Espaços ardidos e o espantoso comportamento demográfico da gente que lá medrou (séculos XVII a XX)

Abstract

Using Maps of Owners, published by the National Press, in the 1880s, for use in the Finance Departments referred to each parish and based on the land matrices, we compared the taxable income on the four islands of the former district of Horta. We calculated the taxable income per inhabitant and parish, observing that the parish of the poorest people was that of Santa Luzia, in the burnt space of Pico. With a substantially identical population, the richest parish was, in Flores, that of Ponta Delgada. We developed comparative analyzes of demographic behaviors between these parishes in the 17th and 20th centuries, with an incidence in the 18th and 19th centuries. In a close-to-natural fertility situation, we found a parallel population evolution, with differences in nuptiality and mortality. In the generations born between the end of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th, the life expectancy of the natives of the poorest parish was 10 years longer than those of the richest parish.