Things you didn't know about the Azores!
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- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
- Here are 5 surprising facts about the Azores, Portugal! Which one did surprise you the most? And what is a fun fact about the place you live in?
Some more background on a potential ancient history on the Azores: • Were the Azores home t...
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I would love to visit the Azores one day, your passion and love for the islands is so wonderful ❤
You should, they are wonderful 🥰
it was so cool to learn more about the azores =) every place in the world is so special and unique
I used to live on Terceira in the late 80s and come to Pico to visit a friend and when I was there they didn't have power all day long, only during the evenings. The streetlights were regular lightbulbs you use at home so the street lighting was really poor.
Thanks for this interesting insight! :)
IM so happy you know about my people the FLEMISH and the maps show people lived there at least 100 years before
We have a list of the first 45 heads of household for Pico who paid a tax in the first decade of 1500 there weren't any Flemish names. It is true that there was a Flemish settlement very early on the island of Faial however all of the important documented of that community were married with Portuguese women. The vast majority of the early settlers to the Azores were of Portuguese ancestry coming from various regions of mainland Portugal and the archipelago of Madeira. That is based on the genealogy and primary historical documents. In addition to a small Flemish community on the island of Faial that spread primarily to the surrounding islands there were small numbers of people of Sephardic Jewish heritage who were forcibly converted prior to settling on the islands. Slavery was also part of early Azorean society many were of African origin from West and Central Africa as well as Morocco. The Azores actually were in part settled to cultivate and export wheat to the Portuguese colonies in Morocco. You are correct that not all of the settlers were Portuguese however the numbers of the Flemish contribution is typically exaggerated. For example you will see often quoted that 2,000 Flemish settled on the islands but no historical document is cited to back that up. That is because no such document exists. A Flemish genealogist by the name of Andre Claeys scoured through the hsitorical records of Bruges Belgium and found no indication of a large settlement that left for the Azores. He did however find some of the names of the earliest Flemish settlers of the Azores.
Thank you for sharing this. The role of slavery in this is particularly important. As Tasmin said, the history of these islands has always been multicultural. As you point out, though, that diversity has often been non-voluntary.
@@goostrey4210 I agree that people of diverse origins initially settled in the islands or were brought to the islands as slaves. However the non-Portuguese contribution as a percentage was fairly minor and haven't left any cultural contributions that have survived that I'm aware of. It's only been fairly recent that awareness of this history has come to light; This is a part of history that was forgotten centuries ago for the vast majority of people living in the Azores.
It is possible to see little hints of that mixture in the genetics of the people of the islands.
Another way to look at it is that what we now think of as Portuguese is actually a mixture of influences, mostly Iberian but also African, Arabic, Native American, etc. just as much of what is thought of as Indian in the UK is actually Arabic or Portuguese or Dutch from the early days of the East India Company.
Thanks for the additional information!
Hope all is well, Tasmin, as your channel has been quiet for a few weeks. (By the way, have you changed your self-identification on your website? If so, congratulations on coming out.) I'm sorry if my comments agreeing with your multi-dimensional account of Azorean history led to something of a comment battle.
Hey, thanks for checking in! All is okay, I just had to take a break from CZcams. But there will be a new video coming out on Sunday :)
So happy for you my people simple and beutiful
I love your videos so much! I may be going to the University of the Açores, do you find that São Miguel is full of tourists? I’m wondering how that might affect the experience. Thank you! I totally understand if you don’t have a lot of experience with São Miguel too.
Thanks Daniel!
São Miguel does receive the most tourism, but it is also the biggest island, so as long as you are not in the city center or on the hot spots (which are still worth a visit, even with lots of tourists!), you should be fine. The campus in Ponta Delgada is also a bit away from the tourist flows and hotels.
Good luck & enjoooooy
@@Tasmetu Thank you so much! That's something to think about, I appreciate your experience and how you share it! Have a good day.
Any reason why you didn't publish my long comment from yesterday on the latest environmental DNA research in the Azores?
I am not monitoring my comments all the time. But in this case, there was no comment shown to me. What might have happened is that is was blocked by CZcams itself - when that happens it is out of my control and I do not even get to see the comment.
@@Tasmetu That explains it. It might be because I included links to articles about environmental DNA research in the Azores (perhaps urls are not allowed). If you Google "Did Vikings and their stowaway mice beat Portugal to the Azores?" you will get a Guardian article that summarizes the studies, or "Vikings in Paradise" will link to a similar article in Science magazine. The research that might interest you most was done looking at the sediments in Peixinho Lake there on Pico. You might want to look into that and do an episode from the lake, as it shows how we can now look at the environment in so many more ways to extract stories from prehistory. I thought that might appeal to your interest in the environment and storytelling.
@@goostrey4210 yes, links are not allowed from YT - thanks for the tips 😊
@@Tasmetu Got it. My comments were initially visible, hence my confusion when they seemed to disappear the next day.
The hard evidence of Viking colonization is fascinating. As you suggest in the video, those earlier settlements mights have been curtailed by volcanic activity. Who knows?
Is the Cult of the Holy Spirit (Culto do Divino Espírito Santo) a big deal on Pico? I know it is big on Sao Miguel and on Terceira, and it seems to have spread there from Brazil through African and perhaps Native American practices. The presence of this cult in the Azores is a cultural example of the multicultural/multiracial origins of the Azores that you mention in this video.
This is incorrect the Cult of the Holy Spirit did not spread from Brazil to the Azores. It spread from Tomar mainland Portugal to the Azores islands with the original Portuguese settlers of the Azores. The settlement of the Azores was originally funded by the Knights of Christ and the grand Master was Prince Henry the Navigator. These practices were then taken to Brazil with immigrants. I suspect it was embraced by those of African ancestry in Brazil if that was the case because it promotes egalitarianism. If you are unsure about our history and culture, which appears to be the case then please refrain from speaking as if you know what you are talking about.
@@afaria6173 You are a strong believer in linear explanations of historical causation, I see, and you always seem to jealously defend the Portuguese origins of the Azores at the expense of any other. It makes me wonder why.
The Azores sit en route to the Americas and travel goes two ways. I don't dispute that a thread of the Cult of the Holy Spirit comes from Tomar (and my earlier wording could have been better, I admit), but why would the cult thrive now only in the Azores and Brazil (and not mainland Portugal) if not for this position as a mid-Atlantic nexus and the two-way traffic of ideas and cultural practices?
Indeed, genetic studies bear this out, as Santos et al (2003) write, "Thus, it is possible to infer that probably: a minimum of 11.25% of the haplotypes found in the Azores are originally from African populations; a minimum of 7.5% are derived from Near Eastern and Jewish populations; and a maximum of 81.25% are from European populations." (Note that they preface this estimate with the following: "Whenever a haplotype is shared with a European population, it is admitted that its most probable origin is Europe," despite 500 years of Arab rule and 500 years of colonialism. Thus, this calculation probably overestimates the "European" percentage.)
Why do you insist on downplaying the contributions of those who contribute perhaps a fifth of the ancestors of modern Azoreans? One fifth is not "fairly minor" as you suggest in another comment, and your statement in that comment that non-Europeans "haven't left any cultural contributions that have survived that I'm aware of" says more about you than about those Azorean ancestors or about the Azores more generally.
@@goostrey4210 I'm not a believer in anything I look at the available data and draw my own conclusions. 1. The Military Order of Christ had significant power they promoted these practices in the Azores. These practices still survive in Tomar. Look up Festa dos Tabuleiros. 2. Santos et al 2003 used a small sample size of Y-DNA and mtDNA using the available technology from 20 years ago. Much more refined technology is now available and haplotypes can now be much more refined. There are close to 3,000 samples of Azorean origin just in the Azores Islands project(Family Tree DNA). Those percentages in the Santos et al aren't supported by those results. Many of which are very refined. For example he he classifies my Y-DNA as being (Near East/Jewish) because it's J2 and strongly suggests that the higher percentages in the Azores are because of Jews. Total Nonsense. I'm actually J-BY37701 this mutation is estimated to have occurred 1150 CE and is only shared with other Portuguese people. The mutation directly upstream is J-BY37682 and is estimated to have occurred 150 BCE and is only shared with people from Portugal or descendants of Spaniards. In fact it is a mutation downstream from J-M319 which has been in the Aegean for at least 4,000 years found among the Minoans. This predates the Jewish religion by 1,000 years. His conjecture was way off. It isn't supported by most of the other branches of J2 or J1 found in the Azores. I don't dispute that small numbers of New Christians forcibly converted Jews settled in the Azores. There is finta from 1604 and 1623 with a list of New Christians in the Azores that paid a tax it wasn't a large list. I also don't dispute that I may have a small number of Jewish ancestors as FTDNA gives me an estimate of 1% Sephardic Jewish and I have autosomal matches with Jews from Various countries as I do with North Africans and Flemish people and people from Scandinavia. However those are a tiny percent of my total ancestors. Their cultural contributions have not survived to this day. Regarding the North African contribution of Y-DNA lineages in the Azores it is closer to 6%. According to a very detailed study of the Iberian peninsula that came out in 2019 the majority of that admixture is estimated to have occurred 1,000-1,200 years ago. Some also occurred during the Roman occupation and was even detected in one sample from the Bronze Age. Some slaves from North Africa were also brought to the Azores 11% of the slaves in the city of Angra, Terceira during the 1500's that were identified by ethnic group were identified as Morisco. There were also Black slaves in the Azores some of their maternal lineages survive to this day. They were totally absorbed into the Azorean population almost entirely through women. There are records of freed slaves going back to the 1500's and 1600's and in a few cases their fathers were listed as those that owned their mother. I haven't denied the genetic contribution of these people or the Flemish. However these people have not left any cultural legacy. Azoreans are Portuguese whether you like it or not we are not a multi cultural people. These same people that settled in the islands also settled or were brought to mainland Portugal. These people are our ancestors but were totally absorbed into the Portuguese population and assimilated. It doesn't sound like you know much about our culture. Until fairly recently people identified first with family, then village then strongly with island and being Portuguese. A strong Azorean identity is a fairly recent thing.