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.
