Everything about Sebastian Jose De Carvalho E Mello totally explained
Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Count of Oeiras, 1st Marquis of Pombal (in
Portuguese,
Marquês de Pombal,
pron. ), (
13 May 1699 —
15 May 1782) was an
18th century Portuguese statesman. He was Minister of the Kingdom (the equivalent to a today's
Interior Minister) in the government of
Joseph I of Portugal from 1750 to 1777. He was undoubtedly the most prominent minister in the government, and today he's usually considered to have been the
de facto head of government. Pombal is notable for his swift and competent leadership in the aftermath of the
1755 Lisbon earthquake. In addition he implemented sweeping economic policies in
Portugal to regulate commercial activity and standardize quality throughout the country. The term
Pombaline is used to describe not only his tenure, but also the
architectural style which formed after the great earthquake.
Early life
Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo,
pron., was born in
Lisbon, the son of Manuel de Carvalho e Ataíde, a country squire with properties in the
Leiria region, and of his wife Teresa Luísa de Mendonça e Melo, who was twice a descendant of an
Indian Princess from the region of
São Paulo, one of those lines being matrilineal. During his youth he studied at the
University of Coimbra and then served briefly in the army. He then moved to Lisbon and eloped with Teresa de Mendonça e Almada (1689-1737), the niece of the Count of Arcos Sebastião. The marriage was a turbulent one, as his wife had married him against her family's wishes. The in-laws made life unbearable for the young couple; the newlyweds eventually moved to Melo's properties near Pombal.
Political career
In
1738, Melo received his first public appointment as the Portuguese ambassador to
Great Britain. In
1745, he served as the Portuguese ambassador to
Austria. The
Queen consort of Portugal, Archduchess
Mary Anne Josepha of Austria (1683 - 1754), was fond of him; after his first wife died she arranged for him to marry the daughter of the Austrian Field Marshal
Leopold Josef, Count von Daun. King
John, however, wasn't pleased and recalled him in
1749. John V died the following year and his son
Joseph I of Portugal was crowned. Joseph I was fond of Melo; with the Queen Mother's approval he appointed him as Minister of Foreign Affairs. As the King's confidence in him increased, the King entrusted him with more control of the state.
By
1755, the King appointed him Prime Minister. Impressed by English economic success, which he'd witnessed while he was Ambassador, he successfully implemented similar economic policies in Portugal. He abolished slavery in the
Portuguese colonies in India, reorganized the army and the navy, and ended discrimination against non-Catholic Christians in Portugal.
Pombaline Reforms
The
Pombaline Reforms were a series of reforms with the goal of making 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.
During the
Age of Enlightenment Portugal was considered small and lagging behind. It was a country of three million people in 1750; 200,000 people lived in the nation's 538 monasteries. 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 Brazilian territory, and the exhaustion of gold mines and diamond mines in Brazil.
His greatest reforms were however economic and financial, with the creation of several companies and guilds to regulate every commercial activity. He demarcated the region for production of port, to ensure the wine's quality; his was the first attempt to control wine quality and production in Europe. He ruled with a heavy hand, imposing strict laws upon all classes of Portuguese society, from the high nobility to the poorest working class, and via his widespread review of the country's
tax system. These reforms gained him enemies in the upper classes, especially among the high nobility, who despised him as a social upstart.
Further important reforms were carried out in education by Melo: 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, and introduced new taxes to pay for these reforms.
AntiJesuit
Having lived in
Vienna and
London, two major centres of the Enlightenment, Melo increasingly believed that the
Jesuits, with their grip on science and education, were an inherent drag on an independent, Portuguese-style
iluminismo. He was especially familiar with the anti-Jesuit tradition of England, and in Vienna he'd made friends with
Gerhard van Swieten, a confidant of
Maria Theresa of Austria and a staunch adversary of the Austrian Jesuits and their influence. As prime minister Melo engaged the Jesuits in a
propaganda war, which was watched closely by the rest of Europe, and he launched a number of
conspiracy theories regarding the order's desire for power. During the
Távora affair (see below) he accused the Societas Jesu of treason and attempted regicide, a major public relations catastrophe for the order, in the age of
absolutism.
The Jesuits and their apologists emphasized the order's role in trying to protect
native Americans in the Portuguese and Spanish colonies, and the fact that the limitations placed upon the order resulted in the so-called
Guarani War in which the
Guarani tribes people were decimated by Spanish and Portuguese troops. However, at the time such arguments counted for far less than charges connected with the Jesuits' alleged activities in Europe.
Pombal was an important precursor for the
suppression of the Jesuits throughout Europe and its colonies, which culminated in
1773, when
Pope Clement XIV abolished the order.
The Lisbon earthquake
Disaster fell upon Portugal on the morning of
November 1,
1755, when Lisbon was struck by a violent earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 9 on the
Richter scale. The city was razed by the earthquake and ensuing
tsunami and fires. Melo survived by a stroke of luck, and then immediately embarked on rebuilding the city, with his famous quote:
What now? We bury the dead and feed the living. Despite the calamity, Lisbon suffered no epidemics, and within less than a year it was already being rebuilt. The new central area of Lisbon was designed to resist subsequent earthquakes. Architectural models were built for tests, and the effects of an earthquake were simulated by marching troops around the models. The buildings and major squares of the
Pombaline Downtown of Lisbon are one of Lisbon's main tourist attractions: they're the world's first earthquake-proof buildings. Melo made also an important contribution to the study of
seismology, by designing a survey that was sent to every parish in the country. 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. The answers have allowed modern Portuguese scientists to reconstruct the event with precision.
The Távoras affair
Following the earthquake, Joseph I gave his Prime Minister even more power, and Melo became a powerful, progressive dictator. As his power grew, his enemies increased in number, and bitter disputes with the high nobility became frequent. In
1758, Joseph I was wounded in an attempted assassination when he was returning from a visit to his mistress, a young Távora Marchioness. The Távora family and the Duke of Aveiro were implicated, and they were executed after a quick trial. The
Jesuits were expelled from the country, and their assets confiscated by the crown. Melo showed no mercy, prosecuting every person involved, even women and children. This was the final stroke that broke the power of the aristocracy and ensured the Prime Minister's victory against his enemies. In reward for his swift resolve, Joseph I made his loyal minister Count of Oeiras in
1759. Following the Távoras affair, the new Count of Oeiras knew no opposition. Made
Marquis of Pombal in
1770, he effectively ruled Portugal until Joseph I's death in
1777.
Fall and death
King Joseph's successor, Queen
Maria I of Portugal, disliked the Marquis. She never forgave him the ruthlessness he'd displayed against the Távora family, and she withdrew all his political offices. The Queen also issued one of the world's first restraining orders, commanding that the Marquis shouldn't be closer than 20 miles from her presence. If she were to travel near his estates, he was compelled to remove himself from his house to fulfill the royal decree. Maria I is reported to have had tantrums at the slightest reference to her father's former Prime Minister.
Pombal built a
palatial villa named
Oeiras. The villa 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. Today, Lisbon's most important square and busiest underground station is named
Marquês de Pombal in his honor. There is an imposing statue of the Marquis in the square as well.
João Francisco de Saldanha Oliveira e Daun, 1st Duke of Saldanha was a grandson.
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