The History of Chumbaria as we know it, but first a brief history of Portugal…
Portugal has a rich and diverse history that spans centuries, dating back to the time of the Roman Empire. The region that is now Portugal was inhabited by various Celtic and Iberian tribes before it was integrated into the Roman Republic in the 2nd century BC. Over the centuries, the area experienced invasions and occupations by various groups, including the Visigoths and the Moors. In the 12th century, Portugal emerged as an independent kingdom under the leadership of Afonso I, also known as Afonso Henriques. This marked the beginning of the Portuguese monarchy, which would last for nearly 800 years. During this period, Portugal expanded its territory through a combination of military conquest and exploration, becoming a major maritime and colonial power. One important aspect of Portugal’s history is its role in the Age of Discovery. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Portuguese explorers such as Vasco da Gama and Ferdinand Magellan played a significant role in establishing European trade routes to Asia, Africa, and the Americas. This period of exploration and colonization brought great wealth and influence to Portugal, particularly through the establishment of trade posts and colonies in places like Brazil, Africa, India, and Southeast Asia.
Until 1900, Portugal experienced significant political and social changes. The late 19th century saw the rise of the Republican movement, which sought to overthrow the monarchy and establish a republic. This period was marked by political instability, economic challenges, and social unrest. In 1910, a revolution led to the establishment of the Portuguese First Republic, effectively ending the monarchy. During this time, Portugal also faced challenges in maintaining its colonial empire, particularly in Africa. The Scramble for Africa and conflicts with other European powers led to tensions and military engagements in various African territories controlled by Portugal. These struggles would continue well into the 20th century, ultimately shaping Portugal’s colonial policies and its relationship with its overseas territories.
In conclusion, the history of Portugal is a complex tapestry of political, economic, and cultural developments. The country’s role in the Age of Discovery, its colonial expansion, and its internal political transformations have all contributed to shaping the Portugal we know today.
Local History
The regions of Colmeias e Memória, and Chumbaria, while not as widely recognized on the international stage, have their own unique stories that reflect the broader themes of Portuguese history. Chumbaria is located in the district of Colmeias (Beehives in English) and has its own unique history within the larger context of this country. Colmeias is a civil parish in the municipality of Leiria, historically known for its agricultural and rural heritage, and has been shaped by its agricultural traditions and local commerce.
The parish of Colmeias has existed since the Neolithic period as several remains have been found, such as fragments of coarse paste pottery, manufactured manually, flint objects and several polished stone axes. Throughout the Leiria region, and even more specifically through Collippo, a secondary branch of the important Roman road passed between Olissipo (Lisbon) and Bracara Augusta (Braga). It is likely that the road was not far from Chumbaria and that there would have been a Roman settlement nearby. The existing terracing or steps in the land would have been created by the Romans. Portugal was a very fertile land and produce grown here would have been sent back to feed the Empire.
The parish of Colmeias dates back to its foundation in 1189, and there is no doubt that its name originates from the swarms of bees that formerly existed in large quantities in this region, the name Colmeias comes from «Colmenas» found an official document from 1128, that is, before Portuguese nationality was officially founded, which would only happen on October 5, 1143. Chumbaria is mentioned in a document from 1444 and it is referred to in several documents, which you can see in volume 2 of the book Colmeias, a Secular Community. The book also documents “1512 December 2 when Afonso Esteves and his wife Maria Goncalves sold for 1,500 reais, to the remaining children of Silvestre Anes, residents of Chumbaria, the portion of land they had inherited upon the death of the seller’s grandfather”
More is known about the history of Chumbaria from 1885 when O Senhor Manuel Raimundo – nickname Tio Mouco – was born here and lived here until he died in 1975. Mouco was an astute businessman and resin entrepreneur and became a very wealthy man. He was small in stature but with a big personality. He was well known for his miserly, penny pinching ways and kept his money under his hat. We have been lucky enough to hear stories directly from people in our local community with first hand experiences of Tio Mouco. Most people say he was a miserable scrooge! We’ve heard that he didn’t use soap to save money, amongst other things. However, we have also heard of acts of kindness. At the end of the page you will find a document written by a local man all about Tio Mouco, with some funny stories and a lot of authentic information.
During Tio Mouco’s time here, the village of Chumbaria comprised 14 houses for people and 8 barns for a variety of uses from housing animals to storing olive oil. He owned many farms between Chumbaria and Porto and this part of the village became the processing centre for produce from all of his farms. He had a housekeeper, whose name was Rosa, she was an unmarried woman with 2 daughters who went on to work here. He also took in his god-daughter Rosária when she was orphaned in 1917, she went on to become the main goat herder. There were maids and farm workers who lived and worked here, they slept in the hay barn. During busy harvest times he would employ outside help and we have been told that at times, there could be 40 people working here, walking up to 15 km from local villages, they would also sleep in the hay barn!
Tio Mouco had a house that was very elaborate for the time, with a wood panelled reception room and 2 bedrooms. His office was across the road, where he conducted the business of the village and his other businesses. Tio Mouco also produced a lot of olives from his vast olive groves and had 3 olive mills in neighbouring villages, to produce high quality olive oil. His vineyards produced grapes for wine and he sold many barrels every year. The land was fertile so he also grew a lot of maize and we still have the original threshing circles (eira in Portuguese) which is a flat round space where the cereals were threshed and sieved after being harvested, in order to separate the straw and other debris from the cereal grains. At the end of the harvest, all the villagers would celebrate on the eira with wine, food, music and dancing. Tio Mouco had 6 oxen to work on the land and pull the cartloads of his produce, which is a clear indication of his great wealth at the time. There was a herd of 100 goats, which he would take to drink at the village pond and get into trouble with his neighbours for the damage they caused. The goats provided a valuable source of meat, cheese and milk. He had a lot of pigs, rabbits, chickens, other poultry and calves. Chumbaria was pretty self sufficient, which is what we are aiming for but in a different way!
Not only was Tio Mouco a good agricultural farmer, he was also one of the top producers in the resin industry. We have been told that the whole of this valley was covered by a vast pine forest, with 10,000 to 30,000 trees. Resin had a big economic importance in this district. In those days all pine trees large enough to be bled for their sap were visited by resin harvesters who, despite the conditions being generally difficult, particularly due to the steep slope of the land, carried out the hard work of collecting the resin. A lot of the workers were women and they would work with a can, knife, iron and spatula. Once the resin cans were full, the resin went into a barrel that was stored in a barn and then loaded in carts pulled by oxen and in later years, by truck.
Pine trees have been present in Portugal for at least 33 thousand years, especially in central and coastal regions. Pine products have acquired important economic and social weight in the country’s history. Through the exploration and processing of pine/resin, several industrial activities emerged that boosted, above all, the economic development of rural regions. Resin harvesting consists of extracting the sap from the pine tree, through longitudinal incisions in the trunk. Resin techniques evolved over the years because farmers were worried about the damage to the trees/potential lumber. With the exponential increase of the sector after the First World War, they used the French style; it is possible to make less deep cuts, with a spout to collect the resin at the bottom. This increased productivity and reduced wood waste. In the mid 1950’s the Forestry Services introduced the American style. We have found a number of terracotta resin cups at Chumbaria. After being collected, the resin was sent to primary processing factories, where it underwent distillation, from which pitch and turpentine are extracted. In turn, these raw materials were exported and transformed into more improved chemical industries making a diverse range of products.
Pine trees can grow in sandy and arid environments, so conditions here are ideal. The trunks of young pines can be used in many different construction projects as well as providing a source of fuel, making it a very versatile wood. The pine cones of the trees, pine nuts and seeds can be used for new sowing, as well as providing a source of food and also producing oil used in painting when ground and squeezed. Pine sap can be used in its natural form, it has antiseptic qualities and once it is turned into turpentine through a process of distillation it can be used in paint and varnishes, in stationery, soap, for pitch and to lubricate vehicles and machinery and many more diverse ways. Although we know that the origins of resin production in this district date back to the 19th century, it was during the 20th century that it became more assertive with resin factories built in many different parts of the district. Among the main resin businessmen Tio Mouco stood out for his knowledge of the industry, he had a resin factory in a nearby village and also further north in Viseu. In 1946 the 7 resin factories in this district had the capacity to prepare the natural resin, producing about 3,000,000 kilos, which once prepared yielded around 10,000 kilos for export. The resin producers were not only very successful and wealthy businessmen, they created numerous jobs and fed entire families. They had a huge economic impact locally, nationally and internationally. Pine trees and resin have always been an integral and important part of the history of Chumbaria and in its heyday it was known as ‘The Kingdom’ because of its wealth and impact on not only the local economy but also on a global scale.
The following was written by a local man O Senhor Celso Santos and is an anecdotal account of Tio Mouco and Chumbaria, it makes for a very interesting read and is full of information. We are very grateful that he has shared it with us. We would also like to thank O Senhor Joaquim Santos, a local historian for his help with the history of resin production.
Manuel Raimundo, Mouco da Chumbaria 1885 – 1975
Manuel Raimundo, better known by his nickname “Mouco da Chumbaria”, was a native of the parish of Colmeias. Born in Chumbaria on 31 August 1885, he was the son of Manuel Francisco Mouco and Rosária de Jesus. Most of this story was told to me by a certain Adriano Correia, a native of Bodiosa, Viseu who, at Mouco’s invitation, and with the promise of “worlds and funds”, came to Chumbaria at the age of 6 and stayed there until he was 29, working for food, a servant who did all the work without pay. He said that after 23 years of service he didn’t want to leave with one hand in front of him and the other behind him, thinking he was entitled to a reward. That’s why he had to take this Raimundo to court, since he couldn’t get anything out of him. He was awarded a payment, but it wasn’t very much.
This Mouco was a very wealthy man. From a very young age, he gained business savvy and amassed properties, not always transparently obtained. Some even say that he managed to divert some of his nephews’ assets to himself. He then filled himself with large plots of land, vineyards, oak forests and many olive groves. But it was the pine forests that were his strong suit. He was very suspicious and overly thrifty. He had no problem getting sick to save a few pennies and didn’t mind walking around smelling bad so as not to waste soap. He was very well known in this local area and it was common for the locals to say: “here he’s from Carapuças, there he’s from Carpuças, over there he’s from Carpuças…”. They said this because of the traditional black farmers hat (carapuca) that he always wore and where he kept his money.
In order to quickly recoup the money invested, albeit perversely, Mouco tried the following scam: on a shipment to Porto, he added a few kilos of sand to each barrel of pitch and a few litres of water to each canister of turpentine. When the goods arrived at their destination, they were analysed, the scam was discovered and the cargo was returned to its source. The police also arrived and closed the gates and sealed off the factory. Production stopped and the stalemate continued for some time. He went round and round in his head until someone he trusted gave him this “shining” piece of advice: “Raimundo, you know Salazar’s pine forests, you’re his personal friend, go and talk to him in Santa Comba Dão!… “And so it was, he accepted his friend’s advice.
As he didn’t want to spend any money on the journey, he walked from Bodiosa to Santa Comba Dão, along the railway, some 30 or 40 kilometres. When he arrived, the guard didn’t want to let him in, but someone shouted from inside: “Let him in, he’s a friend of the house!” He went in and told Salazar’s father everything, how and why the factory had been closed. “I’m going to the office to talk to my son”. It coincided with Salazar’s (son’s) presence at his father’s house. Salazar then wrote two letters for Mouco to deliver to Viseu, when he got to the factory it was already open and the police had left. From then on, production started at full speed. On that occasion he said to Adriano: “I’m pleased, if I could have pushed the train to come faster, I would have done it”.
The factory was making big profits when he thought of inviting two nephews from Bouça, surnamed Parreira, to help with the administration. But from then on the factory began to make a loss. Suspicious that his nephews were cheating him, he ran them out of the factory. According to Adriano, these Parreiras got married in Bodiosa and stayed there forever. To thank Salazar for saving him from this problem, Mouco bought a barrel with a capacity of 40 litres, filled it with his best olive oil and sent it to him. It was later learnt that Salazar took the oil to Lisbon. Salazar was the President of the Council (Prime Minister).
One day Mouco put a pot of beans on the hob and went to the railway station to buy the newspaper. He came home, started leafing through it and saw a news item that interested him, about the sale of a farm at public auction in the Avintes area of Vila Nova de Gaia. He let the beans finish cooking, ate them and took out 40 contos, which he stuffed in his hat. He put on his work boots, put on a waistcoat that was already dirty and didn’t wait any longer. So, barely dressed, he boarded the train bound for the farm. When he arrived, he asked: “How much is this thing?” The person in charge of it said: “It’s at 10 contos”. Meanwhile a doctor offered 15 contos. Mouco asked: “Can I see the farm?” They walked round the farm from one end to the other. He saw it and said: “A farm like this just for this? It’s worth 200 contos to me”. The interested parties became suspicious and certainly thought: “How can someone dressed like that have the money to pay what he’s offering?”. Mouco pulled off his hat, took out the 40 contos and said: “This is it and tomorrow I’ll be here with another 100 contos and when the deed is signed I’ll pay the rest”. He never got rid of this farm. According to Adriano, he also had another quinta on the other side of the river Douro, but I don’t know anything about this, I can’t confirm it.
But let’s move on to Chumbaria. This was his habitual residence, as well as a large agricultural world on the move. It was normal for there to always be three servants and a few maids, including Rosa, a single mother of two daughters who also lived there. This Rosa was convinced that sooner or later she would marry Mouco and so she became jealous and bossy. There were always three yokes of oxen for the work, and it was also normal for there to be a herd of goats of around 100 head, which provided plenty of meat, milk and cheese. There were cattle, pigs, calves, chickens and rabbits. In good years, the vineyards produced more than 200 litres of wine and the olive groves produced many measures of olives. That being the case, olive oil would naturally be plentiful. He even had three olive oil mills working at the same time, in Meirinhas, Bouça and Crasto. It seems that the one in Bouça was powered by water. At olive-growing time, a ‘medura’ a day went out to the Crasto mill, just from his olive groves. In his pine forests, Adriano told me, in the last year he counted there were as many as 15,000 shoots, but there were times when there were more than twice as many. You could see the immensity of his pine forests from far and wide.
Below I’ll tell you a few caricatured episodes, which are real, almost daily anecdotes that made Mouco da Chumbaria a miserable rich man. It so happened that in a poor agricultural year the vineyards only produced 100 ‘almudes’ of wine (2000 litres) The order was clear: only on Sundays was there a right to a glass of wine, on the other days of the week Mouco himself drank water to set an example, but the servants thought otherwise. They found a daughter-in-law’s gourd and tied a string to it, then lowered it into a vat and carried it into the hayloft full of wine, drank it and hid it under the straw. One day Mouco took his pitchfork and went round the haystack, unexpectedly he stabbed it and wine gushed out onto the floor. Surprised, he called out to Rosa: “Rosa, get a bowl to strain this wine, these servants are cheating me”. In the evening, when the servants returned from the field, the maid said to them: “You’re well arranged… he found the wine…”. The next day, Mouco went to Leiria to buy a padlock to lock the vats and the servants went a long time without seeing the colour of the wine.
On another occasion, he ordered a servant to repair the manger for the oxen and gave him a handful of rusty nails. In the meantime, the servant dropped a nail in the straw and said: “Adriano, go and get two oil lamps to see if we can find the nail. They removed all the straw, cleaned up the manure in the stable and couldn’t find the nail. Then Mouco, irritated, said to the man who was repairing the manger: “Listen, aren’t you looking for the nail?”, he replied “Mr Raimundo, leave the nail alone, it’s old and rusty too…” Mouco, annoyed, said: “No … damn it … a nail is a nail!!!”.
At the time of the pig slaughter, the order was the same as every year: as long as there’s black pudding broth, no one will eat anything else. But one year the servants got sick of the broth and went on strike. They stood outside the hayloft and wouldn’t go out into the fields. Mouco saw them standing there, it was late, and asked them: “What are you doing there at this hour?” – They replied: “As long as the broth doesn’t change, there’s no work for anyone either”. After a few minutes, he saw that they were still there and shouted at the maid: “Rosa… cook a pot of fava beans with pasta and fill these workers’ bellies, because they don’t want to do anything”.
But it wasn’t all bad, there were even hints of charity. At times of the year when there was little work, he would let some of the poorer people hang around and do a little something in exchange for a few crumbs. He also never denied alms to a beggar, he almost always gave 10 pennies, but what he did give was immediately entered as an expense. He did his own writing, carrying paper and pencils every day to make notes on everything.
One day Manuel Carpalhoso from Colmeias turned up at Chumbaria. He was in trouble and needed a guarantor. So he asked Mouco if he could be a guarantor. The answer was yes, “I can, sir”, and he asked: “What is the amount to be guaranteed? – It’s 800 contos,” said Carpalhoso, “even if it were 10,000 contos,” said Mouco, and finished by saying, “be in Leiria at 9am tomorrow by the bank”. And so it happened. The bank manager asked: “Who’s the guarantor? – Manuel Carpalhoso pointed to Raimundo – yes, he’ll do just fine,” replied the banker. Many of Mouco’s deals might not have been transparent, but he had the banks’ trust.
After more than 30 years as a widower, he was “deceived” by a lady from Albergaria dos Doze, whom he would marry as a widow and mother of two. On the day of his wedding, Mouco gathered the staff of the Chumbaria and told them: “Look after all this, I’m going to be absent for three days. They later learnt that the wedding took place in Fatima and that the best man was the priest who was in Albergaria at the time. After getting married, he travelled back and forth in his own car, sometimes to Albergaria and sometimes to Chumbaria. This marriage certainly wasn’t for love, so it’s easy for everyone to draw their own conclusions. At the age of 86, and contrary to what he used to say – that half his fortune would go to his nephews in Bouça and the other to his stepchildren in Albergaria – he became ill and under pressure from those around him, ended up signing a will dated 4 April 1971 stating that his heir was the son of his now (at the time) wife, an engineer named Manuel. This left him with many free pine forests for his wood sawmills, a veritable “gold mine”. But the saddest thing was the felling of dozens and dozens of large oak trees, true natural majesties hundreds of years old. Everything was cut down and sold for shipbuilding. It was a major ecological attack on the parish of Colmeias. On the site of the oak trees there is now a sea of eucalyptus trees.
Mouco da Chumbaria died on 11 May 1975. On the day of his funeral, when the funeral procession was nearing the cemetery, the hearse suddenly burst into flames and was immobilised at the side of the road, the urn carrying it the rest of the way. This episode prompted someone to make this ironic comment, off the cuff. “Mouco got to hell faster than he got to the cemetery”. He was buried in the Albergaria dos Doze cemetery.
After a while the heir, who wasn’t an heir, invited Adriano to go back to Chumbaria to make amends. Adriano went and stayed there for another seven years. But there was a “night of terror”. He told me that he heard Mouco’s clogs clacking around the house and at that moment he cried out in fear and anger: “You thief! You’re already dead and you’re still out there…”. He immediately left the place for good. All this heritage has passed from one hand to another, and now belongs (at the time) to someone from Monte Redondo.
On a recent (2003) visit to Chumbaria, I felt enveloped in something akin to a longing of silence, peace of mind… the hill has its beauties and the landscape on the horizon is breathtaking. Only the whole complex that used to belong to Mouco stands out, where I could still see the signs of the great upheaval of the past contrasting with the present. I saw the threshing floor and the granary, the olive oil house where dozens of large oil jars once stood. I could still smell the distant odour of rancid olives in the air. I also saw the corral for the working oxen and some pens for raising pigs and calves. I also saw the alembic house, the hayloft where the servants slept, the cellar with the sign of the fermentation tank, space for many barrels, three large vats made of reinforced concrete and iron, one already destroyed, the other in the process of being destroyed. Only one was intact and you could still see the date of construction,1951.
The house of Mouco had two modules separated by the road. On the west side there was an office and two bedrooms. The east side was a luxury for the time: a large living room decorated with wooden panelling all round, a large kitchen with a large fireplace and two bedrooms. The whole complex is in an advanced state of ruin. This is how all those who, in the midst of their earthly rust, end up without honour and without anything, think they are on the heights of a full life. “He enslaved his childhood to gather wealth but in the end only sadness was left from so much greed. That life of savings ended up in strange hands and nothing went into the bowels for the eternal feast. The empire fell and in its collapse, the wide-open house was left without what was its own.” Author Celso Santos
The village remained abandoned until 2017 when a British couple bought Chumbaria and restored the first of the houses, they sold it to us in 2019 and we have remained good friends ever since. We are proud to have become part of the rich history of the village and hope that we can create a ‘Kingdom’ of wealth again, just not in the same way as Tio Mouco! For us, the wealth of this very special place lies in its sense of community and connection with nature.
