Lookouts
Original title: Vigias
Describes the vigias, small fortified lookout posts manned by local people that watched the coasts for corsairs and enemy ships and guarded against smuggling. King Sebastião gave them regulations in 1567 and in 1569 ruled that no one was exempt from this service.
They were, says Dr Azevedo, ‘military and at the same time fiscal stations, which watched the sea, the coasts and beaches in order to give the alarm of corsairs or any other enemy ships, and to prevent smuggling. The watches were kept by the local people, in small fortified houses built on purpose to withstand the sea and prevent surprise attacks. King Sebastian gave them regulations (regimento) in 1567, which are recorded in volume V, fol. 105, of the Archivo da Câmara do Funchal, and by a royal decree (alvará) of 1569 he ordered that no one be exempt from this service’.