Roça São Joaquim, ruined plantation house Príncipe Island, São Tomé & Príncipe
Despite their proximity to the west coast of Africa these islands were apparently entirely uninhabited when Portuguese navigators João de Santarém and Pero Escobar arrived on Saint Thomas’s day the 21st of December 1470. The Portuguese quickly settled the islands and were soon importing slaves from the mainland to work in their newly established sugar plantations. The sugar produced here was of poor quality compared to that from elsewhere and from the beginning of the 19th century was replaced with coffee this crop was in turn largely replaced by cocoa. Slavery in the islands’ plantations or roças carried on until 1875 when it was abolished and replaced with a system of contract labour this did not significantly improve the lives of the island’s labour force and the Portuguese continued to import labourers from their mainland colonies. At the beginning of the 20th century the plight of the plantation workers reached the outside world, protests from the Aboriginal Protection Society and the Anti-Slavery Society prompted William Cadbury to send an agent to the islands to investigate. Possibly to protect his company's own commercial interests and to allow time for them to establish their own plantations in the Gold Coast (Ghana) he chose not to act for some years until after he visited the Islands in 1909 to see for himself. Cadburys and other chocolate companies then started a boycott of Cocoa from the Islands. However little changed for the people who remained as virtual slaves.
In 1953 descendents of former slaves known as Forros fearing they would be conscripted and forced to work on the plantations protested at Batepa, Portuguese troops attacked the protesters and in the massacre that followed over 1,000 Forros may have been killed. This event sparked the establishment of a liberation movement however despite the Batepa Massacre, unlike in Portugal’s mainland colonies there was no war for independence. Following Portugal’s bloodless Carnation Revolution in 1974 the islands demanded their independence and this was granted the following year.
Although STP's independence had been achieved peacefully the Portuguese plantation owners fled abandoning their plantations and the islands. Soon afterwards the roças were nationalised by STP’s new Marxist government many of them fell in to disrepair during this period.
Roça São Joaquim, ruined plantation house Príncipe Island, São Tomé & Príncipe
Despite their proximity to the west coast of Africa these islands were apparently entirely uninhabited when Portuguese navigators João de Santarém and Pero Escobar arrived on Saint Thomas’s day the 21st of December 1470. The Portuguese quickly settled the islands and were soon importing slaves from the mainland to work in their newly established sugar plantations. The sugar produced here was of poor quality compared to that from elsewhere and from the beginning of the 19th century was replaced with coffee this crop was in turn largely replaced by cocoa. Slavery in the islands’ plantations or roças carried on until 1875 when it was abolished and replaced with a system of contract labour this did not significantly improve the lives of the island’s labour force and the Portuguese continued to import labourers from their mainland colonies. At the beginning of the 20th century the plight of the plantation workers reached the outside world, protests from the Aboriginal Protection Society and the Anti-Slavery Society prompted William Cadbury to send an agent to the islands to investigate. Possibly to protect his company's own commercial interests and to allow time for them to establish their own plantations in the Gold Coast (Ghana) he chose not to act for some years until after he visited the Islands in 1909 to see for himself. Cadburys and other chocolate companies then started a boycott of Cocoa from the Islands. However little changed for the people who remained as virtual slaves.
In 1953 descendents of former slaves known as Forros fearing they would be conscripted and forced to work on the plantations protested at Batepa, Portuguese troops attacked the protesters and in the massacre that followed over 1,000 Forros may have been killed. This event sparked the establishment of a liberation movement however despite the Batepa Massacre, unlike in Portugal’s mainland colonies there was no war for independence. Following Portugal’s bloodless Carnation Revolution in 1974 the islands demanded their independence and this was granted the following year.
Although STP's independence had been achieved peacefully the Portuguese plantation owners fled abandoning their plantations and the islands. Soon afterwards the roças were nationalised by STP’s new Marxist government many of them fell in to disrepair during this period.