Message #244630

[Corissa]

Re-Discovery

The exact date of re-discovery is unknown, though historic accounts indicate that the islands of Santa Maria and São Miguel were the first to be discovered by the Portuguese navigator Diogo de Silves around 1427. On August 15, 1432, Gonçalo Velho Cabral, with a dozen crew members on a small sailing vessel, disembarked on Santa Maria, naming after the fact that it was Assumption of Our Lady.

The Islands were named the Azores, or "Goshawks" by the Portuguese for the number of hawks and falcons found there.[1]

The colonization of the then-unoccupied islands started in 1439 with the village "Praia dos Lobos" being founded along the "Ribeira do Capitão" (Captain's Stream). Later, a few families came from the continental provinces of Algarve and Alentejo after Gonçalo Velho's nephew and heir, João Soares de Albergaria, advertising ton them. In the following centuries settlers from other European countries arrived, most notably from Northern France and Flanders.