The Luso-Brazilian Enlightenment

7/25/2019 The Luso-Brazilian Enlightenment

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Te Luso-Brazilian Enlightenment:Between Reform and Revolution

Alice Soares Guimares

century, the European sociopoliticalorder suffered crucial challenges. New world views arose romcritical reflections about the social and political lie in the context othe Enlightenment. In the political realm, a process o secularisation,with the questioning o the religious legitimacy o political power,and the decline o the ancien rgime, with the delegitimisation andgradual abandonment o the principles and practices o absolutism, areregarded as the main transormations o the period [Hobsbawm, (); Habermas, () ].

Te Portuguese intellectual milieu at that period is generally identi-fied as being radically different rom that o the rest o Europe. TeEnlightenment was supposedly absent rom the Portuguese Empire asa result o the rejection o modern ideas by conservative world viewsand projects. In this chapter I argue in the opposite direction, claim-ing that there was a Luso-Brazilian Enlightenment which is ignoredowing to an erroneous account o the Enlightenment as a homogene-ous intellectual movement, inevitably associated with the death o theancien rgime and the critique o religious authority and theologicalworld views. Adopting a plural conception o Enlightenment, I showthrough the Portuguese case that this movement was ar rom uniorm,and does not necessarily lead to a revolutionary critique o religionand absolutism. Even within itsel, the Luso-Brazilian Enlightenmentwas plural and eclectic, supporting both critiques and deences o theabsolute power o the king, endorsing simultaneously a secularisationprocess, the promotion o reason and Roman Catholicism, and oster-ing not only revolutionary projects but also conservative state reorms.

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African, American and European Trajectories of Modernity

Te Plurality of Enlightenment

raditionally, the Enlightenment is portrayed as a homogeneous move-

ment o ideas that emerged in Europe around the mid-seventeenth upto the end o the eighteenth century, putting orward a social, politicaland cultural project that was based on three central elements: reason,reedom, and individualism. Additionally, it is depicted as inherentlyrevolutionary, having replaced the epistemological authority o Godwith the secular authority o reason. Tus, the Enlightenment enacteda major rupture in the oundations o knowledge, being the main orcebehind the process o secularisation and the emergence o modernrationalism.

For some [Kant, () ; Constant, () ; Marx andEngels, () ; Habermas, () ] the Enlightenment madepossible the realisation o reedom and emancipation in both theindividual and the collective spheres, with the democratic and rationalorganisation o state and society and their interrelation. In the realmo politics, or instance, it is said that the Enlightenment was the mainorce behind the overthrow o the ancien rgime, postulating that allexternal authority not justified by reason should be rejected. Tereore,the Enlightenment has been treated as a revolutionary movement, inconflict with traditional religious and political authorities [Cassirer,() ; Hazard () ; Gay () ].

Tis image o a homogeneous and harmonious movement is chal-lenged by another picture that portrays the plurality o orms thatthe Enlightenment took in different settings, highlighting the specificeatures it acquired according to differences between and within socie-ties [Outram, ; Koselleck, () ; Pocock, ; Schmidt,]. Indeed, the Enlightenment was heterogeneous in space, timeand themes, and presented evident contradictions in the writings o itsmajor thinkers.

Under the term Enlightenment is hidden a variety o ideas that canbe observed in some crucial vectors around which central understand-ings o the Enlightenment have been constructed, such as religion,politics and the ideals o reedom and equality. Regarding religion, arecurring theme was the deence o religious reedom and tolerance.Nevertheless, around this deence were congregated thinkers who helddifferent opinions (Villalta, : ). In some places, as in France andEngland, antireligious understandings prevailed. But there were alsoChristian versions o the Enlightenment, including a Roman Catholic



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Te Luso-Brazilian Enlightenment

one, very influential in Portugal, Spain and Italy, which articulatedsome o the so-called enlightened ideas such as the deence o reason,reedom, and religious tolerance, and the critique o Aristotelianism

with Catholicism.1Tere was also diversity in what concerns the political lie. Some

versions o Enlightenment rejected the reason o state doctrine as aprinciple o rule, stipulating rights as the beginning and end o politics.Tey promoted the existence o natural law as prior to and above anyhuman convention, defining reedom as an inalienable, universal,natural right, consisting o the right to private property, equality underthe law, and participation in legislation. Tey also advanced the idea oan initial social contract between the individuals and the ruler by whichthe ormer abdicate some o their rights to constitute public authority.Tis abdication, however, was revocable in cases where the ruler didnot ulfil his duties (Villalta, : ). In this line, Locke [()] rejected the absolute power o monarchies, deeming it incompat-ible with natural rights and civil society. He deended the necessity ordifferent powers with distinct attributions and developed a powerultheory o resistance. Montesquieu [() ] also advocated theprinciple o the separation o powers. Rousseau [() ] consid-ered reedom an inalienable right o man, conceiving the existence o ageneral will as the expression o popular sovereignty and the regulatoro the moral and collective body at the basis o the republican constitu-tion o the state.

Nonetheless, most authors put limits to their criticism o absolutism.Tey sought to combine political authority, natural rights and civilreedom while they deemed state power necessary and absolutism assomething to be tolerated as long as it was lawul (Falcon, : ).As Koselleck [() ] correctly points out, the political ideas o theEnlightenment enabled not only the critique but also the justificationo absolutism. Indeed, in some political communities, its ideas wereused to enhance the authority and power o absolutist monarchies.Te presence o a legal optimism within the Enlightenment generateda belie in the unlimited power o the law to promote the welare andhappiness o men. Tis optimism led, in some readings, to the convic-tion that an enlightened sovereign might sweep the darkness awayrom his kingdom and deploy reason through laws and institutions.Terein lies one o the main pillars o enlightened absolutism (Falcon,: ).

In what concerns the modern ideals o reedom, reason and



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equality, usually considered as values universally promoted by theEnlightenment, they ound limits and conditionings in the writingso many thinkers. Most enlightened authors limited their deence o

equality to the political and the juridical realms, excluding the socialdimension o it. Some even denounce social equality as a source opolitical instability and, thereore, as something to be contended.Voltaire, or instance, judged the persistence o class inequality neces-sary to the conservation o society, while DAlembert and Holbachconsidered that nature established a necessary and legitimate inequal-ity between its members, it being unreasonable to equate the socialclasses (Villalta, : ).2

Te debates about reedom and reason also defied the widespreadidea o an unrestricted and resolute promotion o these elements bythe Enlightenment. It is true that some thinkers deended political andintellectual reedom as universal rights.3 But there was also a livelydebate about how much enlightenment o the citizenry was desirable,advisable and possible without destabilising the public authority andleading to political disorder (Schmidt, : ). Some authors, suchas Kant and Mendelssohn, considered that a ree and unrestricteddiscussion o religious, moral and political matters could underminethe conventional mores and belies on which society rested, and triedto balance the demands o enlightened reason with those o civil orderby limiting the spheres and situations where reason should be applied.4Others maintained that the common man needed to live by dogmaticprecepts in order to behave properly; not everyone could or should beenlightened, as many people were unable to be guided only by reasonwithout threatening the sociopolitical order. For certain classes o man,prejudices, errors and dogmas could do more to promote the publicgood than reason and truth (Schmidt, : ). Freedom and reason,afer all, should not be universally and unconditionally applied to allhuman beings, in all matters o social lie.

Furthermore, most enlightened authors did not question or evendebate colonialism, in a strange silence or those who supposedlypromoted the universal values and principles o equality, reason andreedom. When it comes to the colonial domains and subjects, thesedo not apply.5Tus, as Israel (: ) points out, despite a strongrhetoric in deence o enlightenment, liberty and reason, in practicethese elements were in many cases set back, rather than advanced ineighteenth-century Europe and still more in the European colonialempires.



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Finally, the outcomes o the Enlightenment were also varied. Usuallyassociated with revolution, the enlightened ideas were also operation-alised to legitimise reorms, some o which were very conservative. In

some polities, as in Portugal, Russia, Prussia and Austria, legal opti-mism was complemented by a diagnosis o the necessity or better laws,apt to ensure the common good and the happiness o humankind. Tisprovided the justification or reormist versions o the Enlightenment,based on placing hope in rational laws and in the enlightened sovereign.

Te existence o different perspectives and outcomes within theEnlightenment deconstructs its naive depiction as a homogeneousmovement o ideas which advanced a clear, coherent revolutionaryproject. By contrast, what endows it with the qualities o an intellectualmovement is not any kind o substantive content or a revolutionarydrive, but an attitude: a critical reflexive posture in relation to knowl-edge, sociopolitical lie, and to humanity as a whole. Tereore, whatcharacterises the Enlightenment is the conviction that everything, in allfields o human experience, can be the object o critique and question-ing. Tere is no external guarantee o authority. Te only justificationor any kind o order is based on rational inquiry about its validity.Tus, the Enlightenment is more o an attitude a critical and reflexiveone than a closed system o thought [Kant, () ].

Te Portuguese Milieu

Te critical attitude that characterises the Enlightenment starts beingadopted by the Portuguese intellectual elite in the first hal o theeighteenth century, in the midst o a crisis oconsciousness.For someauthors, this crisis was the result o a perception o marginalisation oPortugal in relation to European culture since the Renaissance, ando the backwardness o Portuguese society in comparison with otherEuropean ones [Cidade, (); Falcon, ; Dias, ]. Otherssituate its origins in the bitter understanding o the loss o status anddecadence o Portugal in the world system, rom a prestigious positionas the vanguard in the fifeenth and sixteenth centuries to a marginalone in the ollowing centuries (Calaate, ; Carvalho, ).

In any case, this crisis was a reflection o the non-linear and unevencharacter o the development o modernity. Modernity is not a radi-cally innovative order that emerged rom radical ruptures and majordiscontinuities with previous orms o organisation o social lie. Tetransormation o the world in the modern era is better understood as



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a complex process, with advance and backlash, changes and continui-ties, in relation to earlier sociopolitical orders. Also, the modernisationo societies does not embrace all the spheres o social lie at once.

Dissimilar levels o modernisation can be observed in the differentaspects o a society at any given period.

In this sense, Portugal showed different degrees o modernisation inthe various areas o social lie. Already at the end o the medieval age, aprecocious modernisation was in motion in the Portuguese kingdom,grounded in monarchical centralisation (Falcon, : ). Later, romthe end o the fifeenth century and throughout most o the sixteenth,in what became known as the golden age o Portugals history, thecountry was, along with Spain, the main maritime power o the occi-dental world. Its mercantile and colonial enterprises were central to thedevelopment o global trade and modern capitalism. It also generatednew knowledge which challenged the dominant scholastic tradition(Dias, : ). Tus, in the age o discovery, Portugal was at the heado a process which revealed a new world to the Europeans, a revelationwhose importance was elt at all levels o reality (Falcon, : ).

In spite o Portugals vanguardism and an early modernisation inthe economic and political realms, the cultural and scientific paths thatwere opened up with the discoveries did not produce major changesin Portuguese thought. Tis was a result o political, ideological andepistemological obstacles, such as the loss o Portugals independencebetween and , the censorship operated by the ribunal o theHoly Office, the triumph o the ideology o the Counter-Reormation,and the dominance o the monastic scholastic tradition in Portugueseschools (Dias, ; Falcon, ).

At the end o the sixteenth century, the Society o Jesus assumedcontrol o education in Portugal and its colonies, imposing anAristotelianTomisticorientation to it. Tus, Portugal remained loyalto the scholastic epistemology, not experiencing the renovation thatoccurred elsewhere, under the impact o the Renaissance and the sci-entific revolution. Te identification with the peripateticscholastic keptPortuguese society within the epistemological rontier bequeathed bythe Middle Ages. Te hegemony o a medieval kind o thought, rerac-tory to humanism, rationalism and empiricism, together with the peda-gogical control exercised by the Society o Jesus, represented a majorobstacle to the prolieration o modern thought (Falcon, : ).

Te passing rom transcendence to immanence did not occur. Terepudiation o anything associated with another truth and not subor-



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dinate to the revealed truth persisted. Secularisation was postponedand modern rationalism rejected (Falcon, : ). Tus, there wasa structural tension between the possibilities opened up by a new age

and actual practice (Dias, ), between the empirical tradition builtby the Portuguese at sea and in the conquest and preservation o theEmpire, and the educative tradition that avored scholastic specula-tion and a bookish culture (Camargo, : ).

During the reign o Dom Joo V (), there emerged a growingconcern about the cultural isolation o the kingdom and a nostalgia orthe golden age. Te desire to overcome the stigma o decadence andregain a prestigious position within the international order stimulateda search or solutions to the Portuguese problems. Te rationalismand the critical attitude characteristic o the Enlightenment were inmotion, impelling some members o the intellectual elite to reflect onhow to achieve the progress o the Portuguese state and society. Tus,despite the persistence o the aorementioned obstacles, the impact othe Enlightenment started to be elt in Portugal, albeit reluctantly andin a shy and restricted way.

Dom Joo V attracted to Portugal oreign scholars o various origins,and sponsored local initiatives to develop and disseminate new knowl-edge (Camargo, : ). A process o renovation o Portuguesethought began, with the creation o experimental laboratories, theprolieration o journals, translations and publications o importantworks, and the emergence o literary and scientific academies. In thesenew spaces, the rationalist and experimental spirit were debated anddeended, while current Portuguese culture was criticised. All thiswas part o an incipient reaction against instituted knowledge, theInquisition and the scholastic spirit. Nonetheless, Jesuit control overeducation persisted and, more broadly, the cultural and intellectualattitude o Portuguese society was still steered by scholastic guidelines.

Responding to this ambivalent situation, some men o letters, whobecame known as oreignisers, opted to emigrate, among them LusAntnio Verney, Antnio Nunes Ribeiro Sanches and Dom Luis daCunha. Tese men had a strong influence on Portuguese enlightenedthought and reormism; in their works, they elaborated a strong cri-tique o ecclesiastical power, pointing out the need to limit the scope ochurch influence and domination, and emphasised the urgent need tosecularise the state and some areas o society, such as those involved inthe generation o knowledge, deending the implementation o radicaleducational reorm.



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Under Dom Joss rule (), a new phase o political modernitywas inaugurated. A criticalreflexive posture and the debates it gaverise to were incorporated into the state apparatus, inorming new poli-

cies and reorms. Tis enlightened reormism was broad in its scopeand resulted in a crescent concentration o power and resources, withan expansion o the state apparatus and its control over the sociopoliti-cal and economical dynamics o the kingdom, as well as over the liveso its subjects. Critical reflexivity and reason were put to work on behalo the absolute power o the king, in a new political project or thePortuguese Empire that fits what is defined as enlightened absolutism.

Enlightened absolutism redefines the field o state action. Obstaclesto sovereignty must be removed, no sector o social lie can remainoutside the sphere o state sovereignty associated impersonally withthe government. New governmental techniques avour the centralisa-tion o the administrative structure, the creation o a loyal and com-petent bureaucracy, the division o governmental unctions betweensubordinate agencies, and the attack on the independent and privatejurisdictions o eudal origin (Falcon, : ). As I shall argue below,the Portuguese enlightened reorms o the eighteenth century wereoriented towards these objectives.

Te Portuguese enlightened absolutism and reormism had theirparticularities and limitations which resulted rom Portugals con-crete conditions and historical determinations. Portuguese society wasdeeply marked by previous cultural legacies, particularly by corporatemedieval theories o power, theological world views and scholastic epis-temology (Villalta, : ; Hespanha, ). Against this background,the Portuguese enlightened rulers and thinkers opted or eclecticism,attempting to bring apparently irreconcilable elements into a coher-ent whole: aith and science, the philosophical and religious tradition,rational and experimental innovation, theocentrism and anthropocen-trism (Falcon, : ). Caution in the ace o excessive innovationprevailed, leading to a process o modernisation without radicallybreaking with the previous orms o political and social organisation.

Te Portuguese Enlightened Reformism

Te main ideas o the Portuguese Enlightenment were put into prac-tice during the reign o Dom Jos I through the reorms o his chieminister, the Marquis o Pombal. Like other reorms undertaken byabsolutist monarchies, Portuguese enlightened reormism marked a



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selective incorporation o the ideas o the eighteenth century, articulat-ing the valorisation o reason and science with a deence o absolutemonarchy, religion, and colonialism (Villalta, : ). Tus, while the

Enlightenment constituted, on the one hand, a benchmark or reorms,on the other hand, some o its ideas were opposed, specifically thosethat supposedly threatened the absolutist prerogatives o the king,colonial rule, and Roman Catholicism. o understand this ambigu-ity, it is necessary to take into account the political project behind thePortuguese reorms and the broader historical context in which theywere developed.

From the second decade o the eighteenth century onwards, aneconomic and political crisis took place within the Portuguese Empire,with the decline o the inrastructural power o the state and a signifi-cant reduction in colonial profits. Te result was government inertia,administrative inefficiency, and an increase in corruption inside thebureaucratic apparatus. Consequently, state power became the objecto tough disputes between the classes connected to it (Falcon, :).

Against this background, Pombals main objectives were the reor-ganisation o the economy and the strengthening o the Portuguesestate. o that end, he implemented an ambitious set o reorms,incorporating political, economic, and societal elements. In the politi-cal realm, the main goal was to increase state power by introducingmodifications to the bureaucratic and legal systems, and operatingmajor changes in the configuration o the blocs o power. In the eco-nomic sphere, the aim was to recover control o the national economy,with a strong emphasis on colonial trade, industrialisation and fiscalreorm. And, at the societal level, he sought to promote secularisa-tion and modernisation and supported the diffusion o doctrines thatjustified the unrestrained sovereignty o the king over his subjects andterritories.

Te ancien rgime had specific characteristics in Portugal, beingheavily influenced by the medieval corporate tradition grounded inthe organic representation o the sociopolitical body. Te king was thehead, having the role o maintaining the established order. But thenotion o pact was central in these theories, implying the interdepend-ence between the monarch and his vassals, and allowing every part othe sociopolitical body a certain amount o autonomy (Hespanha, ;Villalta, ).

In opposition to this configuration, the political project o Pombal



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was based on the notion o the absolute and indisputable sovereignty othe monarch. He systematically pursued the centralisation o politicaldecisions and the elimination o the relatively independent jurisdic-

tions. Te group that most benefited rom this kind o autonomy wasthe upper stratum o the nobility. Moreover, during the reign o DomJoo V, the aristocracy benefited financially and politically, mainlyas a result o the influx o substantial revenues generated by goldmining in Brazil since the end o the seventeenth century. Tere wasalso a strengthening o the relationship between the aristocracy andthe bureaucratic sector, with the ormer increasing its presence andpower o decision inside the state apparatus. Tus, some o its memberswere explicitly hostile to the project o strengthening state power, asthis would end their autonomy and reduce their political prestige.In response to their unveiled opposition, Pombal adopted highlyrepressive measures, resorting to extreme violence against those whosupposedly challenged the state.

On different occasions the state apparatus was used against the anti-absolutist raction o nobility, but the vora affair was o particularsignificance, as the government used this event to terriy, by physicaland symbolic violence, its enemies at the apex o the social hierarchy(Falcon, : ). Tis episode was the culmination o a process start-ing with the attempt to murder Dom Jos I in September . Betweenthose arrested and accused or the crime was a group o prominentaristocrats who, despite the absence o a conession and any kind oevidence, were convicted or the crimes o lse-majest, treason, andrebellion against the King and the State (Maxwell, : ). Tey weresentenced to death, some o them by public execution, in a display oextreme violence.

Additionally, a decree reaffirmed the irreducible nature o theproperty o the crown. Te concessions granted by the king to nobleamilies, whether in income, property or titles, were susceptible toreversal and in need o periodic confirmation. During Dom Jossreign, the renewal o these concessions was slow, regularly postponed,with the titles and revenues o the houses that constituted the core oPortugals aristocratic elite suspended or many years (Monteiro, :).

Another powerul group opposed to Pombals objectives was theRoman Catholic Church. Eighteenth-century Portuguese society wascharacterised by the ecclesiastical control over it. Te Church had in itshands the monopoly o education and regulated the production and di-



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usion o inormation through its dominant position in the Inquisitionand the ribunal o the Holy Office, the institution responsible or thecensorship o publications. Te Church was also the main agent o

socialisation. Tus, the Catholic Church had a dominant role in theideological realm, being the main exponent o, and the agent respon-sible or, the cultural and intellectual hegemony o the aristocracy. Inother words, aristocratic supremacy, expressed in the prominence o itsvalues and world views, has its reproduction and perpetuation assuredby the ecclesiastical sector (Falcon, : ).

Within this ecclesiastic hegemony, the Jesuits occupied a key posi-tion and, as mentioned above, they held a near monopoly o education.As a result, thinkers o the Portuguese Enlightenment blamed them orthe cultural and educational decadence o the kingdom. Te Societyo Jesus was considered as the main upholder o a dead and sterilescholastic tradition, ill-suited to the Age o Reason, and an obstacle tothe development o modern ideas (Maxwell, : ). Tere was alsoan understanding that only an education directed and maintained bysecular power could contribute to the stability o the civil order and tothe development o Portuguese society. During Pombals administra-tion, this perspective became the official state view. In , a royaldecree suppressed the Jesuit schools and banned the Society o Jesusthroughout the Portuguese Empire.

Tese measures should be understood in the broader context oassertion o regal sovereignty. What was at stake was the political roleo the Church and its hegemony in the ideological expressions o thestate as a result o its dominance in orming mentalities. Te objec-tive was not merely the modernisation o the educational system butalso the elimination o ecclesiastic hegemony in the political realmwhich threatened Pombals intentions o ensuring royal supremacy.Tus, the secularisation o education, with the establishment o publicinstruction controlled by the state, was strongly articulated with theenlightened absolutist political project.

In , the Law o Good Reason was promulgated which comple-mented the political and ideological subjection o the Church withits juridical subordination. Te law established a rational precept orthe validity o all laws, according to which only those laws should beaccepted that do not conflict with the principles o human reason. Italso declared the primacy o national law over Roman and canon law,the last two applied only in the cases not covered by the first.

Hence, the reign o Dom Jos was a moment o rupture with



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ecclesiastical power and o secularisation o the political sphere whichthus became more autonomous. Nonetheless, there was never a gen-eralised fight against the Church or a deist movement in eighteenth-

century Portugal. Te Church, kept subordinated to the state andoperating within limits, was treated as necessary or the conservationo order.

In , the Royal Censorial Court was created, with the objectiveo secularising and centralising control o the works to be publishedor disseminated in the Portuguese Empire. Tis task, shared until thenbetween the ribunal o the Holy Office and governmental bodies, wastranserred in its totality to the new institution. Te state secular cen-sorship, however, ocused not only on books and ideas that challengedthe sociopolitical order but also on those that threatened Catholicism.

In this sense, the Royal Censorial Court decree o is illustrativein that it reflects the eclecticism o the Luso-Brazilian Enlightenmentand its complex articulation o religion, science and politics.6 Tedecree implicitly affirmed a need to combine natural reason andrevealed religion. It affirmed the absolute primacy o Christianity,conceiving it as the only religion that provides that men know theinfluence o natural reason and subject their weak lights to the highertruths o Divine Revelation, thus leading to the enlightenment ohumankind. Religious reason becomes enlightened. It is religion thatguides individual and social conduct, subjecting people to naturalreason, and restraining their passions. Tus, it would establish thegood [social] order. Finally, the decree states that Christianity wouldound the power o the political government, instilling the author-ity o kings, and inculcating obedience and subjection in the vassals.Tereore, Christianity remains the oundation o political society.

For these reasons, the Crown would fiercely combat irreligion.Books or authors which supposedly blasted the Catholic religionand supported deism and atheism were orbidden in the PortugueseEmpire. Also banned were authors and books whose ideas challengedthe colonial system, particularly those deending the ree marketagainst colonial exclusivism, and those affirming the natural and inal-ienable right o reedom or all people, thereore condemning slavery.

In this second group we find authors who proposed changes inthe relation between the metropolis and its possessions in America.Te main targets o criticism were the excesses o royal power, theprivileges o the king and nobility, commercial monopoly, slavery, andthe fiscal oppression o the colonies. Additionally, some deended the



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right o insurgency o the vassals against their rulers, questioning thelegitimacy o absolutist monarchy and o the colonial system as a whole(Villalta, : ).

o deend the supremacy o the king and the Catholic religion,the Royal Censorial Court orbade many books and authors. Te listwas extensive, including all works o Raynal, DAlembert, Buffon,Condorcet, Condillac, Diderot, Mably, Montesquieu, Rousseau andVoltaire, among others. Also censored were Montaignes Essais, La

princesse de Clves o Mme de la Fayette, the Contes Moraux byMarmontel,Adam SmithsTe Wealth of the Nations,Tomas PainesRights of Man, and different books by Pope, Swif, Sterne, Goethe,Robertson, Hume, Hobbes and Locke.7

It is worth noting that the prohibition made it harder to dissemi-nate the works placed on the list but did not prevent it, with copies oall o the aorementioned authors and books circulating in Portugaland Brazil. In addition, special permits to possess prohibited bookswere granted to some individuals who were considered to be able tobe enlightened without corrupting their morals and, consequently,putting the sociopolitical order in danger. Tus, some people wereseen as more suitable than others to adopt the critical attitude o theEnlightenment which should, thereore, be allowed only within thisselect group o people.

At the same time, within limits and in mitigated versions, someo the new ideas developed in the context o the Enlightenmentwere propagated by the Crown which supported the scientific andpedagogical renewal o educational institutions and the oundationo literary and scientific academies. Seeking to change the educationaland cultural Portuguese landscape, which privileged theology and thescholastic tradition, the government made a major reorm o CoimbraUniversity, emphasising natural sciences, philosophy, economics andother knowledge useul or commercial activities (Villalta, : ).

In the political realm, the enlightened reorms dealt not only withideological but also with practical matters, aiming to reorganise andstrengthen the state bureaucracy. Pombal sought to rationalise thebureaucracy, ollowing one o the most typical tendencies o theenlightened governments o the period; he tried to increase the rev-enues o the state through the reduction o the costs o the administra-tive apparatus, eliminating unnecessary expenses. Tis was pursuedmainly through administrative reorganisation and a unctional review,centred on replacing the traditional and random orms o payment



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by fixed scales o remuneration or officials, and on the adoption odetailed regimens laying out the rights and duties with regard to eachunction. Additionally, efforts were made to increase the subordination

to royal power and eradicate indiscipline and corruption rom the stateadministration through a closer surveillance o its officials (Falcon,: ).

Te administrative reorganisation reflected major changes in the rela-tionship between the high nobility and the state. As mentioned earlier,the influence o corporate theories o power was still strong in Portugal,with independent and private jurisdictions persisting with some degreeo autonomy rom royal power. Administratively, the organic idealisa-tion o the sociopolitical body was translated into the existence o differ-ent councils, usually led by the most prominent noble amilies, the lastseen as parts o a body that worked with autonomy but in co-ordinationwith the head, that is, the king. With these reorms, political power anddecision-making were centralised in newly created secretaries o statewhich deprived the councils o their powers and autonomy.

In what involves the Portuguese colonies, Pombals main concernwas the progressive loss o state presence and the diminishing o itsinrastructural power in the periphery o the empire. He consideredthat the decline in the capacity or state action and control in theoverseas possessions could pave the way or the development o localautonomist aspirations, as well as increased smuggling and illegalcommercial exploitation o colonial goods, producing a significantreduction in tax revenue. As a result, Pombal determined to reor-ganise the colonial administration and strengthen the state apparatusoverseas. Additionally, a fiscal reorm was implemented to rationaliseand increase tax revenues, primarily by combating tax evasion and byclearing the colonial bureaucratic channels that obstructed commercialcirculation and tax collection (Falcon, : ).

Te Eighteenth-century Brazilian Enlightened Revolts

It is on the relationship between metropolis and colony that one o themain contradictions o the Enlightenment rests. Te colonial situationis understood as one o necessary subordination and ineriority, as thiswas the destiny o the colonies (Falcon, : ). Tus, the criticalposture that is central to the Enlightenment does not apply when itcomes to colonialism which was considered as an institution beyondquestioning.



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Te enlightened reorms generated reactions in Brazil and becamepart o a broader discussion about the relations between state andsociety, and between metropolis and colony. Te claim, central to

the Enlightenment, that all authority which is not justified by reasonshould be rejected challenged the idea o an indisputable and immu-table colonial domain, stimulating the subjects to look at their realitycritically (Villalta, : ). Tis critical enlightened reflection con-tributed to the emergence o revolts against Portuguese rule in Brazil.

Te most relevant instances o revolt in the eighteenth century werethe Minas conspiracy () and the aylor revolt (). Teyshould be understood both in relation to ideas and developments at theinternational level and to local realities and specificities. Te enlight-ened reormism, the crisis o the colonial system, the economic crisisin the colonies, ideas developed by the Enlightenment, the local impacto metropolitan policies, and specific events such as the American andFrench revolutions, all contributed to these events, at least to someextent.

Te Minas conspiracy was a plot organised in the gold-miningprovince o Minas Gerais. It was, according to Maxwell (: viii),the result o socio-economic divergence between Minas Gerais andPortugal, and o a classic conrontation between colonial and met-ropolitan interest groups. Almost all its participants were memberso the colonial elite: miners, armers, priests, high-ranking military,lawyers and judges, who had ties with the colonial authorities and, insome cases, perormed official unctions in the colonial administration.

Even though they were the most powerul and wealthy individuals othe province, they experienced, rom the second hal o the eighteenthcentury, an economic and political decline. Te political reorms aimedat centralising the state apparatus and asserting the absolute power othe king weakened the power which had been considerable duringthe seventeenth century and the first hal o the eighteenth (Maxwell,) exercised locally by these colonial elites. In addition, the con-tinuous all in gold production and the measures taken to ensure taxcollection had a great impact on their economic situation.

Te enlightened fiscal reorms had changed the methods o taxationo Brazilian gold production, replacing the fifh tax which consistedin the payment o a fifh o total gold production to the king by theavena, an annual minimum contribution o gold which should beguaranteed by the municipal councils (Maxwell, : ). I the quotawas not reached, the councils had to implement a derrama, charging



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a per capita local tax to make up the difference. In , the governoro Minas Gerais received orders rom Portugal to apply a derramaandinvestigate all individuals who had debts to the Crown.

Tese measures represented an additional threat to the economicsituation o the colonial elite whose members were the main debtorsto the Crown and closely connected with mining activities. It is inthis context that they planned an uprising aiming to secede romthe Portuguese Empire and to install a constitutional republic in theprovince.

In their project, a strong influence by some works o the Enlightenmentand by the War o American Independence can be identified. Despitethe censorship o works and authors considered dangerous to thesocial and political order, many o the proscribed books were oundin the private libraries o the participants o the conspiracy.8Several othe books confiscated were about the War o American Independence,and various witnesses declared that those involved in the conspiracyrecurrently mentioned the revolutionary events in English Americaand passionately debate it, having a natural complaisance in thesuccess that the American rebels had.9Other witnesses claimed thatthe conspirators asserted that Minas Gerais, with the implementa-tion o the derrama,was in the same circumstances that led EnglishAmerica to revolt. Finally, many o those indicted or the conspiracywere writers themselves and, in their works, the influence o the aore-mentioned authors, ideas and events is clear, abounding as they doin criticism o tyranny, colonialism and specific aspects o Pombalsenlightened reorms. In addition, they contain plenty o reerencesto republicanism, and to the War o American Independence, as pos-sible ways o solving the problems and ostering the progress o MinasGerais.10

Te basic justification or the conspiracy given by its members ol-lowed the ideology o enlightened government; the incapacity o rulersto accomplish necessary reorms, dictated by reason, justified the revo-lutionary option. Te conspirators ound in Raynals work a deence othe legitimacy o popular rebellion against a despotic power. In Histoiredes Deux Indes the author criticises colonial atrocities, and appeals torevolt and the affirmation o the principle o reedom and independ-ence. Raynal asserts the existence o three kinds o reedom: the naturalreedom associated with man; the civil reedom o the citizen; and thepolitical reedom o a people. Political reedom is defined by the authoras the state o a people who has not alienated its sovereignty and that



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makes its own laws, or is associated, in part, to its laws. Departing romthis definition, Raynal states that the inhabitants o the colonies, eitherslaves or reemen, were not really ree, being subject to the captivity o

tyranny and despotism. He also emphasises the absence o a socialcontract between the colonies and the metropolis. According to Raynal,revolt is the name that the oppressor gives to the legitimate exerciseo an inalienable and natural right o the man who is oppressed, andstated that i the people are happy under the orm o their government,they conserve it. He also signalled the transient character o all govern-mental orms, stressing that no orm o government has the right to beimmutable, and that there is no political authority created yesterdayor a thousand years ago, which cannot be abrogated in ten years timeor tomorrow (Raynal : ).

Following Raynals ideas, the participants o the Minas conspiracyclaimed that they had the legitimate right to rebel against colonial powerbecause they were oppressed by an unreasonable sovereign, thereore,a tyrant. Hence, they were acting in the name o reedom, their sloganbeing Libertas QuSera amen. Nonetheless, their deence o libertyhad its limits: they did not touch on the theme o slavery, some o thembeing slave owners. Teir conception o a rightul pursuit o reedomwas restricted to white reemen. In addition, they did not broach thesubject o social equality, suggesting that some inequality was necessaryor social order. Tus, as with many enlightened thinkers, they did notgo beyond political equality, thereby condemning social equality.

Once again, as in the case o the Portuguese enlightened reorm-ism, we are acing a selective and eclectic use o the Enlightenment,according to specific interests and context. Teir revolution, in act,was a conservative one. Te reedom demanded in the economic andpolitical realms did not apply to the social order which should bekept as it was. Te members o this political and intellectual elite werereormists, believing that it was possible to live with the basic socialstructures o colonial society, provided that they were improved upon,and that the rulers were rational, enlightened sovereigns. Claimingthat this was not the case with the Luso-Brazilian Empire, and that theking was a tyrant, they admitted the possibility o political change deending emancipation with socio-economic structural continuity preserving the slave-owning order.

Te aylor revolt, organised in Salvador in , was more popularthan the Minas conspiracy. It was a movement organised by peoplemarked by an inerior racial and social status: ree blacks and mixed



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race people with urban occupations, such as crafsmen or soldiers,some white men who, with ew exceptions, were also members o thelower classes, and a ew slaves. Te main target o the uprising was

slavery and white dominance. It was triggered by the living conditionso the population o Salvador where the scarcity o ood and amine ledto several riots in and . Tey sought to achieve ree trade, inde-pendence, the end o racial discrimination in public offices and militarybodies and, most important o all, the abolition o slavery (Mattoso,; avares, ).

Te revolt was inspired by the ideas o French philosophers andthe example o the French Revolution. Te documents relating to theprosecution o the rebels show that they were ound with notebookscontaining transcriptions o texts by Rousseau and a handwrittentranslation o Volney, entitled Revolution of Past Centuries. Other textsmentioned in the prosecution documents are O Orador dos EstadosGerais de , by Jean-Louis Carra, Te Speech of Boissy dAnglas(),Aviso de Petersburgo (), and LesRuines ou Mditation surles Rvolutions des Empiresby Volnay (Mattoso, ).

Here, the slogan centred on the idea o equality. In the maniestothat urged the people to rebel, signed by the anonymous republicans,they claimed that the time had arrived when we will all be brothers, thetime when we will all be equal.11During the movement, other mani-estos were circulated that reveal the aspiration to an egalitarian societyin which racial differences would not represent barriers to holdingoffice and to social mobility. Te rebels also preached the benefits o agovernment o equality and o republicanism which, together, consti-tuted, in their view, the only truly reasonable and enlightened orm orule.

Te two conspiracies were very different in their criticism, motiva-tions and objectives, and in the socio-economic status o their members.Nonetheless, they had in common a way o thought, characteristic othe Enlightenment; departing rom a rational assessment o reality anda critical evaluation o the present, they reflexively developed a projector a better uture, legitimated by the enlightened and reasonablerejection o authority and o the status quo. Tus, the conspiracies ineighteenth-century Brazil show, once again, that the critical attitudewhich characterises the Enlightenment can lead to different social andpolitical projects.



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Conclusion

Te conception o the Enlightenment as a homogeneous revolution-

ary intellectual movement, characterised by the deence o universalreedom and equality, and an antireligious and anti-absolutist spirit,led many authors to hold that the Luso-Brazilian Empire did not expe-rience this movement until the first decades o the nineteenth century.My aim in this chapter has been to show that this perspective is wrong.Understanding the Enlightenment as a critical and reflexive attitude,as the courage to use ones own reason [Kant, () ], I claimthat this was clearly present in the eighteenth-century Luso-BrazilianEmpire. Te crisiso consciousness o the beginning o that centurywas a reflection o this, as were the reorms made under Dom Jossrule and subsequent Brazilian conspiracies.

Some authors add an adjective when characterising the PortugueseEnlightenment, recognising the presence o the movement whilehighlighting its differences in relation to what is considered even iimplicitly as the original version o Enlightenment. Te most usualqualifications are mitigated, eclectic and compromised. Tese qual-ifications suggest a coexistence between the Enlightenment and previ-ous traditions o thought. Tis coexistence is undeniable but it is notspecific to the Portuguese case. In act, the coexistence o different wayso thought is not an exception but the rule. All Enlightenments are,somehow, eclectic, with their substantive content varying, accordingto its articulations with different traditions o thought, specific to eachcontext.

In the Portuguese case, absolutism and Roman Catholicism werethe main ingredients that were blended with it. But the associationbetween Enlightenment and absolutism also occurred in other polities;Pombals reorms are closely associated with those o other great figureso enlightened absolutism, such as Catherine II in Russia, Frederick IIin Prussia and Joseph II in Austria (Maxwell, : ). Te articulationwith religion can also be ound in the writings o major enlightenedthinkers in other countries, such as Italy, Spain and Prussia, o whommany were clergymen.

Finally, I argue that the Enlightenment can lead both to reorm andto revolution. Within the Luso-Brazilian Empire, religious men, abso-lutist rulers and political elites resorted to reason, objective knowledge,criticism and reflexivity to deend the ancien rgime and Catholicism,that is, the very same elements that, in other countries, laid the



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oundations or the criticism o these institutions. In addition, I haveshown how even within the Luso-Brazilian world, the Enlightenmentwas plural, inspiring both conservative/reormist and radical/revolu-

tionary political projects.Hence, the Luso-Brazilian case shows that the Enlightenment is

plural in its maniestations, being shaped by the concerns, needs andinterests o particular times and spaces, that is, by specific historicalplaces. Also, it demonstrates that the Enlightenment can be articulatedwith different traditions o thought and can lead to different outcomes.Consequently, as Outram () points out, a generalising analysis othe Enlightenment is impossible. As Pocock () suggests, we shouldeschew the definite article and speak o a variety o enlightenmentsrather than the Enlightenment, accepting the act that it had a numbero projects going, not all o which necessarily got along very well witheach other (Schmidt, : ). As a result, case studies, as well ascomparative works, are central to understanding the Enlightenment inits plurality, and the various roles it played in the trajectories o differ-ent modern societies. Tis chapter has attempted a contribution in thisdirection.

Notes

. Te main representatives o this strand were clergymen, such as the SpanishBenito Feijoo, the Portuguese Luis Antonio Verney, and the Italians LudovicoAntonio Muratori and Antonio Genovesi.

. It is also worth noting, regarding this theme, that the Enlightenment shows plu-rality, with some authors, such as Morelly, Malby, Spencer and Ogilvie, making aradical deence o social equality as a necessary eature o a just society.

. For example, Montesquieu, Helvetius, Voltaire and Holbach. Rousseau andRaynal go even urther, deending the reedom o all subjects to rebel against adespotic sovereign (Villalta, : ).

. Mendelssohn differentiated the civil enlightenment rom the human enlighten-

ment, while Kant developed a distinction between the publicandprivateuse oreason (Schmidt, : ). . Tere was, as with the other main ideas o the Enlightenment, a plurality o

understanding, with some authors, such as Raynal and Kant, explicitly condemn-ing colonialism on the basis o the equality o all human beings and the universalvalue o reedom.

. Instituto dos Arquivos Nacionais da orre do ombo. Real Mesa Censria, Editalde de setembro de , caixa (P//RMC/B-A/).

. Instituto dos Arquivos Nacionais da orre do ombo. Real Mesa Censria.Secretaria da Censura /. Editais de proibio de livros / (P//RMC/B-A/).

. AUOS de devassa, de perguntas, de testemunhas, de confrontao e conciliao



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e de inquirio relativos a Inconfidncia Mineira. AHU_CU_, Cx. , D.. Te documents relating to the trials o the conspirators contain invento-ries o books confiscated in the houses o some o them. Also, different witnesses

declared that the conspirators owned or had mentioned books and authorswhich were orbidden. Te review o these documents shows the presence othe ollowing works: the Encyclopedia of Diderot andDAlembert; Observationssur le Gouvernement des tats Unis de lAmrique; Le Droit Public de lEurope() and De la Legislation ou Principes des Lois () by Mably; Histoire desDeux Indes () by Raynal; LEsprit des lois by Montesquieu; Te History ofAmerica() by Robertson; OVerdadeiro Mtodo de Estudar by Verney; theeatro Crtico Universal o Feijoo; Baron de Bielelds three-volume InstitutionsPolitiques (); Wallaces Dissertation Historique et Politique (); YoungsArithmetique Politique; Aikins Letters from a Father to His Son on Variousopics; and different books without specification o Voltaire, Marmontel, B.

de Saint-Pierre, Condillac, Lafitau and Rousseau. Also, a collection o the consti-tutive laws o the United States appeared as part o the case or the prosecution. . AHU_CU_, Cx. , D. -. In the reerences o authors, the work o Abb

Raynal eatures prominently. Various witnesses claimed that that the conspiratorsread and mentioned with requency the Histoire de lAmrique anglaise. Some, theysaid, even knew passages off by heart. For most o the witnesses, the subversivepotential retained rom Raynals work by the conspirators was that it explainedthe mode o having an uprising, as involving the cutting o the Governors headand then making a speech to the people [which should be] repeated by an eruditeperson. Tus, the insurrection should take place as a political action which wouldthen be legitimised by a speech to the people and ratified by a scholar.

. See, or instance, oms Antnio Gonzaga`s Cartas Chilenas (); CantoGenetlaco o Incio Jos de Alvarenga Peixoto (); Vila Rica() and PoesiasManuscritas() o Cludio Manoel da Costa.

. Autos da Devassa da Conspirao dos Alfaiates. Salvador: Arquivo Pblico doEstado da Bahia.

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The Luso-Brazilian Enlightenment

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