英領ビルマにおける初期土地制度1826-1876(<特集>19世紀ビルマの英国植民地化過程と社会変容)

Abstract

This note aims to trace the reformation of the land tenure system in Burma by the British colonial government in the period 1826-1876. All major forms of land tenure in Colonial Burma were introduced in this period and compiled into the Lower Burma Land and Revenue Act, 1876, which gave substance to the basic land policy of the British government in Burma. Many British administrators admitted that under Burmese rule, land in Lower Burma was cultivated by independent cultivators who were practically proprietors of the soil. The declared land policy of British government was to create a peasant-proprietor class. But the system actually introduced in Lower Burma in this period contained the seeds of destruction of peasant property in land.