Wealth, Land, and Property in Angola: A History of Dispossession, Slavery, and Inequality by Mariana P. Candido

IF 0.3 4区 历史学 Q2 HISTORY Journal of Interdisciplinary History Pub Date : 2023-01-01 DOI:10.1162/jinh_r_01995
Mariana L. R. Dantas
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Candido’s analysis of the integral role of nineteenth-century Western liberalism in the continued enslavement, displacement, and impoverishment of African peoples—through its legal, judicial, and archival promotion of individual property rights—also makes this a crucial work of global economic and political history.The book traces the history of West Central African land regimes from the 1600s to the early twentieth century to demonstrate the complex and diverse ways indigenous societies and peoples claimed and occupied land. Candido discusses claims made by West Central African rulers and individuals, notably women, during disputes between African actors, and with Portuguese settlers and interlopers. This examination underscores the relevance of land to local economic, social, and political interests while successfully dismantling the historical and historiographical trope of “wealth in people,” which has supported erroneous views that Africans emphasized control over slaves and dependents over ownership of land. The author demonstrates how a growing reliance on Portuguese written records and courts to prove land rights, and a Portuguese colonial narrative that dismissed or ignored indigenous African systems of resolution of land disputes, cemented the myth that Europeans introduced the notion of private property to a backward Africa. 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Abstract

Candido offers a critical revision of the history of African societies’ relationship to land use and rights. In the process, she delivers an insightful and fascinating narrative about the contested process of wealth accumulation underpinning the colonial dynamics of dispossession. Candido demonstrates her impressive command of the historiographies of pre-colonial and colonial Africa and the Portuguese Atlantic, as well as her deep familiarity and skillful treatment of Angolan archival sources. The richness of the book, and Candido’s generous and detailed sharing of her archival findings, make this an essential read for scholars of Africa and the Portuguese Atlantic. Candido’s analysis of the integral role of nineteenth-century Western liberalism in the continued enslavement, displacement, and impoverishment of African peoples—through its legal, judicial, and archival promotion of individual property rights—also makes this a crucial work of global economic and political history.The book traces the history of West Central African land regimes from the 1600s to the early twentieth century to demonstrate the complex and diverse ways indigenous societies and peoples claimed and occupied land. Candido discusses claims made by West Central African rulers and individuals, notably women, during disputes between African actors, and with Portuguese settlers and interlopers. This examination underscores the relevance of land to local economic, social, and political interests while successfully dismantling the historical and historiographical trope of “wealth in people,” which has supported erroneous views that Africans emphasized control over slaves and dependents over ownership of land. The author demonstrates how a growing reliance on Portuguese written records and courts to prove land rights, and a Portuguese colonial narrative that dismissed or ignored indigenous African systems of resolution of land disputes, cemented the myth that Europeans introduced the notion of private property to a backward Africa. Practice, rhetoric, and archival biases thus came together to promote greater Portuguese state and settler encroachment in Angola, leading to patterns of land dispossession among its indigenous population.Candido’s focus on land does not distract her from the question of slavery, and she explores the connection between land and territorial dispossession and the rising vulnerability of dispossessed people, which ensured the longevity of slavery in nineteenth-century Angola despite rising Atlantic pressures to abolish it. She highlights West Central Africans’ deployment of written records and court appeals as strategies to protect their interests, socio-economic position, and freedom from slavery, revealing the wholesale impact of European colonialism on African privation and broader racial inequality during the period. The imperial state’s efforts to record people, land, and goods—and to control their integration into an economic system structured around Portuguese interests—shaped laws and their enforcement in ways that limited West Central African self-determination. Indigenous elites, African women, and other economic actors persistently challenged these practices. But in doing so through land transactions, control over people, and consumption of foreign goods traded through an Atlantic system that preyed on African resources, these actors inadvertently shaped a process of wealth accumulation that perpetuated exploitation and inequality.An important insight in this book is that nineteenth-century Portuguese liberal reforms regarding land rights took shape in Angola before they did in Portugal. The championing of private property and individual rights, when viewed from that perspective, was thus not a product of European enlightenment, but a by-product of empire and the commodification of non-European land, people, and resources. Candido’s dexterity in outlining that historical reality puts her work on par with recent critical studies of liberalism and capitalism, such as Lowe’s The Intimacies of Four Continents, which similarly challenge comfy narratives of nineteenth-century Western-led modernity and progress.1
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《安哥拉的财富、土地和财产:剥夺、奴役和不平等的历史》作者:Mariana P. Candido
坎迪多对非洲社会与土地使用和权利关系的历史进行了批判性的修订。在这个过程中,她提供了一个富有洞察力和引人入胜的叙述,讲述了财富积累的竞争过程,这一过程支撑着剥夺的殖民动态。坎迪多在前殖民时期和殖民时期的非洲以及葡萄牙大西洋的历史编纂方面表现出了令人印象深刻的掌握,她对安哥拉档案资料的深入了解和熟练处理也让人印象深刻。这本书内容丰富,坎迪多慷慨而详细地分享了她的档案发现,使这本书成为研究非洲和葡萄牙大西洋的学者的必读书目。坎迪多分析了19世纪西方自由主义在非洲人民持续的奴役、流离失所和贫困中所扮演的不可或缺的角色——通过其对个人财产权的法律、司法和档案的促进——也使这本书成为全球经济和政治历史的重要著作。这本书追溯了从17世纪到20世纪初西非土地制度的历史,展示了土著社会和人民声称和占领土地的复杂多样的方式。坎迪多讨论了西非统治者和个人,特别是妇女,在非洲行动者之间以及与葡萄牙定居者和闯入者之间的争端中提出的主张。这一研究强调了土地与当地经济、社会和政治利益的相关性,同时成功地推翻了“人民的财富”的历史和史学修辞,这种修辞支持了错误的观点,即非洲人强调对奴隶和依赖者的控制,而不是土地所有权。作者展示了越来越依赖葡萄牙文字记录和法院来证明土地权,以及葡萄牙殖民时期对非洲土著解决土地纠纷制度的蔑视或忽视,巩固了欧洲人将私有财产概念引入落后非洲的神话。因此,实践、修辞和档案偏见共同推动了葡萄牙国家和殖民者对安哥拉的更大侵犯,导致了土著居民被剥夺土地的模式。坎迪多对土地的关注并没有分散她对奴隶制问题的关注,她探索了土地和领土剥夺之间的联系,以及被剥夺者日益增长的脆弱性,这确保了奴隶制在19世纪安哥拉的长期存在,尽管大西洋上要求废除奴隶制的压力越来越大。她强调了西非人利用书面记录和法庭上诉作为保护他们的利益、社会经济地位和免于奴役的策略,揭示了欧洲殖民主义对非洲贫困和更广泛的种族不平等的全面影响。帝国对人民、土地和货物的记录,以及控制他们融入以葡萄牙利益为中心的经济体系的努力,塑造了法律和法律的执行,限制了西非的自决。土著精英、非洲妇女和其他经济参与者一直在挑战这些做法。但是,通过土地交易、对人民的控制,以及通过掠夺非洲资源的大西洋体系交易的外国商品的消费,这些行为者无意中形成了一个财富积累的过程,使剥削和不平等永久化。本书的一个重要观点是,19世纪葡萄牙关于土地权利的自由主义改革在安哥拉成形,比在葡萄牙成形要早。因此,从这个角度来看,对私有财产和个人权利的拥护并不是欧洲启蒙运动的产物,而是帝国和非欧洲土地、人口和资源商品化的副产品。坎迪多在概述历史现实方面的灵巧使她的作品与最近对自由主义和资本主义的批判性研究不相上下,比如洛的《四大洲的亲密关系》,同样挑战了19世纪西方主导的现代性和进步的舒适叙述
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.60
自引率
20.00%
发文量
68
期刊介绍: The Journal of Interdisciplinary History features substantive articles, research notes, review essays, and book reviews relating historical research and work in applied fields-such as economics and demographics. Spanning all geographical areas and periods of history, topics include: - social history - demographic history - psychohistory - political history - family history - economic history - cultural history - technological history
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