Saving Monticello: The Newsletter
The latest about the book, author events, and more
Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson
Volume XIX, Number 9 September 2022
“The study of the past is a constantly evolving, never-ending journey of discovery.” – Eric Foner
THE REAL SAMUEL NUNES STORY: In Saving Monticello I told the fascinating story of one of Uriah Levy’s great-great-grandfathers, Samuel Nunes Ribiero, whom I described as “a prominent, well-to-do Portuguese physician,” and went on to say that he and his family were crypto-Jews, sometimes called conversos or marranos (which can be translated as “swine” or “pig”) and by one account made a thriller-worthy escape from the Spanish Inquisition.
Said escape involved a miraculous reprieve from the Grand Inquisitor; a stealth Passover Seder; and a British sea captain masterminding a daring plan for him, his mother, his wife, and their two sons and a daughter under the noses of their Inquisitorial overseers to London in 1726.
The Nunes family openly practiced Judaism in England. In 1733 they were among 40 Jews who immigrated to the colony of Georgia, where they changed the family name to Nunez, as indicated in the document, Early Settlers of Georgia (1783) below.
“The true story,” Alex Bueno-Edwards—who translated the page into English—wrote, “is less dramatic than the fantastically embellished version found all over the Internet, but much more compelling.”
What follows are facts that I found particularly compelling about the Samuel Nunes family and the Inquisition from Correia’s research—facts that I didn’t know when I was doing the research for Saving Monticello. That includes information about Dr. Nunes and his wife Gracia’s—and Uriah and Jefferson Levy’s—Portuguese ancestors.
First, a bit of genealogy:
· Samuel Nunes’
father, Manuel Henriques de Lucena, was
born about 1641 in São Vicente da Beira, about a 150 miles northeast of
Lisbon. A customs officer, he moved to Lisbon in 1703.
· Sometime around
1668 Manuel had married Samuel Nunes’ mother, Maria Nunes Ribeiro, who was born circa 1653, most likely in Idanha-a-Nova
not far from São Vicente da Beira, close to the border with Spain.
· Samuel Nunes’ paternal
grandparents were Diogo Gomes Henriques
and Isabel Henriques.
· His maternal
grandparents were Luis Lopes and Maria Riberio.
· Samuel Nunes married
Gracia Caetana da Veiga, born in
1676 in Lisbon.
· Gracia (later
known as Rebecca) was the daughter of André
de Sequeira, who was born about 1646 in Lisbon, a merchant and
businessman.
· Gracia’s mother was Maria Isabel da Veiga, born in Lisbon sometime before 1676.
The Inquisition records show that Dr. Samuel Nunes was Jewish, but was baptized a Roman Catholic to hide that fact. He had established himself in Lisbon by the turn of the 18th century, a particularly violent time of the Inquisition. After being denounced by about a dozen people, Dr. Nunes and his wife Gracia were arrested on August 23, 1703, along with his father Manuel. They were locked up in the prison at the Estaus Palace, the Portuguese Inquisition headquarters.
As for the testimony of their accusers, Arlindo Correia wrote: “As usual, the content of the complaints is repeated, with… variations and additions, following the established formulas: between [Catholic] practices, they declared themselves to be [observers] of the law of Moses for the salvation of their souls.”
Dr. Nunes testified that his wife was “a New Christian,” and that he was baptized, confirmed, learned catechism, and attended “the sacraments and Sunday Mass.” An Inquisitor challenged him, urging him to confess his guilt. He replied that he always “acted like a good Catholic,” and that he “never had any practice of Judaism or Jewish ceremony.”
The trial dragged on into the next year. On July 24, 1704, Dr. Nunes decided to “confess” in order to avoid being executed. In a long statement, he denounced “his father, his friends and acquaintances, coinciding greatly with the names of those who had denounced him.”
The Inquisitors accepted his confession on August 18, but because he didn’t denounce his wife—and perhaps because some of them were his patients—they spared his life. However, Dr. Nunes was tortured, according to the Inquisition records, for the crime of “not having mentioned his participation in any Jewish ceremony.” He underwent what Correia called “a Hurried treatment.” which “was longer and therefore more painful than the expert treatment.”
No need to go into the gruesome types of torture the Inquisitors subjected Jews and Muslims to. However, the records show that “strings”—most likely ropes—were involved and that the torture was so painful that Dr. Nunes made more confessions, even though he was unable to sign them.
Samuel Nunes was not released until May 14, 1706, although his wife Rebecca remained in prison because she refused to confess or give testimony against other family members. She was then tortured more severely than her husband was and eventually denounced several of her relatives. She was released on September 12, 1706. Twenty years later Dr. and Mrs. Nunes and their six children followed the path of other crypto-Jews in Portugal and escaped Lisbon and headed to London.
Next month we’ll pick up the story of what happened to the family in England, leading to their second adventure, the trip across the Atlantic Ocean to Georgia in 1733.
ELI EVANS, 1936-2022: Eli Evans, best known for his pioneering, best-selling book, The Provincials: A Personal History of Jews in the South, died July 26 in New York City of complications from COVID-19. He was 85. Published in 1971, The Provincials is widely regarded as the seminal history of Jews in the American South.
The book “explores the nuances of Southern Jewish identity,” New York Jewish Week said, “and belongs on bookshelves next to Irving Howe’s classic World of Our Fathers,” the famed 1976 history of Eastern European Jews who emigrated to the United States in the late 1890s and early 1900.
Eli Evans was born and grew up in North Carolina where his paternal grandfather had settled after fleeing Lithuania in the late 1800s. His father, Emmanuel “Mutt” Evans, was born in Fayetteville, owned a chain of general stores, and was the first Jewish mayor of Durham. His grandmother, Jennie Nachamson, founded the first Hadassah chapter in the South.
He moved to Washington, and worked as a speechwriter for President Lyndon Johnson, then for North Carolina Gov. Terry Sanford before relocating to New York City. He was working for the Carnegie Corporation when he wrote The Provincials. Evans went on to become the president of the Charles H. Revson Foundation, and later a founder of the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies at the University of North Carolina.
“I am one of those people who, when they read The Provincials, they felt for the first time a recognition,” Marcie Cohen Ferris, a UNC professor of American Studies who grew up in Arkansas, told The New York Times. “They had never seen their experience of Jewish life reflected this way.”
THE DOC: Steven Pressman’s great doc, The Levys of Monticello, is being screened at a bunch of film festivals this fall. It’ll be shown in September in five cities, either virtually or in-person: Cleveland, Chattanooga, Milwaukee, Dallas, and Charleston, S.C.
On October 10, it’ll be at the Jacob Burns Film Center as part of the Westchester Jewish Film Festival. There’s an in-person screen on Sunday, November 6, at the Virginia Film Festival in Charlottesville, after which I’ll be taking part in a Q&A with Steve and others in the film. The next screening is set for November 13 at the Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival in partnership with Philadelphia’s National Museum of American Jewish History.
For more info,
go to https://bit.ly/LevyDoc
EVENTS:
I’ll be taking part in a Book Fair on Saturday,
September 17, at Lansdowne Woods in Leesburg, Virginia. Along with a group
of other local authors, I’ll be signing copies of my books, including Saving Monticello, beginning at 10:00
a.m. in the spacious Lansdowne Clubhouse Auditorium. Then I’ll be part of a two-person
panel, “How to Get Your Book Published,” at 3:00. The event is free and open to
the public. The address is 19375 Magnolia
Grove Square, Leesburg, VA 20176.
On
Tuesday, September 27, I’ll be doing talk on Saving Monticello and a book signing at the monthly meeting of the
George Mason DAR Chapter in Springfield, Virginia.
For details on other upcoming events, check the Events page on my website https://bit.ly/NewAppearances
GIFT IDEAS: For a personally autographed, brand-new paperback copy of Saving Monticello, please e-mail marcleepson@gmail.com I also have a few as-new, unopened hardcover copies, along with a good selection of new copies of my other books: Flag: An American Biography; Desperate Engagement; What So Proudly We Hailed; Flag: An American Biography; and Ballad of the Green Beret: The Life and Wars of Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler.
