São Tomé and Príncipe

São Tomé and Príncipe, formally the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, is a nation made up of two archipelagos centered on its two main islands in the Gulf of Guinea, off the equatorial coast of Central Africa. The islands are about 81 nautical miles apart and lie roughly 135 and 121 nautical miles from the northwestern coast of Gabon. With an estimated population of 201,800 in 2018, it is the second-smallest and second-least populous sovereign state in Africa, after Seychelles.

The islands were formed around 30 million years ago by volcanic activity along the Cameroon Line, and later interactions with seawater and eruptions created a variety of igneous and volcanic rocks with complex mineral assemblages. No one lived on the islands when Portuguese explorers João de Santarém and Pedro Escobar arrived on 21 December 1470. (Some sources give the discovery dates as 21 December 1471 for São Tomé and 17 January 1472 for Príncipe, though other years are also cited.) Príncipe was first called Santo Antão, but in 1502 its name changed to Ilha do Príncipe, after the Prince of Portugal who received duties from the island’s sugar crop. The first successful settlement on São Tomé was established in 1493 by Álvaro Caminha, who received the land from the crown; Príncipe was settled in 1500 under a similar grant. Because attracting settlers was difficult, most early inhabitants were “undesirables” sent from Portugal, including many Sephardic Jews—among them 2,000 Jewish children under eight years old, taken to work on sugar plantations. These settlers found the volcanic soil ideal for agriculture, especially sugar.

By 1515, the islands had become slave depots for the coastal trade centered at Elmina. Sugar cultivation was labor-intensive, and the Portuguese enslaved large numbers of Africans from the continent. In the early sugar boom, property had little value; when landowner Álvaro Borges died in 1504, his cleared land and animals sold for about the price of three slaves. Around 1506, Valentim Fernandes noted that São Tomé had more sugarcane fields than Madeira, but lacked facilities for industrial sugar production. That changed after a water-powered sugar mill was introduced in 1515, leading to mass cultivation. By the mid-16th century, the islands were Africa’s foremost sugar exporter. Slaves came from the Slave Coast, the Niger Delta, Fernando Po, and later Kongo and Angola. In the 1500s, enslaved people were imported from and exported to Portugal, Elmina, the Kingdom of Kongo, Angola, and the Spanish Americas. In 1510, Portugal reportedly imported 10,000 to 12,000 slaves; in 1516, São Tomé received 4,072 slaves for re-export. From 1519 to 1540, the island was the slave trade hub between Elmina and the Niger Delta. It traded intermittently with Angola and Kongo, and from 1525 began trafficking slaves to the Spanish Americas, mainly the Caribbean and Brazil. Between 1532 and 1536, São Tomé sent an average of 342 slaves annually to the Spanish Americas.

Over the 19th and 20th centuries, cycles of social unrest and economic instability led to peaceful independence in 1975 as a one-party communist state, which lasted until 1990. Since then, the country has been one of Africa’s most stable and democratic. It has a developing economy and a medium Human Development Index. The population is mostly of African and mestiço (mixed European and African) descent, and most practice Christianity. Portuguese influence remains strong in culture, customs, and music, which blend European and African elements. São Tomé and Príncipe is a founding member of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.