[First Jewish immigration
as "Portuguese" - "judaizers" - installation of commercial
structures]
After the temporary
union of Spain and Portugal in 1580, Portuguese of Jewish
descent began entering colonial Argentina. Thinly populated,
the area served as a center of contraband trade in which
silver from the Andes Mountains was exchanged for West
African slaves, European textiles, and other imports. The
area was also far removed from Lima, the seat of viceregal
government and, from 1572, seat of the Inquisitional
Tribunal (though a Portuguese inquisitor visited Buenos
Aires in 1618).
Arriving at Buenos Aires, or going by way of São Paulo and
Paraguay, the Portuguese immigrants settled mainly in Buenos
Aires, *Cordoba, and Tucumán. Throughout the next century,
hostile reports (the only ones available) refer to the
presence of "Jews", "Portuguese", and "merchants" - used as
synonymous terms - and uniformly accuse them of "filling the
land" and "monopolizing commerce". A decree of expulsion
issued in 1602 also links "Portuguese" and "judaizers" or
*Crypto-Jews.
[[The natives are never mentioned in the Encyclopaedia
Judaica]].
[Inquisition of the church
and Jews on stakes at Lima]
Actually, the number of people referred to in these
accusations and the degree of their practice of Judaism are
unknown. They themselves covered their tracks because of the
Inquisition and the laws of Spain, which forbade the entry
of any but "Old Christians" (see *New Christians). On the
other hand, the inquisitors describe the faith of their
Jewish victims in superficial stereotypes: the wearing of
clean linen and abstention from work on their Sabbath,
refusal to eat pork, and the denial of Christian tenets.
The victims of the great Lima Auto-da-Fé of Jan. 23, 1639,
included a native of Tucumán, the middle-aged surgeon
Francisco *Maldonado de Silva, a man of mystic tendencies
who had found his way back to the ancestral Jewish faith.
Two other major figures of Jewish-Portuguese origin related
to Argentina were Christians by persuasion. Francisco de
*Vitoria, bishop of Tucumán (d. 1592), who was accused of
judaizing and was recalled to Spain, and the Córdoba-born
jurist Antonio de León Pinelo, an important figure in South
American literature (d. 1660), who brought an appeal against
the fine imposed on resident Portuguese by the governor of
Buenos Aires.
Few statistics are available on the activities of this
period. Ninety-six Portuguese, among them 34 farmers, 25
artisans, and 14 sailors, have been identified out of a
population of some 2,000 resident in Buenos Aires about
1620; but the assumption that all Portuguese residents were
Jewish is open to serious question. Probably fewer
Crypto-Jews settled in the whole of Argentina than in the
mining center of Potosí in modern Bolivia or in the colonial
capital of Lima. Moreover, it is almost certain that their
Judaism, such as it was, failed to take root. In the 18th
century there are no trustworthy reports of judaizing in
Argentina, nor is it possible to verify reports that some
local families were of *Marrano descent.
[F.BR.]> (col. 409)
Encyclopaedia Judaica
