Sephardic Jews in British India
The English – later British Empire – in Asia and Africa began with the dowry of the Portuguese Catherine of Braganza (pictured right) in 1662, when she married Charles II. Her dowry included the Seven Islands of Bombay in India, Tangier in Morocco and trading rights in Brazil and the East Indies.
The English colony of Bombay was threatened with destruction by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in 1689, but was saved through the diplomacy of Abraham Navarro, a Sephardic Jew working for the East India Company. Had the colony been destroyed it seems unlikely that the English would have been able to re-establish themselves in India, and the whole history of the world might have been different.
We might speculate about the reaction of Portuguese New Christians in Goa to the information that one of their compatriots was living and working openly as a Jew in Bombay (today Mumbai).
Fort St George / Madras / Chenai
The city of Madras (Chennai) was later built around this fort. This settlement, run by the East India Company, was a base for Sephardic merchants trading coral [216] from Tunisia [217], normally processed in Livorno [218], with diamonds [219] from Golconda. A single trade took three years! Fort St George appears to have competed with, and then overtaken, the Portuguese diamond trade from Goa [220], possibly because the New Christian merchants preferred the Inquisition-free British settlement.
Sephardic Jewish diamond merchants established themselves in Madras to trade diamonds from Golconda. According to S. Muthiah in Madras Miscellany, they exported diamonds to England, and imported silver, rough and polished coral and pearls. I would guess that the silver came from Spanish America and the the coral from Livorno. Don’t know about the pearls. Madras council consisted of three English, three Jews and three Hindus.
The last Jewish merchant, Moses de Castro, left in 1786 after the Golconda vein was finished. There was a synagogue and cemetery near the northern end of Mint Street. Surviving tombstones were removed to a ‘Jewish corner’ in the Lloyd’s Road cemetery in 1983 to make way for a school. Old surviving tombstones belonged to Jaques (James) de Paivia (which disappeared), Isaac Sardo (1709) and Solomon Franco (1763). The International Jewish Cemetery Project [221] has reported on the cemetery.
Useful books are:
Francesca Trivellato, The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora,
Livorno, and Cross-cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period [222]
Gedalia Yogev, Diamonds and Coral: Anglo-Dutch Jews and Eighteenth-Century
Trade
See also The Worlds of the East India Company [223] edited by H. V. Bowen et
al
The India Office archives [224] in the British Library are a vast and barely
explored treasure trove. The principle collections of interest to the
Sephardic Jewish genealogist are:
· Court Minutes of the East India Company
· Home Miscellaneous
· General ledgers and cash journals
· Miscellenies
· Fort St George factory records
It is probably best to ask the reference librarian for advice.
221: http://www.iajgsjewishcemeteryproject.org/india/chennai.html
222: http://www.quest-cdecjournal.it/reviews.php?id=50
223: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UmN4ZOgCbsIC&lpg=PA106&ots=CPTcPx5xj8&dq=Jews%20Golconda%20diamonds&pg=PA106#v=onepage&q=Jews%20Golconda%20diamonds&f=false
224: http://indiafamily.bl.uk/ui/Sources.aspx
Sephardic Jews in Dutch India
Dutch colonies in India were not as important to them as the Dutch East Indies, today’s Indonesia.
Whilst the Dutch were never particularly strong in India, the link [217] shows they had a lot of bases at different times. It is possible that just as people hopped from island to island in the Caribbean, so merchants did the same in India. Given that New Christian / Jewish merchants travelled to Portuguese and British territory, it is a reasonable assumption that they were also in Dutch colonies.
The Netherlands’ territory in India was divided into the governorships of Dutch Ceylon and Dutch Coromandel, the commandership of Dutch Malabar, and the directorates of Dutch Bengal and Dutch Suratte (Surat).
Sephardic Jews in Danish India
Fort Dansborg was established by Danish admiral Ove Gjedde in 1620-1621. The fort played a key role in the development of European trade with the Coromandel Coast, especially the cloth trade, although the settlement was underfunded. I have no idea if any Sephardim travelled there or were involved in trade, but wonder if there was a Hamburg connection.
Situated at Tharangambadi (formerly Tranquebar) the fort was about 280km south of the English base at Fort St George / Madras.
Sephardic Jews in Portuguese India
The Estado Português da Índia was established in 1505 at Cochim (Cochin).
The headquarters was later moved to Goa. The Estado covered all of Portugal’s Indian Ocean territories from Mozambique in the west to south-east Asia in the east. I am not sure if Macau also came under their authority.
See Portuguese Trade in Asia under the Habsburgs, 1580–1640 by James C. Boyajian
Genealogy of Sephardic Jews in Portuguese Africa and India
Mhamai archive in the Xavier Center of Historical Research, Goa
Goa
The Portuguese established a colony in Goa in 1510. In the early days, a number of doctors appear to have established themselves here. My impression is that New Christian merchants in Goa – including those connected with the Golconda diamond [217] trade – eventually transferred their loyalties to the English colony at Madras [218], where there was no Inquisition.
I think the main archives from period of Portuguese rule are to be found at the Directorate of Archives & Archaeology Goa [219] (DAA). There is a lot of criticism of this organisation online, including that items are not properly conserved and that only one person there speaks Portuguese. The DAA publishes a list ofRecord Series [220] and Record Holdings [221]. V. T. Gune has written _A Guide to the collection of records from Goa Archives_. In 1955 Tipografia Rangel wrote Roteiro dos Arquivos da India Portuguesa. The Xavier Centre of Historical Research [222] is a Jesuit-run institution in Goa that is interested in historic research.
It seems that several New Christian physicians [223] ended up in Goa in the 16th Century. Jerónimo Dias was executed as a Jew in Goa in 1543. Garcia de Orta [224]was a doctor who escaped to India in 1532, settling in Goa. He was unhappily married to his relative Brianda de Solis. The Inquisition was introduced into Goa in 1565. He [225] died a few years later, untroubled, but his remains were dug up and burnt. Several family members were persecuted. Another doctor reputed to be Jewish was Christovao da Costa who arrived from Mozambique.
Goa’s Fort Aguarda today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D66CNFJ5mEs
Below is a list of some people connected with Goa who were accused judaising by the Portuguese Inquisition. Of course, in Portuguese India, Hindus were also persecuted by the Inquisition.
Person Date
Diogo Soares 03/02/1558 – 21/05/1561
Estevão Lopes 12/08/1560 – 10/06/1561
Isabel Dias 11/02/1561 – 03/03/1561
Catarina da Horta 04/11/1568 – 25/09/1569
Lopo Soares 12/08/1560 – 17/09/1565
Cristóvão de Castro 06/08/1579
Jácome de Olivares 12/12/1559 – 10/07/1561
Ana de Oliveira 26/02/1558 – 28/04/1561
Clara Lopes 12/08/1560 – 16/03/1561
Leonor Fernandes 15/02/1558 – 20/07/1561
João Nunes Baião 3/6/1598-26/7/1602
António Fonseca 13/3/1628-13/3/1628
Guiomar de Oliveira 23/2/1558-21/5/1561
Isaac Almosnino 21/01/1617-17/02/1618
Gonçalo Rodrigues 26/10/1568 – 20/07/1569
Pedro Henriques de Guevara 27/04/1645 – 25/02/1650
The Torre de Tombo offers a bibliography [226], including João Delgado
Figueira’s illuminated index of victims’ names, illustrated above.
219: http://www.daa.goa.gov.in/
220: http://www.daa.goa.gov.in/pdf/RecordSeries.pdf
221: http://www.daa.goa.gov.in/pdf/RecordHoldings.pdf
222: https://www.facebook.com/xchr.goa
223: https://sites.google.com/site/sephardicgenealogy/Sephardic-Jewish-trade-networks/Sephardic-Jews-and-medicine
224: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garcia_de_Orta
225: http://www.colaco.net/1/AdmOrta.htm
226: http://digitarq.dgarq.gov.pt/details?id=2374349
Sephardic Jews in French India
Presumably there was a Sephardic presence in the French colonies, but living as Catholics rather than Jews. Sephardim seem to have been collateral damage of Louis XIV’s intolerance towards Huguenots (French Protestants).
Portuguese merchants professing Judaism were expelled from Bordeaux, France’s principal Atlantic port, in 1615. When Jewish refugees from Dutch Brazil arrived at the French Caribbean island of Martinique in 1656 they were sent on their way.
French merchants from Marseilles used Jews as middlemen in their trade with the Ottoman Empire. I don’t know if this also happened elsewhere.
From Wikipedia:
In Senegal in West Africa, the French began to establish trading posts along the coast in 1624. In 1664, the French East India Company was established to compete for trade in the east. Colonies were established in India in Chandernagore (1673) and Pondicherry in the Southeast (1674), and later at Yanam (1723), Mahe (1725), and Karikal (1739) (see French India). Colonies were also founded in the Indian Ocean, on the Île de Bourbon (Réunion, 1664), Isle de France (Mauritius, 1718), and the Seychelles (1756).
The picture is of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the French minister most associated with developing an empire in the late 17th Century.
Kochi / Cochin
Cochin (Cochim, Kochi) was the centre of the Indian spice trade. Spices were hugely valuable and the impetus for much of European exploration.
The first Portuguese settlement in India was established in Cochin in 1500. They built Fort Manuel. Vasco da Gama died in Cochin and was originally buried in St Francis church. The Dutch captured the port from the Portuguese in 1663.
When the Europeans arrived they found a small but long-established Jewish community, and it appears that European Sephardim established links with them. “Pereyra de Paiva (“Notisias dos Judeos de Cochin”) states that during the week of Nov. 21-26, 1686, some Dutch merchants of the Sephardic congregation of Amsterdam visited Cochin, at that time an important commercial port, and at the request of David Rahabi had rolls of the Pentateuch, prayer-books, and various rabbinical works sent from Amsterdam to Cochin.”
Below is a list of names of people with connections with Cochin who were arrested by the Portuguese Inquisition. All but one of the arrests were between 1558 and 1560.
Simão Nunes 04/11/1558 – 10/07/1561
Luís Rodrigues 12/11/1558-10/7/1561
Jácome de Olivares 12/12/1559 – 10/07/1561
Leonor Caldeira 11/08/1560 – 16/03/1561
Grácia Lopes 12/08/1560 – 07/07/1561
Maria Nunes 12/08/1560 – 10/07/1561
Maria Rodrigues 12/08/1560 – 10/07/1561
Manuel Rodrigues 10/10/1560 – 16/03/1561
Pedro Vaz 25/09/1576 – 19/12/1579
Abraham Navarro
Abraham Navarro AKA Abraham Navarra was a Jew living in London in 1682. He was employed by the English East India Company as a translator, including on the vessel “Delight”. Heagreeing a truce with the Mughals in India and in early trade negotiations with the Chinese. He died in Asia in 1692. As well as being fascinating, he was in London very early. He was translator . He has been studied by Walter J. Fischel in Abraham Navarro – Jewish Interpreter and Diplomat in the Service of the English East India Company (1682-1692), researched from East India Company sources. What languages was Abraham translating? Presumably he spoke Portuguese. I don’t know if he spoke an Indian language (suggesting he had been there previously) or Arabic. For the English, this mission to Asia was a huge event. The Portuguese had been trading that route for a hundred and fifty years.
I am fascinated by Abraham Navarro’s identity. He might possibly have belonged to the Navarro Oróbio family who married with my own assumed ancestors. Another Abraham Navarro, whose relatives have surnames that might relate to my ancestors are discussed below.
In 1627 Abraham Navarro was the alias for Rodrigo Fernandes in Amsterdam. He seems to have been married to Violante Nunes, sister of Jozef Nahemias, alias Gaspar Nunes Torres. Abraham Navarro had a brother called David and an oldest son called Izak. It is possible that the Abraham Navarro in India was somehow related to or descended from the Abraham Navarro in Amsterdam fifty years earlier.
The Tracing the Tribe website posted a Will dated 4 July 1685, translated from Portuguese:
NAVARRO, Aaron, son of Abraham Navarro of Amsterdam, now resident in Barbados. Since there is no money in the business concern in Brazil, brother Moses Navarro should come to Amsterdam; Iihac Nunes Navarro – Adm in Brazil; my nieces, daus of Mandey Couzal; the heirs of bro Jacob Navaroo; Jacob Fundas; Samuel Frazad; Samuel DeNeiga (also spelled DeVeiga) regarding the care of Abraham Navarro or Mosso concerning the care of his heirs; mentions the Adm of bro Mahamad Eveham (?); daus Hanah Navarro and Ehetta Navarro; mentions Moses Hisquian DeMercado, wf Esther Navarro; chn Moses Navarro, Jacob Navarro, and Sarah Fletcher to place property with the heirs of my bro if own heirs die; Haham Reby; Elias Lopez; Jacob Dafonseca Valle; Joseph Senior; nephew Abraham Valverde; Nosea May Sarah Torres, chn of my wf (?) Esther Navarra. signed Aaron Navarro. Witnesses: Joseph Senior, Sam Brunts, Thomas Page, Jacob Baruh Louzada, Jacob Dafonsecca Neza. Proved 29 Oct 1685.
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