ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the construction of landscape and memory in Cape Verde. It deals with the different ways in which three sites in the island of Santiago, an Old Fort and a Historical Town; a Concentration Camp; and a Global Resort, participate in the erasure, maintenance and creation of memory, forging new ways of collective identity. The chapter reveals the connections and shows that constituted history in Cape Verde, while destabilising the process of privileging a singular version of heritage and eliding other stories. Midway between Europe, Africa and America and facing the Guinea rivers coast, Cape Verde was a key site in the slave trade due to its position at the crossroads of transatlantic navigation. According to various brochures, media, promotional literature and political discourses, Cidade Velha is signalled as the birthplace and the most important site of Cape Verdean identity.
