Roça de São Tomé e Príncipe. Génese, processo e lógicas espaciais

Abstract

The present investigation aims to contribute for the understanding of the process that circumscribes the Portuguese colonization, predominantly in African territory, focusing on the consequences and phenomena resultant from strategies of appropriation of vast extensions of land, of private enterprise, employing agricultural-industrial settlements as a nuclear element of landscape transformation, through territory structuration and modulation, and enhancement of cultural formation of communities. The case study, the São Tomé and Príncipe roças during the cocoa boom, comprising a temporal spectrum that spreads from the late nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth century, consists of hierarchical networks of agricultural clusters, from small to large caliber, in which each element is thought and designed in a detailed and precise way to perform a specific function, within a complex and extensive matrix, in order not only to maximize their own efficiency, but above all the proficiency of the roça where it belongs and operates. Through the architectural survey and subsequent analysis of a specific sample composed by three roças - Água Izé, Boa Entrada and Rio do Ouro - expressed in a total of 28 elements, supported by a general sample comprising 126 additional elements that populate the universe related to the roças of São Tomé and Príncipe, this theses seeks to build a definition of roça, particular to the academic framework of architecture and urbanism and specific to the cocoa explorations of São Tomé and Príncipe, and strives to identify the methods, models and approaches, cutting edge solutions, both in terms of production procedures and settlements materialization, which made possible the intense transformation process of these two tiny equatorial islands, from a territory characterized by a weak ecological balance to its metamorphosis in one of the largest cocoa producers in the world, in conformity with the Portuguese colonial purpose. Taking in consideration the recognized volatility of the political, economic and social context present during the cocoa activity in the colony of São Tomé and Príncipe in the period correspondent to the Portuguese colonial presence and its influence in the development of the agricultural settlements that supported this activity, the investigation attempts, through the analysis at different scales, infer the significance of the different factors involved in the process of transformation of the roças, resorting to an analysis matrix that focus not only in its functional, but also on its symbolic dimension. Keywords: