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The Business of Self-Endowment: Women Merchants, Wealth and Marriage in Nineteenth-Century Luanda

In: Female Entrepreneurs in the Long Nineteenth Century

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  • Vanessa S. Oliveira

    (Royal Military College of Canada)

Abstract

This chapter explores the strategies that merchant women of mixed Portuguese and African origin used to protect their wealth in nineteenth-century Luanda, the capital of Portuguese Angola. Drawing upon marriage petitions, contracts of marriage and registers of dowry, this chapter shows that Luso-African women in Luanda, upon marriage with immigrant men, used the benefits Portuguese legal codes conferred upon them to protect assets they had amassed through inheritances and their own entrepreneurial activities. These urban women drew upon contracts of marriage and self-endowments to exempt their wealth from becoming part of the couple’s joint estate. Their literacy and socio-economic status brought benefits, including the knowledge of their rights as Portuguese subjects as well as the means to hire the lawyers who advised them.

Suggested Citation

  • Vanessa S. Oliveira, 2020. "The Business of Self-Endowment: Women Merchants, Wealth and Marriage in Nineteenth-Century Luanda," Palgrave Studies in Economic History, in: Jennifer Aston & Catherine Bishop (ed.), Female Entrepreneurs in the Long Nineteenth Century, edition 1, chapter 0, pages 219-242, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palscp:978-3-030-33412-3_9
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-33412-3_9
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