Esmeraldo (João)

Among the outsiders of noble birth whom the hazards of fortune brought to this island in the days of colonisation, one stands out: the Flemish fidalgo (nobleman of the lesser nobility) João de Esmenaut, whose name was Portuguesised as João de Esmeraldo and who seems to have landed in Funchal around 1480. He proved his noble descent, and by a royal letter (carta régia) of 13 August 1511 Manuel I ordered that the privileges of a fidalgo be upheld for him, since he was one in Picardy, the land of his birth. Later, by a royal decree (alvará) of 16 May 1520, which is transcribed in the nobiliary of H. Henriques de Noronha, he was granted a coat of arms and made a nobleman of the Royal Household (fidalgo da Casa Real), an honour that Carlos I of Spain had already conferred on him earlier. This coat of arms comprises, besides the arms proper to the Esmenauts, the arms of Piennes, Hallwin and Nedenchel, families allied to the former and among the most illustrious in the north of France.

João Esmeraldo held a great deal of land on this island by sesmaria (royal land grant to settlers on condition of cultivation), and by a deed of 28 January 1498 he bought, or took on quit-rent, from Luís Gonçalves da Câmara, son of João Gonçalves Zarco, the great property called Lombada da Ponta do Sol (‘ridge of Ponta do Sol’). It later took the name of Lombada dos Esmeraldos (‘the Esmeraldos’ ridge’), and we shall deal with it in a separate article. There he founded the entail (morgado) of Santo Espírito (‘Holy Spirit’). By a deed of 12 June 1522, with the consent of his second wife, Agueda de Abreu, of his son by his first marriage, João Esmeraldo, and of his son by his second marriage, Cristovão Esmeraldo, he divided it into two entailed estates (morgadio), called Santo Espírito and Vale da Bica (‘spout valley’). By lot, the first fell to Cristovão and the second to João Esmeraldo, and all this was confirmed by John III by royal decree (alvará régio) of 13 November of that year.

Gaspar Frutuoso says: ‘The Lombada of João Esmeraldo, a Genoese by nation, which reaches from the sea to the uplands, has many sugar canes, and is so rich an estate that João Esmeraldo once came to produce twenty thousand arrobas from his own cultivation each year; and he had some eighty souls as his slaves, among them Moors, mulatto men and women, black men and women, and Canary Islanders. This was the greatest house on the island, and it has large residential buildings, sugar mills, purging houses and a church. And after the death of João Esmeraldo, everything passed to his son Christovão Esmeraldo, who spent most of his time in the city of Funchal riding a very handsome mule, with eight men behind him, four in cloaks and four young men without cloaks, sons of honourable men... ’

Despite its size and the 80 slaves it held, we find a production of twenty thousand arrobas on a single property excessive, especially at a time when a considerable part of the land was still uncultivated and its difficult clearing proceeded very slowly, owing chiefly to the relief and ruggedness of the terrain. It should also be noted that João Esmeraldo was Flemish or French, and not Genoese as Frutuoso asserts. Although we consider the chronicler’s words somewhat hyperbolic, we cannot help believing in the wealth and prosperity of the Lombada, if we bear in mind the importance it still has today, the large dwelling house and handsome church that Esmeraldo built there, and the many references we have found to this property, which was regarded as the most important entailed estate of the opulent house of Carvalhal (‘oak grove’).

The church was consecrated in 1508 by Bishop Dom João Lobo, and its founder, who died on 19 June 1536, was buried there.

The name of João Esmeraldo is inseparably linked with the stay of Christopher Columbus on this island, and to avoid needless repetition we refer the reader to the article we have devoted to the great navigator. João Esmeraldo was the first on this island to bear this surname, and the coat of arms granted to him and his descendants is described by Noronha as follows: ‘The field quartered: the first argent, with a bend sable; the second azure, with a fess of gold camelia; the third argent, with a lion sable, and above it a red fillet with bend, and around it billets sable; the fourth azure and a bend sable fimbriated gules: helm of silver, open, garnished with gold, mantling of gold and azure, and for crest a lion sable’. This description differs somewhat from the one found in volume 3 of the dictionary Portugal, on p. 184.