Higgs, Catherine (Author)
Ohio University Press
Publication date: 2012
Language: English
Physical Details: xv + 230 pp.; ill.; maps; bibl.; index
In Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa, Catherine Higgs traces the early-twentieth-century journey of the Englishman Joseph Burtt to the Portuguese colony of São Tomé and Príncipe---the chocolate islands---through Angola and Mozambique, and finally to British Southern Africa. Burtt had been hired by the chocolate firm Cadbury Brothers Limited to determine if the cocoa it was buying from the islands had been harvested by slave laborers forcibly recruited from Angola, an allegation that became one of the grand scandals of the early colonial era. Burtt spent six months on São Tomé and Príncipe and a year in Angola. His five-month march across Angola in 1906 took him from innocence and credulity to outrage and activism and ultimately helped change labor recruiting practices in colonial Africa. This beautifully written and engaging travel narrative draws on collections in Portugal, the United Kingdom, and Africa to explore British and Portuguese attitudes toward work, slavery, race, and imperialism. In a story still familiar a century after Burtt's sojourn, Chocolate Islands reveals the idealism, naivety, and racism that shaped attitudes toward Africa, even among those who sought to improve the conditions of its workers.
...MoreDescription “Traces the early-20th-century journey of Joseph Burtt to the Portuguese colony of São Tomé and Príncipe---the chocolate islands---through Angola and Mozambique, and finally to British Southern Africa.” (from the publisher)
Review Kevin Grant (2015) Review of "Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa". American Historical Review (pp. 1580-1581).
Review Cleveland, Todd (2014) Review of "Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa". Agricultural History (pp. 608-610).
Similar Citations
Book
Campbell, Gwyn;
Stanziani, Alessando;
(2013)
Bonded Labour and Debt in the Indian Ocean World
Book
Newman, Simon P;
(2013)
A New World of Labor: The Development of Plantation Slavery in the British Atlantic
Article
Marta Macedo;
(2024)
Cocoa at Work: Materials and Labor in the Making of Global Chocolate
Book
Sluyter, Andrew;
(2012)
Black Ranching Frontiers: African Cattle Herders of the Atlantic World, 1500--1900
Book
Law, Robin;
Suzanne, Schwarz;
Silke, Strickrodt;
(2013)
Commercial Agriculture, the Slave Trade and Slavery in Atlantic Africa
Book
Hughes, David McDermott;
(2006)
From Enslavement to Environmentalism: Politics on a South African Frontier
Book
Filipa Lowndes Vicente;
Afonso Dias Ramos;
(2023)
Photography in Portuguese Colonial Africa, 1860–1975
Article
Bastos, Cristiana;
(2007)
Medical Hybridisms and Social Boundaries: Aspects of Portuguese Colonialism in Africa and India in the Nineteenth Century
Article
Gareth Austin;
(2014)
Vent for surplus or productivity breakthrough? The Ghanaian cocoa take-off, c. 1890–1936
Article
William Eamon;
(2018)
Corn, Cochineal, and Quina: The “Zilsel Thesis” in a Colonial Iberian Setting
Article
Chambouleyron, Rafael;
Barbosa, Benedito Costa;
Bombardi, Fernanda Aires;
Sousa, Claudia Rocha de;
(2011)
“Formidável contágio”: epidemias, trabalho e recrutamento na Amazônia colonial (1660--1750)
Article
Benjamin Breen;
(2022)
Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire: Pyric Technologies and African Pipes in the Early Modern World
Book
Swindell, Ken;
Jeng, Alieu;
(2006)
Migrants, Credit and Climate: The Gambian Groundnut Trade, 1834--1934
Book
Sharma, Jayeeta;
(2011)
Empire's Garden: Assam and the Making of India
Book
Carey, Daniel;
(2012)
Richard Hakluyt and Travel Writing in Early Modern Europe
Article
Viana, Larissa;
(2011)
Os trópicos na rota do Império britânico: a visão de Mungo Park sobre a África em fins do século XVIII
Article
Sunseri, Thaddeus;
(2007)
“Every African a Nationalist”: Scientific Forestry and Forest Nationalism in Colonial Tanzania
Article
Melo, Victor Andrade de;
(2012)
Atividades físicas, saúde e movimentos juvenis em Cabo Verde, 1910--1930
Article
Hugo Silveira Pereira;
(2023)
The Camera and the Railway: Framing the Portuguese Empire and Technological Landscapes in Angola and Mozambique, 1880s–1910s
Book
Neill, Deborah Joy;
(2012)
Networks in Tropical Medicine: Internationalism, Colonialism, and the Rise of a Medical Specialty, 1890--1930
Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
Comparative Studies in Society and History
Economic History Review
Journal of Southern African Studies
Osiris: A Research Journal Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Be the first to comment!