Colonialism and Customary Land Tenure in Africa: Portuguese Representations and Policies During the 19th and 20th Centuries

ABSTRACT

Colonial representations concerning ‘indigenous uses and customs’ have been the target of postcolonial critique. However, in the Portuguese case, the impacts of the colonial encounter with African customary land tenure has still to be analysed and correspondingly inquiring into the historical relationship between colonialism and the commons. This article focuses on the debates surrounding the ‘indigenous’ common property regime among the political and academic elites and its historical evolution. This, therefore, frames land policies and their legitimising discourse in their production contexts, revealing how customary laws were misrepresented both to deny local populations access to property and as an instrument of social control. Furthermore, this illustrates how the colonial academic and political elites portrayed community management and the transhumance of African agriculture and relate the discourse on the ‘indigenous’ customary law with the evolution of land policies; from the legal initiatives regulating the ‘appropriation of wasteland’ in the mid-nineteenth century through to decolonisation in 1974. This focus on the colonial legacies of land policies is particularly essential to environmental sustainability in Africa. Furthermore, this case study of Portuguese colonialism provides new insights into the production of imperial knowledge for defining and managing colonised populations by approaching the key issue of land tenure.

KEYWORDS:

• land policies
• land tenure
• common land
• customary law
• colonial knowledge
• Portuguese colonialism

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Bárbara Direito for her review and comments, and to the article’s reviewers. This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia under Grant CEECIND/00764/2017.

Disclosure statement

No conflict of interest was declared by the author.

Notes

1 As Cristina Nogueira da Silva (2015) argues, from this moment onwards, in addition to the sharing of African territories, respect for the legal institutions of indigenous peoples in overseas territories was advocated for on an international scale.

2 Law of 21 August 1856 (issued by the Ministry of the Navy, Government Gazette No. 202) regulating the alienation of wasteland in the Overseas Provinces, Royal Legislation, Book 1856.

3 Law of 9 May 1901 (Ministry of the Navy and Overseas Territories, Government Gazette No. 105, 11 May) regulating land concessions in the Overseas Provinces, Royal Legislation, Book 1901.

4 Decree 3983 of 27 March 1918, regulating the concession of State land in the Province of Mozambique, Government Gazette, Series I No. 62, 27 March, 1918.

5 Journal of the Chamber of Deputies, No. 31, 20 March 1899, from 58.

6 Decree 33727 of 22 June 1944, Government Gazette.

7 ‘Projecto de Organização Social e Económica das Populações Indígenas’ 1940.

8 Inhambanese Milandos Code (Lítigios e Pleitos), BOM No. 19 of 11 May 1889.

9 Law 277 of 15 August 1914, promulgating the organic and civil law of the overseas provinces, Diário do Governo, Series I, No. 143 of 15 August 1914.

10 Decree-Law No. 23.229, 15 November 1933, Diário da República, Series I, 15 November 1933.

11 Similar to other national liberation leaders, Amilcar Cabral belonged to the tiny group of local elites who studied in Lisbon. He studied at the Higher Institute for Agronomy.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joana Dias Pereira

Joana Dias Pereira is at the Institute for Contemporary History, Nova School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Lisbon, Portugal.