Lisbon earthquake

Earthquake

Date: November 1, 1755

Place: Lisbon, Portugal

Magnitude: In the 8.0 range on the Richter scale (estimated), X for the central city and IX for the outskirts on the Modified Mercalli scale (estimated)

Result: 5,000-50,000 or more dead

During the eighteenth century Portugal enjoyed one of its greatest periods of wealth and prosperity. Gold had been discovered in its colony of Brazil, which held the largest deposits then known of this precious metal. Moreover, extensive diamond fields were also found there. The greater part of this wealth flowed to the mother country and concentrated principally in the capital, Lisbon.

The population of Portugal was almost 3 million, with about 10 percent residing in Lisbon. This city, on the north bank of the Tagus River, was situated where the river, flowing from the northeast, bent gradually to the west and entered the Atlantic. The city was shaped like an amphitheater. It was flat in its central area, where the ports, together with the major commercial and royal government buildings, were located. In the low hills rising and arching around the center were houses, shops, churches, monasteries, and convents. A magnet of world trade, the city housed a cosmopolitan population. In addition, an exceptionally large proportion of its populace were members of the Catholic clergy and religious orders.

Quake, Fire, Flood. The serenity and assurance of this city were irrevocably shaken on November 1, 1755, the holy day of All Saints. An earthquake of unprecedented strength and consequences struck the city, leaving it by dusk a broken ruin of its former self. For about ten minutes during midmorning the earth shook, rolled, and collapsed underneath the city three times. The shaking was so severe that the damage extended throughout southern Portugal and Spain and across the Strait of Gibraltar into Morocco.

Near the port area, the quake leveled numerous major buildings and destroyed the royal palace. The king was not, however, in residence. Many of the city’s over 100 religious buildings were damaged or leveled. Because it was a holy day and Lisbon was known for its religious fervor, most churches were filled with morning worshipers. They were crushed under the crashing walls and roofs. Aftershocks at almost hourly intervals caused further damage. Indeed, aftershocks of less frequent intervals but great violence would continue well into the next year.

Fires began to appear in the city, progressively becoming a general conflagration fed by a northeast wind. Lasting for almost a week, these fires charred part of the outskirts and the entire central part of the city. Their damage was the costliest because they destroyed the contents of opulent churches and palaces, consuming paintings, manuscripts, books, and tapestries.

In a final assault, three seismic waves from the sea struck the central harbor and coastal area just before midday. Some of these tsunamis towered at over 20 feet. What the quake had not shaken nor fires destroyed, water in crashing cascades now leveled. Thus, within a few morning hours, quake, fire, and flood had destroyed one of the major ports of Europe.

Deaths from this destruction were, in the days immediately following the events, estimated to be as high as 50,000 or more. A systematic, contemporary attempt through parish surveys to account for the dead was unsuccessful due to its uneven application. Modern estimates now go as low as 5,000 or 15,000 for the fatalities from this disaster.

However, not only death but also fear, hunger, and disease followed the destruction. To flee the conflagration and repeated tremors, thousands tried to escape the city for the countryside, struggling over blocked roads and passages. Prisoners escaped from jails and assaulted the living and the dead. Food could not be brought into the city. The thousands who had been injured but not killed languished without care, hospitals having been destroyed and caregivers having fled or been killed. Infectious diseases began to spread.

Rebuilding. The king’s principal minister, Sebastião de Carvalho, later known as the Marquis of Pombal, energetically took control of recovery and rebuilding. Public health needed immediate attention. Bodies that had not burned in the fires were collected onto boats that were sunk in the Tagus. The army was called in to put out fires and clear streets and passages of debris. Anyone caught stealing was immediately executed. Prices for food and building materials were fixed. Field tents for shelter and feeding were erected.

The reconstructors of the city gave priority to replanning its layout. The new plan eliminated the old twisting, narrow streets. The flat central part of the city was redesigned to have straight streets that crossed at right angles in a grid pattern. These streets were 60 to 40 feet wide. Near the harbor area a spacious plaza was built, called Commerce Square.

To expedite construction, buildings were prefabricated. The sizes of doors, windows, and walls were standardized. To protect these buildings against future earthquakes, their inner frames were made of wood that could sway but not break under pressure. The style of building for these structures was a kind of simple or plain baroque and came to be known as “pombaline.” These buildings were made according to the most advanced standards of hygiene so that there was adequate circulation of air and measures for sanitation. Because of the great wealth that Portugal commanded from its colonies, principally Brazil, Lisbon and other Portuguese cities recovered relatively quickly.

Consequences. One consequence of the Lisbon earthquake was that as the result of the extensive rebuilding, the city’s port and central area came to be among the best planned and constructed in eighteenth century Europe. Another consequence affected economic nationalism. Great Britain dominated Portuguese imports of manufactured goods. Indeed, much of the wealth that Portugal received from Brazil passed to English hands due to these purchases of British goods. To pay for the rebuilding, a tax was placed on the import of certain British products. This measure sought not only to raise revenue for reconstruction but also to make British goods more expensive and thereby encourage the production of native Portuguese products at a relatively lower price.

The consequences of the earthquake were felt not only in terms of engineering and economics but also in theology and philosophy. In fact, it was in these areas that the quake had its most resonant social significance. No sooner had the quake struck than the clergy of Lisbon began preaching that the disaster represented the wrath of God striking against the city’s sinful inhabitants. So strong was the fervor of these preachers that they aroused parts of the populace into paroxysms of hysterical fear. This hysteria made dealing with the crisis in an organized, rational manner difficult. The civil authorities begged the clergy not to preach such fear, but their admonitions were only somewhat successful.

Western Europe as a whole was in the midst of a period known as the Enlightenment, or Age of Reason. Pombal, with his rational, utilitarian views of government, was representative of this movement. Confronting the religious hysteria, reasonable men argued that the Lisbon earthquake needed to be studied not as a supernatural event but as a natural one. They demonstrated that thunder and lightning were known to be natural events, so an earthquake should also be considered as such. The Lisbon earthquake thus prompted a great debate between the emerging rational forces of the modern age and the declining religious emotions of the medieval.

A further philosophical debate also occurred among those who were followers of the Enlightenment. Many of them believed that in a reasoned, organized world everything happened for the best. Thus, they explained that while the earthquake in Lisbon was a horrible disaster, it nonetheless resulted in a rebuilt and modernized city.

Others argued that one could not be so sanguine and optimistic about the world. Among the leading voices of this point of view was the French philosopher and poet Voltaire. In a long poem written immediately after the earthquake and in a later, famous novel, Candide (1759; English translation, 1759), he argued that the Lisbon tragedy proved the existence of irrational, totally unbeneficial evil in the world.

Voltaire’s hero, Candide, voyages the world, traveling throughout Europe, America, and Asia, encountering perils and dangers at every corner. He is in Lisbon during the earthquake. Numerous times he or his friends are tortured or almost killed. People around them lead miserable lives. He pursues a girl for a love that is ultimately futile. Accompanying Candide is a teacher, the philosopher Pangloss, who believes that everything that happens in the world happens for the best. Pangloss adheres to this belief to the end of the novel, despite all the horrors he witnesses. Ultimately, therefore, the reader of Candide learns that the superficiality and rigidity of the thought of Pangloss and people like him betray the inherent error of their position.

Voltaire maintained that it was naïve and self-serving to say that evil was always balanced by good. There were people everywhere who suffered for no reason and who would never be compensated for their suffering. He argued that those who believed that everything that happened was for the best were those who wanted to keep things as they were, who wanted acceptance of the status quo. Such an attitude ignored those who suffered under the conditions of the present and failed to respond effectively to alleviate their suffering. If ignored over a long period, such suffering could prove unbearable and violent. In relation to these arguments it should be noted that less than half a century after the Lisbon earthquake, the suffering and outrage of these masses burst forth against the Old Regime in the French Revolution.

The Lisbon earthquake resounded in Europe not only as a physical event but also as a cultural one. Its force shook not only the earth but also men’s minds, in terms of old and new ideas.

Bibliography

Braun, Theodore E. D., and John B. Radner, eds. The Lisbon Earthquake of 1755: Representations and Reactions. Oxford, England: Voltaire Foundation, 2005.

Brooks, Charles B. Disaster at Lisbon: The Great Earthquake of 1755. Long Beach, Calif.: Shangton Longley Press, 1994.

Davison, Charles. Great Earthquakes, with 122 Illustrations. London: Thomas Murby, 1936.

Dynes, Russell Rowe. The Lisbon Earthquake in 1755: Contested Meanings of the First Modern Disaster. Newark: Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware, 1997.

Kendrick, T. D. The Lisbon Earthquake. London: Methuen, 1956.

Laidlar, John, comp. Lisbon. Vol. 199 in World Bibliographical Series. Oxford: ABC-Clio Press, 1997.

Mullin, John K. “The Reconstruction of Lisbon Following the Earthquake of 1755: A Study in Despotic Planning.” Planning Perspectives 7 (1992): 157-179.