NEGRO JEWS

“King John II in 1492, expelled all the Jews to the island of St. Thomas, and to other Portuguese settlements on the continent of Africa; and from these banished Jews, the black Portuguese, as they are called, and the Jews in Loango, who are despised even by the very Negroes, are descended.”

SOURCE;

(The Critical Review, Or, Annals of Literature; Volumes 57-58; 1783)

In 1492, many Jews were forced to either convert to Christianity or leave Portugal. Those who left found refuge in Portuguese colonies, including places in Africa.

Over time, their descendants in regions such as Angola and other Portuguese colonies would become known as “black Portuguese,” signifying their mixed Jewish-Portuguese ancestry.

Loango, an area in West Central Africa, is mentioned here as home to Jews who were descended from the Portuguese Jews.

The phrase “despised even by the very Negroes” reflects the social prejudice faced by these Jewish descendants in the region, as they were considered outsiders by the local African populations.

“A remarkable fact in the history of Loango is that the country contains—according to a statement which was fully credited by Oldendorp, himself a writer of most correct judgment and of unimpeachable veracity, many Jews settled in the country, who retain their religious rites, and the distinct habits which keep them isolated from other nations”

“Though thus separate from the African population, they are black, and resemble the other Negroes in every respect as to physical characters”

SOURCE;

(James Cowles Prichard, Researches Into the Physical History of Mankind: Ethnography of the African races; 1837).

To put it another way, the black Portuguese Jews who settled in Loango appeared physically identical to the indigenous black Africans.

In the reign of John II of Portugal nearly 700 Jews were taken from their kin and deported to the island of São Tomé on the west coast of Africa.

This island is close to Nigeria, Cameroon, and Gabon.

Escaping from São Tomé the Jews emigrated to the coast of Angola between 1484 and 1499.

They must have settled in several Portuguese colonies and over the centuries mixed with the indigenous black population.

Near the Congo in Gabon in 1776 black Jews, called Bavumbu (or even Mavambo, Mayomba, May or Mavumbu), lived on the coast of Luango by the river named the Rio Muni.

SOURCE;

(Cambridge University Press, European Journal of Sociology; Vol 61; 2020)