Horta, officially the Very Loyal City of Horta, is a city in the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores encompassing the island of Faial, being coterminous with the Horta Municipality (). The population in 2011 was 15,038 The city of Horta itself has a population of about 7,000.
Horta's marina is a primary stop for yachts crossing the Atlantic Ocean, and its walls and walkways are covered with paintings created by visitors noting the names of their vessels, crews, and the years they visited. Peter's Cafe Sport is a bar located across from the marina that houses the island's scrimshaw museum, a collection of artifacts carved from whale tooth and jawbone. Peter's is a point of reference for transatlantic yachters and sailors.
The Legislative Assembly of the Azores is located in Horta, making it Azores' legislative capital.
History
15th through 17th centuries
235px|thumb|left|The Bay of Horta showing the main settlement as it appeared in 1589
In 1467 the Flemish nobleman Josse van Huerter returned to Faial on a second expedition, this time disembarking along the shore of what would be known as Horta Bay. He built a small chapel which would later form the nucleus of a small community known as Horta, a name possibly derived from the transliteration of his name. In the Portuguese language the word horta means "orchard," another possible origin of the settlement's name. The infante D. Fernando, Duke of Viseu, granted Huerter the first captaincy of the island on February 2, 1468.
Unlike on other Azorean islands, Flemish peasants and business interests were not the first settlers of Faial. The first Faialense settlers were generally farmers from continental Portugal—particularly northern Portugal—hoping to escape poverty. Huerter eventually cultivated new business opportunities in Flanders, attracting a second wave of Flemish settlers under the stewardship of Willem van der Haegen (later transliterated to Guilherme da Silveira), who brought Flemish administrators, tradesmen, settlers, and other compatriots to settle on Faial.
Huerter's son Joss de Utra (who would become the second Captain-General) and his daughter D. Joana de Macedo (who married Martin Behaim at the Santa Cruz chapel) continued living on Faial long after van Huerter's death. In 1498 King Manuel I of Portugal decreed Horta elevated to the status of vila (town), as its center had grown to the north from the area around the Santa Cruz chapel. The island prospered by exporting wheat and woad-derived dyes.
On June 28, 1514, the parish of Matriz do São Salvador da Horta was constituted and services were begun. In 1567 the cornerstone of what would be the Fort of Santa Cruz was laid. Horta's increasing population compelled the creation of the parishes of Nossa Senhora da Conceição (July 30, 1568) and Nossa Senhora da Angustias (November 28, 1684) by the diocese of Angra. As two nuclei developed around Santa Cruz and Porto Pim, growth also extended around the older Matriz, where the Tower Clock now stands, and the public square, where Alameda Barão de Roches now exists. Public buildings were erected between Rua Visconde Leite Perry and Rua Arriage Nunes and eventually the town hall and court offices moved to the former Jesuit College, after the Jesuits were expelled from Portugal in 1758.
In 1583—during the beginning of the Iberian Union—Spanish soldiers under the command of D. Pedro de Toledo landed in Pasteleiro on Faial's southwestern coast. After skirmishing at the doors of the fort, the Spanish executed Captain of Faial António Guedes de Sousa. Four years later George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland—while commanding a fleet of 13 British ships in the Azores Voyage of 1589—captured a Spanish ship and then plundered Faial's churches and convents, profaning them and destroying reliquaries and crucifixes. The British captured several artillery pieces and set fire to houses within the Fort of Santa Cruz. In 1597 a new British force under Walter Raleigh, second in command to Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, sacked and burned religious buildings and churches in Horta and the neighboring parishes of Flamengos, Feteira, and Praia do Almoxarife. The constant threat of privateers and pirates forced the construction of several forts and lookouts.
In 1643, Horta had about 2579 inhabitants and 610 homes. In 1675 D. Frei Lourenço, Bishop of Angra, authorized the renovation and re-ornamentation of the chapel of Santa Cruz. This work was completed in 1688.
18th and 19th centuries
During the 18th and 19th centuries, Horta was a small town extending along the shoreline. It was peppered by various convents and churches, but little commerce and almost no industry. However, due to its central location in the Azores and Atlantic Ocean, it prospered as a stopover on important commercial routes between Europe and the Americas. For a time Horta was a center of commerce and travel, particularly as a gateway for Azorean orange exports and exports of wine from Pico Island, as well as an important stop for North American whalers, and later as a refueling port for coal-powered ships during their transatlantic passages.
thumb|235px|left|A vista of the village of Horta, Faial from the New Bedford Whaling Museum, c.1842 (Purrington & Russel)
In 1804 John Bass Dabney (1766–1826), the United States Consul General in the Azores, married Roxanne Lewis and moved to a home in Horta. After being forced to scuttle his ship, Reid formally protested the ship's destruction in a neutral port, criticizing Portuguese incapacity to defend their own waters.
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Human geography
Three parishes comprise the urban area of the city of Horta (the urbanized area and historical center): Angústias, Conceição, and Matriz. The remaining parishes comprising the rest of the municipality are located along the Regional E.R.1-1ª road network, and includes lands from the ocean to the central volcano (with the exception of Flamengos, which is the only landlocked parish). Faial Island, comprising Horta's urbanized area and the parishes, has an area of
thumb|right|235px|Horta and its marina from Monte da Guia
thumb|235px|right|The centre of Horta, with a view that includes the Câmara Municipal (left foreground) and [[Convent of Carmo (Horta)|Carmo Church (right background)]]
From Espalamaca or Monte da Guia, the city of Horta is typical of insular Portuguese coastal communities and the urban traditions of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The city is seaward looking, much like Angra do Heroísmo or Velas. It is rounded by several volcanic cones located to its southern and eastern margins, the most prominent being Monte da Guaia, Monte do Carneiro, and Monte Escuro. Horta is centered along its principal avenue—referred to as either Avenida Marginal or Avenida D. Infante Henriques—and cut by several smaller roads. The city's historical center lies to the north near Espalamaca, with a grouping of north–south and east–west roads developed during initial colonization. The population of Horta's urban center during the first decade of the 21st century was about 7,000.
- New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States
- Fremont, California, United States
- Santa Cruz, Madeira, Portugal
Economy
thumb|right|170px|The pier and seawalls in Horta Harbor and Marina are covered with the "calling cards" of visiting yachts.
thumb|right|170px|An example of one of the murals painted on the Marina seawall, showing the ensign of the [[Royal Maritime Auxiliary Service]]
Due to its central position in the Triangle of islands in the Azores's Central Group, Horta has been the focus of economic activity on Faial. It was the staging and export centre for many of the economic cycles of the region: the export of woad-derived dyes, oranges, whale oil, and Pico-grown Verdelho wines historically built Faial's economy. Many of the landed gentry concentrated their shops, production facilities, and homes in the city, while agricultural goods were shipped to the city before being sent on to Europe or North America. For a long time, the island of Pico was an exclave of Horta with summer homes, agricultural parcels, and herds owned by residents of Faial, until its emancipation on 8 March 1723.
After the failure of the economic cycles through boom-and-bust economies (brought on by weather, plant disease, or market deviation), the city of Horta became a staging point for transatlantic shipment firstly for whaling fleets, and later for the submarine cable companies that laid communication lines between Europe and North America. These spurts of growth concentrated the population and political and economic classes within Horta, and economic activities on Faial.
Horta today is polarized between the same dichotomy that existed between the hinter- and heartlands, with most primary economic activities (agricultural mostly) dispersed into the parishes, while the secondary and tertiary activities are concentrated in the three main parishes (Angústias, Conceição and Matriz). In addition, the prosperity of the early 20th century, concentrated on the transatlantic traffic, has developed into a tourist-oriented economy concentrated on the architecture, geographic, leisure, and sociocultural aspects of the island. This includes sightseeing tours and whale-watching expeditions departing from the city, the arrival of semi-weekly cruise ships during the summer, and cultural festivals that unite local residents and visitors throughout the year.
Transportation
thumb|Aerial view of the port of Horta
The island is circled by the Regional E.R.1-1ª roadway which directly connects all parish centres (except Flamengos) with the city Horta. Apart from personal vehicles, a bus system provides daily access to the city from the outer parishes.
The centre of most activity in the municipality is Horta's port and passenger terminal which, until 28 July 2012, was located south of the Fort of Santa Cruz in the parish of Angustias. The passenger ferries operated by Transmaçor (the Cruzeiro do Canal and Cruzeiro da Ilha) provided passenger service to and from the island of Pico (Madalena), while Atlânticoline (using contracted ships) provided inter-island service to the remaining islands from the main dock across the harbour. On 28 July 2012, a new passenger ferry and dock was inaugurated across the harbour at the mouth of the Ribeira da Conceição across from the old District Courthouse. A €33 million project, the dock was started in 2009, and resulted in a long wharf, with a long by wide usable docking space containing two ramps for roll-on/roll-off operation, with the express purpose of supporting passenger traffic within the triangle islands of the central Azores.
Mark Twain visited Horta in June 1867 near the beginning of a long pleasure excursion to Jerusalem. He described his visit with acerbic commentary on the people and culture of Horta in his semi-autobiographical book The Innocents Abroad. In the book Twain compliments Horta's physical appearance:
:"The town has eight thousand to ten thousand inhabitants. Its snow-white houses nestle cosily in a sea of fresh green vegetation, and no village could look prettier or more attractive. It sits in the lap of an amphitheatre of hills which are three hundred to seven hundred feet high, and carefully cultivated clear to their summits - not a foot of soil left idle."
However, Twain painted a less complimentary picture of the inhabitants of Horta and Faial at the time:
:"The group on the pier was a rusty one — men and women, and boys and girls, all ragged, and barefoot, uncombed and unclean, and by instinct, education, and profession, beggars. They trooped after us, and never more, while we tarried in Fayal, did we get rid of them. We walked up the middle of the principal street, and these vermin surrounded us on all sides, and glared upon us; and every moment excited couples shot ahead of the procession to get a good look back, just as village boys do when they accompany the elephant on his advertising trip from street to street."
:"The community is eminently Portuguese — that is to say, it is slow, poor, shiftless, sleepy, and lazy. There is a civil governor, appointed by the King of Portugal; and also a military governor, who can assume supreme control and suspend the civil government at his pleasure. [...] there is one assistant superintendent to feed the mill and a general superintendent to stand by and keep him from going to sleep...There is not a wheelbarrow in the land [...] There is not a modern plow in the islands, or a threshing-machine. All attempts to introduce them have failed. The good Catholic Portuguese crossed himself and prayed God to shield him from all blasphemous desire to know more than his father did before him. [...] The people lie, and cheat the stranger, and are desperately ignorant, and have hardly any reverence for their dead. The latter trait shows how little better they are than the donkeys they eat and sleep with."
Joshua Slocum, sailing the sloop Spray, stopped in Horta on the first leg of his solo global circumnavigation, which he chronicled in his 1899 book Sailing Alone Around the World. Jules Verne mentioned Horta in his fictional tales.
In works by Portuguese writers Vitorino Nemésio (O Corsário das Ilhas) and Raul Brandão (As ilhas Desconhecidas), Faial is a focus of the story.
Notable citizens
- Manuel de Arriaga (1840-1917), the first President of Portugal
- Maria Branco (1842–1887), Azorean midwife from Horta for the Dabney family
- Euclides Rosa (Horta, Azores; c.1910 - São Paulo, Brazil c. 1979), engineer and artist, who worked for one of the early telegraph cable companies at the turn of the century, until 1946, when he abandoned his job to become an artist. Recognized as the Mestre do "Miolo de Figueira" (Master of Fig Tree Pith) he was acclaimed for his complex and elaborate sculptures of pith/wood, with a permanent collection in the Museum of Horta (donated in 1980).