Nevertheless, the problem of the "conversos", Jews forced tobaptism in 1391 and the ones who desperatly chose to stay,practising apparently christianism and hiddenly judaism, remained for a long time.
They were tracked down by the terrible Inquisition and had to run away from Spain first, and then from Portugal.
On August 2nd, 1492, three ships had left Palos de Moguer, near Sevilla. Christopher Columbus took five "conversos" with him, among them Luis de Torres, an interpreter who spoke hebrew and arabic. Columbus had written to the Spanish sovereigns : "So after chosing all the Jews out of our kingdom and seignories, Your Highnesses ordered me to leave with a sufficient Armada to the so called countries of India in this month of January, 1492".
100.000 Jews fled to Portugal which welcomed them with a 8 cruzados
tax per refugee.
The hunted members of the community had to hide to survive and lots
of them became tenacious "marranos" (crypto-Jews practising apparently
christianism). These false new christians hid in a
concealed and secret judaism, fanatically persecuted by the Church
and old christians.
In 1506, following the preaching of two monks, more than 4.000 new christians
were murdered by the mob. This led to a sometimes clandestine, sometimes
tolerated emigration, which went on far
almost three centuries.
In 1579, after a long negociation, Portugal obtained the right of creating its own Inquisition from the Vatican. This one successed in being even more repressive than its Spanish pattern.
For all these reasons, Marranos thought to run away to the Portuguese
possessions in America first and then to a small island of the Caribbeans
called Martinique. The island discovered in 1502 by Christopher Columbus
became property of the "Compagnie Franá?áaise des Iles d'Amérique"
(French Company of the American Islands) in 1635, under the government
of Lieutenant Du Pont, replaced in 1637 by Dizel du Parquet who bought
it in 1650 for 6.300 liras.
Small communities gathered again and got structured secretly here and there, with their converso priests and their doctor prescribing pork to their patients in order to trick the Churchmen.
Other marranos escaping from Madeira joined them and introduced the sugar cane culture in Brazil. This rich and prosperous community of planters and tradesmen made other people jealous and in 1579, the Bishop of Salvador was invested with inquisitorial powers to watch it better.
In 1618, a very hard member of the Holy Office was sent from Lisboa. His arrival led to a wave of arrests and confiscations always profitable to the Church. Some marranos fled to the next Spanish territories but they were welcomed by the local Inquisition.
In 1625, in Lima, among other Jewish defendants, 14 were condemned to the stake. Lots of Brazilian marranos took refuge in the welcoming city of Amsterdam. Then Brazilian marranos and their compatriots of Amsterdam contracted a sort of alliance with the Hollanders against Spaniards and Portuguese in the whole world.
The Dutch Jews were rich and powerful. They developed the trade of pepper, sugar, spices, cotton fabrics and colonial products. The Brazilian marranos were their agents in South America. Together, they traded tobacco, precious woods, brilliants and spices.
Hollanders tried several times to occupy Brazil with the help of marranos. The capture of Pernambuco (Recife) in 1630 was organized by Dutch Jews under the command of Moïse Cohen. A few years later, David Peiscotto left with a 18 ships fleet to help to the defense of Pernambuco besieged by the Portuguese. As a clever strategist, he suggested to attack Portugal up to Coïmbra and to put fire to the Holy Office Palace.<R>During the Dutch occupation of Pernambuco in 1630, the crypto-Jews revealedthemselves in their true colors and claimed their judaism. They were joined by Dutch Jews.
In 1640, Jews were more numerous than christians in the city. In 1642, two rabbins came from Amsterdam to structure the community. In 1654, Pernambuco was captured back by the Portuguese.
Six hundred Jews, the whole community, spred over Holland and the New World, forming small communities in Jamaïca, Barbados, and in News and Tobago Islands.
Since 1600, Brazilian marranos had lived in Cayenne before going to Surinam in 1680 because France was not very sweet to them.
They defended bravely Dutch Surinam against the French Royal Navy in 1689 and in 1712, under the command of Isaac Pinto.
Twelve Portuguese marrano families arrived in Nassau in 1659 andothers in 1654 in the United States. They founded New Amsterdam, lately New York.
In Curaá?áâo, under the Dutch occupation, the crypto-Jews got the monopoly of horse and cattle trade, and of black slaves going from Africa to Mexico.
The small island of Martinique illustrates the wanderings of Portuguese marranos on a reduced scale.
Around 1600, a Brazilian marrano community had already found a refuge there.
In 1635, the whole community was chased out of the island, now French,
by Lieutenant Du Pont. They settled in Dutch Guyana and in Surinam which
benefitted from their experience in tropical
agriculture and especially in sugar cane culture.
In March, 1685, an edict of the King of France instituted the "Black Code", beginning by the following first chapter : "Writing this, we order to all our officers to chase all the Jews there out of our islands". Then the Jews had to leave Martinique with no possible return and they took the sefer back to Amsterdam with them.
So the first loop was looped. The sefer, piously calligraphied in Amsterdam
by a marrano sefarad who had learnt hebrew and the Bible clandestinely,
was back to its departure point, taken back
by theBrazilian conversos to the majestuous Portuguese temple of Amsterdam.
The Black Code promulgation meant harder life conditions, including death
punishments for black slaves and a
total lack of chistian charity.
There were several slave revolts in 1657, 1816, 1821, 1824, 1831, 1833 and 1848. They were bloodly repressed. Slavery was only abolished in 1848.
In this repressive island, the new Jewish community is only recent. After World War II, some Jews arrived there in search of exotism, tropical paradise and maybe of a financial Eldorado.
In 1962, they were joined by the uprooted people from Algeria, Morocco
and Tunisia. In Martinique, they found sun, a sweet climate, a warm sea
and a way of life close to what they had left. Their first jobs and attempts
were enthousiastic and imaginative. As they had to prove themselves, they
innovated, sold and surprised. Naturally, they were first mistrust by the
local population.
The community reacted hardly against the anti-semitic campaign led by
the "Antilla" newspaper in 1982, in which Pierre Davidos had opened an
opinion column titled "Israel, a blasted people and
country".
The community successed in creating friendly relationships with the English-speaking communities of other Caribbean Islands. There are often visits between people and communities of the islands because they travel by boat as easily as we can catch train. But some people wonder about the sefarad planters and sailors settled 400 years ago.
Some Jews, above all coming from the region of Oran (Algeria) and Constantine, who remember speaking ladino at home, are aiming to find again the Amsterdam sefer of 1660, offered by Benjamin Da Costa and to bring it back to Martinique.
Is it still in Amsterdam? Was it destroyed by the nazis, those modern
inquisitors? Or maybe it is laying among others in a temple, in one of
these sefarad communities which successed in
preserving their identity during 5 centuries of Church repression
NB : Special thanks to Mrs Gabai, President of the B'nai B'rith Lodge of Martinique, who helped me discovering this Caribbean community.
A partir de 1492, la Inquisicion va a perseguir los judeos espanoles y portugueses hasta los posesiones de Espana y Portugal en el Nuevo Mundo, forzandoles a huir de paes en paes.
Unos judeos de Brasil se refugieron en la sisla francesa de Martinica en 1600 pero fueron cazados de nuevo en 1635.
Entre 1654 y 1684, otra comunidad se creo en Martinica, construyendo un templo y desarrollando el cultivo del indigo, del tabaco, del café y del rocon. Introducieron también el cultivo de la cana de azucar, aprendido en Madera, y un nuevo proceso de refinamiento del azucar.
En esa época, un notable, Benyamino Da Costa ofrecio
a la comunidad un magnefico sefer encarzado en Amsterdam.
Cuando fueron achados de Martinica en 1684, huyeron a Amsterdam
llerandose el sefer con ellos.
Fue solo despues de la segunda Guerra Mundial cuando otra comunidad se instalo en Martinica, reunida en 1962 con judeos de Argelia, Tunez y Maruecos que habean perdido sus paises y bienes en la descolonizacion.
Ahora la comunidad cuenta mas o menos de 400 miembres. Case todos son religiosos, comen casher y dan su apoyo a Israel sin codicion.
Un rabino y una logia del B'nai B'rith se han instalado en la isla desde hace 3 anos. La comunidad ha logrado a crear relaciones de amistad con las comunidades de lengua inglese establecidas en otras islas de las Caribes. Visitan \â
Solo falta a la vida de la comunidad el sefer de Amsterdam, regalado en 1660 par B. Da Costa, y que unos miembres de la comunidad quisieran muncho encontrar y llevar de nuevo a Martinica, aunque ha totalmente desaparacido desde hace mas de tres sigllo.
NB : Muchas gracias a la senora Gabai, presidente del B'nai B'rith Logia de Martinica, que me hizé descubrir esta comunidad de las Caribes.