ABSTRACT
Introduction The colonia was a customary tenancy contract in Madeira that combined sharecropping with land improvement by conferring on the tenants the ownership of the improvements they had made, such as vines and buildings. It was also a tenancy at will, which in practice became a long-term contract. Each of the aforementioned elements is found in several historical instances, most often associated with vineyards, generally in mountainous and often previously uncultivated land where creating them constituted a considerable long-term improvement. From a contract choice perspective, this association has been related to several factors. Firstly, to the landowners’ preference for leasing out rather than cultivating vines with hired labour on such terrains. Secondly, to the unlikelihood of small peasants accepting a ¿xed-rent lease, given the crop’s volatility and the consequent risk of forfeit, and lastly, to the relatively low share of capital in the inputs, because of the labour-intensiveness of traditional viticulture. The latter meant that a sharecropper’s high share of the inputs in long-term improvements had to be compensated for with a stake in their value.1 In this chapter, we will explore the way these elements came together in the particular context of Madeira, the sets of incentives they de¿ned and how they were appropriated. We will not do so from a contract choice perspective, but rather from one of institutional and practical change.
