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Accepted Paper:

Women, family and wealth: engendering property in 19th century Benguela  
Mariana Cândido (Notre Dame University)

Paper short abstract:

This study explores mechanisms through which women had access to and accumulated property and wealth in Benguela during the nineteenth century. A variety of primary sources will be analyzed including land tenure records and parish records.

Paper long abstract:

In the past decades, new studies have explored on the role of gender in the shaping of colonial societies in the African continent, yet most of the scholarship focuses on the 20th century, and not much attention has been paid for previous centuries. Records from Benguela allow us to see the role of African women in an earlier period and reconstruct their families, access to labour, and explore new forms of production and control.

In this study, I will explore mechanisms through which women had access to and accumulated property and wealth in Benguela during the nineteenth century. The study explores lives of merchant women analyzing their family connections and commercial partnerships in order to understand capital accumulation and social mobility. Baptism, marriage, and burial records allow us to explore how women built their families and wealth, established social networks, created new kinship, and had access to properties. In the process they claimed new social and economic positions in the colonial setting, accumulating dependents and wealth. Parish records allow us to access bits of information on the lives of women who did not leave written records and did not call attention of Portuguese authorities.

Panel P15
Women, land and power in the European Empires
  Session 1 Friday 19 July, 2013, -