Lately, I have felt a need to get back to searching out my family history. I've wondered often about my great great grandfather, Louis Montero. Years ago, cousin Nalani had told me that she thought he came from Cape Verde off the western coast of Africa. In the 1910 U.S. population census, made available through the Church, I found Mariana Mitchell and Luukia Montero. Mariana was the daughter of Louis and Luukia (Hattie Luukia Pono). And, it shows that Mariana's father was born in Cape Verde. From this census, I was finally able to get a more accurate year of when Luukia was born--1841. Upon further research, I learned that the Portuguese were the first to discover the Cape Verde islands, and that the islands were uninhabited at that time. The Portuguese claimed these islands, colonized them, and brought slaves there as it was an ideal location for the Atlantic slave trade. In an excerpt I found on the internet it talks about those who came to the Hawaiian islands from Cape Verde--Cabo Verde in the Portuguese language.

     “Crewmembers aboard whaling ships, arriving in the Islands between 1820 and 1880, included a small number of Portuguese of Black heritage from the Cabo Verde Islands. Some of these sailors stayed in Hawai'i to become permanent residents, taking jobs as cooks, barbers, tailors, sailors on international vessels, and members of musical groups. Four Blacks formed a royal brass band for Kamehameha in 1834, and another Black, George W. Hyatt, organized a larger band in 1845.
     Marriages occurred with Hawaiians, and these people and their children became classified in censuses as Portuguese or Part-Hawaiian."
     “There are the part-Negroes descended from the so-called ‘Black Portuguese’ men who came to Hawaii on whaling ships from 1820 to 1880. These men came from the Cabo Verde Islands, a Portuguese possession, and some were mixed bloods, while others may have been of pure Negro descent. They were classified as Portuguese in censuses before 1900. Their children were, for the most part, Hawaiian but there were some part Portuguese. Typically the Part-Hawaiian children of these Negroes married back into the Hawaiian or Part-Hawaiian group so that later generations were mainly of Hawaiian blood. Some of the children of these Negroes and Portuguese white women married into the Hawaiian group—probably most of them—so that the Negro-Portuguese mixed blood statistical group has tended to disappear, the more remote descendants being, in fact, Part-Hawaiian, but for census purposes often classified as Hawaiian. By 1940 it is probable that nearly all the descendants of these Black Portuguese were classified for census purposes as Part-Hawaiian and the number was, in all probability, between seven and eight thousand (http://www.medesign.org/cv/Brava.html).”

     So, to say that part of my ancestry might be African, may not be too far of a stretch. This whole time I had always thought that Louis Montero was pure-blood Portuguese. I had never thought about the possibility of having African ancestral blood.
     If you go further down the page on www.medesign.org/cv/Brava you'll find names of those who were known to come from these immigrants to Hawaii. In this list, two sons of Louis Montero's are named. They are Louis and Antone.

• Louis Montero, engineer, born in Hawaii in about 1877, of Portuguese and Hawaiian parents, listed as mulatto by 1910 census (E.D. 55, 3A-Oahu Co.190) with Hawaiian wife Mary (b. 1884), and children: Millie (1899) and Hattie (1907), perhaps of Waipahu.
• A part-Hawaiian named Antone Montero, born May 1874, was living with wife Mary (born in Hawaii in 1877) in Koolauloa, Oahu, according to 1900 census, vol. 12, E.D. 36, sheet 19, line 2-See 1910 census Honolulu 020-Kahuku Village.

     As we can see, Louis, the son, named one of his daughters after his mother, Hattie. What we also see is that Louis, the son, was listed as mulatto in the 1910 census. If you look carefully at this census page, you will see that Louis lists his dad's birth place as Portugal. Interesting, since it doesn't match Mariana's information.
     Another thing to realize is that great grandmother Mary Pahukoa Kaaa (Montero) was Louis's and Antone's younger sister.
     Great great grandfather Louis Montero never got to see any of his grandchildren. He passed away in 1880.
     Just a couple of other interesting tidbits. "On October 24, 2013 it was announced at the United Nations that the official name should no longer be translated into other languages. Instead of "Cape Verde", the designation "Republic of Cabo Verde" is to be used (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Verde).
     In the URL www.medesign.org/cv/Brava, Brava is the name of an island in Cape Verde.