Paper short abstract:

The present communication seeks to analyze the legal framework of access to land on the Island of Mozambique and the near hinterland, highlighting the role played by women as one of the main social and economic actors of insular life, as land owners and agricultural producers.

Paper long abstract:

In 1752 the territories of Mozambique and Rios de Sena stretched through the vast region of the Zambezi Valley and through a narrow strip of litoral land. Since the mid-1500s the Island of Mozambique had been the political capital of those territories.

The land acquired by the Portuguese Monarchy in the Zambezi were considered land of the Portuguese Crown conceded to loyal subjects under a hybrid framework that combined legal aspects of emphyteusis with the granting of Crown-owned land. Not being mandatory, the grant and succession of these lands to women had become a common practice, mainly as a way to attract male settlers of European ascendancy or origin. Uncommonly in the Portuguese Empire, the female land owners of the Zambezi acquired a position of great social and economic influence.

But if the regimen of the land grants in Rios de Sena has been largely studied, the question of ownership and property on the Island of Mozambique remains mostly unknown.

This communication aims to approach this unknown subject. It therefore intends to analyze the legal framework of the leasing of lands located on the Island of Mozambique and its outskirts, by trying to understand the similarities and dissimilarities with the prazos of Rios de Sena, as well as the role played by women. Had the women of the insular elite gained an influence close to that of the female land owners of the Zambezi? And what was their importance in the context of land owners of the Island?