In Gorgulho's assessment the economic modernization policies of the Portuguese Estado Novo regime required breaking São Tomé's dependence on contract laborers from overseas.

[4] To accomplish this Gorgulho implemented policies to make it easier for serviçais to return home while at the same time improving conditions on the roças, which he hoped would attract local labor.

The colonial administration used police raids to kidnap people for forced labor gangs to carry out much of this work.

[6] Faced with widespread labor shortages, in 1952 the colonial administration proposed settling fifteen thousand people from Cape Verde on São Tomé; then in January 1953 rumors spread that the government would seize the land of the forros to give to newly arrived Cape Verdians and compel the forros to work as contract labor.

[11] On March 4 members of the Portuguese International and State Defense Police arrived to conduct an investigation into the alleged communist conspiracy.

They quickly concluded there was no such conspiracy and, in April, Sarmento Rodrigues, the Minister of Overseas Territories, ordered Gorgulho to return to Lisbon.

[12] The Batepá massacre marked the rise of the independence movement in Portuguese São Tomé and Príncipe, and is commemorated annually as a national holiday (Dia de Mártires da Liberdade) on February 3.