Paul do Mar

We have already noted elsewhere that Gaspar Frutuoso, in his brief description, written in 1590, of the most important parishes (freguesias) and villages (lugares, settlement rank below a town) on the south-west coast of Madeira, refers to the localities of Jardim do Mar (‘garden by the sea’) and Paul do Mar (‘marsh by the sea’) simply as Jardim and Paul. We do not know whether they were known by these names in the earliest days of colonisation, perhaps without the added designation ‘do Mar’ that they bear today and have long borne. Nor do we know whether the places called Paul da Serra (‘upland marsh’) and Jardim da Serra (‘upland garden’) received these names to distinguish them from those localities, the former pair being washed by the ocean and the latter lying in the interior of the island.

We do not know the origin of the name Paul by which this parish is known, if we relate it to the meaning that lexicographers commonly give it [TN: paul means a marsh or bog in Portuguese.]. A considerable part of the parish consists of a fairly level fajã (strip of flat land at the foot of a cliff), to which the name Paul would be apt if waterlogged ground had once existed there, turned into a kind of bog or swamp by water coming down from the high surrounding cliffs, or even by the sea at some lower point of the beach, and if the early settlers had then called it Paul. It is also possible that some orographic or hydrographic resemblance to a locality on the mainland justified the name, something that it will probably be impossible to establish today. Dean Gonçalves de Andrade, however, finds the name very well suited to the topography of the place, for he says that it ‘forms a kind of valley beneath high cliffs, beside the sea, whence its name’. We do not see how these circumstances justify giving the name Paul to that place.

The lands that make up the present parishes of Paul do Mar, Jardim do Mar and Prazeres once belonged to the parish of Estreito da Calheta (‘the narrows of Calheta’). The first to be separated from it was Paul do Mar, created by the royal decree (alvará) of 28 December 1676, which then also included the future parish of Jardim do Mar. The curacy (curato) of Prazeres (‘joys’) was created later, as a dependency of Paul do Mar.

One of the earliest settlers of this parish was João Anes de Couto Cardoso, who held many lands here and in Jardim do Mar as sesmaria (royal land grant to settlers on condition of cultivation). Various genealogies state that he founded the chapel of St Maurus (Santo Amaro), which later served as the seat of the parish, and that he lies buried in it. One of his sons, Francisco de Couto Cardoso, who died in May 1542, established an entailed estate (morgadio) with its seat in this parish. Another member of this family also founded an entailed house (casa vinculada) in the neighbouring locality of Jardim do Mar.

Paul do Mar, together with the parishes (freguesias) of Machico and Câmara de Lobos (‘seals’ den’), forms one of the three most important fishing centres of the archipelago. In Paul some hundreds of people make their living from the toil of fishing. A fish-canning factory was set up there a few years ago and is an important industrial establishment. The salt pans established in this locality did not produce the expected results, as has happened with various attempts made elsewhere on this island. The yield at Paul was always meagre, and the salt pans were abandoned a good many years ago.

This parish produces the agricultural crops common to the whole island, and sugar cane and vines are grown here in particular. The Malmsey produced in this locality was famous, and was not inferior in quality to the well-known Malmsey of Fajã dos Padres (‘the priests’ flat’).

It has two schools, one for each sex, the girls’ school having been founded in 1912.

According to the 1911 census, its population is 1,586 inhabitants.

Its principal localities are Ribeira das Galinhas, Serrado da Cruz, Alagoa, Igreja and Quebrada.

It has been claimed that a good deal of the ground overhanging some of the most important localities of this parish is on the verge of collapsing. This would bury countless homesteads and inevitably kill hundreds of people, and it would, unhappily, be one of the most horrifying tragedies in Madeiran history.

The District General Council (Junta Geral do Distrito) took the praiseworthy initiative of having a fishermen’s housing estate built in this locality. A block of houses intended specifically for people employed in fishing has already been built, and it was formally opened in July 1944.