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The Spark: Pombal, the Amazon and the Jesuits

2001; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 17; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/port.2001.0008

2222-4270

Kenneth Maxwell,

Colonialism, slavery, and trade

TheSpark: Pombal, theAmazon andthe Jesuits KENNETH MAXWELL For thepasttwo decades,historians - or manyof them- havebeen downgrading theroleofevents andofpersonalities. Therehasalso beena tendency toreject thehistory ofideas,oratleastanyeasycause-and-effect interaction betweenideas and the implementation of policy.On the positive side,however, we havewitnessed thegrowth ofa moreinternational ,lessEurocentric, history. I saythisat theoutset, obviousas itmay be,becauseitseemstomewearedealing herevery muchwith anevent (the expulsion oftheJesuits from Portugal anditsempire in1759);witha very dominant- not to say domineering - personality (theMarquis of Pombal,who in effect governed Portugal from1750to 1777);withideas (especially in the case of the Iberianmonarchies, a reinvigorated and systematic thinking about therole of thestatein promoting economic development andinsecuring foritself a monopoly overcoercion, budgets, administration andjustice); andwithinternational history (inthatI willbe focusing on a very remote periphery oftheeighteenth-century world:the Amazonbasin). Thisevent: thePortuguese expulsion, thispersonality: Pombal,andthis periphery: theAmazonbasin,however, providedthesparkthatset in motion a processthroughout CatholicEurope,whichbrought theSociety ofJesus down.Intheaftermath, inPortugal, itwastheEnlightenment that provided a rationale, a justification, as wellas themeanstoremedy some ofthedamagedonebytheJesuits' forced departure. It is important to stressperhapsthatthisis whereand when the expulsion began.Westilltendto lookoutfrom thecentre totheedgesyetitwas atthevery outeredgesoftheEuropeanworld,whereofcourse theJesuits had alwaysbeenmostactive, thatthefirst decreesto suppress theSocietyofJesuswereenforced. Whyan actionin Brazilfoundsuch resonance elsewhere isa separate issue.InthespaceI amallotted hereI am interested inthespark.WhytheAmazon? WhyPombal? There were two distinct but interrelated aspectsof the intellectual environment ineighteenth-century Portugal that influenced thewayPombal thought abouttheproblems confronting himas hetookoffice in1750;each ofthem, indifferent ways,hadan impacton thedispute withtheJesuits.1 1I use'Pombal' hereas a shorthand, sincethisisusuallyhow heis referred tobyhistorians. But it is an anachronisticand perhaps misleadingshorthandto the extentthatit anticipateshis elevationto Marquis in 1769. He had become theCount of Oeiras in 1759. For detailson the familybackgroundof Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo (1699-1782) see KennethMaxwell Pombal,ParadoxoftheEnlightenment (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press,1995),especially pp. 2-4. POMBAL, THE AMAZON AND THE JESUITS 169 First, there wastheintense debateoverfundamental questions concerning philosophy andeducation. Second,a considerable bodyofthought existed aboutvariousaspects ofPortugal's political economy. Thestimulus forthe former in Portugal, as elsewhere inEurope,was theintellectual achievementof Descartes,Newtonand Locke. The mostimportant worksto emergefromthisintellectual school in Portugalincludedthoseof de Martinhode MendonçaPinae Proença(1693-1743),who attempted to adaptto Portugal someofLocke'stheories, especially on education;the writings oftheNew Christian DrJacobde CastroSarmento (1692-1762),2 who introduced Newtonianideas in Portugal;and the worksof Dr. António NunesRibeiroSanches(1699-1783),another New Christian who hadleft Portugal in1726,working thereafter inEngland, Holland,Russia, and finally inFrance, where(from 1747untilhisdeathin 1783)he was a collaborator oftheEncyclopedists andwroteon medicine, pedagogy, and economics.3 Mostinfluential ofthemall was theOratorianLuísAntónio Verney (1713-92),theauthorofO Verdadeiro Métodode Estudar('The TrueMethodofEducation'), published in1746.LuísAntónio Verney lived mostofhisadultlifeinNaplesandRome,where hestudied withAntonio Genovesi(1712-69) and was a friendof Ludovico AntonioMuratori (1672-1750).InRomehebecamea member oftheArcadia,as wellas fora time secretary tothePortuguese envoy totheVatican, Francisco deAlmada e Mendonça, whowasPombal'scousin.4 Thecongregation oftheOratóriade S. Felipede Nery, towhichVerney belonged, hadtakentheleadinPortugal, as elsewhere inCatholicEurope, intheintroduction ofscientific experimentation and in theconflict with the Jesuits overpedagogical models. TheOratorians werestrong promoters of the naturalsciences,and theyalso stressedthe importance of the Portuguese language,grammar, and orthography, whichtheybelieve shouldbe studied directly and notvia Latin.The reasontheJesuits were 2 So-called 'New Christians'werethedescendantsof Portuguese Jewscompelledto embrace Christianity in1497rather thanfaceexpulsion. See Antonio Alberto Banha de Andrade, Verneie a Cultura do seu Tempo (Coimbra: Universidade de Coimbra,1966);also The Portuguese JewishCommunity inLondon: 1656-1830 (London:JewishMuseum,1992). ror Muratori see Derek beales, Joseph II: In the shadow of Maria I heresa, 1741-1700 (Cambridgeand New York: CambridgeUniversity Press,1987),p. 47; and FrancoVenturi, Da Muratoria Beccaria(1730-1764), 5 vols (Turin:Giulio EinaudiEditore,1969),1.There is a vast literature on Verney. Fora briefintroduction see AntonioAlbertoBanha de Andrade,Verneie a Projecçãode sua Obra (Lisbon: Instituto da CulturaPortuguesa;BibliotecaBreve,1980),which containsan appendixwithextractsfromVerney'scorrespondence withMuratori.Also bythe same author,Contributospara a História da Mentalidade Pedagógica Portuguesa(Lisbon: ImprensaNacional, 1981).Fora morecompleteaccountsee Andrade,Verneie a Culturado seu Tempo.Also valuable is thebroadoverviewbyJ.S. (JoséSebastião) da Silva Dias, Portugale a CulturaEuropeia(Séculos XVI a XVII) (Coimbra:Universidade de Coimbra,1953),and Samuel J.Miller,Portugaland Rome, e. 1748-1830: An Aspectof theCatholic Enlightenment (Rome: Università Gregoriana,1978). 170 KENNETH MAXWELL thebutt ofthiscriticism wasobvious:they helda nearmonopoly ofhigher education inPortugal andofsecondary education inBrazil.5 In...