The Roças of Sao Tome and Principe: Colonial Agricultural System and Forced Migration

Coffee and cocoa reached the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe in the Gulf of Guinea in the early 19th century. Plantations, or roças, owned by Portuguese companies and absentee landlords soon covered the fertile volcanic land; by the early 20th century there were about two hundred, and by 1908 São Tomé was the world's largest cocoa producer. The six inscribed roças are Monte Café, Água Izé, Diogo Vaz and São João on São Tomé, and Sundy and Belo Monte on Príncipe.

After slavery was abolished in the Portuguese Empire, the islands' free Forros and Angolares refused plantation work, so the authorities brought in forced and contract labourers, mainly from Angola, Mozambique and Cabo Verde. In the early 20th century an international controversy broke out over Angolan contract workers held in forced labour. Hospitals and schools were added, notably after 1909, partly under international pressure; Água Izé gained hospitals in 1914 and 1928. In 1953 several hundred labourers were killed in what is remembered as the Batepá Massacre.

After independence in 1975 every roça was nationalised, and between 1993 and 2000 the land was redistributed to smallholders and cooperatives. Monte Café has run a coffee museum since 2013, and Belo Monte became a hotel in 2014. The six roças were inscribed in 2026 as the record of a colonial plantation system that relied on forced migration and labour after the end of slavery.