This dissertation explores how the Atlantic slave trade integrated the Cape Verde archipelago into the cultural, economic, and political milieu of Upper Guinea Coast between 1500 and 1879. The archipelago is about 300 miles off the coast of Senegal, West Africa. The Portuguese colonized the "uninhabited" archipelago in 1460 and soon began trading with the mainland for slaves. and black African slaves became the majority, resulting in the first racialized Atlantic slave society. Despite cultural changes, I argue that cultural practices by the lower classes, both slaves and freed slaves, were quintessentially "Guinean." Regional fashion and dress developed between the archipelago and mainland with adorning and social use of panu (cotton cloth). In particular, I argue Afro-feminine aesthetics developed in the islands by freed black women that had counterparts in the mainland, rather than mere creolization.Moreover, the study explores the social instability in the islands that led to the exile of liberated slaves, slaves, and the poor, the majority of whom were of African descent as part of the Portuguese efforts to organize the Atlantic slave trade in the Upper Guinea Coast. With the abolition of slavery in Cape Verde in the 19th century, Portugal used freed slaves and the poor as foot soldiers and a labor force to consolidate "Portuguese Guinea." Many freed slaves resisted this mandatory service. The transition to "legitimate trade" also sent "Cape Verdeans" merchants to the "Portuguese Guinea" to pursue commercial activities, while maintaining commercial and family ties with the archipelago, which reinforced cross-cultural exchange.
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