Publication Date
2009
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The Prazos da Coroa (leased crown properties) in Mozambique were associated with the Zambezi Valley, which in the modern age became known as Rios de Cuama and Rios de Sena. Leasing of Crown lands also occurred in other areas: the Quirimbas, Sofala, and the coastal area across from Mozambique Island. However, it was in Zambezi that the prazos acquired a central role. Taking possession of this region became relevant after the 1607 and 1629 treaties with the Monomotapa King, which recognized the Portuguese Crown as having rights over vast areas of land in exchange for military aid.
Since the end of the 19th century, the Prazos practice was viewed both as an Arab or African heritage and as an institution of the Portuguese Empire. These two theses having been set aside, land granting, as far as Portuguese law was concerned, had its basis on either sesmarias or emphyteusis. In the first regimen, which conferred perpetual and inalienable rights, abandoned land was alloted with the stipulation that it would be cultivated, usually with no requirements other than the dízimo tithe. In emphyteusis, on the other hand, the landlord retained dominium directum, ownership, granting dominium utile, usufructuary rights, according to the satisfaction of dominion rights, one of which was the foro (rent). This entailment was designated prazo or emprazamento, from the latin words, placitum, plazum, meaning contract, and was also known as aforamento (leasing), which is derived from the word foro. In uninhabited or sparsely populated areas of the Atlantic, sesmarias was adopted, while in the Orient the land was leased. The legal regimen of prazos in Rios has to be understood in the context of the State of India, which included Mozambique. There, land-allotment was already in effect, mainly in Sri Lanka and in the Northern Province, combining aspects of emphyteusis with the granting of Crown-owned land to compensate loyal subjects for services to the Crown. From a normative point of view, a hybrid regimen was developed, as the granting of Crown property, which was regulated by the Lei Mental, diverged from the legal plan of emphyteusis.
Norms for land-allotment in Mozambique were established by the government of Goa at the beginning of 1600, although the first grants go back to the 1580s. After the 1607 treaty with the Monomotapa King, the leases of Rios de Cuama would be regulated by the judicial order of 6 February, 1608, which was completed subsequently to the 1629 treaty by the order dated 14 December, 1633. The Lisbon government rarely intervened in the legislative process of this region, restricting its involvement to ordaining the distribution of land (1618) or its division (1646). Therefore, the legal regulation of the properties in Rios was gradually reformed by the Goa government in connection with successive royal directives for the Northern Province, which some royal officials chose to extend to all of India.
The grants of Rios de Cuama were not mere emphyteutic contracts, since Crown real estate was also granted as remuneration for services, which was called "mercês" (rewards). Dominium utile of the properties, on the other hand, implied a rent payment to the direct owner, the Crown. As of 1633, rent payments were made in gold. Additionally, it compelled the mercenaries to live in the area and to provide services to the inhabitants, especially military aid, as this was a condition inherent to being granted Crown property.
As far as duration, the leases were granted in perpetuity or in lifetimes. Perpetuity was in effect only in grants to religious institutions. As a rule, lease contracts were awarded for a period of three lifetimes, and the lessee benefited from the land during his life, naming a second lessee for life, who would name a third. The right of renewal was usually recognized, allowing the last holder to name a successor, who obtained another three lifetimes. The transmission of life periods like that of Crown property, was regulated through indivisibility, imposing the nomination of a sole successor, and through inalienability, requiring Crown authorization for assignment of the following life.
Emphyteusis allowed for several modes of succession which could fall exclusively to family members or benefit strangers. In Rios, free nomination was always in effect, so that prazos could be transmitted to any relative or to strangers. The continuity of households without descendants was thus assured, in an area where European mortality was high and control of the territory depended on the armies of the lessees. Between 1698 and 1751, however, one third of the prazos was granted to women with the stipulation that they marry Europeans or succeed their daughters. This norm went into effect in the Northern Province per Royal Decree dated 14 February, 1626, and was continued by the orders of 1672, 1682, and 1737. Its goal was to attract Portuguese from mainland Portugal to the defense of the North, and its extension to Rios arose from the interpretation of the Goa officials, so that free nomination persisted in the majority of contracts. Independently of that requirement, many women held prazos, due to high male mortality or as a family strategy to obtain alliances with men from the kingdom.
These allotments implied not only granting of the dominium utile of the land, as was the case in emphyteusis, but also jurisdiction over the African populations. The authority that prazo holders had over the Africans in their lands allowed them to demand services and to receive various rents, including payments from the courts. The Prazo owners, who at times controlled vast territories and thousands of people including slaves, built chieftaincies similar to the African ones.
The issuance of Lease Titles fell under the purview of multiple authorities, such as the Mozambique captains, governors, and supervisors of the treasury from Goa; however, at the beginning of 1700, it was transferred to the Lieutenent-General of Rios. Both the new grants and the life successions required obtaining royal confirmation through the viceroy. This requirement which was imposed for Crown property, functioned as a means of controlling the lessees.
This normative set functioned as an instrument of social structuring. The linking of the concession of lands to the remuneration for services placed at the top of the social pyramid an elite that had been recruited from the entire empire, especially Portugal and India. Its biological reproduction was assured by marriage with women from the Goa region. Concurrently, the construction of a model of administration of the territory was sought, which would grant this elite the government of the African inhabitants, along with responsibility for defending the borders.
In 1752, once the administration of Mozambique was transferred to the Overseas Council in Lisbon, the legal regulation of the Prazos would closely fit the model of land possession in Brazil, in accordance with the Overseas Council´s practice for the Atlantic territories. The discursive register above all tended to assimilate the prazos of Rios to the sesmarias of Brazil, and the vision constructed from then on would reflect on historiographic discussion.
The "sesmarization" of the prazos began in 1760 with the Notice of April 5th, which decreed that the Mozambique government was to follow the directives of the governors of Brazil regarding the date of sesmarias, and with the charter of April 3rd, which defined the norms for land-allotment to be applied to the vacant prazos, based on the legislation that had been prepared for Brazil. The area to be alloted was not to exceed three leagues in length by one in width, and was to be reduced to half a league in quadra in the cases of mineral lands and of lands located close to rivers or the coast. The lessees would have to cede land and public services to establish townships. The grants were moved to the jurisdiction of the Governor-General, to the detriment of the lieutenant-generals, requiring judgments from the municipal councils and the Administrator of the Treasury. Royal confirmation of the leases, which had to be obtained within a four-year period, was transferred to the Overseas Council. The implementation of this charter reducing the areas of land in the possession of each landlord implied great changes for Rios, but it remained on paper only. Although sesmarias was alluded to ever more frequently, the rent payment as well as the remaining emphyteutic clauses were maintained.
The changes that followed occurred in the 1790s, in a context of greater political centralization, and through the action of the Mozambique administration. The general government began to exercise tight control over the lessees by introducing norms that tended to establish a policy of one prazo per emphyteuta (lessee). Succession was restricted to descendants or ancestors, transforming the grants into family prazos. Based on the Royal Orders of 1753 and 1783, which prohibited new grants to residents who already were landholders, it was decided that lessees would not obtain another, more profitable prazo, unless they gave up the one they already had usufruct of. The same principle took hold in unions where both consorts held prazos and in the successions which reverted to land holders, both being compelled to chose only one prazo. These conditions threatened the right of succession, which had been recognized until then despite occasional confiscations, and had not been rescinded by these Royal Orders.
Lastly, it was established that the new mercês would benefit women and follow the criteria of race, age, beauty, alleging Crown orders for lands to be granted to white women so that they would marry Europeans. In fact, the order of 20 April, 1752, had ruled that the daughters of mainland Portuguese and of Goans would marry only Portuguese, or they would lose their land. The intent was to settle the soldiers that were to be sent to the captaincy at the time, and the Governor-General suggested that this norm be extended to daughters of natives as well. The measure was approved by the Crown and the succession rights of offspring from the unions between Portuguese men and African women were also guaranteed. Womanhood was not imposed as a requirement for access to and succession in the prazos, nor was this clause included in the titles. The Royal Order, however, served as a basis for the government to favor the merchants of Mozambique Island, who were a recent elite and were committed to becoming established in the territory through their daughters. The relationship between service and mercê was thus diluted in order to connect the granting of land to the settlement by Europeans, a requirement for security and agricultural development, though absenteeism was the practice of the new lessees. Therefore, the thesis that the prazos were intended to endow women for marriage to Europeans was validated.
Bibliography:
CAPELA, José, Donas, Senhores e Escravos, Porto, Afrontamento, 1995; ISAACMAN, Allen, Mozambique: the africanization of a European Institution. The Zambezi Prazos. 1750-1902, Madison, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1972; LOBATO, Alexandre, Colonização senhorial da Zambézia e outros estudos, Lisboa, J.I.U., 1962; NEWITT, M.D.D., Portuguese settlement on the Zambesi, London, Longman, 1973; RODRIGUES, Eugénia, Portugueses e Africanos nos Rios de Sena. Os prazos da Coroa nos séculos XVII e XVIII, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Dissertação de Doutoramento em História, 2002.
Translated by: Maria João Pimentel
Since the end of the 19th century, the Prazos practice was viewed both as an Arab or African heritage and as an institution of the Portuguese Empire. These two theses having been set aside, land granting, as far as Portuguese law was concerned, had its basis on either sesmarias or emphyteusis. In the first regimen, which conferred perpetual and inalienable rights, abandoned land was alloted with the stipulation that it would be cultivated, usually with no requirements other than the dízimo tithe. In emphyteusis, on the other hand, the landlord retained dominium directum, ownership, granting dominium utile, usufructuary rights, according to the satisfaction of dominion rights, one of which was the foro (rent). This entailment was designated prazo or emprazamento, from the latin words, placitum, plazum, meaning contract, and was also known as aforamento (leasing), which is derived from the word foro. In uninhabited or sparsely populated areas of the Atlantic, sesmarias was adopted, while in the Orient the land was leased. The legal regimen of prazos in Rios has to be understood in the context of the State of India, which included Mozambique. There, land-allotment was already in effect, mainly in Sri Lanka and in the Northern Province, combining aspects of emphyteusis with the granting of Crown-owned land to compensate loyal subjects for services to the Crown. From a normative point of view, a hybrid regimen was developed, as the granting of Crown property, which was regulated by the Lei Mental, diverged from the legal plan of emphyteusis.
Norms for land-allotment in Mozambique were established by the government of Goa at the beginning of 1600, although the first grants go back to the 1580s. After the 1607 treaty with the Monomotapa King, the leases of Rios de Cuama would be regulated by the judicial order of 6 February, 1608, which was completed subsequently to the 1629 treaty by the order dated 14 December, 1633. The Lisbon government rarely intervened in the legislative process of this region, restricting its involvement to ordaining the distribution of land (1618) or its division (1646). Therefore, the legal regulation of the properties in Rios was gradually reformed by the Goa government in connection with successive royal directives for the Northern Province, which some royal officials chose to extend to all of India.
The grants of Rios de Cuama were not mere emphyteutic contracts, since Crown real estate was also granted as remuneration for services, which was called "mercês" (rewards). Dominium utile of the properties, on the other hand, implied a rent payment to the direct owner, the Crown. As of 1633, rent payments were made in gold. Additionally, it compelled the mercenaries to live in the area and to provide services to the inhabitants, especially military aid, as this was a condition inherent to being granted Crown property.
As far as duration, the leases were granted in perpetuity or in lifetimes. Perpetuity was in effect only in grants to religious institutions. As a rule, lease contracts were awarded for a period of three lifetimes, and the lessee benefited from the land during his life, naming a second lessee for life, who would name a third. The right of renewal was usually recognized, allowing the last holder to name a successor, who obtained another three lifetimes. The transmission of life periods like that of Crown property, was regulated through indivisibility, imposing the nomination of a sole successor, and through inalienability, requiring Crown authorization for assignment of the following life.
Emphyteusis allowed for several modes of succession which could fall exclusively to family members or benefit strangers. In Rios, free nomination was always in effect, so that prazos could be transmitted to any relative or to strangers. The continuity of households without descendants was thus assured, in an area where European mortality was high and control of the territory depended on the armies of the lessees. Between 1698 and 1751, however, one third of the prazos was granted to women with the stipulation that they marry Europeans or succeed their daughters. This norm went into effect in the Northern Province per Royal Decree dated 14 February, 1626, and was continued by the orders of 1672, 1682, and 1737. Its goal was to attract Portuguese from mainland Portugal to the defense of the North, and its extension to Rios arose from the interpretation of the Goa officials, so that free nomination persisted in the majority of contracts. Independently of that requirement, many women held prazos, due to high male mortality or as a family strategy to obtain alliances with men from the kingdom.
These allotments implied not only granting of the dominium utile of the land, as was the case in emphyteusis, but also jurisdiction over the African populations. The authority that prazo holders had over the Africans in their lands allowed them to demand services and to receive various rents, including payments from the courts. The Prazo owners, who at times controlled vast territories and thousands of people including slaves, built chieftaincies similar to the African ones.
The issuance of Lease Titles fell under the purview of multiple authorities, such as the Mozambique captains, governors, and supervisors of the treasury from Goa; however, at the beginning of 1700, it was transferred to the Lieutenent-General of Rios. Both the new grants and the life successions required obtaining royal confirmation through the viceroy. This requirement which was imposed for Crown property, functioned as a means of controlling the lessees.
This normative set functioned as an instrument of social structuring. The linking of the concession of lands to the remuneration for services placed at the top of the social pyramid an elite that had been recruited from the entire empire, especially Portugal and India. Its biological reproduction was assured by marriage with women from the Goa region. Concurrently, the construction of a model of administration of the territory was sought, which would grant this elite the government of the African inhabitants, along with responsibility for defending the borders.
In 1752, once the administration of Mozambique was transferred to the Overseas Council in Lisbon, the legal regulation of the Prazos would closely fit the model of land possession in Brazil, in accordance with the Overseas Council´s practice for the Atlantic territories. The discursive register above all tended to assimilate the prazos of Rios to the sesmarias of Brazil, and the vision constructed from then on would reflect on historiographic discussion.
The "sesmarization" of the prazos began in 1760 with the Notice of April 5th, which decreed that the Mozambique government was to follow the directives of the governors of Brazil regarding the date of sesmarias, and with the charter of April 3rd, which defined the norms for land-allotment to be applied to the vacant prazos, based on the legislation that had been prepared for Brazil. The area to be alloted was not to exceed three leagues in length by one in width, and was to be reduced to half a league in quadra in the cases of mineral lands and of lands located close to rivers or the coast. The lessees would have to cede land and public services to establish townships. The grants were moved to the jurisdiction of the Governor-General, to the detriment of the lieutenant-generals, requiring judgments from the municipal councils and the Administrator of the Treasury. Royal confirmation of the leases, which had to be obtained within a four-year period, was transferred to the Overseas Council. The implementation of this charter reducing the areas of land in the possession of each landlord implied great changes for Rios, but it remained on paper only. Although sesmarias was alluded to ever more frequently, the rent payment as well as the remaining emphyteutic clauses were maintained.
The changes that followed occurred in the 1790s, in a context of greater political centralization, and through the action of the Mozambique administration. The general government began to exercise tight control over the lessees by introducing norms that tended to establish a policy of one prazo per emphyteuta (lessee). Succession was restricted to descendants or ancestors, transforming the grants into family prazos. Based on the Royal Orders of 1753 and 1783, which prohibited new grants to residents who already were landholders, it was decided that lessees would not obtain another, more profitable prazo, unless they gave up the one they already had usufruct of. The same principle took hold in unions where both consorts held prazos and in the successions which reverted to land holders, both being compelled to chose only one prazo. These conditions threatened the right of succession, which had been recognized until then despite occasional confiscations, and had not been rescinded by these Royal Orders.
Lastly, it was established that the new mercês would benefit women and follow the criteria of race, age, beauty, alleging Crown orders for lands to be granted to white women so that they would marry Europeans. In fact, the order of 20 April, 1752, had ruled that the daughters of mainland Portuguese and of Goans would marry only Portuguese, or they would lose their land. The intent was to settle the soldiers that were to be sent to the captaincy at the time, and the Governor-General suggested that this norm be extended to daughters of natives as well. The measure was approved by the Crown and the succession rights of offspring from the unions between Portuguese men and African women were also guaranteed. Womanhood was not imposed as a requirement for access to and succession in the prazos, nor was this clause included in the titles. The Royal Order, however, served as a basis for the government to favor the merchants of Mozambique Island, who were a recent elite and were committed to becoming established in the territory through their daughters. The relationship between service and mercê was thus diluted in order to connect the granting of land to the settlement by Europeans, a requirement for security and agricultural development, though absenteeism was the practice of the new lessees. Therefore, the thesis that the prazos were intended to endow women for marriage to Europeans was validated.
Bibliography:
CAPELA, José, Donas, Senhores e Escravos, Porto, Afrontamento, 1995; ISAACMAN, Allen, Mozambique: the africanization of a European Institution. The Zambezi Prazos. 1750-1902, Madison, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1972; LOBATO, Alexandre, Colonização senhorial da Zambézia e outros estudos, Lisboa, J.I.U., 1962; NEWITT, M.D.D., Portuguese settlement on the Zambesi, London, Longman, 1973; RODRIGUES, Eugénia, Portugueses e Africanos nos Rios de Sena. Os prazos da Coroa nos séculos XVII e XVIII, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Dissertação de Doutoramento em História, 2002.
Translated by: Maria João Pimentel