Tábua (parish)

It seems that the origin of this parish’s name should be traced to a plant called tábua. The names Tabua and Tabuaço were given to places where that plant grew in abundance, and perhaps for the same reason the word Tábua appears several times in Brazilian chorography. Botany knows Typha angustifolia and Typha latifolia. Although these plants are not found on the island at present, the Madeiran flora has undergone appreciable changes, partly caused by man, so it is reasonable to suppose that in ancient times these plants, or one of them, grew within the area of this parish (freguesia). A species of Typha is found in the Canary Islands, so it would not be surprising if the genus had been represented in Madeira. In the locality (sítio) of Lugar de Baixo (‘lower place’) and at Tábua there grows a plant, Cyperus laevigatus, that is not found anywhere else in Madeira. Might the first settlers have confused this plant with the tábua, even though the two belong to species of different families? This too is possible, for it is reasonable to assume that Zarco and his companions were not distinguished for their learning in botanical matters.

In earlier times the word was spelt Atabua, as can be seen in many old documents and in the parish archive. It was from 1838 that Father António Francisco Drumond e Vasconcelos changed the original form of the word and began to write Tábua. His successors down to the present have adopted the new spelling, which is today generally followed by everyone.

The annotator of the Saudades gives 1586 as the year in which this parish was created. The oldest instrument cited in the Índice Geral da Provedoria... and in the Memorias do Estado Eclesiástico... is that of 1 March 1577, which added 8,700 réis to the original parish stipend (côngrua) of 11,300 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis) a year. The same sources mention the royal decrees (alvará régio) of 15 December 1588, 15 November 1591 and 18 January 1654, which raised the parish priest’s annual salary respectively to 20,000 réis, half a moio (dry measure of grain, 60 alqueires) of wheat and a quarter of wine; to 16,000 réis, one moio of wheat and one pipa (wine cask and measure, c. 400–500 litres) of wine; and to 19,000 réis, half a moio of wheat and a quarter of wine.

João Medeiros de Miranda, Manuel de Espínola, António Velho de Amil Luciano Espínola and Rui Gomes were the first priests to exercise parish duties in this parish.

The royal decree of 2 July 1743 established a curacy (curato) in this parish, the instrument stating that it ‘had been created at the request of the vicar António Miguel de Faria, because the said parish lies between two full-flowing streams and has more than a thousand parishioners’. The same decree set the curate’s annual stipend at one and a half moios of wheat and one and a half pipas of wine.

We do not know where the seat of the parish was established when it was created. We conjecture that a chapel of the Holy Trinity (Santíssima Trindade) already stood there and that the seat of the new parish (freguesia) was installed in it, as generally happened throughout the diocese in the early days of colonisation. It was no doubt a chapel of modest proportions, which must have undergone various repairs and perhaps enlargements until a church of more ample dimensions was built. The building that served as the parish church before the present one was destroyed by a flash flood (aluvião). It stood opposite the chapel of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception (Nossa Senhora da Conceição), and traces of the original building can still be seen on the site. An order of the Council of the Treasury (Conselho da Fazenda) dated 22 October 1675 decreed that a new church be built. However, it seems that the work either did not begin at once or proceeded very slowly, for on the façade of the church one reads the inscription ‘Rei Dom Pedro – 1696’ (King Dom Pedro), which is certainly the date of the building’s completion.

In an old document we read that in 1747 a request was made for a tabernacle with the Blessed Sacrament (Santíssimo Sacramento) in the parish church of Tábua, which had not previously existed, so that some of the faithful had died without receiving the Holy Viaticum.

This parish has the chapels of Madre de Deus (Mother of God) and of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, of which we have already given a brief account on pages 312 and 432 of volume II, and that of Nossa Senhora da Candelária (Our Lady of Candelaria), about which we know no particulars whatsoever.

Of this parish, Dr Gaspar Frutuoso wrote in 1590: ‘Half a légua from Ribeira Brava (‘wild river’) lies Ribeira da Tábua, with a parish of almost thirty households (fogos, literally ‘hearths’). It once had two sugar mills and has many vineyards, canes and fruits, but its wine is like that of its neighbour Ribeira Brava. From this Ribeira da Tábua come the Medeiros, a noble and honourable people.’ The annotator of the Saudades rightly observes that at that time this parish had more than 100 households and not merely 30, as is clearly deduced from the royal decrees concerning the parish stipends which are cited there.

Regarding the Medeiros family, Dr Rodrigues de Azevedo says that ‘Rui Vaz de Medeiros was one of the first settlers who came to Madeira: he held as a sesmaria (royal land grant to settlers on condition of cultivation) many lands in Atabua, from the stream towards the locality of Zimbreiro (‘juniper’)’. Another early settler of Tábua, Dr Azevedo also says, was the Frenchman Rui Vaz Urzel, who came to this island around 1480. Other early colonists and settlers there were Álvaro Martins, Jorge Lourenço, António Rodrigues, Manuel Rodrigues, António Luís, Diogo Fernandes, etc.

Several people from the parish of Tábua were involved in the popular riots that took place in the parish of Ribeira Brava and in the court cases that followed them (see page 385 of volume II).

The principal localities are: Praia, Lugares, Terça, Fajã, Ribeira, Boqueirão, Pico do Ferreiro, Bica de Pau, Corujeira, Zimbreiro, Massapés, Candelária, Ribeira da Caixa, Lugar da Serra and Barbuzano. When the municipality (concelho) of Ribeira Brava was created in 1914, the parish of Tábua became part of it, having then been detached from the municipality of Ponta do Sol (‘point of the sun’). This parish has 2,235 inhabitants (1921).