First national suppression: Portugal and its empire in 1759 , Portugal's prime-minister at the time, oversaw the suppression of the Jesuits in Portugal and its empire. Painting by
Louis-Michel van Loo, 1766. There were long-standing tensions between the Portuguese crown and the Jesuits, which increased when the
Count of Oeiras (later the Marquis of Pombal) became the monarch's minister of state, culminating in the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1759. The
Távora affair in 1758 could be considered a pretext for the expulsion and crown confiscation of Jesuit assets. According to historians
James Lockhart and
Stuart B. Schwartz, the Jesuits' "independence, power, wealth, control of education, and ties to Rome made the Jesuits obvious targets for Pombal's brand of extreme regalism." Portugal's quarrel with the Jesuits began over an exchange of South American colonial territory with Spain. By a secret treaty of 1750, Portugal relinquished to Spain the contested
Colonia del Sacramento at the mouth of the
Rio de la Plata in exchange for the
Seven Reductions of Paraguay. These autonomous Jesuit missions had been nominal Spanish colonial territory. The native
Guaraní, who lived in the mission territories, were ordered to quit their country and move to Uruguay. The Guaraní rose in arms against the transfer due to the harsh conditions, and the so-called
Guaraní War ensued. It was a disaster for the Guaraní. In Portugal, a battle escalated, with inflammatory pamphlets denouncing or defending the Jesuits, who, for over a century, had protected the Guarani from enslavement by way of the Reductions. The Portuguese colonizers secured the expulsion of the Jesuits. On 1 April 1758, Pombal persuaded the aged
Pope Benedict XIV to appoint the Portuguese cardinal
Francisco de Saldanha da Gama to investigate allegations against the Jesuits. Benedict was skeptical about the gravity of the alleged abuses. He ordered a "minute inquiry", but to safeguard the Society's reputation, all serious matters were to be referred back to him. Benedict died the following month, on May 3. On May 15, Saldanha, having received the papal brief only a fortnight before, declared that the Jesuits were guilty of having exercised "illicit, public, and scandalous commerce" in Portugal and its colonies. He had not visited Jesuit houses as ordered and pronounced on the issues the Pope had reserved for himself. Once New France was under British control, the British barred the immigration of any further Jesuits. By 1763, only twenty-one Jesuits were still stationed in what was now the British
colony of Quebec. By 1773, only eleven Jesuits remained. The British crown claimed Jesuit property in Canada in the same year and declared that the Society of Jesus in New France was dissolved.
Spanish Empire suppression of 1767 Events leading to the Spanish suppression The Suppression in Spain and the Spanish colonies, and in its dependencies the
Kingdom of Naples and
Kingdom of Sicily, was the last of the expulsions, with Portugal (1759) and France (1764) having already set the pattern. The Spanish crown had already begun a series of administrative and other changes in their overseas empire, such as reorganizing the viceroyalties, rethinking economic policies, and establishing a military, so the expulsion of the Jesuits is seen as part of this general trend known generally as the
Bourbon Reforms. The reforms aimed to curb American-born Spaniards' increasing autonomy and self-confidence, reassert crown control, and increase revenues. Some historians doubt that the Jesuits were guilty of intrigues against the Spanish crown that were used as the immediate cause for the expulsion. Contemporaries in Spain attributed the suppression of the Jesuits to the
Esquilache Riots, named after the
Italian minister to Bourbon King
Charles III, that erupted after a
sumptuary law was enacted. The law, which placed restrictions on men's wearing of voluminous capes and limiting the breadth of sombreros men could wear, was seen as an "insult to Castilian pride." (, 1767) King Charles fled to the countryside when an angry crowd of those resisters converged on the royal palace. The crowd shouted, "Long Live Spain! Death to Esquilache!" His
Flemish palace guard fired warning shots over the people's heads. An account says that a group of Jesuit priests appeared on the scene, soothed the protesters with speeches, and sent them home. Charles decided to rescind the tax hike and hat-trimming edict and fire his finance minister. The monarch and his advisers were alarmed by the uprising, which challenged royal authority. The Jesuits were accused of inciting the mob and publicly accusing the monarch of religious crimes.
Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes, attorney for the
Council of Castile, the Spanish council of state, articulated this view in a report the King read. Charles ordered convening a special royal commission to draw up a master plan to expel the Jesuits. The commission first met in January 1767. It modeled its plan on the tactics deployed by France's
Philip IV against the
Knights Templar in 1307 – emphasizing the element of surprise. Charles' adviser Campomanes had written a treatise on the Templars in 1747, which may have informed the implementation of the Jesuit suppression. One historian states, "[Charles] never would have dared to expel the Jesuits had he not been assured of the support of an influential party within the Spanish Church."
Pope Clement XIII, presented with a similar ultimatum by the Spanish ambassador a few days before the decree would take effect, asked King Charles, "by what authority?" and threatened him with eternal damnation. Pope Clement could not enforce his protest, and the expulsion occurred as planned.
Jesuits expelled from Mexico (New Spain) ,
Visitador generál in New Spain (1765–71), was instrumental in the Jesuit expulsion in 1767 in Mexico, considered part of the
Bourbon Reforms. In
New Spain, the Jesuits had actively evangelized the Indians on the northern frontier. But their main activity involved educating elite
criollo (American-born Spanish) men, many of whom themselves became Jesuits. Of the 678 Jesuits expelled from Mexico, 75% were Mexican-born. In late June 1767, Spanish soldiers removed the Jesuits from their 16 missions and 32 stations in Mexico. No Jesuit could be excepted from the King's decree, no matter how old or ill. Many died on the trek along the cactus-studded trail to the Gulf Coast port of
Veracruz, where ships awaited them to transport them to Italian exile. There were protests in Mexico at the exile of so many Jesuit members of elite families. But the Jesuits themselves obeyed the order. Since the Jesuits had owned extensive landed estates in Mexico – which supported their evangelization of indigenous peoples and their education mission to criollo elites – the properties became a source of wealth for the crown. The crown auctioned them off, benefiting the treasury, and their criollo purchasers gained productive well-run properties. Many criollo families felt outraged at the crown's actions, regarding it as a "despotic act." One well-known Mexican Jesuit,
Francisco Javier Clavijero, during his Italian exile, wrote an important history of Mexico, with emphasis on the indigenous peoples.
Alexander von Humboldt, the famous German scientist who spent a year in Mexico in 1803–04, praised Clavijero's work on the history of Mexico's indigenous peoples. , Mexican Jesuit exiled to Italy. His history of ancient Mexico was a significant text for pride for contemporaries in New Spain. He is revered in modern Mexico as a creole patriot. Due to the isolation of the Spanish missions on the
Baja California peninsula, the expulsion decree did not arrive there until the new governor,
Gaspar de Portolá, arrived on November 30. By 3 February 1768, Portolá's soldiers had removed the peninsula's 16 Jesuit missionaries from their posts and gathered them in
Loreto, whence they sailed to the Mexican mainland and thence to Europe. Showing sympathy for the Jesuits, Portolá treated them kindly, even as he ended their 70 years of mission-building in Baja, California. The Jesuit missions in Baja California were turned over to the
Franciscans and subsequently to the
Dominicans, and the future missions in
Alta California were founded by Franciscans. The change in the Spanish colonies in the New World was particularly great, as missions often dominated the far-flung settlements. Almost overnight, in the mission towns of Sonora and Arizona, the "black robes" (Jesuits) disappeared, and the "gray robes" (
Franciscans) replaced them.
Expulsion from the Philippines The Jesuits were soon dislodged from the Philippines which they had helped convert from Animism, Hinduism, and Islam. The royal decree expelling the Society of Jesus from Spain and its dominions reached the capital of
Manila on 17 May 1768. Between 1769 and 1771, the Jesuits were transported from the
Spanish East Indies to Spain and deported to Italy.
Exile of Spanish Jesuits to Italy , adviser to Charles III, instrumental in the expulsion of the Jesuits in Naples Spanish soldiers rounded up the Jesuits in Mexico, marched them to the coasts, and placed them below the decks of Spanish warships headed for the Italian port of
Civitavecchia in the
Papal States. When they arrived,
Pope Clement XIII refused to allow the ships to unload their prisoners onto Papal territory. Fired upon by batteries of artillery from the shore of Civitavecchia, the Spanish warships had to look for an anchorage off the island of
Corsica, then a dependency of
Genoa. But since a
rebellion had erupted on Corsica, it took five months for some of the Jesuits to set foot on land. Jesuit historian Hubert Becher claims that about 600 Jesuits died during their voyage and waiting ordeal. In
Naples, King Charles' minister
Bernardo Tanucci pursued a similar policy: On November 3, the Jesuits, without accusation or trial, were marched across the border into the Papal States and threatened with death if they returned. However, the Jesuits became a vulnerable target for the crown's moves to assert more control over the church; also, some religious and diocesan clergy and civil authorities were hostile to them, and they did not protest their expulsion. In addition to 1767, the Jesuits were suppressed and banned twice more in Spain, in 1834 and 1932. Spanish ruler
Francisco Franco rescinded the last suppression in 1938.
Economic impact on the Spanish Empire The suppression of the order had longstanding economic effects in the Americas, particularly those areas where they had their missions or
reductions – outlying areas dominated by indigenous peoples such as
Paraguay and
Chiloé Archipelago. In
Misiones, in modern-day Argentina, their suppression led to the scattering and enslavement of indigenous
Guaranís living in the reductions and a long-term decline in the
yerba mate industry, from which it only recovered in the 20th century. In Ocoa,
Valparaíso Region, Chile, folklore says Jesuits left behind a large
entierro following their suppression. With the suppression of the Society of Jesus in Spanish America, Jesuit
vineyards in Peru were auctioned, but new owners did not have the same expertise as the Jesuits, contributing to a decline in production of wine and
pisco.
Suppression in Malta '' in
Valletta, which became the
University of Malta after the suppression.
Hospitaller Malta was at the time a vassal of the
Kingdom of Sicily, and Grandmaster
Manuel Pinto da Fonseca, himself a Portuguese, followed suit, expelling the Jesuits from the island and seizing their assets. These assets were used in establishing the
University of Malta by a decree signed by Pinto on 22 November 1769, with a lasting effect on Malta's social and cultural life. The
Church of the Jesuits (in
Maltese ), one of the oldest churches in
Valletta, retains this name up to the present.
Expulsion from the Duchy of Parma The independent
Duchy of Parma and Piacenza was the smallest Bourbon court. So aggressive in its
anti-clericalism was the Parmesan reaction to the news of the expulsion of the Jesuits from
Naples, that
Pope Clement XIII addressed a public warning against it on 30 January 1768, threatening the duchy with ecclesiastical censures. At this, all the Bourbon courts turned against the
Holy See, demanding the entire dissolution of the Jesuits. Parma expelled the Jesuits from its territories, confiscating their possessions.
Dissolution in Poland and Lithuania The Jesuit order was disbanded in the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1773. However, in the territories occupied by the
Russian Empire in the
First Partition of Poland the Society was not disbanded, as Russian Empress
Catherine the Great dismissed the papal decree. In the Commonwealth, the Society's possessions were substantial; in the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania alone, by the 1770s, the Jesuits managed around 90 institutions across the Lithuanian and Masovian provinces. They owned approximately of land and vast forests, with peasants performing significant
corvée labor. Following the suppression, this property was taken over by the
Commission of National Education, the world's first Ministry of Education, and the collegiums were transformed into secular schools. ==Papal suppression of 1773==