Prostitution

Prostitution already existed in Madeira in the 15th century, as is clearly shown by various old decrees and by a petition addressed to the Funchal Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal do Funchal) on 8 October 1495. This asked that the brothel quarter ‘be removed from beside the sea, because the men from outside went ashore with the harlots, caused disturbances and took refuge in the boats, and the law did not arrest them’. The mancebia was the place set aside for prostitutes to live.

The charter (foral) of the captaincy of Funchal, granted by King Manuel I on 6 August 1515, laid down that anyone found ‘in the brothel quarter with weapons, whether by day or by night, should lose the weapons and pay a penalty of 500 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis), and that every married man proved to keep a mistress ‘held and maintained’ should pay the quarentena (fine of a fortieth part of one’s property) on half of the estate he possessed.

We do not know when syphilis appeared in Madeira, but it is reasonable to suppose that this dreadful disease was already known here at the end of the 15th century or the beginning of the 16th. If the sailors of the ships that called at our port ‘went ashore with the harlots’ and withdrew to their boats without the police being able to arrest them, nothing could be more natural than to accept the contagion and spread of an illness that, even in those times, was known and feared in Europe. Dr Hans Sloane, who visited this island in October 1687, found syphilitic symptoms in some of the people who consulted him.

At the beginning of the second quarter of the 19th century, as the records of the Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal) show, prostitutes were living in the most central parts of the city, especially in Rua do Monteiro. A document of the period states that they caused frequent scandals there. This led the Council, at its session of 9 December 1835, to urge the municipal administrator (administrador do concelho, the government's representative) to keep these women under the closest watch and to have them removed from those places whenever this proved necessary.

Inspection of prostitutes was introduced in Portugal by an order of the intendant Pina Manique dated 2 April 1781. In Madeira, however, it is only since 1854, we believe, that these women have been subject to medical supervision, even though Mousinho de Albuquerque in 1834 and Councillor (conselheiro, honorary title of the royal council) José Silvestre Ribeiro in 1846 had urged the advisability of submitting them to regular sanitary examinations.

On 5 November 1834 the Council received a letter from the prefect (prefeito) of the Province referring to the ‘venereal disease present in a great number of public women’. It was resolved to pay the Administrative Committee (Comissão Administrativa) of the Misericórdia Hospital (Hospital da Misericórdia), ‘on this one and only occasion’, the expenses it had incurred in treating these women from 21 October to 4 November of that year.

On 8 March 1836 the Government ordered 1,000,000 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis) to be given to the Committee of the Misericórdia (Holy House of Mercy, a lay charitable brotherhood) of Funchal to help with the treatment of prostitutes suffering from venereal diseases. It also urged the Committee to make every effort to treat in the hospital, and with its resources, the poor who suffered from those diseases. The ministerial order (portaria) that laid down these provisions suggested that the Committee should turn to public subscriptions to raise the funds needed for the treatment of these poor people.

It was after the flash flood (aluvião) of 1856 that prostitutes began to settle in Rua do Ribeirinho de Baixo and Rua dos Medinas. Before then these streets had been inhabited only by respectable people, some of whom belonged to the leading families of the city. In 1840 there was a boys’ school in a building on the southern part of Rua do Ribeirinho de Baixo, and in 1819 the Lancasterian School (Escola Lancasteriana) was housed in a house in the same street, although it remained there only for a short time.