Funchal – I. Origin of the name

It is commonly stated that the umbellifer Foeniculum vulgare, known as funcho (fennel), gave Funchal its name, and no reasons or facts are known that contradict this. On landing at this spot, which later became a town (vila) and later still a city, the discoverers or first settlers came upon the plant growing abundantly in the valley, and the place quickly and naturally began to be called Funchal. As Frutuoso says: ‘. . .Funchal, a que o capitam deo este nome, por se fundar em hum valle fermoso de singular arvoredo, cheyo de funcho até o mar’ (Funchal, to which the captain gave this name because it was founded in a beautiful valley of remarkable trees, full of fennel down to the sea). According to the author of the Saudades, it was João Gonçalves Zarco himself who gave the name Funchal to the place that later became the capital of this archipelago.

One question arises, however, and it is not the first time it has been asked. Since this valley was certainly home to trees and large plants, why would the discoverers have preferred to name it after a plant that is not even a shrub? It is possible that amid the mass of trees filling the valley there was a clearing where fennel abounded, making it stand out from the surrounding vegetation. It is also said that the discoverers found fennel in abundance in the immediate vicinity of the landing place, hence the easy christening of the spot as Funchal.

A settlement named Funchal existed – and we do not know whether it still exists – in the parish (freguesia) of Lumiar, on the outskirts of Lisbon, as we have already noted in the article Ameixoeira (see that entry). According to what we read in the Encyclopedia Portuguesa of Maximiliano de Lemos, there are also settlements named Funchal in the parishes of Aldoar and Igreja Nova, in the municipality (concelho) of Mafra, in Terrugem, in the municipality of Sintra, and in Vilar de Mouros. Might there perhaps be some connection between the name of Funchal and any of these settlements?

On this subject, it is worth reading the short article entitled Ameixoeira on p. 63 of the first volume of this Elucidário. Only recently, in the Dicionário Corografico de Portugal Continental e Insular, we saw some twenty localities and settlements named Funchal mentioned.

II – Creation of the town and municipality

The earliest settlement may well have begun at the same time in more than one place. It has been established that one of the first population centres formed on the left bank of the João Gomes stream, not far from its mouth, and soon spread widely into the surrounding area. This spot and its immediate surroundings certainly offered considerable advantages for extensive settlement: its size, the shelter given by the high mountains that encircled it, a good seaport, the plentiful watercourses that crossed it and its temperate climate, besides many other circumstances worthy of the greatest consideration. Yet it also presented serious dangers, because it was exposed to the constant threat of floods whenever the swollen streams burst their beds and overran their banks, becoming terrible agents of destruction and death. This happened more than once, above all in 1803, when a considerable part of the city and several hundred of its inhabitants were swept into the ocean.

Meanwhile this centre of population developed rapidly and soon reached a remarkable degree of prosperity. At the same time, important groups of settlers were forming in other parts of the island, and these were quickly turned into independent parishes and later into towns and municipalities.

The illustrious annotator of the ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra) tells us that the first parish (freguesia) on this island was established in 1430, with its seat at the locality (sítio) of Nossa Senhora da Calheta, in the settlement that had grown up there. This seems to us unlikely if we give that word the meaning of a community of settlers with a life of its own, independent from the social and religious point of view. It was perhaps a chaplaincy (capelania), like those set up in various places, which later became so many parishes.

As colonisation spread widely, the settlement grew rapidly in importance, and before long there arose the legitimate aspiration to have it raised to the rank of town (vila), enjoying the privileges and rights that charters granted to municipalities.

Despite his diligent research, the learned annotator of the ‘Longing for the Homeland’ was unable to find the document that raised the early settlement of Funchal to a town. On the strength of the weighty arguments he puts forward, based on various documents, 1451 can nevertheless be given as the year of its creation. The same annotator says he examined a manuscript miscellany in the Public Library of Lisbon, in which he found the following: ‘In 1452 Afonso V gave a charter (foral) to the town of Funchal with many privileges, exempting the inhabitants of the whole island from paying excise (siza), tolls, produce dues or any of the taxes then levied in the Kingdom’. This transcription corroborates the conclusions reached by Dr Álvaro Rodrigues de Azevedo.

The document creating a town either included or had attached to it a charter, which formed the organic law of the municipality, setting out the rights and exemptions granted to it and also the obligations imposed on it. The record of the charter of the town of Funchal has not yet been found, and it is known only through references to it in various official documents and other sources, such as the one quoted above.

The town and original municipality of Funchal took in the former captaincy of the same name and stretched from Ponta da Oliveira (‘olive-tree point’) along the south and west coasts of Madeira to Ponta do Tristão (‘Tristão’s point’). Half a century later this area was greatly reduced by the creation of the towns and municipalities of Ponta do Sol (‘point of the sun’) and Calheta (‘small cove’), the first in 1501 and the second at roughly the same time, as we have noted elsewhere in this Elucidário. A little over 50 years after the town of Funchal was created, it was raised to the rank of city, in 1508.

As late as 1834 the municipality of Funchal still stretched from the eastern part of the parish of Ponta do Sol to Caniço (‘reed’); only in 1835 did it acquire its present area. By the royal decree (alvará) of the prefect (prefeito) of the Province of 20 January 1835, it lost the part of the parish of Ponta do Sol that had been left to it by the letter of King Manuel I of 2 December 1501, in which he made ‘the lugar (settlement ranking between a town and a parish) of Ponta do Sol a town’. At the end of that same year, 1835, it lost Caniço, which was annexed to the municipality (concelho) of Santa Cruz (‘Holy Cross’), together with the parishes of Câmara de Lobos (‘seals’ den’) and those that follow it westwards as far as the lugar of Ponta do Sol. The old town of Funchal originally covered a very small area. Even at the end of the 15th century it was bounded to the south, by the beach, by a dry-stone wall fitted with small turrets a crossbow shot apart and by a solid wooden stockade; to the west by the São João (‘St John’) or São Paulo stream; to the north by the lands of Pico dos Frias (‘the Frias’ peak’) and Valverde (‘green valley’); and to the east it came close to the right bank of the Santa Luzia (‘St Lucy’) stream. The large population centre that had formed from the earliest times on the left bank of the João Gomes stream and near the beach lay outside the area originally called the town, and was later incorporated into it.

III – Creation of the city

The natural and ever-increasing growth of Funchal in former times, which made it an important commercial emporium and a centre of great industrial and mercantile activity, fully justifies the measure taken by King Manuel I in his royal letter (carta régia) of 21 August 1508, raising the town (vila) of Funchal to the rank of city. It had become a town from a simple settlement 50 years earlier, and after only half a century it gained the privileges of a city, the first to be created in our overseas domains. Despite the concision we have given to the subjects covered in this work, which has forced us to omit all documentation, we shall, by way of exception, transcribe the royal instrument that created this city, which is the capital of the archipelago, the principal centre of its intellectual life and the seat of its commerce and industries. Here it is:

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Dom (noble honorific) Manuel, by the grace of God King of Portugal and of the Algarves on this side of and beyond the sea in Africa, Lord of Guinea and of the conquest, navigation and commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia and India. To all who see this our letter we make known that, considering, with praise to Our Lord, how the town of Funchal on our island of Madeira has grown into a very great settlement, and how many noblemen, knights and honourable persons of great wealth live there, through whom, and through the great trade of the said island, we hope with the help of Our Lord that the said town will be much further ennobled and increased; and having regard to the great service we have received from its inhabitants and hope to receive in the future; and because we are pleased to do honour and favour to the said noblemen, knights, squires and people of the town, without their or anyone on their behalf asking or requesting it of us, we, of our own motion and royal and absolute power, with that good will which we have always had and have for all the good and greater increase of the affairs of the said town, by this present letter are pleased to make it, and do in fact make it, a city. And we wish and are pleased that from now on it be entitled and called a city, and have all the insignia that belong to the cities of our kingdoms, and use and enjoy all the privileges, pre-eminences, liberties, favours, graces and franchises that the cities of our said kingdoms enjoy and use and ought to enjoy and use, and that have been granted to them by the kings our predecessors and by us. We therefore so notify all in general, and command all our magistrates (corregedores), high judges, judges, justices, officials and persons to whom this our letter is shown and to whom knowledge of it pertains in any way and manner whatsoever, that in all matters of the said city they fulfil and keep, and cause to be very fully fulfilled and kept, the privileges, liberties, graces, pre-eminences, honours and favours granted to the cities of our kingdoms, which they are to enjoy and use, together with the insignia that belong to them as aforesaid, without going or allowing anyone to go, in part or in whole, against any of the above, for it is our favour and will that all be very fully kept for it without any contradiction. And in certification thereof we order this letter to be given to them, signed by us and sealed with our pendent seal. Given at Sintra on the 21st day of the month of August. In the year of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand five hundred and eight. And these privileges which we are thus pleased that the said city of Funchal shall enjoy shall not be those granted specially to certain cities of our kingdoms, for it shall only use and enjoy those which are given and granted in general to the cities of our kingdoms. The King.

A few days before this royal letter was issued, King Manuel had sent, dated 17 August 1508, a royal decree (alvará) ordering that the council of Funchal ‘be ruled and governed in the manner in which the council of our city of Lisbon is ruled’. This instrument, which preceded by only a few days the one raising the town to the rank of city, was an act of special deference by the monarch towards the inhabitants of Funchal, and was complemented by the royal letter of 21 August 1508.

IV – Captaincy

For the purposes of public administration, this archipelago was divided into the three captaincies, or donataries, of Porto Santo, Machico and Funchal. At their head were the captains-donatary, invested with almost unlimited powers by virtue of the respective grants conferred on them by the royal charters of 1440, 1446 and 1450. The detailed articles under the headings Captaincies (I-244) and Donataries (I-373) have said all that is needed to give an adequate account of the captaincy of Funchal.

V – Administrative district

The district of Funchal consists of the islands that make up the Madeira archipelago (see Madeira Archipelago). Before the establishment of constitutional government, the Madeiran archipelago was an overseas province and colony whose administration came chiefly under the Ministry of the Navy. Around 1834, with the creation of the four island districts, three in the Azores and one in Madeira, this archipelago received an administration entirely identical to that of the other districts, governed by the same laws as the whole of the Kingdom (reino, i.e. mainland Portugal).

The donataries were succeeded in 1580 by the governors-general, and these in turn, in 1640, by the governors and captains-general, who lasted until 1834 (see Senior Authorities of the Archipelago). With the creation of the district, the senior authority bore the title of prefect (prefeito), an office first held in 1834 by Luís da Silva Mousinho de Albuquerque. In 1835 the post was renamed civil governor, in 1836 administrator-general (administrador geral), and in 1846 civil governor once more, the title it still holds.

From its creation this district comprised the ten municipalities (concelhos) of Funchal, Machico, Porto Santo, Ponta do Sol, Calheta, Santa Cruz, São Vicente, Câmara de Lobos, Sant’Ana and Porto Moniz; in 1914 the municipality of Ribeira Brava (‘wild river’) was created (see Municipalities). The municipality of Sant’Ana was abolished in a year we cannot now determine and restored shortly afterwards, and the municipality of Porto Moniz was likewise suppressed in 1849 and in 1896 and restored again in 1855 and in 1898.

VI – Municipality

Since the end of 1835 the boundaries of the municipality of Funchal have remained unchanged. The people of Camacha and Caniço, especially those of the latter parish (freguesia), have made more than one attempt, petitioning the head of the district to be detached from the municipality of Santa Cruz. However, political influence in the seat of that municipality entirely thwarted the wishes and efforts of the inhabitants of those parishes. One civil governor put forward in an official report the idea of abolishing the municipality of Câmara de Lobos, but the proposal found no echo in higher quarters.

As already stated in the article Parishes, the municipality of Funchal consists of the parishes of Sé, São Pedro, Santa Maria Maior, Santa Luzia, Monte, São Martinho, Santo António, São Roque and São Gonçalo. In 1834, however, when the constitutional privileges were proclaimed in the archipelago, it still included the parishes of Câmara de Lobos, Estreito de Nossa Senhora da Graça, Curral das Freiras, Campanário, Ribeira Brava, Serra de Água, Tabua and Caniço.

The boundaries of the municipality of Funchal are: to the north, the central summits of the mountains that divide the slopes of the north and south coasts; to the south, the ocean; to the west, the Ribeira dos Socorridos; and to the east, the Ribeira da Quinta, which separates the parish of São Gonçalo from that of Caniço.

VII – The city

The Madeiran archipelago, which forms the Administrative District of Funchal, has as its capital the city of that name. It lies on the south coast of Madeira and stretches along the foot of high mountains, climbing rapidly up the slopes from the edge of the ocean to an altitude of roughly two hundred metres. It forms a considerable part of a vast and exceedingly beautiful amphitheatre, spread across a broad valley, which as a whole presents itself as one of the most astonishing wonders the eye is granted to behold. As if serving as a backrest to the city and overlooking it along almost its entire length, there rises an unbroken mountain range of hills and heights, covered with the most opulent and varied vegetation and sprinkled with the most picturesque dwellings, which lend still greater distinction, greater charm and greater splendour to so marvellous a scene. It is no wonder that visitors entering the landing place of Funchal, whether they round Cabo do Garajau (‘tern cape’) or Ponta da Cruz (‘point of the cross’) or arrive from the south, should find themselves before a genuine counterpart of the bay and hillsides of the city of Naples, feel their spirits captivated and overwhelmed at the sight of this unequalled panorama, and keep the deepest and most grateful impressions of it for ever. The settlement that served as the nucleus of the future city has existed for five centuries. It was built on very irregular and broken ground, without following any preconceived ideas or plans, in a setting far removed from populous centres, by settlers who came from poor lands and villages and were entirely cut off from what world civilisation could have offered them at that time. The islanders of those days, our ancestors and forebears, left to their own efforts and without effective help from the metropolitan government, gradually built in this isolation of the ocean many settlements, several towns and a city, spurred on above all by the remarkable fertility of the soil and the gentle mildness of the climate. And yet, although the city of Funchal, considered in itself, has no dazzling beauties or charms, it keeps a marked and interesting regional character of its own, and presents distinctive features, shaped by its environmental conditions, that deserve the attentive observer’s notice. It offers the rich produce of its vines, of worldwide reputation, its incomparable embroidery, its fruit and its matchless flowers all year round, its highly original sledges, the typical Monte toboggans, the most enchanting landscape in creation, the mildest and most temperate climate on this planet, etc., etc., and, gilding all of this, an eternal spring and the ever-affectionate hospitality of its inhabitants, which has never been belied.

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Funchal’, say Messrs Adriano and Aníbal Trigo in the work to which we have already referred, ‘is not a modern city that commends itself by broad avenues, great monuments, varied entertainments and the other attractions that distinguish the most important cities of Europe. There is, however, a combination of natural circumstances here, true privileges of creation, a way of life so particular and typical, a comfort so pleasant and a hospitality on the part of its inhabitants so attractive, that they give the city a very distinctive character and recommend it as a health resort par excellence, especially to the foreigners who flock here in very great numbers, chiefly in the winter season, to enjoy the delights of this unrivalled climate or to seek relief from their ailments.

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The impression of the traveller who lands in Funchal for the first time’, says Mr Alberto Artur Sarmento in an interesting work he published in 1908, ‘is always marked by a pleasant surprise, whether at the clarity of objects and the limpidity of the air, or at the original display, so simple and so grand, that springs as much from little Art as from abundant Nature. Wherever tourists come from and whatever season of the year they pass through, they cannot fail to feel a particular emotion, arising from the sweet temperature that governs this matchless climate. And if it happens to be winter and they have fled the heavy mists of the north, their admiration knows almost no bounds, seeing the scene so swiftly changed, the unbroken mantle of ice transformed into carpets of greenery, dappled with flowers.

As may easily be supposed, it is chiefly in the city of Funchal that all the manifestations of human activity, in their many and varied forms, are concentrated; they have only a faint reflection in the other settlements of the district. Thus tourism, commerce and industry – apart from agriculture and some industries derived from it – the life of the mind expressed through the press and literary publications, and even the rare achievements recorded in the field of the arts . . . all of this appears and develops in the centre of Madeiran civilisation, which is the small city of Funchal.

VIII – Area of the city

At its ordinary session of 17 October 1927, the Municipal Council resolved to give the city an excessively vast area, extending it deep into the suburban parishes and fixing its limits in the following terms, which, moreover, are not remarkable for their clarity: ‘From the sea in a straight line to the road linking National Road no. 23 with the Caminho Velho de São Gonçalo, the road to the church of São Gonçalo, Caminho do Palheiro Ferreiro, Caminho do Terço, Caminho da Levada do Bom Sucesso in a straight line to the Estrada da Levada de Santa Luzia, from there in a straight line to the Muro da Coelha (north of Quinta Drolhe), Caminho da Água de Mel, Álamos, Ponte da Ribeira Grande, Quinta do Leme, Pilar, Avista-Navios, Caminho de São Martinho and Caminho do Amparo to the Estrada Monumental, and in a straight line down to the sea’. With these new limits the city came to cover an area almost twice as large, taking on truly exaggerated proportions. Under the Council’s resolution of 1909, the parishes of the Sé and Santa Luzia, almost the whole of São Pedro and a considerable part of Santa Maria formed an integral part of the city, and for that reason were called urban parishes. Under the new division of the city in 1927, the district capital came to comprise the area established in 1909, plus the territory added by the suburban parishes of São Martinho, Santo António, São Roque and São Gonçalo; the parish of Monte is the only one that has no share in the perimeter recently fixed for the city limits. Its former area, which was estimated at about five hundred hectares, must at present reach approximately 750. The truth is that this excessive enlargement of the city has not caught the attention of the population, which continues to regard as the boundaries of urban Funchal the limits that were logically and rightly fixed for it in 1909.