The First Conversos in Latin America

1
The First Conversos in Latin America

• Evidence that members of Columbus crew were
  conversos. One member, Luis de Torres, has been
  identified (Alice B. Gould)
• After 1509, imprisoned conversos could go to the
  New World rather than serve their terms
• After 1518 Charles V did not want criminals or
  conversos to travel there.
• The Carvajal family, which occupied positions of
  authority in the Cape Verde islands, was
  appointed governor of New Spain (Mexico). Luis
  de Carvajal was arrested by the Inquisition there
  in 1589 because he had not denounced his niece as
  a judaizer, and was stripped of his authority and
  sent into exile where he died. In contrast,
  several relatives of Carvajal were burned at the
  stake. This family was atypical because it was
  linked to a politician of high stature, one who
  made him very visible.

2
Portuguese Conversos

• After expulsion of Jews in Spain in 1492, most
  went to Portugal.
• Gaspar de Gama accompanied Pedro Cabral who
  discovered Brazil in 1500. De Gama had been
  forcibly converted.
• After 1497 most conversos who made their way to
  the New World were also Portuguese or had lived
  there. Many made their way from Brazil to other
  parts of Latin America.
• Most were more recent converts to Christianity.
• By 1624 about 50,000 Europeans in Brazil

3
How did the Portuguese get to Spanish Colonies?

• Easier to go south than west
• Only the coast of Brazil had been settled by the
  Portuguese, but you could easily go south by the
  Rio de la Plata and reach either Buenos Aires or
  go up river and head for Bolivia or Uruguay
• No inquisition in Buenos AiresCrown wanted it in
  1610 but not carried out, nor were Jews expelled
  from the region.
• Pope exempted Portuguese conversos in the New
  World from the Inquisition, which lasted until
  1639, especially in Peru. Then the newly
  separated Spanish government used the Inquisition
  to control Jews and confiscate their wealth

4
Rio de la Plata
5
Brazil and the Babylonian Captivity

• Between 1580 and 1640 the King of Spain also
  ruled Portugal and its colonies
• Era called the Babylonian Captivity
• Portugals relatively weak position offered
  opportunities for Protestant countries to attack
  its colonies
• Also enabled crypto Jews to escape Portugal and
  head to Brazil, and for those already in Brazil
  to celebrate their faith under the Dutch
• Dutch arrived in 1600 and constructed wooden
  forts and 24 years later arrived in Salvador de
  Bahia, the capital of early colonial Brazil, but
  the Portuguese managed to push them out

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First Dutch Settlements in Brazil 1600
7
Colonial Brazil showing Dutch encampments
8
The Second Dutch Effort to Capture Brazil

• In 1629, the Dutch attacked the heart of the
  Brazilian sugar industry in northern
  BrazilPernambuco
• Within 10 years they controlled most of the
  northern coast of Brazil although the Portuguese
  always mounted attacks to push the Dutch back.
  The area conquered by the Dutch was called Nieuw
  Holland, ruled by Johan Maurits, count of Nassau
• In order to gain more support for his colony, he
  offered religious toleration to crypto-Jews and
  Catholics.

9
Johan Maurits of Nassau
10
Jews in Pernambuco

• Jews established a Sephardic synagogue. Kahal Zur
  Israel (Rock of Israel) in Recife.
• By mid-17th century, Pernambucos Jewish
  population supposedly outnumbered that of
  Amsterdam, the center of Sephardic Jewry in the
  diaspora.
• They remained there until Portugal recaptured
  Pernambuco in 1654.
• Many involved in the sugar industry-6 of 166
  sugar mills owned by Jews.
• Also involved in the African slave trade.
• At height, about 1500 Jews in Brazil.

11
The Meanings of Jewish Toleration in Colonial
Brazil

• The position of the Dutch government in
  Pernambuco did not imply an acceptance of Judaism
  or increased toleration of non-Calvinist groups
• Toleration functioned as it did in Spain before
  1492a matter of practicality
• Dutch Jews were the only inhabitance of Holland
  who spoke both Portuguese and Dutchcritical for
  trade and industry there
• Economic problems in the Dutch West India Company
  led it to turn over key retail trading and supply
  of credit to planters to Jews, while the company
  controlled the slave trade.
• When the Portuguese regained Pernambuco in 1645,
  Jews lost lots of money lent to plantersby then,
  more than 1450 Jews in Pernambuco.
• Within Portuguese world, certain views of
  toleration also existedexamples of pragmatic
  relationships with the Jewish community in
  Portugal interrupted by persecution for political
  reasons.
• Also a belief in the Spanish and Portuguese
  worlds of salvation each according to his own
  law often overlooked by the zealous nature of
  the Inquisition.
• Even among the Portuguese and Catholics,
  including priests, evidence exists that the
  Portuguese tolerated cross-religious and
  cross-cultural contact in Northern Brazil
• Away from Pernambuco, interfaith marriages
  occurred between Catholics and Protestants
• When the Governor General of Dutch Brazil
  departed in 1641, many Portuguese and even slaves
  cried.

12
The Fate of Those Who Returned to Portugal

• Some, but not all, became victims of the
  Inquisition.
• Isaac de Castro burned at the stake because he
  converted Conversos back to Judaism 1647.
• 1773 royal decree protected all Portuguese
  conversos from the Inquisition.

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Conversos in Other Parts of the Americas

• Conversos found in many other parts of South
  America including Chile, Colombia, Peru, and
  Mexico.
• The proximity of the Inquisition determined their
  safety. The strongest and most active
  Inquisition centers were Mexico and Lima, Peru.
• Small pockets of conversos and/or Jews could be
  found, and persisted, in rural or small towns,
  rather than large cities.