Relations between Cape Verde and the United States

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Relations between Cape Verde and the United States
Location of Cape Verde and United States
Cape VerdeCape Verde United StatesUnited States
Cape Verde United States

Cape Verde and the United States have had direct diplomatic relations since July 5, 1975.

Bilateral relations are traditionally good and go back to the 18th century, when North American ships began to call for Cape Verde regularly. The most important point of reference today is the important Cape Verdean community, especially in New England on the east coast of the USA, where the largest diaspora Cape Verdes lives, which today with around 540,000 is almost as large as the population of Cape Verde itself. Some well-known Americans are of Cape Verdean descent , like the football player Tony Gonzalez . In return, around 4,000 US citizens live in Cape Verde.

In Cape Verde's religious life, the Mormons , as well as the US Pentecostal churches and others, have been gaining popularity for some time , although a clear majority of the Catholic denomination continues to follow.

history

Whaling ship in New Bedford 1763: Cape Verdean immigration to the US east coast began in the 18th century with the recruitment of seafarers for whaling

The Cape Verde Islands were discovered and settled by Portugal in the 15th century . The islands belonged to the Portuguese colonial empire for the next 500 years , so the Cape Verdean-US relationship was determined by the relationship between Portugal and the United States .

From the 1740s, North American whalers also landed on the Cape Verde Islands to buy salt or slaves. So for the first time whaling fleets from the east coast of North America began to recruit seafarers on the Portuguese Atlantic islands, also on Cape Verde, in particular from the islands of Brava and Fogo . This started the migration from the Cape Verde Islands to the US east coast, which continues to this day.

Cape Verdeans from then on made up a significant part of New England's whalers. In 1840, around 40% of the whalers in the Nantucket whaling center came from Cape Verde.

In 1818 the United States established the first US consulate south of the Sahara in Cape Verde.

The Cape Verde Islands were an important stopover in the Atlantic slave trade , which claimed millions of lives. The later United States was an important player in the fight against this slave trade. Although Portugal was the first country to issue a first restricted ban on the slave trade in 1761 , the slave trade remained common, even after the further bans in the 19th century. Thanks to US pressure, this slave trade was made increasingly difficult and prohibited.

During several famines in Cape Verde as a result of droughts and a growing population, the USA helped several times during the 20th century with food deliveries and aid programs.

Cape Verdean Coast Guard training with US Marines, January 2013

Immediately after Cape Verde gained independence in 1975, the USA entered into diplomatic relations with the young republic and also provided assistance, above all to feed the population or after natural disasters such as in 1982 on the island of Brava. Due to the following socialist one-party system, relations did not intensify too much until the transition to a multi-party system and the market economy restructuring in Cape Verde from 1990. The Cape Verdean emigration to the east coast of the USA continued.

The country's continued development, which resulted in the upgrading of Cape Verdean from underdeveloped to middle-income country in 2008, did not make it a significant US development aid target .

Today the Cape Verde Islands and the USA cooperate primarily in the fight against the international drug trade, which seeks to use Cape Verde as a stopover, but also in security issues, such as military training and technology.

In 2002 the Cape Verdean Prime Minister José Maria Neves made a state visit to the USA, where he also visited the Cape Verdean community on the east coast, and in 2005 President Pedro Pires did the same. In August 2009, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Cape Verde, where she a. a. met Prime Minister Neves on the island of Sal .

The Cape Verdean Embassy in Washington

diplomacy

In the USA, Cape Verde has its own embassy in the capital Washington , and a Cape Verdean consulate general has also been set up in Boston .

The USA maintains an embassy in the Cape Verdean capital Praia . There are no US consulates in the Cape Verde Islands.

Culture

Institutions

In Providence, there is the Cape Verdean Museum Exhibit , a museum dedicated to Cape Verdean emigration, the only one in the world.

The well-known jazz pianist and composer Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silva, known as Horace Silver , was of Cape Verdean descent

Cape Verdean cultural and homeland associations exist in the major Cape Verdean communities, particularly in Massachusetts and Rhode Island . There you will find u. a. concerts by Cape Verdean musicians take place regularly. The most important Cape Verdean associations are the Cape Verdean American Community Development (CACD) in Pawtucket and the Cape Verdean Association of Brockton in Brockton .

On the Cape Verdean island of Fogo there is an American Corner in Mosteiros , a cultural institute for the dissemination of American culture. The US embassy runs this facility in partnership with the city council of Mosteiros. The embassy also supports other cultural and educational institutions, such as exchange programs, language courses and scholarships at universities in the USA.

music

A number of well-known musicians in the USA are of Cape Verdean descent. The great jazz musician Horace Silver (actually Silva) dedicated one of his albums on the pioneering Blue Note label to his father's homeland in 1965 with The Cape Verdean Blues . The well-known rapper Lisa Lopes, known by the stage name Left Eye , is one of the musicians of Cape Verdean descent.

The American pop artist Madonna has been living in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, for several years, where she also came into contact with musical traditions from Cape Verde and other former Portuguese colonies. For her album Madame X , which was released in 2019, she also worked with Cape Verdean musicians, including the multi-instrumentalist Adelmiro "Miroca" Paris, who lives in Lisbon. a. already played in Cesária Évora's backing band and now also plays in Madonna's band on their Madame X tour. Madonna also shot a music video with a Cape Verdean Batuku group for the song Batuka on her album .

Movie

The director Guenny K. Pires , who comes from the Cape Verdean island of Fogo , is engaged with three other filmmakers in the Los Angeles-based film production company Txan Films. Pires made the documentary The Journey of Cape Verde (published in 2004, later re-shown as In Search of my Identity ) over a period of four years . In it he traces the origins of Cape Verdean emigration all over the world and searches for the characteristics of a Cape Verdean identity. The Cape Verdean community on the US east coast is one of the focal points of the film. The film was shown at a number of international film festivals (including the Moondance International Film Festival and the Athens Film Festival). Some of the awards were also awarded, including an honorary mention at the Pan-African Film Festival 2005. The film was released in 2004 in the USA on DVD by Txan Films.

economy

The bilateral trade volume in 2018 was over $ 12 million, with just under 9 million US exports and just under 4 million Cape Verdean exports. The US trade surplus was about $ 5 million.

The main US exports to Cape Verde were optical and medical instruments (about $ 2 million), vehicles (about $ 1 million), and ships and boats (about $ 1 million).

The top Cape Verdean exports to the United States were fish and fish products ($ 841,000), building materials ($ 487,000), and baking ingredients ($ 378,000).

Web links

Commons : Relations between Cape Verde and the United States  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Article on the occasion of a conference on 200 years of Cape Verdean-American relations , article from April 25, 2019 on the website of the University of Cape Verde, accessed on May 11, 2019
  2. ↑ a b c d Overview of US relations with Cape Verde at the US State Department, accessed May 11, 2019
  3. ↑ Free Churches and Mormons - Alternatives to the Pope , Cape Verde Islands Travel Guide, DuMont Reiseverlag, Ostfildern 2009
  4. ↑ a b c d website on US-Cape Verdean relations , homepage of the Cape Verdean Consulate General in Boston, accessed on May 11, 2019
  5. ↑ a b c Cabo-verdianos na América: uma emigração com séculos de história - "Cape Verdeans in America: an immigration with centuries of history" , article of January 12, 2016 of the Voice of America , accessed on May 11, 2019
  6. ↑ Julia Raabe: "The borders of the EU are here in Cape Verde". The African island nation is considered a success story. , Article from June 21, 2010 in the Austrian daily Der Standard , accessed on May 11, 2019
  7. ↑ Overview of the Cape Verdean diplomatic institutions on www.caboverde.com, accessed on May 11, 2019
  8. ↑ Website on the educational and cultural activities of the US Embassy in Cape Verde , accessed on January 5, 2020
  9. ↑ clip Batuka , video clip on YouTube , accessed on January 5, 2020
  10. ↑ Own information on the homepage of the Txan film production company , accessed on May 11, 2019
  11. ↑ Information on the DVD case The Journey of Cape Verde (in search of identity) , Txan Filmproductions, USA 2004
  12. ↑ In Search of my Identity website at Txan Film Productions, accessed on May 11, 2019
  13. ^ Page on American-Cape Verdean economic relations , Office of the United States Trade Representative, accessed on May 11, 2019