Câmara, Benedita2023-07-112023-07-112018Câmara, B. (2018). The Colonia Contract: Ambiguity between Sharecropping, Fixed Rent and Emphyteusis. In Agrarian Change and Imperfect Property: Emphyteusis in Europe (16th to 19th centuries) (pp. 263-285).http://hdl.handle.net/10400.13/5266Emphyteusis is a legal institution with historical character that has been registered in different types of circumstances. In the 1850s, Portuguese liberals sought to associate the Portuguese colonia contract from Madeira with emphyteusis. By the 1880s there was a shift in the focus but the valuation and property rights of the improvements of the colono remained the common element of political and legal debate. In line with recent studies which have suggested an agenda for researching the imperfect nature of land ownership, while pointing out that the historical changes that occurred in the property rights were not only the result of the changes introduced in the law (Congost, 2007), the thesis of this chapter is that those debates and attempts at reform were linked to the context of the time period between the 1850s and the 1880s, which was characterized by changes in relative prices that required adaptation to land use. This interfered with the incentives generated by the valuation of the improvements of the colono and the risks taken by the landowners in the colonia contract. There were similarities between a number of these issues and the ones being debated in England.engColoniaColonia contractEmphyteusisMadeira (Portugal).Faculdade de Ciências Sociaisbook part10.1484/M.RURHE-EB.5.116127