Cape Verde when Portuguese explorers discovered and colonized the islands, establishing the first European settlement in the tropics. Ideally located for the Atlantic slave trade, the islands grew prosperous throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, attracting merchants, privateers, and pirates. The end of slavery in the 19th century led to economic decline and emigration. Cape Verde gradually recovered as an important commercial center and stopover for shipping routes. Incorporated as an overseas department of Portugal in 1951, the islands continued to campaign for independence, which was peacefully achieved in 1975. Since the early 1990s, Cape Verde has been a stable representative democracy,
Architecture of Cape Verde people used before independence. The first 500 years would have mainly Portuguese elements in its architecture and continued until the independence of Cape Verde in 1975. When the city of Ribeira Grande (now Cidade Velha) was enlarged in its early years in the 1450s, in the 1490s and the start of the 15th century, Manueline architecture would be featured in its buildings. Some of its styles survived in some buildings in São Filipe. The town's pillory (not a building) is one example, the other was Nossa Senhora do Rosário church, the world's first colonial church and the Sé Cathedral. After