Strong, Sweet and Dry by Becky Sue Epstein

Author:Becky Sue Epstein [Epstein, Becky Sue]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Madeira is a volcanic island sitting out in the Atlantic. With plenty of rainfall on most of the island – and natural water to irrigate the rest – Madeira has a lush appearance, despite its vegetation growing on steep, rocky hillsides. Along the coastline there are a few sandy beaches and many long stretches of cliffs bordering the sea. Above sea level the island is only 741 square kilometres (286 square mi.), smaller than the Greater London Area. Funchal, Madeira’s capital, is the only sizeable city; it has a population of over 110,000, and more than one-third of the island’s total population lives there.

Madeira was uninhabited when Europeans arrived to colonize it in the early 1400s. Nearby is the island of Porto Santo, which is much smaller than Madeira, and is known mainly as a tourist beach destination today – though it does support some grape-growing and other agriculture. These two, and a few other tiny, uninhabited islands, comprise the Portuguese region of Madeira.

Legend has it that before colonization, two lovers landed on the island in the mid-fourteenth century. It is said that the Englishman Robert Machin (also known as Robert à Machin) was fleeing with the love of his life, Anna d’Arfet, who was a married woman. In their desperation, the couple took to unsafe waters and were driven off course in their boat. Anna apparently did not survive, and Machin was cast up on the shore on the east side of the island we now know as Madeira. The town of Machico is supposedly named after Machin in honour of this romantic tale.

Whether or not this tragic love story occurred, the next significant known date in Madeira’s history is 1418, when a trio of seamen landed on Porto Santo while exploring for Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal. The Madeira islands had appeared on navigation charts since the middle of the 1300s but it took Prince Henry to begin the European colonization of Madeira. He had his father, King João i, appoint one of the trio of ‘discoverers’, João Gonçalves Zarco, to begin the allotment of lands for settlers. Zarco himself became the governor of the southwestern part of the island, which included the Funchal area, while his two cohorts divided up the rest; Tristão Vaz Teixera administered the northeastern part of the island of Madeira and Bartolomeu Perestrelo had jurisdiction over the smaller island of Porto Santo.

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