page_title: Graciosa
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Graciosa / History
caption_attribution_description: Português: Igreja Matriz de Santa Cruz da Graciosa, fachada, Santa Cruz da Graciosa, ilha Graciosa, Açores, Portugal
context_page_description: Graciosa Island is referred to as the White Island, the northernmost of the Central Group of islands in the Azores. The ovular Portuguese island has an area of 60.65 square kilometres, a length of 10 kilometres and a width of 7 kilometres. It is a volcanic island, dominated by a 1.6-kilometre-wide central caldera located in the southeast.
context_section_description: In addition to the other islands  of the Central Group, Graciosa was explored by Portuguese navigators  during the first quarter of the 15th Century.  Although there exists no  accounts of the first sighting of the island.  May 2, 1450 has  frequently been referred to as the date of the islands "discovery",  although there exists no documentation to support this date.   Paradoxically, it is clear that in 1440, by order of Prince Henry the Navigator, cattle and swine were settled on the island in order to facilitate colonization.
  Similarly, it is unclear the names of the first settlers to colonize the island, although around 1450 the first colonists were probably slaves (but formal registries did not exist at the time).  The first group of settlers of note to be mentioned were led by Vasco Gil Sodré, a former resident of Montemor-o-Velho, who arrived from Terceira accompanied by his family and servants around the middle of the 1450s.  It was this pioneer who inaugurated the official phase of continuous settlement on the island.
  The first population center was in Carapacho, a zone in the southeast of the island where it is likely that settlers made landfall.  Owing to the areas poor fertility and lack of shelter from the sea, the settlers moved farther into the interior.  In a few years a nucleus formed in the northern coast near Barra and Santa Cruz, in order to take advantage of the sheltered coves and access to potable waters from the tidal ponds/wells.  From here the colony that would become the village of Santa Cruz da Graciosa would form.
  The first Captain-Donatário, Vasco Gil Sodré, was diligent in his duties, establishing a customs-house for the  more fertile and ample lands in the northern part of the island, while  his brother-in-law Duarte Barreto do Couto was able to coopt the southern part of the island into a second captaincy around the village of Praia.   After 1485 the Captaincy of Graciosa was unified under the administration of Pedro Correia da Cunha, Second Captain of Porto Santo (Madeira) and brother-in-law of Christopher Columbus. Taking his family to Graciosa, he settled in Santa Cruz, moving the municipal seat and supplanting Praia as the administrative center.  The following year Santa Cruz is elevated to "village" and municipality, under the religious parishes of Santa Cruz and São Mateus da Praia.  The change caused an influx in settlers from Beiras, Minho and Flanders (in the Habsburg Netherlands) permitting the installation of the first municipal structures (in this case the construction of the Santa Cruz lighthouse in 1486).
  With low costs that permitted easy offloading in multiple ports and with a small population to the island prospered, and becoming the target of attacks by pirates and privateers during the 16th and 17th centuries.  In addition to several sackings and general destruction of buildings, the local population were regularly captured. Even under these circumstances, the island was able to continue to support a considerable population, which included original settlers tied to the nobility (specifically from the island of Terceira).
  From  the earliest settlement, the island survived on agriculture and the wine industry.  Given the fertility of the soils and favourable climate, the locals were able to export wheat, barley, wine and local spirits, maintaining an active commerce with Terceira, then the largest port, center of commerce and the administration of the archipelago.
  The  islands position in the Central Group and its proximity to Terceira  made Graciosa, deliberately or not, an important point along trans-Atlantic navigation.  Several historical figures passed through the waters of  Santa Cruz including the Father António Vieira, a victim of a shipwreck  near Corvo who was deposited in the regional capital by a Dutch privateer.  In 1791, the French writer François-René de Chateaubriand visited the island while journeying to North America, staying at the Franciscan Convent and who  later wrote of the island.  The poet Almeida Garrett, also visited  his uncle (a judge in Santa
caption: The historical parochial church of Santa Cruz in the village of Santa Cruz da Graciosa
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