Marranos: A Lost People :: essays research papers

Marranos A Lost PeopleSome people might send for them saucy Jews, some untested Christians, and otherscall them Marranos. The majority of the world population has no idea who theMarranos are. To begin to explain these secret people, one must first receive alesson in human race History. We will begin in the 1492.     In school, we are brainwashed to connect the grade 1492 with the yearthat Columbus discovered the New World. Yet, if we look at the year 1492, thereare other occurrences which are noneworthy. For instance, in the year 1492,Spain, the country which sent Columbus to America, decided to officially expelthe Jews from Spain. The Jews were forced to either channel 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 throughout Spain. For years, theJews had been converting to Christianity to escape religious persecution. TheseJews were called conversos. The twist to this tale is that these conversosactually were exactly putting on a front. They still considered themselves Jews.They practiced 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 world 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. on the face of it his parents were Marranos.2 Even though there are some disagreementsabout this fact, there is strong evidence to support the claim that Columbus wasJewish.As the Marranos arrived in the New World, they were not able to revealtheir secr et identities and practice as Jews. This was because the Spanishgovernment established inquisition offices in the New World. These offices soleresponsibility was to range 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 long time 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 stem in public and receive hundreds of lashes.