“Me retraté/I caught myself”: Masking, revealing and the writing of identity in two autobiographical narratives of seventeenth century crypto-Jews in the Atlantic world.

This paper studies scenes of masking and disclosure in two autobiographical narratives of seventeenth century crypto-Jews in the Atlantic world. Antonio de Montezinos was a Portuguese converso travelling through the northern Andes when he had a series of encounters with a group of natives that called into question his own self-perception as a converso who was able to pass as “Spanish”. I will look at the role of identity in his narrative which was published as part of Menasseh Ben Israel’s Esperanza de Israel (1650) .I will trace the relationship between external signs and internal self-reckoning in this sparse but revealing narrative.

Manuel Cardoso de Macedo was a man whose multiple faith commitments were deeply connected to how others perceived him and how he presented himself to others. Cardoso begins his life as an Azorean Old Christian, he embraces Calvinism as a teenager living in England, is arrested for his heresy and finds Judaism in the jails of the Lisbon Inquisition. Upon his release he plays the part of a penitent Catholic while secretly deepening his knowledge and connection to crypto-Judaism until he makes his way to the open Judaism of the Naçao in Hamburg and then Amsterdam. In every stage of this spiritual itinerary Cardoso alternatively conceals and discloses his religious commitment depending on the needs of the moment.

Both cases offer intimate portraits of how early modern Jewish identity was perceived, constructed and transformed within the Converso and Western Sephardic context.