Sighs, They were some of the

littlest victims of the

Expulsion from Spain,
Libi Astaire

They call it “Paradise on Earth,” in the tourism brochure.

And for the world-weary traveler who really wants to get

Sugar,
away from it all, the tiny island of São Tomé, located in the
those 2,000 Jewish Atlantic Ocean about 150 miles west of mainland Africa and
a smidgen north of the equator, is a tropical playground filled
children who were torn with miles and miles of unspoiled beaches and rainforests.
But for a group of Portuguese settlers who were banished
from the arms of their there in the year 1493 — a group that included some 2,000
Jewish children, as well as adult convicts and other social
parents and exiled outcasts — the island was anything but paradise. Separated
from their families, and with little hope of ever returning to
to a malaria-infested

& Slaves
their homes, their dreary mission was to turn the forest-
island located off the Location: covered island into a profitable colony for the Portuguese
king.
coast of West Africa. Saão Tom Amazingly, they succeeded. Within one generation large
swaths of land had been cleared, and São Tomé had become
But they haven’t been Time: the world’s largest exporter of sugar. But what happened to

forgotten. Until today, 2003 the Jewish children? Did any of them manage to escape from
their island prison? Or, if they remained in São Tomé, were
they able to retain at least some semblance of Yiddishkeit —
historians are trying to and leave a trace of their Jewish heritage behind? The truth is
that only scattered fragments have been discovered about the
unravel the mystery of children and their fate. But from these fragments we can try to
what happened to the piece together their story.

What Happened to the Children of São Tomé? children of São Tomé. Do You Know the Way to São Tomé ?
I was seriously thinking about asking Mishpacha to send
me to São Tomé, until I learned two things about the island:
malaria is still a danger, and the one European airline that flies
there — TAP Portugal — has only one flight to São Tomé a
week. That plane makes its way from Lisbon to the Gulf of
Guinea early on a Friday morning, lands and refuels at São
Tomé’s tiny airport before breakfast, and then hurries back to
Lisbon so quickly that there is still plenty of time to prepare
for Shabbos. Did I really want to stay for a full week in such an
isolated place?
The truth is that I probably needn’t have worried, provided
I took anti-malaria medicine beforehand. Crime is practically
nonexistent, perhaps because the local population is so poor
that there is little to steal (although they hope to soon become

16 Where Are They Now

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 very rich since oil deposits were recently he didn’t want to lose. He therefore embarked In this year of 1493 ... the king gave to Alvaro de
discovered off the coast). And even though the upon a project that was as cruel as it was Caminha the captaincy of the island of São Tomé of

Where Are They Now

country has experienced economic hardships ambitious: he forcibly converted all of the Jews right and inheritance; and as for the Castilian Jews
and several coups in the three decades since living in Portugal, both the Spanish exiles and who had not left his kingdom within the assigned
it gained independence from Portugal in 1975, the native Jewish-Portuguese population. By date, he ordered that, according to the condition
the approximately 150,000 people who live in October of 1497 he was able to announce to upon their entry, all the boys and young men and
São Tomé and the neighboring island that makes his future in-laws, “There are no more Jews in girls of the Jews be taken into captivity. After having
up the other half of the country, Príncipe, have a Portugal.” them all turned into Christians, he sent them to the
reputation for being polite and friendly. said island with Alvaro de Caminha, so that by being
That politeness and friendliness is perhaps The Exile to São Tomé secluded, they would have reasons for being better
something of a miracle, given the country’s often Amid all the heartbreak of those years, Christians, and [the king] would have in this reason
harsh colonial past. A breakdown of São Tomé’s one incident was especially poignant. In 1493 for the island to be better populated, which, as a
main population groups reveals that history in the first place. King João, anxious to populate and cultivate a result, culminated in great growth.
in brief: mestiços, or mixed-blood persons, are recently discovered island off the coast of West What happened to the children when they
“The children who were descendants of the early Portuguese colonists The First Exile: 1492 Africa, decided to seize some 2,000 Jewish reached São Tomé? According to Samuel Usque,
and African slaves who were brought to To the very end, the Jews of Spain prayed for children, whose parents were among the poor they were abandoned on the shore, where most
the islands from nearby Benin, Gabon, and a miracle; perhaps the cruel Edict of Expulsion Jewish exiles from Spain.After the children were of them were either eaten by crocodiles or
sent to São Tomé were small Congo during the early years of settlement; would be annulled. But when Tisha B’Av arrived forcibly baptized, they were shipped off to São died of starvation. However, according to Rabbi
Angolares, who are thought to be descendants and the miracle didn’t materialize, about half of Tomé. Yitzchak Abarbanel, who left Spain in 1492 with
children who were abducted of Angolan slaves; forros, descendants of slaves Spain’s Jews boarded rickety, rat-infested ships Samuel Usque, whose family was among the the exiled Jews and settled in Naples, the children
who were freed when slavery was abolished and set sail for Italy, the Ottoman Empire, and Spanish exiles and who wrote a history called met a very different fate. In his commentary on
from their parents, put on in 1875; and serviçais, contract laborers from
Angola, Mozambique, and Cape Verde, who live
various ports in Northern Africa.The other half
fled to nearby Portugal.
Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel, described
the scene, some fifty years after the event took
the Torah, Shemos 7:28, he writes:
The king of Portugal forced many children of
temporarily on the islands. King João II of Portugal didn’t open his place (translation by David Raphael, The Expulsion
a ship, and sent to a place One group that is noticeably missing is the country’s border because he had a kind heart. He 1492 Chronicles):
Portuguese, who left the country en masse when was preparing for a war against the Moors and he When the luckless hour arrived for this barbarity
that had no access with the São Tomé e Príncipe gained its independence. needed money. He therefore granted permanent to be inflicted, mothers scratched their faces in grief
However, Portuguese continues to be the official residence to some 600 Jewish families who were as their babies, less than three years old, were taken
language — even though many of the people able to pay a fee of one hundred cruzados. Some from their arms. Honored elders tore their beards
outside world … Therefore speak Forro, a form of Luso-African Creole — thirty craftsmen whose skills could be used in when the fruit of their bodies was snatched before
and reminders of the island’s colonial past can the upcoming campaign were also admitted.The their eyes. The fated children raised their piercing
it is nonsense to speak be seen at the plantations that once provided rest — about 100,000 souls — were allowed cries to heaven as they were mercilessly torn from
São Tomé with its main sources of income. into the country on the condition that they pay their beloved parents at such a tender age.
Some of those plantations are still producing a “transit fee” and leave Portugal within eight Several women threw themselves at the king’s
about the children hanging crops of cocoa and coffee today, while a few of months. If they didn’t leave, they would become feet, begging for permission to accompany their
them have been converted into upscale hotels. the king’s slaves. children; but not even this moved the king’s pity.
on to their Yiddishkeit” Many of them, though, were deserted after 1909, When the eight months elapsed, most of One mother, distraught by this horrible unexampled
when the international community boycotted the impoverished Spanish Jews were still stuck cruelty, lifted her baby in her arms, and paying no
the island’s products due to the plantation in Portugal. They were given a brief reprieve in heed to its cries, threw herself from the ship into the
— Professor Moshe Liba owners’ harsh treatment of their workers, and 1494, when Manuel I became the new king and heaving sea, and drowned, embracing her only child.
the rainforests have since reclaimed the once- granted the enslaved Spanish Jews their freedom. Later historians have charged Usque with
cultivated land. However, when Manuel decided to marry the being overly dramatic. But the basic facts of
There is, of course, another group that is daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, the the story are confirmed by Rui de Pina, an
missing from the island’s population roll call: Jews. Catholic monarchs insisted that he first expel all official chronicler of the Portuguese kings.
But before we can discover what happened to the Jews from his kingdom. In his Chronica d’El Rei Dom João II, which was
the Jewish children who were among the island’s Manuel was in a dilemma, since the Jews completed sometime before 1504, de Pina
first settlers, we must recall how they got there were a source of wealth and skilled labor that writes (translation by David Raphael):

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 the Spanish exiles to adopt his faith. He sent them
to [Crocodile Island] fourteen years ago, all of them What Happened to the Crocodiles of
children without any blemish, boys and girls, more
than 2,000 souls.They have already multiplied there,
“Crocodile Island”?
Were you to visit São Tomé today, you might have to share your
and most of the island is inhabited by them. The
island getaway with lizards, mosquitoes, and sharks, but one thing you
island is not far from the equator.
wouldn’t have to worry about is crocodiles. So why did the Abarbanel write:
Which is the true account, the one written
“… and today we know of an island whose inhabitants are natives of Sefarad
by Rabbi Abarbanel that says the children lived,
and the kingdom of Portugal, and its name is the Island of the Crocodiles”? And
or the one written by Samuel Usque that says
what about Samuel Usque, who wrote about “great lizards that swallowed the children”?
that most of them perished? Could both be
Were they both deceived by false information?
right? Or is neither accurate? And how did they
“I asked in São Tomé about the crocodiles and the lizards,” says Professor Moshe Liba.The
know what happened to the children?
answer he received was:“Here there are only snakes.”
To begin our search, we first turn to a Jew
Not content with that answer, which contradicted the Jewish sources, Professor Liba
from our own times, Professor Moshe Liba, who
searched for more information. He found it in an article that appeared in a 1975 bulletin
arrived in São Tomé in the year 1994 not as an
published by UNICEF, which said:“A sailor that arrived at the island in the fifteenth or sixteenth
exile or a slave, but as Israel’s first nonresident
centuries wrote of crocodiles in great number, as well as poisonous serpents.The crocodiles are
ambassador to the modern-day country that is
gone, but the serpents continue to be danger for the plantation workers.”
known as São Tomé e Príncipe.
So for once the UN agrees that the Jewish version of a story is correct.
What Do We Know?
In addition to being an Israeli diplomat,
Professor Liba is the author or editor of
dozens of books and articles. One of them, be a prosperous colony to fill the king’s coffers. Slave Trade,” Hull, a professor of African history business until the 1570s, when internal turmoil
Jewish Child Slaves in São Tomé, is a collection of “These children were notAnusim,at least not at New York University, discusses São Tomé in in the kingdom of Kongo forced the Portuguese
scholarly articles that were presented at a 1995 in the sense that we usually use the term, which great detail. to move their operations further south.
international conference on the fate of the Jewish is to refer to Jews from either Spain or Portugal When the first Portuguese settlers arrived What does this have to do with the children
children, which was organized by Professor Liba. who were forced to become Christians. The on the uninhabited island of São Tomé? For one thing, it shows that the
One of the purposes of the conference was Anusim had their families and their communal in 1485, they almost island was hardly an isolated speck on the map.
to see if scholars could agree on some of the structure. They had women who passed down immediately began sailing Between the years 1510 and 1540, for example,
basic facts concerning the children.The problem, their traditions from mother to daughter. They to the lands located it is estimated that there were four to six slave
of course, is that many of the historical sources also had some written documents, although around the Gulf of ships running continuously between the island
present conflicting evidence. As an example, not many, which they passed down from one Guinea. There they did a and the African mainland.
Professor Liba mentions that although there is a generation to the next. But this was not the case brisk business with the On the African mainland, those ships would
general agreement that the children were seized with the children who were sent to São Tomé. African natives, trading be greeted by lançados, middlemen who were
and baptized in the year 1493, there is a question Therefore it is nonsense to speak about the Portuguese wares for at home in both the Portuguese and African
as to how many children were abducted, their exile was less than 1,000? Or does it mean that children hanging on to their Yiddishkeit, or about African gold, ivory, and pepper.They also engaged languages and culture. Lançado is actually a
ages, and if only boys were seized or also girls. the children were cruelly and intentionally left to there being any remnants of synagogues or in a more sinister business: selling African slaves. Portuguese word that means “thrown out,” and
The consensus seems to be that both boys die of hunger and illness on board the ship? On traces of Jewish customs on the island. It makes Slavery was a part of life for several African so it should come as no surprise that some of “These children, the ones
and girls were abducted.Although Rabbi Shlomo this issue,Alvaro de Caminha is silent. me want to cry when I hear people speak such tribal nations, so the Portuguese can’t be blamed those outcasts were New Christians who had
ibnVerga mentions just boys, three other sources The question of the children’s ages is nonsense.” for introducing it to the continent. They did, either been exiled to West Africa as punishment who survived the rough
mention both boys and girls: the Abarbanel’s important, because it would have had an It’s a harsh answer, and when I hang up the however, quickly take advantage of the situation. for some petty crime, or who had willingly left
commentary on Shemos 7:28; the last will and impact on the ability of the children to retain phone I refuse to accept it. But my refusal doesn’t For instance, when the settlers discovered that Portugal in the hope of finding greater freedom
testament of Captain Alvaro de Caminha, dated some vestige of their Judaism in a totally alien stem from the fact that when I’m not writing the soil of São Tomé was good for growing on that continent. treatment and diseases,
April 24, 1499; and the 1634 diary of a Catholic environment — and pass on some knowledge articles for Mishpacha, I’m writing historical sugarcane, but that the island lacked sufficient During this same time period, São Tomé was
priest who lived on the island, Padre Rosario of their Jewish heritage to future generations. novels. It’s because I happen to know, from my manpower for performing all the backbreaking building up its sugar industry. In addition to slave would be a hardy group …
Pinto. Again, the historical records vary, but the general research, that São Tomé wasn’t as isolated as tasks involved with planting and harvesting the labor, the island needed knowledgeable people
How many children were sent into exile? consensus is that the children were between the Professor Liba has suggested. crop, the Portuguese solved the problem by to act as plantation managers and technicians.
Most sources claim that about 2,000 children ages of two and eight. importing African slaves from the mainland. According to Professor Hull, those jobs were
Their parents were the Jews
were forcibly baptized and put on the boats, Even though we would like to believe that History Sweet and Sour By the 1520s São Tomé had become a busy filled by New Christians, or conversos, from
along with a motley collection of degradados these little children stubbornly clung to their If the story of the children exiled to São transit point for slaves bought in the kingdom of Portugal, who had learned the sugar industry in who refused to convert”
(convicts), priests, soldiers, and sailors. But Jewish faith, is there any evidence? When I posed Tomé is only a footnote in historical accounts, Kongo, who were then sold in the Gold Coast nearby Madeira and Cape Verde.
some sources mention just 600 children. How
can this discrepancy be resolved? One possible
this question to Professor Liba during a phone
interview, he fairly bristled with indignation.
the story of Europe’s attempted colonization of
the African continent is the subject of numerous
(present-day Ghana) to Islamic slave traders
and to plantation owners on other Portuguese
Did the children of São Tomé have any
contact with these conversos? Were the
— Professor Norman Simms
explanation is provided by Padre Pinto, who “The children who were sent to São Tomé books and scholarly articles. One of them, islands. In the 1530s a new market opened up conversos able to teach the children about
wrote that 1,400 children died during the voyage were small children who were abducted from Richard Hull’s Jews and Judaism in African — the Spanish Caribbean — and the Shabbos, or kashrus, or the holidays?
because of “the difficulties of the trip.” Thus, out their parents, put on a ship, and sent to a place History, even tells the story transatlantic slave route was set in I can already hear Professor Liba warning
of the original group of 2,000, only 600 children that had no access to the outside world. They from the Jewish motion. São Tomé continued me to not write nonsense. It seems that many
made it to the island alive. were put in a Christian school and educated perspective. In to be the hub of this ugly conversos — at least the ones who willingly
Why did so many of the children perish by priests with the goal of turning them into a chapter titled
during the voyage? This raises an additional Catholics. They remained slaves, who were not “The Atlantic
question about the logistics of transporting so allowed to marry among themselves. Instead,
many people at that time.The will and testament they were forced to intermarry with the African
of Alvaro de Caminha states that there was food slaves who were also brought to the island, as
on board for only 1,000 people. Did this mean part of the King of Portugal’s plan to create a
that the real number of Jewish children sent into new race on the island, which was intended to

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 came to West Africa — were more interested To see if there is another way to view the
in making their fortune than in preserving their historical record, I turned to Norman Simms, an “Several women threw
Jewish traditions.Otherwise,they would have fled associate professor at New Zealand’s University
to North Africa or the Ottoman Empire, where of Waikato, editor of the scholarly journal
there were established Jewish communities. Mentalities/Mentalite, and the author of an article themselves at the king’s
In addition, Professor Liba has told me that whose title immediately caught my eye:“Did Any
Alvaro de Caminha, in letters he sent to Portugal, of the Captive Jewish Orphans of São Tomé Ever feet, begging for permission
spoke of the children in the best possible light. Leave the Island?”
The priests also left records that praised the do know from the records: “These children, Is there any record of what happened to Roots, yes. But what about
children. This written evidence, which can be Caution: Speculation Ahead the ones who survived the rough treatment the children after they grew up? branches? Does a trace remain of
to accompany their
found in Lisbon in Portugal’s National Archives, “It is a mitzvah for me to help perpetuate and diseases, would be a hardy group. They “The most surprising thing is that by either the Jewish children or their
seems to prove that the children submitted the memories of these children,” Professor came from poor and therefore nonprofessional the turn of the seventeenth century, the descendants on the island, which children; but not even this
to their fate, despite the presence of other Simms begins, “but first let me say that the Castilian-Jewish families. Their parents were the descendants of the original Jewish slaves almost is today a mostly poor and very
Portuguese conversos in the area. So, to put
it in Professor Liba’s words, “As for observing
history of these Jewish children cannot be
proved in a strictly historical way. There is a lot
Jews who refused to convert. They would have
had some Jewish education, and this minimal
completely disappear — and reappear in Brazil.
The documents state that Jews from São Tomé
isolated place? Neither Professor Liba nor other
scholars are encouraging. It’s true that some of
moved the king’s pity”
Shabbos and kashrus, you can forget about it.” of guess work, but intelligent guess work, I hope. training would be what they passed on over the came to South America to help develop the the country’s approximately 150,000 citizens are
On the other hand, after 1497 all Iberian We know they were manumitted, or partly so, in next century or so.” sugar industry, and Brazil quickly outproduced light-skinned, but it’s just as likely that they are — Samuel Usque,
Jews, now dubbed New Christians, became about 1512, on condition that they marry with São Tomé in this regard.Their sugar was also of a descendants of the Portuguese
masters of deception. With so many conversos black slaves and remain on the island. After that, So the children were able to hang on to higher quality, thanks to the climate and soil.” degradados as the conversos. Consolation for the
wandering up and down the West African the evidence is patchy, and almost everything I some semblance of their Jewish faith and In the mid-1600s, the Dutch wrested Brazil What about physical or cultural
coast, was it possible that not one of still had a will say is more or less speculation.” practices? from Portugal and set up a short-lived colony traces?
“Jewish heart” and concerned himself with these He then paints a possible psychological “This is very hard to know, because the only where Jews were able to live openly as Jews.While Professor Liba recalls an Tribulations of Israel
children? portrait of the children, based upon what we way to survive as a secret Jew was to maintain the some of the conversos might have returned to encounter he had with Bishop
secrecy. Nevertheless, we know that periodically Judaism, it seems that many did not. Their fears Abilio Ribas, who was then the
the Church and the Crown sent to the island were perhaps justified when Portugal regained head of the Catholic Church on due to later Jewish and converso settlers.
inquisitorial agents to root out the Judaizers. control in 1654. According to Professor Simms, the island. Professor Liba asked In the opinion of Professor Liba, who has
São Tomé Timeline “There also may have been merchants and the conversos from São Tomé then most likely if the Bishop knew where the children were discussed the topic with an expert on the island,
1472 Portugal discovers São Tomé sailors who passed through who were secret did one of three things: retreated further into buried — those who had died from malaria “Such claims aren’t serious enough to write
1485 First Portuguese settlers arrive Jews and carried the news back about these the Brazilian wilderness, where they continued or from the crocodiles or snakes. Bishop Ribas about in a newspaper.”
1492 Expulsion of Jews from Spain children of São Tomé, since there were accounts to live as conversos; fled to nearby Surinam and replied,“Near the Cathedral.” So what can we say about the children of
1493 Jewish children exiled to São Tomé recorded about their ordeal. These visitors may joined a short-lived autonomous Jewish republic Bishop Ribas then explained that some São Tomé? Although we still know little about
1494 Sugar production and slave trade begin have brought back some of the ‘children’ with in the jungle known as Jodensavanne; or returned twenty years earlier, when the Presidential their lives, and nothing about their deaths, we
1497 All Jews living in Portugal are forcibly baptized them. We may also suppose they passed on to Europe with the Dutch Jews. Palace, which is located next to the Cathedral, can say with some certainty that they never
1500 Brazil is discovered a little Jewish knowledge and kept the secret Although the historical record agrees with was being built, the excavators discovered two forgot that they were Jews —and that they
1506 Massacres of New Christians in Lisbon result in many fleeing to Africa; Crown community somewhat aware of conditions Professor Simms that sometime in the mid- things: the sword of Alvaro de Caminha, and passed on a stubborn resistance against the
counts “1,000 residents on the Island” in Europe and elsewhere in the Portuguese 1500s New Christians from São Tomé went the burial place of the Jewish children. Naturally, Catholic Church to their children. How can such
1510s Jewish children married off to African slaves Empire.” to Brazil to help build that country’s nascent Professor Liba rushed to the site. a claim be made?
1540s New Christians from São Tomé go to Brazil to help with its sugar production sugar industry, a new question arises:Who went “The story sounded plausible,” he recalls. The historical records tell us that the
1550s By now most plantations owners on São Tomé are of mixed race Did any of the children ever manage to to Brazil? Were they really the descendants of “It’s a Christian tradition to have the graveyard prejudices that haunted the New Christians in
1570s Filipe de Nis (formerly Solomon Marcus), a Portuguese New Christian active in the leave the island? the children of São Tomé? Or were there other near the church. But behind the church there Portugal and elsewhere in Europe eventually
slave trade during the 1550s–1570s, is accused of Judaizing by jealous Old Christians on the “It is likely that some of the children — New Christians on the island? was a small garden – and nothing else. No signs, found their way to São Tomé. In other words,
island; he later returns to Europe, where he is arrested by the Italian Inquisition twenty, thirty years later, of course — did leave Robert Garfield, author of A History of São no graves, no cross, no matzeivah.” Professor some of the conversos were accused of being
1580s Sugar production begins to decline, due to competition from Brazil the island, for we find them arrested by the Tomé Island, believes that the descendants of the Liba adds that he never saw a trace of the sword, “Judaizers.” While some scholars believe that
1623 Bishop Francisco de Soveral is sent to São Tomé to “eliminate the many Jews there” Inquisition in Italy and charged with Judaizing.” children became some of São Tomé’s wealthy either. these charges had more to do with financial
and on the West African mainland and powerful plantation owners. So would they During his exploration of the island,Professor competition and petty jealousies than any real
1800s After cocoa is introduced in the early 1800s, São Tomé becomes one of the world’s have left behind their families and plantations to Liba did see two Jewish graves located off to one effort on the part of the conversos to practice
largest cocoa producers go off to the wilds of Brazil? Another wrinkle is side of São Tomé’s main cemetery. However, the Jewish religion, nonetheless, at least one
1975 The islands of São Tomé and Príncipe gain their independence from Portugal provided by historian Malyn Newitt,who believes they date to the late 1800s (the Inquisition was document from the year 1632 states: “… the
1995 International conference on the Jewish children of São Tomé held on the island that Portugal continued to use São Tomé as a abolished in 1821) and belong to two Moroccans island (São Tomé) is so infested with New
2003 Oil deposits are discovered off the coast place of exile for conversos until the year 1535. of Portuguese descent,Arão Gabai and Avraham Christians, that they practice the Jewish rites
2010 São Tomé opens tenders for oil exploitation Indeed, Professor Hull, in his book, claims that Cohen, who were most likely merchants visiting almost openly” (L’ancien Congo d’après les archives
by the 1540s, when conversos left São Tomé for the island on business. romaines, 1518–1640, J. Cuvelier and L. Jardin).
Brazil, the conversos were the dominant group He also saw a Magen David embedded in the Another document, this one dated April
on the island. So was it a different group of floor of a chapel located near a cocoa plantation 24, 1691, and written by a local priest named
conversos who went to Brazil — and eventually called Agua Ize. But as Professor Liba points out, Giuseppe Maria da Busseto, laments,“In this city,
returned to Europe — while the children’s it proves nothing, since a six-pointed star wasn’t which has no bishop, if there are two priests,
descendants remained in São Tomé? a uniquely Jewish symbol until fairly recently. A including the Reverend Father Prefect, they are
We will probably never know. later report of a second Magen David, this one almost too many, since not many people come
engraved into a pillar, turned out to be a false to our church.”
What Remains Today? alarm: it had only five, and not six, points. Professor Simms therefore sums up the
When Professor Liba was in São Tomé back Some islanders have said that the influence children’s legacy by saying, “While it is a terrible
in the 1990s, the country’s then–prime minister, of the Jewish children can be seen in certain local tragedy — a narrative of slavery, child abuse and
Miguel Trovoada, said to him, “Ambassador, customs and rituals, particularly in the island’s religious persecution — it is also an amazing
we have common roots. The Jewish children burial customs. However, most scholars agree story of Jewish survival in a variety of forms.” n
brought here as slaves from Portugal were the that if such influences do exist, it’s more likely
first settlers of this island.”

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