Suppression of the Society of Jesus follows Expulsion of the Jesuits
Lead-up to suppression
First national suppression: Portugal and its empire in 1759
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 settle across 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 through a network of Reductions, as depicted in The Mission. 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 Saldanha 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.Pombal implicated the Jesuits in the Távora affair, an attempted assassination of the king on 3 September 1758, on the grounds of their friendship with some of the supposed conspirators. On 19 January 1759, he issued a decree sequestering the property of the Society in the Portuguese dominions. The following September, he deported the Portuguese fathers, about one thousand in number, to the Pontifical States, keeping the foreigners in prison. Among those arrested and executed was the then denounced Gabriel Malagrida, the Jesuit confessor of Leonor of Távora, for "crimes against the faith". After Malagrida's execution in 1759, the Portuguese crown suppressed the Society. The Portuguese ambassador was recalled from Rome, and the papal nuncio was expelled. Diplomatic relations between Portugal and Rome were broken off until 1770.