1492 is the time when Columbus swam across the ocean in search of a new land. At this time, the Spanish authorities decide to expel all practicing Jews from their kingdom. Those who survived but chose not to leave their homes were forced to become Catholics. Together with people who had previously been converted to Catholicism, they came to be called the converso.
Converso
In Spain and Portugal, this was the name given to Jews who were forcibly converted to Catholicism. And after mass appeals, they began to call their descendants that way. These people were caught between two fires. They became suspicious of both former and new fellow believers.
Nevertheless, they could find a place for themselves in society. The Conversos were among the bishops and royal lovers.
Research
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Many stories persist in telling us about people across Latin America who did not eat pork, about candles lit on Friday nights, and mirrors covered in mourning days.
New research examining the DNA of thousands of Hispanics reveals the extent of their likely Sephardic ancestry. This likelihood seems even more real than those previously studied. At the same time, the origin of Hispanics is more pronounced than that of the modern inhabitants of Spain and Portugal.
“We were very surprised to find a similar phenomenon,” says Juan Camilo Chacon Duque, a geneticist at the Natural History Museum in London who co-authored the scientific work.
This study is one of the most comprehensive genetic studies of Hispanics. They also found a mix of Native American, European, South Saharan African and East Asian genes in many of the people they sampled. This helps researchers discover traces of colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade, and more recent impulses of immigration from Asia. This is what the history of Hispanics as written by DNA looks like.
History and DNA
DNA often helps to clarify certain historical records. Spain did not allow converts or their descendants to visit their colonies, so they secretly traveled with forged documents. “For obvious reasons, the converso did not seek to identify itself as the converso,” says David Graysbord, professor of Jewish studies at the University of Arizona.
The concept of "converso" applies not only to new converts, but also to their descendants, who have always been Catholics. Many considered this title a shame. “You couldn’t say you’re a Jew, which means you’re not a real Christian,” says Greyseboard. The Conversos, who aspired to high positions in the church or in the army, often tried to invent their ancestors rather than reveal their true ancestry.
Getaway converso
The genetic record now suggests that the converso, or people who were related to them, came to America in disproportionate numbers. For people haunted at home, the fast-growing colonies of the New World might seem like salvation and new opportunities. But the Spanish Inquisition made it to those lands. For example, those who were found guilty of observing Jewish customs in Mexico were burned at the stake.
Sephardic origin
Chacon Duque and his colleagues collected genetic data by taking DNA samples from 6,500 people in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, which they compared with 2,300 samples from others around the world. It turned out that 5 percent or more of Hispanics turned out to be incredibly similar genetically to people living in North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean, including Sephardic Jews.
DNA alone cannot prove that converso was the source of this origin, but historical data is needed for this. This is how you can learn about an ancestor from North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean, which many centuries ago belonged to the period of the early days of New Spain.
However, do not forget about the recent immigration to Latin America from Italy and Germany at the end of the 19th century. In those days, a small number of people from different geographic areas joined Hispanics.
Genetic similarities
Geneticists also noticed that rare genetic diseases common among Jews appeared in Latin America. Harry Ostrer, a geneticist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, says that diseases, on the one hand, are not the same, but are so similar that you start thinking about coincidences.
In 2011, Ostrer and his colleagues set out to study two populations - in Ecuador and Colorado - with an unusually high prevalence of two mutations common in Jews. One mutation was in the BRCA1 breast cancer gene, while the other caused a dwarf form called Laron's syndrome. Indeed, they found Sephardic ancestry in the 53 people they studied. Thanks to advances in DNA technology, Chacon Duque and his colleagues were able to conduct a similar study, but on a scale of thousands of people.
Rumors
The idea of Jews living in secret in the New World has attracted considerable mythologization. Some stories seem completely bizarre and unreal. For example, there are rumors that Christopher Columbus was the very secret Jew seeking refuge for his people.
In 2000, The Atlantic actually published a breakdown of some of these stories, attributing the Jewish practices of the "hidden Jews" to popular beliefs and the Church of God in New Mexico. DNA confirmed the fact that modern converso were the ancestors of people from Latin America and the southwestern United States. The converted Jews forever left to their descendants the question of what to do with the aftermath of the Inquisition and the identification of the converso.
Jewish identity
By the 17th century, Greyseboard said, most of the converso had assimilated and lost touch with Jewish customs. Today, some of their descendants are reclaiming their Jewish identity. They can join Jewish genealogical groups. Some even converted to Judaism.
DNA tests are also of interest. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York politician whose family is from Puerto Rico, recently revealed during Hanukkah celebrations that she is of Sephardic Jewish descent.
Scientist-converso
Before Chacon Duque decided to join this research as a scientist, he presented his own DNA and became, in fact, a participant in the project. He, like thousands of other volunteers, was interested in his origins. Juan Camilo grew up in northwest Colombia and has heard many stories. As a child, he participated in various family customs.
For example, on holidays they killed a pig. After that, it was publicly said that they were not Jews, but to prove it, they ate this pig in public. Such stories later began to raise questions from him. At some point, he thought about his origin. And after participating in the project, it turned out that the scientist also has a Converso pedigree.
Author: Yanika Ivanova