"Today, we declare our total independence-not just from the King of the Netherlands, but from all of the Gentile lords and princes who have oppressed us during our two thousand years of exile. Today, we cast off the last remnant of that tyranny. We may not see our beautiful Israel until the Messiah's coming, but until then, we shall have a new Israel, that shall serve as a beacon of hope to all the Jewish people of the world!"
Abraham Berg, "Declaration of the Republic of Maurícia"
"At first, the Nazis seemed so distant, so far away from quiet Vilemstad*. When the first ship pulled into the harbor and we saw the wretched, teaming mass on the decks, the whole city was in shock. And then came a second, and a third...before long everyone-even those Ashkenazim who had been so in love with Hun Kultur-had come to hate the Germans with a deep, burning passion...When President Dacosta read the declaration of war out to Congress, the dozen of us huddled around the radio broke out into applause. The army couldn't print the enlistment forms out fast enough...sure, we knew many of us would die. But after all we had seen, after all the refugees had told us, we couldn't do anything else."
-Moses Lopes, quoted in Maurícia in the Second World War: an Oral History. Adam Epstein: University of Porto Novo Press, 1996
**********
Officially, the Portugal of the 1530's had no Jews. It had been that way since 1497, when, pressured by Queen Isabella, Manuel I of Portugal wrote them out of legal existence with his almighty royal pen. No, Portugal had Marranos and Conversos-former Synagogue-goers who had just happened to see the error of their ways around the time His Majesty decreed that not doing so might put one on the wrong end of a headsman's sword. And if some of them persisted with their beliefs in secret-well, crown and church had solutions for that, all of them extremely unpleasant.
In the wider world, however, Portugal's explorers sailed around the world, opening up new lands for trade and conquest. One in particular, Brazil, promised bounties of agricultural wealth, if only people could be found to exploit it. Portugal had divided Brazil into "Captaincies"-horizontal strips of land, each given to a lord who was responsible for developing it, and in turn would reap the profits, such as they may be. And in another world, a world just like our own except for one small detail, the Captain of Pernambuco happened to be friends with a priest of the Inquisition. And thus, when the next group of not-quite-Conversos found its unfortunate way into the Inquisition's hands, the sentence was harsh and unforgiving-exile.
Laboring in the Brazilwood forests and sugar plantations, few of the Pernambuco exiles would live to the end of their natural lives. Fewer still would have children. A few families in modern Mauricia-descendants of Jews who fled Brazil in the 1650's-tell stories of forefathers from among those earliest deportees. Whether there is any truth to them is impossible to know. But the precedent had been established, and transportation to America quickly became one of the inquisition's most feared punishments.
Among the Captaincies to receive convicted Jews was Sao Vincente. In 1538, the infant colony suffered an outbreak of Malaria and Yellow Fever** that left its main settlement, Piratininga***, almost deserted. Needing to repopulate the colony quickly, the Captain of Sao Vincente also turned to the Inquisition, and conditions in the south of Portuguese America proved to be better than those in the north. The Conversos sentenced to rebuild Sao Vicente soon came to outnumber the genuinely Christian inhabitants. Further from the equator, the climate was not quite so hot and the swamps not quite so deadly, and influential Conversos in Lisbon pleaded for their unlucky brethren to at least be sent to a place where they might have a chance at living. And thus, the stream of deportees began to flow to the south of Portuguese America-to future Mauricia-while the people-shortage in the North was increasingly dealt with through the slave trade. In 1547, a colonial expedition from Portugal-the majority composed of newly deported Conversos-landed in the bay of Rio de Janeiro, and what would become Mauricia's principle city was born. Increasingly, Portugal came to view the southern half of its American territory as a penal colony for Jews, and while new arrivals often had to labor on sugar or Brazilwood plantations, these weren't nearly as numerous as in the north, and many deportees were eventually able to buy their way out and take up life as craftsmen in colonial towns, or even independent farmers on the edges of civilization. Already, two very different nations had begun to form in Portuguese America-and by the time Lisbon realized just what it had created in the south, it would be too late.
*Originally founded by the Dutch as Willemstad. "Vilemstad" is my attempt at a "Portugization"-any Portuguese speakers reading this are welcome to tell me how plausible this sounds
**Second POD.
***Modern Sao Paulo
***************************
So, what do you all think? I once did a TL with somewhat similar themes to this one, though I never finished it. I have the history of Brazil and Mauricia (yes, these will be two different countries, both in the territory of OTL Brazil) worked out in my head up till about 1700, and I know roughly where I want it to go after that. And while I might now get it done in a week, I will try to be as succinct as possible.
Abraham Berg, "Declaration of the Republic of Maurícia"
"At first, the Nazis seemed so distant, so far away from quiet Vilemstad*. When the first ship pulled into the harbor and we saw the wretched, teaming mass on the decks, the whole city was in shock. And then came a second, and a third...before long everyone-even those Ashkenazim who had been so in love with Hun Kultur-had come to hate the Germans with a deep, burning passion...When President Dacosta read the declaration of war out to Congress, the dozen of us huddled around the radio broke out into applause. The army couldn't print the enlistment forms out fast enough...sure, we knew many of us would die. But after all we had seen, after all the refugees had told us, we couldn't do anything else."
-Moses Lopes, quoted in Maurícia in the Second World War: an Oral History. Adam Epstein: University of Porto Novo Press, 1996
**********
Officially, the Portugal of the 1530's had no Jews. It had been that way since 1497, when, pressured by Queen Isabella, Manuel I of Portugal wrote them out of legal existence with his almighty royal pen. No, Portugal had Marranos and Conversos-former Synagogue-goers who had just happened to see the error of their ways around the time His Majesty decreed that not doing so might put one on the wrong end of a headsman's sword. And if some of them persisted with their beliefs in secret-well, crown and church had solutions for that, all of them extremely unpleasant.
In the wider world, however, Portugal's explorers sailed around the world, opening up new lands for trade and conquest. One in particular, Brazil, promised bounties of agricultural wealth, if only people could be found to exploit it. Portugal had divided Brazil into "Captaincies"-horizontal strips of land, each given to a lord who was responsible for developing it, and in turn would reap the profits, such as they may be. And in another world, a world just like our own except for one small detail, the Captain of Pernambuco happened to be friends with a priest of the Inquisition. And thus, when the next group of not-quite-Conversos found its unfortunate way into the Inquisition's hands, the sentence was harsh and unforgiving-exile.
Laboring in the Brazilwood forests and sugar plantations, few of the Pernambuco exiles would live to the end of their natural lives. Fewer still would have children. A few families in modern Mauricia-descendants of Jews who fled Brazil in the 1650's-tell stories of forefathers from among those earliest deportees. Whether there is any truth to them is impossible to know. But the precedent had been established, and transportation to America quickly became one of the inquisition's most feared punishments.
Among the Captaincies to receive convicted Jews was Sao Vincente. In 1538, the infant colony suffered an outbreak of Malaria and Yellow Fever** that left its main settlement, Piratininga***, almost deserted. Needing to repopulate the colony quickly, the Captain of Sao Vincente also turned to the Inquisition, and conditions in the south of Portuguese America proved to be better than those in the north. The Conversos sentenced to rebuild Sao Vicente soon came to outnumber the genuinely Christian inhabitants. Further from the equator, the climate was not quite so hot and the swamps not quite so deadly, and influential Conversos in Lisbon pleaded for their unlucky brethren to at least be sent to a place where they might have a chance at living. And thus, the stream of deportees began to flow to the south of Portuguese America-to future Mauricia-while the people-shortage in the North was increasingly dealt with through the slave trade. In 1547, a colonial expedition from Portugal-the majority composed of newly deported Conversos-landed in the bay of Rio de Janeiro, and what would become Mauricia's principle city was born. Increasingly, Portugal came to view the southern half of its American territory as a penal colony for Jews, and while new arrivals often had to labor on sugar or Brazilwood plantations, these weren't nearly as numerous as in the north, and many deportees were eventually able to buy their way out and take up life as craftsmen in colonial towns, or even independent farmers on the edges of civilization. Already, two very different nations had begun to form in Portuguese America-and by the time Lisbon realized just what it had created in the south, it would be too late.
*Originally founded by the Dutch as Willemstad. "Vilemstad" is my attempt at a "Portugization"-any Portuguese speakers reading this are welcome to tell me how plausible this sounds
**Second POD.
***Modern Sao Paulo
***************************
So, what do you all think? I once did a TL with somewhat similar themes to this one, though I never finished it. I have the history of Brazil and Mauricia (yes, these will be two different countries, both in the territory of OTL Brazil) worked out in my head up till about 1700, and I know roughly where I want it to go after that. And while I might now get it done in a week, I will try to be as succinct as possible.
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