Political Parties

In the days of absolutism there were only two parties in Madeira, the Liberal and the Conservative, the former having shown the first signs of its existence soon after the French Revolution. The organisation of secret societies, which in those days lacked the anti-religious character that people have sought to give them in modern times, was the forerunner of the great movement that was later to establish liberal institutions on our island.

The Madeiran Liberals also came to be called Constitutionalists after they adhered to the constitution of the Portuguese monarchy voted and sworn in Lisbon in 1821. The absolutists or Conservatives took the name of Miguelists after the Infante Dom Miguel (later Miguel I), on returning from Vienna to Lisbon, was welcomed in the latter capital by a base mob that urged him to proclaim himself absolute king.

In Madeira, as in Portugal, the absolutists and Miguelists were nicknamed corcundas (‘hunchbacks’) by the Constitutionalists, who in turn received from them the epithet of malhados ('piebalds', nickname for the Liberals), because the mules drawing the carriage in which Dom Miguel was travelling, when he suffered the fall that for some time endangered his life, were piebald.

When the civil wars ended in 1834 there were two liberal parties in Portugal: the Cartist party, made up of the entourage of Dom Pedro, and the opposition party, which, while combating the errors and extravagance of the former, nonetheless proclaimed its love of liberty and its devotion to the Constitutional Charter (Carta Constitucional). The first of these parties included the Madeirans João de Oliveira, later Count of Tojal, José Ferreira Pestana, Lourenço José Moniz, Sérvulo Drumond de Meneses, Luís Vicente de Afonseca, etc.; the second included António Aluísio Jervis de Atouguia and the members of the former Carmo (‘Carmel’) club, who later figured in the Septembrist party. Yet despite the political differences on the island, the newspaper A Chronica (‘The Chronicle’) stated on 24 March 1838 that the Madeirans had until then ‘marched united and obedient to the principles of legality’, and indeed there is no record that the September Revolution of 1836 gave rise to any noteworthy hostilities between Cartists and Septembrists. A Flor do Oceano (‘The Flower of the Ocean’), which appeared in 1834, was the organ of the Madeiran Cartist party.

The Constitution of 1838 was solemnly sworn on this island on 6 May of the same year and remained in force until the restoration of the Charter on 10 February 1842.

It was, we believe, the violence and extreme despotism of Costa Cabral that caused the political hatreds and passions, which were later to make our land so notorious, to appear here for the first time since the proclamation of the Constitution. In 1844 the Tribunal Secreto, an irregular clandestine publication intended to denounce the unconstitutional acts of Cabralism, appeared in Funchal. By then the political camps on our island were already sharply divided, and the advanced party was by no means the one that gave the least proof of its vitality.

At that time the Cartist or Cabralist party included Dr Lourenço José Moniz, Dr Luís Vicente de Afonseca, Sérvulo Drumond de Meneses, etc., and the Progressive or Septembrist party included Dr João de Freitas e Almeida, Francisco Correia Heredia, Luís de Ornelas e Vasconcelos, Luís Agostinho de Figueiroa, etc. The last three played an important part in local politics after the uprising of 29 April 1847 and the installation of the Junta Governativa, the governing board (junta governativa) (see that entry), which administered the archipelago until 14 July of the same year. This board was supported in the press by the periodicals O Independente and O Madeirense (‘The Madeiran’), which had been preceded by the Ecco da Revolução, which appeared in 1846 after the Patuleia insurrection against the policies of Costa Cabral.

The Convention of Gramido and the dissolution of the Junta Governativa did not bring peace to Madeira. According to the periodical O Progressista, which began publication on 28 August 1851 and was the organ of the Liberal party, the elections of 1847, 1848 and 1851 saw the worst acts of violence.

The Regeneration of 1851 made it its hallmark to reconcile the parties, since it had drawn the men who then formed the government from both the Cartists and the Progressives. The Cabralist party, however, though reduced, continued to show its vitality, above all while Councillor (conselheiro, honorary title of the royal council) José Silvestre Ribeiro governed the district. In the elections held that year Madeira still sent two Cabralist deputies to parliament, which proves that the policies of the Count of Tomar had admirers here. In the press these policies had two organs, O Archivista and later A Ordem (‘Order’), edited by the well-known Cabralists Dr António da Luz Pita and Sérvulo de Meneses.

Many politicians from our island joined the Regenerator party of 1851. Among them were Jervis de Atouguia, who served in the ministry headed by the Duke of Saldanha; Jacinto de Santana, later Viscount of Nogueiras; Luís de Freitas Branco; Diogo Berenguer, a former Cabralist; Luís da Costa Pereira, etc. Others, such as António Correia Heredia, Dr Juvenal Honório de Ornelas, Pedro José de Ornelas, etc., joined the Historical Progressive party, whose leader was the Marquis, later Duke, of Loulé.

An old newspaper claims that from 1860 to 1868 Madeira never had a parliamentary representation that faithfully and spontaneously expressed the popular vote. It is nevertheless certain that the opposition sometimes defeated the government. The election of 1860 became famous because Dr Afonseca won more votes than the Count of Carvalhal, the Historical candidate, even though that nobleman was a man of great prestige and political influence and also enjoyed the support of the local authorities.

In 1865 the Historical party, except for a small faction, merged with the Regenerator party. This union gave birth to the Fusionist party, which many Madeirans who had previously belonged to one or other of those political groups joined. Shortly afterwards, in 1868, came the political demonstration known as the Janeirinha. It led to the emergence of a new party, called the Popular party, the product of a fusion of heterogeneous elements. Its motto, as the press sympathetic to it proclaimed, was economy and morality in the administration of the revenues of the State.

The struggles in Madeira between the Fusionist and Popular parties became notorious for the violence committed and for the shameful scenes of which the island was the stage for about a year and a half. The leading figures of Madeiran Fusionist politics were Dr Luís de Freitas Branco, Dr António Gonçalves de Freitas, Jacinto de Santana e Vasconcelos, João de Santana e Vasconcelos and Silvano de Freitas Branco, from the former Regenerator party; António Correia Heredia, Dr Francisco Joaquim Lampreia, Dr João da Câmara Leme, Canon Alfredo César de Oliveira, Pedro José de Ornelas, Dr Manuel José Vieira, Dr José Leite Monteiro and João José Vieira, from the former Historical party; and Dr Joaquim Ricardo da Trindade e Vasconcelos, formerly a Conservative or perhaps a Legitimist. The Popular party, on the other hand, included Dom João da Câmara Leme, who served for a long time as civil governor; Dr Agostinho de Ornelas e Vasconcelos; Canon Filipe José Nunes; Dr Álvaro Rodrigues de Azevedo, Januário Justiniano de Nóbrega and Nuno Dias de Vasconcelos, former Regenerators; Joaquim Coelho de Meireles, once a Miguelite (supporter of the absolutist King Miguel); and the former Cabralist Conservatives Dr António da Luz Pita, Dr Luís Vicente de Afonseca, Caetano Velosa Castelo Branco, the first Popular deputy for the Funchal constituency, and Diogo Berenguer, holder of the entail (morgado), in whose house the party committees met. A Razão, O Popular and O Direito were the organs of the Popular party in Madeira, while the Correio do Funchal (‘Funchal Courier’), later replaced by A Fusão, A Voz do Povo and A Imprensa Livre championed the opposing policy.

The summoning to the councils of the Crown of the ministry headed by the Bishop of Viseu did not end the dominance of the Popular party, which had caused the riots of 8 March 1868 (see Riots in Madeira), because that party, and Dr Álvaro de Azevedo in particular, had sponsored the so-called reformist policy. When the military sedition led by Saldanha broke out in May 1870, island politics likewise underwent no notable change, because the same party had decided to support the Government that then came to power in place of the Historical Progressive ministry dismissed a few days earlier. Dom João da Câmara Leme, who had ceased to be civil governor of the district under the governments of the Count of Ávila, the Bishop of Viseu and the Duke of Loulé, returned to that office under the ministry headed by the Duke of Saldanha.

It is curious to note that, although a Historical ministry was in power, in the elections of 1 May 1870 it was not the party supporting the government in Madeira but the opposition that triumphed in most of the polling assemblies. The men killed by the troops in the church at Machico were Popular party voters. Yet it was Popular supporters who, on the Cais da Pontinha (‘little point’), seized the late Dr Ricardo da Trindade e Vasconcelos as he returned from that town and took him to the public garden of Funchal, where they meant to murder him. This shows that they were masters of the situation and free to commit the wildest excesses. It was the lack of energy of the Viscount of Andaluz, then civil governor, and the indulgence he showed towards the opposition, even keeping in office officials who were openly hostile to him, that caused the anarchy and disorder of which Madeira was the stage in May 1870.

In 1858 A Reforma stated that, since the Regeneration had brought together elements of every political colour, personal politics had begun to lose ground on our island. A few years later, however, the same newspaper, had it still existed, could not have expressed so optimistic a view, especially regarding the politics that prevailed here during the turbulent period from 1868 to 1870. It was not the interests of the island but those of particular individuals that drove the struggles fought at that time, which became notorious for the violence committed by the two parties contending on the island.

The summoning to the councils of the Crown, at the end of 1871, of a Regenerator ministry headed by Fontes Pereira de Melo seemed likely to calm tempers. However, the new government kept Governor Dom João da Câmara Leme at the head of the district administration, and the opposition disapproved of this, resolving to harass him by every means within its reach. The lampoons, persecutions, stoning of buildings and killings of 1868 and 1870 were followed by a regime of bombs, which mysterious hands placed at night in various parts of the city and which exploded with a great roar, sometimes causing material damage.

With the formation of a thoroughly Regenerator ministry, the party welcomed back not only the Regenerators who had taken part in the fusion of 1865 but also many of those who had joined the Popular party. João de Santana e Vasconcelos was the local leader of Regenerator politics, which before 1862 had been directed by Dr Luís de Freitas Branco.

On 7 September 1876 the modern Progressive party was organised in Lisbon from Historic and Reformist elements. Councillor (conselheiro, honorary title of the royal council) Anselmo José Braamcamp was elected its leader, and Dr João da Câmara Leme, later Viscount and then Count of Canavial, was the party’s first leader in Madeira. The former Madeiran Historics who had belonged to the Fusionist party joined the new political grouping, with the exception of Dr Manuel José Vieira, João José Vieira and Dr José Leite Monteiro. For some time these three showed no party sympathies, but in 1882 they joined the Constituent party, together with João de Sales Caldeira, Augusto Bianchi, Dr José António de Almada, Dr Nuno Ferreira Jardim, etc. O Direito was this party’s organ in Madeira.

When the Constituent party broke up, Dr Manuel José Vieira, João José Vieira and Dr José António de Almada moved to the Progressive party, of which the last was elected local leader in 1885. Dr José Leite Monteiro, meanwhile, stayed at his post, and was among the last to abandon the ill-fated policy of Councillor José Dias Ferreira.

After the death of General Fontes Pereira de Melo in 1887, almost all the Madeiran Regenerators accepted the leadership of António de Serpa Pimentel. Only Dr Luís António Gonçalves de Freitas, then living in Lisbon, and a few other politicians joined the so-called Dynastic Left, founded by Barjona de Freitas.

In 1901 the local Regenerator party split. The cause was that Councillor José Ribeiro da Cunha had been charged with coming to Madeira to receive the monarchs Carlos I and Empress Amélie, which amounted to an affront to the civil governor, Dom Bernardo da Costa de Macedo. On that occasion there were some popular demonstrations in Funchal, organised by various Regenerators who were friends of Ribeiro da Cunha, in which the Progressives also had a hand, with the aim of discrediting the authorities. Among the senior members of the Regenerator party who then withdrew from party politics were Councillor Silvano de Freitas Branco, Dr João Augusto Teixeira, Dr Romano Santa Clara Gomes, Dr Júlio Paulo de Freitas and the engineer Vitorino José dos Santos. Councillor José Leite Monteiro took over the leadership of the party in Madeira.

The Progressives, who had been allies of the Regenerator faction that supported Governor Ribeiro da Cunha, afterwards became its bitterest enemies. The many incidents of the struggle between these two political groups, especially during the electoral period, are still fresh in the memory of Madeirans. Almost everywhere the freedom of the ballot box was made a mockery of, and in Machico the Progressives suffered the worst humiliations for having dared to scrutinise the election being held there. The Progressive newspapers Diário Popular and Correio da Tarde, and the Regenerator newspapers O Direito, O Rebate and O Debate, provide valuable, if at times impassioned, information for the history of one of the most calamitous periods in Madeira’s political life.

At that time the leading figures of the local Progressive party were Councillor Manuel José Vieira, the party’s leader in Madeira, Captain João Augusto Pereira, Canon Manuel Esteves Fazenda, Dr Pedro José Lomelino, Councillor João Baptista Leal and João José Vieira. In the Regenerator party, alongside Councillor Leite Monteiro, served various young politicians known for their liberal aspirations, prominent among them Dr Vasco Gonçalves Marques, Dr José Joaquim Mendes, Dr António Capelo, António Luís Nunes Vieira, João Octávio da Costa Cabedo, etc., etc.

The creation of the so-called Henriquist group and the split between Councillors Luciano de Castro and Alpoim had no influence on Madeiran politics, although the Viscount of Ribeira Brava followed the second of these political leaders. However, the rise to power in 1907 of a government headed by Councillor João Franco led at once to the formation on the island of a well-organised group intended to promote that statesman’s policy. Its members included, among others, Luís Gomes da Conceição, Dr Júlio Paulo de Freitas, Father Fernando Augusto da Silva, Dr Romano Santa Clara Gomes, Dr Alberto Figueira Jardim, the engineer Vitorino José dos Santos, Dr Fernando Tolentino da Costa, etc., etc. The tragic death of King Carlos I on 1 February 1908 prevented the local Franquists from carrying out their programme of administration, since Councillor João Franco left office immediately after that event.

The Nationalist party, formed in 1903, also had many followers in Madeira, chiefly among the clergy. Canon António H. de Gouveia, originally elected by the Progressives, championed the interests of this party in parliament; its press organ was O Jornal, which appeared in 1906. Dr Quirino A. de Jesus, long resident in Lisbon, belonged to the Nationalist party, but only for a short time.

When the Republic was proclaimed on 5 October 1910, Madeira adhered to it at once. From then on the monarchist parties disappeared, though monarchist ideas did not, even if few dared to express them in the days following the establishment of the new regime. The disturbances that had occurred in Madeira in 1826, 1828 and 1834 with the change of institutions were fortunately not repeated in 1910. Despite the efforts of certain troublemakers, various irregular incidents occurred only in the 27th Infantry Regiment (regimento de infantaria n.º 27) and in some civil services, and fortunately these did not go beyond certain limits. No public official was dismissed and property was respected, although the moment was favourable for many outrages.

At first the Madeiran republicans formed a single party, within which there seemed to be no notable differences. This state of affairs did not last long, however, and by the time the first elections of deputies were held in May 1911 the supporters of the new regime were already divided. Various irregularities and abuses were committed on that occasion, against which the parliamentary candidate Francisco Correia Heredia, Viscount of Ribeira Brava, protested at the counting assembly. The electoral trickery that tarnished our republican apprenticeship differed from that of the monarchy only in the clumsiness with which it was practised.

In 1911 the political groups known as the Democrats, the Evolutionists and the Unionists were formed in Portugal, led respectively by Dr Afonso Costa, Dr António José de Almeida and Dr Brito Camacho. Little by little several valuable figures from our island joined the first of these, some coming from the old monarchist parties and others who until then had kept aloof from politics. The republicans of the period before 5 October, whose local leader was Dr Manuel Augusto Martins, declared themselves supporters of the second group, while only a small number of politicians, almost all of them recent republicans, joined the third. In February 1913 the Democrats, as members of a political faction, entered the administration of the district’s administrative bodies. Having elected the late Viscount of Ribeira Brava as president of their District Committee (Comissão Distrital) and Dr Vasco Gonçalves Marques as vice-president, they soon formed the strongest and most disciplined party on the island.

When Dr Álvaro de Castro broke away from the Democratic Party, also called the Portuguese Republican Party, in order to form the party he named National Reconstitution, the great majority of the local Democrats resolved to follow that politician and join the new republican party. The political meeting at which this was decided took place at the Quinta do Jasmineiro on 30 May 1920 and was chaired by Azevedo Ramos. Dr Vasco Gonçalves Marques was elected president of the new party’s district committee, and Dr Fernando Tolentino da Costa president of its municipal committee. Parish committees were elected for the municipality (concelho) of Funchal, and individuals were appointed to organise the party in the various municipalities. The Democratic group was considerably weakened by the defections we have just mentioned. In December 1921, however, both the independent republicans and the members of the Liberal Republican Party (formerly the Unionists) enlisted in its ranks. Some time before, in July 1921, Captain Manuel da Costa Dias had visited Madeira with the aim of reorganising the group, which nevertheless never again regained the importance and vitality it had shown at first.

As for the former Evolutionists, a group of no great political importance, since the fall of Sidonism they have been more or less allied with the ex-Democrats who joined the National Reconstitution party. On 8 July 1920 the Evolutionists resolved to remain united until Portuguese politics had been clearly defined. For this reason, and also because of incompatibilities with former Unionists, they took no part in forming the local political committees of the Liberal Party, despite the merger of Unionists, Evolutionists and Centrists that had taken place some time before in Portugal.

After the defeat of the monarchists at Monsanto, the republican parties, which had refrained from any public activity in Madeira during Sidonism, came to an understanding and formed a committee to direct the island’s politics. Shortly afterwards, however, the Unionists withdrew, and it was the Democrats and Evolutionists who conducted the political elections and later the administrative elections on the island. Because the Unionists formed a coalition with the monarchists after the withdrawal we have just mentioned, that group was for some time at odds with the other republican groups on the island, as stated above.

During the government of Dr Sidónio Pais it was chiefly the monarchists who held sway in Madeira. Governor Pinto Feio replaced with supporters of the old regime the republicans whom the secretary-general, acting as governor, had appointed to the administrative committees of the District General Council (Junta Geral) and the Municipal Council.

In the elections of 10 July 1921, two candidates of the Presidentialist party and one of the Popular party stood before the voters, but the small number of votes they won reveals how poorly organised their parties were in Madeira. On that occasion the Madeiran Catholic party also failed to have its candidate elected; it fared better in the elections of 29 January 1922, when it succeeded in sending a deputy to parliament. On 22 February 1919 the Trabalho e União reported that the Madeiran Labour party, made up of workers and others, had just been definitively organised, but as far as we know this party has not yet sought to intervene directly in the island’s political life (1921).

In January 1922 Lusitanian Integralism elected a regional committee in Madeira, with Dr Rui Bettencourt da Câmara as president and Dr Abel Capitolino Batista as vice-president. In August of the same year the elections of the Conservative Monarchist Youth (Juventude Monárquica Conservadora) took place in Funchal: the Viscount of Cacongo was elected honorary president, César Barbeito president of the general assembly, and Dr Nuno Porto president of the board. The Republican party was organised in Madeira in 1882, on the occasion of the election of Dr Manuel de Arriaga as our representative in the Cortes (Portuguese parliament), but by the time the Republic was proclaimed in 1910 it had grown very weak on this island.

The Reconstituintes of Madeira resolved to join the Nationalist Republican party at a meeting chaired by Nicásio de Azevedo Ramos, held at the Casino Vitória on 29 April 1923. When Dr Álvaro de Castro left the Nationalist party in December of the same year, he was followed by the Madeirans Captain Américo Olavo de Azevedo and Dr Carlos Olavo de Azevedo. Almost all the other parliamentarians and politicians of our island who had joined that party on 29 April, however, remained faithful to the principles they had resolved to defend.

On 21 December 1923 the District Committee (Comissão Distrital) of the Radical party of Madeira met, with Senator César Procópio de Freitas in attendance; before then the party had given no clear proof of its existence here in Madeira.

These, very lightly sketched, are the main facts of the political history of Madeira from the last days of absolute government to the present (1922). We recognise, more than anyone, how inadequate our information is. But since we are bound to deal with every subject relating to the island, so as not to stray from the programme we set for our work, we have in many cases been obliged to turn our summary into a mere outline. Anyone who consults the collections of our island’s newspapers will find there more or less detailed reports of the political events we have treated very superficially. They are the best source available, since no published work on the subject exists (1921).