Map of the Cape Verde Islands, 1746.
Cape Verde was a Portuguese colony and an important supply station for the whalers and the slave traders’ ships on their way to and from America. In 1680, the eruption of Pico del Fogo, the archipelago’s largest volcano, resulted in the movement of the population within the islands. In 1712, the French Navy Captain Jacques Cassard raided and destroyed Ribeira Grande, the original capital of the archipelago and caused yet another migration of the population within a relatively short period of time. As a consequence of these two events, Praia became the new capital of Cape Verde from 1770 onwards. Both Riberia Grande and Praia, the old and new capital, are depicted on this map. Due to the frequent famines in the mid-18th century that were caused by a series of droughts, thousands of people starved to death. The remaining population was a mix of Portuguese settlers and slaves originally from West Africa. Cape Verdean Creole evolved as a mixture of the Portuguese and West African languages.
The history of Cape Verde is narrated in Richard A. Loban Jr’s “Cape Verde: Crioulo Colony to Independent Nation”.
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