''
Dom'' Joseph I (; 6 June 1714 – 24 February 1777), known as the Reformer (Portuguese: ''o Reformador''), was
King of Portugal
This is a list of Portuguese monarchs who ruled from the establishment of the Kingdom of Portugal, in 1139, to the deposition of the Portuguese monarchy and creation of the Portugal, Portuguese Republic with the 5 October 1910 revolution.
Thro ...
from 31 July 1750 until his death in 1777. Among other activities, Joseph was devoted to hunting and the opera. His government was controlled by
Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal
Dom (honorific), D. Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal and 1st Count of Oeiras (13 May 1699 – 8 May 1782), known as the Marquis of Pombal ( ), was a Portuguese statesman and diplomat who Despotism, despotically ruled ...
, who implemented new laws, modernized the economy and Portuguese society, marking Joseph's reign as a time of modernization of Portugal.
The third child and second son of King
John V, Joseph became his father's heir as an infant when his older brother,
Pedro, Prince of Brazil, died. In 1729 he
married Infanta
Mariana Victoria, the eldest daughter of
Philip V of Spain. Joseph and Mariana Victoria had four daughters:
Maria,
Mariana,
Doroteia, and
Benedita.
With the death of his father in 1750, Joseph became king of Portugal. When he ascended the throne, Joseph I had at his disposal the same means of government action as his predecessors in the 17th century, despite the economic progress made in the country in the first half of the 18th century. This inadequacy of the country's administrative, legal and political structures, together with the poor economic conditions inherited from the last years of the reign of John V, forced the monarch to choose his collaborators from among those who were known for their opposition to the policies followed in the previous reign.
His reign witnessed, among other things,
a deadly earthquake in
Lisbon
Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...
in 1755 and a Spanish-French invasion of Portugal in 1762. The Lisbon earthquake allowed the Marquis of Pombal to consolidate power and also caused King Joseph to develop
claustrophobia, refusing to live in a walled building ever again. Afterwards, Joseph moved his court into a series of tents. A
new palace was built for him in Lisbon in the aftermath of the earthquake, but this was left uncompleted. Joseph died in 1777 and was succeeded by his eldest daughter, Queen Dona Maria I.
Early life
Joseph was the third child of King
John V of Portugal
''Dom (title), Dom'' John V (; 22 October 1689 – 31 July 1750), known as the Magnanimous (''o Magnânimo'') and the Portuguese Sun King (''o Rei-Sol Português''), was King of Portugal from 9 December 1706 until his death in 1750. His reig ...
and his wife
Maria Anna of Austria. He had an older brother
Pedro, Prince of Brazil, an older sister
Barbara and three younger brothers. When his brother Pedro died in 1714 at the age of two, Joseph became heir apparent with the titles of
Prince of Brazil
Prince of Brazil () was the title held by the heir-apparent to the Kingdom of Portugal, from 1645 to 1815. Tied with the title of Prince of Brazil was the title Duke of Braganza and the various subsidiary titles of the Dukedom of Braganza.
The ...
and
Duke of Braganza.
Marriage
On 19 January 1729, Joseph married Infanta
Mariana Victoria of Spain, daughter of King
Philip V of Spain and
Elisabeth Farnese, and his elder sister Barbara married King Philip's son and heir, Ferdinand,
Prince of Asturias (later King
Ferdinand VI of Spain). The ceremony became known as the
Exchange of the Princesses. Mariana Victoria loved music and hunting, just like her husband, but she was also a serious woman who disapproved of Joseph's love affairs and did not hesitate to expose them to acquaintances. They had four daughters, all born before Joseph ascended the throne.
Reign
Joseph succeeded to the Portuguese throne in 1750, when he was 36 years old, and almost immediately placed effective power in the hands of
Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo (in 1770, the king made him
Marquis of Pombal). Indeed, the history of Joseph's reign is really that of the Marquis of Pombal himself. The king's eldest daughter,
Maria Francisca, became
heir presumptive
An heir presumptive is the person entitled to inherit a throne, peerage, or other hereditary honour, but whose position can be displaced by the birth of a person with a better claim to the position in question. This is in contrast to an heir app ...
with the title of
Princess of Brazil
This is a list of princesses of Brazil, from 1645 to 1815, both by marriage and birth. The title was preceded by the titles Princess of Portugal and succeeded by Princess Royal of Portugal.
The title was created by King John IV of Portugal on ...
.
Victory over Spain and France (1762)
One of the most difficult situations faced by the king was the Franco-Spanish invasion of Portugal, in the end of the
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a Great Power conflict fought primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and South Asia. The protagonists were Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of Prus ...
(5 May-24 November 1762). France and Spain sent an ultimatum in order to force Portugal to abandon its alliance with Great Britain and close her ports to British ships. King Joseph refused to submit and asked for British help since both Portugal and its army were in a very poor condition, mainly because of the great
1755 Lisbon earthquake
The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, also known as the Great Lisbon earthquake, impacted Portugal, the Iberian Peninsula, and Northwest Africa on the morning of Saturday, 1 November, All Saints' Day, Feast of All Saints, at around 09:40 local time. In ...
. England sent a force of 7,104 men led by
John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun, and
John Burgoyne, and also the exceptional military leader
William, Count of Schaumburg-Lippe, which reformed the Portuguese army and led the allied army of 14–15,000 men in a victorious war. The Bourbon invaders first led by
Nicolás de Carvajal, Marquis of Sarriá, and then by
Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea, Count of Aranda, were thrice defeated by a combination of popular uprising,
["Both sides relied extensively on foreign troops and officers, though Portuguese popular opposition to the Spaniards proved decisive in places, especially in the North." In Maxwell, Kenneth �]
''Pombal, Paradox of the Enlightenment''
University Press, Cambridge, 1995
p. 113
scorched earth
A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy of destroying everything that allows an enemy military force to be able to fight a war, including the deprivation and destruction of water, food, humans, animals, plants and any kind of tools and i ...
strategy/famine and encircling movements by the regular Anglo-Portuguese troops, which like the militia, skilfully used the mountainous terrain to their advantage. The Spanish and French troops suffered staggering losses when they were driven out from Portugal and chased into Spain. As synthesized by historian Walter Dorn:
In South America, the war ended in a draw; the Portuguese took territory from Spain (most of the
Rio Negro Valley) and defeated a Spanish invasion of
Mato Grosso
Mato Grosso ( – ) is one of the states of Brazil, the List of Brazilian states by area, third largest by area, located in the Central-West Region, Brazil, Central-West region. The state has 1.66% of the Brazilian population and is responsible ...
, while Spain conquered
Colónia do Sacramento and the vast territory of
Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul (, ; ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative units of Brazil#List, fifth-most populous state and the List of Brazilian s ...
(1763). The
Treaty of Paris (1763)
The Treaty of Paris, also known as the Treaty of 1763, was signed on 10 February 1763 by the kingdoms of Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain, Kingdom of France, France and Spanish Empire, Spain, with Kingdom of Portugal, Portugal in agree ...
restored the ''
status quo ante bellum
The term is a Latin phrase meaning 'the situation as it existed before the war'.
The term was originally used in treaties to refer to the withdrawal of enemy troops and the restoration of prewar leadership. When used as such, it means that no ...
''. The rich and huge territory of Rio Grande do Sul would be retaken from the Spanish army during the undeclared war of 1763-1777.
[Marley, David]
''Wars of the Americas: a chronology of armed conflict in the New World, 1492 to the present''
vol. II, ABC-CLIO, USA, 2008
p. 449
an
p. 450
/ref>[Bento, Cláudio Moreira]
(electronic version), Academia de História Militar Terrestre do Brasil, chapter 5: As guerras no Sul 1763–77.[Ricardo Lesser]
''Las Orígenes de la Argentina''
Editorial Biblos, 2003, see chapte
''El desastre”
se
pp. 63–72
[Bento, Cláudio Moreira- ''Rafael Pinto Bandeira'' i]
''O Tuiuti''
nr. 95, Academia de Historia Militar Terrestre do Brasil, 2013, pp. 3–18.
Marquis of Pombal
The powerful Marquis of Pombal sought to overhaul all aspects of economic, social and colonial policy to make Portugal a more efficient contender with the other great powers of Europe, and thus enhance his own political stature. A supposed conspiracy of nobles aimed at murdering King Joseph and Pombal gave him the opportunity (some say the pretext) to neutralize the Távora family in the Távora affair
The Távoras affair () was a political scandal of the 18th century Portugal, Portuguese court. The events triggered by the attempted assassination of King Joseph I of Portugal in 1758 ended with the public execution of the entire Távora family, ...
and to expel the Jesuits in September 1759, thus gaining control of public education and a wealth of church lands and ushering Portugal into the Age of the Enlightenment
Age or AGE may refer to:
Time and its effects
* Age, the amount of time someone has been alive or something has existed
** East Asian age reckoning, an Asian system of marking age starting at 1
* Ageing or aging, the process of becoming older
...
.
Legacy and death
Joseph's reign is also noteworthy for the Lisbon earthquake, firestorm and tsunami
A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...
of 1 November 1755, in which between 30,000 and 40,000 people died. The earthquake caused Joseph to develop a severe case of claustrophobia, and he was never again comfortable living within a walled building. Consequently, he moved the royal court to an extensive complex of tents in the hills of Ajuda.
The Project for the Royal Palace in Campo de Ourique was an ambitious palatial complex planned for the Campo de Ourique neighborhood of Lisbon, but later abandoned due to a lack of impetus from the Portuguese royal family and a prioritization of other reconstruction efforts. The capital was eventually rebuilt at great cost, and an equestrian statue of King Joseph still dominates the Praça do Comércio, Lisbon's main plaza.
With Joseph's death on 24 February 1777, the throne passed to his daughter, Queen Dona Maria I, and his brother and son-in-law, King Peter III. Pombal's iron rule was sharply brought to an end, because Maria disliked him since she had been heavily influenced by the Portuguese old nobility that strongly opposed Pombal.
Issue
Joseph I fathered four daughters by his wife Mariana Victoria, and there were also four stillbirths. Of their four daughters, only the eldest had issue:''Dom Joseph Rei de Portugal, Algarves e seus dominios Principe do Brasil'' in: Genealogy Database by Herbert Stoyan
etrieved 7 February 2015
#
Maria Francisca Isabel Rita Gertrudes Joanna (17 December 1734 – 20 March 1816), married her uncle
Infante Peter of Portugal, with issue. After her father's death, she became the first
queen regnant
A queen regnant (: queens regnant) is a female monarch, equivalent in rank, title and position to a king. She reigns ''suo jure'' (in her own right) over a realm known as a kingdom; as opposed to a queen consort, who is married to a reigning ...
of Portugal as Dona Maria I.
#
Maria Ana Francisca Dorotea Josefa Antonia Gertrudes Rita Joanna Efigenia (7 October 1736 – 6 May 1813), potential bride for
Louis, Dauphin of France, son and heir of
King Louis XV. However, Maria Ana's mother refused to consent to the marriage, and the infanta died unmarried.
#Stillborn son (February 1739).
#
Maria Francisca Doroteia Josefa Antónia Gertrudes Rita Joanna Efigénia de Braganca (21 September 1739 – 14 January 1771), potential bride for the French nobleman and revolutionary
Philippe Égalité, but she refused to marry him and died unmarried.
#Stillborn daughter (7 March 1742).
#Stillborn daughter (15 October 1742).
#Stillborn daughter (May 1744).
#
Maria Francisca Benedita Ana Isabel Joanna Antonia Laurencia Inacia Teresa Gertrudes Rita Rosa (25 July 1746 – 18 August 1829) married her nephew Dom
Joseph, Prince of Brazil, no issue.
Ancestors
References
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Joseph 01 Of Portugal
1714 births
1777 deaths
18th-century Portuguese monarchs
Portuguese Roman Catholics
Burials at the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora
House of Braganza
Dukes of Braganza
Portuguese infantes
Princes of Brazil
Nobility from Lisbon