Expulsion of the Jews from Portugal

On 5 December 1496, King Manuel I of Portugal signed the decree of expulsion of Jews and Muslims to take effect by the end of October of the next year.

Until the 15th century, some Jews occupied prominent places in Portuguese political and economic life. For example, Isaac Abrabanel was the treasurer of King Afonso V of Portugal. Many also had an active role in Portuguese culture, and they kept their reputation of diplomats and merchants. By this time, Lisbon and Évora were home to important Jewish communities.

On 5 December 1496, because a clause of the contract of marriage between himself and Isabella, Princess of Asturias stipulated he do so in order to win her hand, King Manuel I of Portugal decreed that all Jews must convert to Catholicism or leave the country. One set of laws demonstrated the King's wish to completely and forever eradicate Judaism from Portugal. The initial edict of expulsion was turned into an edict of forced conversion in 1497: Portuguese Jews were prevented from leaving the country and forcibly converted to Christianity. Hard times followed for the Portuguese conversos, with the massacre of 2000 individuals in Lisbon in 1506 and the later and even more relevant establishment of the Portuguese Inquisition in 1536. The Portuguese inquisition was extinguished in 1821 by the "General Extraordinary and Constituent Courts of the Portuguese Nation".

When the King allowed conversos to leave after the Lisbon massacre of 1506, many went to the Ottoman Empire (notably Thessaloniki and Constantinople and to Morocco. Smaller numbers went to Amsterdam, France, Brazil, Curaçao and the Antilles. In some of these places their presence can still be witnessed, like the use of the Ladino language by some Jewish communities in Turkey, the Portuguese based dialects of the Antilles, or the multiple synagogues built by those who became known as the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, such as the Amsterdam Esnoga. They were called Maranos.

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