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At the other extreme, one of the globe’s most famine-prone places for nearly half a millennium has been Cape Verde, a volcanic archipelago of 40,000 km2 located about 600 km off the coast of Senegal. Uninhabited when discovered by the Portuguese c. 1460, Cape Verde’s destiny in the following centuries was linked to slavery and the slave trade. Despite its name, Cape Verde is an arid landmass with minimal agricultural potential. The excess mortality associated with its major famines is unparalleled in relative terms. A famine in 1773-6 is said to have removed forty-four per cent of the population; a second in 1830-33 is said to have killed forty two per cent of the population of 70,000 or so; and a third in 1854-56 to have killed twenty-five per cent. In 1860 the population was 90,000; in 1863-67 forty per cent of Cape Verdeans were reported to have died of famine. Despite a population loss of 30,000, the population was put at 80,000 in 1870. Twentieth-century famines in Cape Verde were less deadly, but still extreme relative to most contemporaneous ones elsewhere: fifteen per cent of the population (or 20,000) in 1900-03; sixteen per cent (25,000) in 1920-22; fifteen per cent (20,000) in 1940-43; eighteen per cent (30,000) in 1946-48. The pivotal role of drought-related famine in the demography of Cape Verde need not be labored. Nevertheless, such death tolls imply extraordinary non-crisis population growth. For instance, if the population estimates for 1830 and 1860 are credited, making good the damage inflicted by the famine of 1830-33 would have required an annual population growth rate of about 4 per cent between 1833 and 1860-despite the loss of a quarter or so of the population in 1854-56.
Ó Gráda C. Famine: A Short History. Princeton, 2009.
