Latest / The History of Portugal: The Small Nation That Built a Global Empire — Fexingo History / The Portuguese Discovery of the Atlantic Islands: Madeira and the Azores
Transcript
- Lucas: Luna, we've covered so much of Portugal's empire — India, Japan, Brazil, Africa — but I keep thinking about the very first steps. Before any of that, before the caravels even rounded Cape Bojador, the Portuguese were already building an empire in the middle of the Atlantic. Luna: The Atlantic islands, right? Madeira and the Azores? Lucas: Exactly. And those islands weren't just a warm-up. They were a laboratory. A place where the Portuguese figured out how to settle, how to plant, how to govern a distant territory. Everything they'd later do in Brazil or Africa, they tested first in the middle of the ocean. Lucas: And honestly, I think this episode might be useful for anyone who's been following along — the way these islands were settled tells us a lot about how Portugal's empire worked in practice. If you find value in these deep dives, by the way, the way the show stays ad-free and independent is through listener support — it's buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Just a small way to keep these conversations going. Luna: Yeah, it's a good reminder. So, Madeira — when did that actually happen? Lucas: Officially, 1419. The story goes that two captains in service to Prince Henry — João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira — were blown off course while returning from a raid along the African coast. They stumbled onto an island they called Porto Santo, and then a bigger, heavily forested island they named Madeira — which means 'wood' in Portuguese. Lucas: Now, there's debate about whether Portuguese sailors already knew about these islands. Some maps from the 1350s show an island called 'De Lebran' or 'Le Maine' in roughly that area. So maybe it was a rediscovery rather than a first discovery. But Prince Henry certainly treated it as a new acquisition. Luna: And the Azores? When did those show up? Lucas: A bit later. The first official sighting is usually credited to Diogo de Silves in 1427, though again, there are earlier map references. The Azores are much farther out — about a third of the way from Portugal to North America. They're nine volcanic islands, spread over 600 kilometres. Settling them was a much bigger challenge. Lucas: Madeira was settled almost immediately. By 1425, colonists were arriving, clearing the thick laurel forests. And they did that by setting fires — the famous 'queimadas' — that reportedly burned for years. The soil was incredibly fertile, and soon they were planting wheat, vines, and sugar cane. Luna: Sugar cane — that's going to become huge, right? Lucas: Huge. Madeira's sugar, by the end of the 15th century, was being exported all over Europe. It was the first great sugar boom, decades before the Caribbean. And it came with all the same problems — land concentration, slave labour, environmental exhaustion. The island became a prototype for the plantation system. Lucas: But initially, wheat was the main crop. Madeira was supplying grain to Portugal's North African garrisons. It was a strategic asset as much as an economic one. Luna: What about the Azores? They're further out — how did they attract settlers? Lucas: It was harder. Prince Henry offered land grants — capitanias — to attract settlers, much like what would later be done in Brazil. The first settlers were mostly Portuguese from the Algarve and Madeira, but also Flemish, Genoese, and some French. The Azores became a real melting pot. Lucas: The Flemish connection is especially interesting. There's a story — maybe legend — that a Flemish noblewoman named Isabella of Burgundy, or maybe a group of Flemish colonists, were given land in the central group of islands. That's why the island of Faial has a town called Horta — a Flemish name. Luna: So these islands weren't just Portuguese — they were European from the start. Lucas: Exactly. And they weren't just farming outposts. The Azores, especially, became a crucial stop for ships returning from India. The prevailing winds and currents in the Atlantic made the Azores the perfect place to catch the westerlies back to Europe. Ships would stop at Angra do Heroísmo on Terceira to take on fresh water and supplies after months at sea. Lucas: That made the islands strategically vital. When Philip II of Spain took over Portugal in 1580, the Azores held out for two more years. Angra became a base for Portuguese loyalists and even English privateers. The Spanish had to mount a major naval expedition to finally take the islands. Luna: There's also the myth of Atlantis, isn't there? Some people think the Azores are the remnants of a lost continent. Lucas: Yes, that idea has persisted for centuries. The Azores sit on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and some ancient writers — like Plato, who wrote about Atlantis — described it as an island beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Renaissance scholars speculated that the Azores might be what was left. But there's no geological evidence for a sunken continent. Still, the myth added a layer of romance to the islands. Lucas: Madeira, on the other hand, had its own creation myth. Some believed it was the 'Garden of the Hesperides' from Greek mythology — a place where golden apples grew. That was just a way of saying it was incredibly lush and fertile. Luna: It must have felt like a paradise for the first settlers, after months at sea. Lucas: It did. But it was also hard work. The land had to be cleared, terraces had to be built on the steep slopes, irrigation channels — called levadas — had to be carved into the mountains. Those levadas are still there today, and they're a marvel of engineering. They channel water from the rainy north to the drier south, and they made Madeira's agriculture possible. Lucas: The Azores also had their own ecological transformation. The islands had no native mammals beyond birds and bats. The settlers brought cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, rats — and those animals radically changed the landscape. The forests were cut for timber and fuel, and the land was turned over to pasture and crops. Luna: So it's a story of human impact on the environment, even in the 1400s. Lucas: Absolutely. And it's not just environmental — it's also social. The islands developed their own distinct societies. Madeira's elite became wealthy from sugar and later from wine — Madeira wine, which became famous worldwide. The Azores, being more isolated, developed a more rugged, independent culture. And both islands had slaves — Africans brought from the coast, as well as enslaved indigenous people from the Canary Islands. Lucas: The slave trade was embedded in the plantation system from the beginning. Madeira's sugar industry relied on slave labour, and that set a pattern that would be repeated in Brazil and the Caribbean. Luna: It's sobering to think of these beautiful islands as the birthplace of the Atlantic slave economy. Lucas: It is. And it's a reminder that the Age of Discovery wasn't just about heroic explorers — it was also about exploitation. The islands were a testing ground for colonial practices that would later be applied on a much larger scale. Lucas: One more thing — the Azores played a key role in the Spanish Armada. In 1588, a fleet of 130 ships left Lisbon, and many of them stopped at the Azores on their way back — or tried to. The storms scattered them, and many ships ended up wrecked on the Irish coast. But the Azores were a crucial base for Spanish and Portuguese vessels. Luna: And later, they were a stop for the East India trade, right? Lucas: Yes. For the Portuguese and later the English and Dutch, the Azores were a regular waypoint. There's a famous story about Sir Walter Raleigh capturing a Portuguese ship in the Azores in 1594 — he got a huge cargo of spices and gold. The islands were a prize for privateers. Lucas: So when we think about Portugal's empire, we often imagine the grand voyages to India or Brazil. But the Atlantic islands were the foundation. They gave Portugal experience in navigation, settlement, and commerce. They also provided the ships with food, water, and refuge. Without Madeira and the Azores, the empire might have been much harder to build. Luna: And they're still part of Portugal today — autonomous regions, but very much Portuguese. Lucas: Exactly. They're a living link to that first phase of expansion. When you visit Funchal or Ponta Delgada, you're walking through history. The streets, the churches, the fortresses — they all tell the story of a small nation that looked west into the ocean and found a new world.