Da diáspora judaica no Caribe (séculos XVII e XVIII): desafios e revelações a partir da (re)descoberta da sua correspondência epistolar

Abstract

The presence of Spanish and Portuguese Jews in several Caribbean locations, such as Barbados, Curaçao, Suriname and Jamaica, has been studied by numerous scholars. However, the recent finding of hundreds of letters in the UK National Archives conveys a deeper understanding of these communities, settled there in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Besides allowing direct access to correspondence concerning the existing networks, these primary sources provide insights into the everyday life, trade and fears of these Jewish settlers, who were under surveillance in the period of the Anglo-Dutch wars. These letters, written either for personal or professional purposes, also offer relevant data for the study of individual and collective experiences in correlation with historical events. This article is part of the special theme section on Portuguese Jews in Europe and the Caribbean, 17th-18th Centuries, guest-edited by José Alberto Tavim.

Keywords

• written culture
• Jewish diaspora
• epistolography
• Prize Papers
• early modern period
• Caribbean