The Portuguese archipelago of Madeira – closer to West Africa than to Portugal – is widely described as the ‘pearl of the Atlantic.’ Not only is this description fitting for the islands today, but it is just as relevant to the Madeiras in the days of their claim by squires of Prince Henry ‘the Navigator’. By the middle of the 15th century, the island of Madeira was divided into the captaincy of Funchal, under João Gonçalves Zarco, and the captaincy of Machico, under Tristão Vaz Teixeira. With natural resources making lucrative exports (for example, timber) and fertile land favourable for cultivation (for example, cereal farming, sugar cultivation and viniculture), this newly established colony was an attractive place to settle.
Historians of Jacobitism may be familiar with Madeira for the wine trade, noting several members of prominent Jacobite families moved to the island and entered the business, and, perhaps, this is the extent of the early Scottish footprint there – or so it would seem. It is known that Scots ventured to France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the Americas for reasons of trade, academic pursuits and as swords for
