This article analyzes the expulsion of Jesuits from Bahia, focusing mainly upon the confiscation of their patrimony and the sale of their main properties between 1758 and 1763. Because of the crisis faced by the Society of Jesus in Portugal during the 1750's, the question of its expressive patrimony and supposed richness proved to be a key issue. However, the matter was not dissociated from the ample spectrum of measures that configured a true political reform of the Portuguese state in the second half of the 18th century. From that time on, the religious orders and the Church assumed a new role in the public sphere and in the political body of the reign.
jesuits; marquis of Pombal; 18th century
