Cape Verde

• 1. Introduction

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  Cape Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is a nation of volcanic islands scattered across the central Atlantic off the coast of West Africa. Its 2021 census counted 491,233 people. Nearly one million Cape Verdeans live abroad, almost twice as many as live at home.

  In 2013, Barack Obama called the country "a real success story". That praise is striking for a place with almost no natural resources, little rain, and a population that mostly lives elsewhere. Its name promises a green cape, yet much of the land is dry.

  This documentary asks how islands with so little built a country that others hold up as a model. It asks why so many of its people left, and what they carried with them. It also asks what a song form called the morna has to do with all of it.

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• 2. Born of Fire

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  The Cape Verde Rise lifts the ocean floor by 2.2 kilometres across a semi-circular region of 1200 square kilometres. It ranks among the largest protuberances in the world's oceans. The islands sit on top of it, built mostly from volcanic structures and pyroclastic debris. Their rocks resemble those found elsewhere in Macaronesia.

  The western islands are about 8 million years old, and the eastern ones about 20 million. The oldest exposed rocks lie on Maio and the northern peninsula of Santiago. They are pillow lavas, 128-131 million years old. The first volcanic stage began in the early Miocene and peaked near its end, when the islands reached their greatest size.

  Pico do Fogo, on the island of Fogo, is the largest active volcano in the region, and it erupted in 2014. Since people settled the archipelago, only Fogo has seen volcanic activity. Its caldera spans 8 kilometres, with a rim at 1,600 metres above sea level. An interior cone rises to 2,829 metres. The caldera formed by subsidence after part of a magma chamber, about 8 kilometres down, emptied in an eruption.

  Ten islands, nine of them inhabited, and eight islets curve in a horseshoe between latitudes 14° and 18°N. Together they cover 4033 square kilometres, 600 to 850 kilometres west of Cap-Vert, the westernmost point of continental Africa. The country falls into two groups. The Barlavento, or windward, islands are Santo Antão, São Vicente, Santa Luzia, São Nicolau, Sal and Boa Vista. The Sotavento, or leeward, islands are Maio, Santiago, Fogo and Brava.

  Santiago is the largest island in both size and population, with 269,370 residents in 2021. It holds the capital, Praia, home to 137,868 people. Sal, Boa Vista and Maio are fairly flat, sandy and dry, while the other islands are rockier and more vegetated. Extensive salt flats spread across Sal and Maio. On Santiago, Santo Antão and São Nicolau, arid slopes give way in places to sugarcane fields or banana plantations beneath towering mountains. Elsewhere, catastrophic debris landslides have carved sheer ocean cliffs.

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• 3. A Green Cape, Mostly Dry

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  The Cap-Vert peninsula on the Senegalese coast gave the islands their name. Portuguese speakers called that headland Cabo Verde, meaning green cape, and the name passed to the archipelago when Portuguese sailors found it. English speakers turned it into Cape Verde. In 2013 the country's delegation told the United Nations that only Cabo Verde should be used for official purposes, with no translations.

  Sal receives just 145 millimetres of rain in a year. A desert is usually defined as terrain with under 250 millimetres, so Sal qualifies. Across the islands, rain falls irregularly between August and October in brief, heavy downpours, and most of it arrives in September. Less than two percent of the land is arable. The surrounding sea moderates temperatures, which run from about 22 degrees Celsius in February to 27 in September. The islands miss the cold upwelling that reaches the mainland coast, so the air is cooler than in Senegal while the sea is warmer.

  Altitude and rainfall divide the archipelago into four ecological zones: arid, semiarid, sub-humid and humid. Arid coastal areas get under 100 millimetres a year, and Sal Rei records 67. The humid mountains receive more than 1,000 millimetres. Most of that moisture comes from ocean mist condensing on high ground. On Santiago, steep mountains force the humid air upward, which feeds rich woods and lush vegetation.

  Western Hemisphere hurricanes often begin their lives near these islands. An average season produces about two Cape Verde hurricanes. They are usually the largest and most intense storms of the year, because they have plenty of warm open ocean to feed on before reaching land. The five largest Atlantic tropical cyclones on record were of this type, as were most of the longest-lived. Since 1851 the islands themselves have been struck by hurricanes only twice, in 1892 and in 2015, when Hurricane Fred became the easternmost hurricane ever to form in the Atlantic.

  The Raso lark lives here and nowhere else, along with Alexander's swift, the Cape Verde warbler, the Iago sparrow and Bourne's heron. Isolation also produced the Cape Verde giant gecko. Many of these endemic birds and reptiles are endangered by human development. Seabirds such as the Cape Verde shearwater breed on the islands in important numbers. Forest cover grew from 15,380 hectares in 1990 to 45,720 hectares in 2020, about 11 percent of the land, and 32,040 hectares of it is planted.

  In 2011 the president of Nauru ranked Cape Verde the eighth most endangered nation for flooding caused by climate change. In 2023 UN Secretary-General António Guterres travelled to Cabo Verde to press the point. He said the country stands on the frontlines of an existential crisis and that world leaders must act.

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• 4. Settlers and Slavers

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  Around 1456, Genoese and Portuguese navigators found islands with no inhabitants. Portuguese records credit the first discoveries to António de Noli, born in Genoa, whom King Afonso V later appointed governor of Cape Verde. Other navigators named as contributors include Diogo Dias, Diogo Afonso and the Venetian Alvise Cadamosto. Diogo Gomes, who sailed with Noli, claimed to be the first to land on Santiago and the first to name it.

  In 1462, Portuguese settlers reached Santiago and founded a town they called Ribeira Grande. Today it is known as Cidade Velha, meaning Old City. It was the first permanent European settlement in the tropics.

  The 16th century brought prosperity through the Atlantic slave trade. Traders exchanged manufactured goods, rum and cloth for African slaves, ivory and gold. Pirates occasionally raided the Portuguese settlements. In 1585, while the islands belonged to the Iberian Union, the English privateer Francis Drake sacked Ribeira Grande twice. A French attack in 1712 sped the town's decline, and nearby Praia became the capital in 1770.

  The slave trade shrank in the 19th century, and an economic crisis followed. Early prosperity slowly vanished. Yet the islands sat astride mid-Atlantic shipping lanes, which made them ideal for resupplying ships. Mindelo, on São Vicente, had an excellent harbour and grew into an important commercial centre. The diplomat Edmund Roberts visited in 1832, and Charles Darwin's voyage made Cape Verde its first stop in the same year.

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• 5. From Colony to Democracy

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  In 1951, Portugal changed Cape Verde's status from colony to overseas province, hoping to blunt growing nationalism. Islanders had grown discontented. The land offered few natural resources, Portugal made little sustainable investment, and the colonial rulers refused to give local authorities more autonomy.

  Amílcar Cabral and a group of fellow Cape Verdeans and Guineans founded the clandestine African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, the PAIGC, in 1956. They organised it in Portuguese Guinea. It demanded better economic, social and political conditions in both territories. In 1960 it moved its headquarters to Conakry, Guinea, and in 1961 it began an armed rebellion.

  Acts of sabotage grew into a war in Portuguese Guinea. There, 10,000 Soviet Bloc-supported PAIGC soldiers faced 35,000 Portuguese and African troops. By 1972 the PAIGC controlled much of Portuguese Guinea. It made no attempt to disrupt Portuguese control of Cape Verde.

  The PAIGC then ruled as a one-party state until 1990. Since the early 1990s, Cape Verde has been a stable semi-presidential representative democracy. Its constitution, adopted in 1980, was revised in 1992-1995 and 1999. The president is head of state, elected for five years, and the prime minister leads the government. In 2016, three parties held seats in the National Assembly: MpD with 36, PAICV with 25 and UCID with 3. In 2020, the V-Dem democracy indices rated it the most democratic nation in Africa.

  In November 2021, Cape Verde opened its first embassy in Nigeria. It follows a policy of nonalignment and is a founding member of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries. Since 2007 it has held a special partnership status with the European Union under the Cotonou Agreement. It ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in 2011 and signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2017.

  The armed forces consist of the National Guard and the Coast Guard. In 2007, together with the police, they began Operation Flying Launch, which ran secretly for its first two years and ended in 2010. It broke up a group that smuggled cocaine from Colombia to the Netherlands and Germany, using the islands as a reorder point. In 2016, a green-on-green incident known as the Monte Tchota massacre killed 11 people. On the 2nd of February 2024, Cape Verde became the third African country to be free of malaria.

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• 6. Making Much of Little

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  In 2023, Portugal agreed to forgive €140 million of Cape Verde's debt in exchange for investment in environmental projects. The deal is one of the first debt-for-nature swaps in Africa. It follows a long record of foreign partners backing a country that has earned international recognition for growth despite its lack of resources.

  Over 90 percent of the food eaten in Cape Verde is imported. Only five of the ten main islands, Santiago, Santo Antão, São Nicolau, Fogo and Brava, normally support significant farming. The mineral resources are salt, limestone and pozzolana, a volcanic rock used in cement. A few wineries making Portuguese-style wines have long served the home market and have recently won some international acclaim.

  Commerce, transport and public services account for more than 70 percent of GDP. Nearly 35 percent of people live in rural areas, yet agriculture and fishing contribute only about 9 percent. Light manufacturing makes up most of the rest. Fish processing plants operate in Mindelo, Praia and on Sal. Money sent home by Cape Verdeans abroad is estimated at 20 percent of GDP.

  A policy shift in 1991 welcomed foreign investors and launched a far-reaching privatization programme. From 1994 to 2000, about $407 million in foreign investment was made or planned. Tourism took 58 percent, industry 17 percent, infrastructure 4 percent, and fisheries and services 21 percent. Between 2000 and 2009, real GDP grew by over 7 percent a year on average. Since 2007 the United Nations has classed Cape Verde as a developing nation rather than a least developed one. It became the 153rd member of the World Trade Organization on the 23rd of June 2008.

  Close ties with Portugal led Cape Verde to link its currency first to the Portuguese escudo and, in 1999, to the euro. In January 2018, the minimum wage rose from 11,000 to 13,000 CVE, or €118 a month.

  A wind farm built in 2011 across four islands supplies about 30 percent of the country's electricity. In 2010 Cape Verde inaugurated the ECOWAS Regional Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency and planned to rely entirely on renewable energy by 2025. That goal has since moved to 50 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050. About 20 percent of its energy currently comes from renewable sources.

  The mid-Atlantic position now pays off through ports and airports. Aristides Pereira International Airport opened in 2007 and Cesária Évora Airport in 2009. Ship repair facilities at Mindelo opened in 1983. Transatlantic airliners often fly overhead on the route from southern Portugal via the Canary Islands and Cape Verde to northern Brazil. The archipelago has 3050 kilometres of roads, 1010 of them paved, mostly with cobblestone. In 2021, small drones able to carry up to 5 kilograms were tested for delivering medicines between the islands.

  Life expectancy at birth reached 76.2 years in 2017, with 72.2 for men and 80.2 for women. Six hospitals and 28 health centres serve the islands. Around 91 percent of people over 15 can read, and roughly 25 percent hold a college degree. Primary school is free and mandatory for children aged 6-14. All ten universities offer four-year bachelor's programmes, where five years was once the norm before 2010. In 2018, women made up one-third of students but two-thirds of graduates.

  Research remains thin. In 2011 the country counted 25 researchers and devoted 0.07 percent of GDP to research and development. TechPark Cabo Verde began operations in 2023 and was officially inaugurated in 2025. Finance Minister Olavo Correia described its goal as "to attract large international companies to set up shop in order to help local companies and start-ups become more competitive".

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• 7. The Scattered Nation

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  Brockton, Massachusetts, has the largest Cape Verdean community of any American city, with 18,832 people. Cape Verdeans have been migrating to Massachusetts since the 1840s. The United States hosts the largest overseas population, at 500,000, mostly in New England around Boston, New Bedford and Providence. In Boston they are one of the top ten immigrant groups and the largest from Africa.

  The first wave came to work in whaling. When whaling declined, they moved into maritime jobs, seasonal farm work such as picking cranberries, and factory labour. A second wave arrived after independence in 1975. As manufacturing plants closed, many moved into the service industry in the 1990s. Immigrants built a vibrant small business sector of restaurants, groceries, real estate and insurance offices. Cape Verdean Americans have served in the US military in every major conflict from the Revolutionary War to the Vietnam War.

  Portugal hosts the second largest group, about 150,000, followed by Spain with 65,500. Angola has 45,000, the United Kingdom 35,500, and São Tomé and Príncipe, France and Senegal 25,000 each. The Netherlands counts 20,000, with 15,000 of them in Rotterdam, and Italy also has 20,000. Argentina has 8,000, Luxembourg and Scandinavia together 7,000, and Mexico 5,000. Official statistics may understate the total, because before independence Cape Verdean emigrants carried Portuguese passports.

  The islands themselves now attract newcomers. High per capita income, political stability and civil freedom have turned Cape Verde into a net recipient of migrants. Most arrive from nearby West African countries, and Chinese residents form a sizeable and important segment. A few thousand Europeans and Latin Americans, mostly professionals, entrepreneurs and retirees, have also settled there. More than 22,000 foreign-born residents have been naturalized, coming from over 90 countries.

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• 8. Morna and Crioulo

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  Portuguese is the official language and the language of instruction, government, newspapers, television and radio. Cape Verdean Creole, called Kriolu or Crioulo, is the mother tongue of virtually everyone. The constitution calls for measures to give it parity with Portuguese. Differences between island varieties have blocked standardization. Some advocates propose two standards, a northern one centred on the São Vicente Creole and a southern one centred on the Santiago Creole. Linguist and culture minister Manuel Veiga is the leading voice for making Kriolu official.

  Cesária Évora became the best-known Cape Verdean singer in the world. She was called the barefoot diva because she liked to perform without shoes, and also the Queen of Morna. Her uncle Bana was known as the King of Morna. The morna is the national music, a melancholy and lyrical song form usually sung in Creole. Coladeira is the next most popular genre, followed by funaná and batuque. Évora's song Sodade reflects the diaspora experience. Sara Tavares, Lura and Mayra Andrade are other well-known singers.

  Ildo Lobo, who died in 2004, is honoured by the Ildo Lobo House of Culture in the centre of Praia. Antonio Vicente Lopes, known as Travadinha, was another great exponent of traditional music.

  Funaná began on Santiago and is danced solo or in pairs with fast hip movements. Batuque also began there and relies on hip movement and percussion. Coladeira, a slower dance, began on São Vicente. The Carnaval of Mindelo showcases that musical spirit. It features in the 2015 documentary Tchindas, which was nominated at the 12th Africa Movie Academy Awards. The island also served as the location for the 2023 French film Ama Gloria by Marie Amachoukeli.

  Dina Salústio wrote A Louca de Serrano, the first novel by a Cape Verdean woman. Its English translation, The Madwoman of Serrano, was the first translation of any Cape Verdean novel into English. Poets include Eugénio Tavares and B. Léza, and novelists include Baltasar Lopes da Silva, Orlanda Amarílis and Germano Almeida. Cape Verdean literature counts among the richest in Lusophone Africa.

  Cachupa is a slow-cooked stew of corn, beans, and fish or meat. Cape Verdean cooking leans on fish, corn and rice. A common appetizer is the pastel, a fried pastry shell filled with fish or meat.

  Walter Tavares, who plays for Real Madrid, is the country's best-known basketball player. The national team won bronze at the FIBA Africa Championship 2007 by beating Egypt in its last game. In 2023 it made its first appearance at the FIBA Basketball World Cup. Windsurfers and kiteboarders also come to the islands: Mitu Monteiro, a local, was the 2008 Kite Surfing World Champion in the wave discipline.

  Daniel Varela de Pina won the country's first Olympic medal, a bronze in boxing, in 2024. Gracelino Barbosa became the first Cape Verdean Paralympic medallist in 2016. The football team, the Tubarões Azuis or Blue Sharks, played at the Africa Cup of Nations in 2013, 2015-2021 and 2023. It is set to make its first appearance at a FIFA World Cup in 2026.

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