Giraldes (Joaquim Pedro Cardoso Casado)

At the time of the French invasions, the army officer Casado Giraldes was sentenced to deportation to this island on suspicion of having supplied information to Napoleon’s troops when they invaded our country. Once the charge was proved false, Geraldes went on living in Madeira, where he held the important post of secretary-general of the government. He was a patient researcher into Madeiran matters, and it is said that his papers were found to contain many documents of considerable interest for the history of this archipelago. In the first quarter of the 19th century he published in Paris the Estatística Historico-Geographica das ilhas da Madeira e Porto Santo, of which a French-language edition appeared in the same city (see Superior Authorities of the Archipelago). He wrote various works, among them a compendium of geography in four volumes that was very popular in its day. He died in the city of Genoa, where he was Portuguese consul, on 3 September 1845.