Castilian rule

Like many towns and villages in Portugal, Madeira accepted the Castilian yoke without resistance. This spared it the atrocities with which Philip II usually inaugurated his rule in the lands he conquered by force of arms.

Neither the day on which the first usurping king received his acclamation (aclamação, formal public proclamation of a new king) in Funchal nor the manner in which the ceremony was held is known, since the books of the council sessions where this should have been recorded have disappeared. Several events that occurred during Philippine rule (Spanish Habsburg rule over Portugal, 1580–1640) in Madeira are known, however, and some of them clearly show how baneful and oppressive that rule was for the people of this island.

Gaspar Frutuoso states in ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra), a work written in 1590, that in 1587, when the donatary Tristão Vaz da Veiga was governor and superintendent of military affairs, the Portuguese succeeded in recovering two ships, one laden with wine and the other with wheat, which a corsair had seized in the bay of Funchal. He adds that in the following year an English carrack that had been plundering the ships entering or leaving our landing place was sunk. The same author also records that in 1582, when the French of Dom António’s fleet were expected to land on Madeira, António de Carvalhal brought 300 men to Funchal and maintained them at his own expense for five months, in the service of the Catholic king, Philip.

The execution of the friar João do Espírito Santo, mentioned by Rebelo da Silva, probably took place in 1582 or shortly afterwards, although Gaspar Frutuoso does not refer to it. This friar, who had been on the island of Terceira and was a true patriot, was hanged in Funchal, dressed in the garb of a lay brother, for inciting the people to take the side of the Prior of Crato after this island had been brought into obedience to Philip II.

Between 1600 and 1602 disturbances of so grave a character broke out in Funchal that a commission with wide powers was sent from Lisbon to punish them. Some years later the excesses that dishonoured the capital of Madeira were still so numerous, with murders being committed in the open street and in broad daylight, that Philip III of Spain, by a letter of 29 November 1614, charged Dr Gonçalo de Sousa, high court judge (desembargador) of the Casa da Suplicação (supreme court of appeal in Lisbon), with coming to this island to punish such excesses severely.

Matters did not improve with the arrival of Dr Gonçalo de Sousa in Funchal, for from then until 1627 there were 38 violent deaths in this city. Among them was that of Dom Francisco Henriques, son of Dona Isabel Grega, a member of the island’s nobility.

The law was not respected, and criminals, thanks to the protection they enjoyed, were seldom punished. When Dom Francisco Henriques was murdered, the culprit found refuge in the College church (Igreja do Colégio, the Jesuit college church), where two clerics opposed his arrest. And when the ouvidor (judicial officer of the donatary or the Crown) captured a brother-in-law of the murderer and handed him over to the alcaide (town officer with police and jail duties), the man was snatched from the hands of the authorities by a second lieutenant and several soldiers of the Castilian garrison!

Dona Isabel Gomes, a widow of good family, had her house broken into and a daughter seduced by one João Rodrigues Mandragão. When the ordinary judge (juiz ordinário, locally elected lay judge) appeared, he arrested not the seducer, who was his relative, but a son of the same Dona Isabel, who had been wounded by a pistol shot while rushing to his sister’s defence!

Many individuals already sentenced by Dr Gonçalo de Sousa were in hiding, without the law making any attempt to arrest them. Several prisoners had escaped from the city gaol, one of whom was due to suffer the death penalty on the gallows for having committed two murders!

Rui Gomes was killed by Braz de Freitas in the governor-general’s hall, and on the same occasion the murderer wounded some officers who were present and had tried to prevent the crime! On 13 October 1627 a royal letter (carta régia) was issued to Dr Estevão Leitão de Meireles, appointing him judge of a special judicial commission (alçada) that was to come to the island of Madeira to inquire into the crimes committed here, with orders to punish them severely. The judge of pious bequests (juiz dos resíduos) and the superintendent of the royal treasury (provedor da fazenda) were to serve as assessors to the commission, and its expenses were to be borne by the guilty, whose property could be seized.

Dr Estevão de Meireles began proceedings against the offenders as soon as he reached this island. Yet two years later many of those offenders had still been neither arrested nor heard by the judges of the commission, because the governor-general had given them shelter in his own palace and openly refused to hand them over!

The president of the commission, together with the aforementioned Dona Isabel Grega and Dona Isabel Gomes, protested against this shameless protection of powerful villains of the basest sort. As a result the governor was censured for his conduct and compelled to hand over the individuals sheltered in the fortress.

We do not know what became of these individuals, many of whom deserved exemplary punishment for the murders and other serious crimes they had committed in Funchal. A person worthy of the greatest confidence has assured us that the records of their trials are not to be found in the Torre do Tombo (national archives), and it is possible that they lie buried in some archive in Spain.

During the Philippine government a visitor (visitador, ecclesiastical inspector) of the Holy Office came to Madeira. The island’s officials were instructed to give him all the favour and help he needed to carry out the task entrusted to him, and were even ordered to vacate the best buildings in the places he had to visit for his residence. This visitor was named Francisco Cardoso de Cernejo, and he was appointed by a warrant (provisão) of 20 July 1612.

In 1617 the island of Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’) was attacked and sacked by the Moors, who carried off many captives. A record (auto) drawn up at the session of Funchal Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal do Funchal) on 16 June 1632 shows that the fact that these pirates did not come to Madeira at the same time was attributed to the protection of the patron saint, St James the Less. The Fort of São Tiago (St James the Greater), the castle of São João do Pico, part of the encircling walls and the fort of Pico do Castelo (‘castle peak’) on the island of Porto Santo are military works carried out in the time of the Castilians. From the same period dates an unfinished tunnel in the locality (sítio) of Rabaçal, which was apparently intended to carry the waters that lay unused at that point of the island. In the time of Philip II the office of governor-general was created, and from then on our archipelago was never again free of the superintendence of a higher authority appointed by the Crown. The donataries were not abolished, but the donataries, although they saw their privileges confirmed by the usurping kings, had to acknowledge the supremacy of the delegate of the central power in the lands their ancestors had governed as almost absolute lords.

In 1600 the troops of the Castilian garrison mutinied because they had not been paid on time, and in April 1626 there were fresh riots in Funchal for the same reason, during which the soldiers mistreated the superintendent of the royal treasury (provedor da fazenda). When this official went to the customs house, the building was surrounded by a military force commanded by Captain António de Mira, which withdrew only after receiving part of the money it was owed.

Because the clergy’s salaries had not been paid, Bishop Dom Jerónimo Fernando excommunicated the superintendent of the royal treasury and the officials of the customs house in 1621, but the royal warrant (provisão régia) of 21 November of the same year obliged him to lift the excommunication.

It was not only the clergy and the military who went unpaid; merchants, too, did not receive the sums due for the supplies they furnished to the troops. This gave rise to various complaints and finally to a warrant ordering that from then on the provisions and goods intended for the garrison should not be bought on credit.

In 1637 Madeira was obliged to contribute 10,000 cruzados each year to the fleet for the recovery of Pernambuco, and at almost the same time it was required to supply 1000 men to fight in Spain against the French armies. These were, we believe, the last measures by which the Castilian government saw fit to oppress the inhabitants of this island.

The brief sketch we have just drawn shows that Castilian rule in Madeira was remarkable chiefly for the anarchy, extortion and injustice to which the people were subjected while it lasted. The few useful measures adopted during the sixty years of captivity pass almost unnoticed amid the errors and abuses committed by the rulers. It was these errors and abuses, perhaps more than love of national independence itself, that led the inhabitants of this island to join promptly and with the greatest enthusiasm the glorious movement of 1 December 1640, which separated for ever two peoples bound together by the ties of an oppressive despotism.