[3] By 2 July 1439, a royal charter from Infante D. Pedro, regent of D. Afonso V, referred to the fact that Prince Henry the Navigator had ordered that sheep be set ashore along the seven islands of the Azores (since Corvo and Flores had, at the time, not been discovered).

[3] São Miguel and Santa Maria were the first islands to be settled by families from Estremadura, Alto Alentejo and Algarve, facilitated by Gonçalo Velho, then first donatary-captain of the Azores.

Gonçalo Velho Cabral, nobleman in the House of the Infante D. Henrique (Henry the Navigator) and commander in the Order of Christ, arrived on the island of Santa Maria in 1432.

[3] Quental's colony was established along the south coast along an escarpment overlooking a small bay that afforded protection for ships: what would become known as the Vila do Porto (town of the port).

Nascently a coastal municipality, the settlements are nonetheless located over a cliff-top platform, dominated in the west by a semi-arid plain and in the east by the hugged flanks of the Pico Alto mountainous ridge.