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of Contents Protestant Exiles from Madeira in IllinoisOne of the
most unusual Portuguese immigration stories involves a group of
religious exiles from Madeira (Portuguese islands in the
Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Morocco) who settled in Illinois
in the 1850s. In 1838, a Scottish physician and Protestant
minister on his way to China stopped on one of the islands to
recover from a sudden illness. Upon recuperating, he stayed,
converting hundreds of islanders to Protestantism. Having become
alienated from the vast majority of the Catholics in the
islands, these dedicated converts (numbering about 1,000) moved
to the British island of Trinidad off the northern coast of
South America in 1846. After three years in this new location,
the exiles found that they were unable to adjust to the tropical
climate and the plantation working conditions. When the plight
of these Protestant exiles received wide publicity in the United
States, people in the vi