Porto Santo (captaincy)

As is well known, the island of Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’) formed one of the three captaincies into which this archipelago was divided (see vol. 1, p. 244). The letter of grant (carta de doação) to its first donatary, Bartolomeu Perestrelo, is dated 1 November 1446 and is transcribed on p. 457 of ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra). It states: ‘I give charge to Bartolomeu Perestrelo, fidalgo (nobleman of the lesser nobility) of my household, of my island of Porto Santo, so that the said Bartolomeu Perestrelo may maintain it for me in justice and right; and should he die, it pleases me that his first son, or another if such there be, shall hold this charge in the manner aforesaid, and so from descendant to descendant in the direct line; and should the said son be of such an age that he cannot govern, I or my heirs shall place there someone to govern until he is of age to govern. And it pleases me that he shall hold on this aforesaid island jurisdiction, for me and in my name, in civil and criminal matters, save for death or the cutting off of a limb, from which appeal shall come before me; yet notwithstanding the said jurisdiction, it pleases me that my orders and inspection (correição) be carried out there as a thing of my own.’ This letter mentions various rights, privileges and exemptions granted to the first donatary, including the collection of various contributions and taxes.

The captaincy of Porto Santo remained in the possession and under the authority of Bartolomeu Perestrelo’s descendants until the time when Philippine rule, with the appointment of governors-general, reduced the donataries of the archipelago to a very subordinate and almost purely honorary position. They nevertheless continued to collect substantial revenues from the original privileges that had been granted to them.

Bartolomeu Perestrelo (see Perestrelo) was succeeded in the donatary captaincy (donataria) by his son of the same name, who was stripped of it during his minority when his mother sold the captaincy to Pedro Correia, brother-in-law of the second Bartolomeu Perestrelo. After a lawsuit and an appeal brought before the Crown, the donatary captaincy was restored to him with all its rights and privileges (1437). He was succeeded by his son Bartolomeu Perestrelo (1529), who killed his wife Aldonça Delgado in order to marry his cousin Solanda Teixeira. Garcia Perestrelo, son of the third Bartolomeu, killed his wife just as his father had done, and while his father was still alive; for this he was condemned to death and beheaded. The lineage of the Perestrelos of this archipelago thus counts these two notorious murderers. The captaincy was inherited by Diogo Soares Perestrelo (1545), grandson of the third Bartolomeu Perestrelo, and he was succeeded by his son Diogo Perestrelo (1576). This donatary was a valiant knight. While he lived on his island, corsairs never attacked it, as had happened on other occasions, because, despite the feeble means of defence at his disposal, he managed through his energy and astonishing activity to keep the raiders at a distance. It may fairly be said that he was truly the last donatary of Porto Santo, since with Castilian rule and the appointment of the governors-general in 1581, the superintendence of the whole archipelago passed to them, as we have already said. After the Restoration, in 1653, John IV made a royal grant of the captaincy of Porto Santo to Vitorino Bettencourt Perestrelo, who is regarded as the seventh donatary, although the rights and privileges enjoyed by the former captains-donatary were considerably curtailed. He was followed by Diogo Perestrelo, Estêvão Bettencourt Perestrelo, Vitorino Bettencourt Perestrelo and Estêvão Bettencourt Perestrelo.

The donataries were succeeded by the governors, the first to be appointed being, according to the Anais of that island, Nicolau Bettencourt Perestrelo. In the article Ilha do Porto Santo we give a list of all the governors who served there up to 1848, the last to hold that office on the island being José Caetano Peixoto.

The captaincy of Porto Santo progressed slowly and never attained any notable degree of prosperity. Dr Álvaro de Azevedo says that it progressed during its first hundred and fifty years. These words should be taken to mean that it developed gradually from the earliest colonisation until the middle of the 16th century. That progress, however, was never great, owing to the causes already pointed out elsewhere. The chief of these were the frequent pirate raids, the droughts, the sometimes lengthy absences of the donataries, the ancestral pride of many inhabitants, which kept them away from farming, and the abandonment of their lands by a large number of the original holders of land grants, who took up residence in Funchal and some in Lisbon, etc. All these causes of decline led to the promulgation of the celebrated law of 13 October 1770, known as the Law of Fifths and Eighths (lei dos Quintos e Oitavos), of which we give a detailed account in another article.