Madeira, officially the Autonomous Region of Madeira, is an autonomous region of Portugal, in the Atlantic Ocean about 805 km (500 miles) southwest of mainland Portugal. Together with the Azores, it is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal and a special territory of the European Union. It is the southernmost point and region of Portugal.
Madeira is an archipelago situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, in the region of Macaronesia, just under 400 kilometres (250 mi) north of the Canary Islands, Spain, 520 kilometres (320 mi) west of Morocco and 805 kilometres (500 mi) southwest of mainland Portugal. Madeira sits on the African tectonic plate, but is culturally, politically and ethnically associated with Europe, with its population predominantly descended from Portuguese settlers. Its population was 251,060 in 2021. The capital of Madeira is Funchal, on the main island's south coast.
The archipelago includes the islands of Madeira, Porto Santo, and the Desertas, administered together with the separate archipelago of the Savage Islands. Roughly half of the population lives in Funchal. The region has political and administrative autonomy through the Administrative Political Statute of the Autonomous Region of Madeira provided for in the Portuguese Constitution. The region is an integral part of the European Union as an outermost region. Madeira generally has a mild/moderate subtropical climate with Mediterranean summer droughts and winter rain. Many microclimates are found at different elevations.
Madeira, uninhabited at the time, was claimed by Portuguese sailors in the service of Prince Henry the Navigator in 1419 and settled after 1420. The archipelago is the first territorial discovery of the exploratory period of the Age of Discovery.
Madeira is a year-round resort, particularly for Portuguese, British (148,000 visits in 2021), and German tourists (113,000). It is by far the most populous and densely populated Portuguese island. The region is noted for its Madeira wine, flora, and fauna, with its pre-historic laurel forest, classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The destination is certified by EarthCheck. The main harbour in Funchal has long been the leading Portuguese port in cruise ship dockings, an important stopover for Atlantic passenger cruises between Europe, the Caribbean and North Africa. In addition, the International Business Centre of Madeira, also known as the Madeira Free Trade Zone, was established in the 1980s. It includes (mainly tax-related) incentives.
History
Ancient
Plutarch in his Parallel Lives (Sertorius, 75 AD) referring to the military commander Quintus Sertorius (d. 72 BC), relates that after his return to Cádiz, he met sailors who spoke of idyllic Atlantic islands: "The islands are said to be two in number separated by a very narrow strait and lie 10,000 furlongs [2,000 km] from Africa. They are called the Isles of the Blessed."
Archaeological evidence suggests that the islands may have been visited by the Vikings sometime between 900 and 1030.
Accounts by Muhammad al-Idrisi state that the Mugharrarin ("the adventurers" – seafarers from Lisbon) came across an island where they found "a huge quantity of sheep, the meat of which was bitter and inedible" before going on to the more inhabited Canary Islands (now a territory of Spain). This island, possibly Madeira or Hierro, must have been inhabited or previously visited by people for livestock to be present.
Legend
During the reign of King Edward III of England, lovers Robert Machim and Anna d'Arfet were said to have fled from England to France in 1346. Driven off course by a violent storm, their ship ran aground along the coast of an island that may have been Madeira. Later, this legend was the basis of the naming of the city of Machico on the island, in memory of the young lovers.
European exploration
Madeira appears in several medieval manuscripts, including the Book of Knowledge of All Kingdoms from the early 14th century, the Medici-Laurentian Atlas from 1351, the Soleri Portolani from 1380 and 1385 and Corbitis Atlas from the late 14th century. These texts refer to Madeira as Lecmane, Lolegname, Legnami (the isle of wood), Puerto or Porto Santo, deserte or deserta, and desierta. It is widely accepted that knowledge of these Atlantic islands existed before their better-documented discovery and successful settlement by the Kingdom of Portugal.
In 1418, two captains, João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira, while exploring the African coast in the service of Prince Henry the Navigator, were driven off course by a storm to an island which they named Porto Santo (English: "holy harbour") in gratitude for divine deliverance from a shipwreck.
The following year, Zarco and Vaz organised an expedition with Bartolomeu Perestrello. The trio travelled to the island of Porto Santo, claimed it on behalf of the Portuguese Crown, and established a settlement. The new settlers observed "a heavy black cloud suspended to the southwest" and upon investigation discovered the larger island they called Madeira (Portuguese: madeira, lit. 'wood').
Settlement
The first Portuguese settlers began colonizing the islands around 1420 or 1425.
The three governors, knights of the Order of Christ and navigators: João Gonçalves Zarco, Tristão Vaz Teixeira and Bartolomeu Perestrelo, along with their respective families, became the first settlers of the archipelago, divided by three captaincies (respectively Funchal, Machico and Porto Santo). By order of King João I, this colonization process began in 1425 with people of modest means, some former prisoners of the Kingdom, and a group of lower ranking nobles. Included were fishermen and peasant farmers who willingly left Portugal in hopes of a better life than was possible in the Black Death ravaged mainland, wherein nobility strictly controlled the best farmlands.
Initially, the settlers produced wheat for their own sustenance. Still, they later began to export wheat to mainland Portugal. In earlier times, fish and vegetables were the settlers' main means of subsistence.
Sugar island
Grain production began to fall, and the ensuing crisis forced Henry the Navigator to order other commercial crops to be planted so that the islands could be profitable. These specialised plants, and their associated industrial technology, created one of the major revolutions on the islands and fuelled Portuguese industry. Following the introduction of the first water-driven sugar mill on Madeira, sugar production increased to over 6,000 arrobas (an arroba was equal to 11 to 12 kilograms or 24 to 26 pounds) by 1455, using advisers from Sicily and financed by Genoese capital (Genoa acted as an integral part of the island economy until the 17th century). The accessibility of Madeira attracted Genoese and Flemish traders, who were keen to bypass Venetian monopolies.
By 1480 Antwerp had some seventy ships engaged in the Madeira sugar trade, with the refining and distribution concentrated in Antwerp. By the 1490s Madeira had overtaken Cyprus as a producer of sugar.
Sugar production was the primary engine of the island's economy, which quickly afforded the Funchal metropolis economic prosperity. The production of sugar cane attracted adventurers and merchants from all parts of Europe, especially Italians, Basques, Catalans, and Flemish. This meant that, in the second half of the fifteenth century, the city of Funchal became a mandatory port of call for European trade routes.
Enslaved workers were critical to the sugar boom which peaked about 1506, labouring not only in the cane fields and sugar mills but also in the construction and maintenance of the system of irrigating levadas which remain one of the most distinctive features of the Madeiran landscape. The enslaved initially consisted of Guanches from the nearby Canary islands and exiled convicts from mainland Portugal, known as Degredados.. In the 16th century, their numbers declined as the industry they were used to pioneer transferred São Tomé and Príncipe and to the much larger plantations of Brazil, the Guianas and the West Indies. While Madeira, itself, became a victim of the slave trade when in 1617 Barbary corsairs are reported to have carried off more than 1,800 people from the main island and Porto Santo, it was to maintain chattel slavery until 1775/77, more than a decade after it had been abolished on the Portuguese mainland.
English wine traders, soldiers and tourists
In the 18th century, sugar plantations were replaced by vineyards, in a wine trade dominated by English merchants. The English traders acquired estates and built houses in Funchal, while supplying markets in Britain, the West Indies and in the North American colonies (where the Founding Fathers of the United States are said to have raised glasses of Madeira wine in a toast to the Declaration of Independence).
The British first amicably occupied the island in 1801, whereafter Colonel William Henry Clinton became governor. A detachment of the 85th Regiment of Foot under Lieutenant-colonel James Willoughby Gordon garrisoned the island.
After the Peace of Amiens, British troops withdrew in 1802, only to reoccupy Madeira in 1807 until the end of the Peninsular War in 1814. In 1846, James Julius Wood wrote a series of seven sketches of the island. In 1856, British troops recovering from cholera, and widows and orphans of soldiers fallen in the Crimean War, were stationed in Funchal, Madeira.
The first tourist guide to Madeira appeared in 1850 and focused on the island's history, geology, flora, fauna and customs. Regarding hotel infrastructures, the British and the Germans were the first to launch the Madeiran hotel chain. Established by William Reid, the son of a Scottish crofter, the historic Belmond Reid's Palace opened in 1891. Famous guests included Winston Churchill, Józef Piłsudski, Gregory Peck, Rainer Maria Rilke and George Bernard Shaw.This early tourist trade came to depend on the supposed healing qualities of the island's climate such that, when in the twentieth century surer treatments for tuberculosis were discovered, the number of visitors fell off sharply.
The world wars
During the Great War on 3 December 1916, a German U-boat, SM U-38, entered Funchal harbour on Madeira. U-38 torpedoed and sank three ships, bringing the war to Portugal. After attacking the ships, U-38 bombarded Funchal for two hours from a range of about 3 kilometres (2 mi). Batteries on Madeira returned fire and eventually forced U-38 to withdraw. On 12 December 1917, two German U-boats, SM U-156 and SM U-157 , again bombarded Funchal. There were three fatalities and 17 wounded; several houses and the Santa Clara church were hit.
The last Austrian Emperor and King of Hungary, Charles I, exiled by the Allied Powers to Madeira after the war, died there on 1 April 1922. His sarcophagus lies in a memorial chapel of the Church of Our Lady of Monte.
Portugal in World War II was neutral, but maintained ties to the Britain dating from the Treaty of Windsor (1386). As a result, Madeira took 2,000 evacuees from Gibraltar. Many of the Gibraltarians (fondly remembered as Gibraltinos), married locally and stayed on after the war. Some 200 were Jewish. and in Funchal they found a Jewish cemetery that belonged to the Abudarham family, the same family after whom the Abudarham Synagogue is named in Gibraltar.
Economic depression, emigration and revolt
Between the wars, the Great Depression found the island already in a prolonged economic crisis. When the national government took control over imported grain, the price of flour and bread on the island rose dramatically strikes and riots began broke out. Against this background, in April 1931 the island's garrison participated in a military uprising against the government of the National Dictatorship. Forces sent from the mainland crushed the Madeira uprising only after seven days of fighting.
The growing distress of the islanders accelerated a long-established pattern of emigration to Africa and the Americas. This contributed to the existence today of 350,000 Madeirans and their descendants in South Africa. and 200,000 in Venezuela, communities from which in the 21st century there have been many "returnees".
Autonomy
In the wake of the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Lisbon, there was a purported Madeira independence movement. Over the next four years, the Madeira Archipelago Liberation Front (Portuguese: Frente de Libertação do Arquipélago da Madeira), or FLAMA, carried out around 200 bomb attacks on the island (with one fatality). It may have represented more a reaction by some of the regional elites to the advance of the political left in the revolution, than truly ethnic or separatist sentiment. The 1976 Constitution granted Madeira an autonomous administration with its own legislature.
Geography
The Madeira archipelago is located 520 km (280 nmi) from the African coast, 805 km (430 nmi) from the closest point in the European coast (the Portuguese town of Sagres, in Algarve) and 1,000 km (540 nmi) from the capital of Portugal, Lisbon (approximately a one-and-a-half-hour flight). Madeira inhabits the extreme south of the Madeira-Tore Rise, a bathymetric structure oriented along a north-northeast to south-southwest axis that extends for 1,000 kilometres (540 nmi). This structure consists of long geomorphological relief that extends from the abyssal plain to 3,500 m (11,500 ft); its highest submerged point reaches a depth of about 150 m (490 ft) (around latitude 36°N). The origins of the Madeira-Tore Rise are not clearly established, but may have resulted from a buckling of the lithosphere.
Islands and islets
Madeira (740.7 km2 or 286 sq mi), including Ilhéu de Agostinho, Ilhéu de São Lourenço, Ilhéu Mole (northwest); Total population: 262,456 (2011 Census).
Porto Santo (42.5 km2 or 16.4 sq mi), including Ilhéu de Baixo ou da Cal, Ilhéu de Ferro, Ilhéu das Cenouras, Ilhéu de Fora, Ilhéu de Cima; Total population: 5,483 (2011 Census).
Desertas Islands (14.2 km2 or 5.5 sq mi), including the three uninhabited islands: Deserta Grande Island, Bugio Island and Ilhéu de Chão.
Savage Islands (3.6 km2 or 1.4 sq mi), archipelago 280 km south-southeast of Madeira Island including three main uninhabited islands and 16 islets in two groups: the Northeast Group (Selvagem Grande Island, Ilhéu de Palheiro da Terra, Ilhéu de Palheiro do Mar) and the Southwest Group (Selvagem Pequena Island, Ilhéu Grande, Ilhéu Sul, Ilhéu Pequeno, Ilhéu Fora, Ilhéu Alto, Ilhéu Comprido, Ilhéu Redondo, Ilhéu Norte).
Peaks
The ten tallest peaks in Madeira exemplify the island's diverse topography. Pico Ruivo is the highest at 1,862 metres (6,109 ft). Madeira's mountaintops offer vistas of rugged terrain and the Atlantic Ocean and attract hikers and nature enthusiasts.
Madeira Island
Madeira Island is at the top of a massive shield volcano that rises about 6 km (20,000 ft) from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, on the Tore underwater mountain range. The volcano formed atop an east–west rift in the oceanic crust along the African Plate, beginning during the Miocene epoch (5 million years ago), continuing into the Pleistocene (700,000 years ago). This was followed by extensive erosion, producing two large amphitheatres opening southward in the central part of the island. Volcanic activity later resumed, producing scoria cones and lava flows atop the eroded shield. The most recent volcanic eruptions were on the west-central part of the island 6,500 years ago, creating more cinder cones and lava flows.
It is the largest island of the group with an area of 741 km2 (286 sq mi), a length of 57 km (35 mi) (from Ponte de São Lourenço to Ponta do Pargo). It is approximately 22 km (14 mi) at its widest point (from Ponta da Cruz to Ponta de São Jorge), with a coastline of 150 km (90 mi). It has a mountain ridge that extends along the centre of the island, reaching 1,862 metres (6,109 feet) at its highest point (Pico Ruivo), staying below 200 metres along its eastern extent. The primitive volcanic foci responsible for the central mountainous area consisted of the peaks: Ruivo (1,862 m), Torres (1,851 m), Arieiro (1,818 m), Cidrão (1,802 m), Cedro (1,759 m), Casado (1,725 m), Grande (1,657 m), Ferreiro (1,582 m). At the end of this eruptive phase, reefs encircled the island, and its marine vestiges are evident in a calcareous layer at Lameiros, in São Vicente. Sea cliffs, such as Cabo Girão, valleys and ravines extend from this central spine, leaving the interior generally inaccessible. Daily life is concentrated in the many villages at the mouths of the ravines, through which the heavy autumn and winter rains travel to the sea.
Climate
Madeira has many different bioclimates. Based on differences in sun exposure, humidity, and annual mean temperature, clear variations distinguish north- and south-facing regions, as well as some islands. The islands are strongly influenced by the Gulf Stream and Canary Current, giving it mild to warm year-round temperatures. According to the Instituto de Meteorologia (IPMA), the average annual temperature at Funchal weather station is 19.6 °C (67.3 °F) for the 1981–2010 period. Relief is a determinant factor on precipitation levels; areas such as the Madeira Natural Park can get as much as 2,800 mm (110 in) of precipitation a year. Madeira hosts lush laurel forests, while Porto Santo, a much flatter island, has a semiarid climate (BSh). In most winters, snowfall occurs in the mountains.
Biodiversity
Endemic plant and animal species
In the south, little is left of the indigenous subtropical rainforest that once covered the island (the original settlers set fires to clear the land for farming) and named it (madeira means "wood" in Portuguese). However, in the north, the valleys harbor native trees. These laurisilva forests, notably those on the northern slopes, are designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Madeira's paleobotanical record reveals that laurissilva forest has existed for at least 1.8 million years. Critically endangered species such as the vine Jasminum azoricum and the rowan Sorbus maderensis are endemic. The Madeiran large white butterfly was an endemic subspecies of the large white that inhabited the laurissilva forests but has not been seen since 1977.
Madeiran wall lizard
Madeiran wolf spider
Hogna ingens, the Deserta Grande wolf spider, is endemic to the Madeira archipelago, specifically Deserta Grande Island. It is critically endangered. It is considered the largest member of its family. Restoration efforts are underway.
Birds
Three species of birds are endemic to Madeira: the Trocaz pigeon, the Madeira chaffinch and the Madeira firecrest. In addition extinct species include the Madeiran scops owl, two rail species, Rallus adolfocaesaris and R. lowei, and two quail species, Coturnix lignorum and C. alabrevis, and the Madeiran wood pigeon, a subspecies of the common wood pigeon and which was last seen in the early 20th century.