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Being Crypto‐Jewish in Colonial Brazil (1500–1822): Brushing History against the Grain
Author(s) -
SIMMS NORMAN
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
journal of religious history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 1467-9809
pISSN - 0022-4227
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9809.2007.00691.x
Subject(s) - nothing , portuguese , history , section (typography) , argument (complex analysis) , judaism , colonialism , order (exchange) , genealogy , period (music) , ethnology , classics , archaeology , aesthetics , philosophy , epistemology , computer science , linguistics , biochemistry , chemistry , finance , economics , operating system
This paper consists of two parts. In the first, I am going to review and synthesise the history of Jews — or rather various versions of Fuzzy Jews 1 — who settled in Brazil during the time it was a Portuguese colony, including a brief period when part of the nation passed under Dutch control. This overview probably adds nothing new to the history of this topic, except insofar as it stresses the details necessary to develop the argument in the next section. The second part turns to a more difficult and in many ways speculative kind of history, that of the emotional and psychological experience of being a Jew — again in several versions of nominal Catholicism. Here is where I bring to bear insights from psychohistory and the history of mentalities in order to interrogate the sources in Inquisitional archives and archaeological studies in Brazil and elsewhere in South America.