Global Expansion of the Jesuit Order

Timeline

1. 1550–1556Europe · EuropeIn the 1550s the Jesuits founded or took over colleges in Rome, Naples, Coimbra, Paris, and elsewhere, training Catholic elites through humanist and theological education, and entered courts and universities, becoming nodes of the Counter-Reformation's intellectual and political network.
2. 1550–1552Goa · GoaFrancis Xavier, based in Goa, spread Catholicism along the Indian coasts, the Malay Archipelago, and Japan; the Jesuit Asian network took shape rapidly in the 1550s. Xavier died of illness on Shangchuan Island (en route to Japan) in 1552, and his legacy inspired subsequent East Asian missions.
3. 1550–1559Brazil · BrazilIn the 1550s the Jesuits entered Portuguese Brazil, establishing reductions among indigenous communities, and attempted to expand into Ethiopia and elsewhere. Though smaller in scale than the Asian missions, those in the Americas and Africa marked the Jesuits' transformation from a European religious order into a global network.