Pioneer Valley Film and Television Entertainment Review
Editor|Pioneer Valley Film and Television Entertainment Review
In the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa, two small islands of São Tomé and Príncipe are located together.
They were uninhabited until they were colonized by the Portuguese in 1486.
Because of their strong connection to the slave trade, the islands were called "slave islands" and were home to thousands of West Africans who were sent to work in colonies such as Portugal and Brazil.
Sugar cane grew on the island, and the plantations required many slaves from inland areas, such as Benin and Congo.
As the demand for slaves increased in the Americas, Sao Tome and Principe became a transatlantic slave transportation center.
Finally, due to tropical diseases, the number of Europeans plummeted to a very small percentage.
So, most of the free people are of mixed European and African descent.
In 1975, the island gained independence from Portugal and the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe.
1. Geography and climate
On the south coast of West Africa, there are Sao Tome and Principe in the Gulf of Guinea, as well as several related rocky islets.
The main island consists of flat land and mountainous terrain that looks like a dormant volcano.
At 2,024 meters above sea level, São Tomé is the highest in this group.
The slopes of these mountains are large, indicating that there are no deep-water ports.
The island has a total of 964 square kilometers of land.
By 1470, the Portuguese were eager to establish their stronghold near this lucrative trading market in West Africa.
Located in the equatorial region, it is tropical, with a long rainy season, and the island was once covered by tropical rainforest.
On the plus side, the rich volcanic soil, long growing season, and abundant rainfall made the island very suitable for the production of staple crops like sugar cane during the colonial era.
The downside is that tropical diseases, especially malaria, have been the focus of attention on densely populated islands.
2. Colony building
The Portuguese royal family carried out successful colonization on three islands.
They are Madeira in 1420 AD, the Azores in 1439 AD, and Cape Verde on the Atlantic coast of West Africa in 1462 AD.
These small islands are a valuable strategic location for the Portuguese fleet, while also providing excellent opportunities for the production of commercial products.
They brought in some slaves from West Africa to work in the wheat, sugar cane and cotton fields.
By 1470, the Portuguese were eager to build their base closer to a lucrative trading market in southern West Africa.
São Tomé and Príncipe is an uninhabited island discovered by Portuguese seafarers, who are very optimistic about the place and hope to build a similar military base there.
São Tomé was the first place to establish a settlement, but it was not established until 1486.
As Portugal did in the Azores, Madeira, Cape Verde, the royal family divided it into three pieces and gave it to the "captains" in a feudal way as a way to motivate the nobles to finance their own development.
Each "captain", or "Donatario", was given a mission to settle and develop his territory in exchange for economic and legal privileges.
So the "captain" gave a part of the property to their men for development, and the land was called Semaria.
The expropriated land must be cleared and cultivation begin within the specified period.
In many cases, the captain became a hereditary position.
Donatarias' model would be applied to other Portuguese colonies in the future, especially in Brazil.
In 1486, the Portuguese royal family allowed the inhabitants of these islands to do business on land.
As a result, caravans and adventurers from these islands established many trading points on the coast stretching south to Luanda (present-day Angola).
In the beginning, merchants were interested in things like gold, pepper, ivory, etc., but when it came to the back, people put them aside.
In 1534, the Diocese of São Tomé was established with the ambitious goal of dominating the African coast, all the way to Cape Town and to the very place they wanted.
3. Slavery
Just like the Atlantic Islands of Portugal, in the 16th century, sugar cane was able to grow rapidly due to its humid climate, and as a result, sugar cane was also well developed.
On the other hand, due to the humidity, it is difficult to completely dry the sugar cane, so the quality of the sugar produced on the island has been poor.
Because it is a labor-intensive industry, the processing of sugarcane requires not only a large number of cultivation machinery, harvesting machinery, but also water milling machinery.
In 1517, there were only 2 in São Tomé, and in 1550, there were 60.
An unnamed visitor wrote in 1550 that the island produced 150,000 arobas, or 2,250,000 kilograms (5 million pounds) of sugar, each year.
Unfortunately, just as the industry took off, larger and more modern plantations emerged in Brazil from the 1550s, which led to a decline in crop yields in São Tomé and Príncipe since the 1580s.
The islands were once home to slaves and also provided food for the people on board.
In the 16th century, slaves, especially from Benin, Congo and other countries, were transported here from the interior to work here.
The slaves lived in a small village of plantations, and they could make ends meet on weekends by growing food in a small field.
The Portuguese exchanged cotton clothes, silk, glazed porcelain, glass mirrors, knives, glass beads for slaves.
Driven by the need for more slaves, the traders of São Tomé and Príncipe wanted to break away from the King of the Congo, who was effectively their middleman with those in the interior of Africa.
Europeans of all races and races also began sending slave hunting teams into the interior, even to capture Congolese themselves.
The kings of the Congo, on the other hand, hated European culture and religion so strongly that they did not hesitate to send slaves to Europe in exchange for remuneration and abolished the Portuguese language.
In the mid-16th century, relations between the two countries became more tense, and Europeans continued to migrate south in order to obtain their slaves.
Thanks to the decline of the sugar industry, the people of the archipelago benefited at least from the crops of the Americas, and now their farms also needed slaves to work.
As a result, the island became the center of a trading network, transporting African slaves to Europe, North Africa, and even across the Atlantic to the Americas, especially the Spanish Caribbean and Brazil.
The islands were once home to slaves and also provided food for the people on board.
4. Slave revolts
São Tomé and Príncipe had far more slaves than the other islands colonized by Portugal in the Atlantic, which caused many serious problems.
Simply put, European settlers did not exercise effective control over black slaves.
The reason for this was that living conditions on the plantations had deteriorated owing to the decline in sugar production, and that there was no army and that they had to rely on local militias who were defenceless.
Two major rebellions, 1574 and 1586, took place.
Many slaves fled to the mountainous interior, where Angola already had African traitors, from where they often attacked plantations.
In 1595-6, a slave chief named Amador called himself the "King of Slaves" and almost conquered the island of São Tomé.
5. Later history
The 17th century was a time of increasing commercial competition among the great European powers.
Pirates have always been another threat to the island and the ships anchored there.
The Dutch fleet captured the two islands in 1598 and São Tomé for seven years between 1641 and 1688.
After the British Crown sent an expedition, which returned to Portugal, the French captured the island in 1711.
San Antonio is located on the island of Principe, and due to its better port conditions, in 1753 it replaced the name of the island of San Domy as the capital.
This shows that since Principe has been in the shadow of the other side, the fortunes of the two large islands have changed dramatically.
In 1777-8, the Portuguese ceded the islands of Annobon (Annobon) and Bioko (formerly known as Fernando Po) in Pagalu to Spain in order to reassure the Spaniards that they would join the slave trade.
Cocoa and coffee have been cultivated on the island since the early 19th century with some success.
Until 1908, slaves from the interior were brought here to work.
Even in the 20th century, African workers (mostly from Angola and Mozambique) had to be repatriated at some point, not much different from when they were slaves.
In 1975, the province of São Tomé and Príncipe seceded from Portugal, but its harvest has been poor due to the poor management of its plantations, much like the colonial desert.
Roman Catholicism remains the most widespread faith in the world, while Portuguese remains the official language.
The country's economy was still largely dependent on trade with Portugal and the Netherlands.
bibliography
1 Disney, AR History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire, Volume 2.Cambridge University Press, 2009
2. Newit, Marin, Portuguese in West Africa, 1415-1670, Cambridge University Press, 2010
3. Ogot, BA, UNESCO General History of Africa, Volume V, University of California Press, 1992
4 Oliver, RA Cambridge Encyclopedia of Africa, Cambridge University Press, 1981
5, Oliver, Roland. Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 3, Cambridge University Press, 1999