Santana (parish)

This parish (freguesia) is, beyond any possible dispute, one of the most beautiful in Madeira and the most picturesque and enchanting in the whole north of the island. We shall not describe it from the point of view of its landscape and natural beauties. Our pen, after long and intimate contact with names, dates and facts, has grown barren and no longer lends itself to the literary genre in which the pompous finery of poetry adapts easily to the precision and rigour of description. Besides, this parish has been celebrated in prose and verse by so many brilliant and authoritative pens!

It is the parish of Madeira that bears the strongest resemblance to our picturesque province of Minho, the so-called Garden of Portugal. One detail, deserving the highest appreciation, should be stressed here: in spring and summer the most central roads of the parish of Santana (‘St Anne’) are transformed into the walks of a vast and enchanting quinta (country estate). They are lined with hedges of box, hydrangeas, ferns and fuchsias (mimos) which, mingled with a great profusion of flowers, give these roads a charm and an appeal that can be found nowhere else. It is a detail that deserves special mention, for it is unique in Madeira and is certainly not often met with elsewhere in the world...

We do not know when the clearing of the land in this parish began, and therefore when its colonisation and settlement started. Lopo Fernandes Pinto, who died in 1500, ‘held as a sesmaria (royal land grant to settlers on condition of cultivation), says Dr Rodrigues de Azevedo, a good part of the parish of Santana, and the lands called “of the island”, from which two entails were formed...’ Among the early settlers we know of Jerónimo Cordeiro, Guterres Teixeira, Cristóvão Gomes, Manuel Gil, João Dias and Simão Álvares, who gave his name to a locality (sítio), etc. Gaspar Frutuoso, referring to this parish in 1590, says: ‘they are lands for tillage, with much grain and livestock; there are many chestnuts and walnuts, and plenty of water and fruit of every kind’. Very interesting, though somewhat hyperbolic, are the words that Father Fernando Vaz devotes to this parish when he seeks to justify the patron saint given to it, St Anne. Here they are: ‘St Anne suited it admirably as patron, for in the epistle of her feast it is sung Non timebit domui suae a frigoribus nivis, since in winter, we cannot deny it, it is one of the coldest parishes on the island, lying very high. From the same epistle the people of Santana seem to take the programme of their lives. They are dauntless workers, and so it may be said of those people: Panem otiosa non comedit. It is there that the finest and most famous linen cloths, called favo and moio, are woven: Sindonem fecit et vendidit. The spindle and the distaff, once handled by queens themselves, have not yet been cast aside there, so that these words fit: Digiti ejus apprehenderunt fusum. When morning has not even thought of dawning, the lamp inside the thatched huts already lights the first labours, so that once more the Non extinguetur in nocte lucerna ejus may prove true. Whenever the chance arises, the farmer buys the plot his parents tilled and where, as children, they were raised, to which this applies: Consideravit agrum et emit eum. The woman of Santana is not the frivolous, pert, extravagant woman, dressed in the latest and worst fashion, and so these words justly belong to her: tu supergressa es universas. Finally, before so much beauty and virtue, those born there cannot help rejoicing, counting themselves happy to have so honourable a cradle: surrexerunt filii ejus et beatissimam praedicaverunt.’

In the same article from which these passages were taken we read: ‘that the people of this parish, though hard-working and honest, are nonetheless distrustful and... sly. Where tributes, taxes and similar matters are concerned, they seem Azorean. Let the events speak for themselves: those over the parish councils (juntas de paróquia) (volume II, page 205), some 36 years ago, and over the tax registers, and others that caused public officials so many frights and gave rise to political reprisals and regrettable excesses’.

The lands that make up this parish (freguesia) originally belonged to the parish of São Jorge (‘St George’), from which they were separated around the middle of the 16th century. A small chapel dedicated to St Anne gave its name to the locality (sítio), to the surrounding lands and later to the whole parish. The same happened with every parish on this island that bears a name of a non-secular character, as we have pointed out elsewhere.

The annotator of the Saudades gives this parish as created by the royal decree (alvará régio) of 4 June 1552. What this decree first created was a chaplaincy with cure of souls (capelania-curada), not yet an autonomous parish, which did not correspond to an autonomous parish. The first chaplain held this post together with that of parish priest of São Jorge. Under the said decree, this curate or chaplain had been allotted 8,000 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis) a year for the parish duties of São Jorge, and a moio of wheat and a pipa (wine cask and measure, c. 400–500 litres) of wine for his service in Santana. The royal decrees of 16 February 1565, 1 March 1577 and 9 June 1581, which we have found cited in the Índice Geral of the Treasury Superintendency (Provedoria da Fazenda), always refer to the curate chaplain (capelão-curado) and set his emoluments at 12,000 réis in cash and a moio of wheat, at 20,000 réis and at 25,000 réis respectively. In the royal decree of 1 December 1588 the priest who performed the parish duties there is already called vigário-curado (curate vicar), and he was assigned an annual stipend (côngrua) of thirty alqueires of wheat and a quarter of wine. It was perhaps from the date of this decree, or a little before, that Santana began to form a truly independent and autonomous parish.

As already stated, the first curate chaplain held the post together with that of parish priest of São Jorge for a period of 13 years. Around 1565 the parish had its own chaplain, Father Sebastião de Moraes, who served there for thirty years. He was succeeded by Cristóvão Pires, who was parish priest until 1632. We can record the following clergy who performed parish duties in this parish: Manuel Teixeira (1635–1671), Cosme Pais da Cunha (1672–1681), António Luís da Silva (1681–1690), Gabriel Pontes de Miranda (1694–1707), António Telo de Meneses (1707–1730), Inácio de Freitas Leal (1730–1743), António Teixeira (1744–1769), António Francisco da Cruz Pestana (1770–1777), Miguel Caetano Moniz (1777–1789), José Gomes de Andrade (1789–1799), João de Freitas Pestana (1799–1809), Jerónimo Álvares da Silva Pinheiro (1815–1829), Marcelino João da Silva (1835–1864), Hipólito Cassiano de Freitas, João Maurício Henriques, João Gomes, Alfredo de Paula Sardinha, João Quirino Gonçalves and Joaquim Fernandes, who is the present parish priest (1921) and has been since 1905.

The year in which the original chapel of Santana was built is not known. It was the seat of the chaplaincy with cure of souls (capelania-curada), not yet an autonomous parish, and later of the parish, and it underwent various alterations until it was demolished when the present church was built at the end of the 17th century. About this church we find the following information in an article by Father Fernando de Menezes Vaz, published in the Correio da Madeira (‘Madeira Courier’) of 10 April 1923: ‘It was built in 1698, the government spending the sum of 1,193,000 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis), and it was repaired 36 years later. The sacristy, built on the north side, was later rebuilt, in 1745, on the south side, as this was the drier spot and the church furnishings and vestments kept better there. The bell-cote was also put up at that time. In the first quarter of the 19th century the church floor was badly damaged, or rather the church had no floor at all, and the people had to carry in bundles of myrtle, which they spread on the ground so that they could kneel. A committee was then formed, made up of Father Marcelino João da Silva, Carlos Frederico Accioli and Lieutenant Francisco António Jardim, to raise donations so that the floor could be laid anew, as was duly done. In the last few years the church has been re-lined, painted and re-floored, and its churchyard and surroundings have been embellished, thanks to the energy and initiative of its present, zealous parish priest, Joaquim Fernandes’.

In this parish (freguesia) there are the chapel of Santo António (St Anthony of Padua), in the locality (sítio) of the same name, which we shall deal with elsewhere, and a hotel that is very popular during the hot season.

Principal localities: Igreja, Parlatório, Barreiro, Serra de Água, Faias, Caminho Chão, Pico do Tanoeiro, Achada do Gramacho, Achada da Cruz, Fonte Grande, Pinheiro, Pico Silveira, Curral Velho, Fonte da Pedra, Serrado, Achada do Pampilar, Queimadas e Fontes, Pico de António Fernandes, Achada de Simão Alves, Lombo do Curral, Feiteira de Nuno, Feiteira de Cima, Lamaceiros, Ponte, Achada de Santo António, Vinhátego and Covas. It was on the islet near the locality that took the name of Rocha do Navio (‘ship cliff’) that, on 24 December 1860, during a violent storm, the Dutch galliot Alfa, bound from England for the island of Haiti, was wrecked; her crew of seven men were saved.

Among the many picturesque spots in this parish, the following deserve special mention and are worth a visit: Pico do Cortado, Achada de Santo António, Achada do Gramacho, Miradouro, Rocha do Navio, Cortado, Cumiada Altas Queimadas, Caldeirão Verde, Homem em Pé, Cova da Roda, etc.

The parish has two state schools and is the seat of a medical district covering all the parishes of the municipality (concelho). Its population is 3,107 inhabitants (1921).