"It was the first great stride in European imperialism, the first of the west’s
extra-European, extra-Mediterranean possessions, the first overseas colony to
be settled and developed for the benefit of the motherland"
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
Gateway to new worlds
MIKE MARQUSEE
Madeira, the first island to ever be colonised, was the launch pad of European
imperialism
Madeira is a quirk, a lovely quirk. But it’s a quirk made possible by its
integration into a succession of wider horizons.
Photo: Mike Marqusee
As surprising as its history: Madeira.
In 1420, a genuinely epochal event took place on a small, isolated, previously
uninhabited island in the Atlantic, some 360 miles west of Morocco. That year,
the Portuguese fleet — the most advanced in the world at the time, thanks to
Prince Henry the Navigator — located Madeira. Within two years they had
established an agricultural colony there.
It was the first great stride in European imperialism, the first of the west’s
extra-European, extra-Mediterranean possessions, the first overseas colony to
be settled and developed for the benefit of the motherland. From the outset,
and through its near 600 year history, Madeira’s economy and society have
played a part in and been dependent on emergent global systems.
After seizing Madeira, the Portuguese ventured further south, rounding Cape
Bojador in 1434, taking the Cape Verde islands in 1455, reaching Sierra Leone
in 1460, Sao Tome in 1471, and the mouth of the Congo in 1482. With Madeira as
their jumping off point, they “brought into being a coherent economic zone”,
observed historian Fernand Braudel, “based essentially on trade in ivory,
malaguetta (a pepper substitute), gold dust and the slave trade”.Springboard
In 1488, Bartolomeo Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Ten years later, Vasco
da Gama landed at Calicut, the long-prized wealth of India lay at Portugal’s
feet, and the historic development of both south Asia and Europe was
transformed. Soon after, sailing westward from Madeira, the Portuguese found
and appropriated the coast of Brazil.
Little Madeira, barely 30 miles long by 15 miles wide, was the springboard for
all this.
Madeira was from the first and remains intrinsically import-export reliant.
Initially wheat was cultivated for the mainland market. But by 1460, wheat had
been replaced by sugar, introduced by Genoese merchants who had financed sugar
plantations from the eastern Mediterranean through Sicily, Spain and Portugal.
Along with the sugar came slaves — Arabs, Berbers, West Africans to work the
fields and refineries. For 70 years, Madeira dominated the western European
sugar market. Brazil, however, soon outstripped Madeira, producing greater
quantities at lower costs.
Madeira had to find another export crop. It turned to wine, and in so doing
created one of the earliest global brand names. In Act II, Scene I of “King
Henry IV” Part I, Shakespeare has Poins round on Falstaff: “Jack! How agrees
the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou soldest him on Good-Friday last
for a cup of Madeira and a cold capon’s leg?” The reference is anachronistic —
in Falstaff’s day there was no Madeira — but it’s an indication of the
popularity the drink had acquired in Shakespeare’s London.
Henry the Navigator had ordered malvasia vines transported from Crete to
Madeira, where they flourished and became known throughout the English speaking
world as malmsey. Other noble varieties were imported by the Jesuits, an early
transnational institution. But what makes Madeira special is the wine-making
process unique to the island, which evolved as a result of the wine having to
make long sea voyages. The wine is warmed over a period of months, fortified
with grape spirits, exposed to oxidation and aged in cask before being bottled,
sometime decades later. All of which gives it an exceptional longevity and (in
the not so cheap brands) complex taste.
English merchants came to dominate the Madeira wine trade, establishing a
long-lasting connection between Madeira and another world system, the British
Empire. The island’s overseas market was secured when King Charles II, who had
just received Bombay from Portugal as a result of his marriage to Catherine of
Braganza, guaranteed Madeira a virtual monopoly on wine shipments to British
territories in the New World. In the 18th century, American colonists consumed
a quarter of all wine produced on the island each year. The signing of the The
Declaration of Independence, breaking with the British system and establishing
a new one, was toasted in Madeira.
British troops occupied the island during the Napoleonic Wars; British
merchants bought land and became the island’s leading wine makers. Soon after
that came the first tourists. The mid-Victorian steamboats that carried
holiday-makers from the south of England were the pioneers of package tourism,
another globe-entangling phenomenon.
Due to a convoluted last-minute change of plans, I found myself following in
their wake. I had never thought of Madeira as a travel destination but it
proved as surprising and remarkable as its history. It’s a singular place.
Compact, yet astonishingly diverse. Most of the island is mountainous, rising
to craggy peaks and plunging into deep ravines. It’s said to have more than 30
micro-climates, from the tropical to the alpine, and given the rapidity with
which the weather changes, sun-chasing-cloud-chasing sun, I believe it.
But it’s the profusion of plant life, especially the flowers that carpet much
of the island, changing by the month, that most astounds. There are said to be
more than 120 wild plants unique to Madeira. But that’s only part of the story.
Madeira’s outward-facing connections are reflected in the lush vegetation.
Bulbs and seeds imported over the centuries from Europe, the Mediterranean,
Brazil, South Africa, Australia and India sprouted easily in the rich volcanic
soil and spread beyond the island’s innumerable gardens. For those in the know,
Madeira is said to be a “phytogeographical” treasure.
Pristine still
Most ravishing of all, for me at least, were the primeval bay laurel forests
that still cover some 20 per cent of the island. Several million years ago,
such forests covered southern Europe and northern Africa. Now they can only be
explored here: a majestic, mysterious, upward-soaring, downward-plunging
density of dark green leaves and ancient thick tree trunks.
They can be explored with relative ease thanks to Madeira’s unique 500-year-old
system of levadas, narrow aqueducts cut into the steep mountain walls, carrying
water from the high wet interior to the coastal farms. These make for ideal
walking: you can get deep access into remote wilderness with little effort.
Despite the tourist industry, and too many unplanned and unsightly new
developments, Madeira remains a gently ageing, unpretentious backwater. It’s a
bit of provincial Portugal plonked down on an exotic island. Untidied villages
are adorned with black basalt and white plaster Baroque Churches (an
international style). Agriculture and fishing remain the biggest employers. In
places Madeira looks like a last redoubt of the long vanishing European
peasantry. There’s hardly a tractor or mechanical device in sight. The land is
cultivated in tiny plots on steep terraces and farmers walk to their fields
with hoe in hand. The overwhelming majority are small holders or tenants. One
third of all arable land is still under the latifundia system, controlled by
distant landlords. Apart from wine grapes and bananas, production is for local
consumption.
Since the granting of regional autonomy following the revolution of 1974, and
admission to the EU in the 80s, Madeira has grown more prosperous, if also more
unequal. The island is now ringed by a coastal expressway. Journeys that used
to take two days along the old winding mountain roads can now be completed in
under an hour. A Free Trade Zone has been established and it’s hoped the island
will become an offshore banking centre and take its place in the neo-liberal
order, though it may well be too late for Madeira to cash in on that particular
world cycle.
Madeira is a quirk, a lovely quirk. But it’s a quirk made possible by its
integration into a succession of wider horizons. The most famous Madeiran of
this or any other era is one Cristiano Ronaldo, currently of Manchester United.
Like the wine, he’s become a global brand, an icon of the world-ranging sports
economy.
www.mikemarqusee.com
With Regards
Abi
"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because
of those who look on and do nothing"
- Albert Einstein
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