A short history of Madeira
Madeira’s story in brief: the Portuguese discovery in the 1400s, the sugar boom, the wine trade with Britain, the first tourists, autonomy and the modern island.
Madeira was uninhabited until the Portuguese arrived six hundred years ago. In that time it has been a sugar colony, a wine empire, a winter resort for European royalty and, since 1976, an autonomous region of Portugal.
Discovery: the 1400s
Portuguese navigators sponsored by Prince Henry the Navigator, led by João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira, reached Porto Santo in 1418 and Madeira around 1420. They found an island covered in forest and called it Madeira, “wood”. Settlers cleared land, in part by fire, and the island was divided into captaincies based in Machico and Funchal. To bring water from the wet north and the mountains to the dry south, they began digging the first levadas.
The sugar boom: 1400s and 1500s
Sugar cane made Madeira rich. For a time it was one of the world’s leading sugar producers, and Funchal’s merchants used the profits to buy Flemish paintings and fine church furnishings, many of which you can still see in the Museum of Sacred Art. The trade relied on enslaved people from Africa as well as Portuguese labourers. When cheaper sugar from Brazil and the Caribbean arrived, Madeira turned to wine.
Wine and the British: 1600s to 1800s
Ships crossing the Atlantic stopped at Funchal to take on wine, and merchants discovered that the heat of the long voyage improved it. Madeira wine became fashionable in Britain and America; it is said to have been used for the toast at the signing of the American Declaration of Independence. British merchant families settled in Funchal and built the wine lodges and grand country houses, the quintas, many of which survive. See Madeira wine.
The first tourists: 1800s
The mild climate drew invalids and wealthy visitors from northern Europe, especially in winter. Empress Elisabeth of Austria, “Sisi”, spent a winter here, and hotels like Reid’s opened in the late 1800s. Madeira embroidery became an export industry. In 1921 the last emperor of Austria, Charles I, was exiled to Madeira; he died in 1922 and is buried in the church at Monte.
Autonomy and the modern island: 1900s to today
After Portugal’s 1974 revolution, Madeira became an autonomous region in 1976, with its own parliament and government. Investment, including European funds, built the expressways, tunnels and the extended airport runway that transformed life on the island. The laurel forest became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999. Today tourism is the main industry, alongside wine, bananas and services.