Pereira

Around 1460 Rui Mendes Pereira, nicknamed ‘o Tacão’, came to Madeira; according to Dr Azevedo, he married twice on this island. Many of the people who bear the family surname Pereira on our island descend from him. It is a very widespread surname, and it derives from various origins.

Issue no. 33 of the newspaper A Informação, of 13 August 1931 (Funchal), contains an interesting article entitled ‘Os Pereiras de D. Nuno Alvares’, which sets out to prove that the great Constable Nuno Álvares Pereira, now beatified by the Catholic Church, had a large kinship on this island, spread over various parishes. This curious passage deserves special mention: ‘we thus see that the Pereiras of the Constable mingled abundantly with the people of Madeira. In the labyrinth of genealogical connections, the blood of Nuno Álvares looms large in almost the whole population, not only in the noble families but even in those of the common people, for both gradually merged in the slow course of social evolution.’

It may be said that this phenomenon occurred intensely in Madeira with all the families, of noble and plebeian origin alike, that came from mainland Portugal.