Latest / The History of Portugal: The Small Nation That Built a Global Empire — Fexingo History / The Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked about Portugal's empire stretching from Brazil to Japan, but today I want to look at the moment that nearly broke it all — the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755. It hit on the morning of November first, which is All Saints' Day, and it basically destroyed the capital. Luna: Was that the one that Voltaire wrote about in Candide? Lucas: Exactly, and we'll get to that. But first, the basic picture. At around 9:40 in the morning, a massive earthquake — modern estimates put it between 8.5 and 9.0 on the moment magnitude scale — struck offshore, probably in the Atlantic, along the Azores-Gibraltar fault. The shaking lasted anywhere from three and a half to six minutes, which is an eternity, and it cracked buildings all over the city. Lucas: But the earthquake itself was only the beginning. Because it was a holy day, the churches were packed with worshippers, and thousands of people died when the roofs collapsed on top of them. Then, about forty minutes after the shaking, a series of tsunamis — some say three waves, some say more — swept into the Tagus river and flooded the lower parts of the city, pulling hundreds of people out to sea. Luna: And then the fires started. Lucas: Exactly. With all those candles and oil lamps overturned, fires broke out across the city and raged for nearly six days. By the time they burned out, an estimated 80 to 90 percent of Lisbon was in ruins. The death toll is debated — some say 10,000, some say 100,000 — but a commonly cited figure is around 40,000 out of a population of roughly 275,000. One of the most famous victims was the royal library, which housed thousands of books and manuscripts, including rare works by Camões and others. That loss was a cultural catastrophe that resonated all over Europe. Luna: Forty thousand dead in a city that size — that's like losing a tenth of the population in one morning. Lucas: And it wasn't just Lisbon. The quake triggered tsunamis that hit the Algarve coast, and waves even crossed the Atlantic, reaching the Caribbean. The king, José I, was lucky — he was out riding in the countryside at Belém, and he survived. But the royal palace was destroyed, and he was so traumatized that he developed a fear of enclosed spaces. He had his court set up in tents in the hills for months afterward. Lucas: But what's most fascinating to me is how the catastrophe became a test case for Enlightenment thinking. The earthquake hit on a holy day, in a devout Catholic country, and that raised an obvious question: how could God allow this to happen to the faithful? That question echoed through the writings of Voltaire, who used the earthquake as the centerpiece of his satire Candide, published in 1759. He has Candide wander into Lisbon just as the earthquake strikes, and he uses it to mock the idea that we live in 'the best of all possible worlds.' Luna: So the earthquake became a philosophical scandal. Lucas: It did. And not just for Voltaire. Immanuel Kant, who was a young philosophy student in Königsberg at the time, was so fascinated by the reports that he wrote three essays on the earthquake. He tried to explain it through natural causes — he speculated about underground chambers of fire and such — which were wrong, but he was one of the first to treat earthquakes as a natural phenomenon to be studied rather than as divine punishment. Lucas: And then there was the Portuguese response, which in some ways was even more radical. The chief minister, the Marquês de Pombal, was a committed Enlightenment reformer. He famously asked his officials to gather detailed reports from parishes across the country about the shaking, the damage, and the aftershocks. That inquiry is often called the first modern scientific survey of an earthquake, and it's seen as the birth of seismology. Luna: So Pombal was doing science, not prayer. Lucas: He did both. He ordered the Inquisition to investigate, and they actually burned a heretic at the stake, partly for claiming the earthquake was divine punishment — that was a bit of a political move, to reassert control. But he also focused on rebuilding. He rejected the old medieval street layout and brought in plans for a grid of wide avenues and uniform buildings, made with a new type of earthquake-resistant construction — wooden frames, called gaiola, that flexed instead of snapping. That new district is now the Baixa Pombalina. Luna: That's the downtown area that tourists still walk through today. Lucas: Exactly. So Pombal used the disaster to modernize the city, to centralize power, and to curb the influence of the old aristocracy and the Church. He gave the King a new palace, but he also made sure the King trusted him completely. It was a huge power consolidation that shaped Portuguese politics for decades. Lucas: But before we get too deep into the reconstruction, we should take a breath — because this is a big topic, and we're going to come back to it. You know, if you're listening to this and you've been coming with us through these conversations about Portugal and its empire, you might have noticed that a lot of what we cover are these moments of crisis and renewal. This show is ad-free, which is great for us, but it means we rely on listeners who want to help keep it going. Luna: Yeah, it's a small thing, but it makes a big difference. Lucas: If you've been enjoying the journey and want to support it, you can do that at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a simple way to help us keep exploring these stories with you. Luna: And we really appreciate it. Lucas: So — back to Lisbon. Pombal's rebuild wasn't just about buildings; it was about power. He used the chaos to push through reforms that weakened the old nobility and the Jesuits, whom he later expelled from Portugal and its colonies. That move had huge consequences for the empire, especially in places like Brazil, where the Jesuits had run the missions. Luna: So the earthquake indirectly changed the course of the empire itself. Lucas: It did. With the Jesuits gone, the Portuguese crown took direct control of their missions and their land, which altered the dynamics of colonization and trade. And the rebuilding of Lisbon also required massive amounts of stone and timber, much of it from Brazil, which further tightened the economic bonds between the metropolis and the colony. Lucas: But there's also a darker side. The chaos after the earthquake gave Pombal a free hand to go after his enemies, and he used it ruthlessly. He had the Távora family executed for an alleged conspiracy against the King, even though the evidence was flimsy. That whole episode, the Távora affair, is a chilling reminder that disasters can be used to settle political scores. Luna: Let's talk about the tsunami a bit more — how high were those waves? Lucas: They're estimated to have been around 5 to 10 meters high in Lisbon, but in some parts of the Algarve they may have reached 15 meters or more. Eyewitnesses described ships being carried inland and then dumped back out, and there are accounts of people on the shore being swept away without warning. The tsunami was recorded as far away as Cornwall in England and even in the Caribbean, which shows just how massive the event was. Lucas: One of the most haunting accounts comes from an English merchant who survived the quake. He wrote about how the sea first receded, exposing the riverbed, and then came back as a wall of water that surged up the Tagus, knocking down boats and flooding the customs house. It's one of those moments where you get a real sense of the chaos and terror. Luna: I've read that some people tried to escape by boat, but the tsunami caught them. Lucas: Right, and there are accounts of boats being dashed against bridges and buildings. The loss of life in the water might have been as high as the deaths from the shaking itself. And then, of course, the fires finished the job. So you have this triple disaster — earthquake, tsunami, fire — and that's why the death toll was so catastrophic. Lucas: You know, one of the most interesting debates after the earthquake was about whether it was a punishment from God. The Jesuits and some clergy preached that the people of Lisbon deserved it, but Pombal famously replied — and this is often quoted — 'what are we to do about the ants?' He meant that if God wanted to punish Lisbon, why did He kill so many innocent people? That rationalist response was a direct challenge to the old religious interpretation. Luna: So Pombal was basically an Enlightenment guy in a religious world. Lucas: He was. He saw the disaster as a problem to be solved, not a mystery to be endured. And that attitude is what led to the earthquake-resistant buildings and the urban redesign. He even ordered that all new buildings be tested with troops marching in step across their floors to make sure they could withstand the vibrations. That's a great image — soldiers stomping through the new Lisbon. Luna: And it worked, because the Baixa Pombalina survived later earthquakes. Lucas: It did. The 1909 earthquake and others caused far less damage in that district than elsewhere. So Pombal's innovation was genuinely successful. It's a rare case where a city built from scratch after a disaster actually learned from the past and created something safer. Lucas: Now, on a broader level, the earthquake also shook the foundations of Portugal's global standing. The empire was already struggling, but this disaster drained the treasury and diverted resources away from maintaining colonies. It also hit the city that was the hub of trade with Brazil and Asia, so the economic ripple effects were felt across the Atlantic and beyond. Luna: Did it speed up the decline of the empire in any way? Lucas: It's hard to say, but it definitely didn't help. The rebuilding cost a fortune, and Pombal had to raise taxes, which caused resentment. But he also used the opportunity to modernize the economy, setting up state-backed companies and encouraging industry. So in the long run, Portugal might have come out stronger in some ways, even as the empire contracted. Lucas: But I think the most lasting legacy of the earthquake is in how it changed people's thinking. Before 1755, earthquakes were often seen as supernatural events. After it, thanks to Pombal's survey and Kant's essays, they became objects of scientific study. That shift is huge — it's part of the broader Enlightenment move toward explaining the world through reason rather than faith. Luna: So the earthquake was a kind of philosophical watershed. Lucas: It really was. Voltaire used it to question theodicy — the problem of evil — and that debate echoed for decades. And it also inspired a lot of writing about natural disasters, from poetry to scientific treatises. So even though it was a horrible tragedy, it ended up shaping modern thought in unexpected ways. Luna: I had no idea Kant wrote about earthquakes — that's such a neat detail. Lucas: Right? And he was just one of many. There were pamphlets, sermons, and scholarly articles published across Europe within a year. The earthquake became an international event, not just a Portuguese one. It was one of the first disasters to be covered in real time through the press, which was growing rapidly at the time. So you could say it was a media event before that term existed. Lucas: And then there's the human side. The survivors had to deal with not only the physical destruction but also the psychological trauma. There are accounts of people who lost their entire families, who wandered the ruins for days. The fact that Lisbon recovered at all is a testament to the resilience of its people — and to Pombal's relentless energy. Luna: It's a story of both devastation and renewal. Lucas: Absolutely. And that's what makes it such a compelling chapter in Portugal's history. It's not just about a disaster; it's about how a nation reacted to it, how it rebuilt itself, and how it rethought its place in the world. And I think that's something we can still learn from today, especially when we think about how we respond to climate change and other modern crises. Lucas: So, next time you're walking through Lisbon's Baixa, take a moment to look at the buildings. They're not just beautiful — they're a monument to one of the most important responses to catastrophe in European history.