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Regaining Jerusalem: Eschatology and Slavery in Jewish Colonization in Seventeeth-Century Suriname

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Natalie Zemon Davis
Natalie Zemon Davis*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Abstract

Through the person of the ex-converso David Nassy, “Regaining Jerusalem” asks how seventeenth-century Portuguese Jews could seek their own religious liberty at the same time they were enslaving Africans in the plantation economies of the Caribbean and the Guyana coast. Living in Amsterdam by the 1630s, Nassy was part of the Jewish community in Dutch Brazil, and then in the 1660s led the Jewish settlement in Dutch Suriname. Nassy was moved in part by eschatological hopes shared with other ex-conversos freed from Catholic tyranny, in part by his interest in plants and geography, and in part by entrepreneurial desire for profit. Nassy and his fellow Jews distinguished their own biblical exodus out of slavery from the destiny of their African captives, incorporating their slaves into the patriarchal Abrahamic household. This paper describes patterns of Jewish culture on the sugar plantations and the varied reactions of African men and women to it.

Keywords

Portuguese JewsDavid NassySlaves and JudaismDutch BrazilSurinamereligious libertyeschatology
Type
Articles
Information
Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry , Volume 3 , Issue 1: Jewish Studies and Postcolonialism , January 2016 , pp. 11 - 38
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

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26 Menasseh ben Israel to Johan van Berwijck, in Israel, Menasseh ben, De termino vitae libri tres (Amsterdam: Menasseh ben Israel, 1639), 236–237Google Scholar: “fratrem Ephraim Soeiro in Brasiliam misi, si forte per eum ex mercatura melior quaedam facula illucescat, ut liberius divinis literis incumbere queam,” quoted in Bethencourt, “Lettres de Menassah ben Israel”,” 102, 102 note 1. Roth, Cecil, A Life of Menassah ben Israel, Rabbi, Printer, and Diplomat (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1934), 51–60Google Scholar. Pieterse, Barrios, 168.

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29 Emmanuel, and Emmanuel, , Antilles, 42–44Google Scholar; Klooster, “Networks,” Atlantic Diasporas, eds/ Kagan and Morgan, 43–45. Mercator-Hondius-Janssonius Atlas; or A Geographicke Description of the World Amsterdam 1636 (facsimile edition, Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1967–1968), 451–52 on the wondrous sugar cane of Guyana.

30 Nassy, Cohen, Essai, Vol. 1, 12Google Scholar; Vol. 2, 113–22; Klooster, “Networks,” Atlantic Diasporas, eds. Kagan and Morgan, 45–46.

31 Nuevo Atlas, o Teatro de Todo el Mundo (Amsterdam: Jan Janssen, 1653). 4 vols. I have been able to see volume two of this rare edition at the Rare Books Collection at Princeton University Library. Roth, Menasseh, 70. Menasseh ben Israel’s role as translator is not acknowledged in the volumes themselves, but is known from Menasseh ben Israel’s letter to Isaac Vossius, dated March 10, 1651, where he says he has just finished for Jan Jansson “the version of the four volumes of his Atlas in the Spanish language.” Bethencourt, “Lettres de Menasseh ben Israel”, 105; Werner, Jan, “Universiteitsbibliotheek van Amsterdam ontvangt een Spaanse Janssonius (Amsterdam 1653),” Caert-Thresoor 4 (1985), 10Google Scholar; Dor Benite, Zvi Ben, The Ten Lost Tribes: A World History (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 169–191CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Daniel Levi de Barrios, Relación de los poetas y escritores españoles de la nación judaica amstelodama (n. p. [Amsterdam], n. d. [1682]). Barrios’s text is reproduced in M. Keyserling, “Une histoire de la littérature juive de Daniel Lévi de Barrios,” Revue des études juives 18 (1889): 276–89, reference to Nassy, 287; text also cited by Cohen Nassy, Essai, Vol. 1, 11 note. Pieterse, Barrios, 104.

33 Full bibliographical description of all the atlases published by Joan Blaeu in Krogt, Peter van de, Koeman’s Atlantes Neerlandici, Vol. 2. (Goy-Houten, Netherlands: Hes and De Graaf Publishers, 1997–2000)Google Scholar. On the complicated history of the publication of the Spanish edition, see de la Fontaine Verwey, Herman, “The ‘Spanish Blaeu,’” Quaerendo 11 (1981): 83–94Google Scholar and Berkhemer, Anton, “De Spaanse Atlas Mayor van Blaeu: nieuwe gegevens,” Caert-Thresoor 16.3 (1997): 71–76Google Scholar. Prior to the 1659 publication, Blaeu had published the Spanish volumes on Scotland and China in 1657 and 1658 respectively, so Nassy was working with Blaeu for several years in the 1650s. In 1672, Blaeu published a new Spanish edition, reprinting the five volumes from 1659 and adding others. Those published after 1660 were translated by the man identified by Barrios as continuing Nassy’s work: the ex-converso Daniel Judah, formerly called Nicolás de Oliver y Fullana (Keyserling, “Barrios,” 287). The work of Nassy and Judah has been ignored in the bibliographical literature.

34 Joan Blaeu, Nuevo Atlas o Teatro del Mundo, en en [sic] qual, con gran cuydado, se proponen los Mapas y Descripciones de todo el Universo: Tomo Primero (Amsterdam: Joan Blaeu, 1659). I have examined Blaeu’s French edition of the same volume of the Grand Atlas, which first appeared in 1663, and the italicized sections in brackets are not present. The Third Cententary Edition of Johan Blaeu Le grand atlas; ou, Cosmogaphia blaviane Amsterdam 1663, Vol. 1. (facsimile edition; Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1967–1968).

35 Blaeu, Nuevo Atlas, 72.

36 Peyrère, Isaac La, Relation de Groenlande (Paris: A. Courbe, 1647), 149–186Google Scholar. C. C. Lyschander had also published an account in verse in Den Grønlandske Chronica (Copenhagen, 1726), but this was not the source for the Blaeu/Nassy text. Reports to Christian IV from ship captains and pilots on the 1605–1606 expeditions are found in C. C. A. Gosch, ed., Danish Arctic Expeditions 1605 to 1620 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1897).

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38 Ibid., 19.

39 Barlaeus, Caspar, Mercator sapiens, sive oratio de conjungendis mercaturae et philosophiae studiis (Amsterdam: Willem Blaeu, 1632)Google Scholar. A friend of Menasseh ben Israel, Barlaeus also published in 1647 an account of the Brazil expedition. David Nassy’s name does not appear among the members of the various Jewish brotherhoods or academies extracted from the Jewish records by Pieterse in Barrios.

40 For the curriculum at Talmud Torah, see Nadler, Steven, Spinoza, A Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 61–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Bodian, , Hebrews, 107Google Scholar. Kaplan, , From Christianity, 139–141Google Scholar: Samuel Nassy also took classes on secular subjects with the radical Juan de Prado and testified to Rabbi Morteira about Prado’s challenges to Jewish beliefs and laws. Praise for the learning of Samuel Nassy in Daniel Levi de Barrios, Ez Haim. Arbol de Las Vidas, reproduced in Keyserling, M., “Une histoire de la littérature juive de Daniel Lévi de Barrios,” Revue des études juives 36 (1898): 98Google Scholar; Pieterse, Barrios, 104.

41 Nassy, Cohen, Essai, Vol. 1, 12–14Google Scholar, Vol. 2, 126.

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43 Cohen Nassy, Essai, Vol. 1, 22–23, Vol. 2, 122–25. “An Exact Narrative of the State of Guyana and of the English Colony in Surynam in the Beginning of the Warre with the Dutch,” in Vincent T. Harlow, ed., Colonising Expeditions to the West Indies and Guiana 1623–1667 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1925), 216–19. Gaines, Alison, “Cohabitation, Suriname-Style: English Inhabitants in Dutch Suriname after 1667,” William and Mary Quarterly, 72 (2015): 195–242Google Scholar; Selwood, Jacob, “Left Behind: Subjecthood, Nationality, and the Status of Jews after the Loss of English Surinam,” Journal of British Studies 54 (2015): 578–601CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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47 Nassy, Cohen, Essai, Vol. 1, 78–80Google Scholar, Vol. 2, 133–35. Cohen, , Jews, 124–125Google Scholar, 128. van der Linde, J. M., Surinaamse Suikerheren en hun Kerk (Wageningen: H. Veenman, 1966), 61Google Scholar, 65–66. van Lier, Rudie A. J., Frontier Society. A Social Analysis of the History of Surinam (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971), 86–87Google Scholar.

48 de Smidt, J. T. and Lee, T. van der, eds., Plakaten, Ordonnnantiën en andere Wetten, uitgevaardigd in Suriname 1667–1816 (no. 54, June 8, 1674; Amsterdam: S. Emmering, 1973), Vol. 1, 74–75Google Scholar. Linde, Van der, Suikerheren, 174, 223–224Google Scholar (request from the Jewish planters to Governor Versterre, ca. 1675).

49 For instance, the uprising at Palmeniribo in 1707, adjacent to Jewish plantations on the Suriname River. Davis, Natalie Zemon, “Judges, Masters, Diviners: Slaves’ Experience of Criminal Justice in Colonial Suriname,” Law and History Review 29 (2011): 952–953CrossRefGoogle Scholar, note 67.

50 Linde, Van der, Suikerheren, 218–224Google Scholar.

51 Kaplan, , From Christianity, 235–249Google Scholar. Saperstein, Marc, Exile in Amsterdam. Samuel Levi Monteira’s Sermons to a Congregation of “New Jews” (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 2005), 254Google Scholar, 254 note 4. Emmanuel and Emmanuel, Antilles, 58.

52 Nassy, Cohen, Essai, Vol. 1, 39Google Scholar, 54. Cohen, Jews, 126.

53 Census of 1684 reported by Wilbort Daniels to the directors of the Society of Suriname. van der Meiden, G. W., Betwist Bestuur. Een eeuw strijd om de macht in Suriname 1651–1753 (Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1987), 54Google Scholar.

54 Cohen Nassy, Essai, Vol. 1, 41–42, 45. NA, SocSur, BP, inv. 225, 301r, October 7, 1683: “nous sommes dans ce pays icy touiours en guerre avec les sauvages.” Baron Mulert, F. E., “Eene Episode uit den Indianen-Oorlog in Suriname in den Zeeuwschen Tijd” West-Indische Gids 1 (1919): 224Google Scholar. Hartsinck, Beschryving, 649. Van der Linden, Suikerheren, 42–43, 69, 94–95. Goslinga, Dutch, 272. Roitman, Jessica Vance, “Portuguese Jews, Amerindians and the Frontiers of Encounter in Colonial Suriname,” New West Indian Guide 88 (2014): 36–37Google Scholar.

55 Three early maps exist for the Dutch colony of Suriname: a map copied in April 1715 by the Dutch surveyor Maurits Walraven of the 1686 map made by the Labadist settlers and owned by the Dutch West Indies Company; a map prepared around 1688 and published in Amsterdam by Hendrick Doncker (Paskaert van de Rivieren van Suriname en Commewyne); and an undated Nieuwe Kaart van Suriname, prepared and published in Amsterdam by Joachim Ottens, who died in 1719. None of them is completely reliable for the names of plantation owners given along the rivers or even for the exact shape of the waterways. The Walraven copy of the 1686 Labadist map lists Samuel Nassy and Joseph Nassy each as owner of a plantation on the upper Suriname River. The Doncker Paskaert assigns four plantations to Samuel Nassy, one each to Joseph and Moses Nassy, and one shared by the brothers Jacob and Joshua (Fig. 3).

56 Ur, Aviva Ben and Frankel, Rachel, Remnant Stones. The Jewish Cemeteries of Suriname: Epitaphs (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2009), 76Google Scholar (no. 11); 82 (no. 131); 85 (nos. 143–44). NA, SocSur, BP, inv. 228, 387v. Samuel had married Sarah da Costa. Stadsarchief Amsterdam (henceforth SA), Archief Da Costa, inv. 946, no. 7, July 23, 1706. Emmanuel and Emmanuel, Antilles, 43–44; Roitman, “Portuguese Jews,” 26 note 13.

57 The names of plantations are not given on the early maps, nor are they provided in the late seventeenth-century listing of plantation owners used for assessing the taxes. I have thus used the 1737 Lavaux map of Suriname, which includes plantation names as well as owners, in addition to inventories of Nassy plantations. NA, Suriname Oud Notarieel Archief (henceforth SONA), inventories, inv. 172, 193v–201v. La Confianza was changed by notaries in the course of the eighteenth century to La Confiance and Lucha da Jacob to Worsteling Jacobs. The former remained in Nassy hands through much of the eighteenth century; the latter was in the hands of another Portuguese Jewish family by 1737.

58 Van der Linde, Suikerheren, 74. NA, SocSur, BP, inv. 205, 9: in 1693, Samuel Cohen Nassy is the owner of 191 slaves; in 1694, of 175 slaves, in both instances the highest of the plantation owners.

59 See the discussion of John Locke in the important book by Nyquist, Mary, Arbitrary Rule. Slavery, Tyranny, and the Power of Life and Death (Chicago and London: University of California Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chapter 10.

60 da Fonseca, Isaac Aboab, Parafrasis Comentado sobre el Pentateuco (Amsterdam: Jacob de Cordova, 5441/1681), 44Google Scholar. Aboab da Fonseca was stressing the obligation given in Genesis 17: 12–13: “And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you . . . he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any foreigner, that is not of thy seed.”

61 Aboab, Isaac de Mattathias, ed., Seder Berakhot. Orden de Bendiciones y las ocaziones en que se deven dezir (Amsterdam: Albertus Magnus, 5447(1686/1687)), 184Google Scholar; approbation from rabbis Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, Jacob Sasportas, and Selomoh de Olivier. See the discussion by Schorsch, who has “not been able to find any halakhic precedent for the formula of this blessing” (Jews and Blacks, 155, 412 note 115).

62 Aboab, Mattathias, ed., Seder Berakhot, 182–183Google Scholar.

63 Schorsch, , Jews and Blacks, 75–77Google Scholar, 175–79.

64 Postma, , Dutch, 112–115Google Scholar, tables 5.2–5.5. In addition to the references in note 16 above, see for Gabriel Stedman, Suriname John, Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, Transcribed for the First Time from the Original 1790 Manuscript, eds. Richard and Sally Price (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 514Google Scholar; Teenstra, Marten D., De Landbouw in de Kolonie Suriname, Vol. 2. (Groningen: H. Eekhoff, 1835), 180–181Google Scholar.

65 Pardo, David, Compendio de Dinim Que todo Israel deve Saber y Observar (Amsterdam: n. p., 5449/1689), 279–280Google Scholar; approbation by Rabbi Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, 5448 (1688), ix–xv. I am grateful to Jonathan Schorsch for his comments on the drop of blood. From an important rabbinical family of the Portuguese Jewish community of London, David Pardo served as rabbi in Suriname from 1701 till his death there around 1715. Wolf, Johann Christoph, Bibliotheca Hebraea, Vol. 3. (Hamburg and Leipzig, 1715–1733), 206Google Scholar; Solomons, Israel, “David Nieto and some of his Contemporaries,” Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England 12 (1928–1931): 43Google Scholar, 88.

66 Ben Ur, “Matriarchal Matter,” Atlantic Diasporas, eds. Kagan and Morgan, 159 (the births began 1703); 152, another example from the early eighteenth century.

67 Inventories of La Confiance (still called La Confianza on the maps): NA, SONA, inventories, inv. 172, 193v–201v (1740); inv. 690, 327r–338v (1747); inv. 691 (February 1752); inv. 690, 327r–338v (December 1752); inv. 221, 229–34 (1765).

68 Kals, Jan Willem, Neerlands Hooft-en Wortel-sonde, het Verzuym van de Bekeeringe der Heydenen (Leeuwarden: Pieter Koumans, 1756), 51Google Scholar; van der Linde, J. M., Jan Willem Kals 1700–1781. Leraar der Hervormden; Advocaat van Indiaan en Neger (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1987), 50–51Google Scholar. In principle, Jews were not to sell slaves who had been ritually prepared for enslavement to non-Jews, but it sometimes happened.

69 Sweet, James H., Recreating Africa. Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441–1770 (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 35Google Scholar.

70 Pardo, Dinim, 279: 12. Shulkhan Arukh/ Yoreah Deah, section 264, “Who is fitting to circumcise,” https://en/wikisource/org/w/inex/php?title=Translation:Shulchan_Aruch/Yoreh_Deah/264&oldid=4793541. There were three printed copies of the Shulkhan Arukh in the school library of the Portuguese Jews in 1738, when we have the first catalogue, and it seems likely that Samuel Nassy or his brother, Rabbi Moses, who had studied the work in Amsterdam, would have had a copy in the late seventeenth century. NA, Archief der Nederlands-Portugees-Israelitische Gemeente in Suriname (henceforth ANPIG), inv. 25, Registro dos Libros Ebraicos, August 19, 1738.

71 Schorsch, , Jews and Blacks, 77Google Scholar.

72 Carlin, Eithne B. and Arends, Jacques, eds., Atlas of the Languages of Suriname (Leiden: KITLV, 2002)Google Scholar, Part 2, “The Creole Languages.” Davis, Natalie Zemon., “Creole Languages and Their Uses: The Example of Colonial Suriname,” Historical Inquiry 82 (May 2009): 268–284Google Scholar.

73 Schumann, Christian Ludwig, Saramaccanisch Deutsches Wörterbuch (1778) in Hugo Schuchardt, ed., Die Sprache der Saramakkaneger in Surinam (Amsterdam: Johannes Müller, 1914), 99Google Scholar. Weygandt, G. C., Gemeenzaame Leerwyze om het Basterd of Neger-Engelsche (Paramaribo: W. W. Beeldsnyder, 1798), 9Google Scholar. Cohen Nassy, Essai, Vol. 1, 143 no. a. Evidence that the rulings of the Mahamad in regard to the cessation of work on the sabbath and the specified feast days were respected is found in the rare diary of Samuel Bueno Bibaz, manager of a coffee plantation in 1743–1744 (NA, ANPIG, inv. 493).

74 Bosman, Description, 129–30; Snelgrave, William, A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave Trade (London: James, John and Paul Knapton, 1734), 59Google Scholar. Stedman, Narrative, 523. Schumann, Wörterbuch, 107 tchina, 110 treffe. Herskovits, Melville J. and Herskovits, Frances S., Suriname Folk-Lore (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), 750Google Scholar.

75 Bosman, Description, 179, 329, 416. Aviva Ben-Ur and Rachel Frankel have found no traces of a public mikvah bathhouse at Jodensavanne in Suriname; they locate purification ritual in the river (Ben-Ur and Frankel, Remnant Stones, Essays, 112). I have found no payments connected with a mikvah in the records of the Mahamad. Daniel Rolander, Daniel Rolander’s Journal, trans. James Dobreff, Claes Dahlman, David Morgan, and Joseph Tipton, in The Linnaeus Apostles: Global Science and Adventures, (London and Whitby: IK Foundation, 2007–2012), Vol. 3, 174–75. Ontwerp tot een Beshryving van Surinaamen ca. 1740, no. 317 (MS. G 96-604, Colonial Collection [KIT], University of Leiden Library).

76 Samuel Nassy to Governor Johannes Heinsius, January 30, 1680, in Indianen in Zeeuwse bronnen Brieven over Indianen in Suriname tijdens het Zeeuwse bewind gedurende de periode 1667–1682 (Paramaribo, 1992), 17–18; I am grateful to Marjoleine Kars for this reference. According to Nassy, the nine recaptured slaves behaved in a “treacherous” fashion, seeking to debauch the other slaves, so he got the governor’s permission to sell them in Barbados. David de Isaac Cohen Nassy does not mention this escape, perhaps to protect his family’s reputation. He tells only of an escape in 1690 from one of the few Jewish plantations on a creek off the Commewyne River, where the slaves had first killed their owner (Cohen Nassy, Essai, Vol. 1, 60, 76). On the early years of the Nasi clan, see the important book by Price, Richard, First- Time. The Historical Vision of an Afro-American People (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), 101–106Google Scholar. Price was unaware of this 1680 document, so set the establishment of the clan in the 1690s.

77 van Eeghen, Isabelle. H., De Amsterdamse Boekhander 1680–1725, Vol. 3. (Amsterdam: Scheltema and Hilkema, 1960–1978), 119Google Scholar. Maria Merian, Sibylla, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (Amsterdam: Gerardus Valck, 1705)Google Scholar, plate 4, commentary by Caspar Commelin.

78 Kaplan, , From Christianity, 221Google Scholar. The classic study of Sabbatai Zevi and the Sabbatean movement is Scholem, Gershon, Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah 1626-1676, trans. R. J. Z. Werblowsky (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973)Google Scholar.

79 Van der Linde, Suikerheren, 155–59, 173, 217.

80 Cohen Nassy, Essai, Vol. 1, 23, 45, 47; Vol. 2, 49–51: “le village des Juifs nommé la Savane.” The area is still referred to as “Joodsch Dorp” on the Lavaux map of 1737, but is called “La Savanne des Juifs” on the map of Philippe Fermin, who had practiced medicine in Suriname in the 1750s. See Fermin, Philippe, Description Générale, Historique, Géographique et Physicque de la Colonie de Surinam (Amsterdam: E. van Harrevelt, 1769), 1Google Scholar, map following xii. NA, Gouvernementssecretarie Suriname tot 1828, Journal, inv. 1, 27 April 1734: “van de Joodse Natie aan de Savane.” Cohen, Jews, 147–48, 301 note 6.

81 On the eschatological features in the name of the synagogue at the savannah and the layout of the plaza before it, see Rachel Frankel, “Antecedents and Remnants of Jodensavanne: The Synagogues and Cemeteries of the First Permanent Plantation Settlement of New World Jews,” Jews, eds. Bernardini and Fiering, 413–19; Ben-Ur with Frankel, Remnant Stones: Essays, 105–14.

82 Isaac Netto, “Sermaõ quarto que pregou o Docto Talmid H. Yshac Netto pregador da Illustre Irmandade dos Orfaõs, & Ros Yesibá da Insigne Hebrá de Temeim Dareh,” Sermoes que pregaraõ os Doctos Ingenios do K. K. de Talmud Torah, desta Cidade de Amsterdam. . . Anno 5435 (Amsterdam: David de Castro Tartaz, 1675), 64. Barrios, Ez Haim, 98 note 5.

83 Klooster, , “Networks,” Atlantic Diasporas, eds. Kagan and Morgan, 47Google Scholar; Frankel, Ben-Ur with, Remnant Stones: Essays, 82Google Scholar.

84 David Pardo, Orden de la Hagada de Pesah, published with new pagination at the end of Pardo’s Dinim. The celebrated Venice Haggadah, with its woodcuts, was first published in 1609 in three different versions: Judeo-Italian, Yiddish, and Judeo-Spanish, and was reprinted in 1628/1629 with commentary by Leone Modena. I have used the edition in the Friedberg Collection of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto: Seder Haggadah shel Peshah bi-leshon ha-kodesh, u-fitrono bi-leshon Sefaradim (Venice: Pietro, Alvise, and Lorenzo Bragadin, 1628/1629). On this Haggadah, see Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim, Haggadah and History (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1975)Google Scholar, plates 49–55. The great Amsterdam 1695 Haggadah used Judeo-Spanish only for the instructions for the rituals preceding the seder. (I am grateful to E. Natalie Rothman for assistance on this.)

85 NA, ANPIG 102, Hascamoth, 1754, Tract 52, 176–78 (duties of slaves assisting the shamas); ANPIG 181, 9 August 1777, payment to the owner of “Negra Abena,” for renting her for nineteen weeks of work at the Ets Haim school. These documents from a later period give us a sense of the varied duties performed earlier by slaves for the Portuguese Jewish community.