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Fox Point History
Fox Point History
Around this same time, Portuguese whalers from the Azores began
immigrating to the United States. The majority of those who came to
the Northeast went to Nantucket and New Bedford, but some made
their way to Providence. However, it was not until the 1870s that
Portuguese immigrants started to arrive in substantial numbers.
According to state census records, by 1885, there were 818 Portuguese
immigrants living in Providence. Just like the Irish before them, they
settled along Providence's waterfront and found work on the docks. At
the same time the Portuguese were moving into Fox Point, many of the
Irish were moving out. Recognizing that this burgeoning community
needed their own place of worship, the Catholic diocese built the first
Portuguese Catholic church in Rhode Island, called Our Lady of the
Rosary. The church opened on Wickenden Street in 1886.
Immigrants from Cape Verde, a group of islands off the coast of Africa
that was a Portuguese colony from the fifteenth century until it gained
its independence in 1975, also found a new home in Fox Point during
the late 19th century. Like the Portuguese, in the beginning many Cape
Verdeans came as workers on whaling ships, and in Fox Point many
labored on the docks or in factories. Largely because of the color of
their skin, Cape Verdean immigrants faced discrimination that other
Portuguese-speaking immigrants did not. Some were members or Our
Lady of the Rosary Church, but others formed the first Cape Verdean
Church in America, Sheldon St. Church, which opened in Fox Point in
1904.