Paper short abstract

This paper aims to show that the ownership of land created economic opportunities for women in Luanda, allowing them to enter the trade community and consequently the local elite.

Paper long abstract

African and Eurafrican women owned slaves, ships, rental and commercial houses, stores and plantations in 19th century Angola. Not a few of the most prominent female residents of Luanda, the capital of the Portuguese colony of Angola, owned plantations in the hinterland, particularly in Bengo region, where the water and foodstuff which supplied the city's multiethnic population and the slave ships come from. Registers of crops entering the local public market confirm that women represented an important parcel of food suppliers in the port city. Therefore, this paper aims to show that the ownership of land created economic opportunities for women in Luanda, allowing them to enter the trade community and consequently the local elite.