A population of European origin
In the 14th century, the very first settlers from the southern regions of Portugal - mainly the Algarve and Alentejo - landed on the archipelago and settled along the rivers. This very first wave of colonisation had a profound effect on agriculture, but also on the urban organisation of the island: even today, the typical farm in Madeira is still organised around the family home, preventing any excessive grouping of dwellings. If, during the imperial era, Portugal's colonial policy was one of crossbreeding with the natives of the colonised lands, Madeira being a virgin of inhabitants, the great majority of the Portuguese that we meet today in the archipelago are of little or no crossbreeding, and speak, with a few nuances, a continental Portuguese. Certainly, some crossbreeding with descendants of African slaves - who were brought in the middle of the 15th century to work in the sugar cane fields - did take place, but almost anecdotally. Madeira's African slaves were therefore soon taken to the New World, taking with them the richness of their culture. Attracted by rumours of ports, it was then Spanish and Italian workers, mostly from the poor regions of their home countries, who came to the island, followed by Burgundians and Flemings from the end of the 15th century. In the following century, Jews and Arabs, who had been excluded from Spain by the Catholic kings, came to take refuge on the island, and then it was the turn of the English to land their luggage in Madeira towards the end of the 17th century. It is therefore essentially, if not exclusively, a European population with a large Portuguese majority that constitutes the demographic fabric of Madeira.
Emigration: in search of a better life
Although Madeira's development has depended on immigration, it has also been - and continues to be - subject to the reverse trend. On several occasions throughout its history, waves of emigration have been necessary for the survival of the island's population. Overpopulated, Madeira's soils have not always been able to feed all its inhabitants, so many of them have set sail for the African or Brazilian coasts in search of a better life. While some of these travellers returned with great wealth, pushing those who remained on the island to try their luck, the Madeira government, faced with a lack of workers, decided in the 19th century to make emigration legally more difficult. From the 1950s onwards, poverty, the very high density, the call for labour to the industrialised countries, the authoritarian Portuguese political regime and the colonial wars (from 1961 to 1974) favoured a massive emigration that lasted for more than twenty years; the Eldorado was then called, in descending order : South Africa (there are still more than 300,000 Madeiran nationals), Venezuela (200,000 emigrants), the United States (Hawaii in particular), Europe and Australia. Some of them came back victorious, having realised the dream they had had when they left. But while they built sumptuous houses, they often found it difficult to readjust to this small, closed-off island climate weighed down by economic hardship. Most of them have in fact settled permanently in their adopted country, so much so that it is said that there are more Maderians abroad than in Madeira
A contained danger
During the 1990s, however, the island has developed considerably, so much so that it no longer has the face it once had. As in the rest of continental Europe, its population has tended to age, and European subsidies have played a major role in the development of the island's economy. These two parameters tend to curb emigration. Immigration, on the other hand, remains rather restricted, as the Madeira Government's policy is rather protectionist in this area. However, since the death of Chavez, but even more so since the societal crisis that Venezuela has been going through since 2018, there has been a significant, though difficult to quantify, return of emigrant Madeirais. At the end of November 2018, the government of Madeira estimated that around 6,000 Venezuelans of Portuguese descent had made the opposite journey, fleeing precarious conditions, to the land of their forefathers.
Language
Almost the entire population of Madeira communicates in Portuguese, the official language. However, Maderians also speak a regional variant of Portuguese, Maderian. For example, the dialecto madeirense (Madeirense dialect) is a variety of island dialect derived from southern Portuguese dialects, particularly from the Algarve. It differs from standard Portuguese by phonetic, grammatical and lexical specificities. A Dicionário de Regionalismos da Madeira (Dictionary of Regionalism in Madeira) containing a few hundred words attests to these differences. However, with the predominant presence of the Portuguese media in the archipelago and the improvement in educational levels, specialists note that some of the peculiarities of the local variety of Portuguese are gradually fading away. Alongside this dominant language, immigrant communities from some 100 nations speak a large number of languages. The British stand out from the others, as some of them play a significant role in Madeira's economy (tourism, wine, business...), which means that the English language on Madeira Island and Porto Santo is in a very favourable position. Moreover, the vast majority of holidaymakers and those involved in the tourism industry understand each other thanks to the language of Shakespeare.
