JEWS UNDER SUSPICION: THE TRIAD OF JEWS NEW TYCOONS OF DUTCH BRAZIL.
Abstract
Investigating the interstices of the “Religious Babel” that formed the territory under Dutch rule in the first half of the 17th century, this article aims to cross the inquisitorial and Calvinists sources, in addition to the administrative documentation and chronicles of the period, to think persecutory dimension existing in colonial times. From the reconstruction of three cases, the Jews Duarte Saraiva, Moisés Navarro and Benjamin de Pina, named as "big Jews", "capitalists" and even "magnates" by current historiography, the work aims to question how these individuals escaped from religious hostilities directed to the members of the Jewish community of Recife, which even had some names processed by the inquisitorial court. Businessmen, with properties and fortune, politically influential and practical in Judaism, they managed to escape Catholic and Calvinist suspicions and continued to congregate with the Jewish community while prospering economically to the point of acquiring a sphere of political influence capable of shielding them from the charges received. The assessment of their circulation in the territory suggests that, in addition to economic capillarity and political power, personal relations with the Dutch authorities have made possible for these illustrious figures to practice Judaism with some security. The analysis of the cases revives the debate about the limits and boundaries of modern disciplinary institutions in the Atlantic world
