When Powerful Stories Became Dangerous Truths

Introduction

These cases belong together because they show how authority can turn a doubtful claim into an accepted public story. Plantation owners presented forced labour as lawful employment. A colonial governor transformed fear of conscription into evidence of rebellion. Politicians and speculators sometimes spoke of unproven petroleum reserves as though national wealth were imminent. None is a simple practical joke. They are mixtures of propaganda, commercial self-interest, rumour and wishful thinking whose consequences were unusually real.

Overview image for Sao Tome and Principe

The fiction of freely contracted cocoa labour

At the beginning of the twentieth century, São Tomé and Príncipe was one of the world’s major cocoa-producing territories. Much of the work was performed by labourers recruited from Portuguese-controlled mainland Africa, especially Angola. Officially, these workers had signed contracts. In practice, investigators found a system in which recruitment could involve coercion, workers had little meaningful freedom to leave and promised repatriation was frequently delayed or denied.

The scandal first reached British chocolate manufacturers as a rumour. In 1901, Cadbury Brothers heard reports that enslaved people were harvesting the cocoa it purchased from the islands. One particularly damaging piece of evidence was a plantation sale document that reportedly listed about 200 labourers among the estate’s assets. That made the supposedly free workers look less like employees than transferable property.[William A Cadbury Charitable Trust]wa-cadbury.org.ukWilliam Cadbury first heard disturbing rumours about the use of forced labour on the cocoa plantations in the Portuguese islands of São T…

Cadbury sent the investigator Joseph Burtt to examine conditions. Missionaries, diplomats and campaigners supplied additional testimony. By the time the controversy became a sustained press story, reports of slave trading and severe abuses had been reaching British officials for years. The central dispute was no longer whether written contracts existed, but whether those papers had any moral or practical meaning for people recruited under pressure and prevented from returning home.[Brethren History]brethrenhistory.orgBrethren History BRETHREN AND THE SAO TOMÉ COCOA SLAVERYBrethren HistoryBRETHREN AND THE SAO TOMÉ COCOA SLAVERY…April 5, 2009 — by T Grass · Cited by 4 — This article focuses on his involvem…Published: April 5, 2009

How the reassuring version worked

Portuguese officials and plantation interests defended the system by emphasising its legal machinery. Workers were described as contract labourers, wages were nominally paid and regulations supposedly protected their welfare. This language allowed defenders to answer allegations of slavery without confronting the conditions that made consent doubtful.

The deception therefore depended less on a single forged document than on a misleading category. Calling someone a “contract worker” suggested a voluntary bargain between equals. It concealed the power of recruiters, colonial administrators and estate managers over movement, punishment and repatriation.

Commercial interests reinforced the ambiguity. British manufacturers relied heavily on São Tomé cocoa and were reluctant to abandon a profitable supply before alternatives were secure. Cadbury’s delay in imposing a boycott consequently attracted criticism of its own. A hostile newspaper accused the company of hypocrisy, leading to a libel trial in 1909. Cadbury won the case, but the jury awarded only nominal damages, reflecting discomfort over how long the firm had continued buying cocoa after receiving disturbing evidence. The controversy was thus not a clean contest between honest reformers and dishonest planters; commercial caution also shaped the anti-slavery campaign.[barrowcadbury.org.uk]barrowcadbury.org.ukBarrow Cadbury TrustBackground paper of the origins of the endowment…In March 1909, the British manufacturers did agree to Cadburys' p…Published: March 1909

In March 1909, Cadbury, Fry and Rowntree announced a boycott, joined by other manufacturers. They shifted much of their purchasing to the Gold Coast, now Ghana. The boycott did not immediately dismantle the plantation system, and buyers in other countries continued trading, but it destroyed the credibility of the claim that São Tomé cocoa was produced by ordinary free labour.[sellymanormuseum.org.uk]sellymanormuseum.org.ukcadbury brothers and the issue of contract labourcadbury brothers and the issue of contract labour

The lasting lesson is that documentary legality can itself become an instrument of deception. A contract is weak evidence of freedom when one party controls recruitment, transport, policing and the possibility of going home.

Sao Tome and Principe illustration 1

The conspiracy invented at Batepá

The most consequential false story in São Tomé and Príncipe’s history emerged in February 1953. Colonial governor Carlos Gorgulho claimed that communists and other agitators were preparing a revolt among the island’s locally born African population, commonly known as Forros. No organised communist conspiracy was ever established.

The accusation arose amid a genuine conflict over labour. Plantation owners faced shortages, while Forros strongly resisted estate work because they associated it with slavery and coercion. Gorgulho’s administration also required labour for public works and had pursued policies that placed economic pressure on local communities. Rumours spread that the government intended to compel Forros to sign plantation contracts or to take their land for incoming workers from Cape Verde.[Wikipedia]WikipediaBatepá massacreBatepá massacre

Some of these fears may have been distorted as they circulated, but they were not irrational fantasies. Residents knew the history of coerced plantation labour and had observed the administration’s aggressive practices. The government nevertheless treated the circulation of rumours as evidence that hostile political organisers were manipulating the population.

After protests began, Gorgulho warned Portuguese settlers that a communist uprising threatened them and encouraged armed mobilisation. Police, settlers and plantation workers then participated in mass arrests and killings. Prisoners were beaten, tortured, subjected to forced labour or confined in lethal conditions. Although precise totals remain disputed, historians and commemorative institutions agree that hundreds of São Toméans were killed.[Museu do Aljube]museudoaljube.ptMuseu do Aljube Batepa MassacreMuseu do Aljube Batepa Massacre

What exposed the official story

The conspiracy claim failed even within the institutions of the Portuguese dictatorship. Investigators from the political police arrived to search for the alleged organisation and found no evidence of a planned communist rebellion. Gorgulho was recalled to Lisbon, although he escaped meaningful punishment and was treated honourably by parts of the regime. Several local men, by contrast, were convicted in connection with the deaths of two policemen.[Wikipedia]WikipediaBatepá massacreBatepá massacre

The falsehood had already served its purpose. It converted an argument about forced labour into an emergency of public security. Once residents were labelled conspirators, violence could be portrayed as pre-emptive defence rather than repression.

Batepá is now commemorated annually on 3 February as the Day of the Martyrs of Freedom. The event helped shape São Toméan nationalism because it exposed the gap between Portugal’s official image of a harmonious, multiracial empire and the coercion sustaining colonial rule. Historical research describes the massacre as a major rupture in that carefully promoted imperial image.[ResearchGate]researchgate.netOpen source on researchgate.net.Published: February 1953

This is the country’s clearest example of a deadly political fabrication. The deception was not simply that officials misunderstood a protest. They promoted a specific, unsupported conspiracy narrative that licensed collective punishment.

When an oil prospect became a promised fortune

After independence, the most persistent story of questionable certainty concerned offshore petroleum. From the late 1990s onwards, exploration agreements and seismic surveys encouraged predictions that São Tomé and Príncipe might become a wealthy oil state. The islands’ position near proven Gulf of Guinea reserves made the prospect plausible, but possibility was repeatedly discussed as though commercial production were close.

The distinction matters. Evidence that geological structures may contain hydrocarbons is not evidence of recoverable reserves, and recoverable reserves do not automatically make extraction profitable. Exploration wells, infrastructure costs, market prices and contractual terms can all overturn optimistic projections.

The expectation of sudden wealth influenced domestic politics before any oil was produced. Human Rights Watch found that the prospect of petroleum was accompanied by corruption allegations, disputed contracts and intense competition over political control. It also noted that expectations of oil revenue may have contributed to the incentives behind the unsuccessful 2003 coup.[Human Rights Watch]hrw.orgHuman Rights Watch Oil Contracts and Stalled Reform in São Tomé e PríncipeHuman Rights Watch Oil Contracts and Stalled Reform in São Tomé e Príncipe

São Tomé and Príncipe even adopted an Oil Revenue Law in 2004 whose preamble anticipated that the country would soon receive income from exploiting its resources. The law was an important attempt to establish transparent management, but its confident wording captured the prevailing assumption that production was approaching.[Natural Resource Governance Institute]resourcegovernance.orgOpen source on resourcegovernance.org.

In reality, most petroleum income during the following decade came from exploration-related payments and licensing rather than the sale of produced oil. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative reported in 2014 that much of the revenue received since 2003 consisted of payments from companies searching in the Joint Development Zone shared with Nigeria. Exploration continued, but the transforming windfall repeatedly receded into the future.[EITI]eiti.orgsao tome and principe 11 year quest oil under scrutinysao tome and principe 11 year quest oil under scrutiny

Calling the oil story a hoax would be too strong. Geological interest was real, companies made genuine investments and governments had legitimate reasons to prepare for possible revenue. The misleading element was the collapse of uncertainty: political rhetoric, commercial promotion and popular expectation frequently turned “oil may exist” into “oil wealth is coming”.

That difference helps explain why the story remains persuasive. For a small economy, even one successful field could be transformative. Each new licensing round can therefore revive the original dream, despite the long history of delays and inconclusive exploration.

Sao Tome and Principe illustration 2

Scams that borrow the country’s identity

In the internet and mobile-phone era, São Tomé and Príncipe sometimes appears in international fraud warnings because its telephone country code is. One-ring, or “Wangiri”, fraud involves briefly calling a number and relying on curiosity to make the recipient ring back. The return call may connect to an unusually expensive or revenue-sharing service.

Security advisories have included among prefixes seen in suspicious missed-call campaigns. Yet the number displayed on a phone does not prove that a caller is physically in São Tomé and Príncipe. Caller identification can be spoofed, numbers can be routed internationally and fraud networks may choose small or unfamiliar country codes precisely because recipients are less likely to recognise them.[us.quickheal.com]quickheal.comus.quickheal.com European countries the primary source of premium-rateus.quickheal.com European countries the primary source of premium-rate

The country is therefore often a borrowed label rather than the true location of the criminals. Treating every suspicious call as evidence of a São Toméan fraud operation repeats the scammer’s own misdirection. The reliable conclusion is narrower: an unexpected international missed call should not be returned until the number and caller have been independently verified.

This distinction is especially important in country-level histories of fraud. Telephone prefixes, web domains and flags can be used as costumes. They identify the appearance presented to the victim, not necessarily the people or place behind the scheme.

Sao Tome and Principe illustration 3

Folklore is not automatically fraud

São Tomé and Príncipe also has stories about spirits, haunted plantation ruins and extraordinary beings. Around the ruins of Praia Melão, for example, residents have recounted beliefs that the spirits of enslaved people remain at the former sugar estate. Young people have reportedly exploited this atmosphere by dressing in white or black to frighten visitors collecting fruit at night.[The Guardian]theguardian.comThe Guardian White gold, Black bodies: how a tiny African nation shapedThe Guardian White gold, Black bodies: how a tiny African nation shaped

The prank is a minor deception, but the underlying belief should not be treated as a “hoax” without evidence of an organised attempt to defraud. Haunted-place traditions often express memories of violence, unsafe landscapes or unresolved histories. At Praia Melão, archaeological work has confirmed the site’s deep connection to the early plantation economy and enslaved labour, even though archaeology cannot verify supernatural claims.[Sapiens]sapiens.orgsao tome archaeology plantation slaverysao tome archaeology plantation slavery

This case illustrates a useful boundary. A person wearing a sheet to frighten neighbours is staging a trick. A community story about restless spirits is folklore. A tourist operator inventing documented “facts” about apparitions for profit would be commercial fabrication. Similar stories can move between these categories, but they should not be collapsed into one.

What these stories reveal

The strongest São Toméan cases are not eccentric curiosities. They concern systems in which an attractive description concealed a harsher reality.

In the cocoa controversy, the key word was “contract”: paperwork made coercion appear voluntary. At Batepá, “communist conspiracy” turned labour resistance and public fear into an imaginary insurrection. In the oil era, “discovery” and “reserves” were often used too loosely, converting geological potential into expectations of guaranteed wealth. Modern phone scams add a different lesson: even a country code can be a disguise.

The recurring warning is to ask what evidence lies behind the label. Who verified that a worker was free to leave? What organisation, weapons or plans proved that a rebellion existed? Had oil actually been found in commercially recoverable quantities? Did the telephone number reveal the caller’s true location?

São Tomé and Príncipe’s history shows that deception need not begin with an entirely invented event. It can begin with something real—a contract, a protest, a geological prospect or a telephone number—and become powerful when the surrounding uncertainties are hidden.

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Endnotes

1. Source: jstor.org
Link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/43302765

Source snippet

Portuguese Peasants, British Laborers, African Contract...by C Higgs · 2014 · Cited by 12 — Early in 1901, a rumor reached Cadbury...

2. Source: jstor.org
Title: Ethical Consumption
Link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/23274535

Source snippet

Ethical Consumption - Slave Cocoa and Red Rubberby JE ROBINS · 2012 · Cited by 16 — Thome cocoa and thus indirectly supporting a lab...

3. Source: jstor.org
Link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/20870526

Source snippet

CONRAD'S SAN TOMÉby JL WINTER · 1979 · Cited by 1 — The San Tome scandal, concerning the system of contract labour used on the islan...

4. Source: Wikipedia
Title: Batepá massacre
Link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batep%C3%A1_massacre

5. Source: researchgate.net
Link:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351091344_The_February_1953_Massacre_in_Sao_Tome_Crack_in_the_Salazarist_Image_of_Multiracial_Harmony_and_Impetus_for_Nationalist_Demands_for_Independence
Published: February 1953

6. Source: eiti.org
Title: sao tome and principe 11 year quest oil under scrutiny
Link:https://eiti.org/news/sao-tome-and-principe-11-year-quest-oil-under-scrutiny

7. Source: quickheal.com
Title: us.quickheal.com European countries the primary source of premium-rate
Link:https://www.quickheal.com/blogs/european-countries-the-primary-source-of-premium-rate-numbers-hoax-calls/

8. Source: sapiens.org
Title: sao tome archaeology plantation slavery
Link:https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/sao-tome-archaeology-plantation-slavery/

9. Source: Wikipedia
Title: List of conspiracy theories
Link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories

10. Source: jstor.org
Link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/26290953

11. Source: jstor.org
Link:https://www.jstor.org/content/pdf/oa_book_monograph/10.2307/jj.28833774.pdf

12. Source: jstor.org
Link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1867647.pdf

13. Source: jstor.org
Link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2699384.pdf

14. Source: researchgate.net
Link:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360361283_Broadcasting_and_the_Portuguese_Empire_The_case_of_Sao_Tome_and_Principe

15. Source: researchgate.net
Link:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314035924_The_Cadbury_and_the_Portuguese_Cocoa_first_decade_20th_century_Economic_interests_slave_trade_and_Quaker_business_ethics

16. Source: wa-cadbury.org.uk
Link:https://wa-cadbury.org.uk/the-campaign-against-island-slavery-1901-1908-adapted-from-the-account-by-john-f-crosfield/

Source snippet

William Cadbury first heard disturbing rumours about the use of forced labour on the cocoa plantations in the Portuguese islands of São T...

17. Source: brethrenhistory.org
Title: Brethren History BRETHREN AND THE SAO TOMÉ COCOA SLAVERY
Link:https://www.brethrenhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/GrassSaoTome.pdf

Source snippet

Brethren HistoryBRETHREN AND THE SAO TOMÉ COCOA SLAVERY...April 5, 2009 — by T Grass · Cited by 4 — This article focuses on his involvem...

Published: April 5, 2009

18. Source: barrowcadbury.org.uk
Link:https://barrowcadbury.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Background-paper-on-the-origins-of-the-BCT-endowment-and-the-Sao-Tome-and-Principe-slave-trade-final-1.pdf

Source snippet

Barrow Cadbury TrustBackground paper of the origins of the endowment...In March 1909, the British manufacturers did agree to Cadburys' p...

Published: March 1909

19. Source: sellymanormuseum.org.uk
Title: cadbury brothers and the issue of contract labour
Link:https://sellymanormuseum.org.uk/news/2020-10-31/cadbury-brothers-and-the-issue-of-contract-labour

20. Source: museudoaljube.pt
Title: Museu do Aljube [Batepa]({{ ‘batepa/’ | relative_url }}) Massacre
Link:https://www.museudoaljube.pt/en/2023/02/03/batepa-massacre/

21. Source: hrw.org
Title: Human Rights Watch Oil Contracts and Stalled Reform in São Tomé e Príncipe
Link:https://www.hrw.org/report/2010/08/24/uncertain-future/oil-contracts-and-stalled-reform-sao-tome-e-principe

22. Source: resourcegovernance.org
Link:https://resourcegovernance.org/sites/default/files/STP%20Oil%20Revenue%20Law.pdf

23. Source: theguardian.com
Title: The Guardian White gold, Black bodies: how a tiny African nation shaped
Link:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/15/sao-tome-principe-excavation-slavery