Porto do Moniz (parish)

This is one of the oldest parishes (freguesias) in the north of Madeira. The exact period in which its first colonisation began is not known, but it cannot have been much later than the beginning of the third quarter of the 15th century. Francisco Moniz, the Elder, is named as one of its earliest settlers. This should be understood, however, to mean that he was one of the first to hold sesmaria (royal land grant to settlers on condition of cultivation) lands there, and the first to form a substantial core of inhabitants in this village (lugar, settlement rank below a town), with the settled estate (fazenda povoada) he established and the chantry (capela) he founded beside it. Around the one and the other the population gradually grew denser, and a new parish soon took shape. This is what generally happened throughout the island.

This locality was first called Ponta do Tristão (‘Tristão’s point’), a name which then covered the land corresponding to the present parishes of Seixal, Ribeira da Janela, Porto Moniz, Achadas da Cruz, and perhaps also part of Ponta do Pargo. Once the chapel of the Immaculate Conception (Nossa Senhora da Conceição) had been founded, the place took the name of that chapel with the addition ‘da Ponta do Tristão’; the learned annotator of the Saudades states that the parish is so named in the royal letter (carta régia) of 12 March 1574. Dr Álvaro de Azevedo also says that in the letter of 1 March 1577 it is already given the name of Porto Moniz, which is the one that prevailed and endured. Francisco Moniz was of noble descent and a native of the Algarve. Some genealogists say that he married, on this island, Filipa da Câmara, daughter of Garcia Rodrigues da Câmara, who was the natural son of the discoverer João Gonçalves Zarco. As we said in the article devoted to the parish of Achadas da Cruz, Garcia da Câmara owned a great deal of sesmaria land at Ponta do Tristão, granted to him by his father, and it is not unreasonable to conjecture that Francisco Moniz shared, by inheritance, in the ownership of those lands. The approximate period in which Francisco Moniz made his first settlement in this locality is unknown; Dr Rodrigues de Azevedo first gives 1535 as the year of his death, and later 1533.

Francisco Moniz built the chapel of Nossa Senhora da Conceição not far from the sea, and gave his surname to the nearby landing place. The name later spread to its immediate surroundings and, later still, to the neighbouring lands.

The year in which this parish was created is unknown; the royal letter of 11 March 1574 is the oldest document concerning it that we have found cited. On the evidence of similar cases, we suppose that the establishment of this settlement as an independent parish did not long precede that date, and there was no doubt a private chaplain there to perform the duties of worship, as was generally the case in large settlements that had a chapel attached.

The royal letters of 1 March 1577, 9 June 1581, 17 July 1588 and 20 February 1593 successively increased the parish priest’s stipend, which the royal decree (alvará) of 15 October 1650 fixed at 20,000 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis) a year in cash, one moio (dry measure of grain, 60 alqueires) of wheat and one pipa (wine cask and measure, c. 400–500 litres) of wine.

Since Francisco Moniz died in 1533 or 1535, the chapel of the Immaculate Conception, which he founded, must predate that year, but the year of its construction is unknown. The chapel underwent several alterations and was demolished after the new church was built on a different site. It is said in some source, and local tradition held, that the move was made to place the church in greater safety from the raids of the corsairs who at times infested those waters. Work on the new building began in 1660, but it was only in 1668 that it was declared entirely finished. It is of simple architecture and bare of any works of art. It should be noted, however, that the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, built later, shows good artistic taste and contrasts with the other decorations of the church. This chapel is owed to Captain Manuel Rodrigues Ferreira Ferro, who died in 1717 and was buried in it as its founder.

We shall deal with the chapels of this parish elsewhere. Meanwhile, we shall say here that in the locality (sítio) most commonly known by the abbreviation Santa (‘saint’) stands the chapel of Santa Maria Madalena (St Mary Magdalene). It is of no mean size and is the centre of a well-attended pilgrimage held every year in July. When the parish has its curacy (curato) filled, the curate usually lives near this chapel and performs his religious duties there. Besides the cemetery in the locality of Vila, there is another cemetery close to this chapel.

Referring in 1590 to the parish we are discussing, Gaspar Frutuoso says the following: ‘Half a league from Seixal lies Magdalena, which is a parish of thirty households, with much growing of grain and plenty of water. This parish lies inland, nearly half a league, at Ponta do Tristão...’ These few words contain several inaccuracies. The parish is not that of Magdalena but of Porto Moniz, the former name referring to a locality that has an old chapel dedicated to Santa Maria Madalena. Porto Moniz is not merely half a league from Seixal, nor does it lie half a league inland at Ponta do Tristão for someone coming from the Seixal side, as the author describes. The royal decrees that regulated the stipend (côngrua) of parish priests show that Porto Moniz could not have had only thirty households (fogos, literally ‘hearths’) at that time, but approximately a hundred or even more. In 1611, that is, twenty-one years later, Achadas da Cruz alone already had about twenty households.

We mentioned above that, according to tradition, the site for the parish church was chosen because it placed the church in a better position to escape the raids of corsairs, which is not hard to believe. The Moors of the Moroccan coast at times attacked the island of Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’) and some settlements on the Madeiran coast. It may be presumed that Porto Moniz did not escape the corsairs’ plunder, since it was one of the places in Madeira closest to their point of departure, although we have no reliable record of these raids by Moroccan pirates. We have read somewhere (1921) that at the top of the town, in the place called Pedra Mole (‘soft stone’), one can still see today the remains of caves dug into the clay, where the wealthier inhabitants are said to have hidden their church furnishings and valuables whenever the corsairs approached the coast. To prevent these incursions and drive off the raiding ships, a fort was built in this parish; according to the annotator of the Saudades, it was the best on the north coast. It was Captain Manuel Rodrigues Ferreira Ferro, already referred to, who paid all the costs of building this fort, the State contributing only the guns and the rest of its artillery equipment. It bore the name of São João Baptista (St John the Baptist), and we are told that the stone tablet bearing the inscription recording the date and the founder of this small fort is kept in one of the military offices housed in the Palácio de São Lourenço (‘St Lawrence’).

Captain Manuel Ferreira Ferro founded an entailed estate (morgadio) with its seat in this parish. From the facts related about him, he was a true benefactor of this place, and we do not know whether even one of the streets of the settlement still bears his name, recalling to present and future generations the charitable deeds he performed.

The parish comprises the localities of Vila, Lamaceiros, Junqueira, Levada Grande, Batalhão, Ribeirinho, Pico Alto, Santa, Fazenda and Pombais, with 3,412 inhabitants.