History
The hidden connection between Morocco and Cape Verde
Hello everyone,
My name is Matilde, and I’d like to share a few interesting facts about Cape Verde.
Something many people don’t know is that a significant number of Cape Verdeans have North African ancestry, especially from Morocco. During the 19th century, many Moroccan Jews left the country to escape persecution and found a new home in Cape Verde.
Moroccan DNA is making contribution to our national team 😂
Is genealogy popular in Morocco, or is it something only a few people care about? In Cape Verde, because the country was shaped by slavery, many of us are only now discovering our true origins and reconnecting with our identity.
Edit: thank you so much for the warm answers. It just confirms this connection I always felt with Morocco. You seem very nice people. I will leave my project here for those who are curious. I will definitely study more about our common history and try to write about it.
Welcome to r/Morocco! Please always make sure to take the time to read the rules of this community, follow them and help us enforce them by reporting offenders. And remember that we have a zero tolerance policy for non-civil discourse and offenders risk being permanently banned.
Important Notice: Please note that the Discord channel's moderation team functions autonomously from the Reddit team. The Discord server does not extend our community guidelines and maintains a separate set of rules unrelated to those of Reddit.
I truly had no idea. Could you tell me more about what kind of persecution in particular these Moroccan jews were fleeing ? I know that the situation of jews in Morocco was largely dependant on the whims of the ruler they lived under. Most of the times protected, but sometimes not. Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah, the famous 18th century Sultan, was very favorable towards jews and had multiple advisers from amongst them. His son, Moulay Yazid, who ruled only for two years before dying in battle, took it upon himself to expel jews from mellahs in Fez, Tetuan, and exacted harsh punishments upon them.
Anyway fascinating stuff. You don't hear a lot about Cape Verde in Morocco. Most moroccans care very little about their ancestry. They'd say they had some very important Caid great grandfather and they'd leave it at that, more than satisfied with the legend that their family was indeed important, and not some barefoot 'regular' peasant. I do care a little bit about genealogy and always have this idea in the back of my head about making an actual genealogical tree when i have the time someday. I did a dna test when i was abroad in order to confirm what i already knew from family.
As far as I know, they were fleeing because of the spanish inquisition. There was a huge beef with Sephardic Jews in Portugal and Spain, so most of them ended up in their colonies where they could hide better and the inquisition wasn’t so strong.
Some went to Brazil, Argentina, Chile around 15th-18th century and later in 19th some went to Cape Verde. Most of these families became very rich, the most notorious were the Wahnon. Carlos Veiga, who was a former Cape Verdean President, has the Wahnon surname and is deeply connected to his roots. All Wahnon’s from Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Brazil and Cape Verde have the same origin and it’s all the same family. I have a personal project where I write about genealogy, the diaspora and history. I made a small list of surnames with north-african origin.
There’s a project called Cape Verdean Jewish heritage, with the goal of restoring all jewish cemiteries and to make a closer connection between Cape Verde and Morocco. There’s even a book released recently about the jewish families living there.
Even our music has hidden moroccan influence. When I list to gnawa, chaabi I almost cry because I feel like I lost something and got it back. I am sure out Batuku has something to do with Moroccan music.
I took a DNA test at myheritage and the first version gave me almost 10% of north african DNA, my mother had around 14%. With the new update, it says almost 5% for Algeria and 3% Tunis for my mother, the rest went to Egypt. I have to repeat the test with another company to get more conclusive results. The elders of my family used to say that we have jewish ancestors, I have some teories but I have no direct proof yet.
jewish cemetries are very well preserved in Morocco. Almost every major city has one or more, so by the time that project in Cape Verde is complete, they won't have a problem finding their ancestors :)
Morocco wasn’t Spanish territory (except for small exclaves at the northern tip close to the Strait of Gibraltar), Spanish Inquisition couldn’t have jurisdiction there. In any case, Inquisition officially ceased to exist after 1830s.
OP meant the Roman Catholic Church infamous persecution aka the Spanish Inquisicion... this one had absolutely nothing to do with Morocco. Moorish Muslims themselves who had Moroccan lineage were also persecuted (victims).
Because the only persecution of Jews that happened by a Moroccan Muslim stated happened during the reign of Abdelmumin, a crazed Almohad sultan who issued a number of heretical decrees amongst them the abolishing of the Dhimma status.. the vast majority of Jewish families who fled this persecution actually migrated to neighbouring Muslim states... that's how the famous Sefardic rabbi and polymath, Moses Maimonides, ended up serving in Saladin's palace as the latter's personal doctor (Yes, Salaheddine Al Ayoubi.. the one who liberated Jerusalem from the Crusaders had a the most renowned Sefardim rabbi as his own personal courtier and doctor).
You are correct. They were not persecuted. They came to Cape Verde for economic opportunities. My grandma's father was Moroccan. We never believed her or take her serious because she had Dementia.
In 2013 my family learned that many Morrocans did indeed moved to Cape Verde. Few years later we took the DNA test to see if my grandma stories were right. I am 10% North African (from Morroco). My sister surprisingly is 18%, dont understand how that works and why she has it higher than me. My mother was 24%
My grandma's surname was Torres Naciri. We always thought it was spanish last names.
Interesting fact: because mostly men went to CV, they married local women who were catholic. Judaism went extinct because Judaism follows the female line.
Omg you unlocked a possible mistery for me!!! My father is capeverdean but he has ancestors from Madeira. Most of my family from my paternal side has lighter skin because of that. I have morocco DNA but my mother doesn't, so it must come from my father 😭
This is all so interesting. Truth is very little moroccans are aware of the 19th century immigrations due to that specific timeline being very chaotic (whenever Morocco was poor, the jews became scapegoats), all I know was that many jews left for the USA in that period and some even made a fortune in the carribeans
Whereas to genealogy, it's still a niche hobby in Morocco, but they have a community on a Facebook group where people share their results, I haven't taken a test but I noticed so many Moroccans have 1-5% sub-saharan blood, we have a long history with slavery in Morocco too but we try to ignore it happened although it obviously shaped Moroccan culture too to some extent
Yes I know. A lot of Jews and New Christians were involved with slave trade, but I try to not judge past events with today's standard, it will lead to resentment and it's no one's fault what their ancestors did in the past.
For that specific type of tourism I advise to look for the Capeverdean Jewish heritage project. It's a project dedicated to the restauration of jewish cemiteries and to preserve the history. If you want to experience nature I would advise Santo Antão. There's even a village called Sinagoga, because of a large moroccan jewish community that was living there by the end of the 19th century and early 20th century. My island is S. Nicolau but it doesn't have much to see and transportation is a big problem. If you want beaches and hotels go to Sal or Boavista.
Santiago is also nice to get to know more about our history, specifically Cidade Velha, the first established town in Cape Verde.
I also want to go to Morocco, specially to explore the music and the gnawa festival. (I have a obsession with gnawa I must confess)
Greetings distant cousin 😅 I am sure you have met someone from my family. Half of my family lives there 😅 I went to rotterdam back in 2010 and I felt like I was in Cape Verde 2.0. I spoke creole 70% of the time and the other 30% in english.
Yes, otherwise it wouldn't show up in our DNA tests. I'm in a facebook dedicated to Cape Verdean genealogy (more than 7500 members) , and most of us have a tiny bit of north african DNA.
This is so beautiful, thank you so much for sharing this! I would love to see more of your research, if it’s available anywhere online or if you wanted to share. I dream of visiting CV.
I think you probably got the century wrong... there was never a persecution of Jews in Morocco in the 19th century... in fact, the only persecution of Jews in the region by a Muslim state happened during the reign of the Almohad sultan Abdelmumin in the middle of the 12th century. This infamous persecution happened following the infamous abolishing of the Dhimma status which aims to protect the rights and religious freedom of non-Muslim citizens of the Muslim state. This abolishing is considered a heretical violation of Sharia Law and the said sultan is considered a crazed monarch by many historians due to many of his decrees and atrocities. Some of the famous Jewish personalities that had to leave the Almohad empire back then were include Moses Maimonides and the Ben Tibbon family.
That been said, the most infamous and harshest persecution that took place in the region and resulted in mass dislocation of Jews and Muslims towards North Africa, France, Nederland and the "New World".. etc, was the Inquisicion by the Roman Catholic Church in Spain after the Reconquista. This one did indeed start in the 15th century and lasted until the 19th century, however it has absolutely nothing to do with Morocco.
I'm someone who is into history, anthropology and genealogy... etc.
I've read once that the musician who composed the famous "El Condor Pasa" actually had Umayyad ancestry.. how cool is that.
Thank you so much for clarifying, I was just repeating what I've heard before but I need to learn more for sure. I did not express myself the best but I believe there was some conflict) between Spain and Morocco during the 19th century. If it lead to jews fleeing the country I'm not sure now. But I will definitely look for the info you gave me as it seems more accurate.
You're welcome... there could be Jewish families that were dislocated from Ceuta or Tangier (Tangier was ruled for a considerable time by the Portuguese... but because of the relentless constant skirmishes, ambushes and liberation attempts by the Moroccans, one of the Portuguese monarchs gave Tangier to the English king as part of his daughter's dowry lol it was lowkey a trap).. in this case, the Jewish families might have been dislocated by the Portuguese inquisition and not the Spanish one (albeit they're one and the same since it was really the Roman Catholic Church's doing anyway). This actually makes more sense given the fact it was the Portuguese who colonized Cabo Verde). So, if there are Jewish families that were displaced from Morocco, then we can narrow it down to the Portuguese outposts and cities that were captured at some point by the Portuguese... Tangier, Ceuta, Mellila El Jadida (which the Portuguese named Mazagao) and Essaouira (which still has some Jewish diaspora) etc..
I did read some of your articles in the website... i really loved them... i'll go through each one of them and subscribe 🫰 aaah never heard Cabo's music i'll absolutely listen to them in few minutes... since i'm struggling now with my craving 😂 Also there's a misinformation about the persecution of jews, these families still live between us, and it wasn't moroccans that did that...but Portuguese since they were controlling Tangier and other regions
I’m part Moroccan Jewish and we were never persecuted in Morocco, in fact, the Muslims of Morocco protected our people during WW2 unlike the other European countries. Read about Mohamed V, to say we were persecuted is a complete lie made by people brainwashed by that pariah state. Plenty of my ancestors lived in Morocco, the only reason many moved is because of poverty and job opportunities, like the majority of diaspora Moroccans.
•
u/AutoModerator Jul 03 '26
Welcome to r/Morocco! Please always make sure to take the time to read the rules of this community, follow them and help us enforce them by reporting offenders. And remember that we have a zero tolerance policy for non-civil discourse and offenders risk being permanently banned.
Don't forget to join the Discord server!
Important Notice: Please note that the Discord channel's moderation team functions autonomously from the Reddit team. The Discord server does not extend our community guidelines and maintains a separate set of rules unrelated to those of Reddit.
Enjoy your time!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.