The present article contributes to the debate on how historians and social scientists perceive and understand relations between ideology and science, which are often seen as realms belonging to rival kingdoms. Following an analysis and critical positioning vis-à-vis Cabralian studies, the text examines how scholars of Cabral have portrayed his agronomic activities. It then undertakes a genealogical analysis of the Cabralian concept of people and suggests that the emergence of this concept in Cabral's discourse derives from the intersection of the development of anti-colonial nationalist thought in the former Portuguese Empire and the development of agrarian studies in metropolitan Portugal.