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 (13 May 1699 – 8 May 1782), known as the Marquis of Pombal (Portuguese: Marquês de Pombal [mɐɾˈkeʒ ðɨ põˈbal]), 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.

The son of a country squire and nephew of a prominent cleric, Pombal studied at the University of Coimbra before enlisting in the Portuguese Army, where he reached the rank of corporal. Pombal subsequently returned to academic life in Lisbon, but retired to his family's estates in 1733 after eloping with a nobleman's niece. In 1738, with his uncle's assistance, he secured an appointment as King John V's ambassador to Great Britain. In 1745, he was named ambassador to Austria and served until 1749. When Joseph I acceded to the throne in 1750, Pombal was appointed as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

Despite entrenched opposition from the hereditary Portuguese nobility, Pombal gained Joseph's confidence and, by 1755, was the king's de facto chief minister. Pombal secured his preeminence through his decisive management of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, one of the deadliest earthquakes in history; he maintained public order, organized relief efforts, and supervised the capital's reconstruction in the Pombaline architectural style. Pombal was appointed as Secretary of State for Internal Affairs in 1756 and consolidated his authority during the Távora affair of 1759, which resulted in the execution of leading members of the aristocratic party and allowed Pombal to suppress the Society of Jesus. In 1759, Joseph granted Pombal the title of Count of Oeiras and, in 1769, that of Marquis of Pombal.

A leading estrangeirado strongly influenced by his observations of British commercial and domestic policy, Pombal implemented sweeping commercial reforms, establishing a system of royal monopolistic companies and guilds governing each industry. These efforts included the demarcation of the Douro wine region, created to regulate the production and trade of port wine. In foreign policy, although Pombal desired to decrease Portuguese reliance on Great Britain, he maintained the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, which successfully defended Portugal from Spanish invasion during the Seven Years' War. Pombal enacted domestic policies that prohibited the import of black slaves into mainland Portugal and Portuguese India, established the General Company of Pernambuco and Paraíba to strengthen the commerce of African slaves to Brazil, put the Portuguese Inquisition under his control with his brother as chief inquisitor, granted civil rights to the New Christians, and institutionalized censorship with the Real Mesa Censória. Following the accession of Queen Maria I in 1777, Pombal was stripped of his offices and ultimately exiled to his estates, where he died in 1782. His legacy was only partially rehabilitated about a century after his death, due to efforts by his descendants, and remains highly controversial.