Road corvée
Original title: Rodas de Caminho
Explains the 'rodas de caminho', compulsory unpaid labour on stream repairs imposed on all men aged 16–60 in 1804 after the 1803 flood, redeemable in cash and abandoned in Funchal around 1880.
The Royal Treasury Board (Junta da Real Fazenda) asked the Funchal Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal do Funchal) ‘to indicate the gentlest means of requiring the inhabitants of this island to contribute to the repair of the damage caused by the flash flood (aluvião) of 9 October 1803’. At its meeting of 21 August 1804, having heard the nobility and the people, the latter represented by the House of the Twenty-Four (Casa dos Vinte e Quatro, assembly of the craft guilds), the Council resolved ‘that the fairest means, the least burdensome and the most in keeping with the proposed aim of having the island’s inhabitants contribute to the repair of the streams, was that all male inhabitants from the age of 16 to that of 60, without exception of any person, ecclesiastical or secular, native or foreign, fidalgo (nobleman of the lesser nobility), noble or commoner, should be obliged to go in rotation to work at clearing and repairing the streams, not more than five times in each year, each without pay, in those of the district of the city or town (vila) where he lived and where such work was needed’.
Such was the origin of the road corvée (rodas de caminho), which fell into disuse in Funchal around 1880. It could be redeemed in cash according to ‘the price that each day-labourer earns daily’, as was laid down at the said council meeting of 21 August 1804 (1921).
In this article
Time
Years mentioned · 03-
The great flood of 9 October 1803, considered Madeira's greatest calamity, devastated Funchal and other parts of the island, killing about 600 people and destroying the Calhau church, stream walls, bridges and chapels in Machico, Santa Cruz and elsewhere. It prompted Oudinot's mission and the city's spread outwards.
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The Funchal council instituted compulsory rota labour on stream repairs for men aged 16 to 60.
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The rodas de caminho fell into disuse in Funchal.
Place
Places mentioned · 01
- Funchal
Its council created the levy, which lapsed there around 1880.
The capital of the archipelago and seat of the principal captaincy, where settlement began; it was made a vila c.1451–52. Its bay, the widest in the archipelago, lies between Ponta do Garajau and Ponta da Cruz and offers sheltered anchorage, though its harbour had never been studied oceanographically. The Elucidário discusses it as a health resort with climate data and records the January 1906 disturbances, the Danish prince's visit in May 1846 and recent volcanic cones in the area.