São Tomé and Príncipe was a colony of the Portuguese Empire from the discovery of the islands in 1470 until 1975, when independence was granted by Portugal.
The first attempt to settle the islands began in 1485, when the Portuguese Crown granted João de Paiva the island of São Tomé. However, this attempt was not successful because the settlers were unable to produce food in the specific conditions and climate that the islands offered, and because of the tropical diseases that affected the settlers.[1] It was only in 1493 when King John II of Portugal nominated Álvaro Caminha as captain-major of São Tomé Island that the first successful settlement was established.[1] Among these Portuguese settlers, there was a significant portion of criminals and orphans, as well as Jewish children taken from their parents to ensure that they were raised as Christians.[3] The settlement of Príncipe was initiated in 1500.[1]
In the following years, Portuguese settlers started to import large numbers of slaves from mainland Africa to cultivate the rich volcanic soil of São Tomé Island with highly profitable sugar cane. By the middle of the 16th century, São Tomé was generating enormous wealth for Portugal as it became the world's largest producer of sugar.[4] The humid climate allowed for the quick growth of sugar, but prevented the production of higher quality white sugar.[5]
In the first decade of the 17th century, the competition of sugar plantations from the Portuguese colony of Brazil and the frequent slave revolts that occurred in the island began to slowly hurt the sugar crop cultivation.[1] This meant the decline of sugar production and the shifting of the local economy towards the slave trade, which remained mostly in the hands of the local mestiço population.[2][4] The geographical location of the islands made them a crucial trading post of the transatlantic slave trade as they served as an assembly point for slaves brought from the Gulf of Guinea and the Kingdom of Kongo that were destined for the Americas.[4][6]
The Dutch occupied São Tomé Island from 1641 to 1648, when the Portuguese took back the island.[6] The Dutch, however, did not take Príncipe island.[6]
Most Portuguese settlers married African women. Europeans never numbered more than 1000 at their peak in the 16th century; by the 18th century, prosperous and influential local Afro-Portuguese mulatos came to fill important local positions, such as cathedral chapter and the town-hall, into which they had been admitted as early as 1528.[7] Some were indistinguishable from mainland native Africans and claimed to be brancos da terra (literally, "the land's whites") on account of their ancestry.[8]
In 1753, because of frequent attacks by pirates and corsairs, the capital of São Tomé was transferred to Santo António on Príncipe, and the islands started being ruled as a single colony with one Governor.[4] It was only in 1852 when the capital was transferred back to São Tomé Island.[9]
At the beginning of the 19th century, the Portuguese introduced coffee and cocoa in extensive large-scale plantations called roças, thus giving a great boost to the economy. The coffee production cycle ended in the late 19th century, when it was replaced by cocoa as the islands' main production. São Tomé and Príncipe then became a major global cocoa production area for several generations, and in the first decades of the 20th century it was frequently the world's annual number one cocoa producer.[2]
Albertino Francisco, Nujoma Agostinho, Exorcising Devils from the Throne: São Tomé and Príncipe in the Chaos of Democratization (2011) ISBN9780875868486
Amy McKenna, The History of Central and Eastern Africa (2011) ISBN9781615303229
Anthony Disney, A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire (2009)
1 1975 is the year of East Timor's Declaration of Independence and subsequent invasion by Indonesia. In 2002, East Timor's independence was fully recognized.
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