Abstract
Our goal in this research is to prove that the men who received land in the form of grants in the Paraiba River Valley of Rio de Janeiro province during the first half of the nineteenth century circumvented the normal capitalist requirement of having to pay for the land. Most “coffee barons” of the Brazilian Empire received their plantation for free. In this case, we will prove the functionality of the grant system of this “Ancien Régime in the tropics”. Access to land, an indispensable prerequisite to accumulation in the coffee exporting economy, was not based on the rules of a free market, nor did it require upfront investments or savings. Land came as a gift, outside this market, occasioned by close personal relations with those in power including direct exchanges with the monarch.