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Maarten Janssen, 2014-

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1672. Carta de Samuel Velho, senhor de engenho, para a mãe, Ribca Velho.

Author(s) Samuel Velho      
Addressee(s) Ribca Velho      
In English

Family letter from Samuel Velho, master of a sugar mill, to his mother, Ribca Velho.

The author indicates how he has been treated, deplores the distance that separates him from the recipient and the rest of his family, and recalls some facts that he has experienced since his arrival in the Caribbean, expressing gratitude and sometimes revolt. He also indicates that he is sending some goods, to contribute to the celebration of Pesach.

Given the suspicion that the Sephardic communities were trafficking goods and information to the detriment of the English Crown, several ships coming from or going to the Netherlands on their behalf were intercepted. In fact, the provisions in the Cromwell Navigation Acts prohibited the commercial contacts of the English colonies with the Netherlands, Spain, France and their overseas possessions. The proceedings that were initiated, under the guard at the Supreme Court of Admiralty, arose in the context of four moments of great tension between those two powers: the 2nd Anglo-Dutch War (1665-1667); the 3rd Anglo-Dutch War (1672-1674); the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763); and, finally, the 4th Anglo-Dutch War (1781-1784). The documentation found on board and preserved in the archive - private correspondence and cargo records - was taken as documentary evidence of the practice of cargo smuggling at sea. The letters described here are also demonstrative of the quality of the relationships within Sephardic families (Jews and converted), with the existence of strategically distributed social networks: on the one side, the settlers positioned below the Equator, more precisely in one area of the West Indies’ Seven Provinces (in the Caribbean), as part of the Dutch overseas territories; on the other, family and business partners, located in the main ports in the North Atlantic, important centers of financial and commercial activities. Incidentally, in some of these letters we may observe the occurrence of loanwords of English and Dutch origin belonging to the lexical-semantic field of trade relations. Examples of this are “ousove” and “azoes”, for the English “hoshead” or the Dutch “okshoofd”, an ancient measure of volume. In the present case, we have a set of letters that were transported on board the Dutch vessels Het witte Zeepaard, Bijenkorf, Fort Zeeland and Gekroonde Prins. They were coming from the port of Paramaribo and bound for an important and strategic port of the Company of the West Indies - Flushing, in North America - through the Caribbean.

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Maim E sa Ribca velho serenam 15: setembro 1672

Com grande alvoroso ma querida maim aguardo saber boaz novas da boa saude de vm e de minhas irmans e Iro em qm me recomendo inda q não so tão meresedor de q me escrevão duaz regraz poiz de tão lonje he so o alivio q se tem e qto mais eu q Com suspiros e penas vivo pr sua vista de vm seja o sor Ds qm nos ajunte e me de forsaz pr soportar o jugo do traballo pra Com onra poder a todo tempo manifestar sou fillo de meus pais e em mim resplandesa a Caza ja q pr nosos pecados os demais se derão ao mão viver

sra ma pr via do sor semuel nassi lle mandei a vm livras 500: de asucar pra que se vendesem em zelanda e seu prosedido entregasem a vm pra q com elez fasa hua boa pasqua e me abensoe dandome o sor Ds forsas pra o traballo farei sempre Como fo de qm sou, pesso a Vm me precure hum poço de sarja ou bombazina de Cor pra dois vistidos q me fazem grde falta pem seja Coiza da mais barata q possa ser e mandeo Em a zelanda Is fSemah fero que o mande pr via de meu primo o sor Jacob nassi a qimm dito sema escreve



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