This dissertation reconstructs the settlement of the Middle Jubba Valley of Somalia by ex-slaves, their descendents, and other Somalis from 1850 to the present. It is an historical study of the construction of a social identity of the Jubba Valley agriculturalist population, and of the evolution of land tenure and land use patterns in the mid-valley. In examining the effects on valley farmers of new land tenure laws requiring registration of land, it shows how power dynamics are integral to the working of land tenure systems.