Abstract
Prazo refers to a piece of land that the Portuguese kings rented to their subjects for a certain period of time. In the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Estado da India or the government of the Portuguese State of India introduced this system in the districts of Goa, Damao and Bacaim in order to encourage the casados —married men permitted to stay in Portuguese India— to settle in the country. Thus, the aim was to create areas that would be inhabited by landed Portuguese settlers. In the case of Damao, which is the subject of the present paper, instead of pieces of land, villages were rented as prazo to the casados for three generations on the condition that they would fulfill military obligations, such as providing horses, muskets and foot soldiers. However, some casados regarded prazos as their own property and often sold them. Moreover, military services were often not required at the end of the sixteenth century, and hence the prazo system did not seem to have functioned well. Nevertheless, the system survived and created a new landed nobility —fidalgos— who exploited this system for their own benefit.
