Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal

D. Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal and 1st Count of Oeiras, known as the Marquis of Pombal, was a Portuguese statesman and diplomat who despotically ruled the Portuguese Empire from 1750 to 1777 as chief minister to King Joseph I. A strong advocate for absolutism, and influenced by some of the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment, Pombal led Portugal's recovery from the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and reformed the kingdom's administrative, economic, and ecclesiastical institutions. During his lengthy ministerial career, Pombal accumulated and exercised autocratic power, curtailing individual liberties, suppressing political opposition, and fostering the Atlantic slave trade to Brazil. His cruel persecution of the Jesuits and Portuguese lower classes led him to be known as Nero of Trafaria, after a village he ordered to be burned with all its inhabitants inside, for refusing to follow his orders.