Popular riots

It is universally acknowledged that the people of this archipelago are essentially peaceful and orderly by nature. The great majority are devoted to farming, which in this region is extremely hard and toilsome because of the peculiar nature of the terrain. They labour from the first light of dawn until the shadows of night fall, generally untroubled and indifferent to everything but the ceaseless toil of their hard-working lives.

Whether they live in straitened circumstances or in reasonable comfort, their lives pass serenely and quietly, and no spirit of insubordination or revolt disturbs the peace they calmly enjoy. This statement should not lead one to conclude that the proverbial calm reigning among the Madeiran family has never been broken and has never burst violently into the public square. This has been witnessed only rarely, and always very briefly, and only when some vile speculators, for shameful ends, have tried to exploit the good faith or excessive credulity of populations steeped in ignorance, error and superstition.

1533

One of the earliest popular movements known to us is the uprising of the inhabitants of the island of Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’) who, in the year 1533, roused to fanaticism by the self-styled prophets Fernão Bravo and Filipa Nunes, committed highly reprehensible excesses. We shall give a fuller account of these in the article Prophets in this Elucidário.

1641

A few days after the government of John IV was proclaimed on this island (see Restoration of Madeira), events of considerable gravity took place, disturbing public order. We find their main episodes narrated as follows in an old manuscript:

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On 25 January 1641 the people went in a crowd to the Council and threw out the judge Luís Fernandes de Oliveira, because he was a Castilian. They appointed a new judge, a municipal procurator (procurador do concelho), a councillor (vereador) and a market inspector (almotacel). From there they went to the house of Paio Rodrigues Pais da Cunha, clerk of the Council (escrivão da Câmara), who had been suspended for misconduct, reinstated him in his office and threw out the deputy holder, Manuel Teixeira Pereira. A certain Manuel da Ceia and a nephew of his, who had indiscreetly spoken about the new tax, would hardly have escaped death and the fury of the people but for the efforts of the governor, the bishop and the cathedral chapter, whom the people respected. From here the rioting people went on to the customs house, threw out the superintendent (provedor) Manuel Vicente Cardoso and put in his place João Rodrigues de Teive. He lived at Our Lady of Calhau (Nossa Senhora do Calhau), and they went there to fetch him; when he tried to slip away as they passed the church, the crowd, on the pretext of saying a prayer, would not let him. Thus brought to the customs house, he was acclaimed superintendent by the people, with the threat that if he refused he would be killed by them on the spot. The doorkeeper, because he had kept the doors shut, was in danger of his life. In this popular commotion great help came from the good name of Dom António Fernandes, the bishop’s nephew and an officer of the Council, and the regard in which the people held him, and above all from the prelate, who knew how to calm the people with prudence and save the lives of those pointed out as their persecutors. As soon as they had taken an inventory of the superintendent’s property, the people grew quiet, and of this whole event the necessary records and entries were made, as is recorded in Book 4, fol. 202.’ John IV ordered an official inquiry into these events and the punishment of those who had shown disrespect to the superintendent Vicente Cardoso, though it is not known whether any penalty was actually imposed on them.

1668

The governor and captain-general of Madeira, Dom Francisco de Mascarenhas, who took office on 28 November 1665, had earned the ill will of the clergy and above all of the nobility, for reasons that have still not been properly established. The result was the deplorable popular uprising that broke out in Funchal on 18 September 1668.

Dr Álvaro Rodrigues de Azevedo states that the revolt was led by the dean, Dr Pedro Moreira, and that the clergy had played a very active part in it. However, the judicial inquiry (devassa) conducted by the high court judge (desembargador) João de Moura Coutinho, an investigator sent expressly to this island by the government on the mainland, ended in sentences of penal exile (degredo), together with heavy fines, for many Madeiran fidalgos (noblemen of the lesser nobility) and three slaves. Not a single churchman was among those condemned, not even Dr Pedro Moreira himself.

It seems that the governor and captain-general had treated the clergy and nobility of this island with scant consideration, curtailing many privileges which they perhaps enjoyed improperly but to which they believed they had an undeniable right. This opened a serious conflict with the most disastrous consequences. Dom Francisco de Mascarenhas may perhaps have exceeded the powers the law gave him; he may have been harsh in his manner and his dealings with the fidalgos and some members of the clergy, and may even have held their prerogatives and exemptions in lofty contempt. But there is no doubt that the instigators of the uprising behaved in an unspeakable manner, and posterity cannot absolve them of what they did in resorting to violence and sanctioning the excesses then committed in this city.

On 18 September 1668 the governor, Dom Francisco de Mascarenhas, accompanied by the juiz de fora (crown-appointed judge from outside the district), was on his way to the country house that the Jesuits owned in the locality (sítio) of Pico do Cardo (‘thistle peak’), in the parish (freguesia) of Santo António (‘St Anthony’), which is still known today as Quinta dos Padres (‘the priests’ estate’). On reaching the locality of Água de Mel (‘honey water’), where the manor house of the holders of the Bettencourt and Sá Machado entail (morgado) stood, he was confronted by a group of armed men, among them several members of that family. They violently assaulted the governor and wounded the juiz de fora with a sword cut.

Dom Francisco de Mascarenhas was thrown into a squalid dungeon in the company of a villainous mulatto who had once served as an executioner. From there he was taken to the prison of the Pico fortress (Fortaleza do Pico), where he suffered the grossest insults and humiliations at the hands of his gaoler, Dom João Heredia, and another fidalgo, who thus took ignoble revenge for the offences they supposed they had received. He was then put aboard a small cargo ship, the same train of insults following him all the way to embarkation, and the vessel set him ashore in Galicia.

The rioters released the prisoners and, gathering some of the townspeople, roamed the city committing many disorders and excesses, while the military, perhaps in league with the movement, made no attempt to put a stop to such outrages. A curious detail: the councillor (vereador) António Correia Henriques was hanged in effigy at his own door, after they had searched every room of his house for him in vain.

Meanwhile, they appointed the holder of the entail Aires de Ornelas e Vasconcelos as interim governor, and he gave no thought to punishing the guilty. He sent the fidalgo Gaspar Berenguer to Lisbon to inform the government on the mainland of what had happened here. On his return to Madeira Berenguer was greeted with great rejoicing, for he brought news that the higher authorities had approved everything done during the uprising.

Some time later the high court judge Dr João de Moura Coutinho arrived in Madeira, charged with conducting a rigorous official inquiry into those very grave events. He had to contend with serious obstacles: threats, the bribing of witnesses – every means was brought into play. The judge departed, and months later the sentence was published. Dom Gaspar de Sá, Dom José de Sá, Dom Francisco de Sá, Rui Dias de Aguiar, João Machado and Albano Veloso, all fidalgos, were condemned to perpetual penal exile in Angola and to pay several thousand cruzados each to the plaintiff, Dom Francisco de Mascarenhas, and towards the costs of the case. José Machado de Miranda and João Vieira Pita were sentenced to five years’ exile in Angola, and three slaves to public flogging and to serve for life in the galleys.

It caused surprise that the holder of the entail Aires de Ornelas managed to clear himself and suffered no penalty at all, although he was prosecuted, and that Dr Pedro Moreira and other priests were not caught in the net of the rigorous judicial inquiry that was held.

This curious episode in Madeiran history has still not been sufficiently clarified as regards its origins and the responsibilities involved.

1755

In this year there were riots in the towns of Calheta, Ponta do Sol and São Vicente over a proposed grant of the Paul da Serra (‘upland marsh’).

1821

In the article Constitution of 1821 (Vol. I, p. 301) we have already given a brief account of the events that took place in this city when that Constitution was proclaimed. See also the article on the market and chapel of St Sebastian (São Sebastião).

1829

In October and November of this year there were several popular riots in the city of Funchal, stirred up by officers and soldiers of the 2nd and 13th Infantry Regiments (infantaria n.° 2 e 13) after some men of the latter regiment were poisoned. In their fury, the soldiers tried to force their way into the Governor’s Palace to seize the aide-de-camp José Joaquim Januário Lopes and murder him.

1834

From the revolution of 1820 until the establishment of constitutional government in 1834 – a period in which political struggles and civil war brought such grave upheaval to the Portuguese family – there were at times various disturbances and breaches of public order on this island. They had no very dire consequences, although feelings ran extremely high and the gravest events were expected. Although constitutional government was proclaimed in this city on 5 June 1834 without the slightest disturbance of order, it is certain that in several parishes (freguesias) the discontent of many found expression in acts of violence. The most important of these events took place at Calheta, as already described in the article devoted to that parish (see Vol. I, p. 190). We may add that seven individuals, besides Father Rodrigues Pestana, were sentenced to perpetual penal exile (degredo) in Angola.

1846

Very sad events occurred in this year, caused by the Calvinist propaganda of Dr Roberto Kalley, as may be seen at greater length in the article we devote in this volume to that illustrious Scottish physician.

1847

In the article Governing Board of Madeira in 1847 we have already dealt at some length with the events that occurred in Madeira when the echoes of what unfolded in our country after the Maria da Fonte revolution reached us here.

1868

In our political history, the name Janeirinha was given to the popular revolt that broke out in Lisbon and Porto in January 1868 in protest against the law of 10 June 1867, which had created the consumption tax and caused such great indignation throughout the country. For this reason the ministry headed by Joaquim António de Aguiar resigned; its members had included men of the stature of Martens Ferrão, Fontes Pereira de Melo, Andrade Corvo, Casal Ribeiro and Barjona de Freitas. Its political opponents had stirred up all the fury of the people against it, waving the notorious consumption law, which never came into force, as their banner of war. Our distinguished fellow Madeiran Jacinto de Sant'Ana e Vasconcelos followed the ministry's policy and belonged to the Historic Party, which at that moment was struggling against the great tide of the Janeirinha parties, backed by the ministry that had then come to power under the presidency of the Count of Ávila, later Duke of Ávila e Bolama.

The supporters of the two political factions were known as fusionistas and populares. In Madeira, for reasons we cannot clearly identify, the animosity between these party groups was intense when, on 8 March 1868, the Portuguese steamer Bengo anchored in our harbour. Among its passengers was our fellow Madeiran Jacinto de Sant'Ana e Vasconcelos, later viscount of Nogueiras. He had come to visit his illustrious family and to pursue his candidacy as deputy for this island, as a member of the Historic Party, or Fusion.

Of the events that took place in this archipelago in the third quarter of the 19th century, two remained indelibly engraved in the memory of contemporaries and were even passed on to later generations: the cholera epidemic of 1856 and the Pedrada movement of 8 March 1868. Seen from a distance and freed of the base passions that gave rise to it, this last episode surprises us greatly today: a mere question of electoral politics drove a population to the most deplorable excesses, with several deaths and the violent prevention of Jacinto de Sant'Ana's landing.

And yet this fellow Madeiran of ours had always behaved correctly towards all Madeirans and had never contributed to harming, morally or materially, the land of his birth. Indeed, as this island's representative in parliament across three legislatures, he had championed the most vital questions of this archipelago disinterestedly and with the purest zeal. Nothing in his conduct as deputy and politician could justify, or even explain, the strange reception he met here on 8 March 1868. He simply belonged to a political camp opposed to the one that then held the greatest sway and influence on this island, and he had had the courage to put his name forward to the popular vote and to come in person to argue the case for his candidacy.

His arrival in Madeira was known in advance. When news began to spread through the city that Sant'Ana e Vasconcelos was aboard a steamer lying in the harbour, a huge crowd, mainly of the lower classes, gradually occupied part of the beach and the surroundings of the customs house, until before long it became impossible to pass. The crowd's aim was to prevent Jacinto de Sant'Ana from landing, which posed not the slightest difficulty, since it had within reach a considerable number of projectiles that were easy and quick to throw – stones.

Sant'Ana, a brave man who had been the hero of many perilous adventures, tried to land despite the hostile attitude of the mob. Faced with the shower of stones filling the air, however, he had to give way, and he also followed the prudent advice of some of the people around him. He then went aboard the sailing ship Galgo, which carried cargo between Lisbon and Madeira. Sant'Ana e Vasconcelos's life was in imminent danger on this occasion, and the long-established and important merchant of our town João de Freitas Martins, better known as Papinho, did much to shelter him from the savage fury of the unbridled mob.

Tempers were already running high even before Sant'Ana's arrival, and there had been minor disturbances of public order, forewarnings of what might follow. With feelings inflamed by his arrival, the crowd broke into open violence, and several people were injured by the hail of stones hurled wildly from all sides. The armed forces had to intervene and, finding themselves defied by the crowd, resorted to their carbines, and some men of the people fell, shot through by the bullets. The civil governor at the time was our fellow Madeiran Dom João Frederico da Câmara Leme, a major of the 12th Caçadores (Portuguese light infantry). Despite the prestige and popularity he enjoyed, his presence alone could not restrain the rioters, and the intervention of the public force was absolutely necessary to contain them and put an end to the excesses they were committing.

In the midst of the fighting, someone had the happy idea of faking a fire in Rua das Queimadas de Baixo by setting light to a straw mattress. The bells rang out urgently in alarm, and a considerable part of the crowd occupying the customs house courtyard and its surroundings rushed to the scene of the fire. Shortly afterwards the rest dispersed, thus ending the sad and regrettable episode that became known as the riot, or uprising, of the Pedrada.

Jacinto de Sant'Ana e Vasconcelos left for Lisbon and was shortly afterwards elected deputy for another constituency. In Revolução de Setembro he published a series of articles under the title Cartas ao conde de Avila sobre matérias eleitorais da Ilha da Madeira, which we have not seen, but which we are told contain exceptionally interesting material for the history of the events they deal with.

1870

On 1 May of this year there were serious disturbances in the town (vila) of Machico during the elections of deputies held there, and armed force had to intervene. The townspeople defied the military detachment stationed in the town, which opened fire on the crowd inside the parish church, killing several people.

Other disturbances were also stirred up by the Popular Party, which, although in opposition, held sway on the island in 1870. The late Dr Joaquim Ricardo da Trindade e Vasconcelos, a Fusionist, was seized at Pontinha by members of the public when he landed in Funchal on his way from Machico. He was taken to the former Praça da Constituição, where he would have been murdered but for the intervention of Dr Álvaro Rodrigues de Azevedo, one of the most prestigious figures of the Popular Party. The funeral of one of the victims of the disturbances in that town served as a pretext for fresh demonstrations hostile to the government, which neither the authorities nor the police sought to prevent.

The events at Machico caused a great sensation, not only in Madeira but also on the mainland of the Kingdom (reino, i.e. mainland Portugal), and the government of the day was fiercely attacked in parliament and in the Lisbon press.

1884

On 29 June 1884 several popular disturbances broke out at a number of polling stations or in their vicinity. The breakdown of public order was most serious in the parish (freguesia) of Ribeira Brava, where it had the most tragic consequences: several local people were killed, cut down by the bullets of the armed forces. The candidate for deputy was Dr Manuel de Arriaga, who failed to be elected. The republican press of Funchal, and above all that of Lisbon, covered the matter at length, and it echoed within the national parliament. In the judicial district (comarca) of Ponta do Sol, several legal proceedings were brought concerning the events in the parishes of Ribeira Brava and Ponta do Sol. Drs Manuel de Arriaga and José de Castro came to this island to defend their fellow party members involved in these cases, and stayed here for some time. Under the title Victimas d'El-Rei, Dr José de Castro published a pamphlet of 83 pages recounting the most notable episodes and incidents of these trials. The killings at Ribeira Brava caused an extraordinary sensation.

1887 and 1888

The few months of 1887 and 1888 were a truly calamitous period for this archipelago. Serious breaches of public order took place on the pretext of the supposed organisation of the parish councils (juntas de paróquia): the most reprehensible acts of violence were committed, and alarm and terror spread through every parish on this island. Among the people, the movement became known as the Parreca (popular name for the 1887 parish councils and the riots against them). We have already dealt with it in the article Parish Councils, to which we refer the reader.

1894

On 22 May, on the arrival of the steamer Funchal, riots broke out at the Entrada da Cidade, as the people sought to prevent the landing of passengers from Lisbon, where cholera was said to be raging. The troops and the police were stoned, and some of the passengers who tried to land at the quay at the Entrada da Cidade were also injured.

1905

At the end of November 1905 a case of suspected disease appeared in the household of Leopoldo Cabral, who lived in Rua dos Ferreiros in this city, affecting a member of his family. The patient and the rest of the family were promptly removed to the Lazareto of ‘Gonçalo Aires’, which had been turned into an isolation hospital. Other people were also taken there. To stop the disease from spreading, complete isolation was certainly necessary, but it seems to have been applied with excessive rigour, if indeed there can be excess in adopting measures of this kind. From the outset the most improbable and incredible rumours began to spread among the population, arising largely from the strict isolation maintained at the Lazareto and the lack of news of the people held there. Popular imagination, aided by factional politics and an unscrupulous press, gave free rein to the most deplorable frenzy, conjuring up every sort of crime within the Lazareto, from the cruellest ill-treatment to outright murder! These rumours spread so widely, and these fanciful inventions grew so large in the public mind, that before long the great majority of the people of this island firmly believed that the isolation hospital had become a veritable public butcher’s shop (açougue) for human beings, far outdoing the bands of brigands that infested the passes of the Sierra Morena, Calabria and the Black Forest, of which certain more than doubtful narratives tell us with such horror.

It was undoubtedly a serious mistake, as everyone later acknowledged, to cut off all communication between those inside that enclosure and the rest of the population. The mistake was corrected, with no danger of contagion, but it was too late, and it was by then impossible to undo the deep impression that the alarming rumours had made. The wave of indignation, held back for some days, burst through the barriers that contained it and spilled violently into the public square.

On 7 January 1906, at about 11 in the morning, an enormous mass of townspeople, followed by some men of the 27th Infantry Regiment (regimento de infantaria n.° 27), set off for the Lazareto in a plainly hostile mood, ready to commit the worst excesses. Through inexcusable lack of foresight the entrances to the Lazareto had been left without any defence, so the rioting mob easily broke into the enclosure and committed the greatest and most deplorable acts of vandalism. Everything there was completely destroyed: furniture, kitchen equipment, pharmacy, surgical instruments, linen, machines, provisions etc. Nothing escaped the insane fury of the attackers. The buildings themselves suffered serious damage: every windowpane was broken, the doors were destroyed and even the floors bear clear traces of the rioters’ rage.

The people under observation in the refuge area were forced to leave it, and the crowd then invaded the treatment hospital, where there were five patients, some of them recovering. A carriage, escorted by a large number of townspeople, took the patients to their homes amid the most enthusiastic cheers along the way. The bulk of the crowd, which numbered about a thousand people on its return to the city, went by the Estrada do Conde de Carvalhal, fearing that troops sent out from the 27th Infantry barracks might surprise it on the road.

Some days earlier the Land Disinfection Station at Campo da Barca had been attacked by a large group of townspeople, who were driven back by the police and a detachment of infantry. There were also various disturbances at Bom Sucesso and in other localities, which foreshadowed the attack on the Lazareto.

On 10 January the cruiser Dom Carlos arrived in Funchal with an enlarged crew, to help the military forces stationed here maintain public order.

The clinical director of the ‘Gonçalo Aires’ isolation hospital was Dr António Balbino do Rego, who held the post of director of the Bacteriology and Hygiene Post in this city. It was against him that the wrath of the populace was chiefly roused, for they regarded him as the author of, or the person chiefly responsible for, the alleged crimes committed at the Lazareto. The hatred aroused here against Dr Balbino do Rego (see that entry) is truly incredible, given that it had no serious basis, and even today his name is cursed as though he had been some great scourge that had ravaged this island.

The popular muse gave free rein to its fertile inspiration, and countless pamphlets and broadsheets were published, in which lack of inspiration kept pace with faulty metre, and in which coarse language owed nothing to the lack of good sense and of the most elementary rules of grammar. (See Popular poetry.)

1921

At the end of July 1921 the flour millers of Funchal decided to raise the price of flour to 1820, which meant that bread would go from 80 centavos, the price at which it was then being sold, to 1 escudo (Portuguese currency from 1911, = 1,000 réis) per kilogram. A group of consumers therefore called a meeting in the Largo da Feira on 1 August, at which it was decided to close industrial and commercial establishments in protest at the unjustified rise in the price of this staple. From 1 to 3 August all establishments did indeed close, opening only in the morning, before 8 o’clock, so that the public could buy provisions. However, certain disorderly elements joined the strikers, and this led to some disturbances and riots. On the 3rd two millers were seized by the people; one of them was brought from Monte down to the city surrounded by a large crowd but protected by the police, which did not prevent him from being wounded in the head as he passed along the Rua de João Tavira on his way to the Fort of São Lourenço (St Lawrence), where he was held in custody.

On 2 August the crowd broke into the house of the president of the Council and forced him to accompany them to the town hall to fix the price of bread. Several attempts were also made to seize the clerk of an English firm, who was held chiefly responsible for the proposed rise in the price of flour. To escape the fury of the people he hid at first in his employer’s house, and later left the island on a foreign steamer.

At first the authorities took no interest in the popular movement, but the events of the 3rd forced them to change their attitude and to order the police and the Republican Guard to keep order in the city. Once Funchal began to be properly patrolled on 4 August, the establishments reopened that same day, and the disturbances of the previous day were not repeated. Their only victims had been those whom the people, rightly or wrongly, considered responsible for the extortion that was being attempted against them.

The price of bread was not changed in August 1921, but in February of the following year the British flour mill succeeded in having it raised temporarily to 1 escudo, since it had begun selling flour at 1.10 escudos per kilogram.

A few days before the riots we have just described, others had taken place, prompted by the elections of deputies and senators at the Câmara de Lobos polling station. Captain Américo Olavo and Dr Manuel Augusto Martins, who had gone there to observe the electoral proceedings, were wounded. The riots took place on 11 July and were provoked by individuals from Funchal, with the aim of invalidating the vote in Câmara de Lobos, where the opposition could count on a large majority.

1931

From 4 to 8 February 1931 Funchal saw disturbances of public order of the utmost gravity. They were caused by the promulgation of a decree that established a new cereals regime and restricted the free import of wheat and flour, thereby creating a ‘monopoly’ in so important a branch of the public food supply. The enforcement of the decree was suspended, but the rioters insisted on its outright repeal. Meanwhile, serious disorders broke out in various places, and for five or six days trade was completely paralysed: every shop stayed shut, and the public offices and schools were closed. On 6 February the riots took an alarming turn, with violent attacks on the Lavradores flour mill, on a large ‘wholesale’ house in Rua Cinco de Junho, on a bakery at Ponte de São João and on a shop in Rua da Alfândega, etc. etc., all of which were completely destroyed, the damage amounting to several thousand contos (one million réis) de réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis). The police intervened; three members of the public died, and one member of the police force also lost his life. The infantry forces that left their barracks to restore order either would not or could not do so, and a large share of the responsibility for these deeply regrettable events came to be laid at their door.

1936

The enforcement of a new decree, which created the Dairy Products Board (Junta dos Lacticínios) and regulated the distribution and sale of milk, aroused great indignation among the rural population. On 4 and 5 August 1936 it provoked the most serious disturbances of public order in various parts of the island; the intervention of the armed forces was required, and eight people of the popular classes died. Two warships came from Lisbon carrying contingents of troops and members of the investigative police, and a large-scale judicial inquiry (devassa) was held, in the course of which several hundred people were arrested. Of these, about fifty were sent to Cape Verde to be tried there. Today everyone acknowledges that the decree which had provoked these regrettable disorders contained provisions beneficial to cattle breeders and milk sellers.