Forjaz Coutinho (Dom Diogo Pereira)
Original title: Forjaz Coutinho (D. Diogo Pereira)
D. Diogo Pereira Forjaz Coutinho was governor and captain-general of Madeira from 1781 to 1798, remembered as one of its most zealous and upright governors. He was also a benefactor of the Misericórdia of Funchal and led the persecution of secret societies in 1792.
Governorship, legacy and death
By royal letter (carta régia) of 26 September 1781 Dom Diogo Pereira Forjaz Coutinho was appointed governor and captain-general of this archipelago, and he took office on 15 November of the same year.
He was one of the governors of Madeira who, through his zeal and uprightness in managing public affairs, left the most honourable memory among us. He was reappointed to his post several times at the request of the Funchal Senate (senado, the municipal council) and of petitions from the people and the nobility. His government made itself felt in every branch of public administration: he corrected many abuses, introduced reforms and improvements in many services, and very frequently pointed out to the government in mainland Portugal the wisest and most indispensable measures for the advancement and prosperity of this archipelago.
He was one of the most deserving purveyors of the Holy House of Mercy (Santa Casa da Misericórdia) of this city, to which he rendered outstanding services. His life-size portrait is still kept today in the meeting room of the Managing Board (Mesa Gerente) of that institution. In the vestibule of the building there is a stone tablet bearing his name and the year in which he had a new entrance built giving access to the wards.
Prompted by instructions from the central government and assisting the diocesan bishop, Dom José da Costa Torres, he pursued a relentless persecution of the secret societies that had been organised in Madeira in the last quarter of the 18th century. This led to many arrests and to the clandestine embarkation of several individuals and their families on the night of 19 July 1792.
He was what we would today call a man of wit, skilfully wielding satire and irony, and local tradition still preserves accounts of several episodes in which he was the witty protagonist.
He left the government of the archipelago through illness on 26 March 1798 and died in this city on the 30th of the same month. He was buried in the church of Carmo (Carmelite church).
In this article
Time
Years mentioned · 03-
D. Diogo Pereira Forjaz Coutinho was appointed governor and captain-general of Madeira by royal letter and took office on 15 November 1781.
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Several persecuted members of secret societies and their families embarked clandestinely from Madeira.
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Governor Diogo Pereira Forjaz Coutinho left the governorship because of illness.
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Captain-general Diogo Pereira Forjaz Coutinho died in Funchal and was buried in the Carmo church.
Place
Places mentioned · 03
- Carmo church
Funchal. Church in Funchal where the governor was buried.
The Igreja do Carmo is a church in Sé parish, Funchal, built after 1508, with an adjoining hospice where the Carmelites lived. It holds two Brandão family mausoleums and the grave of Governor D. Diogo Pereira Forjaz Coutinho, and the Procissão do Triunfo set out from it.
- Holy House of Mercy of Funchal
Funchal. Charitable hospital where his life-size portrait and a plaque commemorating a new entrance he built are kept.
Charitable hospital in Funchal that housed the old foundling wheel and keeps a life-size portrait of D. Diogo Pereira Forjaz Coutinho, with a plaque commemorating a new entrance he built. Works to house a projected oceanographic museum began there but were abandoned, and Carlos Elói Mota Freitas's War Cross insignia were exhibited there in 1921.
People
People mentioned · 02-
Governor and captain-general of Madeira (1781–1798), praised for his upright administration; subject of this entry.
- D. José da Costa Torresb. 1741
Bishop of Funchal whom the governor assisted in persecuting secret societies in late eighteenth-century Madeira.