The evolution of land-ownership patterns in the peripheral regions had attracted littlernattention until recently. My study attempts to examine the extent to which local demographicrnand economic conditions in . hland B Ie interacted with political conditions in the aftermathrnof the conquest to determine access to agricultural land by local and newly arriving groups ofrnpeople, and the extent to which peasant well-being was affected by these forms of access asrnthey evolved over a period of nearly one century.rnThe thesis starts by highlighting the pre-conquest socio-economic features in thernregion. The institutions that mediated the land regimes and the changes that were introducedrnto determine access to resources in the first half of the twentieth century are explored. Thernpaper then shows how the previously prevailing lineage land-ownership patterns gradually gavernway to private tenure.rnThe discussion of the post-1941 history of land tenure in highland Bale focuses on therneffects of the system of revenue extraction on the local people. The centralization of the fiscalrnsystem was attended by repeated land measurements that in many cases resulted in confiscationrnof land. Factors which threatened peasant property rights and reactions from the peasantry,rntherefore, occupies a great deal of space in this work.rnFinally, the work deals with one of the features of the imperial land tenure system inrnsouthern Ethiopia: the expansion of tenancy. The paper explores the evolution of tenancy andrntenant insecurity in the region all the way to the 1974 Revolution when the entire system was abolished