Moors / Mouros

We have already referred to the captive Moors employed in clearing the land in Madeira in the article Slaves. As the general designation of slaves included blacks, mulattos, Canarians, and Moors, it is now difficult to determine with precision the facts or circumstances that concern any of those castes in particular. However, we know that the number of Moors in this archipelago in the early days of colonization was large, and important populations of this people were formed, namely in Funchal, Ponta do Sol, Curral das Freiras, and Machico. In the first of these locations, there was a Moorish quarter, and to this day, the public still gives one of the streets of Funchal the name of Mouraria.

Lieutenant Colonel Alberto Artur Sarmento published an interesting article about the Moors in Madeira in issue no. 1983 of the former 'Heraldo da Madeira', from which we transcribe the following periods:

"The Moor was more hardworking than the slave from Guinea and Mina, hence the preference of the landowners to import them to their cultivation estates. This scandalous trade, in which the donataries from here and the governors of the African ports were involved, who ordered raids, gave rise to the outcry of the chief of the Moors, who lamented in a letter to D. Manoel, what Azambuja was doing, capturing indiscriminately and from all classes, to send under contract to the captains of Madeira. This is found in the 'Arabic documents copied from the originals of the Torre do Tombo, 1790.'"

"The Moors formed important groups, gathering in a separate group or neighborhood, as attested by the Mouraria, one of the oldest streets in Funchal, and they had a great trade in the towns, especially in Ponta do Sol and Santa Cruz. In the latter, there was still, years ago, an altarpiece in the parish church, where Moorish slaves were depicted wearing a small tapered turban, with a drooping tip, from which derived the cap of the peasant and the hanging towel on the head, ancient characteristic costumes of the Madeiran countrywoman."

"From the Moors, the dolence of the songs, but the dance is the movement of the black. From the Moors, the mountainous laments, the popular: lengi lengi the common fog, the ant that catches its foot. Among the mists, enchanted princesses, stories of palaces and hoarded riches, thieves and magic wands, are influences and subjects of the people, migrated in this long-subordinated current."

"From the Moors, the couscous, that granulated mass of wheat flour, so appreciated by the poor classes and only eaten on solemn occasions, with a piece of pork, for baptisms and weddings, not forgetting the sprig of savory and coriander that tops the dish and gives it aroma."

"Go to Algiers" is a popular curse that recalls the plunder and captivity in the lands of the Moors. An episode from the 15th century is treated by the hand of an artist, in one of the chapters of the historical novella 'The Daughter of Tristam das Damas', with a striking color of the golden times of the donatary shell of Machico."

"This intelligent and adventurous race gave us a character in history, personified in the Moor Barque, from Porto Santo, who brought down the false doctrine of the prophet Fernão Bravo, and as in the legend 'the king goes naked,' everyone began to see from then on the deception, and the authorities took charge of the deceiver who, with artifices, deceived a credulous people."

Mousinho de Albuquerque. See Albuquerque (Major Joaquim Mousinho de).