The Spark: Pombal, the Amazon, and the Jesuits

Abstract

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 stressperhaps…