New Christians and Sephardic Jews of Brazil

“The Portuguese Jews, persecuted by the inquisition, stript of their fortunes, and banished to Brazil, introduced, by their example, some sort of order and industry among the transported felons and strumpets by whom that colony was originally peopled, and taught them the culture of the sugar-cane. Upon all these different occasions, it was not the wisdom and policy, but the disorder and injustice of the European governments, which peopled and cultivated America.”

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

Brazil’s centrality to the 17th Century world and – especially – Sephardi history has largely been forgotten.

Brazil was discovered in 1500, just a few years after Jews in Portugal had been forced to convert. It probably offered new opportunities and a chance to escape from government control. As evidenced by Inquisition archives, there were New Christians amongst early settlers in Brazil. The Inquisition was slow to organise there, but I recall seeing a lady accused of judaising as early as the 1540s.

The conventional history is that Jews arrived in Brazil with the Dutch in 1630. Would the Dutch would have launched a military expedition into the unknown? So, where did they get their information? One possibility is that Portuguese Jews in the Netherlands, with connections in Brazil and reasons to support the Dutch against Spanish-occupied Portugal, provided the necessary information.

The complexity of relationships in Brazil is demonstrated by many New Christians in Recife, Pernambuco, retaining their Catholic identities during the period of Dutch occupation, and then participating in the Pernambucan Restoration of 1654, the uprising that expelled the Dutch and restored the rule of (now independent of Spain) Portugal.

While not a scientific poll, I have encountered people in the northeast of Brazil that volunteered that they have Jewish ancestry, without knowing my interest in the subject. I can’t say if they are correct, but it is a matter of fact that a number of New Christian families remained in Brazil after the Dutch were expelled and that other New Christians subsequently settled in the territory. It is not clear how the size of the New Christian presence in Brazil can be proven. Possibly, advances in genetic genealogy – including the work of the Avotaynu DNA Project – will provide an answer.

I am curious about a conflict between 1707 and 1709 known as the War of the Emboabes (Newcomers War). This was a conflict over recently discovered gold deposits between recent arrivals from Sao Paulo and an established population in Bahia. My impression, unsupported by evidence, is that New Christian families were strongly represented on the Bahian side.

A member of my family was arrested near Sao Paulo in 1728 and seems to have travelled all over the country. He was taken to Lisbon and burnt alive. His wife and three daughters remained in Brazil. It seems likely that they abandoned any Jewish identity, but we don’t know.

A Portuguese-language documentary, A Estrela oculta do Sertão, looks at some families that believe they retain Jewish cultural practices. Can this be confirmed with absolute confidence? No, but the possibility is intriguing.

I watched a friend’s mother in the nordeste slaughter a chicken in a kosher-compliant manner, but there are only a few ways to slaughter a chicken. She later collected the blood to make a sauce, which is totally against Jewish custom.

It is almost certain that some New Christians who remained in Brazil after the Dutch were expelled have living descendants. Whether these descendants are aware of that ancestry remains unknown.

Whether those people claiming New Christian/Jewish ancestry are correct remains, in most cases, unproven. Elsewhere in the world there are people who claim Jewish ancestry, when they probably don’t.

Dutch Brazil (1630-1654)

Philip II of Spain claimed the vacant throne of Portugal in 1580. This made Portuguese territory a target for Spain’s enemy, the Netherlands. The Dutch colony of New Holland was established in Portuguese Brazil in 1630. The centre was in Mauritsstad (today Recife) in what is now the state of Pernambuco.

The official history is that the Dutch invaded in 1630, bringing Jews with them, and were expelled in 1654. Some of the Jewish refugees returned to the Netherlands, others ended up in Dutch New Amsterdam (today New York), while others went to the English colony of Barbados and contributed to Cromwell’s decision to readmit the Jews.

The real history is more complex. By my understanding New Christian families had lived in the area since the 16th Century. It is possible they were in contact with the relatives in Holland prior to the Dutch invasion. They appear to have continued ostensibly living as Catholics, alongside the Protestant Dutch and Jewish migrants. Some of them also appear to have participated in the Pernambucan Restoration, which restored Dutch Brazil to Portuguese rule. (Portugal had declared independence from Spain in 1640, and the Portuguese eventually also managed to drive the Dutch from Brazil).

List of Portuguese Jews in the sugar trade in Dutch Brazil.

For Jewish burials during the Dutch period, see O primeiro cemitério judeu das Américas : período da dominição holandesa em Pernambuco (1630-1654) by José Alexandre Ribemboim and José Luiz Mota Menezes. It is speculated [218] the the individuals listed below were amongst those who received Jewish burial in Pernambuco.

Name – Burial Date

• Felipe Dias do Vale – Before 1634
• Manuel Mendes de Castro – 1638
• Benedictus Jacob – 1641
• Moses Abendana – 1642
• Benjamin Pereira – 1644
• Moses Mendes – 1645
• Isaac Russon (or Rusten) – 1645 or 1646
• Antonio Montesinos – 1646 or 1647
• David Henriques – 1648
• David Barassar – 1648
• Baltasar da Fonseca – Before 1649
• Jacob Delian – 1649
• David Senior Coronel – 1651
• Salamão Musaphia – 1651
• Simon Bar Mayer – 1653 or 1654
• Antonio da Costa Cortizes
• Wife of the grandson of David Senior Coronel

Zur Israel (צור ישראל‎, The Rock of Israel)

Subsequent Sephardic Migrants

The community described above were Western or Portuguese Sephardim.

Subsequent Sephardic migrants, in the mid- to late-19th Century and early 20th Century came to Brazil from the Ottoman Empire and Morocco. Famously, attracted by the rubber boom, a Moroccan community settled in the Amazon.

Today Brazil’s Sephardic community is concentrated in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. They have no connection with Brazil’s New Christian history.

Genealogy of Sephardic Jews of Brazil

With respect to archives, the Portuguese ran a very centralised empire and much of what is of interest to us is in the excellent Torre de Tombo in Lisbon.

ASBRAP (Associação Brasileira de Pesquisadores de História e Genealogia) is the national genealogical association.

Arquivo Histórico Judaico de Pernambuco, the Jewish archive of Pernambuco has more information in Portuguese than English. If you don’t speak Portuguese, Google Translate can help.

Arquivo Histórico Judaico Brasileiro (AHJB)

Genealogia Paulistana is a São Paulo historical-genealogical work written by Luís Gonzaga da Silva Leme, published in nine volumes between 1903 and 1905.

Quite often in Brazil, groups that appear to be Jewish are actually Christian.

Gente da Nação: Cristãos-Novos e Judeus em Pernambuco – 1542-1654 by José Antônio Gonsalves de Mello.

Article about David de Andrade, a New Christian who settled in Ceará.

Civil Records

We have not yet researched in Brazilian civil records. Series of interest in the Brazilian National Archives include:

• Church Records (Registros Eclesiásticos) – Reference: Série Matrícula de Terras e Dízimos (1651-1826), Série Cúria Metropolitana (1676-1822), Série Mitra Diocesana de São Paulo (1725-1823), and others.
• Court Records (Processos Judiciais) – Reference: Série Foros do Livramento (1647-1752), Série Foros do Tribunal da Relação do Rio de Janeiro (1750-1821), and others.
• Inventories and Wills (Inventários e Testamentos) – Reference: Série Testamentos (1672-1841) and others.
• Land Records (Registros de Terras) – Reference: Série Sesmarias (1674-1822), Série Cartas de Data (1704-1824), and others.
• Military Records (Registros Militares) – Reference: Série Guerra (1680-1822) and others.
• Notarial Records (Registros Notariais) – Reference: Série Notarial (1600-1829) and others.
• Orphan Records (Registros de Órfãos) – Reference: Série Órfãos e Ausentes (1702-1832) and others.
• Slave Records (Registros de Escravos) – Reference: Série Documentos Diversos (1640-1889), Série Câmara Municipal do Rio de Janeiro (1705-1832), and others.

The Série Notarial (Notary Series) in the Brazilian National Archives is divided into several sub-series, each containing different types of notarial acts.

1. Livros de notas (Notebooks): These contain the daily entries of the notaries, including legal acts, contracts, and other notarial instruments, recorded chronologically. These include details of property transactions, business contracts and family relationships such as marriage contracts and dowries.
2. Livros de procurações (Power of Attorney Books): These contain the power of attorney documents that authorize individuals to act on behalf of others.
3. Livros de testamentos (Wills Books): These contain wills and testaments made by individuals between 1600 and 1829. The Livros de testamentos are organized chronologically and are indexed by the name of the testator.
4. Livros de hipotecas (Mortgage Books): These contain mortgage deeds, which are legal agreements where a borrower pledges real estate as collateral for a loan.
5. Livros de fianças (Bonds Books): These contain bond documents, which are agreements where a person promises to pay a certain amount of money if another person fails to fulfill an obligation.
6. Livros de órfãos e ausentes (Books of Orphans and Absentees): These contain legal documents related to the guardianship of minors and the management of the property of absent individuals.
7. Livros de acordos e sentenças (Agreements and Sentences Books): These contain legal documents related to agreements and court judgments.
8. Livros de cartas de liberdade (Freedom Letters Books): These contain documents related to the manumission of slaves.
9. Livros diversos (Miscellaneous Books): These contain various notarial acts that do not fit into the other sub-series.

The leading Brazilian academic on the subject appears to be Paulo Valadares, author of A Presença Oculta: Genealogia, Identidade e Cultura Cristã-Nova Brasileira nos Séculos XIX e XX (Fortaleza: Fundação Ana Lima, 2007).

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