São Tomé and Príncipe

The Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Principe is a pair of islands located off the West African coast opposite Gabon, spanning 1,001 square kilometres. This tiny country has a population of 135,600 (2002), its capital is the city of São Tomé, and it is divided into 7 administrative regions: Àgua Grande, Cantagalo, Caué, Lemba, Lobata, Mé-Zochi, and Pagué.

Even though the islands were uninhabited when Portuguese explorers arrived around 1470, the ethnic makeup of the republic today is quite interesting. The major groups include: Mestico, Angolares (descendants of Angolan slaves), Forros (descendants of freed slaves), Servicais (contract laborers from Angola, Mozambique, and Cape Verde), Tongas (children of servicais born on the islands), and Europeans (primarily Portuguese). The official language is Portuguese and 80% of São Toméans are Roman Catholic, with the remaining 20% generally either Evangelical Protestant or Seventh-Day Adventist.

Colonial History

After their discovery of the islands, the Portuguese sent out many settlers and imported African slaves to grow sugar there in the 1480s. The first successful settlement was established in 1493 by Avaro Carninha, who received the land from the Portuguese crown. During the 15th century, for a brief time São Tomé became the world's largest producer of sugar, but Brazilian competition would put an end to its status and force the decline of the São Toméan sugar economy. Compounding the problem, slaves escaped to the mountains and organized raids on the plantations. Amador, king of the fugitive slaves, nearly overran the whole island of São Tomé, which cemented his postition in their history as a national hero. The Dutch even managed to capture the country in 1641, only to be expelled three years later.

Following the collapse of the sugar economy, São Tomé served as a waypoint in the major slave trade routes to Brazil. Smaller ships coming from Africa would unload people on the island, who would then be transferred onto larger ships for the trans-Atlantic voyage. Food for the slave ships was mainly produced by the slave-worked plantations on the island of Principe, and because the economy now shifted its focus to slaves, the capital of the colony was moved to the port of Santo António on Principe in 1753. The Portuguese later ceded the islands of Bioko and Annobón to the Spaniards, who wished to develop their own African slave trade, in 1778.

As the Brazilian slave trade waned, coffee cultivation was introduced in the 19th century and the economic centre of gravity swung back to São Tomé from Principe. Cocoa eventually replaced coffee as the main cash crop in the 1890s and São Tomé became the world's largest cocoa producer for the first two decades of the 20th century. This led to a great expansion of the colony's plantations, which required slaves to be imported from Angola even though slavery had been officially abolished in 1875. Angolans continued to make up the majority of the labour force until the early 1910s, when they were replaced by other forced or indentured labourers from other Portuguese colonies.

After World War I, Cocoa production fell and the islands entered a period of stagnation. São Tomé and Principe became notorious for the brutality and corruption that reigned on their plantations and attempts to force the Forros to work on them led to the Batepá Massacre of 1953. This sparked the beginning of a nationalist movement, the Committee for the Liberation of São Tomé and Principe, which was established in exile in 1960. It later changed its name to the Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Principe (MLSTP) in 1972 under the leadership of Dr. Manuel Pinto da Costa, but it was never able to mount a guerilla challenge to Portuguese rule. Following the military coup in Portugal in April 1974, the Portuguese finally agreed to hand power over to the MLSTP in 1975. This prompted many of the Europeans living in the country to flee, fearing a Communist regime. São Tomé and Principe finally achieved independence on July 12, 1975.

Post-Colonial History

The MLSTP won all 16 seats in the country's first elections, with Pinto da Costa as president and Miguel Trovoada as prime minister. They immediately passed a constitution that vested absolute power in the president, introduced radical socialist polices, and made treasonous any activity contrary to MLSTP directives. A coup attempt was suppressed in 1978 with the help of Angolan troops and Trovoada was forced into exile in 1981 for alleged complicity. Throughout the 1970s and the early part of the 1980s, close ties were maintained to the Communist bloc in Eastern Europe, especially to East Germany and China, but most of the country's trade was with the West. Only when faced with complete economic collapse in 1985, did Pinto da Costa begin to abandon ties with the Eastern bloc and China in favour of more capitalist policies.

A new constitution was introduced in 1990, which provided for a multiparty political system, the abolition of the death penalty, guarantees on human rights, and a five-year presidential term. Miguel Trovoda, who had been in exile since 1986, returned and was elected president of the country in 1991 as an independent candidate. In April 1994, the island of Principe was granted autonomy and a regional assembly was created. Two years later, Trovoda was reelected president. Finally, businessman Fradique de Menezes was elected president in 2001, and the country today is focusing on the promotion of its tourism industry.