The Rise and Fall of the Plantations - Roças
The Plantations in São Tomé and Príncipe
The Roça system exemplifies how monoculture and centralized exploitation can generate enormous wealth in the short term – but leave behind ecological destruction, social inequality, and extreme dependency in the long run. São Tomé and Príncipe now faces the challenge of not repeating this difficult legacy, but rather using the Roça as a cultural memory and resource for a more just future.
The cycles of monoculture
The agricultural history of São Tomé and Príncipe is a succession of monoculture cycles, each based on global demand and colonial exploitation:
Sugarcane (16th–17th centuries): Just a few decades after its settlement beginning in 1470, São Tomé became Africa's largest sugar exporter. Large areas of primary forest in the north of the main island were cleared, and the climate demonstrably changed.
Coffee and especially cocoa (from the late 18th/mid-19th century): After the decline of sugar, the introduction of coffee (from Brazil in 1789) and especially cocoa (intensified from 1855) led to a new peak in production. In 1913, São Tomé and Príncipe became the world's largest cocoa producer. As recently as 1997, cocoa beans accounted for 90% of export earnings. The roças (cocoa farms) multiplied, large plantations encompassed thousands of hectares and employed hundreds to thousands of workers.
Monoculture was the only relevant source of external income – and made the country extremely dependent on world market prices.
The Latifundio as a total system of power and labor
The roças at times covered over 90% of the archipelago's usable land. They were highly centralized and possessed their own infrastructure: drying facilities, warehouses, hospitals, schools (for the administrators' children), even their own currency and prisons. The largest roças (e.g., Agostinho Neto, Água Izé, Rio do Ouro) were practically independent of the colonial administration.
Economic efficiency was based on cheap, even enslaved, labor. Because the local Forros (descendants of freed Creoles) rejected plantation work, tens of thousands of indentured laborers (serviçais) from Angola, Mozambique, and Cabo Verde were recruited under conditions often resembling slavery. This system created a profound social divide between Forros and Serviçais, the effects of which are still felt today.
The Roças were simultaneously places of intense cultural mixing (miscigenação racial) – workers from all over Lusophone Africa lived and worked together and shaped today's Santomensian identity.
The Abrupt End
With independence in 1975, the Roça system was radically ended. On September 30, 1975, the new government nationalized 23 of the largest Roças and transformed them into state-owned agricultural enterprises (Unidades Empresariais Agrícolas, UEA). The goal—returning the land to the people—paradoxically led to the collapse of production. Within a few years, cocoa exports plummeted because the highly centralized system, based on coercion and colonial know-how, could not function without it.
Only the agricultural reforms of the 1990s and the return of land to small farmers and family farms enabled a slow recovery. Since the 2000s, the cocoa sector has experienced a renaissance thanks to organic and Fairtrade certifications (e.g., Kaoka, Claudio Corallo) – albeit on a much smaller scale.
The Plantations (Roça) today – between ruin and hope
Many of the once magnificent mansions, workers' barracks, and drying sheds are falling into disrepair. At the same time, former roças like Roca Sundy, Roca Belo Monte, and Roca São João are being converted into boutique hotels and eco-lodges. The danger of a new "roça tourism" is being openly discussed: a model that, in turn, could favor external investors and marginalize the local population.
The more sustainable vision sees the roças as the anchor of a new, responsible economic model (Economia Responsável): high-quality organic cocoa, agroforestry, community tourism, and cultural heritage. The roça should no longer be a symbol of colonial exploitation, but rather the starting point for a development from which the people of Santomia themselves will benefit.
The Roças in São Tomé und Príncipe - From the center of world cocoa production to an abandoned ruins
The roças are the most visible reminder of São Tomé's colonial history: places where incredible wealth was created and just as quickly destroyed within a few decades.
Anyone wandering through the rainforests of São Tomé today will suddenly stumble upon them: enormous, weathered mansions of red brick, rusted drying sheds, collapsed hospitals, and endless rows of small workers' barracks, overgrown with vines and strangler figs. These are the roças – once the largest and most modern cocoa plantations in the world, "states within a state," symbols of colonial wealth. Today, many of them are ghost towns from a bygone era.
The Ascent: The Chocolate Islands
When the first cacao plants arrived on São Tomé from Brazil in 1822, initially only as ornamental plants, no one suspected the avalanche they would unleash. The hot, humid climate proved perfect. From the 1850s onward, cultivation exploded. By 1913, São Tomé and Príncipe was the world's largest cacao producer, with 36,500 to 55,000 tons per year – more than a third of the entire global market came from these two tiny islands. The roças (coca plantations) covered over 90% of the arable land.
Large plantations like Água Izé, Rio do Ouro (now Agostinho Neto), Sundy, or Monte Café were not simple farms. They were self-sufficient miniature cities: with their own hospitals (the one in Água Izé was considered one of the most modern in Africa), railway networks, schools for the managers' children, drying facilities, warehouses, and sometimes even their own currency. The central square, the terreiro, was the heart of the operation – here the beans were dried in the sun, wages were paid, and celebrations were held.
The price: forced labor and human trafficking
This wealth came at a high price. The local Forro people rejected plantation work – they knew it was associated with slavery. So Portugal imported tens of thousands of "indentured laborers" (serviçais) from Angola, Mozambique, and Cape Verde. In reality, the system was barely distinguishable from slavery: contracts were read aloud to illiterate people in a foreign language, returning home was virtually impossible, and escape was life-threatening. The workers lived in tiny sanzalas, often only 14 square meters per family, and were under constant guard.
The scandal became internationally known in 1909 when William Cadbury and other British chocolate manufacturers boycotted cocoa from São Tomé. Portugal then built beautiful hospitals – primarily for foreign visitors – and claimed that everything was perfectly fine.
The sudden fall: Independence and nationalization
On July 12, 1975, São Tomé and Príncipe gained its independence. One of the first acts of the new government was the nationalization of 23 of the largest roças (farmsteads) on September 30, 1975, transforming them into state-owned enterprises (UEAs). The goal was noble – the land should finally belong to the people of São Tomé and Príncipe.
The result was catastrophic. The Portuguese owners and management experts fled overnight, as did some 15,000 Cabo Verdean skilled workers. The highly complex system, built on coercion and colonial know-how, collapsed. Production plummeted.
1974: still 10,400 tons of cocoa
1975: only 12 tons
1988: just 3 tons
The roças fell into disrepair. Without maintenance, the rainforest encroached upon the halls and mansions within months. Hospitals like the one in Porto Real were "swallowed by the forest."
The present: ruins, tourism, and a spark of hope
Today, the descendants of the former contract workers often live in the old administration buildings – under very basic conditions. The once proud architecture is crumbling. But there are also glimmers of hope:
Roça Sundy (where Einstein's theory of relativity was confirmed by a solar eclipse in 1919) is today a luxurious, CO₂-neutral hotel with its own chocolate factory.
Roça Belo Monte, Roça São João und andere werden zu Boutique-Hotels umgebaut.
Small organic cocoa projects (Claudio Corallo, Kaoka, Cecab) produce high-priced gourmet cocoa – in agroforestry systems instead of monoculture.
On Príncipe, a model of sustainable ecotourism is being developed with South African and international capital, with the Roças at its center.