Bartolomeu Perestrelo
Bartolomeu Perestrelo (circa 1395 - before 1458 ), a Portuguese nobleman, was one of the discoverers of Madeira in 1419 or 1420 together with João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira .
Life
He is believed to be the son of Filippo Pallastrelli , a merchant from Italy who arrived in Lisbon towards the end of the fourteenth century.
He became a knight of the house of Infante Johann I and later of Infante Heinrich .
It is precisely the latter, as Master of the Order of Christ , owner of the islands, who gave him the management of the Porto Santo captaincy , while the management of Funchal and Machico was entrusted to Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira.
Settlement of the Kapitinat began in 1428 and was the least prosperous of the three from the start, and was constantly plagued by starvation and piracy.
An old legend gives Perestrelo a certain responsibility for the sparse vegetation on the island of Porto Santo; this says that when he landed on the island for the first time, he had a pregnant rabbit among his belongings, which could run away and populate the island with her offspring. These had no natural enemies on the island and were responsible for the destruction of the vegetation.
He was the father of Christopher Columbus ' first wife , Filipa de Perestrelo e Moniz .
Early administration of the province of Porto Santo
Perestrelo was soon disappointed with the transferred captaincy and wanted to return to Portugal, but where Heinrich forced him to return to Porto Santo.
Perestrelo died before 1458, and the captaincy passed into the hands of the widow Isabel Moniz to manage it for her underage son Bartolomeu. As early as 1458 he sold the captaincy for 300,000 reais in exchange for a payment of more than 30,000 annual interest to Pedro Correia da Cunha , who later married his stepdaughter Isoa Perestrelo . Pedro Correia da Cunha was thus 2nd Captain-General on the island of Porto Santo, then moved on to the Azores, where they settled on the island of Graciosa .
In 1473 the younger Perestrelo was able to persuade King Alfonso V to transfer the captaincy back to him, which brought him back to the 3rd captain-general and the captaincy for several generations to the Perestrelo lineage. Their administration, however, was so painful and arrogant, and mixed with various blood crimes , that they were soon hated by the island's population.
Web links
- Bartolomeu Perestrelo, 1 ° senhor da ilha de Porto Santo , on geneall.net; Retrieved February 25, 2011
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Perestrelo, Bartolomeu |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Portuguese navigator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1395 |
| DATE OF DEATH | around 1457 |
| Place of death | Porto Santo |