State Regulation of Madeiran Emigration in the Estado Novo – Call Letters

Abstract

Freedom of movement and residence, in addition to being a basic right of the citizens of the European Union, can also be comparable to what we have find enshrined in Portugal since its Constitutional Charter of 1826.
Nevertheless, despite what dictated the country’s fundamental law, the Portuguese State has always maintained tight control in the context of emigration, through the use of its legal regime, producing decree-laws that regulated it. It is on this subject that this study is focused on Madeira in the Period of the “Estado Novo”.
One of the mechanisms introduced into the law, and which will be the target of our attention, were the call letters which, for a long time, were one of the conditions required to be able to leave the country legally as emigrans.
For this work, we resorted to documentary sources, deposited at the Madeira Archives and Library, to whose work of analysis and interpretation we added the use to the official publications of the Portuguese State, in terms of decree-laws and regulations produced, which we complement with the proper bibliographic review.

Keywords

Emigration; Call Letters; Madeira; “Estado Novo”.