The Jews Of Cape Verde and of The Azores

Ada feels honored to be put on your beautiful web page. Thank you for thinking of us.

I have some information on the Jews of Cape Verde and of the Azores. There were several sources for Jewish entry into Cape Verde and the Azores.

1. Jews who migrated to Portugal from Spain and couldn't pay the taxes were claimed as
vassals to the king. Many were sent to Caboverde, Madeira and/or the Azores.

2. Jewish children under the age of 14 were confiscated from their families by decree in an
attempt to force the family to convert to Christianity. If the family did not convert, many of these
children were sent to the islands.

3. To escape persecution, many conversos attempted to get as far away from the mainland as
possible. Travel to the colonies was easier than to foreign countries.

4. There are many ties between the city of Tomar (Prince Henry the Navigator's main center of
activity and also the center of the Templar Knights) and the islands.

5. One of the main sites of activity of the Portuguese Explorers were the islands. Most of the
navigators were of Jewish origin. Even Columbus had close ties to the Azores and Madeira.

The following is from a presentation I gave to the local Luso American Society...

History of Portugal

In the year 711, Muslim armies invaded Iberia (Spain and Portugal). Slowly they captured almost all of the entire peninsula. They did not force the Christians and Jews who were their subjects to convert to Islam and they ruled fairly and kindly for hundreds of years. The country was called Andalusia. Eventually the rulers began arguing among themselves and militant fundamentalists took over. They oppressed their subjects and the Christians and Jews began rebelling, pushing the Muslim rulers further and further south.

Portugal was the first to completely free itself of Muslim rule in 1250. Spain completed its re-conquest in 1492. Spain celebrated this freedom by demanding that all Muslims and Jews convert to Catholicism or leave the country. The final day for compliance with this cruel decree was one day before Columbus left on his historic voyage. His note on this sad event was one of the first entries into his logbook.

Many of the departing Jews went to Portugal. But, this freedom was short-lived. The king of Portugal, Manuel, had proposed to Princess (Infanta) Isabela, the daughter of the Spanish king and queen, Ferdinand and Isabela. He hoped that one day he would be king of all Portugal and Spain. The Spanish monarchs agreed but one of the conditions was that he get rid of all of his Jews also.

Manuel agreed to this condition and wrote an edict of expulsion, but perhaps he regretted this action. After all, his Jewish subjects were among his most loyal. Many had risen to high positions in government. Many were doctors, judges and merchants. Prince Henry the Navigator, his uncle had recruited many of them to found his great schools for exploration that were the envy of all of Europe and far superior to those of the much larger country of Spain.

Columbus got most of his early navigational training in Portugal. [One story is that the Portuguese navigators rejected Columbus because he had miscalculated the circumference of the world. They knew it was 25,000 miles and a much longer journey to China than his calculations showed.

Another story is that they had already discovered the new world and had explored much of Brazil. Anyway, who cared about this western route! Portugal was well on its way to India by circling around southern Africa, a much shorter, surer route. To make a long story short, King Manuel never allowed his Jewish subjects to leave. Instead, he embarked on a series of stronger and stronger measures to force them to convert to Christianity. He had hoped to have his cake and eat it too. He took away their children, he confiscated their possessions, he forced some into slavery. He would not let them escape. In the end, he was able to keep his end of the bargain with Spain and he married the Spanish princess. Unfortunately for him, he never became the king of Spain, nor did any of his heirs.

In the meantime, the forced Jewish converts, who were now called Conversos, did all they could to avoid the persecution of the Inquisition. Some moved to the sparsely populated northern mountainous areas; others went to the Portuguese colonies of the Azores, Madeira, Mozambique, Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde, Goa, etc. where the Inquisition was thought to be less strong. Some of the Portuguese Jews finally managed to escape to America.

In 1654 a group of them immigrated from Brazil to New Amsterdam. Within a few years, because of persecution by Governor Peter Stuyvesant, they migrated to Newport, R.I. where Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson had established a colony free of religious persecution, something so rare anywhere in the world at that time. They built the first synagogue in America there. It was their direct ancestors who started the whaling industry in New Bedford.

In Spain and Portugal and their colonies, converted Jews (conversos) who were thought to practice any of their religion were called Marranos (a dirty word meaning swine). If they were convicted of practicing Judaism (i.e. heresy) they were severely punished, often burned at the stake. The church and state then divided their possessions. It was very lucrative. Spies and informers were well rewarded. High prices were paid for letters of limpieza de sangre (purity of blood). Even honest Catholics (or Old Christians) got caught up in the web. No one dared to try to get ahead lest he be singled out by some rascal jealous of his success. Conditions became chaotic.

Eventually Premier Pombal in the 1770s put an end to the issue by terminating all discriminatory laws. It was these very edicts dating from the 1770s that Consul de Sousa Mendes used in his defense, years later. But, the ending of discrimination came too late to save Judaism in Portugal. The spark had all but been extinguished. Hardly all that remains are the stories that go:

"we were once Jews too..."

Rufina

THE JEWS OF CAPE VERDE AND OF THE AZORES

History of Portugal

"we were once Jews too..."