Currency of Cape Verde 200 Escudos Polymer banknote 2014 Henrique Teixeira de Sousa
Bank of Cape Verde - Banco de Cabo Verde
Obverse: Portrait of Cape Verdean physician and writer Henrique Teixeira de Sousa (1919-2006) and his native island Fogo, where he had an important role in maintaining minimal structures of public health. Map of Fogo island; Bunch of grapes symbolising viticulture; embossed pen nib.
Signatures: Carlos Augusto Duarte de Burgo (Governor), Dr. Manuel Pinto Frederico (Administrador).
Reverse: Bunch of grapes; Pico do Fogo stratovolcano.
Printer: Thomas De La Rue & Company Limited, London, England.
Dimensions: 124 x 63 mm.
Polymer (Safeguard).
Color: Red, purple, and yellowish-green.
Date: 5 de Julho de 2014. Introduction: 23.12.2014.
Cape Verde Banknotes - Cape Verde Paper Money
2014 Issue
Henrique Teixeira de Sousa
Henrique Teixeira de Sousa (September 19, 1919 in São Lourenço on the island of Fogo – March 3, 2006) was a doctor and author from Cape Verde.
Teixeira de Sousa graduated in 1945 in Lisbon with a degree in Medicine, having attended in the following year the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Porto. He later specialized in nutrition and initially went to East Timor to work as a doctor there. Teixeira de Sousa settled on his natal island of Fogo the following year, where he had an important role in maintaining minimal structures of public health. Later on, he worked on the island of São Vicente, until he emigrated shortly before the independence of the archipelago from Portugal, and moved to Oeiras, Portugal, where he lived until his death in 2006.
Teixeira de Sousa wrote fiction, including novels, and was a pupil of Baltasar Lopes da Silva. He was a member of the Claridoso Movement, associated to the Claridade magazine. He is one of the icons of Cape Verde literature, together with other names such as Manuel Lopes, Eugénio Tavares and Jorge Barbosa.
In one of his article, it analysed the social structure of Fogo, his native islands, both in his novels and in his essays, showed the concern of white families with the rise of the mixed in the late 1940s, they feared the moment that "the blacks would be pushed into the funco; it would take the place of the mixed with the loja and the latter would put the Whites to the sobrado.
Teixeira de Sousa was also the mayor of Mindelo, on the island of São Vicente in the 1960s.
Legacy
A high school (lyceum) in the city of São Filipe in his native island is named after him.
Since 2014, he is featured on a Capeverdean $200 escudo note. His face is featured on two sides. IIt features most of his native island's map, a grape is on the top of the map. On the back is Chã das Caldeiras and Pico do Fogo, the two features of his native island.
Works
- Homens de hoje (1944/45) - featured in the Certeza review
- "Sobrados, lojas e funcos", appeared in the fifth issue of Claridade magazine, published in 1958
- Contra Mar e Vento [Over Sea and Wind] (1972) - book of tales
- Ilhéu de Contenda [The Island of Content'] (1978) - (first of a trilogy) adapted into a drama film The Island of Contenda in 1996
- Capitão de Mar e Terra [Captain of Sea and Land] (1984)
- Xaguate (1987) - second of a trilogy
- Djunga (1990)
- Na Ribeira de Deus (1992) - third of a trilogy
- Entre duas Bandeiras [Between Two Flags] (1994)
- Ó Mar de Túrbidas Vagas (2005)
Pico do Fogo
Pico do Fogo is the highest peak of Cape Verde, rising to 2,829 metres (9,281 ft) above sea level. It is an active stratovolcano lying on the island of Fogo. The main cone last erupted in 1675, causing mass emigration from the island. A subsidiary vent erupted in 1995. The only deadly eruption was in 1847 when earthquakes killed several people.
Fogo is a hotspot volcanic island. Its most recent eruptions have occurred in 1951, 1995 and 2014. It is the youngest and most active volcano in the Cape Verde Islands, a short chain of volcanic islands that generally are younger at the western end, formed as the African Plate moved towards the east over the hotspot.
Fogo consists of a single volcano, so the island is nearly round and about 25 kilometers (16 mi) in diameter. The large summit caldera (about 10 kilometers in the north-south direction and 7 kilometers in the east-west direction) is not located in the center of the island, but rather towards its northeastern corner. The caldera is bounded by steep near-vertical fault scarps on the north, west, and south sides but is breached to the east where lava can flow to the coast. North-northeast-trending eruptive fissures opened along the western flank of Pico, which formed inside the caldera between about 1500 and 1760. The last eruption from the top was in 1769. The current topography of Fogo, with the caldera open to the sea on the east side, results from the sliding of the east flank of the volcano towards the ocean.
The mountain's slopes are used to grow coffee, while its lava is used as building material. Near its peak is a caldera and a small village, Chã das Caldeiras, is inside this caldera.
The eastern side of Fogo collapsed into the ocean 73,000 years ago, creating a tsunami 170 meters high which struck the island of Santiago in the Cape Verde islands and formed Baía do Inferno, during the Ice Age as the sea level was nearly 130 meters lower, it was a hollow named Cova Inferno and when it was flooded again, it is currently a bay. The megatsunami also created small escarpments around the west of the island, probably modern day Ribeira da Barca, Cidade Velha and the south of Praia as the island blocked it from heading further east. It may also flooded a part of West Africa and could be one of the factors of a drop in temperatures during the Ice Age. The eruption was recorded by island boulders on the island.
Before, the island was 800 km2 and was a circle. The landscape before the eruption on the current shoreline was about 1000 - 1500 meters (3000 - 4500 feet) above sea level and where the ocean floor today was about 3000 - 4000 meters (10000-15000 feet). After the eruption, soil and rock originated from lava flows and other dominate the east but are rarely founded in the west as lava flows has never flowed in the west of the island. The peak's elevation was once 3,000-4,000 meters and was probably the tallest summit in both Macaronesia and the whole of West and North Africa, probably taller than the Atlas Mountains and formed one of the world's tallest seamounts that had a 5000+ meter height, the caldera was larger than the current Pico do Fogo. The western split from the main peak and became Bordeira, the marking of the eruption line was at present-day Fonte Aleixo, Achada Furna, east of the current São Filipe-Santa Catarina do Fogo municipal line, Cabeça Fundão, west of Feijoal and Queimada Guincho and east of Fajãzinha.
The eruption was the largest recorded eruption in the history of the island.