The year 2026 is a memorable one, for it marks half a century of constitutional political autonomy. Despite its shortcomings and imperfections, the achievement remains extraordinary. After five centuries during which small island communities sustained human life across these remote Atlantic islands—serving Portugal through one of history’s greatest maritime adventures—we have arrived at the longest period of prosperity our people have ever known. We are wealthier because we have become better; yet we remain deeply marked by suffering, for the practice of politics is a costly apprenticeship, and humanity has never escaped its enduring flaw: imperfection.
Our joy runs deep. So too does our sorrow—and that, perhaps, enriches our lives even more, for it allows us to imagine tomorrow, when we may yet fashion a better autonomy; that is to say, an autonomy grounded in genuine democracy and guided by political realism.
We celebrate fifty years of autonomy. Yet we stubbornly continue to commemorate the political history of these islands as though our story had begun halfway through its own journey—as though we had been born only halfway into our own body.
It is the Autonomous Region of the Azores itself, led by many intelligent people, that continues—much as during the Estado Novo dictatorship—to shape our collective historical imagination. Under the dictatorship, official discourse sought to glorify the milestones of the nation through a version of history that owed more to imagination than to historiographical truth. It was a flaw, though not without its virtues, for some believed that happiness built upon a half-truth was preferable to a truth that, in the end, was not entirely true. Today, under Azorean autonomy, the prevailing narrative insists on telling the history of the Azores beginning with the autonomist movements of the twentieth century, while overlooking the deeper historical reality upon which that very political imagination rests.
How did this supposed Azorean autonomy—one that traces the political history of the archipelago back to the decree of March 1895—come into being?
It arose for three reasons.
First, for historical reasons. The first Portuguese Constitution of 1822 vested political power and the State’s patrimony in the people. To make this principle effective, the country required not only a modern system of government—a parliament representing the entire nation—but also an intermediate administrative structure between local municipal government and the central State. This liberal vision, profoundly influenced by French political thought, was articulated by the Provisional Constitutional Junta of Angra and came fully into force in 1832. From that moment onward, every region of Portugal was endowed with an autonomous district administration responsible for undertaking projects serving the municipalities within each district.
Second, for reasons of circumstance. In 1892, the State repealed the Administrative Code governing this district system because virtually every district in the country was operating at a financial deficit, with expenditures consistently exceeding revenues.
Third, for reasons of merit. Ponta Delgada stood alone among Portugal’s districts in generating more revenue than expenditure. It relied upon this exceptional circumstance to persuade the State of the effectiveness of district autonomy, fully aware that losing such autonomy—and with it a measure of independence in managing its own affairs—would expose it to far greater difficulties.
In other words, the ideological foundations of the autonomist movements are firmly rooted in liberal political thought, and their proposals were built upon the practical experience of the district model—a model that, significantly, remained the dominant conception of Azorean autonomy until nearly the middle of 1975.
To commemorate fifty years of constitutional and democratic autonomy while simultaneously suggesting that Azorean autonomy was born in 1895 is, therefore, inconsistent with historical truth. The true origin of district autonomy lies in the Constituent Assembly of 1822, a monumental milestone in the political history of the Azores.
But the story reaches even further back.
The motto of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, inscribed upon its Coat of Arms and enshrined in regional law—“Rather die free than live in peace in submission”—was first proclaimed in 1582 in Angra, then already the first truly transatlantic city, home to the first hospital and the first Brotherhood of the Holy Spirit in the Atlantic world.
The autonomist aspirations of the peoples of the Azores and Madeira long predate liberalism itself. António Cordeiro bears witness to this reality as early as the seventeenth century. Circumstances changed; political languages evolved; doctrinal formulations were transformed. Yet one historical constant endured: the islanders’ consciousness of self-government.
That enduring tradition finds eloquent expression in writers as distinct as Antero de Quental and Vitorino Nemésio.
Translated by Diniz Borges from a piece published in the newspaper Diário do Açores-Paulo Viveiros, director.