Ferreira (Gonçalo Aires)

In the short article devoted to João Afonso, we have already touched briefly on the companions of João Gonçalves Zarco in the hazardous enterprise of discovering and settling this archipelago. Although João Afonso stood out among the seamen who manned the caravels commanded by Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira, it is nevertheless certain that Gonçalo Aires Ferreira was the most distinguished companion of the first discoverer. This was due not only to his noble ancestry but also to his learning, compared with that of the other men who made up the crew of the small fleet that first sailed to this island. Some genealogists have highlighted the fact that Gonçalo Aires was the most dedicated companion and most devoted friend of João Gonçalves Zarco in the labours of the expedition and discovery, and also in the early settlement of the captaincy of Funchal.

Gaspar Frutuoso, referring to the first expedition made along the coast by the discoverers, says the following:

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Before they reached this delightful valley, they sailed along the coast, which was of high cliffs, without finding any place to go ashore, except at a stream that thrusts a rock out into the sea, where they could land as at a quay. There the captain ordered his friend Gonçalo Aires to go ashore at this stream with certain companions and to walk inland some distance, to see whether there were any animals or creatures, serpents or venomous snakes, and not to stray from the watercourse, so that they would know how to return to the boats they had left at sea. Gonçalo Aires went with his companions, ranging over the land for the space of three hours, at the end of which the captain was already growing vexed at their delay, when lo, they appeared coming down the stream with garlands on their heads, decked with branches, talking with great delight, for they had found no living thing but birds; and from this the Ribeira de Gonçalo Aires took its name.

Elsewhere, speaking of some of Zarco’s companions, he says ‘that came in his company. . . had children, many lands and properties which they acquired, and a most noble lineage, as was that of Gonçalo Aires, from whom descends the family that on the island of Madeira is called the great’.

Gonçalo Aires held vast lands by sesmaria (royal land grant to settlers on condition of cultivation), stretching from the stream that came to bear his name as far as the Santa Luzia (‘St Lucy’) stream and reaching up to the ridges of the uplands. Besides giving his name to that stream, he also gave it to the street now known as Rua do Carmo (‘Carmel’), which then ran from the church to the bank of the Ribeira de João Gomes (‘João Gomes’s stream’).

In the article on Canon Jerónimo Dias Leite we have already referred to the account of the discovery of this archipelago attributed to Gonçalo Aires. On this subject the ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra) says: ‘He (the sixth captain-donatary (capitão-donatário) of Funchal) kept in his study the Discovery of the Island of Madeira, the most truthful yet found, which they say was written by Gonçalo Aires Ferreira, who went to discover that same island with the first Captain, João Gonçalves Zargo; and since this Discovery belonged to the Captains of the same island, they kept it in their studies as a thing inherited from descendant to descendant. And when information about this island of Madeira was requested, on my behalf, from the Reverend Canon of the Cathedral of Funchal, Jerónimo Dias Leite, he, having seen it in the possession of the said Captain João Gonçalves da Câmara, sent to ask him for it in Lisbon, where he then was; and the Captain had it copied by his chamberlain Lucas de Sá, and sent it to him written on three sheets of paper in the said chamberlain’s hand; and by his letter (because the discovery makes no mention of this) he sent word that Gonçalo Aires Ferreira, who had been one of the servants whom Zargo, the first Captain, took there with him, wrote down all that he saw with his own eyes, and, as he was neither a learned nor a lettered man, set it down in a rough style, with nothing else added’.

Gonçalo Aires was the son of Gomes Ferreira and Isabel Pereira de Lacerda. He came to this island already married at the beginning of the colonisation, and from his marriage he had twin children, who were the first people born on Madeira and were therefore named Adão and Eva (Adam and Eve). For this reason the name of Gonçalo Aires is bound up with the earliest settlement of the archipelago, and he was also the founder of a distinguished and numerous line of descendants. He was the first here to bear the surname Ferreira, and he and his descendants used the following arms: ‘on a field gules four bars or; crest, an emu proper holding a horseshoe or in its beak’.

In the manuscript Noticias das cousas da Ilha da Madeira desde o seu segundo descobrimento pelo Zarco (see Elements for Madeiran History) we read the following, which we hold to be true: ‘Gonçalo Aires had many lands in Funchal and the best valleys there, such as the whole of Vale Formoso. He was much loved and cherished by Captain Zargo, being a person of standing and a knight of the Infante’s household; and when he died, Zargo had him buried in Nossa Senhora de Cima, in the chancel, which was the family vault he had made for himself, his wife and children’.

The surname was also used by Brás Ferreira, to whom we have already referred in the article on the parish (freguesia) of Arco da Calheta (‘arc of Calheta’), and of whom we do not know whether he was a descendant of Gonçalo Aires Ferreira.