1 Some possibilities of non-market accumulation by members of the elite in nineteenth century Brazil (The Imperial Estate of Fazenda de Santa Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, 1808- 1860) 1 Manoela Pedroza  Abstract Our aim in this research is to demonstrate that men who were granted rights to land in the form of aforamento (long term land leases) in the Paraiba Valley, in the Province of Rio de Janeiro, during the first half of the nineteenth century, were able to avoid the need for capital outlays and payments, prevalent in the capitalist system of land acquisition. The manner in which the title to land was allocated in this region led to the emergence of the so-called ‘coffee barons’ of the Brazilian Empire. The application of legal and social instruments taken from the European Ancien Régime (and applied in Brazil in what we refer to as an Ancien Régime ‘in the Tropics’ 2 ) gave rise to the modern forms of ownership of vast estates of land. Access to title to the land under this Regime, which proved to be an essential prerequisite to wealth derived from the export of coffee and it was not based on free market rules, nor did it require substantial initial investment. It was, rather, a 1 Paper presented at the ESSHC 2018, in the session “Rural Families and their Economic Strategies”, organised by Network Rural, Chairs of this network Tim Soens and Dulce Freire, taking place at Queen´s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland.  Professor of History at the Universidade Federal Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This text is part of a doctoral thesis that will be defended in May 2018, with special thanks to Jonathan Francis Roberts for his diligence in the translation and revision. 2 Concept introduced by João Fragoso, Maria Fernanda Bicalho and Fátima Gouvêa. See Fragoso, João, et al. (orgs.) O Antigo Regime nos Trópicos: a dinâmica imperial portuguesa (séculos XVI-XVIII). Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2001.