Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal
FC | |
---|---|
Secretary of State of Internal Affairs of the Kingdom | |
In office 6 May 1756 – 4 March 1777 | |
Monarch | Joseph I |
Preceded by | Pedro da Mota e Silva |
Succeeded by | Viscount of Vila Nova de Cerveira |
Secretary of State of Foreign Affairs and War | |
In office 2 August 1750 – 6 May 1756 | |
Monarch | Joseph I |
Preceded by | Marco António de Azevedo Coutinho |
Succeeded by | Luis da Cunha Manuel |
Personal details | |
Born | 13 May 1699 Lisbon, Portugal |
Died | 8 May 1782 Pombal, Portugal | (aged 82)
Spouse(s) | Teresa de Noronha e Bourbon Mendonça e Almada Eleonora Ernestina von Daun |
Occupation | Politician, diplomat |
Cabinet | |
Signature | |
The son of a country squire and nephew of a prominent cleric, Pombal studied at the University of Coimbra before enlisting in the Portuguese Army, where he reached the rank of corporal. Pombal subsequently returned to academic life in Lisbon, but retired to his family's estates in 1733 after eloping with a nobleman's niece. In 1738, with his uncle's assistance, he secured an appointment as King John V's ambassador to Great Britain. In 1745, he was named ambassador to Austria and served until 1749. When Joseph I acceded to the throne in 1750, Pombal was appointed as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Despite entrenched opposition from the
A leading
Early life
Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo (Portuguese pronunciation:
Sebastião José was fluent in Portuguese and French.[5]
Political career
Prior to his appointment as prime minister in 1755, Pombal had a relatively obscure career.[5][7]
In 1738, with his uncle's assistance,[6] Pombal received his first public appointment as the Portuguese ambassador to Great Britain, where, in 1740, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.[8] Carvalho e Melo used his circulation among influential people to "investigate the causes, techniques, and mechanisms of British commercial and naval power."[9] He did not become fluent in the English language during his time in London.[5]
In 1745, he served as the Portuguese ambassador to
By 1755, the King appointed him Prime Minister. Impressed by English economic success which he had witnessed as ambassador, Pombal successfully implemented similar economic policies in Portugal.
In February 1761, during the reign of D.José I, Pombal banned the import of black slaves within mainland Portugal and Portuguese India,[10] not for humanitarian reasons, which were contrary to his nature, but because they were necessary labor workforce in Brazil. [11] At the same time, he encouraged the trade in black slaves ("the pieces", in the terms of that time) to that colony, and two companies were founded, with the support and direct involvement of the Marquês de Pombal - the Companhia do Grão-Pará and Maranhão and the Companhia Geral de Pernambuco e Paraíba - whose main activity was precisely the trafficking of slaves, mostly Africans, to brazilian lands. The list of shareholders of the two companies included, in addition to the Marquis, many nobles and clergy. [12][13][11] Between 1757 and 1777, a total of 25,365 black slaves were imported to Pará and Maranhão, coming from West African ports.[14]
He reorganised the
Pombaline Reforms
The Pombaline Reforms were a series of reforms intended to make Portugal an economically self-sufficient and commercially strong nation, by means of expanding Brazilian territory, streamlining the administration of colonial Brazil, and fiscal and economic reforms both in the colony and in Portugal.[15][16]
During the Age of Enlightenment Portugal was considered small and unprogressive. It was a country of three million people in 1750. The economy of Portugal before the reforms was a relatively stable one, though it had become dependent on colonial Brazil for much of its economic support, and England for much of its manufacturing support, based on the Methuen Treaty of 1703. Even exports from Portugal went mostly through expatriate merchants like the English port wine shippers and French businessmen like Jácome Ratton, whose memoirs are scathing about the efficiency of his Portuguese counterparts.
The need to grow a manufacturing sector in Portugal was made more imperative by the excessive spending of the Portuguese crown, the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, the expenditures on wars with Spain for South American territories, and the exhaustion of gold mines and diamond mines in Brazil.[17]
His greatest reforms were, however, economic and financial, with the creation of several companies and guilds to regulate every commercial activity. He created the
Further important reforms were carried out in education by Pombal: he expelled the Jesuits in 1759, created the basis for secular public primary and secondary schools, introduced vocational training, created hundreds of new teaching posts, added departments of mathematics and natural sciences to the University of Coimbra, closed University of Evora, and introduced new taxes to pay for these reforms. However, many of these reforms were a complete failure, as the old Jesuits schools were not adequately replaced, and it took over one century to recover the same levels of literacy in Portugal.[citation needed]
Lisbon earthquake
Disaster fell upon Portugal on the morning of 1 November 1755, when Lisbon was awakened by a violent earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 9 on the
The new central area of Lisbon was designed by a group of architects specifically to resist subsequent earthquakes, employing a new construction method, "caging", which consisted of a wooden framework erected in the early stages of construction, granting the building a better chance of withstanding an earthquake due to the inherent flexibility of the material. Architectural models were built for tests, with the effects of an earthquake being simulated by marching troops around the models. The buildings and major squares of the
The questionnaire asked whether dogs or other animals behaved strangely prior to the earthquake, whether there was a noticeable difference in the rise or fall of the water level in wells, and how many buildings had been destroyed and what kind of destruction had occurred. It seems that the results were not properly analysed during the 18th century, in part due to the death of the person in charge, but the answers have allowed modern Portuguese scientists to reconstruct the event with greater precision.[citation needed]
Because the marquis was the first to attempt an objective scientific description of the broad causes and consequences of an earthquake, he is regarded as a forerunner of modern seismological scientists.
Spanish invasion
In 1761 Spain concluded an alliance with France by which Spain would enter the Seven Years' War in an effort to prevent British hegemony. The two countries saw Portugal as Britain's closest ally, due to the Treaty of Windsor. As part of a wider plan to isolate and defeat Britain, Spanish and French envoys were sent to Lisbon to demand that the King and Pombal agree to cease all trade or co-operation with Britain or face war. While Pombal was keen to make Portugal less dependent on Britain, this was a long-term goal, and he and the King rejected the Bourbon ultimatum.
On 5 May 1762, Spain sent troops across the border and penetrated into
In a second invasion (
A third Spanish offensive in the
In the
In the years after the invasion, and despite the crucial British assistance, Pombal began to be increasingly concerned at the rise of British power. Despite being an Anglophile he suspected the British were interested in acquiring Brazil and he was alarmed by the seeming ease by which they had taken Havana and Manila from Spain in 1762. As noted by historian Andreas Leutzsch:
"During Pombal's reign Portugal faced foreign threats, such as the Spanish invasion during the Seven Years' War in 1762. Even if Portugal was able to defeat the Spanish with the help of their British allies, this war of Spain and France against British hegemony made him concerned about Portuguese independence and Portugal's colonies."[20]
— In European National Identities: Elements, Transitions, Conflicts
Opposition to the Jesuits
Having lived outside of Portugal in
Pombal named his brother, D. Paulo António de Carvalho e Mendonça, chief inquisitor and used the inquisition against the Jesuits. Pombal was thus an important precursor for the suppression of the Jesuits throughout Europe and its colonies,[24] which culminated in 1773, when European absolutists forced Pope Clement XIV to issue a bull empowering them to suppress the order in their domains.[25]
Expulsion of the Jesuits and consolidation of power
Following the earthquake, Joseph I gave his Prime Minister even more authority, and Pombal became a powerful, progressive dictator. As his power grew, his enemies increased in number, and bitter disputes with the high nobility became frequent. On September 3, 1758, Joseph I was wounded in an attempted assassination when he was returning from a visit to his mistress, the young married Marchioness Teresa de Távora.[26] On December 9, 1758, Pombal formed a special investigatory tribunal (its members were himself and the other secretaries of state).[26] Approximately sixty individuals were convicted when the verdicts of the tribunal were announced January 12, 1759.[26] A number of nobles were sentenced to indefinite imprisonment for their role in the conspiracy.[26] Several nobles, including members of the Távora family and the Duke of Aveiro, were sentenced to execution.[26] They were executed through methods such as the breaking wheel, burning alive, strangling, and beheading.[26] The Duke of Aveiro has generally been regarded as the head of the conspiracy to kill the king.[26] The brutality of the executions stirred controversy in Europe at the time.[26]
In December 1760, the Marquis, who himself was a "familiar do Santo Oficio"
After the execution of the Távoras, the persecution of the nobility never stopped. When Pombal left power, around eight hundred political prisoners were released, but in the meantime around two thousand and four hundred had died in prison.[32]
After Pombal had been removed from power by Maria I, an inquiry in the Tavora trial endorsed the guilty verdict of the Duke of Aveiro but exonerated the Tavora family.[33]
There were long-standing tensions between the Portuguese crown and the Jesuits, so that the Távora affair could be considered a pretext for the climax to the conflict that resulted in the
In 1771, botanist Domenico Vandelli published Pombalia, a genus of flowering plants from America, belonging to the family Violaceae and named in honour of the Marquis of Pombal.[35]
Trafaria and Monte Gordo fires and other episodes
In January of 1777, the village of Trafaria was deliberately and completely burned down, with the purpose of capturing rebels who were taking refuge there, with many people dying, either by the fire, or killed by Pina Manique's troops who surrounded the exits .[36]
Pombal ordered the fire of the huts in Monte Gordo aiming to transfer the fishermen to Vila Real de Santo António, where many of those who escaped preferred to later settle in Spain, in Higuerita (Isla Cristina).[37]
In 1757, a popular revolt against the Companhia Geral de Agricultura dos Vinhos do Alto Douro, which had raised the price of wine in the taverns it had a monopoly over, was fiercely repressed by the Marquis. In his own words, "the whole Portuguese nation is horrified by the slightest movement that might appear to be unfaithful to its sovereign". As a result, the city of Porto was occupied by thousands of soldiers, summary trials were carried out and around thirty people were hanged, including several women.[38] The gallows with their corpses were placed in various parts of the city, and later, the heads of the executed were stuck on poles at the entrance to the city.[39]
Decline and death
King Joseph's daughter and successor, Queen Maria I of Portugal, loathed Pombal.[citation needed] She was a devout woman and was influenced by the Jesuits.[citation needed] After acceding to the throne, Maria forced Pombal from office.[40]
She also issued one of history's first restraining orders, commanding that Pombal not be closer than 20 miles to her presence. If she were to travel near his estates, he was compelled to remove himself from his house to fulfill the royal decree. The slightest reference in her hearing to Pombal is said to have induced fits of rage in the Queen.
Pombal's removal was the cause of much rejoicing and disorder in the streets. The Marquis took refuge first in Oeiras and then in his estate near Pombal. The crowd tried to burn down his house in Lisbon, which had to be protected by the troops. Almost all of his former allies abandoned him.[41]
Pombal built a palace in Oeiras, designed by Carlos Mardel. The palace featured formal French gardens enlivened with traditional Portuguese glazed tile walls. There were waterfalls and waterworks set within vineyards.
Pombal died peacefully on his estate at Pombal in 1782. He was a controversial figure in his own era as it is today; today one of Lisbon's busiest squares and the busiest underground station is named Marquês de Pombal in his honour. There is an imposing statue of the Marquis depicting a lion next to him in the square, symbolising the merits of despotic power. This was the first public statue inaugurated by the Military Dictatorship of 1934, based on early projects by one of Pombal's descendants that was mayor of Lisbon. Several intellectuals of the time, such as Almada Negreiros, expressed their dismay and asked this statue to be removed, but it became an important symbol for the Dictatorship and later for the Portuguese Estado Novo.
See also
- History of Portugal
- Marquis of Pombal (title)
- List of marquises in Portugal
- Precedence among European monarchies
References
- ^ Castelo Branco, Camilo (1882). Perfil do Marquês de Pombal. Porto Editora.
- ^ Oliveira Ramos, Luís (1971). "Pombal e o esclavagismo" (PDF). Repositório Aberto da Universidade do Porto. pp. 169–170.
- ^ Freitas, Jordão de (1916). O Marquez de Pombal e o Santo Oficio da Inquisição (Memoria enriquecida com documentos inéditos e facsimiles de assignaturas do benemerito reedificador da cidade de Lisboa) (in Portuguese). Soc. Editora José Bastos. pp. 68, 69.
- ^ Caldeira, Arlindo Manuel (2013). Escravos e Traficantes no Império Português: O comércio negreiro português no Atlântico durante os séculos XV a XIX (in Portuguese). A Esfera dos Livros. pp. 219–224.
- ^ OL 18936702M.
- ^ a b c d Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 22 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- ISBN 978-1-107-03620-8.
- ^ The Royal Society, List of Fellows of the Royal Society 1660-2007. See under K-Z: Mello, Sebastian Joseph de Carvalho e, Marquis of Pombal.[1]. Retrieved 28 December 2019.
- ISBN 978-0-415-94577-6.
- ^ Ramos, Luís O. (1971). "Pombal e o esclavagismo" (PDF). Repositório Aberto da Universidade do Porto.
- ^ a b Caldeira, Arlindo Manuel (2013). Escravos e Traficantes no Império Português: O comércio negreiro português no Atlântico durante os séculos XV a XIX (in Portuguese). A Esfera dos Livros. pp. 219–224.
- ^ Ramos, Luís O. (1971). "Pombal e o esclavagismo" (PDF). Repositório Aberto da Universidade do Porto.
- ^ Azevedo, J. Lucio de (1922). O Marquês de Pombal e a sua época (in Portuguese). Annuario do Brasil. p. 332.
- ^ Boxer (1977), p. 192.
- ^ Loveman 2004, p. 21.
- ISBN 978-0-19-510507-0.
- ^ Skidmore, Thomas E. Brazil: Five Centuries of Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
- ^ Allies, Mary H. "The Voltaire of Portugal," The Catholic World, Vol. XCVI, October 1912/March 1913.
- ^ Ferreira, Amélia; Esteves, Alexandra Patrícia Lopes (2016). Após a catástrofe: a gestão da emergência e socorro no terramoto de 1755.
- ^ Leutzsch 2014, p. 188.
- ^ "The Bismarck of the Eighteenth Century," The American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. II, 1877.
- ^ O'Shea, John J. "Portugal, Paraguay and Pombal's Successors," The American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. XXXIII, 1908.
- S2CID 144977776.
- ^ "Pombal and the Expulsion of the Jesuits from Portugal," The Rambler, Vol. III, 1855.
- ^ A Matemática em Portugal, de Jorge Buescu, da Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos
- ^ OCLC 559058693.
- ^ Freitas 1916, pp. 10, 106, 122.
- ^ "Processo do padre Gabriel Malagrida". inquisicao.info (in Portuguese). Retrieved 7 November 2023.
- ^ Azevedo 1922, p. 205.
- ISBN 9789042025059.
- ^ Castelo Branco 1900, p. 92.
- ^ Saraiva, José Hermano (1986). História concisa de Portugal (10.a edição) (in Portuguese). Publicações Europa-América. pp. 250–251.
- OCLC 559058693.
- ^ a b Lockhart & Schwartz 1983, p. 391.
- ^ "Pombalia Vand. | Plants of the World Online | Kew Science". Plants of the World Online. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
- ^ Castelo Branco, Camilo (1900). Perfil do Marquês de Pombal (in Portuguese). Lopes & Ca. pp. 287–290.
- ^ Lopes, João Baptista da Silva (1841). Corografia, ou, Memoria económica, estadistica, e topográfica do Reino do Algarve (in Portuguese). Tipografia da Academia Real de Ciências de Lisboa. pp. 382–383.
- ^ Saraiva (1986), pp. 251–252.
- ^ Ramos, Rui; Vasconcelos e Sousa, Bernardo; Monteiro, Nuno Gonçalo (2009). "Chap. VII : O tempo de Pombal - O poder do valido e o tempo das providências". História de Portugal. A Esfera dos Livros.
- OCLC 559058693.
- ^ Maxwell (1995), pp. 152–153.
- New International Encyclopedia
Sources
- Alden, Dauril (1968). "Pombal's colonial policy". Royal Government in Colonial Brazil with Special Reference to the Administration of the Marquês of Lavradio, Viceroy, 1769–1779. Berkeley/Los Angeles: ISBN 978-0520000087.
- ISBN 978-1402179129.
- Athelstane, John Smith (1843). Memoirs of the Marquis of Pombal; with Extracts from his Writings, and from Despatches in the State Paper Office, Never Before Published. Volume 2. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. ISBN 978-1402177675.
- Azevedo, J. Lúcio de (1922). O Marquês de Pombal e a sua Época (in Portuguese). Rio de Janeiro: Anuário do Brasil. ISBN 978-9724739762.
- Castelo Branco, Camilo (1900). Perfil do Marquês de Pombal (in portuguese). Lopes & Ca.
- Cheke, Marcus (1938). Dictator of Portugal: A Life of the Marquês of Pombal, 1699–1782. Ayer Company Publishers.
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 22 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- Leutzsch, Andreas (2014). "Portugal: A Future's Past between Land and Sea". In Vogt, Roland; Cristaudo, Wayne; Leutzsch, Andreas (eds.). European National Identities: Elements, Transitions, Conflicts. New Brunswick, New Jersey: ISBN 978-1412852685 – via Google Books.
- ISBN 978-0521299299 – via Internet Archive.
- Loveman, Brian, ed. (2004). "The Iberian military Tradition". For la Patria: Politics and the Armed Forces in Latin America. ISBN 978-0-585-28207-7 – via Google Books.
- Maciel, Lizete Shizue Bomura; Neto, Alexandre Shigunov (2006). "Brazilian education in the Pombaline period: a historical analysis of the Pombaline teaching reforms". Educação e Pesquisa. 32 (3). ISSN 1678-4634.
- Maxwell, Kenneth (1995). Pombal, Paradox of the Enlightenment. ISBN 978-0521450447 – via Google Books.
- Moore, George (1814). Lives of Cardinal Alberoni, the Duke of Ripperda, and Marquis of Pombal, Three Distinguished Political Adventurers of the Last Century. J. Rodwell. ISBN 978-1270969167.
- Pombal, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, Marquês de. Cartas e outras obras selectas do Marquez de Pombal [selection], 1775–1780.
- Prestage, Edgar. ed. Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911: Marquis de Pombal
- Saraiva, José Hermano (1986). História concisa de Portugal (10.ª edição, in portuguese). Publicações Europa-América
- ISBN 978-0195058093.
External links
Media related to Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal at Wikimedia Commons