PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
January 2014
17
B
efore being ‘discovered’ and colonized by
the Portuguese in the late 15
th
century,
the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe were
comprised of rainforests dense with vegetation
and birdlife, but, most likely, no people (though
there is a legend that present-day Angolares
were really the first inhabitants of the land). The
islands’ volcanic soil proved good for cultivation,
and, under Portuguese rule, by the mid-16
th
century the islands were the foremost exporter of
sugar, though the labor-intensive process required
increasing amounts of slaves from
. When
the price of sugar fell and slave labor proved
difficult to control, the islands increasingly looked
towards the slave trade to bolster the economy,
becoming an important weigh station for slave
ships heading from
to
In the 19
th
century two new cash crops, coffee and cocoa,
overtook the old sugar plantations. By the early
20
th
century São Tomé was one of the world’s
largest producers of cocoa. In 1876 slavery was
outlawed, but was simply replaced with a similar
system of forced labor for low wages. Contract
workers came in from
,
and other parts of the Portuguese empire. During
these times there were frequent uprisings and
revolts, often brutally put down by the Portuguese.
In 1953 the Massacre of Batepá, in which many
Africans were killed by Portuguese troops,
sparked a full-fledged independence movement.
held on, however, until the fall of the
fascist government in 1974, after which it got out
of its colonies in a hurry. São Tomé & Príncipe
achieved independence on 12 July 1975. The
Portuguese exodus left the country with virtually
no skilled labor, an illiteracy rate of 90%, only one
doctor and many abandoned cocoa plantations. An
economic crisis was inevitable. Manual Pinto da
Costa, who was the first president and, until then,
D E M O C R A T I C R E P U B L I C O F
“In 1909 the Colonial Office of
Portugal ordered 4 theodolites from
Filotécnica Salmoiraghi under
specifications by Gago Coutinho. To
provide the highest accuracy the
horizontal circle was to be covered
and the scales were to be engraved
in platinum to avoid the oxidation of
the African climate. “
a moderate, was forced to concede to many of the demands of
the more radical members of his government. The majority
of the plantations were nationalized four months after
independence, legislation was passed prohibiting any one
person from owning more than 100 hectares of land, and a
people’s militia was set up to operate within workplaces and
villages. The country remained closely aligned with
,
Cuba and communist Eastern Europe until the demise of the
Soviet Union, when Santoméans began to demand multiparty
democracy. The first multiparty elections were held in early
1991 and led to the inauguration of the previously exiled
