Women and Wealth in West Central Africa
Faculty Research Grant
This project addresses a silence in the scholarship on African women’s economic roles in 19-century West Central Africa. It explores the lives of African women as traders, farmers, and land and business owners as part of a larger book manuscript on the history of women and property in 19th-century Angola. Candido analyzes how notions of wealth changed in 19th-century West Central Africa. In a moment of profound economic restructuring, elite women experienced and adjusted to these changes by taking advantage of the economic instability that opened up access to new markets, allowing them to accumulate wealth and improve their social position. This project is the first phase of a process that will allow Candido to focus on enslaved and freed women.
