Lisbon’s Great 1755 Earthquake, a Cataclysmic Event with Far-reaching Reverberations

Posted on by funambulator@live.com
Economic history, Natural Environment, Regional History

When Lisbon experienced an earthquake on November 1, 1755 (sometimes called the Great Lisbon Earthquake), it was not an unique event for the city. Previous earthquakes had punctured Portugal’s capital in 1321 and 1531. The 1755 quake, measuring an estimated magnitude of 8.5-9.0 Mw, however was qualitatively worse because of the widespread nature of the damage and the ongoing repercussions.

Lisbon Pombaline Downtown street plan [Source: www.travel-in-portugal.com]

No sanctuary in the churches
The focus of the earthquake in Lisbon was on the city centre where the churches, it being All Saints Feast Day, were packed with the pious. The churches’ antiquated construction methods, leaving them incapable of withstanding violent movement of the earth, guaranteed a high death toll of the attendees. The foundations of the churches, built on soil liquefaction, only enhanced their vulnerability to violent earth movements [‘November 1, 1755: The Earthquake of Lisbon: Wrath of God or natural disaster?’, (David Bressan), Scientific American, 01-Nov-2011, www.blogs.scientificamerican.com].
Earthquake decimation of one of the city churches

Fire on the heels of five-metre wide fissures in the earth
Fires were an immediate consequence of the earthquake. Some of these were firestorms triggered by the massive earth tremor, and some were a direct result of it being a day of religious significance. Scattered through the churches were lit candles in observance of the holy day, the convulsions tipped the candles over, igniting the displays of flowers and spread the fire in all directions. Buildings that managed to escape the destruction of the earthquake often were subsequently consumed by the firestorms [‘1755 Lisbon earthquake’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org].

Tsunami triple-whammy
Because the earthquake hit the central part of the city, many Lisboeta❅ who survived the initial three-and-a-half minute-long megashock made for the docklands and the harbour. Tragically what was thought a safe move proved a fatal one for many. Just 40 minutes after the quake hit Lisbon, it was followed by a (20 foot high) tsunami which pulverised the shoreline and engulfed the Rio Tejo (Tagus River), sending the huddled crowds on the docks scurrying for their lives. The fires and the tsunami compounded the calamity of the seismic event and sent the death toll skyrocketing◘.

‘Ripples’ of the tidal wave
The 1755 tsunami was a teletsunamic event with the generated tidal waves crossing the vast ocean. The mid-eastern Atlantic tsunami which hit Lisbon with such force, had amazingly far–flung ramifications. The tsunami was felt literally around the known world. Within an hour it had reached Cornwall on the south coast of England and Galway in Ireland.It was felt as far afield as Finland, North America, Barbados and Martinique in the West Indies and maybe even in Brazil.

Fallout in the region
The devastation caused by the earthquake, fires and tsunami was not confined to Lisbon. Other parts of southern Portugal (the Algarve) suffered. Spain too, especially Cadiz which was hit by an even more massive tsunami (65-feet high), lost as much one-third of its population. Parts of Morocco also bore the brunt of the cataclysm with possibly up to 10,000 of its population perishing as a result [Pereira, Alvaro S. “The Opportunity of a Disaster: The Economic Impact of the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake.” The Journal of Economic History 69, no. 2 (2009): 466-99. www.jstor.org/stable/40263964].

Copper engraving, 1755

Casualty count
There have been widely diverse estimations of the human toll from the 1755 earthquake—ranging from 10,000 to anything up to 100,000. Economist AS Pereira has noted how unreliable estimates are…owing to the lack of dependable data on the Portuguese population prior to 1755 and compounded by the public authorities’ decision to swiftly bury the corpses before there was a chance of disease and plague taking root (Pereira). Pereira’s own estimate based at data from surveys in 1757 put the casualties at 30 to 40 thousand out of a possible 200,000 population at the time. Added to this is the up to 10,000 who died in Morocco from the catastrophe○.

The devastation and reconstruction It is estimated that around 85% of Lisbon’s buildings were destroyed by the earthquake and associated phenomena. Two-thirds of the city was made uninhabitable. Among the carnage, in addition to the churches already mentioned, were famous libraries and palaces. Also lost was the city’s new opera house Ópera do Tejo and many examples of distinctive 16th century Manueline architecture. The Palácio Real Ribeira was a casualty, lost were some 70,000 volumes of work including tracts on voyages of early explorers such as Vasco da Gama and art works by Titian, Corregio and Rubens, and so on.

Rua Augusta in the Baixa Pombalina [Photo: www.weheartlisbon.com]

The reconstruction was put in the hands of Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, later bestowed the title of Marques de Pompal by King José I (Joseph I). Pompal’s elevation to sole control of managing the reconstruction and his competence in carrying through the plan allowed him to wrest the political reins of Portugal away from the old aristocracy. Ordinary citizens were pressed into the immediate task of clearing the debris so that Pompal could commence the long and slow task of rebuilding the city largely from scratch. Erected were new, large squares, widened streets and rectilinear avenues. An entirely new lower town Baixa Pombalina (Downtown district) was created. The Pombaline buildings proved to be radically innovative, being among the earliest seismically protected constructions in Europe.

Embryonic signs of the science of seismology
There is one important factor which separates the 1755 quake from those preceding it. In its aftermath Pompal coordinated systematic surveys in the nature and course of the earthquake. The preservation of data collected and archived at the time has allowed modern seismologists to better analyse the natural event and its genesis. Thus, in a very rudimentary but pioneering way, this has contributed to the development of what has become the science of seismology and the practice of earthquake engineering (‘Lisbon earthquake’, Wiki).

The phenomena, a boost to scientific enquiry, also caused religious rumblings at the time. Many in staunchly Catholic Portugal wondered if the degree of devastation was a manifestation of divine judgement, God’s wrath on flawed mortals. Discussions of theodicy and other philosophical questions abounded (Bressan).

The earthquake‘s effects on the Portuguese economy
The catastrophic 1755 event presented Pompal with the opportunity to reform the country’s economy and to some extent reorganise society. Pereira‘s work has looked at the cost of the devastation to Lisbon. As he has pointed out, Lisbon at the time was “staggeringly rich” courtesy of the plunder of its colonies in Africa and the New World. The city was awash with huge stores of gold bullion, jewels and expensive merchandise✧. The economist estimated the direct cost of the earthquake at between 32 and 48% of Portugal’s GDP. Another consequence was prices and wages volatility, albeit this was only temporary (Pereira).

Pompal’s reforms
To counter the deterioration in the country’s public finances✬, the Marques introduced several economic reforms and institutional changes. The state bureaucracy was streamlined and the treasury was reformed with the advent of a new tax system. Pompal’s mercantilist policies revamped the Portuguese economy. Pompal’s policies long-term had the effect of enhancing the centralist orientation of the economy and reduced Portugal’s dependence on its main trading partner Britain (Pereira).Seismologists have speculated as to whether the Lisbon Earthquake remotely triggered two other earthquakes—in Cape Ann (near Boston, Mass) and Meknes, Morocco—which followed it by just 17 and 26 days respectively [‘1755 Cape Ann earthquake’, Wikimili, The Free Encyclopedia, http://wikimili.com].

Cape Ann Earthquake (Woodcut illustration)

Endnote: The “first modern disaster”Endnote:The “first modern disaster”
The cataclysm event in 1755, so redolent of apocalyptic imagery, prompted theologians, scientists and philosophers like Voltaire and Rousseau to conjecture—was causation natural or divine? It’s “modern-ness” lying in several innovative aspects of the phenomena: a concerted and systematic attempt at “crisis management”; among the “first provisions for urban disaster mitigation and earthquake resistant building design“; an attempt to “investigate and record the effects of the earthquake throughout the affected areas”, anticipating the science of modern seismology [‘From 1755 to Today—Reassessing Lisbon‘s Earthquake Risk’, (Drs Guillermo Franco & Bingming Shen-Tu), AIR Currents, (15-Jul-2009), www.air-worldwide.com; Bressan].

═─═─═─═─═─═─═─═─═─═─═─═─═─═─═
❅ as residents of Lisbon are sometimes called
◘ given that the earthquake’s epicentre was in the Atlantic Ocean some 350-400 km from Lisbon, it is plausible that the fires and tsunami caused the greatest havoc and devastation (Franco & Shen-Tu)
○ possibly the death toll cited for Morocco on the 1st of November has been conflated with the Meknes earthquake on 27th November 1755 which also was reported as having had 10,000 victims
✧ in India House alone the holdings in diamonds amounted to 11-12 million cruzados
✬ in the wake of the earthquake Portugal’s colonial ambitions were stalled, which would have added to the economic decline

A Scattering of Small Mid-Atlantic Islands Form the Setting for the “Old World’s” First Ventures to the New World

Posted on by E Curb Nottus
Regional History


The Madeira Archipelago, 972 km southwest of Lisbon, Portugal, is a holiday venue with all the usual tourist trappings of an ocean getaway (beaches, nature and wildlife areas, scenic walking and hiking spots, shopping, wineries, museums, geologic formations, etc.). But Madeira and other island groupings within its range like the Açores (Azores Islands) and the Cape Verde Islands, were also the first places where Europe’s great Age of Discovery and Exploration kicked off.

The 15th century Portuguese caravel, a small, fast and manoeuvrable sailing ship tailored to meet the demands of oceanic sailing in the Atlantic

Forging a template for seafaring explorers

It all started with Portugal’s early 15th century imperial ambitions and the impetus provided by one of its Medieval Princes Henry the Navigator (Henrique o Navegador). Henry’s drive to explore, to discover, to convert others to Catholicism, and to build an empire for his small West European nation first bore fruit when two of his sea captains✥ accidentally discovered the island of Madeira while exploring the eastern realms of the Atlantic in 1418/19. Madeira was found to be uninhabited but it’s fertile soil was excellent for grain crops (principally wheat) and even better for producing sugar.

▼ Prince Henry, “The Navigator”

An island of wood and sugar

Madeira was also endowed with abundant hardwood, important to help fuel the island’s formative sugar industry (some of it was also destined for Lisbon’s housing industry)▦. Sugar production requires a labour surplus for it to continue on an upward trajectory, accordingly the island needed more labour than the pool of mainly Portuguese and Italian labourers it had. African slaves neatly filled this void (by start of 16th century they represented some 10% of the island’s population). The population of Madeira by ca 1500 was taking on a multicultural complexion (Portuguese, Genovese, Tuscan, German, Flemish, African) (with a vocational mix of priests, merchants, artisans and slave and non-slave labourers) [David Abulafia, ‘Virgin Islands of the Atlantic’, History Today, November 2019].

The production techniques mastered in the Mid-Atlantic islands provided “stepping stones” to the successful implantation of the sugar mono-cultures that evolved later in Brazil [Smith, Stefan Halikowski. “The Mid-Atlantic Islands: A Theatre of Early Modern Ecocide?” International Review of Social History, vol. 55, 2010, pp. 51–77. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26405418].

Global sugar

Madeiran sugar at its zenith was a “global commodity”—with the export of the product eventually stretching as far as Pera in the Black Sea, Chios and Constantinople. The lucrative trade in sugar from Madeira did not go unnoticed by the economic powerhouses in Europe. Northern Italy (Venice, Genoa) and Flanders quickly became major investors in the highly renumerative industry.

Wheat wealth and Madeira’s “third cycle”

Madeira’s fertile soil was similarly productive for grains, especially an abundance of wheat which was an alternative to Moroccan wheat. By 1455 the Portuguese were claiming a yield of 68,000 bushels of wheat from Madeira. SH Smith has drawn attention to how Madeira’s productivity advanced through a series of agricultural cycles. The early international trade focused on wheat, later this was surpassed by the ascendency of sugar. When the price of sugar on the international market dipped, the island planters turned to wine which eventually evolved into Madeira’s principal export. At its peak Madeiran wine was exported to British plantations in North America and the West Indies, and later to Brazil and Angola (Smith)ㅇ.

▼ Açores: historic map ‘Theatrum Orbis Terraum’, ca 1594

Portuguese Azores, Cape Verde and São Tomo

The success of Madeira prompted an escalation of Atlantic exploration from Lisbon. Prince Henry, with his zeal both for spreading the ‘one’ religion and ever-wider exploration (not to neglect the spoils of empire to be gained), founded a navigator’s school at Sagres on the southwestern tip of Portugal (see footnote). Over the remainder of the 15th century Portugal added the Azores, Cape Verde and Säo Tome (all uninhabited) to its imperial trophy cabinet of Atlantic prizes❆. The Azores in particular proved a valued acquisition to the Portuguese, not like Madeira for sugar but because they were ideal for cattle husbandry (to this day a main source of diary products for Portugal). In addition, and even more valuably, by the late 16th century the island group was a central point in the established trade route trans-Atlantic to South America and India (via the Cape)✪.

Way-station for human trafficking

The first Portuguese settlers found Cape Verde Islands to be arid and empty compared to the Madeira Archipelago. The Portuguese administrators talked it up as much as they could but in reality it yielded little from the ground apart from salt and lichen orchil which was used to produce a violet or purple dye (Abulafia). It’s great value was its role in meeting the seemingly inexhaustible demand for slaves, a stop-over on the Atlantic transport route for human traffic – ferrying slaves from Africa to Brazil and the Caribbean.

Portugal’s next Atlantic acquisition was São Tomo, near the Gulf of Benin. The Portuguese used this small island as a slave port, a collection point for slaves purchased from the Kongo and Angola in West Africa. Eventually São Tomo developed a sugar industry alongside this slave-handling activity, although it’s sugar was far inferior to that of Madeira and conditions on the island were harsh and susceptible to malaria. São Tomo‘s value to the slave trade was limited because it was not on the trans-Atlantic shipping route and not a re-supply route like Madeira and the Azores were. Still, it was nonetheless lucrative to the Portuguese crown, earning it up to 10,000 cruzados a year (ca 1500) (Abulafia)✧.

[Source: www.britannia.com]

Overpopulation and environmental impact of intense farming

As the colonies developed, overpopulation (superpovamento) became a chronic problem, especially on Madeira and São Miguel in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Portuguese solution, which eased if not eliminated this problem, was to siphon off surplus population on the islands into the army and ultimately to tours of military service in Brazil. The intense practice of silviculture, the unrelenting toil of farming on the Madeira soil and landform in particular wreaked massive and irreversible change. Seismic events and volcanos, the abalos de terra and other mega-eruptions were a recurring feature. As well, deforestation was an inevitable consequence of the mass pillaging of resources (Smith).

The Mid-Atlantic island colonies, especially Madeira and the Azores (and later, Spain’s Canaries), were the first successful European settlements in the Atlantic Ocean. Their success for the colonising powers became a model for the colonies to follow further west in the Americas. The Portuguese settlers possessed an acute awareness that in establishing these extra-European ‘beachheads’, they were fulfilling a pioneering role in the “New World”…it was no accident that the first boy and the first girl born on Madeira were given the names, respectively, ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’ [Ronald Watkins, Unknown Seas: How Vasco da Gama Opened the East, (2003)].

Cape Sagres, lighthouse [Photo: www.algarve-tourist.com]

Footnote: Prince Henry’s school for navigators

Henry the Navigator’s lasting legacy for the Portuguese and the Old World was that he took the first steps towards putting global exploration on a scientific footing. The prince’s Sagres school was intended to teach the intricacies of the then extremely precarious activity of oceanic sailing on the open seas, navigation and map-making, etc using Western science (as understood in the 15th century). Portuguese explorers who were shipwrecked and made it back to shore were routinely subjected to detailed debriefing as to what had gone wrong at sea [“Cape Sagres”, (Rick Steves), Smithsonian Magazine, 01-Mar-2009, www.smithsonianmag.com].

▴ 1787 map of Madeira

____________________________________________

✥ one, João Gonçalves Zarco, was later appointed the first administrator of Funchal (Madeira’s principal town) by Henry

▦ Madeira’s name translates as “Isle of Wood”, legname (wood, lumber)

❆ Portugal prevaricated too long and missed the gun with the nearby, inhabited Canary Islands which was eventually snared by the Spanish

ㅇ wine was also grown and exported from Pico and Fayal in the Azores and from the Canaries

✪ several alternate names were attributed to the Azores…it was initially known as “Hawk Island” because of the many sightings of this diurnal bird of prey in the islands’ vicinity. The concentration of Flemish merchants and functionaries in the Azores led many to nickname it the “Flemish Isles” (Abulafia)

✧ El Mina Fortress, founded in 1482, on the Ghana coast, became Portugal’s main base for the trade in slaves, gold and ivory