Persecution of Jews and Muslims by Manuel I of Portugal

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 5th of December 1496, King Manuel I of Portugal signed a document that would upend the lives of two entire communities and scatter their descendants across continents for generations. The decree ordered all Jews and Muslims in Portugal to convert to Catholicism or leave the country by the end of October the following year. What happened next was not a clean exile. It was something far more complicated, and in many ways, far more violent. How did a kingdom that had tolerated Jewish diplomats and merchants in its royal court arrive at forced baptism and massacre? What drove Manuel to sign that decree, and what became of the people it targeted? And centuries later, how did some of their descendants find their way back to the country that had expelled them?

• 2. A Marriage Bargain

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  Isaac Abarbanel had served as treasurer to King Afonso V of Portugal before the world of Portuguese Jews came apart. His career illustrated how deeply Jewish figures had been woven into Portuguese political and economic life through the 15th century. Lisbon and Évora were home to important Jewish communities, and Jewish merchants and diplomats moved with authority through Portuguese society. That standing did not survive the diplomatic ambitions of Manuel I. When Manuel sought to marry Isabella, Princess of Asturias, the eldest daughter of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand demanded the removal of non-Catholics from Portugal as an unstated condition of the marriage contract. The king complied. His initial decree of expulsion in 1496 was turned into something worse in 1497: an edict of forced conversion that prevented Jews from leaving the country at all. Portuguese Jews were forcibly baptized and converted to Christianity, their right to depart revoked before most could exercise it. Those who refused to pay taxes in protest were deported and left to their fate on the islands of Sao Tome and Principe, off the western coast of Africa.

• 3. Massacre and Diaspora

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  The year 1506 brought one of the darkest moments in this history: a massacre in Lisbon that killed roughly 2,000 people. In the wake of that violence, Manuel I allowed conversos to leave the country. Many went to the Ottoman Empire, settling notably in Salonica and Constantinople. Others reached the Wattasid Sultanate of Morocco. Smaller numbers traveled to Amsterdam, France, Brazil, Curacao and the Antilles, Surinam, and New Amsterdam. The communities they built left lasting traces. Some Jewish communities in Greece and Turkey preserved the Ladino language, a legacy of Iberian exile. Portuguese-based dialects took root in the Antilles. Synagogues rose in new cities: the Amsterdam Esnoga and the Willemstad Snoa were built by those who came to be known as the Spanish and Portuguese Jews. Among the most famous descendants of those who left are the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, born Bento de Espinosa in Portuguese, and the classical economist David Ricardo. The Portuguese Inquisition, established in 1536, would cast its shadow over those who stayed for nearly three centuries more, until it was finally abolished in 1821 by the General Extraordinary and Constituent Courts of the Portuguese Nation.

• 4. The Hidden and the Faithful

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  Jews who accepted baptism were classified as New Christians, but they lived under constant surveillance by the Inquisition. Many were crypto-Jews who continued practicing their faith in secret, waiting for the moment they could leave Portugal and openly return to Judaism in other lands. Spinoza's own ancestors were among those who eventually made that journey to the Netherlands. A very small number took a different path entirely. The Belmonte Jews, known as the Last of the Marranos, chose to practice their faith in strict secrecy within a rural and isolated community, specifically centered in Belmonte in Castelo Branco. They maintained their identity through intermarriage and severely limited contact with the outside world. Only in the late 20th century did they re-establish contact with the international Jewish community and begin openly practicing their religion in a public synagogue with a formal rabbi.

• 5. The Muslims of Portugal

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  Contemporary historian Francois Soyer has observed that the expulsion of Muslims from Portugal has been largely overshadowed by the forced conversion of Jews. That imbalance in historical attention obscures a distinct and important story. Portugal's tolerance of Muslim minorities was, by the standards of the time, higher than anywhere else in Europe. Anti-Muslim riots were common in neighboring Valencia during the 1460s, but no comparable violence occurred in Portugal. Manuel I's order, issued in December 1496, came without any apparent provocation. According to 16th-century Portuguese historians Damiao de Gois and Jeronimo Osorio, the crown had originally considered forced conversion or execution for Muslims as well, mirroring what had been done to Jews. Fear of retaliation from Muslim kingdoms in North Africa led Manuel to settle on deportation instead. His actual motivation remains unclear to historians. Some link it to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand's broader goal of creating religious uniformity across the Iberian peninsula. Others point to ambitions of conquering Morocco, or to the influence of the king's Dominican confessor, Friar Jorge Vogado. Some Muslims found refuge in Castile; most fled to North Africa.

• 6. Return and Reckoning

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  In 1525, a Jewish man named David Reubeni arrived in Portugal, claiming to command a Jewish army in the Ottoman Empire. With papal approval, he sought the Portuguese king's help in obtaining ammunition to fight Muslims. Reubeni's months in Portugal stirred messianic expectations among the New Christians and led to the conversion of a man named Solomon Molcho. The episode ended with the king expelling Reubeni from the country. The longer return came later, and more quietly. In the 19th century, affluent Sephardi families of Portuguese origin, including the Ruah and Bensaude families, resettled in Portugal from Morocco. The first synagogue built in Portugal since the 15th century, the Lisbon Synagogue, was inaugurated in 1904. In 2014, the Portuguese parliament amended the nationality law to grant citizenship to descendants of Sephardi Jews expelled from Portugal. The law required applicants to demonstrate direct descent from a Sephardi of Portuguese origin, or family connections through a former Portuguese Sephardi community. Use of Portuguese expressions in Jewish rites, or knowledge of Judaeo-Portuguese or Ladino, could serve as supporting evidence. From 2015 onward, several hundred Turkish Jews who could prove descent from Jews expelled in 1497 emigrated to Portugal and acquired Portuguese citizenship.