Impact of American Slave Trade on Cape Verde

In 1991, Pope John Paul II made the journey to West Africa and Cape Verde, in order to personally apologize for the slave trade as it existed prior to 1863. This was a fitting location from which to profess his apologies, as Cape Verde itself had actually become a central focus of the slave trade during that period in time. Cape Verde is a region of the world with a very interesting, and often sad history. The islands have the unfortunate luck of geography, having been positioned on the great trade routes between Africa, Europe, and the New World, leading to their use as a prosperous center for the American slave trade. This unfortunate positioning, however, also led to the large numbers of Cape Verdean immigrants in the United States, where today, they make a significant contribution to the economy, politics, and most importantly, the cultural make-up of what was once known only as the New World.

Cape Verde is an archipelago made up of nine small islands in the Atlantic Ocean. Along the south are Brava, Fogo, Sau Tiago, and Maio; the northern islands are Santo Antao, Sau Vicente, Sao Nicolau, Sal, and Boa Vista. The Capital, Praia is located on the Southern island of Sau Tiago. "Each island has a unique history and divergent cultural patterns. For example, the creole spoken on the northern islands of Sao Vicente, Santo Antao, Sao Nicolau, Boa Vista and

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Lisbon didn't like the idea of a newly-formed race on the island, and exhausted various methods in an attempt to eradicate the population of mulattos, including ordering all Portuguese women who would have been exiled to Brazil for whatever crime they may have committed, to now be exiled to Cape Verde. These efforts were of course, in vain, as it was not only a new race, but a new culture that had formed on Cape Verde. "A Cape Verdean population of mixed origin, although overwhelmingly of mainland African origin, was already in formation." From this structure, Duarte explains, a unique society was formed; "a homogenous society was forged in Cape Verde , a society whose people were neither European, nor totally African, and who were proud of being Cape Verdeans. This 'Cape Verdeness' evolved from the culture which slaves and their descendants had elaborated; and it profoundly marked the Africans of our islands, instilling a sense of pride in their own culture and of differentiation from the culture of the colonizer." That is of course, a different culture from those Portuguese who settled in the area and chose to assert their European distinction and not only claim a minority rule over the cape Verdean people, but actually proc
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2184
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)