Cabo Verde was uninhabited until Portuguese navigator António de Noli encountered the archipelago in 1456. The Portuguese Crown established the first permanent European tropical settlement at Ribeira Grande on Santiago island in 1462, now preserved as Cidade Velha and designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2009. The islands served as a provisioning station for transatlantic slave ships between the 16th and 19th centuries, with enslaved West Africans transported through Santiago creating the genetic and cultural foundation of the modern population. The Fortaleza Real de São Filipe, constructed above Cidade Velha in 1590, defended the settlement from repeated pirate attacks including raids by Francis Drake in 1585.
The population descends from Portuguese colonists and enslaved West Africans primarily from the Mandinka, Wolof, Fulani, and Balanta peoples of coastal Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, and Sierra Leone. Approximately 71 percent of Cabo Verdeans identify as mixed-race Creole, 28 percent as African, and 1 percent as European according to the national census. No indigenous population existed prior to colonization. The modern population stands at approximately 600,000 residents across the inhabited islands, with an additional 700,000 Cabo Verdean diaspora concentrated in Portugal, the United States particularly Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and smaller communities in Angola, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, and France. Portuguese remains the official language while Cabo Verdean Creole, called Kriolu or Crioulo, functions as the national vernacular with distinct variants across islands—Santiago Creole and São Vicente Creole represent the two major dialect groups.
Amílcar Cabral founded the Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde in 1956 and led the armed independence movement against Portuguese colonial rule until his assassination in Conakry, Guinea on January 20, 1973. Portuguese forces continued governance until the Carnation Revolution military coup in Lisbon on April 25, 1974 prompted rapid decolonization across Portuguese Africa. Cabo Verde achieved independence on July 5, 1975 with Aristides Pereira serving as the first president under single-party rule by the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde. The country transitioned to multiparty democracy in 1990, holding the first contested elections in January 1991 which brought the Movement for Democracy party to power under President António Mascarenhas Monteiro.
Cachupa forms the national dish, a slow-cooked stew combining hominy corn, lima beans, cassava, sweet potato, and either fish or meat depending on availability and economic status. Cachupa rica incorporates chorizo, pork, chicken, and blood sausage while cachupa pobre contains only vegetables and beans. Islanders eat leftover cachupa fried for breakfast, called cachupa guisada or cachupa refogada. Fishermen harvest barnacles called percebes from coastal rocks, particularly on Santo Antão and São Nicolau, selling them as a delicacy in Mindelo markets. The volcanic soils of Fogo island within the Chã das Caldeiras caldera produce wine grapes despite the 2014-2015 eruption of Pico do Fogo that destroyed the villages of Portela and Bangaeira and covered vineyards in lava ash.
Grogue, a rum distilled from fermented sugarcane juice in copper pot stills called alambiques, serves as the base spirit for ponche, prepared by mixing grogue with molasses or honey, lime juice, and sometimes passionfruit. Production concentrates on Santiago and Santo Antão where rainfall supports sugarcane cultivation. The Strela Brewery in Praia has manufactured beer since 1972, currently producing Strela lager along with Kriola brand specifically marketed to women. Fishermen along the northern coast of Santiago and western Santo Antão harvest limpets called buzio, grilling them in their shells over charcoal or serving them in garlic and olive oil.
Cesária Évora from São Vicente achieved international recognition for morna music, a genre characterized by minor-key melodies and themes of emigration, longing, and separation called sodade in Creole. Évora recorded her first international album "La Diva Aux Pieds Nus" in Paris in 1988 at age 47, earning the nickname "Barefoot Diva" for performing without shoes in solidarity with impoverished Cabo Verdeans. She won a Grammy Award in 2004 for Best Contemporary World Music Album for "Voz d'Amor" and died in Mindelo on December 17, 2011. Morna developed in Boa Vista during the 19th century, incorporating Portuguese fado elements with West African rhythms and European contradance structures. Coladeira emerged in the 1950s as a faster, more danceable derivative of morna, featuring accordion, cavaquinho, clarinet, violin, and guitar instrumentation.