Inquisition Records: Thick with Family

"If the surname of your family is listed here, I can provide data as to what happened to them: Burned alive, garroted and burned, enslaved, life imprisonment, torture. Many members of the same family suffered this fate." **

[Illustration, wikicommons: Francisco de Goya, Inquisition Tribunal]

CLICK TO SEE: LIST OF NAMES -- PORTUGUESE INQUISITION RECORDS

From: LES NOMS DE FAMILLE DES ARCHIVES DE RECHERCHE DU PORTUGAL « TORRE FONT TOMBE Du livre édité par Flavio Mendes Carvalho ***

Family Surnames that I discovered:

ALMEIDA: Surname for my uncle (husband of my father's sister) and my godfather, Joaquim, who named me "Aldina," a Sephardic/Turkish name. The Almeidas held land in Pedreiras, my paternal parish. Their property was adjacent to or near one of Vazao and/or Sousa land holdings. Likely, the Almeidas are distant blood relatives of mine.

BTW, Almeida is also the name of a town in North-West Portugal -- important militarily because the once-fortified town was near a road connecting Portugal and Spain. Theoretically, if you were trying to escape from the Spanish Inquisition, Almeida might be a good place to cross into Portugal.

BISPO: Great-great grandmother's surname. The women on my mothers' side are referred to as "Bispas." Original Matriarch had 11 surviving children and ran regional trading business; the eldest daughter was my great-grandmother Maria, who had only one surviving child, my grandmother, Maria do Rosario CARVALHO.

***CARVALHO: Common name in native region of my maternal family. Oak forests predominated at time of town's founding; Carvalho is oak in Portuguese. Carvalho is surname of my maternal grandmother. The name Carvalho passed to my mother's two sisters but not to my mother.

According to my mother, her father Francisco didn't like the name Carvalho because just about everybody in the parish was named Carvalho. So when he registered my mother with the town clerk, Francisco dropped the name Carvalho and replaced it with "do Rosario," i.e., of the Rosary, which was my maternal grandmother's middle name. Subsequently, the authorities became more rigid about names, and Francisco had to register his two younger daughters under their mother's surname, Carvalho.

HENRIGUES: Henriques, surname of Maternal relatives; my mom & her cousin share same great-grandparents.

MATTOS: variation of surname of maternal cousin who emigrated to Brazil, and then to NY. Matos means woods. Mata connotes thicket, wild forest, jungle. And, mata is the imperative of "to kill" -- mata-os means Kill Them.

PINTO: Paternal Grandfather. He kept the Pinto name, and was known about town as "Francisco Pinto." Nonetheless, he tried to "upgrade" our identity by taking advantage of bureaucratic chaos and registering as Morgado, which was the surname of the region's original gentry. "Morgado" passed to my mother, but local authorities prevented my grandfather from "upgrading" names of his younger daughters. While Pinto is on the Inquisition rolls, Morgado is not. The Pinto name did not pass to me, but Morgado did.

SIMAO: variation of surname of maternal relatives, and of my mother's godmother & mentor, and of my sister's godfather.

SOUZA: Spanish version of Portuguese SOUSA. Surname of my paternal grandmother, and one of my father's surnames.

VAZ: variation, perhaps original version, of my surname Vazao. Vazao could mean "The Big Vaz." There is an area in Portugal called "Vale de Vazao."

XAVIER: Surname of mother's second cousin

** Translation of French original: "Si votre nom de famille est énuméré ici je peux fournir des données quant a ce qui leur est arrive. Ils furent : Brûlés vifs, garrotés et brulés, esclavage d'office, emprisonnement perpétuel, tortures."

PHOTO courtesy of Clara Castelar, saudades.org

Flying to America: REVOLUTION & its Discontents

I left Portugal nine days after junior officers led a coup against the semi-fascist regime that had dominated Portugal for decades.

My parents planned to work in America for two years, and save enough to mechanize the Vazao stone-cutting business. Then we would return to Portugal.

But then, the Carnation Revolution happened. And political & economic instability ensued. Thousands of refugees from the Portuguese colonies in Africa flooded into Portugal. Many had lost fortunes, and couldn't find jobs. People were desperate, and running out of patience. They wanted government assistance, and they wanted it NOW. My parents feared a Communist takeover.

My dad had initially supported the revolution, but I hadn't known that as a child. Both my parents seemed arch-conservative to me. Mostly, my mother ranted re: communists & my father said nothing, so I assumed he agreed. Yes, I was naive. But then, I was only four.

By 1976 (two years after the 25 de Abril Revolution), the Communists had gained substantial power among the ruling factions. Local communists (including some distant kin) had led the resistance in Portugal, as local communists had led the resistance against fascism in most countries in Europe. After decades, the Portuguese communists had become disciplined and well-organized compared to centrist and left-of-center factions. In the southern provinces, a few large estates had been invaded by landless peasants & Communist allies. Led by their bishops, Catholic priests preached the imminent threat of a Communist takeover.

Communist-led unions organized strikes, but much of the violence was spontaneous. The poor had been repressed for decades, and many acted recklessly. As my father said, "What does an abused and caged dog do when it escapes? It bites the Master." Given the cold war climate, my parents were terrified.

SEE: NYT Film Review re: Documentary: Scenes from the Class Struggle in Portugal (1977)

My mother's employment visa to America was sponsored by the Honeywell Corp, or some such. She was a tailor & embroidery teacher, who started her own school. More importantly, she designed wedding dresses and other custom-made garments [see: photo of one of her creations]. We were supposed to settle in Philadelphia.

Instead, we remained in Ossining where my mother had one cousin who had emigrated from Portugal to Brazil, and from Rio to the US. More important, her second cousin also lived there and was available to pick us up at Kennedy airport.

Yes, we have cousins in many cool places, including Paris & Madrid, and, at one time, Mozambique & Angola. The Portuguese are a mobile, swift-footed people. You never know what tomorrow holds. You may have to leave in the middle of the night. Literally, as did our cousins in Angola.

[To be Cont'd]

Want to see a film re: Carnation Revolution? CLICK: A funny thing happened on the way to the Revolution, re: Capitaes de Abril, or Captains of April (available on Netflix!)

STAY TUNED: I made a 10-minute video with still pictures & audio entitled, "Maria Vazao Wills a Miracle" for Oral History class @ Sarah Lawrence. Pictures will be posted. And perhaps audio too.

Decoding (my) Sephardic Heritage: Name Game, Exhibit A

I recently discovered that I'm likely of Jewish blood. Which is to say, my ancestors may have originated in Israel. Long Story. [Seriously long: I might even jump back to King David.]

Today, I begin my treatise on Sephardic Portuguese family names.

My father's family are likely relatively recent converts to Catholicism. The name Vazao is one of a kind. Translation: safety valve in a water system (read: sewer) created to prevent rupture. Used idiomatically -- dar vazao a-- to vent (potentially explosive) volatile thoughts. With a name like that, who would not muck-rake?

I traced Vazao @ NY Public Library Jewish genealogy room to Varzao, and then Varsano. The Italian s sounds the same as the Portuguese z. The name is registered @ Synagogue in Pulia, on the heal of Italy, along the Adriatic, and may trace back to Salonika (Thessalonia) in Macedonia/Greece, a major Jewish hot spot, aka, the Jerusalem of the Balkans.

Future Posts Watch:
"The Italian Connection," which includes comment re: Fellini film, Amarcord, one of the only instances I know of where the name "Aldina" figures prominently. Btw, my "naming" ceremony story reads like a passage from the Bible, w/ some light comedy swirled in. My godfather was a real life-of-the party L'CHAIM kind of guy. Yes, this tale just gets weirder and weirder.