By Rainer Sousa
In the 18th century, the Enlightenment avant-garde established remarkable transformations in the modes of administration of several of the European monarchies. Inspired by the notions of reason and progress based on this movement, kings, queens and ministers of the Old World undertook measures that sought to improve the administrative apparatus and the economy of their States. Following this trend, the King of Portugal, D. José I, appointed Sebastião Carvalho e Melo, Marquis of Pombal, as minister.
Intending to clean up his country's deficit economy, the new minister combined actions that reinforced mercantile practices in the colonial space and boosted the functioning of the national administration. Taken by these transformative goals, the Marquis of Pombal faced serious opposition from the Portuguese nobility and clergy, who were not always honored with the reforms he established.
In order to increase economic activities in Brazil, he determined the creation of trading companies in Grão-Pará, Paraíba and Pernambuco. In the northern region, he stimulated the expansion of cotton plantations that could meet the growing demand from England. In the mining region, the control and collection mechanisms were strengthened and the surcharge stipulated as a compulsory collection made on the back taxes of miners in the same region.
With regard to the work of the Jesuits, Pombal was seriously persecuted because he believed that these clerics were causing serious harm in both Portugal and Brazil. In the Marquis' view, the Jesuit predominance in Portuguese education prevented the development of an essential modernizing mentality. In Brazil, its influence with the Indians, the production of wealth carried out within the missions and the conflicts against the settlers (such as the Guaranitic War of 1750) threatened the metropolitan authority.
Thus, despite the immense controversy generated, Pombal established that the Jesuits should be expelled from Brazil and that they should not face the educational institutions. With regard to this same issue, the Marquis of Pombal implemented the literary subsidy, a new tax that would support the hiring of professors without links to the Church. Over time, this educational reform project ended up not having the expected effect.
Among other actions by Pombal, it should be noted that he was responsible for the definitive extinction of hereditary captaincies in Brazil and definitively prohibited indigenous slavery in the colony. Furthermore, he stipulated that the distinction made between Christians and New Christians be definitively extinguished. With this, he sought to centralize the administrative structure applied to the colony and reduce tensions that could produce some kind of damage to the government of Portugal.
Despite his efforts, Pombal could not resist the great influence that England had on Portugal's political and economic issues, and he did not even withstand the clear opposition directed by clerics and nobles. Not by chance, after the death of King D. José I, in 1777, and the arrival of Queen D. Maria I, A Louca, a political event known as “viradeira” imposed the dismissal of the Marquis of Pombal and the annulment of several administrative actions taken by him.