Vila do Porto () is a civil parish in the municipality of Vila do Porto, located on the island of Santa Maria, in the Portuguese autonomous region of Azores. It is the southernmost and easternmost parish in the archipelago of Azores. The population in 2011 was 3,119, in an area of 25.55 km². History Following its discovery by Diogo Silves, Friar Gonçalo Velho Cabral noble in the House of Henry the Navigator, commander in the Order of Christ, arrived at Santa Maria in 1432, then referred to as the Ilha dos Lobos (island of wolves), referring to the wolf seals found in the region at the time. It was the seat of the first captaincy of the islands of the Azores (that included Santa Maria and São Miguel. Its settlement began in 1439, after the original beachhead in Praia dos Lobos (in the north of the island). A regal charter from Infante Peter (regent of King Afonso V), dated 2 July 1439, indicated that Henry had ordered that sheep should be deposited on the seven islands of the Azores. São Miguel and Santa Maria were the first islands to be settled by families from Estremadura, Alto Alentejo and Algarve, through the initiative of Gonçalo Velho, then the designated first Captain-donatário of the Azores. The settlement of the southerly villa of Porto occurred in 1450, by Fernão de Quental, on a hilltop overlooking the southern coast over a wide cove. The parish was founded with a foral (charter) issued in 1470. Life in this community was isolated, inaccessible and poorly defensible. Many of the early documents associated with its founding were lost in a pirate attack occurring in 1616. Consequently, at the beginning of the 17th century, the Fort of São Brás, on the site of Cimo da Rocha was likely constructed, alongside the hermitage dedicated to Nossa Senhora da Conceição. Referring to the population, Gaspar Frutuoso (the humanist and chronicler) indicated: "This town is populated and the whole island, of honorable people, and many of their progeny have been knighted, and others through wedding alliances with the Captains and their sons, who were born noble. All the honorable men, natives of this land, are generally high in stature, well disposed and proportioned, of good and serious faces and happy faces, presumptuosos [sic] and honorable friends, as is expected of honorable men." In the 20th century (1901), Vila do Porto received