Cape Verde is a multi-ethnic society, which means that it is home to people of many different ethnic backgrounds.

Africans from the main lands and Arabs from adjacent West Africa were brought to the islands to work on Portuguese plantations.

Most of them were Dutch, French, British, Spanish, or the English, as well as Arabs and Jews (from Lebanon and Morocco).

But for each of them there is some kind of historical testimony to their presence in Cape Verde, which are the Fula, Sereer, Diola, Cassanga, Basari/Tenda, Balanta, Bijagos, Nalu, Cocoli, Baga, Susu, Jallonké, Bambara and Sape.

Prior to independence in 1975, many thousands of people emigrated from drought-stricken Portuguese Cape Verde, formerly an overseas province of Portugal.

[18] The culture of Cape Verde reflects its mixed West African (Badiu) and Portuguese roots.