The viola and other string instruments were brought during the Portuguese maritime expansion to the Azores, Madeira, Cape Verde, Brazil and other locales, becoming common in the populations.
[1] Due to its importance in Portuguese music it likely arrived in Angola, Goa and Macau, and as far as Hawaii by the 19th century, where it became the forerunner of the ukulele.
[1] These early cordophones, the violas, had characteristics identical to the modern instruments, and great importance along the Iberian Peninsula, where it appeared in iconography, poems and diverse literature.
[1] The chronicler Gaspar Frutuoso, who identified it as just a "Viola", suggested that it first arrived in the Azores in the second half of the 19th century, brought the first settlers.
[4] The Azorean viola was the privilege of the nobility and wealthy people, creating strong roots in local culture, becoming party of the grooms marriage dowry in most cases.