Cabo Verde—Field Studies Blog
While Sørlandet’s stay in Cabo Verde was a brief one, her crew and students still found time to participate in Field Studies. The A+ World Academy ports of call are rich in history and culture interwoven with academics. Praia was no different.
Students traveled to the first European colonial settlement in the tropics, Cidade Velha. Located on the southern coast of the island of Santiago, the former capital of Cabo Verde was once the second richest city in the Portuguese realm and a port visited by navigators such as Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Cidade Velha remains home to historical churches, a sixteenth century town square and the Fort Real de Sao Filip, all of which retain their colonial heritage.
Most disturbing and resonant: Cidade Velha was one of the most prominent hubs of the transatlantic slave trade. A+ Students had the rare opportunity to see the spaces slaves occupied, to better appreciate and contextualize a horrific chapter of our shared world history themselves, before sailing across the Atlantic for the Caribbean, where they later continued studies of slavery in the new world and Americas, in the classroom and ashore.
