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Maarten Janssen, 2014-

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1672. Carta de Sara da Silva para o avô, Isaac del Sotto.

Author(s) Sara da Silva      
Addressee(s) Isaac del Sotto      
In English

Family letter from Sara da Silva to her grandfather, Isaac del Sotto.

The author gives an account of what she has been writing and of the letters and orders she has received, alludes to the constant fear in which they live and to how she misses everyone, particularly her sister and the recipient.

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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quirido e amado sor avo Serinam em 4 de 7bro d 1672

ja lle avizei a vms nas pasadas em como tinha chegada samuel de la parra avera tres meszes o qual me troxe carta e particulares e nouvas de vms e de minha quirida irman raquelina qual feiteijei em estremo por saber de sua seudo que deus le aumente por largos anos como pode e eu le dezejo con ficamos con ela ainda que mui temerozos da gerra por não saber o que por la passa e ocozeao e nao ter vendo nãovro e temer ser senores ingres o frances não nos venao avizidaar deus nos livre e nos escape das maos de nosos enmigos= Recibi con dito parra o sapatos e chinelos e agullas e os panos de estofa e algudao e o fio o qual agradeso muito nao so mais larga nesta ocaziao por nao aver sobre que fazelo= ofreseme dizer como moze esta em calsois e esta feito un grande vellaco le prometo meu quirido avo que se o vira se alegrara le pesso me mande muitas novas de como o passa e de minha querida irman raquellia e do que fas que tenho muito dezeos de vela e muito mais de voce pois por meus pecado não pude ver nei estar e cabeseira de minha quirida avo que goce da gloria como os mais netos na mae deus ate nao tornar a ver a vms assi ple pesso meu quirido avo nos escreva por todas as vias que ser posa que e quanto allivio aqui temos mil abrasos minha quirida raquellia e Benjami e samuel a sora tia refica e sor tio Abram Vas fofreco esta por propia por não ter sobre que escrever não lles escrevo ate oitra ocaziao muito recados a peche mariota nica seo sausa p e peche portas maria le eseter mendes e sor tio frosoi de martin e os mais parentes e amigos deus a vms guarde como pode e eu lle e eu lle pido sua bencao e de deus

neta de vms que sua vida e voca dezea sara da silva



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