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Landlords, Tenants and Agrarian Reform: Local Elites and Regime Transitions in Avis, Portugal, 1778–2011

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 September 2013

MARIA ANTÓNIA PIRES DE ALMEIDA
MARIA ANTÓNIA PIRES DE ALMEIDA*
Affiliation:
CIES, ISCTE, IUL – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Edifício ISCTE, Av. das Forças Armadas, 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugalmafpa@iscte.pt
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Abstract:

In a small municipality in the Alentejo region of Portugal, the same group of families, defined by latifundia landownership or tenancy, dominated local political institutions for two centuries during which great changes occurred. Three revolutions resulted in regime transitions: the 1820 Liberal Revolution, the 1910 Republic and the 1926 Dictatorship, which led to Salazar's Estado Novo. Even though a few members of these families offered some resistance to each of these revolutions at an early stage, they all adapted their behaviour and kept local political control within their ranks. Local traditional institutions, such as the local council and mayor, charitable and welfare associations, and corporate institutions created in the 1930s and 1940s to direct economic activities, were all presided over and controlled by members of the same rural elite. This continued until 1974, when the Carnation Revolution and agrarian reform removed and replaced these old elites with new ones. The lords of the land remained lords of the village for as long as control over the main economic resource of the region was the major factor in the maintenance of political power. These land occupations were not permanent. The process was reversed as a result of political factors relating to Portugal's accession to the European Economic Community in 1986. Agrarian elites in Southern Portugal no longer control jobs or the economy and therefore they no longer control local politics as they had for several generations. The Carnation Revolution and agrarian reform removed the old elites and replaced them with new ones. Agriculture is no longer the main economic activity of the countryside. The rural environment has become a hiking ground or an all-terrain vehicles track. The future is elsewhere and the current economic situation and the absence of elites have transformed rural areas into depopulated regions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , October 2013 , pp. 127 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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