• 1 A previous version of this paper has been published in Portuguese on Politeia. História e Sociedade(...)

1The Bernal Nunes de Miranda were prosecuted for the crime of Judaism in Bahia of the XVIIIth century. Like their ancestors and countless other New Christian families, their lives were devastated by the institutional control of the Holy Inquisition. Furthermore, peculiarly, the clan also achieved the distinction of having against itself a legal discourse published in Portugal by a jurisconsult, who used rhetorical resources in order to repress the blood quality of the lineage, corroborating in the ethnic prejudice against New Christians. In this regard, we are faced with the matters of religiosity and the stigma of blood. Among such social pressures, the family still had a strong impetus to balance and consolidate itself in the surrounding societies, whether in Portugal, Spain or Brazil. The paper will roam in this complex and slippery threshold.

• 2 R. Sarti, Europe at Home: Family and Material Culture, 1500-1800, New Haven and London, Yale Univer (...)

2 Family is here understood as the nuclear circle of parents and children, although the modern concept is dynamic and may include households and affinity ties2. Comprised of twelve natural members, three of whom died prematurely and another three conferred illegitimacy to their ancestry, the nuclear family of six individuals settled in the Brazilian state of Bahia at the turn of the XVIIth to the XVIIIth century. The parents, Mrs. Izabel Bernal and the doctor Francisco Nunes de Miranda, departed from this life in this same city. From Salvador, some of the brothers expanded businesses to colonial and overseas regions, maintaining reciprocal contact with Bahia. In 1726, only Ana Bernal de Miranda was an invariable resident in Salvador, a land from which she was removed by the arms of the judges of the faith and to which she later returned, at an advanced age. Ana will be, for now, our guiding thread.

• 3 Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (ANTT) : Tribunal do Santo Ofício (TSO), Inquisição de Lisboa (I (...)

4 The image evoked was constructed according to an inquisitorial inventory of assets3, and concerns a woman categorized as white, New Christian, the youngest daughter of a migrant family in Spain and resident in the city of Bahia, then the capital of Brazil. Conducted inside the prisons, the inventory sought to ratify the list drawn up by Inquisition’s tax authorities at the time of the arrest. The inventories are an important part of the inquisitorial documents, mainly because they express, albeit partially, the material aspects, labor relations, levels of wealth and socio-cultural entanglements.

• 4 A. Schetini Jr., Cristãs-novas e criptojudaísmo na Bahia setecentista, Dissertação (Mestrado em His (...)

5 The assets of Castilian Ana Bernal de Miranda, in addition to raw and unmanufactured fabrics, accounted for about 340 items at the time of the assessment. If classified by type, they included sets of porcelain and oriental crockery, textile products, jewellery, furniture, cutlery, clothing, household items and ornaments. Certain pieces were from the credit sector and served the dual purpose of consumption and negotiation4. With the first auriferous explorations, the production of the pieces reached high levels.

• 5 D. Roche, A cultura das aparências: uma história da indumentária (séculos XVII-XVIII), São Paulo, E (...)
• 6 S. H. Lara, Fragmentos setecentistas. Escravidão, cultura e poder na América portuguesa, São Paulo, (...)

6 Visual language demarcated the status, social positions and legal conditions of individuals. The apparel, « a sign of adhesion, solidarity, hierarchy, exclusion, is one of the codes of social reading5 ». Of jewellery and ornaments, colonial authorities even condemned the indistinct use by women of different social standings. At the dawn of the XVIIIth century, attention was drawn to those with a captive condition and dark complexion who displayed on their bodies much of the clothing restricted to white and free women6.

• 7 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 7489, fl. 66v ; TSO/IL Proc. 01820, fl. 32.

9 Pedro Nunes de Miranda, born in Castelo Rodrigo, constrained his life to the colony in different seasons. He first lived as a merchant between the capital and the coast, in addition to being referred to by relatives as the captain-major of the village of Lagarto, in the Bahia7. The Inquisition seized him in 1714. With a brief case in court, he returned to Bahia two years later, traveling to Rio de Janeiro and Luanda. In the meantime, he ended up settling himself in the county of Rio das Mortes, of the bishopric of Rio de Janeiro, working as a corn farmer in particular. He married an Old Christian woman – whose ethnic exogamy was uncommon in the family – leaving her in the colony when he was arrested for falling back into Judaism in 1731.

• 8 S. M. de S. S. Severs, Além da exclusão: a convivência entre cristãos-novos e cristãos-velhos na Ba (...)
• 9 A. Schetini Jr., Cristãs-novas e criptojudaísmo na Bahia setecentista, op. cit., p. 210-212.
• 10 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 11329, fl. 25v.
• 11 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 11329, fl. 30v.

11 Maria Bernal de Miranda was originally from Castelo Rodrigo and lived permanently in Bahia until 1719. From there, unmarried, she went to Rio de Janeiro with a load of slaves8. The trip to Rio de Janeiro represented the expansion of the family business, as the itinerant Manuel had bought a set of lands, sites, farms, and residences in the Holy Mother of Light of the Marian Invocation (1718), as well as in the year of the battle he availed a sesmaria located in the district of Cabo Frio9. Because of the « trips that [her brother] made to [achieve] other conquests10 », Maria became responsible for the administration of H. M. of Light, through which relatives and associates circulated, some invested with the recommendation « by letter from her sister Ana Bernal de Miranda11 », directly from the Bahian captaincy.

• 12 A. Schetini Jr., Cristãs-novas e criptojudaísmo na Bahia setecentista, op. cit., p. 151-153. Cf. « (...)

13 The presence of António and João was submerged in the family displacements. In a way, the New-Christian « stain » was a thorn in the side of João, physician to the Royal House of Her Majesty. For decades, he worked with the king to change paternities and surnames. While working in his profession, the prestigious doctor assisted in the kingdom and in the square of Salvador, first introducing himself as Nunes de Miranda, later recognized as Machado de Brito and doctor of the Chamber of Majesty, and Old Christian by right12.

• 13 M. L. T. Carneiro, Preconceito racial em Portugal e Brasil Colônia: os cristãos-novos e o mito da p (...)
• 14 L. Poliakov, De Maomé aos marranos. História do Anti-Semitismo II, São Paulo, Editora Perspectiva, (...)

16 The Statutes of Genere (statutes of blood purity), used by institutions such as the Church and the Inquisition, used to categorize individuals as « whole New Christian » and in multiple fractions, in a way that a distant ancestry could jeopardize the subjects’ fame. This distinction was originally instituted to demarcate the spaces of the hidalguía. The Toledo Statute (1449) provided the foundations and represented, under the religious cement, the brake on the economic and social growth of the « bourgeoisie » constituted by Jews13. The obsessive idea of limpieza de sangre soon spread, leading Christians to conquer this nobility of blood, then considered « lesser nobility14 ». With gradual adhesion, the institutions would begin to define the good genere of postulants for public office, religious and military orders, and for universities, among other areas. The idea of exclusion was therefore systematically employed by the Holy Office of the Inquisition.

• 15 G. M. B. Souza, Para remédio das almas: comissários, qualificadores e notários da Inquisição portug (...)

17 The Inquisition was energetically adopted in Spain and Portugal, the first courts being installed by the pontifical bulls Exigit sincerae devotionis affectus (1478) and Cum ad nihil magis (1536). Hispanic America had courts in Peru (1570), Mexico (1571) and Cartagena (1610). The Portuguese empire in the East built a court in Goa, India (1560), whose jurisdiction extended from the Cape of Good Hope to the east and involved regions of Mozambique, the Middle East, the State of India and Asia. Not having a seat in Portuguese America, this overseas portion responded to the Inquisition of Lisbon, one of the kingly courts, with him corresponding and sending the suspects to him. To make up for the absence of a physical court, the Portuguese Inquisition expanded jurisdictional competence to conquests through visits and networks of ministers and officials, especially family members, commissioners, qualifiers and notaries, duly invested in their positions15.

• 16 F. Bethencourt, L’Inquisition à l’époque moderne : Espagne, Portugal, Italie (XV^e-XIX^e siècle), Par (...)
• 17 N. Muchnik, « Le marranisme, les marranismes : réflexions autour d’un concept passe-partout », in J (...)

18 Thus, the kingdoms were moved by several interests and had different focuses16. The Iberian Inquisitions paid attention to the Jewish heretical spread among the so-called New Christians. However, even in this case the courts dealt with it in multiple ways. The Catholic Monarchs, Fernando and Isabel, undertook efforts to expel those who refused baptism, while the Portuguese Crown, before punishing the alleged deviants, sought to keep the New Christian element on dry land by offering them additional time for cultural-religious adaptation. Despite the range of heresies and sins against Christian morality under the inquisitorial scope, the judges of the faith were extensively occupied with the crime of Judaism, who nourished the dungeons with heretics who did not, at first, abandon their ancestral belief. Globally, the stigma of the Jewish-convert community has made individuals doubly pariahs17. His descendants were hereditarily unclean and excluded from countless services, offices, commendations, favors... At the same time, they were considered suspects in religious life, regardless of individual positions concerning their beliefs.

• 18 C. Ginzburg, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method, Baltimore and London, The Johns Hopkins Unive (...)
• 19 R. Vainfas, Jerusalém colonial: judeus portugueses no Brasil holandês, Rio de Janeiro, Civilização (...)

19 It should be noted that the belief in the Mosaic law was not an imaginative creation of the inquisitorial system. Certain neophytes continued to practice rites that were considered Jewish within their homes. On the other hand, it is necessary to consider the attachment and fervor of the infinity of New Christians who embraced the New Testament belief, even if we find them among those prosecuted for Judaism. This leads us to understand by « confessed » defendant, in addition to the actual crypto-Judaizer, the person who, in the face of dangers, preferred to accuse himself and other individuals in order to save his skin. Hence, nothing is given a priori : an evidential18 and individualizing19 analysis can bring us closer, albeit fragmentarily, to this past.

• 20 M. L. T. Carneiro, Preconceito racial em Portugal e Brasil Colônia, op. cit., p. 61.

20 In general, the discriminatory policy operated in civil legislation and had « an entire bureaucracy organized in the form of a religious court dedicated to registering any occurrence that expressed the malignancy of Jewish descendants20 ». The spaces were slowly demarcated in the heart of Christianity, counting, from now on, on the ministry delegated to the parochial and on the fervent commitment of the courts of faith with their arms outstretched over the Hispano-Lusitanian empires. The Portuguese Inquisition functioned almost uninterruptedly between 1536 and 1821. We celebrate 200 years since the end of the institution of control, which, moreover, represented a sword stuck in free thought and free belief. When Ana Bernal de Miranda was arrested (1726 and 1737), the Portuguese Holy Office had been operating for two hundred years and had apprehended more than fifty members of the Nunes de Miranda alone on charges of Judaism.

• 21 A. Prosperi, La semilla de la intolerancia. Judíos, herejes, salvajes: Granada 1492, Santiago de Ch (...)
• 22 A. M. Hespanha, Imbecillitas. As bem-aventuranças da inferioridade nas sociedades de Antigo Regime, (...)

21 If neo-converts sought to circumvent the laws of the exclusion system, as some members of the Bernal Nunes de Miranda did, it is certain that, in general, the « social machine of infamia », as endorsed by Adriano Prosperi21, remained at the disposal of the Church and the Iberian monarchies to manage it according to the interests at stake. Overcoming such norms did not mean, however, operating a change in the order of the Iberian Ancient Regime, not least because the rise was one of exceptional voluntarism in the modern base culture and because it was up to the royal grace, above all, the emancipatory power22. Even a New Christian who enjoyed some fortune could be seen as poor, socially and juridically, through the prism of the stain of origin. Certain converts sought to move themselves in a society that added to the hierarchy the escalation of distinction of blood, which in the Portuguese world would only be suppressed, in 1773, by the Pombaline reforms. Meanwhile, the family under study was looking for a place under the sun.

• 23 M. L. T. Carneiro, Preconceito racial em Portugal e Brasil Colônia, op. cit., p. 90-91.

22The migratory phenomenon was constant in modern times. Individually or in groups, Old Christians and New Christians would cross geographical borders for a multitude of reasons, although the latter faced, in the XVth-XVIIth centuries, oscillating laws regarding the control of mobility23. Concerning the kinship of the Bernal Nunes de Miranda, the phenomenon had different layers and rhythms. In addition to the Iberian transit, the west coast, northern Europe, the Netherlands and the American conquests of Holland, Spain and Portugal presented themselves as destinations in their trajectories. Certain people went to Brazil willingly, in commercial practices or because they were induced by instances of control. Regarding the latter, mention should be made of the sisters Ana de Ávila and Maria Gomes, who served a sentence of exile by the Évora court in 1684, and António Nunes, the « old man », Ana’s grandfather, condemned by the Secular Court to live in Bahia (1693), where he spent his last days.

• 24 A. Schetini Jr., « Costurando fragmentos: cristãs-novas da Bahia e a rota sefardita no século XVIII (...)
• 25 Y. Kaplan, Judíos nuevos en Amsterdam. Estudios sobre la historia social e intelectual del judaísmo (...)

23 Those were fragmented families in the diaspora, both detached and desirous of reunion. Some sought to integrate their kindred in « lands of idolatry » or « lands of freedom ». It was from the Dutch Caribbean, for example, that the wholesale trader David Israel Bernal included, among his testamentary beneficiaries, the house of Sister Izabel, in Bahia de Todos os Santos, in the prerogative of Jewish conversion in Amsterdam24, whose determination was shared by other « new Jews25 ». For now, it is important to say that the Bernal Nunes de Miranda did not go to the so-called « land of freedom » to recover their rights.

• 26 M. T. Conceição, Da vila cercada à praça de guerra. Formação do espaço urbano em Almeida (séculos X (...)

24 Ana Bernal de Miranda, born in 1695, in San Felices de los Gallegos, in the boundaries of Ciudad Rodrigo, came from parents from the heart of Beira, with Izabel Bernal born in Vilar Torpim and Francisco Nunes de Miranda from the adjoining village called Almeida. The frontier region demonstrated, with its imposing fortifications, the risk of war irruptions and bore the marks of long territorial disputes, including the War of Restoration (1640-1668)26.

• 27 M. L. T. Carneiro, Preconceito racial em Portugal e Brasil Colônia, op. cit., p. 118.
• 28 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 2424, fl. 69v-70 ; TSO/IL Proc. 01820, fl. 29.

26 As commented by Tucci Carneiro27, the nobility, the aristocracy and the clergy were interested in the intellectual conservation of the system through attitudes, norms and laws, making it difficult for New Christians to enter universities both as teachers or as students. From the outset, excluded from the higher education system, Francisco was among the converts who circumvented the royal laws. He graduated in Medicine and Arts at the University of Coimbra (1670-1675), complementing his studies in Salamanca. In the Coimbra professorships, new relationships took shape. There he may have had his first contacts with Sebastião Monteiro da Vide, at the time a student of Canons, with whom he would later exchange correspondence and establish godparent relationships through his daughters Maria and Ana28.

• 29 B. Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana, Historica, Critica, e Cronologica, Lisboa, Officina de Ignacio Ro (...)

27 From Beira, the family group crossed the desert due to a murder that took place in Vilar Torpim, about which the inquisitorial sources did not speak. The text that informed about the case was written by the renowned jurisconsult Manuel Álvares Pegas (1635-1696), author who exercised the office of attorney for the Courts in 1641 and for the mitres of Lisbon, Braga, Évora, Lamego, the Royal Chapel and the Churches do Padroado. He also became a promoter of the Bull of the Crusade and a lawyer for the House of Supplication. He consolidated his notoriety with the publication, in fifteen volumes, of Commentaria in Ordinationes Regni Portugallia and Resolutiones Forenses, in addition to works on jurisprudence29. Other booklets were inserted in modern legal literature under the banner of the so-called « Law Claims » and these are of particular interest to us.

• 30 M. Á. Pegas, Allegaçoes de Direito, t. I, Lisboa, Officina de Antonio Isidoro da Fonseca, 1738, p. (...)

29 The Cunha, on the one hand, represented the noble position, the constitution of the « perfect man » : he was an Old Christian, well-endowed, well-liked, loved, esteemed by all, wealthy with goods, and friendly to the idea of doing good30. On the other side, there came the Bernal Nunes de Miranda and a dozen relatives and friends, considered « capital enemies of the field master ». They were from the Hebrew nation, arrested and punished by the Inquisition, mechanical officers and tanners « with black nails », called « deceivers ». In the text, the main people involved are presented with the exaltation or decrease of their qualities.

• 31 Ibid., p. 267, §14.
• 32 Ibid., p. 268-269, §16-19.

31 Upon the possession of the power of attorney of the House of the Infantado, Manuel da Cunha entered an embargo « which he followed at his own expense, until the final sentence, in which the defendant, his father, brothers and relatives were judged as unskilled, for being notoriously from the Hebrew nation and badly behaved31 ». He then took them to prison for rout. There was a time when the Nunes de Miranda would be in cahoots with the governor of arms of Beira, Bartolomeu Azevedo Coutinho (1681-1689), « so that with the said friendship they took the confidence to settle discord and hatred32 » between Coutinho and Cunha.

• 33 Ibid., p. 272, §26 ; p. 278, §46 ; p. 377-378, §371-373.

32Interdictions arose. Cunha raised charges against Manuel Nunes de Almeida, brother-in-law of the doctor and former customs officer, claiming that he passed farms over from Castile to Almeida, through co-religionists. Also arguing that livestock assets were being imported, of which he ordered to confiscate in court a « male » and a « mule » from old António. In succession, Cunha disposed himself to withdraw the rents from the benefice and from the main mayor, being fortunate in the deed. Such metiers sought by the Nunes de Miranda were, according to the jurisconsult and other Lusitanian institutions, befitting only « to the nobles and the Old Christians33 ».

• 34 Ibid., p. 266, §11 ; p. 267, §14 ; p. 312, §151 ; p. 313, §155.

34Soon, the issue of blood occupied a large space in the jurisconsult’s « Allegation ». Cunha – just as other family members – yearned to carry out the court’s orders, onto which he was bound by capital and oath. The Bernal Nunes de Miranda fought against the hostile blood discrimination. The New Christians were labelled as people of the vilest nature. They were referred to as « unable for duties », possessing « impurity and baseness of blood ». The neophytes were evil by nature – shoots the jurisconsult Pegas. In them lingered an innate aversion to the Old Christians, « of whom [they were] enemies to one another because of the lineage, and by natural propensity [they were] friends to one another so as to take revenge34 ».

• 35 Ibid., p. 273, §29.
• 36 Ibid., p. 344, §250.

35This author alluded to the participation of the wives of the conjured defendants in the rumors surrounding the assassination plan. The women spoke « audaciously » in the matter. Izabel Bernal, ultimate example in the imbroglio, played the role of the keeper of evil. « Everyone communicated with her [...], she herself persuaded them35 », thus, taking part in the disputes with the power of speech denied to the women. Izabel, avid for revenge against the field master, an Old Christian and inquisitorial relative, she would pay the executioner « everything that she had », even if « it required selling earrings and filigree off her ears36 ». Along with her father-in-law, Izabel was drafted as one of the biggest delinquents in the case.

• 37 Ibid., p. 344, §250.

36As a counselor, the author sought the aprioristic condemnation of the « culprits », disqualifying and invalidating the counterproductive testimonial version in favor of the converts, in which, among other examples, the matriarch Izabel was categorized as the mistress of « honesty and good inclination37 ». The text engraves the running tone of Iberian intolerance. A lexicometric approach presents the antonymic pairs and highlights the frequency in diminutives adjectives. Although a directed document, it is quite useful to demonstrate the social relationships between different groups.

• 38 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 2293, fl. 36v.

38The physician Francisco, the son Pedro and other relatives were accused of theft of objects from a church in Plascência. Quickly taken to legal custody, where they awaited the opening of the penal procedures. Certainly the incident shook the network of relationships. From the Lisbon Court, the vicar-general Sebastião Monteiro da Vide wrote to Francisco with the care of an ecclesiastical minister, wishing the doctor, « meu compadre, guarde Dios etcétera, en la cárcel Plascência [and] a la vuelta en do sobrescrito escrito un poco en lengua portuguesa38 ». Not aware of the contents of the correspondence, the Castilian ministers only attested to its veracity. The wheel of fate, without tattering the relationship, would succeed in reuniting them in Bahia, with Dom Sebastião in the position of archbishop.

• 39 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 2293-1, fl. 211-211v.
• 40 ANTT : TSO/IL Maço 91, n. 50.

40For all intents and purposes, the alternative left for the detainees was to manoeuvre from secular to ecclesiastical jurisdiction, in the Inquisición de Llerena. Before the authorities, Félix, the physician’s nephew, began a series of Jewish missteps, affirming his belief in the Law of Moses and on the practice of Jewish fasts. Intent initially accepted, but soon disrupted with a collective circumvention from prison39. Thus, the warning from the court of Llerena echoed to the Portuguese counterparts, issuing lists of the suspects, in which Francisco Nunes de Miranda was made known as being « de edad de 43 años, buena estatura, pelo negro y algo como blanco de cara, que exercicía el oficio de medico40 ». Only the eponymous nephew, son of the hanged Simão, would face the Spanish imprisonment of the Inquisition. The Portuguese courts would remain on the trail of the others.

• 41 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 7489, fl. 62-65.
• 42 Biblioteca Nacional, Documentos Históricos, Rio de Janeiro, Biblioteca Nacional. Divisão de obras r (...)

42 The family settled in a two-storey house akin to a two-storey house in the freguesia de São Pedro, in Salvador, Bahia. The diversification of activities was common. Francisco practiced clinical medicine and sought to expand his field of activity. He did so, initially, with the contracts for the tithes in the village of Sergipe do Conde in Santo Amaro, a sugar plantation in the municipality of Santo Amaro, associated in this endeavor with the kingdom merchant Luís Mendes de Morais41. Hence, Dr. Francisco, his son Pedro and his nephews frequently attended the coastal plain of the Recôncavo Bahiano. Mixed up in royal affairs, our character came from setbacks, leaving his friend in charge of the record of hiring42. Francisco awarded him the record because in the mid-1700s he was sent, at the behest of the Holy Office, from Bahia to Lisbon.

• 43 « Regimento do Santo Ofício da Inquisição dos Reinos de Portugal, 1640, liv. II, tít. II, §1 », in (...)

43 The case was not dragged due to his presentation to the Coimbra Court, which took place in 1669. Francisco was sentenced to abjuration in form, instruction in the faith, penances and spiritual penalties. He got himself rid of the confiscation of assets given the disposition of the Inquisition Regiment towards defendants presented by means other than plea bargains43. Nor did the doctor’s trial trigger a series of arrests in Bahia. Francisco dodged through the interrogations, did not confront the institution and did not compromise the overseas New Christians.

• 44 I. Aciolli, Memorias historicas e políticas da Provincia da Bahia, Bahia, Imprensa Official do Esta (...)

44 He returned to the two-storey house near the Doors of São Bento and the Governor’s Palace. The daughter « Mirandinha » reached her first five years. Maria was now seventeen years old. Manuel was preparing for the affairs of the sea, in the same waters that would swallow his brother, a student in Coimbra. Pedro continued between the city and the Recôncavo. His sister, Ana de Miranda, lived on the ground floor with their family. The children used to play there, growing up together. São Pedro Velho housed lawyers, administrators of the Board of Trade, sergeants major, scribes of the Supreme Court of Bahia, as well as a less economically elevated class44.

• 45 Arquivo Público do Estado da Bahia (APEB) : Livro de Notas, 01/06/1702-25/02/1703, fl. 198-199 (End (...)

45 In 1702, Francisco purchased the property in Fonte dos Sapateiros in the freguesia da Sé from a priest. It was composed of « houses and workshops of pelts and tanneries », in the amount of 200$000 réis, leaving a post mortem to heirs, descendants and successors45. Although he may have employed individuals or even leased the land, it is made clear then that there was no complete rupture with mechanical activities, considered unworthy.

• 48 S. B. Schwartz, All Can Be Saved. Religious Tolerance and Salvation in the Iberian Atlantic World, (...)

49 Specifically, the process of establishment in the colony collided with social and cultural multiplicity. The allegations kept in the inquisitorial manuscripts indicate a multifaceted tropic site coexisting with the official Catholicism at the beginning of the XVIIIth century. A multitude of enslaved Africans were in view, ones who fought for physical and cultural survival, with their drumming and calundus, along another « multitude of New Christians » that populated the land, according to the local commissioner48. A favorable field of syncretism that the couple may have enjoyed until the dim of lights.

• 49 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 01820, fl. 21v.

50 Izabel departed from this life around 1710. In a year, with himself about to expire, Francisco Nunes de Miranda would have asked his New Christian neighbor, Francisca Henriques to call onto the bedside the eldest daughter, to give her an unusual benison in the analyzed processes. That would be his « last blessing laid down, which was the same as the blessing that Jacob gave to his sons, laying thy hand on their heads49 ».

• 50 Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (AHU) : Avulsos, 1604-1828, Bahia, cx. 31, doc. 2854 (http://resgate. (...)

51 With the death of their parents, it is likely that Ana and Maria were under legal tutelage by their cousin Félix Nunes de Miranda, meanwhile the young men entered the colonial market. Félix had arrived from the Recôncavo with his family and in Saint Pedro dealt, above all, with the trade in whale oil, an indispensable provision to local life. Settled in the city, he defended it as a soldier of the regiment’s number50. Ana, after her marriage, remained in the freguesia. In defiance of the cousin, the choice of spouse may have been influenced by the ship captain who initiated Joseph into maritime affairs. She would be joined by the mother-in-law Beatriz and the sister-in-law Luísa Maria Rosa.

• 51 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 2424, fl. 60-60v.

53 Addressing the Law of Moses was indispensable to the New Christian existence. First and foremost, it served as a means of survival. But for converts inclined towards crypto-Judaism, it was in the almost intimacy of the home that the religious practice took place. They relied on trust and mutual complicity for the observance of everything that was possible. Crypto-Judaisms were formed and conceived in the dynamics and circularity of the different cultures and traditions that intertwined. In the family at hand, instruction in the Mosaic Law denotes contact with this subject while still in an early age, through parents or close relatives. Ana de Miranda, daughter of Izabel, indicated that Ana de Miranda, daughter of another Ana de Miranda, taught her the first ceremonies. She told that « her so-called cousin, being her friend and by reason of the said kinship, would advise her on what was most convenient for the salvation of her soul, [departing] right there from the faith of Christ, Our Lord, by which she already had plenty of word and instruction51 ». Manuel mentioned the teaching given by his mother, in Bahia, of which stood out the fasting of the « Grand Day ». Maria de Miranda said that Izabel had initiated her when they attended Porto, by the late XVIIth century. She heard that only in the Law of Moses one could be saved.

• 52 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 9001, fl. 19v-20.
• 53 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 1292, fl. 31v-32v.
• 54 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 1559, fl. 45v.

54 Pedro had been instructed while still in Castile, by his uncles and cousins in a « Grand Day » ceremony in which they wore clean clothes and called on the prayer « Forever blessed be the Lord of Israel52 ». Francisco had received instruction from the said aunt Izabel who sent him to study Latin. « By the great love held for him », she referred and taught him on the fasting of September, « one of the most important ceremonies of the said Law of Moses53 ». Of Izabel Bernal we are unbeknown of this data, nevertheless, her fame crossed the Atlantic. The sister-in-law of Joseph da Costa, wife of the smuggler of New Christians to London, Gaspar Lopes da Costa, declared she had heard that « she was a woman of good understanding that lived by the Law of Moses54 ».

• 55 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 2424, fl 79v.
• 56 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 9001-1, fl. 58-58v.

55 Due to its discretion, fasts held a special place in the lives of Judaizers. « Mirandinha » was a nine-year-old when her cousins gathered at Catarina da Paz’s house to fast. She inquired as to why they did it, which they explicated to be « good for praising God55 ». The Jewish equivalent of Yom Kippur, the « Grand Day » dated back to the month of September and, in the family, was more than a food abstention commonly referred to in the canon. One detail unwrapped the significance. Such fasting involved the Jewish ethics of the social relationship in which the contrition before the divine and the forgiveness around creation. It was « customary among the people of their nation to make peace on major solemnities, those [who were] at odds56 ». Thus articulated Pedro, telling a story of remission between a relative and another New Christian, to which he, his father and his cousins served as intermediates in the quarrels. Evidently, the demands constitute a separate case and, thus, due to them, the relationship with the sacred also crossed human connections.

• 57 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 11323, fl. 117.

56 Another differentiating subject was the reading of books pertaining to the prohibited material. In Bahia and Pedro’s house, a whistle-blower observed him « reading things concerning the Law of Moses from a book57 ». In this sense, Ana Bernal de Miranda kept a secret. Another story : at the back of the trunk inside the house was a book in Castilian language containing the Psalms of David, utilized for centuries in crypto-Jewish celebrations. Violante, a cousin who lived in Bahia and in Rio de Janeiro, mentioned the possession of such a book, which she recited without the Catholic dismissal of Gloria Patri. Perhaps the family circulated writings such as those for spiritual nourishment.

• 58 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 8764, fl. 28.
• 59 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 1292, fl. 45-45v.
• 60 S. Siqueira, « O cristão-novo Bento Teixeira: cripto-judaísmo no Brasil Colônia », Revista de Histó (...)

57 Following Ana’s words about the origin of that work in the trunk, which fulfilled a religious role, it is noted that the same piece was taken by Luísa Maria Rosa and João Gomes during the time they lived with her. Frequent in the family circle since his bachelorhood, this merchant had received another spiritual book with Jewish leanings so as to aid and guide converts. A certain contractor offered him works in Castilian with Davidic Psalms, which he was to memorize by repetition58, just as once did Dr. Francisco, reciting among college classmates the penitential prayer To King Manasseh, which opened as : « Domine omnipotens, Deus patrum nostrorum » [and closed] « quonian te laudat omnis virtus cœlorum et tibi est gloria in secula seculorum59 », at its core referring to the God of Abraham, et Isaac, et Jacob – a text rarely present in the Christian canon, either apocryphal or deuterocanonical, nor fully accepted in Judaism, and located as a crypto-Jewish prayer in the sixteenth century colony60.

• 61 A. Schetini Jr., Cristãs-novas e criptojudaísmo na Bahia setecentista, op. cit., p. 72-74, 134-141.
• 62 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 10002, fl. 34v.

58 On the other hand, the sister-in-law Luísa tied up bonds with the so-called New Jews from the Sephardic centers. Ana’s brother-in-law was a notary and had converted at the Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, where Luísa would soon follow to. The fact that Gaspar Lopes da Costa, uncle of her husband, exercised, in the main port of the kingdom, the clandestine role of maritime transport of New Christian to the « lands of freedom », notably to England, is remarkable61. Given the circulation of people and ideas, it is easy to understand how « Mirandinha » had a forbidden book. And, likewise, the husband, who at another time received a work containing the story of Moses, about which, said the deponent, to be good, given that it addressed the Jewish law and the salvation of souls62.

• 64 F. V. Frade, « Formas de vida e religiosidade na diáspora. As esnogas ou casas de culto: Antuérpia, (...)

60A pungent sinuosity of meaning. Certainly, the declarant knew the penalties applied to transgressors of the ecclesiastical norms. To make herself non imputable, she ensured to be unknowing of the language of the book, logically minimizing its usefulness. In any case, Ana faced risks by keeping inside the trunk of her house the Psalms in Castilian, which since the XVIth century were printed by crypto-Jews to form ceremonies64.

• 65 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 9924, fl. 55-56.
• 66 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 2424, fl. 63v-64.

62 On some occasions, fasting was issued to the good voyage of one of them, as said by Beatriz Pereira from her daughter-in-law’s house, waving goodbye to her seafaring son, adding that it was necessary « for some alms to be given, and some penance to be done, so that God, our Lord, would grant him success ». Beatriz tried to disassociate herself from the implied labels, claiming that it was her son-in-law João Gomes who taught such things; she also mentioned having broken the fast with water, only judaizing « to make concessions with her said sons and sons-in-law65 ». The family even got to come together for the « Grand Day ». In September 1719, those who « lived in Ana’s house » participated, except for the husband. Present there were Beatriz, Luísa, João and, among other relatives residing in the surroundings, the miner Gaspar Fernandes Pereira66.

• 67 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 8887, fl. 293-293v.

64 In the far-gone days of 1717, António Cardoso Porto found himself with Gaspar « for a period of fifteen days [to] sleep in the same house and bed » and he said that « they used to make several Jewish fasts along with other ceremonies and precepts, which in individuation he no longer remembers, but it is certain that on the course of those fourteen or fifteen nights the two of them spoke at length on this matter67 ». The function of this fellow, who wound up marrying the daughter of Francisca Henriques – the same one who was at the deathbed of Dr. Francisco half a decade earlier – was more pragmatic amidst the Judaizers.

• 68 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 8887, fl. 326.

65 To Joseph da Costa himself he had offered a « little leaflet », which contained the ceremonial dates according to the Judaism lived in the « lands of freedom ». Beyond books, now calendars too. From the general to the particular in a process of rejudaization. When asked about the « Grand Day », Antonio Cardoso Porto answered « that one should look at the leaflet, for the said day would fall on the tenth of the September moon, now on the understanding that he [Joseph da Costa] was observant of the Law of Moses, in the same luck as also was his wife, Ana de Miranda68 ».

• 69 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 2424, fl. 65-65v.
• 70 A. Schetini Jr., Cristãs-novas e criptojudaísmo na Bahia setecentista, op. cit., p. 223-225.

66 Ana reported, therefore, her declared belief with the Jew at the house of Francisca Henriques, in the presence of the latter and of her daughters, Ângela and Branca. « By occasion of the said Branca Henriques telling that the said António Cardoso Porto also knew the Law of Moses [...] she told that on their land all lived in the Law of Moses and that he was espoused on this said land, as prayed were the Psalms of David69 ». Let us open parentheses : everything well enough, apart from the highlighted information. But was António a bigamist? The inquisition wanted to investigate the mixed forum infraction, but failed to prove it. This fact actually motivated an onset of disagreement with the house of Francisca, which insinuated that Ana Bernal had conveyed amorous writings addressed from the aforementioned Gaspar Fernandes Pereira to Ângela de Mesquita, daughter who, at the time, was flirting with the Jewish merchant, a union on its way to becoming official that Francisca held much pleasure in70. Thus, human relationships materialize in the Bahian space. In the 1720s, when the inquisition turned their gaze back to the freguesia de São Pedro, a network of sociability was set up, made up of, naturally, collusions, friendships and support; humanly crafted relationships wounded at a single blow.

• 72 ANTT : TSO/IL Maço 83, n. 68.

68The metaphor of infection was commonly invoked to attack the « enemies ». From Bahia, Commissioner António Rodrigues Lima wrote to the Court assenting to find « this continent, which is certainly dilated, infected by similar people [New Christian] whom I do not know if with contempt of our holy Catholic Faith72 ».

• 73 G. M. B. Souza, Para remédio das almas, op. cit., p. 114.

70 In the XVIIIth century a network of ministers and inquisitorial agents – commissioners, qualifiers, notaries and family members – was in place. 54 out of the 59 priests qualified for the post of commissioner in Bahia worked in this century. One of their tasks was to correspond directly with the metropolis, sometimes forwarding or receiving information, sometimes fulfilling the diligences73, such as the one, which João Calmon executed in this occasion against Ana Bernal and eleven other converts considered Judaizers.

• 74 J. L. de Azevedo, Historia dos christãos novos portugueses, Lisboa, Clássica Editora, 1921, p. 140.

71 The image of the New Christian Ana Bernal de Miranda, sumptuously dressed, sublimely adorned, disruptive of the social categories, which we saw at the beginning of this paper, contrasts with another presence. Judged as diminutive in her confessions, after eighteen months of entering prison, Ana would be stripped by inquisitors and placed in the torture instrument called rack, « a kind of bed of slats where, connected to the patient with different turns of rope in the legs and arms, those were then tightened in a jab, cutting the flesh74 ». Attending the scene were the doctors, ready to allow or cease the torment, and the notary, filtering the moment in his writing – never for courtroom strangers. At the end of half an hour, Ana came out broken and returned to her cell, unable to sign her name, which in plea the notary did in her place. Mother-in-law Beatriz, by her time, had fainted during the torture.

• 75 « Regimento do Santo Ofício da Inquisição, 1640, liv. III, tít. III, §4-7 », in J. E. Franco & P. d (...)

72 During the first process, after new satisfactory « confessions », Ana was sentenced to remain in Portugal, with her assets confiscated. She received penalties and spiritual penances, instruction in Catholicism and penitential habit (the garment of infamy), among perpetual imprisonments – which lasted from one to five years75. Ana came up in the public record of faith of 1728 in the Church of the Dominican Convent. Others were brought along : her mother-in-law Beatriz, her sister-in-law Luísa, her neighbor Francisca, her cousin Violante, coming from Rio de Janeiro, her compadre (godparent) Gaspar Henriques, among 112 penitents. The overwhelming majority, being New Christians, were sentenced for « the crime of Judaism », but also a priest from Minas Gerais who feigned to being a family member, and other ordered arrests : a farrier who pretended to be a priest in the Recôncavo Bahiano and a few accused of bigamy.

• 76 N. Wachtel, La lógica de las hogeras, Buenos Aires, FCE, 2014, p. 174-181.
• 77 A. Schetini Jr., Cristãs-novas e criptojudaísmo na Bahia setecentista, op. cit., p. 280-281, 304.

73 Four years later, accused of relapse, Pedro de Miranda received a conviction that was similar to his sister’s. As for the brothers Manuel (1727) and Maria (1731), under the status of « listed », both got out in acts of faith at the Inquisitorial Court, with penalties and spiritual penances, payment of costs, though without confiscation of assets, in compliance with the Inquisition Regiment. Maria could not leave the kingdom without a license. Manuel obtained it to return to his metier, as long as the court followed suit. Still in 1731, cousin Félix, former tutor of the doctor’s daughters, was sentenced to the maximum penalty and burned at the stake in a public square76, while his wife, children and grandson sailed to London77.

• 78 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 2424-1, fl. 190.

74 Ana faced the Inquisition at the age of thirty and at forty-one years old, she was, therefore, treated as a relapsing Christian. « Mirandinha », an assistant in Lisbon, was accused and arrested in 1737 due to accusations of Jewish gatherings with relatives of António José da Silva, lawyer and theatrologist known as « the Jew ». Long running case, with new tortures, which we will see on another occasion. The second sentence included exile to the Island of Cape Verde (1741). However, unable to fulfil it due to her illness, an « intemperance of the liver with gout », Ana Bernal de Miranda was imprisoned in the jail of Limoeiro (Lisbon) and, in need of greater care, managed to shield herself in the house of her guarantor, João Gomes, husband of Luísa. New reencounter. Once served her sentence in the kingdom, in 1746 Ana insistently requested permission to sail to Bahia as universal heiress and executor of her husband Joseph, who died in Angola. There was already Maria de Miranda, « the only relative with whom one may spend the rest of their life, staring at the miserable state » of the supplicant, who was hoping to receive mercy78.

• 79 F. Froger, Relation d’un voyage fait en 1695. 1696. & 1697 aux Côtes d’Afrique, Détroit de Magellan (...)
• 80 A. Schetini Jr., Cristãs-novas e criptojudaísmo na Bahia setecentista, op. cit., p. 305.

75 Realities were unfolding. Luísa and João went definitively to London, finally converting as New Jews. Albeit not Ana « Mirandinha ». The fifty-year-old lady obtained permission to leave the kingdom. She chose to see the magnificent harbor, one of the most beautiful in the world79, where she would set foot on the soil of Bahia de Todos os Santos, capital of the State of Brazil. How long she remained there we do not know. However, four years later, in 1750, a certain priest made it known to the Inquisition that the sisters were meeting on a land owned by a lord in Matoim, in the Recôncavo Bahiano, for celebrations of Jewish festivals80. The whistle-blower, in an attempt to prove the suspicion, was surprised to return to Matoim and find houses and clothes devastated.

• 82 ANTT : TSO/IL Proc. 2424, fl. 62.
• 83 M. H. Stern, « New Light on the Jewish Settlement of Savannah », American Jewish Historical Quarter (...)

78 Some were inclined to join up groups. Ana, for instance, did so at home, in her childhood, and in the height of her youth in the freguesia de São Pedro ; in Lisbon, in Campo de Santana and Bairro Alto ; at the plantation in Matoim, in the Recôncavo. They also preferred not to flee towards the « lands of freedom ». The magnificent legacy of the Jew David Israel Bernal was not welcomed in Amsterdam by his nephews. Likewise, Ana did not accompany her sister-in-law Luísa to the London Hebrew community, where she had relatives and close ones. Instead, she encountered Maria in the land where she grew up and learned to pray during the contrite « Grand Day »: « My Lord, God of Moses, I offer thee this fast that I did so today, in penance for not having lived in thy law longer, which I shall do from today onwards, helped by Thine own grace82 ». Characters such as Captain Manuel Nunes Bernal defended the interests of the Crown in the vast Portuguese Empire, at least until the 1730s. From that point on, we identified Captain in the Jewish community of London, where he was known as Raphael Nunes Bernal. Subsequently, he moved to North America with his wife Rachel Montsonte Nunes Bernal, specifically during the early days of Savannah, Georgia83.