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."[1]

Archaeological evidence suggests that the islands may have been visited by the Vikings sometime between 900 and 1030.[2]

Accounts by Muhammad al-Idrisi state that the Mugharrarin came across an island where they found "a huge quantity of sheep, the meat of which was bitter and inedible" before going to the more incontrovertibly inhabited Canary Islands. This island, possibly Madeira or Hierro, must have been inhabited or previously visited by people for livestock to be present.[3]

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.[4]

 

The fourth and final sheet of the four-sheet Corbitis Atlas (1384-1410)

Madeira is described in various medieval manuscripts: the Book of Knowledge of All Kingdoms of early 14th century, the Medici-Laurentian Atlas of 1351, in Soleri Portolani of 1380 and 1385 and Corbitis Atlas of late 14th century; under names such as Lecmane, Lolegname and Legnami (the isle of wood); Puerto or Porto Santo; desierta, deserte or deserta.[5] It is widely accepted that knowledge of these Atlantic islands existed before their more documented and successful settlement by the Portuguese Empire.[6]

 

Statue of João Gonçalves Zarco

In 1418, two captains under service to Prince Henry the Navigator, João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira, were driven off course by a storm to an island they named Porto Santo (English: holy harbour) in gratitude for divine deliverance from a shipwreck. The following year, an organised expedition, under the captaincy of Zarco, Vaz Teixeira, and Bartolomeu Perestrello, traveled to the island to claim it on behalf of the Portuguese Crown. Subsequently, the new settlers observed "a heavy black cloud suspended to the southwest".[7] Their investigation revealed it to be the larger island they called Madeira.[8]

The first Portuguese settlers began colonizing the islands around 1420 or 1425.[9] The first settlers were the three captain-donees and their respective families, a small group of members of the gentry, people of modest conditions and some former inmates of the kingdom.[citation needed]

The settlement involved people from all over the kingdom. It was from the Algarve that some of the early settlers set out.[10] Many came with the important task of the landlord system employment. Servants, squires, knights and noblemen are identified as the ones who secured the beginning of the settlement. Later on, settlers came from the north of Portugal, namely from the region of Entre Douro and Minho, who intervened specifically in the organization of the agricultural area.[11]

Majority of settlers were fishermen and peasant farmers, who willingly left Portugal for a new life on the islands, a better one, they hoped, than was possible in a Portugal which had been ravaged by the Black Death and where the best farmlands were strictly controlled by the nobility.

To have minimum conditions for the development of agriculture on the island, the settlers had to chop down part of the dense forest and build a large number of water channels, called “levadas”, to carry the abundant waters on the north coast to the south coast of the island.[citation needed]

Initially, the settlers produced wheat for their own sustenance but later began to export wheat to mainland Portugal.[citation needed] In earlier times, fish and vegetables were the settlers' main means of subsistence.[12]

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.[citation needed] 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,[13] 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."[14]

Sugarcane 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.[15][16]

Slaves were used during the island's period of sugar trade to cultivate sugar cane alongside paid workers, though slave owners were only a small minority of the Madeiran population, and those who did own slaves owned only a few. Slaves consisted of Guanches from the nearby Canary islands, captured Berbers from the conquest of Ceuta and West Africans after further exploration of the African coast.[17][18] Barbary corsairs from North Africa, who enslaved Europeans from ships and coastal communities throughout the Mediterranean region, captured 1,200 people in Porto Santo in 1617.[19][20]

Until the first half of the sixteenth century, Madeira was one of the major sugar markets of the Atlantic. Apparently it is in Madeira that, in the context of sugar production, slave labour was applied for the first time. The colonial system of sugar production was put into practice on the island of Madeira, on a much smaller scale, and later transferred, on a large scale, to other overseas production areas.[21]

Later on, this small scale of production was completely outmatched by Brazilian and São Tomean plantations. Madeiran sugar production declined in such a way that it was not enough for domestic needs, so that sugar was imported to the island from other Portuguese colonies.[citation needed] Sugar mills were gradually abandoned, with few remaining, which gave way to other markets in Madeira.

In the 17th century, as Portuguese sugar production was shifted to Brazil, São Tomé and Príncipe and elsewhere, Madeira's most important commodity product became its wine.[22] Sugar plantations were replaced by vineyards, originating in the so-called ‘Wine Culture’, which acquired international fame and provided the rise of a new social class, the Bourgeoisie.

With the increase of commercial treaties with England, important English merchants settled on the Island and, ultimately, controlled the increasingly important island wine trade. The English traders settled in the Funchal as of the seventeenth century, consolidating the markets from North America, the West Indies and England itself. The Madeira Wine became very popular in the markets and it is also said to have been used in a toast during the Declaration of Independence by the Founding Fathers.[23][24]

 

Cathedral of Funchal with its tower of 15th-century Gothic style in the background

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Madeira stands out for its climate and therapeutic effects.[citation needed] In the nineteenth century, visitors to the island integrated four major groups: patients, travellers, tourists and scientists. Most visitors belonged to the moneyed aristocracy.[citation needed]

As a result of a high demand for the season, there was a need to prepare guides for visitors. The first tourist guide of Madeira appeared in 1850 and focused on elements of history, geology, flora, fauna and customs of the island.[25] Regarding hotel infrastructures, the British and the Germans were the first to launch the Madeiran hotel chain.[citation needed] The historic Belmond Reid's Palace opened in 1891 and is still open to this day.

The British first amicably occupied the island in 1801 whereafter Colonel William Henry Clinton became governor.[26] A detachment of the 85th Regiment of Foot under Lieutenant-colonel James Willoughby Gordon garrisoned the island.[27] 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.[28] 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.[citation needed]

During the Great War on 3 December 1916, a German U-boat, SM U-38, captained by Max Valentiner, entered Funchal harbour on Madeira. U-38 torpedoed and sank three ships, bringing the war to Portugal by extension. The ships sunk were:

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.[33]

On 12 December 1917, two German U-boats, SM U-156 and SM U-157 (captained by Max Valentiner), again bombarded Funchal.[34] This time the attack lasted around 30 minutes. The U-boats fired 40 120 and 150 mm (4.7 and 5.9 in) shells. There were three fatalities and 17 wounded; a number of houses and Santa Clara church were hit.[35]

The last Austrian Emperor, Charles I, was exiled to Madeira after the war. Determined to prevent an attempt to restore Charles to the throne, the Council of Allied Powers agreed he could go into exile on Madeira because it was isolated in the Atlantic and easily guarded.[36] He died there on 1 April 1922 and his coffin lies in a chapel of the Church of Our Lady of Monte.