HISTORICAL CHRONOLOGICAL TIMELINE

1420 Madeira is discovered
1838 Dr Kalley arrives in Madeira
October 1839 Dr Kalley opens a hospital at his own expense
1839-1845 Evening school was instituted for adults to learn the Bible(ca. 2500 people were estimated to have attended these evening school events)
1840 -1841 Interest in Dr Kalley’s teachings increases on the island
1841 Lisbon became interested in what was going on and sent an order to the Bishop Elect of Madeira to stop Dr. Kalley’s “exposition of the scriptures” or to hand him over to Civil authorities.
27 April 1843 Sebastio Cazemiro Medinna e Vas wrote a letter to all clergy but specifically addressed to the Bishop Don Januaro Vicente Comacho regarding those who should be excommunicated
April 1843 Dr. Kalley commanded by the Governor in the Queen’s name to abstain from speaking to Portuguese subjects on religious topics either in his house or out of it. But as Dr. K saw it as “arbitrary” and unsanctioned by law and “in direct violation of the charter of Portugal” it was disregarded.
14 July 1843 Dr Kalley was imprisoned and sentenced to death
Autumn 1843 Bishop issued a pastoral letter stating that he condemned the reading of the Bibles that had been circulated by Dr. Kalley
January 1844 Dr. Kalley released from prison
Summer 1844 Mrs Maria Joaquina Alves was snatched away from her family of 7 children and thrown in prison and sentenced to death
Spring of 1844 Nicolau Tolentino Vieyra begins teaching an evening school in Lombo das Fayas in the parish of St. Antonio da Serra. One night when he was teaching a party of men led by the Church “beadle” came to the school with a false warrant for the apprehension of He refused to obey it and his students stood with him. Subsequently after this event the public prosecutor denounced all of them and charged them with sedition and resistance to justice. Right after that the judge, the public prosecutor and 56 soldiers went at night to the area of Lombo das Fayas. The houses of the students were broken open and 30 men and women taken prisoner, beaten and bound. The soldiers committed many subsequent atrocities. 22 people were then arrested from this and in prison for 20 months.
End of 1844 Lord Aberdeen, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs claimed damages for the false imprisonment of Dr. Kalley and then Lord Howard de Walden, the British Ambassador to Lisbon declared that it would not be necessary because things could be worked out.
End of 1844 Dr. Kalley returns to Madeira but then a warrant was issued immediately for his arrest once more in direct violation of the promises made to the British Ambassador by the Portuguese Government
May
February 1845 Rev W. H. Hewitson was appointed by the Free Church of Scotland and first goes to Lisbon to learn the language then to goes to Madeira in February 1845
January 1846 The “Imparcal” published a pamphlet entitled “An Historical Review of the Anti-Catholic Proselytism carried on by Dr. Kalley, in Madeira, since October 1838
May 1846 Hewitson returns to Scotland
August 2nd 1846 Conego Telles, a dignitary of the Church of Rome and a Jesuit educated in England was the first to excite a mob to violence. The home of the Rutherford sisters were surrounded by a mob who threatened the bible readers and some members of the mob entered the home of the sisters by force.
August 6th 1846 Dr. Kalley sends a letter to the British Consul, describing the events of the mob violence and its impact on the Rutherford sisters who were British subjects warning the Consul of the possibility of more violence. He emphasized that if the British Consul did nothing then his life and the lives of other British citizens would be in danger.
August 9th 1846 Understanding that there was a plot on the life of Dr. Kalley led him to leave Madeira hidden in a hammock while his house was being broken into and ransacked. Dr. Kalley was first disguised as a woman and then put into the hammock and covered over (as invalid ladies are when being carried in Madeira) with a linen sheet and was transported to one of the boats in the pier as he leaves Madeira just in the nick of time. A mob assembled on the pier when it was discovered that Dr. Kalley had escaped.
August 10th 1846 Other British subjects who had been with the Bible Readers; Captain Tate, Dr. Miller and the Misses Rutherford also escape Madeira.
August 23rd 1846 The ship “William” left the Bay of Funchal carrying 200 of the converts (“Bible readers”) towards Trinidad, then soon after “The Lord Seaton” took also around 200 more. About 600-700 went to Trinidad while about 300 more went to Demerara, St. Vincent and St Kitts. There is not a precise number known exactly however it is guessed that it was at least 1000 who had to flee.
Summer/Autumn 1846 Upon the request of the British Ambassador, the Portuguese Queen sends a royal commission to investigate the affairs that had taken place in Madeira that had placed British subjects in harms way. The investigation found that the Government in Madeira had acted in such an unjustifiable way that they requested the administration to resign which they all had to do. So a new Governor was appointed thereafter.
October 30 1846 The Bishop who had left for Lisbon at the beginning of 1846 saying that he would not return until Dr Kalley had been driven away, returned to Madeira and issued his PASTORAL in which he speaks of the “proud and satanic philosophy of the inimical man(ie. Dr. Kalley)This PASTORAL was published in the newspapers of Madeira. The Bishop ordered that all the churches have the people sing the hymn Te Deu laudamus, which was the same hymn that was sung in 1572 right after the Bartholomew massacre. The St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre in 1572 was a targeted group of assassinations and a wave of Catholic mob violence, directed against the Huguenots(French Calvinists) during the French Wars of Religion. The number of dead across France vary widely, from 5,000 to 30,000.
November 6 1846 Dr Kalley addressed the Protestant Association of London to discuss what happened in Madeira where he states that “The proceedings in Madeira, whether as regards the treatment of the native Portuguese or of British subjects, manifests a determination, on the part of popery, to crush all examination of, or succession from her erroneous system.
January 1847 Rev. Hewitson arrives in Trinidad
May 1847 Rev Da Silva is appointed by the Free Church of Scotland to go to Trinidad and labor as a catechist.
Winter 1847/48 The American Protestant Society sends their Portuguese missionary Rev. Gonsalves to Trinidad.
June 14 1848 Rev Da Silva writes a letter to the American Protestant Society to enlist their help on behalf of the Madeiran Exiles
January 10, 1849 Rev Da Silva passes away at 49 in the United States