Ponta do Sol (parish)

The author of the Saudades, summarising the first exploration carried out by the discoverers along the south coast of this island, says that João Gonçalves Zarco, setting out in the boats at Ribeira Brava (‘wild river’), ‘came to a point which lies a league below, and juts far out into the sea; and, because on the cliff above the point one can make out from afar, and see clearly, a round vein in the rock itself with rays that look like the sun, the captain named it Ponta do Sol…’ Another passage of the same work reads: ‘…Ponta do Sol is so called because it has a point to the west of the town which has the appearance… where the Sun also strikes first, before it reaches the town, when it rises’. Such is the explanation the chronicler offers for the origin of the name of this place. It does indeed seem plausible, since there are no weighty reasons that entirely contradict it. We do not know whether other places with the same name, such as a locality on the island of Santo Antão, Cape Verde, derived their names from circumstances similar to those recorded by Dr Gaspar Frutuoso.

João Agostinho de Freitas, an intelligent and patient researcher into the affairs of his native corner of the island, does not depart significantly from Frutuoso’s opinion. He says that the name ‘derived from an arm or reef (restinga) of living rock which, because it advances out into the sea, is called a point, and from a projection with concentric veins or cracks, in the form of a halo, as the Sun is customarily depicted, which existed on the face of the rock of the Passo (‘pass’) that stands directly above the Fojo (‘pit’), beside the said point’. And he adds: ‘this rock lies to the south-east of the town and not to the west, as is stated, perhaps through a copyist’s error, in Dr Frutuoso’s manuscript, which is in the library of the Council of Funchal’.

The colonisation of Ponta do Sol began around 1440. One of its earliest settlers was Rodrigues Enes, the Lame, who obtained extensive lands there and established a large settled estate (fazenda povoada), which was the origin and original nucleus of the future parish (freguesia). It is said somewhere that the lands Rodrigo Enes began to clear, which had been granted to him as a sesmaria (royal land grant to settlers on condition of cultivation), lay to the west of the stream and stretched from the edge of the ocean up to Arrebentão, near the Paul da Serra (‘upland marsh’).

It is conjectured that he settled in this place around 1450. The year of his death is not known, but some of the provisions of his will are known. They were made on 8 April 1486, in this locality, before the Funchal notary João Tavira, and among them is the following: ‘he orders that from the income of his disposable third (terça) of the estate a chantry (capela) be made for him in the church of Ponta do Sol, on the right-hand side facing the sea, and it shall be made like that of Clara Esteves, which is in the church of Santa Maria Maior (St Mary Major) in Funchal, and it shall be dedicated to the Holy Spirit, and an image of the said Lord shall be placed in it, together with a silk vestment and a silver chalice of one mark’. According to a distinguished researcher who lived for many years in the parish of Ponta do Sol and died there, the chapel known as the Capela do Coxo (the Lame Man’s Chapel) is that of Nossa Senhora do Patrocínio (Our Lady of the Patronage), and there, beside the altar and beneath the wooden floorboards, lies the tomb of Rodrigo Enes. It would be worth checking whether the inscription on Rodrigo Enes’s tomb confirms these indications, for it is claimed that he expressly stipulated in his will that the epitaph should make special mention of his being the founder of the village (lugar, settlement rank below a town) of Ponta do Sol. It would indeed be fitting to uncover the tomb of the man whose name is so closely bound up with the earliest history of this locality, and to pay some other worthy tribute to his memory. It is the municipality of Ponta do Sol that has the inescapable duty of paying this well-deserved homage to the memory of the founder of this parish.

The date on which this parish was created is not known. We conjecture that it was in the third quarter of the 15th century. It is one of the oldest in this diocese.

The oldest document concerning this parish that we have found cited is the royal decree (alvará) of 28 August 1559, which set the parish priest’s stipend (côngrua) at 10,300 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis) a year in cash, plus one moio (dry measure of grain, 60 alqueires) of wheat and one pipa (wine cask and measure, c. 400–500 litres) of wine. The royal decrees of 23 July 1566, 13 March 1572 and 27 November 1598 raised the vicar’s annual salary to 13,300, 26,000 and 29,000 réis respectively, in addition to the moio of wheat and the pipa of wine.

This parish had a collegiate church (see Collegiate Churches) made up of four beneficiaries, as well as the curacy (curato), which was created by the royal decree of 26 August 1589.

The chapel of Our Lady of Light (Nossa Senhora da Luz), where the seat of the parish was established, was built before the parish was created; neither the year of its construction nor the name of its founder is known. It has undergone various alterations and seems to have been almost entirely rebuilt and enlarged in the first quarter of the 18th century, according to some Apontamentos (notes) that Dr Tomé Vieira Barreto recorded in one of the books of the parish church while he was parish priest there.

This church venerates the image of Our Lady of Light, its patron saint, whose particular cult was at one time very widespread in this and many other parishes. Friar Agostinho de Santa Maria, in volume X of his well-known work Santuario Mariano, devotes a chapter to the veneration then paid to that revered image. Father Miguel Francisco Velosa, vicar of this parish church, petitioned for and obtained from the Holy See a brief dated 30 July 1805, granting a plenary indulgence, on the occasion of the patronal feast, its novenas and the octave – that is, from 30 August to 15 September each year – to all persons who, duly prepared, visit the parish church of this parish.

This parish had many chapels, of which we shall give a brief account elsewhere in this work.

Thanks to its rapid and extensive development, the parish (freguesia) of Ponta do Sol attracted a considerable number of people from mainland Portugal – the Kingdom (reino, i.e. mainland Portugal) – and even from abroad. They obtained a great deal of land there as sesmarias (royal land grant to settlers on condition of cultivation), and some of them founded important entailed houses that had their seat in this locality and have survived to our own day... Among these people we shall mention Rodrigo Enes Furtado, of whom we have already spoken above, a man of noble lineage who left numerous descendants in this parish; Luís Gonçalves da Câmara, whom we have already discussed (vol. I, p. 206, and vol. II, p. 278); Dom João Henriques, to whose family Father Leão Henriques belongs, and after whom a locality that belonged to him is still called Pomar de Dom João (‘Dom João’s orchard’); Pedro Delgado, who held a sesmaria at Lombo das Adegas (‘ridge of the wine cellars’); Rodrigo Anes Coelho, of the family of Rodrigo Enes Furtado, who seems to have had land at Lombo de São João (‘St John’s ridge’); Diogo Ferreira de Mesquita, who founded the Chapel of Livramento (Our Lady of Deliverance); and still others. Among the foreigners we may recall the names of João Esmeraldo, whom we have already discussed at some length; António de Lemes, of Flemish origin, whose descendants gave their name to the locality of Lemes; an individual with the surname Schomberg; and others.

Several entailed estates existed within the boundaries of this parish. Those worth mentioning are the entail of Espírito Santo and Vale da Bica, which we have already discussed in the article Lombada dos Esmeraldos; that of Fajã do Furtado, founded by a descendant of Rodrigo Enes, ‘o Coxo’; that of Lemes, founded by António Leme at the locality that bears his name; that of Anjos, with its seat in the Chapel of Anjos (Angels) and created by Martim Afonso; one founded by Diogo Ferreira Mesquita; and another by Ambrósio Berenguer in 1601.

Among the most distinguished natives of Ponta do Sol we shall mention Father Leão Henriques, Dr António da Luz Pita, Dr João Augusto Teixeira, Canon Feliciano João Teixeira and Dr Nuno Silvestre Teixeira, whom we shall discuss elsewhere.

It would be unjust not to recall here the name of João Agostinho de Freitas, a patient and distinguished researcher into the history of this parish, who left some valuable manuscripts. Under the title Resumo da Hera Patriotica he wrote a monograph on Ponta do Sol, which, through the efforts of one of the editors of this Elucidário, was published in nos 335 to 340 of the newspaper Brado do Oeste. He was born in 1827 and died in 1906. Nor do we wish to forget the name of Nuno de Freitas Pestana, who, as a licensed advocate (advogado provisionista, practising by licence without a law degree) and in the posts he held, displayed uncommon talent and learning.

One notable work in this parish is its landing quay, built by order of the Municipal Council in 1848. The following year, before the whole work had been finished, the head of the district, José Silvestre Ribeiro, reported the Council’s undertaking to the central government, highlighting the service it had rendered to this locality. There is no record of any municipal council having since ventured to carry out any other major improvement there.

Prince Luís, later King of Portugal, visited this parish on 25 October 1858 on his way to the picturesque resort of Rabaçal, returning to this town (vila) the following day. Both on his arrival and on his return from Rabaçal, he and his retinue lunched at the residence of the esteemed Ponta do Sol native Nuno de Freitas Pestana. He landed and embarked at Lugar de Baixo, because the rough sea did not allow him to do so at the town quay.

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Ponta do Sol as a parish,’ says João Agostinho de Freitas, ‘extended over the whole territory from the Ribeira da Tabua, to the east, to the Ribeira da Madalena, to the west. Later – the precise date is not known, but it is supposed to have been around 1510 or some years later – when the parishes of Madalena and Canhas, to the west, and that of Tabua, to the east, were created, the territory of Ponta do Sol was reduced to a few kilometres of coast, that is, from the mouth of the Ribeira do Alto, the boundary with Canhas, to the mouth of the Ribeira da Caixa, the boundary with Tabua.

The principal localities of this parish are: Vila, Ribeira da Ponta do Sol, Lombo das Terças, Lemes, Lombo das Adegas, Pomar de Dom João, Lombo de São João, Fregueses Novos, Ribeira da Lombada, Lombada, Entre Caminhos, Jangão and Lugar de Baixo. The 1920 census gives this parish 6,190 inhabitants.

The book Na Madeira-Offerendas by Dona Mariana Xavier da Silva, published in Lisbon in 1884, contains the narratives O Rapazinho da Lombada, A Virgem das Dôres and Ponta do Sol, which are of interest for the history and customs of this parish.