The Donas of Luanda, c. 1770-1867: From Atlantic Slave Trading to 'Legitimate' Commerce

By the late eighteenth century, African and Luso-African women in Luanda were already key agents in the development of local, regional, and long distance trade, supplying foodstuffs and trading in captives. Nevertheless, most foreign observers were silent about womens participation in domains beyond agriculture and household chores. This dissertation examines the involvement of women in commercial activities in Luanda between the late eighteenth and the mid-nineteenth centuries. This port town was the most important of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, attracting foreign merchants seeking quick enrichment. Incoming traders relied on local intermediaries with knowledge of indigenous languages and cultures, many of whom were women with whom they entered into commercial and intimate relationships. Despite the importance of these unions, primary sources confirm that women were able to accumulate their own independent capital which they invested in commercial activities.

Women with capital acquired land and captives, which allowed them to produce foodstuffs for subsistence and to supply urban markets, caravans, and slave ships. Nevertheless, few women were able to enter the highly competitive slave trade due to limited access to credit. Those who did so were wealthy women who engaged in the Atlantic market alone or in partnership with foreign husbands and associates. The retail trade, in turn, created opportunities for women of modest means who became shop and tavernkeepers, while poor and enslaved females peddled edibles and imported goods in the markets and streets. The development of legitimate commerce in the mid-nineteenth century created more opportunities for female entrepreneurship in commercial agriculture, the trade in tropical products and the supply of foodstuffs for the growing population of Luanda.

In this study, I argue that women played a fundamental role in the socio-economic fabric of Luanda through their involvement in local, regional and long distance trade, as well as agents of a cultural hybridization. There, despite the prevalence of a gendered and racialized structure, women were able to operate as traders in various instances, contributing to increase their household incomes and establishing a degree of independence relative to men.