São Tomé and Príncipe: The difficult work of preserving colonial heritage

The islands of São Tomé and Príncipe were one of the earliest places where Europeans assembled the defining elements of the tropical plantation complex: enslaved African labour, monoculture of a single cash crop, industrial processing, racial hierarchy and export of those agricultural commodities abroad. That model was expanded and reshaped in the Americas on a far larger scale.

Now, six former agricultural estates in São Tomé and Príncipe – known as roças – have been recognised as World Heritage sites. The Santomean government hopes that this new status will bring tourism revenue, jobs and opportunities to the islands, as the country grapples with high unemployment, youth emigration and widespread poverty. However, the granting of Unesco status leaves critical questions unanswered: who owns these refurbished structures, governs the stories they tell, or reaps the rewards of their new economic life?

The challenge facing the islands is how to safeguard this cultural heritage without romanticising or sanitising the brutal history behind it in a quest to avoid offending tourists.

Click here to read the story.

Get quality African journalism delivered to your device every Saturday.

Save The Continent’s number to your phone (+27 73 805 6068) and send us a message on WhatsApp or Signal.

We’ll do the rest.

Alternatively, you can join us through our Telegram channel.

If you would prefer to receive your weekly copy via email, drop us a line on Read@TheContinent.org