Flores Island (Azores)


Flores Island is an island of the Western Group of the Azores.
It has an area of 143 km2, a population of 3428 inhabitants, and, together with Corvo Island of the western archipelago, lies within the North American Plate. The nearby Monchique Islet is the westernmost point of Portugal.
It has been referred to as the pink island due to the abundance of pink hydrangeas on the island and association with poet Raul Brandão. It is well known for its abundance of flowers, hence its Portuguese name of Flores.

History

Some early accounts existed of the " islands of the Azores and two islands of Flores" , but no "official discovery" occurred until the mid-15th century. The island of Flores was discovered in the late summer of 1452 by the navigator Diogo de Teive and his son João de Teive, and first noted by the pilot Pêro Velasco to Christopher Columbus during his voyages. For his reward, Teive received the concession of the sugar monopoly on Madeira.
The earlier names of the island were São Tomás and Santa Iria. The island's charter passed to Fernão Teles de Meneses when little was accomplished in populating the islands, except for disembarking some sheep. The death of Fernão Teles was to initiate exploration and settlement on the island, as his widow would contract the Flemish nobleman Willem van der Haegen to explore Flores and Corvo.
After meeting with Dona Maria Vilhena, Van der Haegen came to an agreement and moved to the island between 1480 and 1490. Van der Haegen had arrived in the Azores in 1469 and lived for a time on Faial Island by invitation of the first Captain of Faial, Josse van Huerter. Following disagreements with van Huerter over land holdings, Van de Haegen settled in Quatro Ribeiras, Terceira until journeying to Ribeira da Cruz on Flores during the reign of King John II. The historians Gaspar Frutuoso and Diogo das Chagas noted that Van der Haegen cultivated lands and was involved in the indigo/woad industry, as well as exploring for mineral deposits. Due to its isolated location outside shipping lanes, its intemperate climate, and infertile lands, he left Flores ten years later to resettle in Terceira by way of São Jorge Island. At the time, the name of the island was Corvo.
According to Bartolomé de las Casas, two dead bodies that looked like those of Amerindians were found on Flores. He said he found that fact in Columbus' notes, and it was one reason why Columbus presumed that India was on the other side of the ocean.
By 1504, the island's charter had passed to João Fonseca and settlers streamed through the port of Armoeira to the small hamlets. The island became permanently populated during the reign of King Manuel I in the year 1510 by people from various regions of continental Portugal, mainly from the northern provinces. The island became arable and grain and vegetables were cultivated. Over the next centuries, the inhabitants lived in isolated parts of the island and were visited by vessels from Faial and Terceira which came infrequently to trade whale oil, butter, and honey for other products, or those caravels that stopped en route to Europe. Several of the main communities and local sites were named for settlers of this mid-century period, including Santa Cruz, Lajes and Ponta Delgada.
The name of the island of Flores has been made familiar to generations of English readers by the opening line of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's epic poem, The Revenge, A Ballad of the Fleet: "At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay...", referring to the small English fleet of six ships under Lord Thomas Howard, anchored in the bay of Ribeira da Cruz in Flores, that on 9 September 1591 was surprised by 53 ships under Alfonso de Bazán. The English ships were part of a naval patrol intended to intercept Spanish ships from the Americas and were under repair and re-provisioning when the Spanish ships appeared. Five of the English ships slipped out to sea to the west of Corvo, but the Revenge waited for her sick crew, many of whom had an epidemic of fever, to be returned from the shore, then decided to go straight through the approaching Spanish lines from the east. Revenge fought the Spanish ships for fifteen hours, resisting multiple attempts to board her. Her fatally wounded captain eventually ordered her to be scuttled, but her crew instead negotiated an honourable surrender.. The "Battle of Flores", as it was known, culminated in the death of Grenville two days later and the Revenge became the only English ship to be captured during the Elizabethan conflict. However, the ship never reached Spain; it foundered during a storm near Terceira and went down with 200 Spaniards, along with several other Spanish ships.
Despite the isolation, the waters of Flores were frequently raided by pirates. Sir Walter Raleigh, the English privateer, was one of the early profiteers; he captured, after a bitter battle, the Portuguese carrack Madre de Deus laden with tonnes of spices, precious gems, and pearls, equivalent to half the public finances of the English court. Unusual for its time, the Madre de Deus was three times the capacity of a normal English brig, and the pirates towed it to the port of Dartmouth rather than destroying the ship.
The pirate Peter Easton, who commanded a fleet of 40 privateers, made Flores a regular port-of-call, provisioning meat, water and kindling for his travels and supposedly married a daughter of the Captaincy of Flores. Doubly inconvenienced with the damages caused by this pirate's ships and with the complicity of local Florentines, Philip II of Portugal ordered, on July 30, 1611, the necessary means taken to capture Easton. He was never captured, although the local Florentine magistrate and Captain were arrested.
From the 1760s to the early 20th century, American whalers hunted sperm whales in the waters of the Azores, and many of the islands' inhabitants were recruited as whalers. The American whaler, Wanderer, operated off the coast of Flores between 1878 and 1924.
The CSS Alabama, an American Confederate States Navy ship, the most prolific commerce raider in the waters off Flores, was responsible for 69 sinkings in the course of two years beginning in the summer of 1862. Between 5 and 18 September 1862, it was responsible for capturing and setting ablaze the schooner Starlight, along with whalers off the coast of Flores.
The island's isolation has been remedied during the 20th century, first with the installation of telegraph services, then the establishment of Radio-Flores, and later with point-to-point telephone communication. Service between the island and the rest of the archipelago was handled by small sailing ships until the beginning of the century, with ships such as the 36-ton yacht Santa Cruz or 80-ton yacht Flores, until the latter was lost in the bay of Porto Pim, Horta, Faial during a storm.
In July 1962, the French laid the foundations for a missile tracking installation on the island, which was inaugurated in October 1966. In the following years, a hospital, a power station, and an airport were established, which brought a financial upswing to the entire island. After the French left the island in 1994, tourism became the island's dominant industry.

Geography

Flores, along with the island of Corvo, is situated on the North American Continental Plate of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and belongs to the western group of islands in the Azores archipelago. Geomorphologically, the island is composed of two units:
  • The Central Massif, in the central plain, has many maar structures with lake-filled craters in the adjacent lands;
  • The Coastal Periphery includes the coastal zones, cliffs, and ancient beaches, as well as the coastal shelf.
The island developed initially from a submarine volcano from the Pleistocene epoch that constructed small calderas and numerous pyroclastic cones. Following a long period of quiescence beginning about 200,000 years ago, several young phreatomagmatic craters and associated lava flows erupted during the Holocene epoch, including two about 3000 years ago. The Funda de Lajes tuff ring, formed about 3150 years ago, accompanied by a lava flow that traveled toward the southeast reach the area of Lajes. The Caldeira Comprida tuff ring in Caldeira Seca later, about 2900 years ago, producing a lava flow that traveled towards the region of Fajã Grande.
Azevedo et al. divides the lavas and deposits into two major volcanic complexes:
  • The Basal Volcanic Complex, which includes products and deposits of both submarine and subaerial volcanism, formed by pyroclastic deposits and inter-bedded flows of alkali basalts.
  • The Upper Volcanic Complex represents the main sub-aerial activity composed of three main stratigraphic units, including basaltic to trachytic flows with interbedded pyroclastic deposits in the first two layers, and a more recent unit of exclusively pyroclastic deposits.
During the summer, the island is covered with hydrangeas, which have large blue or pink flowers; this is the origin of the island's name.
The island has deep valleys and high peaks; Morro Alto is the highest place on the island, reaching an altitude of 914 metres, while Pico da Burrinha, Pico dos Sete Pés and Marcela are other peaks on the island. Flores has several inactive volcanoes; Caldeira Funda last erupted in 1200 BCE, and Caldeira Comprida in 950 BCE. In many situations where water collected in volcanic calderas, lakes formed: there are seven of these lakes on the island. The Águas Quentes are small hot springs of boiling sulfurous water located in Costa do Lajedo. The hike to reach them can be difficult. The Gruta de Enxaréus is an enormous cavern, about 50 metres long and 25 metres wide.

Environment

Ecoregions/protected areas

, in the municipality of Lajes das Flores, is a typical Azorean village that includes ruins of watermills. Nearby are several waterfalls which flow into the Ribeira Grande.
On May 27, 2009, Flores was chosen as one of the several areas to be included on the UNESCO list of World Network of Biosphere Reserves at the Man and the Biosphere Programme meeting held in Jeju, South Korea, along with the islands of Graciosa and Corvo. The program targets the ecological, social and economic dimensions of biodiversity loss and the reduction of this loss. It uses its World Network of Biosphere Reserves as vehicles for knowledge sharing, research and monitoring, education and training, and participatory decision-making with local communities.
On 13 October 2010, the Regional Secretary for Environment and Ocean declared that the Rocha dos Bordões would be given a regional monument designation as part of an overall plan of integrating the Flores Nature Park. The park is formed from the central plateau, descends in the northern coast and along the southern coast from Morro Alto, including the many lakes, ending at the Rocha dos Bordões. In the government's decision, the regional secretary included an area "especially rich in peat and humid zone vegetation" together with the geological formation of the Rocha dos Bordões.