Recrutamento e exportação de mão de obra de Angola para as roças de São Tomé e Príncipe: fatos, narrativas e memórias (1875-1915).

Abstract

Since the last quarter of the 15th century, the Portuguese crown estabilished the first colonization of the islands São Tomé and Príncipe and during the first decade of the 16th century, the first phase of the relationship between the island and Congo and Ndongo African Kingdoms, started.That relationship was ensured through the transatlantic slave trade and the use of aAfrican slave working force provided by those kingdoms for the development of sugar-cane monoculture and production, registered along the 16th century. The second phase of that relationship between those two Portuguese colonies ( São Tomé and Príncipe and Angola) were estabilished since the 19th century, within the context of the development of plantations ( " roças") of coffe and cacao, according to the cicle in question belonging to each monoculture, using working force exported from the regions which comprise the territory of Angola today.Along with the process of slavery abolition in its colonies, Portugal was engulfed in a deep financial crisis during the last half of the 19th century until the beginning of the 20th century and this led the portuguese to search for other ways to continue exploiting African labour in order to develop " roças" on those inslands applying for instance, to the edition of new specific laws to regulate African Labour ( " leis especiais" or special laws) which transformed both insland into one of the major exporters of cacao seeds in the world, providing raw materials for chocolate manufacturers in Western Europe and North America between 1890 and 1912. Defining elements of recruitment and exportation of working force from Angola to coffee and mainly to cacao " roças" in São Tomé and Príncipe are discussed along this research and this topic was a determinant process of the labour conditions of african labourers in general exported to the islands, but particularly more unfavorable for the African labourers from the countryside of Angola and this was the cause of the emergence of controversies concerning to the labour conditions and the truthfulness of labour contracts the Angolan labourers were subjected to. Contract which were incongruent to free and wage labour conditions of that era, and also to the particular issue of the Angolan labourers repatriation due to the failure to comply with it. Besides the use of sources from authors allied ideologically to the colonial policy and other contemporary authors of the period of this research, documents related to the colonial labour policy, as for instance, oficial guidelines for " indigenous" African labour like contract labourers surveys, commisary ad hoc voyages minutes, and also documents available in many boxes and codexes at Arquivo Nacional de Angola ( in Luanda), Arquivo Histórico de São Tomé e príncipe ( in São Tomé island), Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino ( incluinding the Fundo Francisco Mantero) and Arquivo Histórico Militar de Portugal, both in Lisbon, with emphasis on documents refering to the general uprising of Portuguese Congo District. During the period of interviews, some of the interviewed Angolan serviçais ( contracted labourers) descendents were residents in São Tomé island and other were residents in Luanda and Benguela. From a qualitative approach and crossing of sources, this research demonstrates how a working system during the post- emancipation period was inserted in the phase of transition between the transatlantic colonial slavery and the emergence of the free and wage labour system in Africa.