When did Charles III expel the Jesuits from Spain and America?

Charles III expels the Jesuits

Carlos III expulsa a los jesuitas

1767. In 1767 Charles III ordered the Society of Jesus out of Spain and all its American and Asian dominions, as Portugal and France had already done.

Draft: not yet checked against its sources.

Where: Spain, The whole Spanish-speaking world, Río de la Plata, Mexico, Paraguay, Argentina, Peru

What happened

In 1767 Charles III ordered the Society of Jesus out of Spain and all its American and Asian dominions, as Portugal and France had already done. Some five thousand Jesuits, many of them American-born, were shipped to the Papal States. The king gave no reasons; his ministers blamed the order for the Madrid riots of 1766 and feared its wealth, its schools and its loyalty to Rome. In the Americas the loss was immense: the Jesuits ran the best colleges, the Guaraní missions and the missions of Baja California, and their expulsion set off riots in Mexican towns such as Guanajuato and San Luis Potosí that were harshly repressed. Exiled Jesuits like Francisco Javier Clavijero wrote in Italy the first histories of Mexico by Mexicans.

Say it

En 1767 el rey expulsó a los jesuitas de todo el imperio.

In 1767 the king expelled the Jesuits from the whole empire.

Why it matters

The expulsion was the sharpest sign of the Bourbon state's wish to control the Church, and the exiled creole Jesuits became early voices of American identity.

Read about it

Connected

Sources

  1. Las reformas borbónicas en la Nueva España I (ficha de clase) — Secretaría de Educación Pública (México), Nueva Escuela Mexicana
  2. About the Gálvez Visita — LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin
  3. Ruinas Jesuíticas de San Ignacio Miní — Gobierno de Argentina, Secretaría de Cultura