Afonso de Moura

(Coimbra, 1897 – São Nicolau, Cape Verde, 07-12-1931)

Afonso de Moura, son of Amélia Machado de Moura and Augusto de Moura, was born in 1897, in Coimbra. A potter and sculptor, he pontificated in the anarchist and libertarian circles of Coimbra during the 1910s and 1920s. He was very active in the associativism of Coimbra, a coordinator of the Libertarian Centre “Regeneração Social” (Social Regeneration) and member of the anarchist groups “Homens do Futuro” (Men of the Future) and “Os Rebeldes (The Rebels), that edited the newspaper Luz ao Povo, of which Arnaldo Simões Januário, killed in the Tarrafal Concentration Camp in 1938, was a part of.

After the coup of 28 May 1926 and the rise of the Military Dictatorship, Afonso de Moura was arrested, for the first time, in 1927, and released on the same day.

He was arrested again on 23 December 1930, accused of being involved in the organisation of a civilian group against the Dictatorship, along with Henrique Magalhães and Hermenegildo Granadeiro. He was deported to Cape Verde on 6 June 1931, in the steamship Pedro Gomes.

Due to the poor hygiene and health conditions, and suffering from high fevers, he died on 7 December 1931, six months after arriving at the island of São Nicolau, Cape Verde, where he was deported.

The also anarchist Roberto das Neves described him as “one of the most intelligent, loyal and fearless man I have known, a kind of Suvarine from Zola’s Germinal.”