Famine on Porto Santo

The crisis that Madeira went through in 1847 was also felt on the neighbouring island of Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’). Relief in kind and in money had to be sent there on several occasions, but even so, ‘the people could certainly not have withstood so great a scourge’, say the Annais do Porto Santo, ‘had it not been for the very great abundance of fish, chiefly mackerel, which came to be sold at 50 for half a tostão (coin of 100 réis)’. There was also famine on Porto Santo in 1802, in 1806, in 1815, in 1816 and in 1829, when relief in kind had to be sent there, and after 1847 the scourge struck the island several more times, for example in 1850, in 1854, in 1855 and in 1883.

During the famine of 1850 the Governor, José Silvestre Ribeiro, took upon himself the responsibility of ordering the money needed to buy 75 moios of cereals for the people of the neighbouring island to be drawn from the public coffers. He also persuaded two American warships that had called at the port of Funchal to contribute 8 moios of maize for the same purpose.

The prolonged droughts to which Porto Santo is subject are the main cause of the poverty and shortage of food seen there in certain years. When the drought is severe, the harvests are negligible, and this is the greatest of misfortunes in a land where a large part of the population lives solely on what the soil provides.