Achadas da Cruz (parish)

This small parish (freguesia) lies wedged between the parishes of Ponta do Pargo (‘sea bream point’) and Porto Moniz (‘Moniz’s harbour’), and its coastline is almost equidistant from the points of Pargo and Tristão. The latter, as is well known, marked the end of the first exploration along the coast made by the discoverers João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira, and also the boundary between the two captaincies into which Madeira was divided, the other boundary being Ponta da Oliveira (‘olive-tree point’). That point was given the name of the second of the discoverers. The land that was to form the future parish of Achadas da Cruz (‘plateaus of the cross’) therefore belonged to the captaincy of Funchal.

It is bounded to the north by the Ribeira do Tristão (‘Tristão’s stream’), which separates it from the parish of Porto Moniz; to the south by the Ribeira da Cruz (‘stream of the cross’), which divides it from the parish of Ponta do Pargo; to the east by the mountains of the parish of Porto Moniz; and to the west by the ocean.

It belongs to the municipality (concelho) of Porto Moniz and to the judicial district (comarca) of Ponta do Sol (‘point of the sun’). It lies approximately 8 kilometres from the seat of the former and about 40 kilometres from that of the latter, by the road through Ponta do Pargo, Fajã da Ovelha (‘the ewe’s flat’), etc. It is divided into the following inhabited localities (sítios): Pinheiro, Achada da Arruda, Igreja, Cova, Lombo do Simão, Achada de Castro and Terça. Other localities of lesser importance are Quebrada Nova, Quebrada do Negro, Fajã das Malvas, Fajã Nova, Pomar Velho, Risco, Pico da Azeveda etc. It has a post box installed in the locality of Igreja. There are no state schools, but the parish priest runs two primary education courses, one by day and one in the evening, for boys and adult men. The parish is irrigated by the levadas (irrigation channels) of the Ribeira dos Moinhos (‘mills’ stream’), of Lagos and of Pico da Arruda. It has no harbour, only a small pebble beach (calhau) that is difficult to reach.

Its population is about 600 inhabitants, living in 150 households (fogos, literally ‘hearths’). Picturesque spots with fine views include Pico das Mós, Cabeço do Facho and Pico do Fogo. The cultivation of a climbing plant of the family Dioscoreaceae, known as norça (climbing plant of the yam family, Tamus edulis, with edible tubers), is almost confined to the area of this parish; it produces a tuber widely used as food.

As already stated, this parish belongs to the municipality of Porto Moniz. However, when that municipality was twice abolished, in 1849 and in 1895, the parish became part of the municipality of Calheta (‘small cove’). When the municipality of Porto Moniz was restored again in 1855 and 1898, the parish of Achadas da Cruz was once more included within its area.

We do not know whether the name goes back to the earliest days of colonisation. We do know, however, that in the third or last quarter of the 16th century a small chapel was built there with the dedication of the True Cross (Vera Cruz). It is possible that the common people’s tendency to simplify language shortened the longer expression Vera Cruz to the single syllable Cruz, and that in this way the chapel of the Cruz gave its name to the village (lugar, settlement rank below a town) or achada (small plateau) near which it was built. That is, unless we accept that the present name of the parish existed before the small chapel was built, which would not be easy to establish today. It was certainly in this chapel of the True Cross that, in the third quarter of the 16th century, a curacy (curato) dependent on the collegiate church of Calheta was established. It was short-lived, however, and was abolished in 1577 by Bishop Dom Jerónimo Barreto. Its abolition was due to the slow growth of the population, which at that time must have been very small and which, over the years, has still developed little. The abolition of this curacy and of three or four others in similar circumstances led to the creation and funding of a new canonry in Funchal Cathedral (the Sé) (Sé do Funchal).

Around 1587, as can be seen from a visitation decree (provimento) issued by Bishop Dom Luís Figueiredo de Lemos during a pastoral visitation to the church of Porto Moniz, that chapel was in a lamentable state of repair and cleanliness: its roof was of thatch and the altar lacked the painting of the patron saint. On this occasion the prelate acknowledged that the so-called administrator of the chapel, Gaspar da Costa, was under no obligation to see to its repairs, because his forebears had sold it to the king. The duty of keeping it properly repaired, so that divine worship could be celebrated there with due decency, fell to the inhabitants of the village. It seems that the inhabitants of the Achadas originally belonged to the parish (freguesia) of Ponta do Pargo, for in 1592 the diocesan bishop ordered that they should become parishioners of Porto Moniz and fulfil their religious obligations there.

In 1611 the prelate requested the restoration of the old curacy, in view of the difficulty the 84 residents of the Achada had in getting to Porto Moniz, and the people made the same request in 1638, on the grounds that there were already some 18 households (fogos, literally ‘hearths’) there. These efforts always proved fruitless. Only a century after the abolition of the original curacy was Bishop Dom António Teles da Silva authorised, by a royal decree (alvará) of 28 December 1676, ‘to create the curacy of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception (Nossa Senhora da Conceição) of Porto Moniz, with the obligation of residence at Achadas da Cruz and to receive its salary from the tithe portion of the same parish’. The royal decree of 5 March 1680 set the curate’s annual salary at twelve thousand réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis) in cash, one moio (dry measure of grain, 60 alqueires) of wheat and one pipa (wine cask and measure, c. 400–500 litres) of wine. The first curate appointed was Father Manuel Ferreira da Silva, on 20 July 1677.

Achadas da Cruz was always a curacy subordinate to Porto Moniz, with varying degrees of dependence on that parish, until, by the law (carta de lei) of 24 July 1848, it became an independent parish, or an autonomous curacy with its own civil and religious life.

The old chapel of the True Cross, which stood near the locality (sítio) of Calvário (‘Calvary’), did not give the name of its dedication to the patron saint of the parish. The patron became Our Lady of Deliverance (Nossa Senhora do Livramento) in the new chapel that was later built, in a year we cannot determine. This chapel was enlarged a few years ago and was considerably improved thanks to the substantial donativo (nominally a ‘gift’ to the Crown; a compulsory war levy) that Manuel de Pontes Câmara, a native of this parish, bequeathed to it for the purpose.

We have found somewhere that João Gonçalves Zarco granted his son Garcia Rodrigues da Câmara extensive lands at the western end of his captaincy, part of which later came to form the parish of the Achadas. This grant included various lands at Ponta do Pargo and extended to the limit of the donatary captaincy (donataria), which lay at the stream or at Ponta do Tristão (‘Tristão’s point’). There is no basis for the claim that Garcia da Câmara settled on the lands of the Achadas and, with his family and servants, formed the original nucleus of whatever population there was there. Old genealogies state that Garcia da Câmara died without issue, but it is conjectured that the entailed estate (morgadio) that existed at Achadas da Cruz was founded by one of his heirs; its last representative died there a few years ago and was called Luís Isidoro Carvalho Drumond.

A distinguished son of this parish was Commander Manuel de Pontes Câmara, who made an enormous fortune in Brazil and performed acts of the most notable benevolence there. At the same time he earned a lofty and never-contradicted reputation for unsurpassed probity and a character of the most proven austerity. Born in 1815, he sailed at a tender age for the Brazilian empire and within a few years was able to acquire a small fortune. This grew steadily and became considerable as, with intelligent initiative and persevering work, he devoted himself to large commercial transactions, constantly widening the sphere of his activity and so acquiring the substantial wealth he left at his death. Although his commercial activity absorbed his time, he did not neglect the cultivation of his mind: he spoke foreign languages, possessed uncommon learning and was widely read in the best-known authors, which lent particular distinction and charm to his extremely unaffected, welcoming and affable manner. He visited his homeland only once, in 1881, but on his return to his home in Rio de Janeiro aboard the steamer Douro he died in a shipwreck off Cape Finisterre on 2 April 1882. It is said that on reaching Brazil he intended to alter his testamentary dispositions considerably and to leave substantial legacies to the charitable institutions of Madeira, which he was unable to do because of the disastrous death that unexpectedly overtook him. Nevertheless, he left generous alms here, and among his legacies was one of five contos (one million réis) de réis to the Misericórdia of Funchal. He left almost the whole of the disposable third (terça) of the estate to charitable houses, especially to the Misericórdia of the city of Rio de Janeiro, while his children received the remainder of his great fortune.

A truly sensational event for this and the neighbouring parishes was the wreck of the American yacht Varuna. The vessel had left Bermuda on 7 November 1909, bound for Madeira, with her owner, the American millionaire Eugene Higgins, on board, and she was wrecked on the coast of the parish of Achadas da Cruz in the early hours of the 16th of that month. The sea was calm; the disaster was attributed to the thick fog, and it seems in large part to the carelessness of the helmsman and the lookouts. The owner of the Varuna and three ladies accompanying him were saved, as were the captain and the other officers; only one sailor died. She was a luxurious vessel that had visited our port several times, with a crew of about 50 and a capacity of approximately 1600 tons. Shortly after she ran aground the sea became very rough, preventing the orderly salvage of the ship’s fittings and the valuable objects on board. The violence of the waves gradually destroyed the yacht, casting the precious wreckage onto the nearby coasts and carrying it out to the open sea. It is said that the American millionaire lost in this disaster a magnificent necklace of pearls of the purest water, and various inventions and fantasies have been woven around the supposed finding of this precious jewel, which seem to us to lack any serious foundation.