PIMENTA - PIMENTAL
From the book: " Los Judeoconversos en Espana and
America", by Antonio Dominguez Ortiz, editions ISTMO, Madrid. "Wasn't it public
knowledge that the highest nobility had some drops of Jewish blood? On this point all
there was a conspiracy of silence. Those not in this category were (also) able to solve
their problem if they were rich and influential. This is how they got "the robes of
their orders", the don Francisco Bracamonte 'whose personal descent from the
Israelites could not be doubted',(quoting Antonio Perez Maranon) don Francisco de Orozco,
marquis de Mortara, governor of Milan,of the department of State and Admiral Francisco
Dias Pimienta. The quick rise, of the last mentioned, is the most revealing. Natural son
of a Portuguese sailor who established himself on the island of Palma, dedicated himself
to commerce, kept rising from those humble beginnings
up to the post of Admiral of the flotilla of the Indias, where he amassed a rich fortune.
When in 1642, when he became a candidate for the habito de Santiago,the caballeros of the
Order received a message advising them that his father was a Jew and that he was in the
slave trade; but they got more than a hundred witnesses who swore to whatever the
candidate wanted. There was invented
a Basque mother and , to justify the lack of documents, it was said and accepted that he
was born on the way to Cuba. It must be added that Dias Pimienta served his king with
loyalty." (Translation by me, from Spanish, is accurate, but not verbatim.)
Salud Y Shalom,
Ben Nahman taken from the anusim list
Both names coexist.
Curiously enough all the Pimenta that I have known were Jews, from the
Algarve, but originally from Morroco. They may have been Sephardies that
lived in Morroco and came back to Portugal in the 19th. century.
Inacio Steinhadt
both comments taken from the Anusim list serve
The PIMENTEL are well known in the Tras-os-Montes area and
many of them are known to be descendant from anussim. The surname PIMENTEL is also known
among Jewish Portuguese families of Amsterdam and even here in Israel there are Pimentel.
As you know it is as difficult to tell that a certain Poruguese is or was a Jew, as it is
to prove that he is or was not.
Inacio Steinhardt
E-mail: Rufina Bernardetti Silva Mausenbaum