Álvaro Caminha founded the colony of São Tomé in 1493. The Portuguese came to São Tomé in search of land to grow sugarcane. The island was uninhabited before the arrival of the Portuguese sometime around 1470. São Tomé, situated about  north of the equator, had a climate wet enough to grow sugarcane in wild abundance. 2,000 Jewish children, eight years old and under, were taken from the Iberian peninsula for work on the sugar plantations. The nearby African Kingdom of Kongo eventually became a source of slave labor as well.  The island of São Tomé was the main center of sugar production in the sixteenth century; it was overtaken by Brazil by 1600.