2.WINE (in the 1600s and 1700s)

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were marked by the emergence of a new culture that would boost the Madeira economy again: wine. In the mid sixteenth century, the famous English playwright William Shakespeare cites the important export and notoriety of the Malvasia wine, drowning the Duke of Clarence, brother of King Edward IV of England, in a barrel of this wine.
With the decline of sugar production in the late sixteenth century, 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. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the structure of the “wine city prevailed over the sugar city”.

The various governors of Madeira and even the convents of Funchal eventually entered the wine trade.

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

1. SUGAR CANE (In the 1400s and 1500s)

 At the beginning of its settlement, some agricultural crops, such as cane sugar, were introduced, which quickly afforded the Funchal metropolis frank economic prosperity. In the fifteenth century, Madeira starts planting sugar cane imported from Sicily by Dom Henrique. With the rapid expansion of the sugar cane industry, Funchal becomes a commercial center of excellence, attended by traders of various nationalities, which changes its insular financial dimension. This meant that, in the second half of the fifteenth century into sixteenth century, the city of Funchal became a mandatory port of call for European trade routes. In 1472, the Madeira sugar starts being directly exported to Flanders, which became its main redistribution center. Madeira assumes particular importance in the axis of these relations between Flanders and Portugal. With the production of sugar cane, Madeira attracted adventurers and traders from the most remote origins, this exploration was considered at the time as the main engine of Madeira's economy. Many foreigners travelled to the region for the sugar business, especially Italians, Basques, Catalans and Flemish people. The marketing of sugar in Madeira reached its peak in the 1520s which coincided with the timing of most Flemish works of art to the island, in a commercial environment of prosperity. Works of gigantic proportions were imported, mostly paintings, ostentatious mixed altarpieces or triptychs, as well as major images from Bruges, Antwerp and Malines. Silver and copper objects, and gravestones with metal inlays were imported from Flanders and Hainaut, such as those in the Funchal Cathedral and in Museums such as the one of Sacred Art. Until the first half of the sixteenth century, Madeira was one of the major sugar markets of the Atlantic. However, there were several reasons for the decline of this culture and gave way to other markets.

THE DISCOVERY and COLONIZATION OF MADEIRA ISLAND

The islands of Porto Santo and Madeira were re- discovered by Tristão Vaz Teixeira, Bartolomeu Perestrelo and João Gonçalves Zarco, two Portuguese explorers and an Italian, in 1419 and 1420 respectively.

Due to the abundance of trees on the bigger island it was called "Madeira" meaning "wood."

Noticing the potential of the islands, as well as its strategic importance, the colonization of the islands began in 1425 after King João I ordered the colonization of the islands.

From 1440 on, the regime of captaincy is established and Tristão Vaz Teixeira was nominated as captain-donee of the Captaincy of Machico; six years later, Bartolomeu Perestrelo becomes captain-donee of Porto Santo, and in 1450, Zarco was appointed captain-donee of Funchal.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 of Portugal.

To have minimum conditions for the development of agriculture on the island they 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.

In the early times, fish and vegetables were the settlers’ main means of subsistence.