Marranos: A Lost People :: essays research papers

Marranos A Lost PeopleSome people magnate call them New Jews, some New Christians, and otherscall them Marranos. The majority of the initiation population has no idea who theMarranos are. To begin to explain these secret people, ane must first receive alesson in World History. We volition begin in the 1492.     In school, we are brainwashed to connect the social class 1492 with the course of instructionthat Columbus discovered the New World. Yet, if we look at the year 1492, at that placeare other occurrences which are noteworthy. For instance, in the year 1492,Spain, the res publica which sent Columbus to America, decided to officially expelthe Jews from Spain. The Jews were agonistic to either leave Spain, convert toCatholicism, or be put to death. This was not a surprise to the Jews of Spain.Since 1931, there had been anti-Jewish riots through discover Spain. For years, theJews had been converting to Christianity to escape religious persecution. Thes eJews were called conversos. The twist to this write up is that these conversosactually were only putting on a front. They still considered themselves Jews.They sound in secret.1 The Spanish made every attempt to search out andpunish these conversos. Some Jews chose not to convert and they moved toPortugal. . Unfortunately, Portugal, in 1497, expelled the Jews from its bordersas well. Anti-semitism was growing in Western Europe and the Jews needed toescape. The prime choice seemed to be so obvious. The Jews went to the New World.     The immigration of the Marranos to the new earth might have begun withnone other than Christopher Columbus. This, of course, is not definite, butthere has been research which has shown that Columbus was indeed a Marrano.Apparently his parents were Marranos.2 Even though there are some disagreementsabout this fact, there is strong say to support the claim that Columbus wasJewish.As the Marranos arrived in the New World, they were not able to revealtheir secret identities and practice as Jews. This was because the Spanish establishment established inquisition offices in the New World. These offices soleresponsibility was to be given down Marranos and bring them to justice. Theinquisitors had to visit every town once a year and gather evidence of "non-believers" of the church. They would reward anyone who came forth withinformation. The information could be days old or forty years old, it made nodifference to the Inquisitors. The punishments for being caught were varied,never merciful. The mildest form of punishment was Scourging. This was when thevictim was forced to strip to the waist in public and receive hundreds of lashes.