Agrela (João Agostinho Pereira de)

He was born in Funchal in May 1777 and belonged to an old and noble family that held, as its property, the office of clerk of the Council (escrivão da Câmara) of Funchal, granted by John IV in 1645 to one of Pereira de Agrela’s forebears. Dr Álvaro de Azevedo says that he was one of the most learned Madeirans of his time. It was he who, at the beginning of the 19th century, had the copy of ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra) made that served as the text for Dr Azevedo’s edition of the work in 1873. See the article ‘Longing for the Homeland’. ‘He was a very well-read man, says the Diccionário Popular, and a great investigator of antiquities; he wrote a collection of genealogical memoirs, which remain unpublished in 5 thick volumes in the possession of his heirs, and which deal with all the noble families that settled on the island of Madeira and their descendants, with a good many curiosities concerning some of them. This work reveals the painstaking study of an inquiring mind and an enlightened critical sense, and it is certainly the most free of errors and the most complete to be found in this branch of the history of that island.

Because he professed liberal ideas, he was arrested in 1828 and sent to Lisbon, where he spent a year aboard the frigate D. Pedro and another year in Limoeiro prison (Cadeia do Limoeiro), and was finally sentenced to stay away from Madeira for a further year. He returned to his homeland in 1834 and died here the following year, in February.