From Farce to Tragedy

Abstract

This article relates the story of the rivalry between Portuguese, Brazilian, and foreign Jesuits in the province of Brazil, seeking to identify when, how, and why an internal dispute became enmeshed in the Society of Jesus’s relationship with the outside world. In fact, the riots caused by the 1680 enactment of the charter of freedom of the Indians not only deepened divisions among Jesuits in Brazil, but also involved representatives of residents, governors, and the Portuguese crown in the Society’s internal affairs. António Vieira’s defeat in this dispute contributed to the broader defeat of the colonial tutelage project implemented by Manuel da Nóbrega beginning in the mid-sixteenth century (and which Vieira still advocated in his last political text, in 1694), as well as to the suspension of the aforementioned charter.