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Maarten Janssen, 2014-

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1672. Carta de Raquel da Silva para a irmã, Refica del Sotto.

Author(s) Raquel da Silva      
Addressee(s) Rifeca del Sotto      
In English

Family letter from Raquel da Silva to her sister, Refica del Sotto.

The author acknowledges the care that the recipient has been giving her relatives and conveys several news.

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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Page [1]r

[1]
de la parra e como me tinha dado particulares novas suas e de todos
[2]
os de caza particularmente de meus quiridos sobrinhos o qual
[3]
feitegei por saber gozava saude e cada dia estamos relantando
[4]
as grasas de Benjami e de barquer mage vel savoicol e el Dezu
[5]
los deixe criar para bem e para ver de eles e os mais grandes
[6]
gostos en companhia de meu irmão novas nosas e todos de
[7]
caza golzala seja deus louvado ainda que com muito medo por
[8]
não saber con a geurra como o passaremos ja nos anos passados
[9]
le escrevi largo o muito que voce fazia con meu quirido pai
[10]
e filla raquella assi le pesso não se emfade e não tome pa
[11]
lavras de meu pai considere o vello e desconsolado bem sei fara
[12]
con ele e con piquena o que dDeus le paze samuel con de la parra Reci
[13]
bi o vistido ae as mais coizas que mando a moze e os mais o qual
[14]
agradeso de coracão e dis quando for grande escrevera muitas
[15]
coizas e prche refica le esta feito un grande vellaco do que ecir pa
[16]
nesta ocazião vai un parizio de asucre mascavado do que o
[17]
sor paz le dara despois de vendido o rendimento dele mos comprara
[18]
8 lamocos grandes e piquenos e algumos anos de renda de qunze
[19]
ate trinta a quarenta placas ana e pordoe o enfada por qi es
[20]
estamos aqui un ermo e se não vez de la não o temos e quanto
[21]
o frete le pesso nos mande muitos novos dos parentes de uu
[22]
zada e de oitro porque isto nos serve de algums alvro moze
[23]
rica e esxes mandan mil abracos a Benjamin e samuel
[24]
e eu me muito recmendo en sor pai e mai e peche portos meu
[25]
cunado e sara fazen o mesmo e samuel de la parra le mande
[26]
muitos recados e e bensas a minche e samuel deus a vms guare

sua irma que sua vida esxista dezeja raquel da silva
[27]
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