Cacheu
Cacheu exhibits founder effects: oldest Portuguese settlement now typical cashew/fishing region, neither poverty-concentrated nor growth-capturing.
Cacheu Region carries the founder effects of Portuguese colonization: the oldest European settlement in Guinea-Bissau, predating Bissau's rise as capital. The town of Cacheu served as a slave trading post, its fortress ruins marking where Portuguese mercantilism first extracted value from West Africa. The region's historical primacy didn't translate into contemporary advantage.
The northern coastal location provides fishing access and some agricultural diversification, but Cacheu sits between more dynamic territories—Senegal to the north, Bissau to the south. The region neither concentrates poverty like the interior triangle nor captures growth like the capital. This middle position offers neither the crisis that attracts development attention nor the assets that attract investment.
Cacheu's economy reflects national patterns in microcosm: cashew cultivation for export, subsistence rice farming for food, fishing along the coast. When adverse weather reduced cashew production in 2024, the region suffered alongside the others. When 70% of households depend on cashew and 90% of exports are cashew, regional variations matter less than the commodity's price and yield. Cacheu's colonial history is museum material; its present is cashew.