History
The first record of the parish, which was named for one of the original inhabitants, dated August 7, 1590, came from a financial transaction between King Sebastian who sent the vicar 25 thousand reis (ostensibly for construction or furnishing of their church).
Pedro Miguel became a parish in 1666. In order to protect itself from surprise attacks by pirates that roamed the Canal, a small fort Forte Baixo was constructed in the 17th century.
In 1871, both a boy's and girl's school operated from Pedro Miguel, since the community was part of a greater district that included Ribeirinha and Praia do Almoxarife. A justice of the peace operated from this district, where the electoral assembly was also situated. The population had reached 1,757 inhabitants by this time.
During the 1998 earthquake, which hit affected the northern communities of the island, several houses were damaged and the parochial church was unusable.
Read more about this topic: Pedro Miguel
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“The steps toward the emancipation of women are first intellectual, then industrial, lastly legal and political. Great strides in the first two of these stages already have been made of millions of women who do not yet perceive that it is surely carrying them towards the last.”
—Ellen Battelle Dietrick, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“Three million of such stones would be needed before the work was done. Three million stones of an average weight of 5,000 pounds, every stone cut precisely to fit into its destined place in the great pyramid. From the quarries they pulled the stones across the desert to the banks of the Nile. Never in the history of the world had so great a task been performed. Their faith gave them strength, and their joy gave them song.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)