Donataries

It is well known that in the earliest days of the colonisation of our overseas dominions, the newly discovered lands were divided, for the purposes of public administration, into provinces of greater or lesser extent, which were then called captaincies. At their head, as supreme local authority, stood the captain-donatary (capitão-donatário), who generally enjoyed the widest powers in directing the various public affairs, above all in the early days of our colonial administration.

The Madeiran archipelago had the distinction of being the first of these captaincies or overseas provinces: one had its seat on the island of Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’), and the other two in Machico and Funchal. It is impossible today to determine precisely when they were created, but it must be taken as certain that they date from the time when the colonisation and settlement of this archipelago began. When the first captains-donatary of these islands came to settle here permanently, they lost no time in dividing and demarcating the lands that were to belong to their respective jurisdictions. It is to be believed that they were already invested with the privileges and prerogatives that the donation charters would later confer on them in a more legal and authentic manner, with the confirmation of the authority of Prince Henry the Navigator and also of the monarchs.

In the earliest days of the colonisation of these islands, and for long afterwards, all civil and criminal jurisdiction lay with the donataries. There were serious and weighty reasons for this. Chief among them was the evident influence that old feudalism retained among us. To this were added the overriding power, sometimes carried to the point of despotism, that nobles, grandees and local authorities exercised over the lands of their domains; the distance separating the donataries’ lands from mainland Portugal and the difficulty of communication with the Kingdom (reino, i.e. mainland Portugal); the need to settle promptly many matters of a public administration that was still in its infancy and had no laws to regulate it; and the severity with which the captains-donatary often had to govern amid so heterogeneous a population of Black people, slaves, fugitives and criminals brought in to clear the uncultivated land. All this, and no doubt many other reasons unknown to us, contributed powerfully to making the powers and prerogatives enjoyed by the donataries in the administration of public affairs so broad.

The royal power did not abdicate its prerogatives; Prince Henry the Navigator called this island ‘my island of Madeira’, not only because he had initiated its discovery but also because of the donations the monarchs had made to him; and the powerful Order of Christ (Ordem de Cristo) held all spiritual jurisdiction over these islands, as well as various privileges in the administration of certain public matters. Even so, the government of the donataries was almost sovereign, at least in the early days. This was not only for the reasons we have briefly outlined, and in particular the distance separating them from the mainland, but chiefly because the monarchs, Prince Henry the Navigator and later the grand masters of the Order of Christ largely confined themselves, in the earliest period of colonisation, to collecting the rents and taxes and the various war levies with which the people were at first heavily burdened.

In the case of the donataries of Funchal and Machico, there were especially weighty circumstances which better explain the almost unlimited power they enjoyed, and which should be stressed here. These donataries were themselves the discoverers of the lands they came to administer; they had been brilliant collaborators of Prince Henry the Navigator in his great work of navigation and discovery; and they were given the first government of a distant land, thereby inaugurating a new kind of administration hitherto unknown. All this must surely have contributed to the grant, or perhaps rather the tacit permission, of all these powers, exemptions and prerogatives. In the case of João Gonçalves Zarco in particular, there were other by no means negligible reasons: the name and prestige he had won in Morocco, where he had earned his golden spurs as a brave and valiant knight; the fame he had gained as a daring navigator; and the esteem he enjoyed with Prince Henry the Navigator as a knight and familiar (lay agent of the Inquisition) of his household.

We shall note here that, no doubt owing to these circumstances, the first donatary of Funchal and his immediate successors were those who made the fullest use of these broad administrative powers, which at times even extended to the other donataries’ lands, in clear encroachment on the powers of others. The rapid growth and prosperity of the captaincy of Funchal, and the decline and ruin of the other captaincies, sufficiently explain the influence and dominance of the descendants and heirs of João Gonçalves Zarco. Even in official documents the donatary of Funchal was sometimes called the captain of the island, as if this archipelago did not contain the seats of two other captaincies. Funchal had become the centre of all active life in the archipelago: it had been made a city and the seat of the diocese, and had turned into an important commercial emporium. Its donataries, living in pomp and splendour and frequenting the court like the noblest and richest lords of the Kingdom, acquired such influence, prestige and power that they soon reduced the other donataries to a truly subordinate and humiliating position in the eyes of the people of this archipelago.

The donations of the captaincies of Machico, Porto Santo and Funchal to the first donataries, Tristão Vaz Teixeira, Bartolomeu Perestrelo and João Gonçalves Zarco, date from 1440, 1446 and 1450 respectively. It is strange that these grants should have been made so late, and there is good reason to suppose that the royal charters bearing those dates are merely instruments confirming donations granted earlier.

It is very likely, as we have already pointed out, that when the three donataries were invested with the government of their captaincies – which probably happened at the end of the first quarter of the 15th century or the beginning of the second – they received from Prince Henry the Navigator, or perhaps even from the monarch, some instructions or regulations (regimento), albeit of a general character and without much detail regarding matters and persons, to guide them in the conduct of public administration, which surely would not have been left solely to the judgement and arbitrary will of the donataries themselves. Nothing definite is known on this subject, and we have not found even the slightest reference to it.

The royal charters granting the captaincies to the first three donataries do not differ in essence in their main provisions. We shall transcribe some passages from the charter addressed to João Gonçalves Zarco, which was taken from the books of Funchal Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal do Funchal) and published by Dr Álvaro de Azevedo in one of the notes to ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra):

And it pleases me that he shall have in this aforesaid land jurisdiction, for me and in my name, in civil and criminal matters, save for death or the cutting off of a limb, from which appeal shall come before me; notwithstanding the said jurisdiction, it pleases me that all my orders and my justice be fulfilled there as a thing of my own. It pleases me likewise that the said João Gonçalves shall have for himself all the grain mills that there may be in the part of the said island of which I thus give him charge, and that no one shall build mills there save he or whomever he pleases; and this is not to be understood of the hand mill, which anyone who wishes may make, provided he does not grind for others; nor a horse mill save he or whomever he pleases. And it pleases me that he shall have from every water-powered sawmill (serra de água) built there one mark of silver (marco de prata, c. 230 g of silver) from each every year, or its certain value, or two planks each week of those customarily sawn in the sawmills, paying to me, however, the tithe of all the said sawmills as is paid from the others, just as is paid on the other things that the said sawmills saw. The said João Gonçalves shall likewise have this from any engine that may be built there, except for forges for iron-working and other metals. And it pleases me that all the bread ovens where a baking fee is paid shall be his; but let this not prevent anyone who wishes from building a furnace for his own bread, but not for any other person. And it pleases me that, when he has salt to sell, no one else may sell it but he, he giving it at the rate of half a silver real or its just value, and no more. And when he has none, let the people of the island sell it at their pleasure until he has it. It pleases me likewise that of all the revenue I shall have in the said part of the island he shall have one in ten; and what I am to have in the said island is contained in the charter of rights that I ordered to be made for it; and in this manner it pleases me that his son, or another of his descendants in the direct line who holds the office, shall have this revenue. And it pleases me that he may grant, by his letters, land in this part under the charter of rights of the island to whomever he pleases, on condition that the person to whom he gives the said land shall bring it into cultivation within five years; and if he does not, that I may give it to another; and if, after it has been brought into cultivation, it is left uncultivated for another five years, that he may likewise give it for that reason. Let this not prevent me, if there is land there to be cultivated that has not been granted, from giving it to whomever I please. And likewise it pleases me that his son or descendant heirs who hold the said office may grant it.

Putting the transcribed passage into language better suited to our time, and summarising it, we see that the Infante did not merely give the three donataries the lands. He also gave them civil and criminal jurisdiction over those lands and the right to collect the redízima (a tenth of the Crown's revenues due to the donatary), or the tenth part of all the revenue he was to receive in the two islands. Only the donataries could sell salt, provided its price did not exceed half a silver real per alqueire (dry measure for grain; as a land measure c. 900 m²), and only they could own mills and public bread ovens. Baking bread for household consumption, however, was free, and so was the sale of salt when the donataries had none in store. They likewise received one mark of silver a year, or two planks a week, for each water-powered sawmill on the island. Some documents state that the donataries were lords of water and wind, an allusion to the privilege of waters and mills which, together with that of selling salt, yielded large and substantial revenues, besides the others, which would have been greater still. In criminal matters the power of the captains-donatary extended to judging all cases, save for death or the cutting off of a limb, as the letter of grant (carta de doação) states. They also had the power to order the ears of slaves who committed certain crimes to be cut off, a right granted to them by a royal decree (alvará) in the year 1505.

The original power of the captains-donatary did not last very long. Those broad faculties were gradually curtailed as time went on. Several factors contributed powerfully to the gradual curtailment of the civil, military and judicial powers that the captains-donatary enjoyed in this archipelago: the kings’ assumption of the privileges that the Order of Christ held in the archipelago, the foundation of the municipalities, the institution of sesmarias (royal land grants to settlers on condition of cultivation) and entailed estates, the various agrarian laws, above all those concerning water, timber, livestock and sugar, the levying of certain contributions and taxes by the sovereigns, and the creation of various public offices, especially some of purely judicial administration, besides many other measures of the central power.

A deep blow to these very wide-ranging powers was the royal letter (carta régia) of 27 April 1497, in which Manuel I, as sovereign and as Grand Master of the Order of Christ, made the Madeiran archipelago a crown domain (realengo) and incorporated it definitively into the Crown. The words of the Fortunate King, set down in this curious document, are highly significant and eloquent, and we transcribe the following passage from it:

“

We think it good, and by this letter, in our name and in that of our heirs and successors, we promise for ever and give our royal faith that at no time, for any necessity or cause, foreseen or unforeseen, that may befall us and our successors, even if it be of great weight or importance, shall the said island or any part of it, with its lordship, revenues and jurisdiction, ever be given by us or by our successors, whether as a grace, for life, in perpetuity or in any other manner whatsoever, to any person of whatever estate, condition or pre-eminence, nor to any church, monastery or other pious house, nor to any religious order or order, even one of knighthood. Rather, we wish and once again promise that the said island, whole and united, shall always be ours, of our Crown and of the kings our successors, and shall never at any time be severed or separated from us or from them. And for greater firmness and security of this, we, in our name and in that of the kings our successors and heirs, swear on the sign of the cross and on the holy Gospels, upon which we bodily lay our hands, that we and our said heirs and successors shall fulfil and maintain it wholly, without artifice, reservation or any diminution, and that we shall never at any time seek release or absolution from this oath. Rather, we entreat our most holy father who at any time shall preside over the Church of God never to dispense from this oath nor to temper it so that, with his licence, the contrary may be done. We earnestly beg and charge the kings our heirs and successors who shall come in time that, by our blessing and under pain of the curse of God and of ourselves, they always so fulfil and preserve it FOR EVER. In testimony and faith of which we order this letter to be given to the said island and to its inhabitants...

We cannot fail to transcribe the interesting commentary on this royal letter by the learned annotator of ‘Longing for the Homeland’:

“

The first of these documents is the royal letter of 27 April 1497, by which he made the island of Madeira Crown land (realenga); a letter that was a coup d’état, as people now say in the French manner, or a motu proprio, as the old monarchy used to say; a letter by which the king set once and for all, definitively and securely, this pearl of the ocean, the island of Madeira, in his crown, and secured the people of that island within Portuguese sovereignty; a letter by which the king interposed his mighty sceptre as a dyke against the incredible vexations of every kind that the donataries, the local aristocracy and the clergy arrogated to themselves over a well-behaved and industrious population; a letter beneath whose august words one can sense the resentful panting of the whole shoal of those selfish interests, brought low before the royal power, in whose shelter law and morality, labour and hope then timidly took refuge; a letter by which the island of Madeira began to cease being almost the slave of many, to become the direct subject of one alone; a letter that perhaps crushed, with the solemn oaths and tremendous curses it contains, some silent conspiracy of those same interests, for which their own satisfaction was everything, and all else nothing’.

Abuses of jurisdiction by the donataries, which at times went as far as encroaching on royal power, were not rare. On several occasions they led to the dispatch to this island of ouvidores and corregedores (royal district magistrates), invested with almost discretionary powers, whose special mission was to investigate and judge these excesses of jurisdiction. These magistrates were sent at first in extraordinary cases, and later in more ordinary circumstances. They mitigated and corrected those encroachments of power, and conflicts sometimes arose between them and the captains-donatary, which the government in mainland Portugal always settled in the appeals lodged before the Crown.

We have several examples of this, especially the arrival in Madeira, in the last quarter of the 15th century, of the corregedor Álvaro Fernandes, with a special judicial commission (alçada) from the king over the whole island, and later that of the bachelor (bacharel, university graduate) Rui Pires, also with jurisdiction over the whole archipelago. In the first quarter of the 16th century, Manuel I sent the corregedor Dr Diogo Teixeira to this island ‘for certain reasons that moved him to do so in respect of Captain Simão Gonçalves’, says Gaspar Frutuoso. This greatly angered the captain-donatary, so much so that he resolved to abandon the captaincy and even embarked in two caravels with his family and the best of his household goods, bound for Spain. He did not carry this out, because he put in at the Algarve and the king gave him satisfaction for the affront, ‘because’, as the said chronicler states, ‘for the services he had done the king he did not deserve to have a corregedor imposed on him’. This episode provided the subject of an interesting narrative by Inácio de Vilhena Barbosa, included in his book Virtudes Civicas e Domesticas.

Other measures successively adopted gradually restricted the donataries’ broad jurisdictional powers. On 8 March 1498 Manuel I ordered that sentences not confirmed by him should not be carried out, and on 25 March 1500 he issued orders for the noblemen, knights and vassals of this island to accompany him to war the following summer; until then military service had been rendered voluntarily by the captains-donatary. Around 1579 the Cardinal-King Henry considerably curtailed those prerogatives, ordering in particular that offices and posts of justice should be filled by royal appointment, a right that had previously belonged to the captains-donatary.

Under Philippine rule the power of the donataries was curtailed still further. The Spanish government created the posts of governor-general to administer our possessions and sent to this archipelago the high court judge (desembargador) Dr João Leitão, who was also charged with conducting a judicial inquiry (devassa) into the political events that had taken place on this island when Philip II was proclaimed. From then on the captains-donatary ceased to reside here and exercised their jurisdictional powers through their ouvidores (magistrates), whom they appointed and to whom they delegated all the powers they themselves enjoyed. It is easy to presume, however, that the absence of the donataries from their captaincies, together with the truly despotic authority exercised by the representatives of the Spanish government, must have done a great deal to reduce the donataries’ power in the government of these islands to paltry proportions. Although from this period onwards the donataries’ functions in local administration and in the administration of justice were almost purely honorary, they nevertheless continued to receive substantial revenues from the various taxes levied in the archipelago. Around the middle of the 18th century they were also amply compensated for the loss of these revenues and taxes, which they then began to suffer.

It would today be difficult, perhaps even impossible, to determine precisely the scope of the powers held, at the time the Castilian occupation began, both by the captains-donatary and by the various magistrates sent to this archipelago by the monarchs. We would say the same of the period of Spanish rule and of the time that elapsed from 1640 until the days of the Marquis of Pombal.

The donataries did not witness the successive and gradual reduction of their broad powers and uncommon prerogatives without protest. That protest, although it cannot be regarded as merely platonic, did not prevent the central government from making its presence felt ever more strongly in the administration of public affairs. It is true that Manuel I moderated or softened the harshness of some of the measures he had adopted, and in the royal letter (carta régia) of 20 April 1509, registered in the archive of the Council of this city, he made some concessions to Captain Simão Gonçalves da Câmara. The monarch’s reforming work did not slacken, however, but kept the momentum of its initial drive. This attitude of Manuel I, and the satisfaction given to the donatary who had put in at the Algarve, to which we referred above, prove only that the sovereign’s prudent and conciliatory spirit did not wish to impose by force measures that ran counter to old and deep-rooted customs and that would wound the pride and honour of vassals who had rendered distinguished services to the homeland. His reforming work nonetheless went on and was brought to completion.

We have already referred briefly elsewhere to the life of pomp and grandeur led by the donataries of Funchal. It seems that some of them sought to rival the monarchs in luxury and magnificence, appearing at court solemnities and at the lavish wedding ceremonies of princes with such extraordinary brilliance and unusual pomp that they dazzled the richest and noblest gentlemen who frequented the royal palaces. They organised great expeditions to conquer and relieve our strongholds in Morocco, in which fleets of dozens of ships and many hundreds of men and horses at times remained in Africa for several consecutive months, all at their own expense and at no cost whatever to the government of mainland Portugal. Among the displays of pomp and grandeur that adorned the ostentatious life of the third donatary, Simão Gonçalves da Câmara (see that entry), known as the Magnificent, one stands out: the lavish gift to Pope Leo X of the Sacred College made in alfenim (white sugar paste for modelling figures), presented by an embassy, as described elsewhere. In 1576 the 5th captain-donatary (capitão-donatário), Simão Gonçalves, was given the title of Count of Calheta (‘small cove’), in recognition of the services of his forebears and the splendour and wealth of his great house.

The donataries of Funchal and Machico were turned into alcaidarias-mores (chief wardenships) during the administration of the Marquis of Pombal, and the jurisdiction and most of the privileges held by the donataries then passed to the Crown. The privilege of appointing ouvidores and certain officials of justice, of the Council, of the market inspectorate (almotaçaria) and of the orphans’ court was ceded to the Crown by the Count of Castelo Melhor, donatary of Funchal, by deed of 9 September 1766. As compensation for the prerogatives he lost, he received the title of marquis, some important properties in Portugal and a commemorative pillar (padrão) of interest entitling him to an annual pension of 10,000 cruzados, secured on the tobacco revenues. These assets were given the character of patrimonial property and of a perpetual entail (morgado), to pass to the said count’s successors by right of blood.

The right to the redízima (a tenth of the Crown’s revenues due to the donatary) did not disappear, although the alcaides-mores thenceforth ceased to have a share in the tithe revenue. The monopoly of the public dues and of the sale of salt was also retained, though the donatary could not demand a price for that commodity higher than the one fixed by the government. Private individuals continued to be allowed to bake bread, exclusively for household consumption.

When the captaincies of Funchal, Machico and Porto Santo were abolished, they belonged respectively to José Caminha de Vasconcelos e Sousa, Marquis of Castelo Melhor; to the Marquis of Valença, as representative of the house of the Counts of Vimioso; and to Estêvão de Bettencourt, a descendant of Bartolomeu Perestrelo.

The average revenue of the captaincy of Porto Santo in the period from 1766 to 1770 was only 242,112 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis), whereas the two alcaidarias-mores of Funchal and Machico yielded their respective alcaides in 1807 the considerable sum of 23,110,000 réis, derived from the redízima on all the revenues of the Royal Treasury (Fazenda Real), with the exception of the tithes.

The alcaidarias-mores of Funchal and Machico were abolished by the decree of 13 August 1832, which was fully implemented only after the liberal government had been proclaimed throughout the country.

The first captains-donatary of Funchal were João Gonçalves Zarco (1425–1467), João Gonçalves da Câmara (1467–1501), Simão Gonçalves da Câmara (1501–1530), João Gonçalves da Câmara (1530–1536) and Simão Gonçalves da Câmara (1536–1580) (see that entry). During the latter’s minority the donatary captaincy (donataria) was governed by his uncle, Francisco Gonçalves da Câmara. This Simão Gonçalves da Câmara died in Funchal on 4 March 1580 and was succeeded by his son João Gonçalves da Câmara, who died three months later in Almeirim without having taken possession of the captaincy. Philippine rule then began and, apart from the substantial revenues the donataries continued to enjoy, their role in the administration of public affairs became almost purely honorific. After João Gonçalves da Câmara, the donataries of Funchal were Simão Gonçalves da Câmara (1585–1623), João Gonçalves da Câmara (1623...), Dona Mariana de Alencastre e Câmara, who died in 1689, Luís de Vasconcelos e Câmara, Count of Castelo Melhor (1690–1726), Afonso Caminha de Vasconcelos, Count of Castelo Melhor (1726...), and José Caminha de Vasconcelos e Sousa, Count and later Marquis of Castelo Melhor, who ceded his rights to the Crown in 1766. All these donataries, however, always lived at court, and a good part of their former privileges had been stripped from them by the appointment of governors-general to administer the archipelago.

The donatary captaincy of Funchal always remained in the hands of the direct descendants of João Gonçalves Zarco until it was abolished. The captaincy of Machico, by contrast, had as its 1st donatary the discoverer Tristão Vaz Teixeira; the 2nd donatary was his son Tristão Teixeira, known as ‘das Damas’, and the 3rd was the latter’s son, also named Tristão Teixeira. He was succeeded by his son Diogo Teixeira, who died without heirs, whereupon the captaincy was incorporated into the Crown’s property. In 1542 John III made a royal grant of it to António da Silveira, who had greatly distinguished himself in India. In 1549 he sold the captaincy to Dom Afonso de Portugal, Count of Vimioso, and on his death the captain of Machico was his son, the count Francisco de Portugal, who died gloriously defending the rights of the Prior of Crato in the battle fought in the waters off Vila Franca do Campo, in the Azores, on 23 July 1582. On 25 February of that year, that is, while the Count of Vimioso was still alive, Philip II gave the donatary captaincy of Machico to Tristão Vaz da Veiga (see that entry), sadly notorious as a traitor to his country. The 4th Count of Vimioso, Dom Luís de Portugal, managed to recover the donatary captaincy in 1604; he took religious vows and died in a convent in Évora in 1637. The successive captains-donatary of Machico, more in law than in fact, were Dom Afonso de Portugal, 5th Count; Dom Luís de Portugal, 6th Count, who died in 1656; Dom Miguel de Portugal, 7th Count, who died around 1680; Dom Francisco de Portugal e Castro, 8th Count and 2nd Marquis of Valença (1679–1749); and Dom José Miguel de Portugal e Castro, 9th Count and 3rd Marquis of Valença (1709–1775).

The captains-donatary of Porto Santo were Bartolomeu Perestrelo (1425), Pedro Correia, Bartolomeu Perestrelo (1473), Bartolomeu Perestrelo (1529), Diogo Soares Perestrelo (1545), Diogo Perestrelo Bisforte (1576), Vitorino Bettencourt Perestrelo (1653), Diogo Perestrelo, Estêvão Bettencourt Perestrelo, Vitorino Bettencourt Perestrelo and Estêvão Bettencourt Perestrelo.