Wealth, Land, and Property in Angola
A History of Dispossession, Slavery, and Inequality

Explores the history of land dispossession, slavery, colonialism, and inequality in Angola, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century.

Mariana P. Candido (Author)

9781009055987, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 September 2022

288 pages
22.8 x 15.1 x 1.8 cm, 0.5 kg

'In well-documented Angola, centuries of land records challenge today's beliefs that African land was too plentiful for ownership, so that only people had value. Candido shows that, by 1900, colonial ideology renounced centuries of land transactions. Historians must face the findings and implications of this important study.' Patrick Manning, University of Pittsburgh

Exploring the multifaceted history of dispossession, consumption, and inequality in West Central Africa, Mariana P. Candido presents a bold revisionist history of Angola from the sixteenth century until the Berlin Conference of 1884–5. Synthesising disparate strands of scholarship, including the histories of slavery, land tenure, and gender in West Central Africa, Candido makes a significant contribution to ongoing historical debates. She demonstrates how ideas about dominion and land rights eventually came to inform the appropriation and enslavement of free people and their labour. By centring the experiences of West Central Africans, and especially African women, this book challenges dominant historical narratives, and shows that securing property was a gendered process. Drawing attention to how archives obscure African forms of knowledge and normalize conquest, Candido interrogates simplistic interpretations of ownership and pushes for the decolonization of African history.

List of maps and plans
List of illustrations
List of tables and graph
Acknowledgments
A note on currency
Introduction: a history of ownership, dispossession, and inequality
1. Who owned what? Early debate over land rights and dispossession
2. Property rights in the nineteenth century
3. Written records and gendered strategies to secure property
4. Commodification of human beings
5. Branded in freedom: the persistent commodification of people
6. The erasure of communal rights
7. Global consumers: West Central Africans and the accumulation of things
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Slavery & abolition of slavery [HBTS], African history [HBJH]