Maritime Archipelago, Political Archipelago

The Azores under the Habsburgs (1581–1640)

Jean-Frédéric Schaub

If both the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies began as polycentric political-institutional systems, this character became even more pronounced during the period of their union, from 1581 to 1640. From the moment Philip II was sworn in as King of Portugal and until the Lisbon uprising of December 1640, the two monarchies constituted together the most extensive empire that history had known up to that moment. The rules governing their merger were defined by the chapters elaborated at the Cortes of Tomar. In all fields of jurisdictional, governmental and commercial activity, the Portuguese monarchy enjoyed complete autonomy from its Spanish partner. Though Lisbon had lost its status as a courtly city, it never ceased to function as a capital and as the seat of the Portuguese highest tribunals and Councils and it continued to act as one of the centers of the empire. Indeed, some locals even thought that it would be plausible to convince the kings of Spain and Portugal to move their capital from El Escorial near Madrid to the city of the Tajo (Lisbon).

Because of this constitutional structure, all matters concerning the colonies — i.e., anything and everything that had to do with Portugal's overseas settlements — were managed by Portuguese jurisdictional organs. Among them were the tribunals in Lisbon and the Council of Portugal, which assisted the king wherever he went. In the Azores, a Portuguese Atlantic archipelago, the union between Spain and Portugal nevertheless implied the presence of Castile in the form of a military garrison (presidio). In principal, the institutional relations between the officers of the garrison and the local authorities on the islands were based on the same principles as the accords of Tomar. Nevertheless, the Spanish soldiers deployed on the island of Terceira answered exclusively to the military jurisdiction, and all governmental and economic matters regarding the island were the responsibility of the Council of War in Madrid and the Captain-General of Portugal in Lisbon. The local Portuguese militia was disbanded at an early date (1583–1589), leaving the Spanish contingent as the only military presence until 1589, when the Crown decided to reestablish native militias as a means of strengthening the island's defenses.

In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, Portuguese imperial policy did not yet follow one unique and coherent political and institutional pattern or model. No specific overseas tribunal existed, because the Conselho da Índia in Lisbon, formed under the authority of the Habsburgs in 1607, only operated until 1614. As a result, the Lusitanian character of the Portuguese empire (and its distinction from the Spanish empire) was preserved through other means, including, for example, the diffusion of a distinct written culture and a broad web of commercial interests.

This chapter deals with a case that may seem rather marginal: the Azores Islands during the union of the crowns. In the early seventeenth century, this Atlantic archipelago was a minor element in the fabric of the empire, especially when compared to the declining Estado da Índia and a flourishing Brazil. Yet, thanks to the ocean currents and the strong winds, during the Early Modern period the Azores played a strategic role in protecting sea routes for ships that returned to the continent from America, Asia and Africa. What happened in the islands during the union of the crowns and, more particularly, between 1590 and 1642, has so far won no scholarly attention. The objective of this chapter is to present a few key elements for the elaboration of such a history.

The focus will be the island of Terceira, which performed the most important strategic function because of its sheltered port of Angra. Terceira is also the best described island in historical documentation from the Habsburg period. Following a description of the sources available for historical research and a general analysis of the main features of the Habsburg period, we will identify how the union played out in that space, mainly by observing the sources of authority and arbitrage through the analysis of a few local disputes.

Sources for the History of Azores during the Union

Until the present, no systematic account of the political processes taking place in Azores' society during the union has been published. Referring exclusively to the case of the island of Terceira, its two most known chroniclers or compilers, the late seventeenth century Father Manuel Luís Maldonado (1644–1711), and the erudite Francisco Ferreira Drummond (1796–1858), barely scraped together two marginally coherent accounts, both of which are plagued with significant gaps. Between 1878 and 1892, Ernesto do Canto (1831–1900) published a collection of sources for the history of the archipelago in twelve volumes under the title Arquivo dos Açores. Given the patriotic fervor of those years,...