Legal Files and Empires: Form and Materiality of the Benguela District Court Documents

Historians have long stressed that the Portuguese Empire was not a continuous and monolithic enterprise. One of its main characteristics was discontinuity, both geographically and administratively. It acquired different shapes depending on the concrete historical conditions that it faced. The stress on the complexity of the modes of governance in the Portuguese Empire thus led many historians to focus on the actual local practices of governance. By shifting the focus from the central government to ›periphery powers‹, they shed light on the diverse array of institutions and actors that organized colonial societies.

For an overview of this literature, see Guida Marques: De Bahia à Luanda, en passant par Goa. Les déclinaisons du gouvernement impérial portugais au XVIIe siècle, in: Nuevo Mundo, Mundo Nuevos 18, Debates, online: http://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/72067 (201822. 07. 2019).

In what concerned the administration of justice in West Central Africa, historians highlighted how Portuguese colonial authorities interacted with local political powers especially in what concerned the relations between law and practices of enslavement. The coexistence of multiple normative orders in this territory added complexity to the legal framework. Signing vassalage treaties facilitated the spread of Portuguese colonial power and colonial institutions in the regions of the so-called ›Kingdom of Angola‹ and ›Kingdom of Benguela‹. Yet, these treaties often guaranteed – to some extent – that the administration of justice would continue in charge of local authorities – sobas and macotas – and would continue deciding according to local practices and norms. Nevertheless, over the centuries, there were numerous conflicts and disputes over jurisdictional powers between Portuguese and local authorities.

For example, Flávia Maria de Carvalho: Sobas e homens do rei. Relações de poder e escravidão em Angola (séculos XVII e XVIII), Alagoas 2015; João Figueiredo: A questão das ›ouvidas‹, ou a disputa entre autoridades civis e militares pelo julgamento de ›causas gentílicas‹ na Angola de meados do século XIX, in: Cadernos de Estudos Africanos 30 (2015), pp. 81–104; Ferreira: Cross-Cultural Exchange, pp. 88–125; Catarina Madeira-Santos: Esclavage africain et traite atlantique confrontés. Transactions langagières et juridiques (à propos du tribunal de mucamos dans l’Angola des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles), in: Brésil(s). Sciences humaines et sociales 1 (2012), pp. 127–148; Mariana Candido: African Freedom Suits, pp. 447–459.

During the 19^th and 20^th centuries – the period that the BDC collection covers – Portuguese judicial institutions were never able to reach all corners of the so-called ›Province of Angola‹. In these decades, numerous reforms on judicial organization took place, and they were often preceded by reports stressing the difficulties colonial administrators faced in administering justice and enforcing Portuguese norms and judicial practices throughout the whole territory. The difficulties the reports point out range from the ›uncivilized‹ character of local populations to the bad training and poor education of colonial officials.

Cristina Nogueira da Silva: Uma justiça ›liberal‹ para o Ultramar? Direito e organização judiciária nas províncias ultramarinas portuguesas do século XIX, in: Revista do Ministério Público 27/105 (2006), pp. 165–200.

Nevertheless, even assuming the coexistence of multiple normative orders, the precariousness of Portuguese judicial institutions in the colonial territory, and the poor capacity – often the lack of willingness – to apply Portuguese norms and practices to local populations, it is not irrelevant that these colonial legal institutions existed in these societies. During the approximately five centuries that Portuguese colonialism lasted, ships daily crossed the oceans carrying, from one colonial jurisdiction to another, lettered jurists who travelled in order to take over offices in American, African and Asian colonial territories. The agents of the Portuguese Crown regularly moved between jurisdictions due to a system of temporary nominations to offices in colonial administration. Lettered jurists occupied a relevant amount of these offices, especially the ones higher up in the hierarchies. In the context of multiple normativities and competing jurisdictions that characterized the Portuguese Empire, these lettered jurists were fundamental for managing this legal patchwork. To do so, they took with them their personal libraries, administrative files, letters and recommendations that would instruct the performance of their duties.

To maps of bureacratic personal circulation in the Portuguese Empire, see Nuno Camarinhas: Justice Administration in Early Modern Portugal. Kingdom and Empire in a Bureaucratic Continuum, in: Portuguese Journal of Social Science 12/2 (2013), pp. 179–193. On the role of lettered jurists and the production of normative knowledge in colonial jurisdictions, see also Nuno Camarinhas: Juízes e administração da justiça no Antigo Regime. Portugal e o Império colonial, séculos XVII e XVIII, Lisboa 2010; João Fragoso / Nuno Gonçalo Monteiro (eds.): Um reino e suas repúblicas no Atlântico. Comunicações políticas entre Portugal, Brasil e Angola nos séculos XVII e XVIII, Rio de Janeiro 2017; Cristina Nogueira da Silva: A construção jurídica dos Territórios Ultramarinos Portugueses no século XIX. Modelos, doutrinas e leis, Lisboa 2017; António Manuel Hespanha: The Legal Patchwork of Empires, in: Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History 22 (2014), pp. 303–314; Catarina Madeira-Santos: Écrire le pouvoir en Angola. Les archives ndembu (XVIIe–-XXe siècles), in: Annales, Histoire, Sciences Sociales 64/4 (2009), pp. 767–795; António Manuel Hespanha: Direito comum e direito colonial, in: Panóptica 1/3 (2006), pp. 95–116.

Moreover, the handling of paperwork and the production of legal files was not restricted to lettered jurists. A wide stratum of ›non-lettered administrative personnel‹ daily administered and processed them.

Orlando García Martínez / Michael Zeuske: Estado, notarios y esclavos en Cuba. Aspectos de una genealogía legal de la ciudadanía en sociedades esclavistas, in: Nuevo Mundo, Mundos Nuevos 8, Debates, online: http://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/15842 (22. 07. 2019); Guillaume Gaudin, El imperio de papel de Juan Díez de la Calle. Pensar y gobernar el Nuevo Mundo en el siglo XVII, Madrid 2017.

This personnel had specific normative conceptions and ideologies. The institutions they formed had specific legal rules in what concerned procedures. And they mattered. Despite many political forces and interests entangled in legal matters and judicial controversies, in order to legitimize itself, law must comply with its own rules and formalities. Thus, even when explicitly following personal, political, or class interests, jurists, and legal officials must do it in the shape predetermined by legal norms and practices in order to enhance their acts with efficacy. Furthermore, in many cases, these jurists and officials truly believed in this set of rules and ideological rhetoric.

Lauren Benton / Lisa Ford: Rage for Order. The British Empire and the Origins of International Law (1800–1850), Cambridge 2016; Latour: The Making of Law; Edward Thompson: Whigs and Hunters. The Origin of the Black Act, London 1977, pp. 258–269.

The existence of Portuguese colonial institutions in West Central Africa mattered because people actually resorted to them. African populations often made use of Portuguese colonial institutions in order to solve their conflicts. One example is the codex (códice) 7182 of the Angola National Archive (Arquivo Nacional de Angola, from now on ANA). It contains a protocol book of petitions directed to the General Governor of Benguela between 1826 and 1829. It shows that Africans resorted to the General Governor in order to solve disputes concerning debts, witchcraft practices, and enslavement practices, among others. The General Governor himself decided some of these conflicts, and others he forwarded to the competent judges.

Arquivo Nacional de Angola, códice 7182.

Apart from resorting to Portuguese colonial institutions in order to solve their disputes, people who did not hold administrative offices engaged in document and file production.

On the engagement of African population with written documents, see for example Madeira-Santos: Écrire le pouvoir en Angola, pp. 767–795; Catarina Madeira-Santos / Ana Paula Tavares: Africae Monumenta. A apropriação da escrita pelos africanos, Lisboa 2002.

The first document, the written promise, was on letterhead paper with a high relief of the Treasury Board of the Province of Angola (Junta da Fazenda da Província de Angola). It was also signed by the Chief of the Catumbela Council (Figs. 1 and 2). Both – the letterhead paper and the signature of a colonial authority – indicate that the parties were trying to endow their promise with certain ›officiality‹. Also, ratifying the promise at a court hearing could be a strategy for making it more authoritative.

Figure 1

Figure 2

In their transaction concerning the alleged slaves, Luiza and Joaquim engaged in the production of documents which they tried to endow with some authority. This indicates that they might have been aware that documents which followed certain formalities and embodied particular material aspects could create and guarantee rights. Most probably, when they created these documents, they did not know that the two women who were the actual objects of transfer would later contest their slave status in court. Nevertheless, Luiza and Joaquim decided to formalize their negotiation in paperwork that would acquire authoritative power by incorporating material aspects such as letterhead paper and the signature of a colonial official. Even not knowing exactly what were the formalities that official documents should comply with in order to be legally valid, people had an idea of what kind of material aspects could turn paperwork into evidence. This vernacular knowledge thus shaped the way they conducted their daily transactions and negotiations.

In the Portuguese colonial legal order, form and content were intertwined.

António Manuel Hespanha: Form and Content in Early Modern Legal Books. Bridging the Gap Between Material Bibliography and the History of Legal Thought, in: Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History 12 (2008), pp. 12–50.

Legal files in general and lawsuits in particular were completely immersed in these conceptions. Petitions, for example, should follow really strict formulae. Often legal books – the so-called ›legal doctrine‹ – were the vehicles of these structural rules that informed legal files. It is thus not by chance that in the same small room of the BDC, we can find both legal books and legal files, side by side (Fig. 3).

Figure 3

Many legal texts were produced during the early modern period with the goal to instruct jurists, other government officials and claimants on the norms and formulae they should follow when initiating or processing a judicial claim.

A list of legal books that circulated in Lusophone Jurisdictions from the 16^th to the 19^th century can be found in Candido Mendes de Almeida: Codigo philippino ou ordenações e leis do Reino de Portugal recopiladas por mandado d’El-Rey D. Philippe I, volume 1, Rio de Janeiro (1870), pp. XLVII–LXII. For a discussion on the role of legal books in shaping normative orders during the Early Modern period, see Laura Beck Varela: ›Memoria de los libros que son necesarios para pasar‹. Lecturas del jurista en el siglo XVI ibérico, in: Cuadernos del Instituto Antonio de Nebrija – Revista de Historia de Universidades 21/2 (2018), pp. 227–267; Gustavo César Machado Cabral: Literatura jurídica na Idade Moderna. As decisiones no Reino de Portugal (séculos XVI e XVII), Rio de Janeiro 2017; Laura Beck Varela: The Diffusion of Law Books in Early Modern Europe. A Methodological Approach, in: Massimo Meccarelli / María Julia Solla Sastre (eds.): Spatial and Temporal Dimensions for Legal History. Research Experiences and Itineraries, Frankfurt am Main 2016, pp. 195–239.

A very popular text that circulated in territories under Portuguese jurisdiction was Gregorio Martins Caminha’s »Tractado da forma dos libellos«. The book was first published in 1549 and was reprinted many times during the centuries that followed. As is relatively common until today, ›successful‹ legal books would have many editions over the centuries. These new editions often brought adaptations of the original text to current legislation and jurisprudence. In the case of Caminha’s »Tractado«, its many editions reached the 19^th century, when José Homem Corrêa Telles, another well-known Portuguese jurist, published an edition of the book with commentaries that adapted it to current legislation. Through these ›adaptations‹, form prescriptions created in the early centuries of Portuguese colonialism could endure for many centuries, shaping the ways according to which conflicts should be translated when they reached colonial courts.

Another well-known edition of Caminha’s book was the one made in 1764 by lawyer João Martins da Costa. Gregorio Martins Caminha: Tratado da forma dos libellos, das allegações judiciaes, do processo do juizo secular, e ecclesiastico, e dos contratos, com suas glossas, do licenciado Gregorio Martins Caminha. Reformado de novo com addiçoens, e annotaçoens copiosas das Ordenações novas do Reyno, leys de Castella, e modernos, e outras fórmas de libellos, petições, e allegações judiciaes, como Processo do Tribunal da Legacia, e das revistas. Compostas pelo doutor Joaõ Martins da Costa, Coimbra (1764); José Homem Corrêa Telles: Formulario de libellos e petições summarias á imitação do Formulario de Gregorio Martins Caminha. Accomodado á nova reforma de 21 de maio de 1841, Coimbra (1869). Corrêa Telles’ works were widespread in 19^th century Brazil and are also present in the BDC collection.

As many other books, the purpose of the »Tractado« was to present models (formulários) that would instruct people – parties and lawyers – on how to file a petition in Portuguese courts. The importance of formalities and formulae is present in the materiality itself of the book. For example, in the first page of the book, the expression »Begins the form« (Começase a forma) is highlighted by its size and its position in the page (Fig. 4).

Figure 4

Apart from judicial initial petitions (libelos), the book also offered models to produce other kinds of judicial acts such as defences, appeals, sentences, and so on. Also, there were models for contracts and powers of attorney. This variety indicates that the target of the author was a wide public, ranging from high-ranking officials who occupied seats in the Courts of Appeals to local farmers who wanted to make contracts of land lease.

The production of books that diffused models that should be followed by people who accessed Portuguese colonial judicial institutions lasted in the 20^th century. For example, in 1920, Roberto Fonseca published the »Manual prático do serviço judicial para chefes dos postos de polícia das circunscrições administrativas da Província de Angola« in Lisbon. The original manuscript of the book can be found in the ANA. It was handwritten by the author in a notepad. More than half of the manuscript are models to judicial acts such as petitions, defences, sentences, and so on. There was no information on when the handwritten version of the manuscript was produced. Nevertheless, it attests that reiterating formalities in order to translate reality into legal language was a practice that persisted in the realm of Portuguese colonial administration far into the 20^th century.

Arquivo Nacional de Angola, caixa 2736.

It is evident that not all daily transactions or litigation happened inside the frameworks established by Portuguese jurists and norms. However, all over the Empire, people who lived under Portuguese jurisdiction knew that complying with these forms could be a way to ensure their rights in a potential conflict with neighbours, family members, commercial partners, and so on. This pervasiveness of forms and formalities was fundamental in the making of Portuguese colonial domination. Similar patterns of documents and legal files can be found all over territories subject to Portuguese jurisdiction. The ubiquity of some formal patterns was so intense that they survived colonial dominance. Brazil, for example, declared independence in 1822. However, even after its independence, many legal files continued to be produced with the same formulae as the former Portuguese ones, reproduced also on the other side of the ocean, in the legal files stored in the BDC. Take, for instance, the powers of attorney. The same patterns and formulae (e.g. the opening statement »Saibão os que este público Instrumento de Procuração bastante virem […]«) were followed in cases filed before Benguela and Rio de Janeiro courts (Figs. 5 and 6).

Figure 5

Figure 6

During the 19^th century, after Brazilian independence, printed models of powers of attorney became popular in court cases. Their similar design in Benguela’s and Rio de Janeiro’s court cases is noticeable (Figs. 7 and 8). At first glance, this design similarity might seem trivial. Nevertheless, as the lawsuit collections of the BDC and of the Brazilian National Archives (Arquivo Nacional) attest, many different kinds of legal acts – such as the cover of the procedures, judicial mandates, transcriptions of witnesses’ testimonies, petitions, notary certifications, and so on – had similar material characteristics and followed analogous formalities and formulae on both sides of the Atlantic. Thus, the materiality of legal files attests that reiterated and deeply rooted administrative practices persisted even after Brazilian independence from Portugal, which indicates the pervasiveness and persistence of colonial legal regimes, enforced and constituted by a continuous and daily engagement of both colonial officers and local populations in the production, reproduction, and dissemination of paperwork that followed predetermined formalities.

Figure 7

Figure 8

In Portuguese jurisdictions, form considerably shaped content in legal files. The legal files of the BDC collection are an example of how formalities and formulae had the capacity to shape and condition the ways in which colonial courts would access conflicts brought before them. Formalities and formulae had the capacity to both define the boundaries of social actors’ agency and frame reality in a specific legal language. In the BDC collection, lawsuits concerning land disputes are an example of this complex relationship between form and content in legal documents. Let’s analyse, for instance, the revindication lawsuit filed by Manuel Cassador against Dona Julia Martins de Sant’Anna. The plaintiff’s lawyer structured the initial petition (libelo)

Benguela District Court, 1858, Autos cíveis de revindicação, Autor Manuel Cassador, do distrito da Catumbella, ré Dona Julia Martins de Sant’Anna, pp. 4–5.

It is not by chance that Manuel’s arguments followed this structure. It complied with the elements present in legal books concerning the patterns which judicial petitions should follow. For example, in his book, Caminha structured judicial initial petitions (libelo) on revindication cases containing the following elements:

The name of the plaintiff, his or her place of residence, and the name of the defendant.

The requirement to fit legal arguments into formalities and formulae previously established, as the ones detailed in Caminha’s »Tractado«, determined the kind of stories parties told in lawsuits. In the specific case of revindication lawsuits’ formalities and formulae, the story should consist of a dispute between two identifiable parties over a determined piece of land that one of the parties occupied without good faith and just title. It would also enhance the chances of having a favourable decision whether the narrative stressed that extra-judicial attempts to solve the conflict took place and the whole story was public and notorious. This is the format a story over a social conflict was supposed to have in order to fit into a judicial procedure. Thus, predetermined legal formalities ended up reducing the immeasurable diversity of real land disputes to highly specific facts.

The structure of the narrative that Manuel presented in his initial petition complied with the elements present in the Caminha’s model. As in this case, many other lawsuits and legal files conformed to reiterated practices that articulated facts in specific ways transforming them into adequate legal arguments. The relationship between lawsuits such as Manuel’s and books such as Caminha’s enlightens the process in which these two kinds of legal paperwork engaged in the construction of law and colonial legal regimes. Legal files and legal books constantly referred to one another in a process of legal intertextuality

Kafka: Paperwork, p. 347.

During the 19^th century, Portuguese jurists engaged in numerous discussions about the administration of justice in colonial territories.

Nogueira da Silva: A construção jurídica dos Territórios Ultramarinos; Nogueira da Silva: Uma justiça ‘liberal’ para o Ultramar?.

A relatively common kind of legal procedure in the BDC during the last decades of the 19^th and and first decades of the 20^th century was the ›mere possession justifications‹ (justificação de mera posse). In a preliminary analysis, I could identify 40 of these lawsuits, filed between 1888 and 1919.

1888, Autos civeis de justificação de posse em que é Justificante Julianna Botelho de Vasconcellos proprietaria e residente nesta cidade de Benguella. 1889, Autos civeis de justificação de posse em que é requerente e Justificante Domingos Sebastião de Barros proprietario e residente no concelho da Catumbella. 1892, Autos cíveis de mera justificação em que é Justificante José Augusto Rodrigues Silva e Justificados O Ministério Público e incertos. 1893, Autos civeis de justificação de mera posse em que é Justificante Joaquim d’Oliveira Barbosa Justificados M. P. e incertos. 1894, Autos civeis de justificação de mera posse entre partes Justificante Jozé Caetano da Silva, proprietario rezidente na Catumbella. 1897, Autos civeis para justificação de posse, Justificante Caetano José Travessa, Justificados Os Incertos. 1899, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Autor Domingos Antonio de Rezende. 1899, Autos de justificação de Mera Posse, Justificante D Francisca Gusmão do Rego. 1899, Acção de justificação, Justificante a firma commercial d’esta praça Eduardo Guedes & Ca. 1899, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Author Bernardino Gomes Pereira, Os incertos. 1900, Autos civeis de justificação, Justificante Luiz Manoel Marques, Justificados o Ministério Público e Incertos. 1900, Autos civeis de justificação, Justificante a firma Eduardo Guedes & Ca, Justificados O Ministério Público e Incertos. 1900, Autos civeis de justificação, Justificante Eduardo Guedes & Ca. 1900, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante Pretres Kamerman, Justificados o Ministério Público e incertos. 1900, Autos civeis de justificação, Justificante a firma Eduardo Guedes & Ca, Justificados O Ministério Público e Incertos. 1900, Autos de justificação mera posse, Justificante Matheus dos Santos Candeas, Justificados Ministerio Público e Incertos. 1901, Autos civeis vindos da Relação de Loanda, Recorrente Desirée Lourenço Eduardo Braga, Recorridos Ministério Público e incertos. 1901, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante Joaquim Fernandes Barrena, Justificados O Ministério Público e Incertos. 1901, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante Joaquim José Francisco Ribeiro, Justificados O Ministério Público e Incertos. 1902, Autos civeis de justificação, Mello, Santos & Compa, Requeridos M. Público e incertos. 1902, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Requerente Anthero Gavino do Rego, Requerido O M. P. e incertos. 1902, Acção para justificação de posse, Justificante A Firma Conceição & Coutinho da Catumbella, Justificados O M. Público e incertos. 1903, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante João de Sousa Honrado e mulher Maria da Conceição Reis Honrado, Justificados O Ministério Público e Interessados incertos. 1903, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Requerente Simões Dias & Paula, Requerido O Ministério Público e incertos. 1903, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante Cardoso & Barros, Justificados O Ministério Público e incertos. 1903, Justificação para mera posse, Requerentes Salomão Bendrau e Manoel Joaquim de Carvalho, da Catumbella, Requeridos M Público e incertos. 1904, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante Carlos Rebello de Mattos, Justificados O Ministério Público e interessados incertos. 1904, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Requerente Alfredo d’Almeida Dias, Requerido O Ministério Público e incertos. 1904, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante Antonio José Barbosa, Justificados O Ministério Público e Incertos. 1904, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Requerente Manoel Antonio da Costa, Requerido O Ministério Público e Incertos. 1904, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Requerente Joaquim Marques Pires, Requerido O Ministério Público e incertos. 1907, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante Francisco Ferreira Amaro, Justificados Ministério Público e incertos. 1907, Autos de justificação de méra posse, Justificante Luiz de Mattos Coelho, Justificados o M Público e Incertos. 1907, Autos de justificação de méra posse, Justificante Felisberto Guedes de Souza, Justificados O Ministerio Público e Incertos. 1907, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante Silva Ribeiro e Companhia, Justificado O Ministério Público e Incertos. 1907, Autos de justificação de méra posse, Justificante Domingos Fancony Moura, Justificados O Ministério Público e Incertos. 1908, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante Antonio José Barboza solteiro maior commerciante do concelho do Bihe, Justificados o Ministério Público e incertos. 1908, Justificação de mera posse, Justificante Antonio Pereira Baptista Guimarães. 1918, Justificação de mera posse, Acacio Ribeiro da Silva. 1919, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante Manoel da Costa morador no Macculo, Justificados o M. Público e incertos.

Possession was the main way to acquire and secure land rights in Iberian societies during the early modern period. Both Portuguese and Spanish interpretations of ius commune categories and norms favoured the exercise of possession over other manners of ownership acquisition. Title registration was not systematically employed in the Iberian Empires jurisdictions during these centuries, and, in fact, title deeds did not guarantee rights when confronted with possession situations. Land titles existed, but they did not have any judicial strength if the possessor did not actually use the land in order to legitimize these titles. Also, possession claims very often overruled titles claims in court litigation.

Mariana Armond Dias Paes: Escravos e terras entre posses e títulos. A construção social do direito de propriedade no Brasil (1835–1889), unpublished PhD thesis, Universidade de São Paulo 2018.

This scenario, however, fundamentally changed during the long 19^th century. Liberal legal theories defended that property was an absolute right and that in order to secure it, titles should identify and individualize the owners. Due to its absolute character, property right was then at the top of a hierarchy of rights over things and could hardly be overruled by possession. Obviously, possession claims continued to exist. But possession was intensely marginalized and lost the strength it once had before title deeds. Registration and the issuance of title deeds were also part of a broader development of the formation of nation states. During the 19^th century, registration and land demarcation were some of the measures that rising nation states conducted in an attempt to identify and control their territories and populations.

Dias Paes: Escravos e terras entre posses e títulos; Juan Carlos Garavaglia / Pierre Gautreau (eds.): Mensurar la tierra, controlar el territorio. América Latina, siglos XVIII–XIX, Rosario 2011.

In this context, Portuguese jurists that were taking the lead of liberal reforms in property law, created what they called ›mere possession registration‹. This registration was presented in articles 523–526 of the 1867 Portuguese Civil Code. The Code defined ›publicity‹ in possession situations as registration, a radical change in relation to the previous ius commune system. A change that expressed the goals of the liberal property reforms. Article 523 stated that »public possession is the one which has been rightfully registered or which has been exercised in a way that can be known by interested people«. ›Mere possession‹ registration, in turn, could take place in cases when possession had been exercised for more than 5 years in a peaceful and public manner. It was necessary that a judicial justification procedure preceded the registration. This judicial procedure was the ›mere possession justification‹.

Codigo Civil Portuguez: approvado por carta de lei de 1 de julho de 1867, Lisboa (1868), p. 98.

In an aleatory sample of 26 ›mere possession justifications‹ that are part of the BDC’s collection,

Benguela District Court: 1894, Autos civeis de justificação de mera posse entre partes Justificante Jozé Caetano da Silva, proprietario rezidente na Catumbella; 1897, Autos civeis para justificação de posse, Justificante Caetano José Travessa, Justificados Os Incertos; 1899, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Autor Domingos Antonio de Rezende; 1899, Autos de justificação de Mera Posse, Justificante D Francisca Gusmão do Rego; 1899, Acção de justificação, Justificante a firma commercial d’esta praça Eduardo Guedes & Ca; 1900, Autos civeis de justificação, Justificante Luiz Manoel Marques, Justificados o Ministério Público e Incertos; 1900, Autos civeis de justificação, Justificante a firma Eduardo Guedes & Ca, Justificados O Ministério Público e Incertos; 1900, Autos civeis de justificação, Justificante Eduardo Guedes & Ca; 1900, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante Pretres Kamerman, Justificados o Ministério Público e incertos; 1900, Autos civeis de justificação, Justificante a firma Eduardo Guedes & Ca, Justificados O Ministério Público e Incertos; 1901, Autos civeis vindos da Relação de Loanda, Recorrente Desirée Lourenço Eduardo Braga, Recorridos Ministério Público e incertos; 1901, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante Joaquim Fernandes Barrena, Justificados O Ministério Público e Incertos; 1901, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante Joaquim José Francisco Ribeiro, Justificados O Ministério Público e Incertos; 1902, Autos civeis de justificação, Mello, Santos & Compa, Requeridos M. Público e incertos; 1902, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Requerente Anthero Gavino do Rego, Requerido O M. P. e incertos; 1902, Acção para justificação de posse, Justificante A Firma Conceição & Coutinho da Catumbella, Justificados O M. Público e incertos; 1903, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante João de Sousa Honrado e mulher Maria da Conceição Reis Honrado, Justificados O Ministério Público e Interessados incertos; 1903, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Requerente Simões Dias & Paula, Requerido O Ministério Público e incertos; 1903, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante Cardoso & Barros, Justificados O Ministério Público e incertos; 1903, Justificação para mera posse, Requerentes Salomão Bendrau e Manoel Joaquim de Carvalho, da Catumbella, Requeridos M Público e incertos; 1904, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante Carlos Rebello de Mattos, Justificados O Ministério Público e interessados incertos; 1904, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Requerente Alfredo d’Almeida Dias, Requerido O Ministério Público e incertos; 1904, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante Antonio José Barbosa, Justificados O Ministério Público e Incertos; 1904, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Requerente Manoel Antonio da Costa, Requerido O Ministério Público e Incertos; 1904, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Requerente Joaquim Marques Pires, Requerido O Ministério Público e incertos; 1907, Autos de justificação de mera posse, Justificante Francisco Ferreira Amaro, Justificados Ministério Público e incertos.

In a similar way as models did, the reiterated patterns that these initial petitions followed restricted the content of the legal claim. All the conflicts and peculiarities that the real situation involving the claimed pieces of land might encompass were reduced to a few formal elements. These elements were later discussed during witnesses’ hearings. Inside the courts, there was very little space for other elements of the social conflicts. The similarities among these lawsuits go beyond formalities and the usage of certain formulae in the initial petitions. The design pattern of the initial petitions and of the following legal acts is an equally recurring feature.

Throughout the whole period that the collection of the BDC encompasses, formalities and materiality played a central role in framing the narrative of conflicts that reached Portuguese colonial authorities. The structure of these formalities, the design of the material artefacts, and the ideological grounds of these procedures changed during the period covered by the documents. A privileged characteristic of this collection is the time frame the legal files cover: second half of the 19^th century and the first half of the 20^th century. In this period, the region experienced deep transformations: the spread of liberalism and the consolidation of capitalist economic production happened hand in hand with a process of deep legal reforms. The justification and ideological ground of Portuguese normativities was no longer the existence of a natural order. Jurists then started arguing that individuals and their subjective rights were the foundation of legal regimes. In this new framework, the role of formalities and formulae was no longer to secure the divine character of law, but to ensure that following predetermined procedures would guarantee litigants’ individual rights. This radical turn in the ways that jurists conceived law had impact also on the normative production that took place in colonial territories.

Nogueira da Silva: A construção jurídica dos Territórios Ultramarinos.

In this article, I put forward the argument that looking at documents instead of just looking through them is a methodological concern that historians dealing with legal files and lawsuits should have. The legal files and lawsuits that are part of the BDC collection open up endless research possibilities. Historians can use them to better understand economic relations in the region, issues related to slavery and to the suppression of the slave trade, conflicts between Portuguese and local authorities, families structures, the relationship between criminal convictions and forced labour, among many others. Nevertheless, a more complex analysis of these issues could be possible if we consider the role that formalities and materiality played in shaping these conflicts.

The cases analysed in this article indicate that the intertextuality between legal files and legal books constantly shaped social conflicts when they made their way to courts. In processing social conflicts, judicial institutions comply with reiterated practices created in this process of mutual reference of legal files and legal books. Formal and material requirements thus transform reality and translate social conflicts into a specific legal language. Moreover, people who lived under Portuguese jurisdiction were aware of these reiterated practices and tried to comply with them in order to secure their rights. This way, legal files shaped and defined social actors’ agency.

As the BDC collection shows, different kinds of social groups resorted to Portuguese courts in order to claim for rights. By doing so, they acknowledged the legitimacy of colonial institutions and strengthened Portuguese colonialism.

See, for example, Candido: African Freedom Suits.

Engaging in an analysis that not only considers the content of the legal files of the BDC’s collection, but also their formalities and materiality, can add complexity to narratives that focus on colonial structures in West Central Africa. Looking at the legal files of the BDC collection might shed light on how the reiterated procedures they followed enabled the pervasiveness and endurance of colonial practices concerning the administration of justice and the resolution of conflicts. Looking at them might then show us different aspects of the daily making of colonial legal orders.