The mountainous northeast part of the island, consists of two geomorphological structures that includes: an area of peaks, Pico do Castelo (437 meters), Pico da Juliana (447 meters), Pico da Gandaia (499 meters) and Pico do Facho (517 meters); and between the eastern coast and this area, a series of minor peaks, Pico do Maçarico (285 meters), Pico do Concelho (324 meters) and Pico Branco (450 meters).

The southwest part of the island, although relatively flat, includes a series of elevations 100 meters in height or greater, such as Pico Ana Fereira (283 meters), Pico do Espigão (270 meters) and the Cabeço do Zimbralinho (183 meters).

The slope of the western part of the island slopes from 150 meters to the south coast reaching the sandy beaches of Porto Santo. A third system, in the west-northwest, that includes Cabeço da Bárbara Gomes (227 meters) and Cabeço das Canelinhas (176 meters) is distinct from the areas identified. The island is encircled by an oceanic platform between 20 and 37 km², with a minimum depth of 8 meters (Baixa do Noroeste), and limited by the flanks of a large submarine volcano.

The island’s submarine activity occurred during the Miocene epoch, producing basaltic eruptions that persisted to the Quaternary period. There were three phases of distinct volcanism, followed by periods of calm associated with sedimentation:

1st Phase – associated with basaltic lava, pyroclastic flows, trachyte domes that were to form Pico do Concelho, Pico do Facho, Pico do Juliana and the Ponta da Calheta. This period was followed by a period of marine fossil accumulation, concentrated in the northeast of the island to about 300 meters altitude (around Pico do Juliana, Pico de Ana Ferreira and Ribeira do Moledo);

2nd Phase – this was a period of fissural volcanism that cut across and metamorphosed the older formations, occurring in the early Pliocene period;

3rd Phase – was an intrusive phase, resulting in a number of faults and dikes that cut across the Calcareous fossils. Likely occurring in the Pliocene, it was followed by deposits of layers of detritic and calcareous sediments, that included brownish-red alluvial layers, along the island’s flanks and beach.

The Gibraltarians are fondly remembered on the island where they were called Gibraltinos. Some Gibraltarians had married Madeirans during this time and stayed after the war was over.

On November 12, 1940 Hitler issued Führer Directive No. 18 in which there was the possibility to invade Portugal and he also said “I also request that the problem of occupying Madeira and the Azores should be considered, together with the advantages and disadvantages which this would entail for our sea and air warfare. The results of these investigations are to be submitted to me as soon as possible.

On the 28 May 1944 the first repatriation party leaves Madeira for Gibraltar and by the end of 1944 only 520 non-priority evacuees remained on the island.

More recently a monument was made in Gibraltar and shipped to Madeira where it has been erected next to a small chapel at Santa Caterina park, Funchal. The monument is a gift and symbol of ever-lasting thanks given by the people of Gibraltar to the island of Madeira and its inhabitants.

It appears that some knowledge of Atlantic islands, such as Madeira, existed before the discovery and settlement of these lands, as the islands appear on maps as early as 1339. From a portolan dating to 1351, and preserved in Florence, Italy, it would appear that the islands of Madeira had been discovered long before being claimed by the Portuguese expedition of 1418. In Libro del Conocimiento (1348–1349), a Castilian monk also identified the location of the islands in their present location, with the names Leiname (modern Italian legname, cognate of Portuguese madeira, “wood”), Diserta and Puerto Santo. Indeed the move by Portugal to claim the Madeiran islands was probably a response to Spains efforts at the time to claim and subdue the Canary Islands.

However humans never recorded the discovery of Porto Santo Island, or the other Madeira Islands, until 1418 when Porto Santo was accidentally discovered after captains were storm blown into its sheltered harbor. They were in the service of theHenry the Navigator. João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira had been ordered by King John I to discover new territory west of Africa, and had been sent off-course by a storm while making the volta do mar westward swing return voyage. The island’s name Porto Santo (en: “Holy Harbour”) was derived from the sailors’ stories of their discovery of a sheltered bay during the tempest, which was interpreted as divine deliverance. The first Portuguese settlers arrived in the 1420s.

Bartolomeu Perestrelo, a member of the team that later explored the Madeira Islands, became the first Captain-donatário of Porto Santo, by royal award in November 1445. It was he who released a female rabbit that had littered on the voyage, with her offspring, which multiplied catastrophically in a xeric island ecosystem that had evolved in isolation and had never known a flightless mammal. The loss of the native flora laid the island slopes open to erosion and colonization by European weedsthat accompanied the settlers.^[4] As a result, “the Porto Santo of 1400 is as lost to us as is the world before the Noachian flood”.

During the first centuries of settlement, life on Porto Santo was harsh, owing to the scarcity of potable water and the depredations of feral rabbits; there were also constant attacks by Barbary Coast pirates and French privateers.

The New World explorer Christopher Columbus married the Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, the daughter of Bartolomeu Perestrelo. For a while they lived on Porto Santo. The home is now a museum.

Madeira (740.7 km²), including Ilhéu de Agostinho, Ilhéu de São Lourenço, Ilhéu Mole (northwest);

Porto Santo (42.5 km²), including Ilhéu de Baixo ou da Cal, Ilhéu de Ferro, Ilhéu das Cenouras, Ilhéu de Fora, Ilhéu de Cima;

Desertas Islands (14.2 km²), including the three uninhabited islands: Deserta Grande Island, Bugio Island and Ilhéu de Chão;

Savage Islands (3.6 km²), archipelago 280 km south-southeast of Madeira Island including three main islands and 16 uninhabited islets in two groups: the Northwest Group (Selvagem Grande Island, Ilhéu de Palheiro da Terra, Ilhéu de Palheiro do Mar) and the Southeast Group (Selvagem Pequena Island, Ilhéu Grande, Ilhéu Sul, Ilhéu Pequeno, Ilhéu Fora, Ilhéu Alto, Ilhéu Comprido, Ilhéu Redondo, Ilhéu Norte).

The island of Madeira 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 theAfrican Plate, beginning during the Miocene epoch over 5 million years ago, continuing into the Pleistocene until about 700,000 years ago. This was followed by extensive erosion, producing two large amphitheatres open to south in the central part of the island. Volcanic activity later resumed, producing scoria cones and lava flows atop the older eroded shield. The most recent volcanic eruptions were on the west-central part of the island only 6,500 years ago, creating more cinder cones and lava flows.

Madeira Island represents 93% of the archipelago’s area, with 90% of the landmass above 500 m. 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 Ponte do Pargo), while approximately 22 km (14 mi) at its widest point (from Ponte da Cruz to Ponte 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 meters (6,109 feet) at its highest point (Pico Ruivo), while much lower (below 200 meters) along its eastern extent. The primitive volcanic foci responsible for the central mountainous area, consisted of the peaks: Ruivo (1862 meters), Torres (1851 meters), Arieiro (1818 meters), Cidrão (1802 meters), Cedro (1759 meters), Casado (1725 meters), Grande (1657 meters), Ferreiro (1582 meters). At the end of this eruptive phase, an island circled by reefs was formed, its marine vestiges are evident in a calcareous layer in the area of Lameiros, in São Vicente (which was later explored for calcium oxide production). Sea cliffs, such as Cabo Girão, valleys and ravines extend from this central spine, making the interior generally inaccessible. Daily life is concentrated in the many villages at the mouths of the ravines, through which the heavy rains of autumn and winter usually travel to the sea. A long, narrow, and comparatively low rocky promontory (Paul da Serra) forms the western extremity of the island, on which lies a tract of calcareous sand known (1300–1500 meters). It is a fossil bed, which contains shells and numerous bodies resembling the roots of trees, probably produced by infiltration.

On 12 December 1917, 2 German U-boats, SM U-156 and SM U-157 (captained by Max Valentiner) again bombarded Funchal. This time the attack lasted around 30 minutes. Forty, 4.7-and-5.9-inch (120 and 150 mm) shells were fired. There were 3 fatalities and 17 wounded; a number of houses and Santa Clara church were hit.

Charles I, the last Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, went into exile in Madeira, after his second unsuccessful coup d’état in Hungary. He died there on 1 April 1922 and is buried in Monte. Charles had tried in 1917 to secretly enter into peace negotiations with France. Although his foreign minister, Ottokar Czernin, was interested only in negotiating a general peace to include Germany, Charles independently pursued a separate peace. He negotiated with the French using his brother-in-law, Prince Sixtus of Bourbon-Parma, an officer in the Belgian Army, as intermediary. When news of the overture leaked in April 1918, Charles denied involvement until the French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau published letters signed by him. Czernin resigned and Austria-Hungary became more dependent in relation to its seemingly wronged German ally. 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.

On 23 September 1433, the name Ilha da Madeira (English: Madeira Island, or literally island of wood) was first used in a document, followed by other papers and maps. The name given to the islands corresponded to the large dense forests of native laurisilva trees that covered the island at the time of settlement.

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. The planting of sugarcane, and later Sicilian sugar beet, allowed the introduction of the “sweet salt” (as sugar was known) into Europe, where it was a rare and popular spice. These specialised plants, and their associated industrial technology, created one of the major revolutions on the islands and fuelled Portuguese industry. The expansion of sugar plantations in Madeira began in 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.

Sugarcane production was the primary engine of the island’s economy, increasing the demand for labour. African slaves were used during portions of the island’s history to cultivate sugar cane, and the proportion of imported slaves reached 10% of the total population of Madeira by the 16th century.

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. After 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.

Zarco was born in Portugal, and became a knight at the service of Prince Henry the Navigator‘s household. In his service at an early age, Zarco commanded the caravelsguarding the coast of Algarve from the incursions of the Moors, was at the conquest of Ceuta, and later led the caravels that recognized the island of Porto Santo in 1418 to 1419 and afterward, the island of Madeira 1419 to 1420. He founded the city of Câmara de Lobos. He was granted, as hereditary leader (Capitania), half the island ofMadeira (the Capitania of Funchal, being its first Captain). Together with his fellow fleet commanders, Tristão Vaz Teixeira and Bartolomeu Perestrelo, he started the colonization of the islands in 1425. In his role of knight of Prince Henry the Navigator‘s house he participated in the siege of Tangier, in 1437, which ended in failure. He died at Funchal. The novel of Arkan Simaan, L’Écuyer d’Henri le Navigateur (Harmattan, Paris, 2007), deals with Zarco’s life.

His parents were Gonçalo Esteves Zarco and wife Brites de Santarém (daughter of João Afonso de Santarém (himself the son of Afonso Guilherme de Santarém, the son of Guilherme de Santarém, son of another Afonso Guilherme de Santarém) and wife Filipa Lopes de Couros, male line ancestors of Frei Luís de Sousa). His father was the son of Estêvão Pires Zarco, son of Pedro Esteves Zarco, son of Estêvão Gonçalves Zarco, son of Gonçalo … Zarco.

He married Constança Rodrigues, daughter of Rodrigo Lopes de Sequeiros (?) and wife, and had:

• João Gonçalves da Câmara (d. Funchal, Madeira, 26 March 1501), married to Dona Mécia de Noronha, daughter of Dom João Henriques de Noronha (bastard son ofAlfonso, Count of Gijón and Noroña) and wife Beatriz, Lady de Mirabel and sister of Dom Garcia Henriques, and had issue, and also one bastard son by an unknown mother
• Rui Gonçalves da Câmara, 3rd Donatary Captain of São Miguel Island, married to Maria de Bettencourt, natural daughter of Maciot de Bettencourt by Teguise, without issue, he had a bastard son by one Maria Rodrigues and three more children by an unknown mother
• Garcia Rodrigues da Câmara, married to Violante de Freitas, and had issue
• Beatriz Gonçalves da Câmara, married to Diogo Cabral, and had issue
• Isabel Gonçalves da Câmara, married to Diogo Afonso de Aguiar, o Velho (the Old), and had issue
• Helena Gonçalves da Câmara, married to Martim Mendes de Vasconcelos, and had issue
• Catarina Gonçalves da Câmara, married to Garcia Homem de Sousa

There are discussions as to whether João Gonçalves Zarco could have been of Jewish Converso origin. Zarco was a prominent Jewish family from Santarém and Lisbon. Mossé Zarco was King João II‘s tailor. There was also a Portuguese doctor named Joseph Zarco, whom some authors claim to be Joseph Ibn Sharga, the great kabbalist, and a sixteenth-century poet named Yehuda Zarco. Authors known for making the claim that João Gonçalves Zarco was of Jewish ancestry are Augusto Mascarenhas Barreto and Manuel Luciano da Silva, who also suggest that Christopher Columbus could have been of Jewish descent from Portugal and his real name was Salvador Fernandes Zarco. Isabel Violante Pereira also attributes Jewish ancestry to João Gonçalves Zarco.

The islands started to be settled circa 1420 or 1425. On September 23, 1433, the name Ilha da Madeira (Madeira Island or “island of the wood”) appears in a map, by the first time, in a document.

The three captain-majors had led, in the first trip, the respective families, a small group of people of the minor nobility, people of modest conditions and some old prisoners of the kingdom.

To gain the minimum conditions for the development of agriculture, they had to rough-hew a part of the dense forest of laurisilva. Then fires were started, which are said to have burned for seven years. The colonists constructed a large number of canals (levadas), since in some parts of the island, they had water in excess while in other parts water was scarce.

The manual work was done by enslaved Africans brought from the African mainland. They were soon put to growing and refining sugar, which was much in demand in Europe and highly profitable. As the slaves were worked to death and the women were unable to bear children, more and more Africans were captured and brought to the island.

This pattern for sugar cultivation became the model that would soon be transferred to the Caribbean and Brazil. In Madeira it became evident that a warm climate, winds to work windmills for sugar crushing and easy access to the sea (for transportation of the raw sugar to Europe) were, together with slave labour, important components in what became a huge and highly profitable industry, which funded industrialisation and European expansion.

Some years before his voyages across the Atlantic, Christopher Columbus, who at the time was a sugar trader, visited Madeira. It is generally accepted that he was born in Genoa, Italy as Cristoforo Colon. In Portugal it has been claimed that he was born in that country, as Salvador Fernandes Zarco but this is disputed.

Columbus married the daughter of a plantation owner on Porto Santo and so was well aware of the profits to be made. He also understood the necessary growing conditions for sugar and the navigational technique known as the Volta do mar. On one of his voyages to the Caribbean he took sugar cane plants with him. By the end of the 1400s, Madeira was the world’s greatest producer of sugar.

In the earliest times, fish constituted about half of the settlers’ diet, together with vegetables and fruit. The first local agricultural activity with some success was the raising of wheat. Initially, the colonists produced wheat for their own sustenance but, later began to export wheat to Portugal.

The discoveries of Porto Santo and Madeira were first described by Gomes Eannes de Azurara in Chronica da Descoberta e Conquista da Guiné. (Eng. version by Edgar Prestage in 2 vols. issued by the Hakluyt Society, London, 1896-1899: The Chronicle of Discovery and Conquest of Guinea.) Arkan Simaan relates these discoveries in French in his novel based on Azurara’s Chronicle: L’Écuyer d’Henri le Navigateur, published by Éditions l’Harmattan, Paris.

The Legend of Machico

There is a romantic tale about two lovers, Robert Machim and Anna d’Arfet in time of the King Edward III of England, fleeing from England to France in 1346, were driven off their course by a violent storm, and cast on the coast of Madeira at the place subsequently named Machico, in memory of one of them. On the evidence of a portolan dated 1351, preserved at Florence, Italy, it would appear that Madeira had been discovered long before that date by Portuguese vessels.