Madeiran history

A great deal of scattered material exists for the history of this archipelago, gathered by a few patient researchers, but the architect and builder of the edifice has yet to appear. A conscientious study of Madeira, one that does not confine itself to a tedious list of names and dates, remains entirely to be done. We mean a modern work of historical criticism, in which the ideas of the time, the customs, the individuals, the setting in which events unfolded, etc., are presented in a brilliant and evocative synthesis, giving us, in one swift overview, a complete vision of the whole of Madeiran life over the long span of five centuries. In that panoramic picture, several things would stand out in sharp relief: the early colonisation, which soon took the form of the old sesmarias (royal land grant to settlers on condition of cultivation) and later turned into the colonia contract (Madeiran sharecropping tenancy; produce divided, improvements owned by the tenant); the relations between the landlords, who had become holders of entails, and the serfs bound to the soil who broke the ground; the despotic and almost arbitrary conduct of the donataries; the influence exerted in this society by settlers from the mainland and by countless foreigners; the expeditions to Africa; the early emigrations to Brazil; the sources of wealth brought by the making of sugar and wine, and the export trade that went with them; and the changes that all these and still other factors must have produced in local customs, etc., etc.

All this laborious study still awaits a powerful intellect and a conscientious researcher who, with a remarkable gift for generalisation, will carry out this longed-for work, drawing on the fragmentary and scattered material to be found in various places. The learned and valuable notes to the ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra) are indisputable proof that their talented and most erudite author had ample breadth and a sure sense of direction for so great an undertaking. However, his modest aim of acting simply as annotator of the work of Gaspar Frutuoso did not allow him to leave us the work that he could have produced without effort, and perhaps even with great pleasure to his mind. There are points of our history that Dr Álvaro Rodrigues de Azevedo treats with the necessary fullness and with all the rigour of historical criticism. Others he left only in outline, without the commentary the subject demanded, because they lay outside the plan he had drawn up and would have forced him to give the notes to the ‘Longing for the Homeland’ an excessive scope. In spite of everything, it is above all in this valuable and abundant storehouse of news and information, of appraisals and criticism, of observations and philosophical reflections, that the future author of the history of Madeira will find his richest treasure when he sets out to prepare and write his work.

Some twelve years after the notes were printed, Dr Rodrigues de Azevedo published a substantial article on Madeira in the Diccionario Universal Portuguez Illustrado. It is a most interesting monograph on this archipelago and deals, albeit in summary form, with every subject that might bear on the various spheres of its activity from the earliest days of the discovery onwards. In it he masterfully traces a remarkable sketch of Madeiran history, which he divides into four periods and prefaces with the following words:

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And this is no easy undertaking, above all in the part concerning the crisis from the discovery to the final consolidation of this archipelago with mainland Portugal. It was a hidden crisis, not investigated even to this day, which surely later had repercussions in the archipelago of the Azores and, to a greater or lesser degree, throughout our overseas territories. Its effects might perhaps have been utterly fatal to Portugal’s colonial power had the monarchical element not averted it, as it gallantly knew how to do and succeeded in doing. It was aided in this by the jurist magistrates and supported by the bourgeois municipal element in the struggle that it waged, from the mainland all the way to the island, against the aristocratic element strongly entrenched on the island of Madeira – an element that was perhaps, at the outset, the unwitting instrument of a personal design. But even apart from this delicate part, Madeiran history is of interest both for its local autonomy and for its relations with the mainland and with the other Portuguese colonies, especially those of West Africa and America. For the island of Madeira, and on it the town, later city, of Funchal, were for a time the centre of the once most important ecclesiastical government and the principal hub of all Portuguese shipping and trade in the Atlantic. The island first stood out in the export of timber for building, then in the cultivation, manufacture and trade of sugar, next in that of its excellent wines, and lastly in both these products, besides others of lesser importance. Finally it became a health resort, owing to its beautiful and celebrated climate and picturesque scenery, for which it is beloved by all the foreigners who visit it, above all the English. They twice occupied it militarily in the first quarter of the present century [TN: the 19th century, when Azevedo wrote.] and gave up possession of it only reluctantly, and many of them still make it their favourite residence, especially in the winter season. As a result of the particular circumstances indicated above, anyone who wishes to study the institutions and history of overseas Portugal must of necessity investigate them largely in the archives and history of Madeira, the land where Columbus stayed and where he perhaps received the first rays of light that revealed to him the existence of the New World. This history is therefore undoubtedly useful and curious. Let us add to the very brief synthesis set out above some of the more important or more characteristic features of the picture.

The four periods into which Dr Álvaro Rodrigues de Azevedo divides his sketch of the history of the archipelago run as follows: the 1st from the discovery to the death of John I in 1433; the 2nd from that year to the liberation from the Spanish yoke in 1640; the 3rd extends to the establishment of constitutional government in 1834; and the 4th runs from that year to the present day. In the article Bibliography we said that in the article Sources for Madeiran History we would give a short survey of the works offering the richest store of news and information on the history of this archipelago. In that article we dealt at some length with the public archives and other manuscript sources, but through a mere oversight we did not include a brief list of printed works, which we shall now do in this place. As we have said more than once, and as everyone generally knows, the ‘Longing for the Homeland’, and above all its valuable and abundant notes, are the richest, fullest and most reliable repository of material we possess for the history of our archipelago. We shall deal with that monumental work at the appropriate point in this Elucidário. Next in importance and value come the ‘Island History’ (Historia Insulana) and the Navy and Overseas Archive (Arquivo da Marinha e Ultramar), to which we have already devoted separate articles in this Elucidário. Of more secondary importance, but still offering valuable information and news, we may mention the Epocha Administrativa (3 vols, 1849, 1850, 1852) and the other pamphlets by Sérvulo de Meneses on the model administration of Governor Silvestre Ribeiro; Breve Noticia sobre a Ilha da Madeira, by Paulo Perestrelo da Câmara (1841); Catalogo dos Bispos da Igreja do Funchal, by Dom António Caetano de Sousa (1721), in the Colecção dos Documentos e Memórias da Academia Real de Historia Portugueza, vol. 1; As Dezertas and As Selvagens, by A. Artur Sarmento (1903 and 1906); Os Portos Marítimos de Portugal e Ilhas Adjacentes, by Adolfo Loureiro (1910, vol. V); various pamphlets on the colonia contract (Madeiran sharecropping tenancy; produce divided, improvements owned by the tenant) (see the bibliography of the article Colonia contract); Documentos para a Historia das cortes geraes da nação portugueza, by the Baron of São Clemente (1888, vol. V); Constituições Sinodais do Bispado do Funchal (see the article Constitutions of the Bishopric); various works on the discovery of this archipelago, cited on pp. 330, 349, 350 and 906 of the ‘Longing for the Homeland’, to which we must add Memória sobre a descoberta das ilhas do Porto Santo e Madeira, by E. A. Betencourt (1875), Quando foi descoberta a Madeira?, by Jordão de Freitas (1911), and O Reconhecimento do Arquipelago da Madeira, by Manuel Gregório Pestana Júnior (1920); some pamphlets on the entailed estates of Madeira and their abolition (see the article Entails); various leaflets on the proclamation of the Constitution of 1821 in this archipelago (see the article Constitution of 1821); three pamphlets on Madeiran chorography (see the article Chorography); Statistica Historico-Geografica das ilhas da Madeira e Porto Santo, by Joaquim Pedro Cardoso Casado Giraldes (Paris, 1815); A Ilha da Madeira (‘The Island of Madeira’), by Acúrsio Garcia Ramos (2 vols, 1879 and 1880); some leaflets on the Protestant proselytism of Dr Robert Kalley (see the article Kalley); and the precious collection of Madeiran newspapers belonging to the company of the Diário de Notícias of Funchal, which is the subject of the pamphlet Resenha Chronologica do Jornalismo Madeirense (1908). The article Madeira in the Diccionario Universal Portuguez Illustrado, which devotes several pages to Madeiran bibliography, the article Bibliography in this Elucidário, and the whole course of this work mention many bibliographical items of interest for the history of our archipelago.

May we be permitted the satisfaction – not vanity – of saying here that, over the long course of this work, we too have gathered some valuable material for the history of our archipelago. That satisfaction is all the greater because we can affirm, without fear of contradiction, that we did so with complete disinterest, placing at the service of this modest undertaking several years of persevering and conscientious research and enquiry in public and private archives, and in many dozens of printed and manuscript works, both Portuguese and foreign. It seems to us that we have sufficiently clarified various points of Madeiran history and contributed many indispensable materials for those who, after us, attempt to write that history, or at least carry on this worthless but painstaking work of ours.