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Guinea-Bissau represents Africa’s only successful anticolonial liberation struggle through a well-adjusted combination of constant mobilization of the population, armed struggle, and active diplomatic engagement with foreign actors. The 1950s represented a boom of anticolonial nationalism in Guinea-Bissau and Cabo Verde, like for most West African states. Inspired also by the long tradition of resistance and the labor of public intellectuals in the process of imagining the nation, anticolonial nationalism in Cabo Verde and Guinea-Bissau developed in the Bissau-Dakar-Conakry axis. These three cities—chiefly the last two, where a vibrant diasporic community of Cabo Verdeans and Guineans lived—formed the main arenas of political action. Though several liberation movements appeared on the Guinean political scene in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the actual liberation movement was almost entirely carried out by the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cabo Verde (PAIGC). Given its binational inclination, the PAIGC engaged in a grueling struggle in the two territories. While plans were drawn to open a new battlefront in Cabo Verde in the 1960s, political and military pragmatism dictated that the liberation struggle in Guinea-Bissau could serve the purposes of liberating the two lands. In 1973, under PAIGC, Guinea-Bissau unilaterally declared independence, which was recognized by more than eighty states, causing another major blow to the eroding dictatorial regime in Lisbon that eventually fell on April 25, 1974. Pressured by PAIGC, the new regime in Portugal would subsequently accept the recognition of the independence of Guinea-Bissau and the right of Cabo Verde to self-determination and autonomy, paving the way to its independence on July 5, 1975.

Amílcar Cabral, the founding father of Cabo Verde and Guinea-Bissau, was one of the African political leaders who masterfully exercised key and decisive roles in the twin realms of political action and theoretical development. As the founding leader of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cabo Verde, Cabral wore several hats: he was the chief diplomat and the commander in chief of the liberation movement; he was also the master organizer of the party and of the incipient state in the liberated areas. Yet, Cabral was far from solely a man of action; he developed a complex and sophisticated political theory of national liberation that gave substance and meaning to political action.

The islands of Cabo Verde were first settled in the 1460s by European colonists and enslaved men and women from West Africa. Due to the archipelago’s arid climate, Cabo Verde did not thrive as an agrarian colony, but its geographic location made it a profitable slave-trade entrepôt for over three centuries—a fact which left a lasting social legacy. Since its origin as a Portuguese colony, Cabo Verde has been marked by continual and significant migration. Its sizable diaspora is scattered on both sides of the Atlantic and contributes in many ways to the nation-building efforts of the homeland. Cabo Verde became an independent nation (República de Cabo Verde) in 1975, after a decade-long armed struggle that took place in Guinea-Bissau (formerly Portuguese Guinea), its partner in the fight for independence. It has since become a stable democracy with a steadily developing economy, growing access to health services and educational opportunities, a booming tourism industry, and relatively low levels of crime and corruption. The country’s official language continues to be Portuguese; however, it coexists with the more widely spoken Cabo Verdean language (or Kriolu), the first language of most Cabo Verdeans. The relatively young Cabo Verdean population has a vibrant musical and artistic culture and is invested in defining its national identity and promoting its traditions, even as it becomes increasingly globalized.

Only in the 21st century has sport become part of the research horizon in the history of the Portuguese-speaking countries of Africa. “Modern” sporting practices accompanied the colonial expansion process from the very beginning. In the second half of the 19th century, evidence can be found of sport in Portuguese colonial areas. This presence, to a certain extent premature, led to the transformation of different types of sports into proof of the level of civilization of the Africans practicing them. Sporting practice was thus part of the strategies some Africans used to demarcate themselves from the majority of natives in those regions. This minority of Africans sought to escape the different forms of compulsory labor in the region as a means to be recognized as civilized. The expansion of Portuguese colonial domination was accompanied by the introduction of various sporting practices, justified by governmental authorities as a form of disciplining bodies, improving health conditions, and controlling workers’ free time. However, the colonial project for sport was appropriated and transformed by Africans. With the institutionalization of sport, the colonial powers sought to expand their control and domination, but in many cases they created resistance and new forms of social participation. In the post-World War II period, and especially from the 1950s onward, the increasing international distaste colonialism led Portuguese authorities, among other strategies, to attempt to use sport to attract the support of African populations. Due to its popularity, sport can be understood as a “window” for understanding the historic process and social dynamics of the colonial period, as well as during the anticolonial struggle and postcolonial times in Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe.

The landscape of Cape Verdean music is diverse, and its musical genres, like the society from which they emanate, are mostly Creole. They stem from the interactions of the local population with other peoples, not only through colonization, but also from the emigration of Cape Verdeans to other countries. In addition, maritime traffic in the Atlantic, which has always traversed the archipelago, was a fruitful channel of contact with other cultures. These factors meant that Cabo Verde remained attuned to cultural trends and lifestyles circulating around the world. Morna, koladera, batuku, and funaná are the most prominent genres on any list of musical styles considered “genuinely” Cape Verdean, if it makes sense to use this adjective in a society marked so heavily by ethnic admixture. That list must also include: 19th-century European musical styles (mazurka, waltz, schottische, polka, gallop) that local musicians appropriated by playing them; the talaia baxu, from the island of Fogo; and a group of musical expressions related to the feasts of the Catholic calendar, with songs, dances, and drumming, such as the kola sanjon (commemorating St. John the Baptist), present on several islands; the activities of tabankas (mutual aid associations that, among other activities, celebrate the dates of Catholic saints) in Santiago and the flag festivals on the island of Fogo. Other religious traditions include the litanies inherited from the Portuguese tradition sung in Creole. There are also popular songs related to work and other activities like sowing, fishing, and labor with oxen in the artisanal production of rum (grogo, grogue, grogu). The oxen work songs (kola boi) are nearly extinct. Weddings songs are also part of traditional musical practices that are either nearly extinct or performed as folklore representations only. In terms of popular music with international circulation since the 1970s, Cape Verdean youth have enthusiastically embraced rap, reggae, zouk from the Antilles, and to a lesser extent rock, by producing Cape Verdean versions of these genres.

Enslaved Africans and the institution of slavery were part of the societies of Cabo Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe from their onset in the 15th century. In both archipelagos, enslaved Africans were regarded as manpower, either to supply the international labor markets, to be employed locally in the production of foodstuffs and export crops, or as soldiers organized into state sponsored militias or masters’ private armies. Within this social group there was a clear distinction between enslaved domestic servants, artisans, traders, and commercial agents or representatives living mainly in urban areas, rural workers employed on farms, plantations, and sugar mills, and enslaved people to be traded and transported elsewhere. The latter group was part of the local societies only temporarily, since their stay was limited to the time required to board the vessels sailing to Europe, the other Atlantic islands, Brazil, and Spanish America. Many enslaved people escaped from the farms and plantations or from the warehouses where they awaited embarkation and were forced to hide in the hills or the bush. This was a common situation in Santiago, Fogo, São Tomé, and Príncipe. However, it was only in São Tomé that marronage became a widespread phenomenon in the 16th and 17th centuries. There, marronage was, to a great extent, a consequence of the fear enslaved Africans had of being embarked and displaced to other territories and of the harsh living and working conditions. However, in Cabo Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe, as later in other colonial slave societies, enslaved Africans were sometimes manumitted by their masters in their wills. In general, most of them stayed under the protection of their previous masters’ households. Hence, enslaved and manumitted Africans were essential for populating, promoting the economic development, and guaranteeing the military defense of Cabo Verde and São Tomé. In both archipelagos, Africans played a key role in the formation and development of the first Creole societies in the Atlantic world with distinct languages and cultures with implications until the present day (21st century). But, in the long-term the trajectory of slavery in the two archipelagos followed different paths. While Cabo Verdean society witnessed a gradual demise due to droughts and the difficulties of developing a plantation economy, in São Tomé and Príncipe, this institution stayed alive, flourished until its abolition, and gave place to other oppressive and coercive forms of labor extraction in the 19th and 20th centuries. These two different paths were, to a great extent, a consequence of the differences between the two archipelagos in terms of climate, soil, patterns of settlement, and economic activities developed. By the early 16th century, São Tomé had become the world’s largest sugar producer relying on enslaved labor and the plantation system, and therefore, the first plantation slave society in the tropics; conversely, Cabo Verde had emerged mainly as an entrepot for transatlantic slave and commodity trades, relying on a rather close relationship with the Luso-African communities in Senegambia and the Upper Guinea.