The Pombaline Expulsion and the Building of Anti-Jesuitism

Chapter 2 The Pombaline Expulsion and the Building of Anti-Jesuitism

When examining the expulsion of the Jesuits from Portugal and the rise of anti-Jesuitism in the eighteenth century, historians usually focus on the role played by Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, better known by his later title, the marquis of Pombal (1699–1782).1 Yet although he was undoubtedly the lead- ing figure behind the expulsion, a closer look into the years that preceded the Jesuits’ proscription and exile reveals that his early actions against the Jesuits were heavily dependent on a series of circumstantial events, starting with the appointment of a secular visitor.2 The traditional accounts of the 1759 expulsion usually focus on two of Pombal’s main accusations against the Jesuits: their disregard of the Treaty of Madrid (1750) and their involvement in illegal trading in Brazil, and their role as moral instigators of the plot to murder the king. However, the Pombaline accusation of obscurantism and scientific illiteracy also played a central role in the history of anti-Jesuitism in Portugal, mainly due to its wide acceptance and

1 Anti-Jesuitism has been a pervasive subject in Jesuit studies. The most recent and detailed books on anti-Jesuitism are Michel Leroy, Le mythe jésuite: De Béranger à Michelet (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1992); Geoffrey Cubitt, The Jesuit Myth: Conspiracy, Theory and Politics in Nineteenth-Century France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993); Sabina Pavone, The Wily Jesuits and the Monita secreta: The Forged Secret Instructions of the Jesuits; Myth and Reality (St. Louis, MO: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2005); and Pierre-Antoine Fabre and Cath- erine Maires, eds., Les antijésuites: Discours, figures et lieux de l’antijésuitisme à l’époque modern (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2010). This chapter revises and expands the arguments presented in Francisco Malta Romeiras, Henrique Leitão, “The Role of Science in the History of Portuguese Anti–Jesuitism,” Journal of Jesuit Studies 2 (2015): 77–99; Francisco Malta Romeiras, “Jesuit Historiography in Modern Portugal,” in Jesuit Historiography Online, ed. Robert Maryks (Leiden: Brill, 2016); and Francisco Malta Romeiras, “Francisco Saldanha da Gama: The Last Visitor of the Portuguese Assistancy,” in With Eyes and Ears Open: The Role of Visitor in the Society of Jesus, ed. Thomas McCoog (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 172–90. 2 José Caeiro, De exilio provinciae Lusitaniae Societatis Iesu libri quinque (antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 2600–2; arsi, Lus. 93, 94/1–2) is the most detailed Jesuit account of the 1759 expulsion. In the 1990s, Júlio de Morais and José Leite edited and translated it into Portuguese; José Caeiro, História da expulsão da Companhia de Jesus da província de Portugal, 3 vols. (Lisbon: Verbo, 1991–99). On the imprisonment and exile of the Portuguese Jesuits, see also Anselmo Eckart, Historia persecutionis Societatis Iesu in Lusitania (Nuremberg, 1779–80), arsi, Lus. 96 (reprinted and edited as Memórias de um jesuíta prisioneiro de Pombal, trans. Joaquim Abranches and Ana Maria Lago da Silva [Braga: Apostolado da Imprensa, 1987]).

204221 24 Chapter 2 longevity. This argument was not only directly relevant for the expulsion of the Jesuits in the eighteenth century but was also a keystone of the anti-Jesuit propaganda that eventually led to the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from Portugal in the twentieth century. The consecutive expulsions, the suppression, and, more recently, the restoration of the Society of Jesus have proven to be topics of intense research in the field of Jesuit studies.3 Because he expelled the Jesuits from the Portuguese Empire in 1759 and deployed an unprecedented array of political, diplomatic, and economic actions against the Society that influenced the succeeding expulsions and the order’s suppression in 1773, the marquis of Pombal has long been considered the archetype of eighteenth-century anti-Jesuitism. From the 1750s, this powerful secretary of state to King José (1714–77, r.1750–77) promoted his relatives—including his younger brothers Paulo de Carvalho e Mendonça (1702–70) and Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado (1701–69)—to the most prominent ecclesiastical, diplomatic, and political positions in the Portuguese Empire. They played a direct role in Pombal’s battles with the Jesuits, and their activities greatly increased the wealth of the Carvalho family.4 Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado was appointed governor of Grão-Pará and Maranhão on April 19, 1751. He was responsible for the implementation of the Treaty of Madrid, which redrew the boundaries between the Portuguese and Spanish colonies in the New World, and for the Jesuits’ eventual expulsion from Brazil in 1759.5 Despite not being officially nominated inquisitor general, Paulo de Carvalho became responsible for the government of the Portuguese Inquisition in 1760 after the arrest of the inquisitor general José de Portugal (1720–1801) and his brother António de Portugal (1714–1800).6 There were sev- eral explanations for their arrest and imprisonment in the convent of Buçaco until 1777, but according to the most commonly accepted version, Pombal and

3 For a global perspective, see especially Jeffrey D. Burson and Jonathan Wright, eds., The Je- suit Suppression in Global Context: Causes, Events, and Consequences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), and Robert A. Maryks and Jonathan Wright, eds., Jesuit Survival and Restoration: A Global History, 1773–1900 (Leiden: Brill, 2014). 4 The literature on the marquis of Pombal is immense. For an overview of his life and policies, see especially Kenneth Maxwell, Pombal, Paradox of the Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, 1995), and Nuno Gonçalo Monteiro, D. José: Na sombra de Pombal (Lisbon: Temas e Debates, 2008). 5 On Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado, see Ângela Domingues, “Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado,” in Dicionário da história da colonização portuguesa no Brasil, ed. Maria Beatriz Nizza da Silva (Lisbon: Verbo, 1994), cols. 359–62, and Miguel Dantas da Cruz, “Fran- cisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado,” in e-Dicionário da terra e do território no império portu- guês, ed. José Vicente Serrão, Márcia Motta, and Susana Münch Miranda (Lisbon: cehc–iul, 2015); doi: 10.15847/cehc.edittip.2015v003 (accessed January 29, 2019). 6 José and António de Portugal were legitimized sons of King João v (1689–1750, r.1706–50) and were commonly known as “children of Palhavã.”

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