One of the chapters that I found truly interesting was the view of foreigners on their personal experience in before and after the earthquake, there is however no account of that experience from the habitants of Lisbon?
RT: Interestingly the people of Lisbon did not write much about the earthquake in terms of subjective and personal point of view. This chapter is dedicated to personal perspectives, the view of someone who is caught by a disaster like that. The Portuguese did not write about the earthquake, it is notable that in the "Lisbon Gazette" the newspaper of that time, there was no proper journalism. It was pre-journalism, nothing was written about this cataclysm. It was not news, why? Because the habitants of Lisbon lived this disaster and did not need the news. The Portuguese that did write about the earthquake did it in an almost neutral, very factual way. Now these foreigners, as they needed to communicate with their families, in the case of Thomas Chase, explain to his mother what happened. He was a young man of 26 years and moreover the earthquake happens on the day of his birthday, he writes a letter that has the freshness of his personal view. This complaining of the misfortunes that happened to you allows you to have a look at the strangeness of the event, also the strangeness of the communities inhabiting the Lisbon market of that time. The view of the English, German, Dutch, and also in this account that we caught a few references to the African slaves, Galician's who lived and worked in water distribution. And we knew that the city was full of Brazilians, many of which were purchased by the Marquis of Pombal to be his political staff. His personal secretary, who was also a poet, Basil Joseph of the House, and there were many others. Since they had not fixed their clientele networks in Lisbon, they were political staff who could give confidence to someone who hired them for the first time, because they knew they were not customers of a noble family. We got also some references people who lived on the other side of the river, from where fishermen came to collect the victims of the earthquake, if not from him we would not find this all that life.
But if the Portuguese did not spread this event, how did it come to these reports?
RT: The Lisbon earthquake had a huge importance in the mind frame of the eighteenth century. It was an event where there was a European, a Westerner or even people from other continents it was spoken about by the greatest thinkers of the time, Rousseau, Voltaire and by some that were still young like Kant and Goethe, and therefore remained in memory while changing mentalities during long time even in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Much of the literary world read Kant and Voltaire, and when we spoke of the Lisbon earthquake, there are references in Candide and this is a trace of something that was even stronger in times after this event. Periodically historians, philosophers of other cultures returned to the earthquake. And somewhere in the nineteenth century an English periodical recovered these stories and found a letter from Thomas Chase and his tomb. This story appears because of a commemorative edition of the earthquake, sponsored by the Gulbenkian Foundation, which recovered these letters. Probably the most interesting is the letter of this young man, is that it's so subjective, that baby cry of a young Englishman who spends his time complaining and talking bad about everyone. It was that, on the other hand, that delighted me, for it being charged with truth that is also a historical event. The story seen by many eyes, not only of the thinkers of his time that will use it to make great philosophy, but also by a guy like Thomas Chase that uses this event to make small history, me, me, me, me poor thing.
You said earlier that there are no reports of the habitants of Lisbon, is that maybe because they viewed the earthquake as a punishment from God?
RT: There is something, but what happened then was due to the political action of the Marquis of Pombal. It was essential to have an official explanation for the earthquake, which was that it was an event that had natural causes, and that the regime did not know what they were, but they were certainly natural. Because if it were divine, it would imply that the Portuguese are bad Catholics, that the Portuguese king was evil that had bad subjects and of course the minister of the kingdom, which was not yet Marquis, Sebastião de Melo could not allow such a thing . There were those who said it was divine, in particular an Italian Jesuit priest, who lived in the Portuguese dominions, and had returned to Lisbon. He was very close to the court of princess Dona Maria, who would be future queen, Mary I, and he said that the Portuguese were bad Catholics, that the young ladies of Lisbon went to Mass dressed up to be seen by young men, they sent notes during the Masses and therefore God had decided to punish them. In turn, the political power punished him eventually by delivering him to the Portuguese Inquisition which for 200 years had burned Jews, heretics and witches and eventually burnt a very devout Jesuit priest, its last victim.
You say that history changes when these great events, these natural disasters, take place. But did that change anything? Are we prepared for such a catastrophe, either in Lisbon or in another area of the country? Have we learned anything?
RT: A lot has changed. Not only for Portugal but for the world. The Lisbon earthquake is considered the first modern disaster, precisely because of the decision of the Marquis of Pombal, his official and natural explanation of the earthquake. The conclusion to be drawn is that we will do better, lower buildings, widen streets, we will make a city where if there is a new earthquake, it is easier to save people, we will rebuild it with anti-seismic rules, which were the first in the world and all this is a great lesson. A natural disaster is not only a natural disaster, it may be in their causes, but its consequences are the number of victims, causing additions and improvements of the human frame, in architectural terms, civil protection etc.. That is why if we have an earthquake of the same magnitude tomorrow in Japan, or in Afghanistan, in the first will be a maximum of 50 victims and the second 50,000 victims. But the fact that we learned these lessons, we cannot forget, especially in a city like Lisbon, with a very sparse seismic pace, unlike the Azores, and this ultimately creates a relaxation in people and public authorities that is not positive. And I am convinced that today, the housing of the city is very prepared for a disaster of this kind, but a government or town hall that are alert, should inspect buildings and train citizens to know if the house they are buying or renting, this would be an appropriate thing to do in times of crisis, because it would create jobs, if there is seismic activity or not. I do not think there is going to be an earthquake in Lisbon tomorrow or a year from now with this magnitude. It may even happen 200 years from now, but if there is one with the type of building we have today we will see a lot of preventable deaths and destruction. That is what is tragic.
