The Action of the Civil Governor José Silvestre Ribeiro, Seen by Foreigners who Visited Madeira Island: His Concern with the Foreigners

Abstract

After reading and analysing three works, two (1849 and 1850) by Sérvulo Drummond de Menezes and another (1852) – which continues it – by António Jacinto de Freitas, about the performance of José Silvestre Ribeiro (1807-1891) as the Civil Governor of the Madeira archipelago (1846-1852), the curiosity arose to understand what the many foreigners who wrote about Madeira would have thought of the state of the island and the achievements carried out by this governor during his administration. Knowing that the six years in power of the civil governor José Silvestre Ribeiro were of great measures and success, while reading and researching foreign literature we did not confine ourselves only to that widespread view from an outside perspective, but we have also tried to investigate, in a kind of comparative analysis, what was written in the periodicals of the time and which, in some way, revealed the moral and political thinking of Madeiran society at the time. In this article, in particular, we will talk about the governor’s direct action with regard to the impression he wanted to leave on the foreigners who visited us.

Keywords: José Silvestre Ribeiro; Civil Governor; Madeira; Foreigners.