The English in the Azores (Until the Eighteenth Century)

English knowledge of the Iberian Atlantic archipelagos, and of the Azores in particular, already appears to have been established by the middle of the fifteenth century. Yet it was only during the second half of that century that voyages by merchants from London and Bristol to the Azorean islands became more regular and sustained. Thus, English presence in the Azores can be documented by the late fifteenth century: in March of 1480, London merchants trading on Terceira fell victim to Andalusian privateering at the hands of men from Huelva and Palos (Aznar Vallejo and Borrero Fernandez, 1987: 649). By the end of the century, a small Azorean community existed in Bristol, and around the year 1500 joint expeditions composed of Azoreans and natives of that English port departed in search of the unknown Atlantic. One notable example of this partnership is the charter granted by Henry VII of England, dated March 19, 1501, to three Bristol merchants and their associates, together with three squires from the Azores, authorizing them to discover, explore, and settle islands, lands, and regions yet unknown (Arquivo dos Açores, 1981, IV: 450–463).

Whether this enterprise ever materialized remains uncertain. What matters here, however, is the early and enduring English participation in Azorean commerce from the decisive beginnings of settlement in the final quarter of the fifteenth century, as well as in the exploration of the western Atlantic in close association with the people of the Azores. Throughout the sixteenth century, the commercial relations woven between England and the Azores were largely conducted by shipowners and merchants from western England and London, who sought in São Miguel and Terceira the precious dyestuff known as pastel (woad), exchanged for woolens and other manufactures from Northern Europe. According to Pompeo Arditi (1948: 176), in 1567 the island of São Miguel produced woad “for dyeing cloth in such quantity that the English come every year to purchase it and load ten to twelve large ships.”

It is worth emphasizing that certain English merchant families specialized in the Azorean trade circuit, among them the Chesters of Bristol and the Castlins of London, a clear indication that commerce with the islands proved highly profitable. The Iberian Union disrupted the regular flow of trade between the Azores and England, yet English presence in the archipelago continued to make itself felt, albeit in different forms. Portugal, incorporated into the Catholic Monarchy, occupied a strategically central position in the Atlantic world, and the Azores themselves possessed an unmistakable geostrategic importance—so evident that in 1581 a confidential report informed Queen Elizabeth I that the king of Portugal was incapable of governing his kingdom without Terceira (Scammell, 1987: 329). The English therefore sought to annex the archipelago.

In addition to attacks upon São Miguel in 1585 and Flores in 1587, during which several settlements were plundered, Francis Drake in 1589 received orders to seize Lisbon and the Azores, while the Earl of Cumberland led an expedition of four ships against the islands, attacking São Miguel and Faial and taking on water at Flores. In 1597 Cumberland was once again entrusted with an expedition, this time charged with occupying Terceira; and in 1602 Robert Mansell revived plans to transform the Azores into an English naval base (Scammell, 1987: 340–341).

Unable to fully realize these ambitions, the English nevertheless continued to attack and plunder both the Iberian fleets that crossed Azorean waters and the islands themselves. Yet despite these hostilities, commerce endured, though under more constrained conditions. Within this context, the presence of English merchants and agents in the Azores is well documented. In 1590 one Bartholomew Cole was present in São Miguel, while during the final decade of the sixteenth century John Rankin operated within the triangle of the Canary Islands, Madeira, and the Azores, his activity in São Miguel recorded as early as 1586, where he disguised himself as a Catholic.

So visible had English presence become that Philip II, in 1596, ordered the expulsion of the English from Terceira, a measure that proved entirely ineffective. After 1600, the English gradually abandoned large-scale naval aggression in favor of commerce. As a result, English activity in the Azores became easier to sustain, and in the first decades of the seventeenth century local sources identify numerous English merchants in the commercial centers of Ponta Delgada and Angra—Richard Nicolas, Elias Potter, Duarte Howe, Duarte Neumão, among others—some of whom married women from the islands themselves (Gil, 1979: 212, 220–225). Their presence confirms the enduring interest of mercantile houses and agents from Bristol and London in Azorean commerce, especially the trade in woad, and more broadly in the economic circuits of the Portuguese Empire.

It is therefore unsurprising that in the year 1620, of a total of thirty-five ships registered in São Miguel, twenty-eight were English. Throughout the first half of the seventeenth century, the English dominated the woad trade and, following the collapse of that industry, adapted themselves to the cereal economy, integrating ever more deeply into local society. They benefited considerably from the policies implemented by the Braganza dynasty after the Restoration of Portuguese independence on December 1, 1640. Indeed, in 1641 King João IV wrote to the Count of Vila Franca, captain of São Miguel, recommending that the privileges enjoyed by English residents on the island be duly respected.

The treaties signed between Portugal and England during the Restoration War (1642, 1654, 1661) revived the ancient Anglo-Portuguese alliance while granting English merchants trading within Portuguese territories significant privileges, among them freedom of commerce and freedom of worship. These rights, already mentioned in the treaty of January 29, 1642, were consolidated more fully in the treaty of July 10, 1654. In general, the clauses of these agreements favored English participation in the trade of Portuguese goods.

Following the conquest of Jamaica in 1655, the Navigation Act of 1663—which prohibited the entry into the American colonies of goods that were not English, except for wines from Madeira and the Azores, themselves exempted from certain duties—further stimulated trade between these Atlantic archipelagos and British possessions in the Americas. This development attracted even more English merchants to the islands.

The growing number of English subjects residing in the Azores soon created the need to appoint consuls in the principal islands. Some of these officials were themselves merchants who had already forged family ties with local elites, as in the case of Geoffrey Cobbs in Ponta Delgada. According to Maria Olímpia da Rocha Gil (1979: 241, 419–429; 1983: 137–204), the final decades of the seventeenth century in the Azores were marked by economic recession, reflecting both international instability and the broader crisis of the Portuguese Atlantic. Yet despite these signs of decline, English participation in island commerce appears to have grown steadily during the last quarter of the seventeenth century and the first decades of the eighteenth. English vessels became crucial links not only between the islands themselves but also between the Azores, mainland Portugal, Madeira, and the North African outpost of Mazagão, a situation likely strengthened by the Methuen Treaty.

Whether acting individually or organizing themselves into family-based firms, English merchants gradually settled in the principal islands—São Miguel, Terceira, and Faial—in order to better control markets and maximize profits. Family members were often distributed across several islands. Initially, these merchants practiced a form of “national endogamy” as a mechanism of cohesion, but they also sought integration into local elites through marriage alliances and participation in municipal government. Such strategies represented not only mechanisms of social advancement but also practical commercial advantages, since municipal oligarchies controlled export licenses and were themselves rivals in trade.

Among the families who settled in the Azores during the second half of the seventeenth century, three rose to particular prominence in São Miguel and Terceira: the Stones, the Chamberlains, and the Fishers (Leite, [1975]; Rodrigues, 1994, 1996). Two examples illustrate this process of integration and social ascent. On March 20, 1713, João Borges de Melo Chamberlain—or Chamberlain de Melo, as he also appears in local records—the son of Captain Jacinto Borges de Melo and Margarida Chamberlain, and grandson of João Chamberlain, who had arrived in Ponta Delgada around 1660, received the rank of knight nobleman. Years later, on June 20, 1749, municipal officials in Lagoa appointed Sergeant-Major Guilherme Fisher Borges Rebelo captain-major of the town, “not only because the office rightly belonged to him, and because all recognized in him the qualities to exercise it well, but also because he was among the wealthiest in property both within this town and beyond it” (Rodrigues, 1996: 52, 54).

Throughout the eighteenth century, the expansion of the “orange economy” in São Miguel, whose principal market lay in the British Isles, together with the rise of the port of Horta as a dynamic center of Azorean trade with the Americas—particularly North America—further strengthened the Azores’ connections to the British world. New merchants arrived in the islands, and consuls and vice-consuls were appointed to defend the interests of British subjects in Azorean lands.

Among the notable figures of this century was Thomas Hickling, initially a British subject before the American Revolution, who later became a citizen of the new republic and served as American consul. Equally memorable was the stop made by James Cook at the island of Faial. The Resolution, Cook’s celebrated vessel, came within sight of Faial and Pico on July 13, 1775, and anchored in the bay of Horta the following morning. Members of the crew visited the island, which was later described—along with the rest of the archipelago—in the official account of the 1772–1775 voyage, drawing both upon direct observation and upon information supplied by the English community resident in Faial, particularly the acting consul Thomas Dent (Rodrigues, 2004).

Curiously, however, despite the commercial dynamism linking Faial to various sectors of the British Empire, this dimension was omitted from Cook’s published account, depriving historians of valuable insights into the personal and mercantile networks developed by the English from Horta. It remains one of several shadowed areas still requiring careful investigation. For the following century, by contrast, documentation becomes richer: the celebrated saga of the Dabney family in Faial began with the arrival of John Bass Dabney on the island in the early nineteenth century.

To conclude, as a living testimony to the longstanding commercial bonds that united England and the Azores, one may recall the words of brothers Joseph and Henry Bullar, who, upon sighting São Miguel in December of 1838, wrote:

“The expression ‘St. Michael’s’ is so strongly associated in our minds with the idea of juicy and sweet oranges, that we are inclined to form of the island a conception more connected with taste than with rustic beauty, just as good-natured dogs and salted cod are associated with Newfoundland, smoked herrings with Yarmouth, mutton with the South Downs, and wine and consumption with Madeira.”
— Joseph and Henry Bullar (1986 [1949]: 1

Translated and adapted from Enclicopédia Açoriana.