Floating Identities

The Rodrigues de Leão Family (Portugal, France, and Brazil, 16^th – 18th Centuries)

Abstract

The Rodrigues de Leão family had characters typical from the Jewish diaspora: New Christians whose lives were molded by the need to survive in an intolerant society. Its members went through several identitarian states, from New Christians to Jews, then again to New Christians and some of them back to the Jewish faith. In the 17th century, members of the Rodrigues de Leão family left Portugal as New Christians, and by the time they established themselves in France, they were Jewish. Some of its members returned to Portugal and went to Brazil, where, in the 18th century, they were again considered New Christians. The question then becomes to try to understand why, once in France, where they could be Jewish freely, they returned to the so-called “idolatry lands” where they had to face the Iberic Inquisition persecution.