The Chocolate Makers and the "Abyss of Hell"

Author:

David Evans

Report:

41

Page:

35

Year:

2014

Subject Matter:

Diplomatic and General History

Excerpt:

Michael Sousa Tavares' best-selling novel Equador and the television series which followed, recently rekindled interest in the bitter controversy which raged at the turn of the twentieth century over the use of "slave labour" in the cocoa plantations of São Tomé and Principe. The scandal, which had been smouldering since the eighteen-eighties, brought together an unlikely alliance of British and Portuguese humanitarians, protestan missionaries, Angolan freemasons and Quaker chocolate manufacturers  against a powerful lobby of wealthy São Tomé planters who enjoyed the support of the Portuguese authorities during both the Monarchy and the early year of the Republic.

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