Madeira (history)
Original title: Madeira (História da)
Notes that a concise synthetic history of Madeira's five centuries since settlement had yet to be written, and refers readers to related articles such as História Madeirense and Bibliografia.
Many valuable materials exist, scattered through various printed works and some unpublished ones, besides the documents recorded in the public archives. They would provide the essential materials for a short historical study of the Madeiran archipelago which, in a concise outline and an overall synthesis, would give an account of the main phases of its already long active life of five centuries, from the beginning of the first settlement to the present day. This interesting sketch could be drawn in little more than a hundred pages. It remains entirely to be done, and it is much to be regretted that no one has yet come forward to undertake it.
We have already outlined this subject at greater length in the article History of Madeira, on pp. 124-127 of this volume, to which we refer the reader. Closely related to this subject are the articles Bibliography and ‘Materials for Madeiran History’ (Elementos para a História Madeirense), on pp. 143 and 386 of vol. 1 of this work, and Madeira in the Torre do Tombo (national archives) (Torre do Tombo), besides many other articles.