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Following the promulgation of a
Since the 1800s, the economy of Sao Tome and Principe has been based on plantation agriculture. At the time of independence, Portuguese-owned plantations occupied 90% of the cultivated area. After independence, control of these plantations passed to various state-owned agricultural enterprises, which have since been privatized. The dominant crop on...
This small country has a homogeneous culture, profoundly marked by centuries of Portuguese colonialism, although the government has been keen to stress the country's African heritage. Language, family structure, and religion are basically Portuguese. Many African elements have been adopted in the cooking, customs, beliefs, and dress of the common people,...
The islands were first discovered by Portuguese navigators between 1469 and 1472. The first successful settlement of Sao Tome was established in 1493 by Alvaro Caminha, who received the land as a grant from the Portuguese crown. Principe was settled in 1500 under a similar arrangement. By the mid-1500s, with the help of slave labor, the Portuguese settlers...
The islands of Sao Tome and Principe, situated in the equatorial Atlantic about 300 and 250 kilometers (200 and 150 miles), respectively, off the northerwest coast of Gabon, constitute one of Africa's smallest countries. Both are part of an extinct volcanic mountain range, which also includes the island of Bioko in Equatorial Guinea to the north and...
Of Sao Tome and Principe's total population, about 137,500 live on Sao Tome and 6,000 on Principe. All are descended from various ethnic groups that have migrated to the islands since 1485. Six groups are identifiable: Mestico, or mixed-blood, descendants of African slaves brought to the islands during the early years of settlement from Benin, Gabon,...
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