5 - Trade, Credit, and Marriage : The Mobility of Portuguese Conversa Merchants and Financiers

Summary

Abstract

This chapter explores the mobility and activities of four Portuguese women merchants and financiers during the first half of the seventeenth century. All were conversas (descendants of Jews) and belonged to prominent merchant houses that carried out international business. Most dealt in trade negotiations and lent credit to the Spanish Monarchy, continuing their husbands’ international negotiations when widowed. These women traveled from Lisbon to Madrid, but also to Cádiz and to the Netherlands. By tracing and investigating their activities, I chart their travels, which were due to their husbands’ dealings that became theirs, to their need to take care of their family debts, to their own participation in commercial transactions, and even to marry.

Keywords: Portuguese women merchants, women financiers, Spanish– Portuguese financing, early modern women

Recent innovative approaches and methodologies in the field of early modern women's studies have contributed to a better understanding of women's roles across European markets, focusing on new dimensions regarding their status and investigating their activities as businesswomen. In particular, scholars have most recently explored women's contributions to commercial and financial transactions in Northern Europe, given that its socio-economic conditions and circumstances allowed for women's greater participation. However, the economies of Southern Europe also experienced considerable activity by women across borders. As one example, early modern Portuguese women in Iberian cities were involved in trade and credit and even continued their husbands’ businesses after their death. Located mainly in Madrid, Seville, and Cádiz, among the most significant economic centers in the Spanish Monarchy, of converso or New Christian (converted Jew) background, the women belonged to prominent merchant houses that conducted international business.

Several of these women, when widowed, became administrators of their credit houses, where they managed family expenses or received payments for different debts owed to their husbands that they then collected, working either alone, with other relatives, or through agents. Sometimes their responsibility ended upon their children's majority of age, but under other circumstances (when they did not have descendants, for instance) women maintained this position until their deaths. Furthermore, some continued to carry out trade or financial businesses and became financiers or bankers.