de: Biografia ou vida publica de Arsénio Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo. Rio de Janeiro 1846
• Pacheco, Carlos: Arsénio Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo, uma Vida de Luta contra as Prepotencias do Poder Colonial em Angola. Lisbon 1992–1994, In: Revista Internacional de Estudos Africanos, No. 16-17. Lisboa: IICT.
• Marques, João Pedro: Arsénio Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo: um percurso negreiro no século 19. Lisbon 2001, In: Análise Social, vol. xxxvi, No. 160. Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa.

Web links

• Publications of the Arsénio Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo on Google Books
• Image of the Arsénio Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo on Flickr

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Arénio Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at www.mfnames.com, accessed December 13, 2014 
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Arsénio Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo: um percurso negreiro no século XIX , "Arsénio Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo: the career of a slave trader in the 19th century" (Portuguese), work on the website of the University of Lisbon , accessed on 13 December 2014
3. ↑ The Rise of a New Consciousness: Early Euro-African Voices of Dissent in Colonial Angola (Portuguese / English), work on Arsénio Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo and Joaquim António de Carvalho e Meneses, by Jacopo Corrado for the University of Essex , accessed on December 13, 2014
4. ↑ www.pt.placelandia.com  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 13, 2014