Aristides Maria Pereira (Portuguese pronunciation: [ɐɾiʃˈtidɨʒ mɐˈɾiɐ pɨˈɾejɾɐ]; November 17, 1923 – September 22, 2011) was the first President of Cape Verde, serving from 1975 to 1991.

Pereira was born on the island of Boa Vista. His first major government job was chief of telecommunications in Guinea-Bissau. From the late 1940s until Cape Verde's independence, Pereira was heavily involved in the anti-colonial movement, organizing strikes and rising through the hierarchy of his party, the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, known as PAIGC). In clandestine activity he often used the pseudonym Alfredo Bangura.

Although Pereira initially promised to lead a democratic and socialist nation upon becoming President, he compounded the country's chronic poverty by crushing dissent following the overthrow of Luís de Almeida Cabral. Cabral was the President of Guinea-Bissau and Pereira's ally in the drive to unite the two Lusophone states. However, Cape Verde had a much better human rights record than most countries in Africa and was known as one of the most democratic (despite the restriction on party activity) because of the power delegated to local citizens' committees. After the coup in Bissau, political repression sharply decreased but the one-party PAICV state established at independence remained until 1990.

Aristides (or Aristeides, Greek: Ἀριστείδης, 530 BC – 468 BC) was an ancient Athenian statesman. Nicknamed "the Just", he flourished in the early quarter of Athens' Classical period and is remembered for his generalship in the Persian War. The ancient historian Herodotus cited him as "the best and most honourable man in Athens", and he received similarly reverent treatment in the writing of the philosopher Plato.

Aristides was the son of Lysimachus, and a member of a family of moderate fortune. Of his early life, it is only told that he became a follower of the statesman Cleisthenes and sided with the aristocratic party in Athenian politics. He first came to notice as strategos in command of his native tribe Antiochis at the Battle of Marathon, and it was no doubt in consequence of the distinction which he then achieved that he was elected archon for the ensuing year (489—488). In pursuance of a conservative policy which aimed at maintaining Athens as a land power, he was one of the chief opponents of the naval policy proposed by Themistocles.