João III (Civ6)/Civilopedia

João III, called “the Colonizer” or perhaps more kindly the “Pious,” was King of Portugal and the Algarves from 1521 to 1556. He was the oldest son of King Manuel I and Maria of Aragon. From birth, his family sought to set him on a course toward excellence – he was given scholars who taught him astronomy, astrology, theology, law, and the humanities, and he was given his own house to manage at the age of twelve. With a few years of practical work under his belt, he started helping his father with real royal duties.
João was set to marry at sixteen and would have married his first cousin Eleanor of Austria, but his father Manuel stepped in and decided he wanted Eleanor for himself. João was understandably offended, and more than a little upset about the whole ordeal. However, following João’s succession in 1521, he made a strategic marriage to Catherine of Austria, who happened to be the younger sister of his ex-fiancé, Eleanor.
Burned in love, he threw himself into his religion. Significantly, João sponsored humanistic approaches to religion such as the Society of Jesus – the Jesuits. Perhaps less nobly, it was under João that the Inquisition finally arrived in Portugal, with predictable results both in suppressing free inquiry (but also ensuring that Portugal would have no Protestant movement). The Inquisition was designed to punish what the church considered to be problematic or blasphemous, including anything related to witchcraft, bigamy (recall João’s contemporary in England, Henry VIII, and his struggles with the church over his complicated love life), literature that went against the church, and sexual deviancy. João (with the Pope’s permission) appointed his brother Cardinal Henry as his Grand Inquisitor and established branches across Portuguese territories. The Inquisition’s influence bled into other parts of Portuguese culture and daily life. These moves earned João the name “the Pious.”
Rather than conquest through battle, João often used diplomacy and arranged advantageous marriages. His sister Isabella was married to Charles V, the King of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor, and he married his daughter Maria Manuela to King Philip II of Spain. His son Prince João Manuel married Joan of Spain and their son went onto become King Sebastian I. The common trend here – Portugal securing an independent but closely-allied place in Iberia – should be clear.
João found that the Portuguese’s expansive empire was inefficient, fraught with debt and corruption. Initially, he tried to patch the problems by appointing new governors, thinking that better men would yield better results, but the problem was systemic. Also, sometimes the “fired” governors just didn’t leave.
The real impact of João’s reign was in the expansion of his trade networks. Fortified Portuguese trading camps – feitorias – were established in Mombasa, Mozambique, and other parts of Africa, and Portugal acquired Timor and the Maluku Islands in Southeast Asia, Goa and Sri Lanka in South Asia, and a trade outpost in Nagasaki and Macau in East Asia. Further, Portuguese Brazil was, under João, to become a significant colony. These networks were to move spices, sugar, gold, fragrances, and silk across the world. Less nobly, João also trafficked in enslaved people, prompting the Congolese king Mvemba a Nzinga to write João a scathing letter about the activities of Portuguese slave traders.
Towards the end of João’s reign, he had trouble naming an heir. Of his nine children (born to Catherine), only two survived past childhood, and both died before their father. The throne was ultimately left to his grandson, Sebastian, upon his death in 1557.