Writing the history of the “discovery” of Cabo Verde. Fictional chronicle, official history or the manufacturing of consent?

Resumen

This article focuses on the problems of writing the history of the discovery of the Islands of Cabo Verde. I discuss how different historians, throughout the years, wrote and heuristically articulated arguments to construct the perspectives on this topic. First, the article provides a genealogy of the debate in order to shed some light upon the intricacies of the controversy between historians as well as upon the unknown circumstances related to the first contacts of European sailors with the islands of Cabo Verde. My analysis shows the agenda behind the account that established the chronological and thematic boundaries regarding the act of ‘discovery’, which has been transformed into historical fact and crepuscular mnemonic subject. Secondly, I analyze the links, affinities and the complicity between, on the one hand, the interpretation of this act and, on the other hand, the Portuguese imperial imaginary and the commemorative colonial memory that have shaped the discursive consensus framed as official history.