The sea for us is the connection to the world
On a Friday evening in Madeira, PortoBay Group chairman António Trindade invited his audience to look unflinchingly at the island's past — not the postcard version, but the one shaped by hunger, illiteracy, and the ache of uncertain departures. Speaking at TEDxMadeira Salon, he argued that emigration was never an episode in Madeira's history but its very architecture, a force that built families, economies, and a cosmopolitan identity out of necessity rather than ambition. His reflection reminds us that the places we call home are often constructed from the absences of those who had to leave them.
- Trindade opens a wound the island has long tried to close — the memory of mass emigration driven not by hope but by hunger, poverty, and illiteracy so severe that staying meant suffering.
- The photograph he shows of men crowding the Pontinha road to board ships captures the raw desperation of a generation for whom departure was the only viable act of survival.
- Yet the sea, far from isolating Madeira, wove it into the Atlantic world — through fishing fleets, Shell refineries in Curaçao, and the port of Funchal as a cultural waypoint between Africa and Europe.
- Remittances quietly rewrote the island's landscape, filling coastal villages with refrigerators and automobiles that seemed impossible luxuries, transforming absence into material presence.
- Today Trindade's own grandson lives in Spain — proof that mobility has not disappeared but simply shed its desperation, remaining embedded in Madeiran identity long after the conditions that forged it have changed.
On a Friday evening at TEDxMadeira Salon, António Trindade, chairman of the PortoBay Group, asked his audience to remember the Madeira most of them had tried to leave behind — the island of hunger, desperate departures, and the phrase that haunted a generation: "Goodbye, until I return." Return, he reminded them, was never guaranteed.
For Trindade, emigration is not something that happened to Madeira. It is what made Madeira. The great waves of departure in the twentieth century were not driven by ambition but by necessity — poverty so severe, illiteracy so widespread, that leaving was the only rational act. He showed a photograph of men crowding the Pontinha road, waiting to board ships bound for foreign lands. These were not adventurers. These were people for whom staying meant suffering.
The sea, he argued, was never a barrier for Madeirans — it was a bridge. Young fishermen found work on the high seas. Others signed onto international maritime routes or were recruited to Shell refineries in Curaçao. Many married and fathered children before departure, ensuring the family line would continue even if they did not. The money they sent back transformed coastal villages in ways that seemed impossible for their size — refrigerators, automobiles, architecture shaped by a diaspora scattered across America and Africa.
Funchal's port added another layer. In the 1930s and 1940s, it served as a strategic waypoint on Atlantic routes, where passengers from South Africa paused between the continent they were leaving and the Europe they were entering. Cosmopolitanism and poverty coexisted on the same waterfront.
Today, Trindade's own grandson lives in Spain. The desperation has eased, but the mobility has not. What was forged in hunger and maintained through generations of separation has become something more durable — a way of being in the world that the sea first made possible, and that Madeirans have never entirely set aside.
António Trindade stood before an audience at the TEDxMadeira Salon on a Friday evening and asked them to remember something most of them had tried to forget: the Madeira of hunger and desperate departures. The chairman of the PortoBay Group had come to talk about migration, but not in the abstract way economists or policy makers discuss it. He was talking about his own island's bones.
For Trindade, migration is not a modern phenomenon that Madeira has recently encountered. It is the foundation upon which Madeira itself was built—socially, economically, culturally. The waves of emigration that swept through the archipelago in the twentieth century were not a choice born of ambition. They were born of necessity. "Those of us who are old enough remember what emigration looked like in those days," he said, invoking the phrase that haunted a generation: "Goodbye, until I return." But return was never certain. Many who left never came back.
The sea, Trindade explained, was never a barrier for Madeirans. It was a bridge. While mainlanders often imagined the island as isolated, cut off by water, the people who lived there understood the ocean differently. It connected them to the world. Young men trained in deep-sea fishing found work on the high seas. Others were recruited for the Shell refineries in Curaçao or signed onto international maritime routes that crisscrossed the Atlantic. There was a saying among the fishermen who emigrated: they had two obligations—to go to work and to preserve the species. Many married and fathered children before departure, ensuring the family line would continue even if they did not return.
The money that came back transformed the island in visible ways. Certain coastal towns and villages accumulated refrigerators and automobiles at rates that seemed impossible for their size, all because of remittances flowing back from America, from Africa, from wherever Madeirans had scattered themselves. The Porto do Mar and the waterfront districts bore the marks of this diaspora in their very architecture and commerce.
But the cosmopolitanism that defined Madeira in the 1930s and 1940s came from a different source. The port of Funchal was a strategic waypoint on the Atlantic routes, and on any given day dozens of ships would arrive. Passengers from South Africa made the crossing to Madeira as a kind of cultural transition—a place to adjust between the Africa they were leaving and the Europe they were entering. "We have arrived in Madeira," they would say, and those words carried the weight of a journey's turning point.
Beneath this cosmopolitanism lay a harder reality. Madeira in those decades was marked by poverty so severe it shaped everything. Hunger was common. Illiteracy was widespread. Trindade showed a photograph of the Pontinha road crowded with men waiting to board ships that would take them away to work in foreign lands. These were not adventurers or seekers. These were people for whom staying meant suffering. "Life was very difficult, and that is why people had to emigrate," he said.
Today, migration looks different in Madeira. Trindade himself has a grandson living in Spain—a reminder that mobility remains woven into the fabric of Madeiran families, even if the desperation that once drove it has eased. The contemporary movements of people are not the same as those departures of the past. Yet something persists. The island's relationship with the wider world, forged in hunger and maintained through generations of separation and remittance, has become part of who Madeirans are. The sea still connects them. It always has.
Citas Notables
Those of us who are old enough remember what emigration looked like in those days. Goodbye, until I return. But return was never certain.— António Trindade, PortoBay Group chairman
Life was very difficult, and that is why people had to emigrate.— António Trindade
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
When you say the sea was a bridge rather than a barrier, what did that actually mean for someone living in a fishing village in the 1920s?
It meant that the ocean was your workplace and your pathway. You weren't trapped by it. You learned to read it, to work it, and through it you could reach places that offered survival when your own island could not.
But there's something poignant in that phrase—"Goodbye, until my return." The uncertainty seems to have been built into the departure itself.
Exactly. People left knowing they might never come back. They left wives and children. They left because staying meant watching your family go hungry. The uncertainty wasn't a bug in the system—it was the system.
You mentioned the cosmopolitanism of Funchal in the 1930s and 40s. How did that coexist with the poverty you're describing?
The port created two Madeiras at once. Ships brought wealth, culture, travelers, ideas. But most Madeirans weren't benefiting from that cosmopolitanism. They were watching it pass through while they waited on the dock for their own ship out.
And the remittances—the money coming back—that actually changed the physical landscape?
Yes. You could see it. Refrigerators, cars, better houses in villages that had nothing before. The money that left with the people came back and built things. It was the only way forward.
Does your grandson's move to Spain feel like a continuation of that history, or something entirely different?
It's different in every material way—he has choices, opportunity, security. But the fact that he can leave, that mobility is normal for us, that comes from centuries of our families doing exactly that. The desperation is gone, but the pattern remains.