Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe were the first Creole societies in the Atlantic world. Initially, the colonization of the two archipelagos by the Portuguese was very similar in many aspects. However, the different geographic position with differences in climate and the natural environment conditioned the development of distinct economies and unequal degrees of miscegenation in the two archipelagos. Different socioeconomic developments in the nineteenth century, in São Tomé and Príncipe, marked by the re-colonization and the reestablishment of the plantation economy and, in Cape Verde, by the consolidation of the Creole society and by emigration, reinforced existing divergences. The differences are reflected in distinct identity statements in the two Creole societies. Cape Verde claims the singularity of its Creole society while, in São Tomé and Príncipe, an African identity dominates.
Creolization; miscegenation; Atlantic world; Cape Verde; São Tomé and Príncipe