# Jesuits expelled from Mozambique (1759–1760)

URL: https://allhistories.com/mozambique/timeline/1759-jesuits-expelled-from-mozambique
Location: Mozambique Island and Zambezi valley, Mozambique
Themes: main-event

After the Marquis of Pombal outlawed the Society of Jesus across the Portuguese empire in 1759, the Jesuits working in Mozambique were arrested and shipped out. Their houses on Mozambique Island and in the Zambezi valley were seized, and their lands and prazos passed to the crown or were auctioned. The expulsion removed the order that had run schools and missions for nearly two centuries. Their schools and chapels closed. The Dominicans, who held a large share of the Zambezi missions, remained but were few in number. Mission work declined sharply over the next decades, because Portugal lacked priests and funds, and many parishes were served by a handful of Goan or African clergy. The prazo estates formerly held by the Jesuits were re-let to other holders, mostly Portuguese, Goan and Afro-Portuguese families. Some Jesuit buildings on the island were later used as hospitals or barracks. At the date of this event the principal authority over the largest part of present-day Mozambique, by the convention of this dataset, lay with David Marques Pereira, Governor of Mozambique (1758–1759). Locally, Nechagadzike (Mambo of the Rozvi, ? –c. 1767); Debwe Mupunzagutu (Mwenemutapa, c. 1745–c. 1760) held authority in the region concerned. The expulsion weakened the Catholic Church in Mozambique at the very moment when the Atlantic and Indian Ocean slave trades were expanding, and left a gap that Protestant and later Catholic missions only filled in the nineteenth century. The loss of the mission schools also reduced early literacy among Africans and Afro-Portuguese families.

## Why it matters
Pombal's anti-Jesuit decrees crippled mission life in colonial Mozambique.

Ruler at the Time: [David Marques Pereira](https://allhistories.com/mozambique/rulers/david-marques-pereira)

## Sources
- [Jesuits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuits)
- [Portuguese Mozambique](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Mozambique)
- [History of Mozambique](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Mozambique)