Seixal (parish)

We contend with a great scarcity of information about this parish, beginning with our uncertainty as to the most reliable spelling in which its name should be fixed. The difficulty is partly resolved by trying to discover exactly the origin of this word as applied to that parish (freguesia). Does the name come from seixo, meaning a stone or pebble, or did it take its origin from seixo denoting a plant species? The latter sense of the word is generally adopted, on the grounds that the former is very little known here, especially among the less educated classes. But would it have been so in the earliest days of colonisation? It is worth recalling in this connection that, on the day after the first landing at Machico, the discoverers gave the name porto do Seixo to a small beach that today belongs to the parish of Água de Pena, ‘because of what was found in it’, says the historian of the islands. Modern lexicographers write seixo in both the senses already indicated, but in older vocabularies one finds seixo for a pebble and seiço meaning a tree or plant. The word, as used for the parish with which we are dealing, is found written in various and even extravagant spellings: Seisal, Seiçal, Seissal, Ceisal, Ceixal and Seixal. Some of these spellings are plainly incorrect, but Seiçal is a correct, though antiquated, form, and it is also the most common in old documents. It would have been interesting and valuable for us to trace how this word changed in the registers of the parish archive over a long period of more than three centuries, but unfortunately we have not been able to do so. We are of the opinion that the name of this parish was taken from seixo or seiço, a small tree or shrub of the genus Salix and the family Salicaceae which, according to botanical publications, ‘is found in the beds of streams and on many damp rocks in Madeira’. It was probably spread in greater abundance over this island at the time of the discovery and the first settlements. We consider that the true spelling to adopt would be Seiçal, but since Seixal has been introduced and become general, it would perhaps be pointless today to fight against the commonly established usage, and to many the change might seem a pretentious and ridiculous innovation.

The land that today makes up the parish (freguesia) of Seixal originally belonged to the parish of Porto Moniz (‘Moniz’s harbour’), when the latter was perhaps merely the seat of a simple chaplaincy (capelania) exercising parochial functions. Gaspar Frutuoso wrote in 1590: ‘Three leagues from São Vicente (‘St Vincent’) lies Seixal, which is a parish of up to twenty households (fogos, literally ‘hearths’), with a church dedicated to São Brás. It has much land for rearing livestock, and the growing of grain and wine, and fruit of every kind.’ The present patron saint of its church is Santo Antão, and we believe it always was, and not São Brás, as we read in Frutuoso.

Both the annotator of the Saudades, who followed the information in the Memórias... do Estudo Eclesiastico, and the Índice Geral da Provedoria..., which we have cited so often, state that Seixal was made a parish by the royal decree (alvará régio) of 20 June 1553, so this is the date of its creation. The first parish priest was Father Francisco da Arca, who received as his annual stipend (côngrua) 7,400 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis) in cash and one pipa (wine cask and measure, c. 400–500 litres) of wine, as fixed by the said founding decree. The royal decree of 10 February 1502 added one moio (dry measure of grain, 60 alqueires) of wheat. The decrees of 22 November 1575 and 9 June 1581 raised it to 20,000 and 25,000 réis a year respectively, and it was increased by half a moio of wheat and a quarter of wine by the royal decree of 10 September 1589. The decree of 15 December 1678 then reduced this salary to 19,000 réis, one and a half moios of wheat and one pipa of wine.

Main localities: Serra de Água, Portada, Penedo, Lombinho, Cova, Feiteiras, Farrobo, Ribeira da Lage, Fajã da Parreira and Ribeira Funda. It has 1203 inhabitants (1921).