The forced exile of Mozambican and Angolan labourers to cocoa plantations on the islands of São Tomé in the early 1900s sparked an international scandal and has subsequently generated considerable historical interest. Its later incarnation during the late 1940s and early 1950s, however, has attracted little scholarly attention. Focusing on central Mozambique, this article explores the forced labour exile of 'undesirables' and convicts as a product of colonial social and economic relations beyond the paradigm of resistance and repression. In particular, it considers the use of exile as a means of enforcing and reinforcing administrative power and prestige, rather than as a defence against perceived threats to the political and social prerogatives of the colonial state. It also cites the importance of labour demands in Sao Tome, rather than the exigencies ofcolonial control within Mozambique, in spurring the expansion in the number of coerced labourers. Finally, it discusses the widespread exile of economic migrants - both international and internal - into forced labour on Sao Tome, arguing that this demonstrates the Portuguese colonial regime's deep concern with its inability to control migrant labour flows, as well as the vulnerability of those migrants who contravened the colonial pass laws that sought to restrict their mobility. © 2011 The Editorial Board of the Journal of Southern African Studies.

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Theobroma cacao labor migration international migration Mozambique labor market historical perspective labor supply