Sugar-cane mills

There are at present 51 factories for crushing sugar cane in Madeira: 10 in the municipality (concelho) of Funchal, 3 in that of Câmara de Lobos, 2 in that of Ribeira Brava, 7 in that of Ponta do Sol, 8 in that of Calheta, 1 in that of Porto Moniz, 6 in that of São Vicente, 7 in that of Sant’Ana, 4 in that of Machico and 3 in that of Santa Cruz. Of these factories, only two are equipped to produce sugar on a large scale, and the installation of one of them was completed this year.

Of the 51 factories that operated while the sugar regime (regime sacarino, the legal framework governing sugar production) established by the law of 24 November 1904 and the decree of 11 March 1911 was in force, 49 distilled only spirit (aguardente, distilled from sugar cane or wine) at 26° Cartier, all of it intended for public consumption in Madeira. The remaining two, the only registered ones, were responsible for making sugar and the alcohol at 40° used in the treatment of wines.

The first sugar mill (engenho) for crushing sugar cane in Madeira was built in 1452. By 1590, when Frutuoso wrote the ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra), there were more than 30 mills scattered across the island, even though the sugar industry here was already showing signs of decline at that time. In 1730, according to Soares da Silva in the Memorias para a historia del-rei D. João o I, there were few mills in Madeira, and Dr Azevedo reckoned that the sugar industry disappeared from the island entirely in 1748, because it could no longer withstand the competition of American sugars, which had long been flooding the European markets, where they were sold at low prices.

When Thomas Edward Bowdich visited Madeira in 1823, only an insignificant quantity of sugar was being made here, and in 1826 there was a single mill on the whole island. Severiano Ferraz (see that entry) set about building another the following year, and it was completed in 1828. In 1851 there were four factories in Madeira (Harcourt, Sketch of Madeira), and in 1856 there were ten in Funchal and 18 on the whole island, all for distilling spirit (aguardente, distilled from sugar cane or wine) (White, Madeira its climate and scenery). In 1861 there were twenty-nine factories on the whole island, five of which processed sugar. In 1872 Dr Azevedo stated in his notes to the ‘Longing for the Homeland’ that there were known here ‘seven steam factories, five of them in operation and one about to begin; nine water-driven mills; and some driven by oxen’. The first of these produced sugar and spirit, the latter almost all consumed within the country.

In 1900 the number of factories had risen to 49, distributed as follows: 11 in Funchal, 2 in Câmara de Lobos, 10 in Ponta do Sol, 7 in Calheta, 5 in São Vicente, 7 in Sant'Ana, 4 in Machico and 3 in Santa Cruz. Of these factories, however, only three processed sugar: that of W. Hinton at Torreão (‘turret’), that of Silva Manique (formerly Severiano Ferraz) at Ponte Nova (‘new bridge’), and that of José de Faria & C.ª at São Martinho. Previously some sugar had also been produced by the factories of Vitorino Ferreira Nogueira at São Martinho, of Wilbraham at Ponta do Sol, of Diogo Frasão at Arco da Calheta (‘arc of Calheta’), and of Ornelas Frasão at Santa Cruz.

Having bought the Ponte Nova factory and the machinery of others intended for sugar production, W. Hinton thus became the absolute master of one of the island’s richest industries. He eventually obtained from the Government the publication of a law under which only registered factories were permitted to process that product and the alcohol used for fortifying wines.

Although there were two registered factories, that of W. Hinton and that of José Júlio de Lemos, the latter was always, so to speak, a dependency of the former. Its present owners eventually leased it to Hinton for twenty-five contos (1 conto = 1,000,000 réis, from 1911 1,000 escudos) a year until 31 March 1919, with a clause for extension should the Government also extend the sugar regime (regime sacarino, the legal framework governing sugar production) of 1911.

Of the factories now in operation, the Torreão factory is the most remarkable. Indeed, it may be called the most important industrial establishment in the district of Funchal and, of its kind, one of the most perfect in the whole world, since it can process 500 tonnes of cane in twenty-four hours.

The José Julio de Lemos factory has a much smaller capacity than the Torreão and has produced only alcohol, but it too is an important establishment: it has improved its installations and has powerful steam boilers of the Babcock & Wilcox type.

As for the spirit (aguardente, distilled from sugar cane or wine) distilleries, they offer nothing remarkable. The engineer Mr Vitorino José dos Santos noted in the Boletim do Trabalho Industrial of 1913 that distillation in them is generally carried out in continuous stills, and that these factories are ‘in their great majority powered, for motion and distillation, by steam boilers, with the exception of 5 factories in the municipality (concelho) of Ponta do Sol, 4 in that of São Vicente and 5 in that of Santana, where distillation is carried out over a direct fire’.

As we said on p. 262 of this Elucidário, the factory known as São João, belonging to the Companhia Fabril de Açúcar Madeirense, was inaugurated on 23 March 1873. Although equipped with the best apparatus then obtainable, this establishment always had a troubled existence and eventually foundered, owing to the unfair and shameful war waged on it by its enemies. To give an idea of how this war was conducted, it is enough to say that in one year a good part of the cane juice (garapa) produced at the factory ended up in the bed of the Ribeira de São João, and that several attempts were made to wreck the rollers that crushed the cane by inserting pieces of iron and lumps of cantaria rija (hard dressed stone of vesicular basalt) into them!

Older than the São João factory, but excellent for its time, was the factory founded in 1856 by Severiano Alberto Ferraz, on which he spent some twenty-five contos. Improved by the founder’s sons, the Ponte Nova factory had by 1862 steam clarifiers, Bour concentrators, centrifugal machines for extracting the molasses, etc., etc. It was regarded as a first-class establishment and the best then existing in Funchal. It was driven by steam, the power being distributed by a ten-horsepower engine to the various other manufacturing machines.

The Torreão factory was founded by William Hinton & Co., also in 1856, and was driven by water; when water ran short in summer, however, power was supplied by a twelve-horsepower steam engine.

The island’s early mills were all driven by water or by oxen, and the rollers were sometimes made of the wood of the til (Ocotea foetens, Madeiran laurel), once very common. Besides the mills there were also the alçapremas, or hand presses, which we have already had occasion to discuss elsewhere in this Elucidário.

The old documents do not say what process the owners of mills and alçapremas used to make sugar. It is likely, however, that it consisted of boiling the cane juice in cauldrons to the consistency of a thick syrup and then transferring it to vessels pierced at the bottom, where the crystals would settle while the liquid drained through the holes. It may also be supposed that lime water and animal charcoal, products that modern industry likewise uses, were employed to purify the sugar.

Sugar refining flourished in Madeira in the 15th century, and it was from here that it passed to Lisbon, where, as Dr Azevedo says, it ‘created so many private fortunes, to the detriment of the colonies and of the sugar industry itself’.