Donatário

A donatário (Portuguese for "donated" or "endowed [one]"), sometimes anglicized as donatary, was a private person — often a noble — who was granted a considerable piece of land (a donataria) by the Kingdom of Portugal.[1] While the donatário assumed expenses of the settlement and economic development, he also benefited from various judicial and fiscal privileges, while the King maintained certain unalienable rights to safeguard the territorial and political unity of the Kingdom.[3] The transfer of this title to his nephew the Infante Ferdinand, was in keeping with the Lei Mental proclaimed by his brother in 1434, that bound Henry to pass on all lands and goods from the King to legitimate male descendants.[5] After the 16th century the figure of the donatary captain lost its effective governorship in most of the islands of the Azores, with the exception of São Miguel, which was transformed into an honorific post, conferred by the King to people and noble families who he wished to honour.It was through this system that the majority of donatary captaincies fell into the hands of the high nobility of Portugal, who never lived on the islands or had little economic interest in their development.