Portuguese Jews and New Christians in Colonial Brazil, 1500-1822

Download or read book Portuguese Jews and New Christians in Colonial Brazil, 1500-1822 written by Alan P. Marcus and published by University of New Mexico Press. This book was released on 2024-11-15 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The diaspora of Portuguese Jews and New Christians, known as Gente da Nação (People of the Nation), is considered the largest European diaspora of the early modern period. Portuguese Jews not only founded the first congregations and synagogues in Brazil (Recife and Olinda), but when they left Brazil they played an imperative role in establishing the first Jewish communities in Suriname, throughout the Caribbean, and in North America. Drawing on nearly twenty thousand digitized dossiers of the Portuguese Inquisition, this volume offers a comprehensive, critical overview informed by both relatively inaccessible secondary sources and a significant body of primary sources.