Wanderlust World Wanderlust World Portuguese navigators João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira discovered the Madeira archipelago in 1419 while exploring the West African coast under Prince Henry the Navigator's patronage. A third captain, Bartolomeu Perestrelo, joined the formal colonization that followed.
Prince Henry's school at Sagres sought new trade routes bypassing Muslim-controlled Mediterranean and trans-Saharan networks. Madeira—uninhabited, forested, well-watered, and strategically positioned 600 km west of Morocco—became Portugal's first Atlantic colony.
Colonization began ~1425. Settlers cleared laurisilva forest, built irrigation canals (levadas), and established sugar plantations using enslaved African labor—a model later exported to the Canaries, Azores, São Tomé, Brazil, and the Caribbean. By 1480, Madeira was the world's leading sugar producer.
When sugar competition from Brazil undercut Madeira's economy, the island pivoted to fortified wine (Madeira wine), which thrived on the long sea voyages that ruined other wines. Today, tourism, wine, and banana exports sustain the autonomous region's 250,000 residents.
Two captains, a prince's vision, and an empty island launched Portugal's maritime empire.