Captain-General of the Azores

A Captaincy-General of the Azores (1766—1832) was a politico-administrative structure of governance imposed in the Azores on 2 August 1766, with its seat in Angra. It remained the de facto system of governance for 65 years, until it was abolished on 4 June 1832 by D. Peter IV, but by 1828 its de jure status had made it nonoperational, owing to the revolutionary movements that lead to the Liberal Wars. The creation of the Captaincy-General was part of the Pombaline reforms to the Portuguese administration, during the reign of Joseph I, under the initiatives of Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, the Marquess of Pombal, then prime minister. A Captaincy-General operated from the Palace of the Captains-General, under the direction of the titular Captain-General, who operated as the Governor of the Azores, with additional jurisdiction on every island of the Azorean archipelago. The Captaincy-General was succeeded by the Province of the Azores, an ephemeral administrative structure that was collapse in the immediate years.

The settlement of the Azores coalesced in the second half of the 15th century, in a late medieval context, that translated into the establishment of a governing structure based on the signeur system. Effective governorship of each island was confided in a donatary, and his subordinates, the donatary-captains, resulting in a patchwork of development. Living far from direct power, the donatary-captains functioned with individual vice-regal rights, that allowed them to operate as local kings. But, parallel with this system, evolved the traditional Portuguese municipal model, wherein the islands were structured into municipalities, where the municipal organs assumed a great deal of the local governance.

Royal power, until this time was represented in the Corregedor, that traveled between the islands correcting, verifying and resolving issues associated with municipal laws and conflicts with the Donatary-captains. Spiritual power, was bestowed in the Order of Christ, and later in the Archdiocese of Funchal, before passing to the Bishopric of Angra after 1534.

...
Wikipedia