Women and Property in Nineteenth Century Luanda

Travelers and colonial officials commonly described African women as mere “beasts of burden” whose work was limited to agriculture, household chores and child rearing, and who were excluded from the ownership of property. Nevertheless, in Luanda, the capital of the Portuguese colony of Angola, females participated in commercial activities and were able to accumulate their own independent capital. Indeed, by the late eighteenth century and, especially, in the nineteenth century, women appear in registers of sale and purchase, wills and register of taxes as owners of agricultural properties, sailing vessels, enslaved persons, real estate and luxury goods that they used for their own benefit. This paper explores the means through which women accumulated property in nineteenth century Luanda. Despite the fact that africanist historiography has overemphasized the importance of ownership of people as the only source of wealth in African societies, recent studies have questioned this assumption by showing that Africans and Eurafricans individuals in West Central Africa accumulated a variety of other items. In Luanda, women acquired land and enslaved persons that allowed them to invest in the production of foodstuffs for household consumption and to supply caravans, urban markets and slave ships. These females made use of the benefits conferred upon them by Portuguese law codes to protect the property they accumulated throughout their lives, contradicting the image of submission too often attributed to African women in the past.