History of the Jews in Latin America

The history of the Jews in Latin America dates back to Christopher Columbus and his first cross-Atlantic voyage on August 3, 1492, when he left Spain and eventually "discovered" the New World. His date of departure was also the day on which the Catholic Monarchs Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon decreed that the Jews of Spain either had to convert to Catholicism, depart from the country or face death for defiance of the Monarch.

At least seven Jews (either crypto-Jews or Marranos) sailed with Columbus in his first voyage. This included Rodrigo de Triana, the first to sight land (Columbus later assumed credit for this), Maestre Bernal, the expedition's physician, and Luis De Torres, the interpreter who spoke Hebrew and Arabic which they thought would be useful in the Orient - their intended destination.

Later, Jews settled in the new Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the Caribbean hoping they would be safe from the Inquisition. Some took part in the conquest of the "New World,". Bernal Díaz del Castillo describes the execution of soldiers with Hernán Cortés's during the conquest of Mexico because they were Jews.

By the mid-17th century, the largest Jewish communities in the Western Hemisphere were located in Suriname and Brazil.

Some Jewish communities in the Caribbean, Central and South America flourished, particularly in areas under Dutch and English control. By the 16th century Jewish communities existed in Brazil, Suriname, Curaçao, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Barbados. There were unorganised Jewish communities in the Spanish and Portuguese territories, where the Inquisition was active, including Cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico, of Jews who usually concealed their identity from the authorities.

Today, there are more than 500,000 Jews in Latin America, mostly in Argentina and Brazil.

For a summary for each of the following go to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Latin_America

1 Argentina

2 Bolivia

3 Brazil

4 Chile

5 Colombia

6 Costa Rica

7 Cuba

8 Curaçao

9 Dominican Republic

10 Ecuador

11 El Salvador

12 French Guiana

13 Guatemala

14 Haiti

15 Honduras

16 Mexico

17 Nicaragua

18 Paraguay

19 Peru

20 Puerto Rico

21 Suriname

22 Uruguay

23 Venezuela

LINKS

From Google

‘The Jews and the Expansion of Europe to the West, 1450-1800’
(A collection of essays from a conference held at the John Carter Brown Library in Brown University, Rhode Island in 1997 and published in 2001)

Cultural encounters: the impact of the Inquisition in Spain and the New World

Population Summary