history

Antonio Lopes Suasso: Migrant, Expat and Knowledge Worker in a Global City

The beating heart of the global economy and a magnet for migrants: that was Amsterdam in the seventeenth century. For the first time in its history, it became a Jewish city, a ‘Mother in Israel’ for Jews scattered far and wide. All these developments converged in the life of Portuguese merchant Antonio Lopes Suasso.

With some degree of caution, Antonio Lopes Suasso arranged a meeting with Abraham and Isaac de Pinto in the polder village of Lillo in the autumn of 1653. He had once known them in Antwerp as Gil Lopes Pinto and Manuel Alvares Pinto. But by now, the Pintos had been living in Rotterdam and Amsterdam for six years under their new names. Like so many Portuguese merchants before them, they had returned to the Judaism of their ancestors in the tolerant Dutch Republic.

Abraham’s daughter – formerly Violante, now Rachel – had been widowed, and her father was searching for a new groom for her. Antonio was a renowned Antwerp merchant, also of Jewish descent. He had led an adventurous life but was approaching forty and wanted to start a family. Rachel was still young and had two children (her fertility was thus assured), and she belonged to a prominent and wealthy family. A decision had to be made. Would he also move north and convert to the Jewish faith of his Portuguese ancestors?

Antonio Lopes Suasso was born on 9 April 1614 in Bordeaux, where he was baptised Catholic. He belonged to a distinguished and highly educated family, with physicians and university professors as a father and brothers and a brother who was a Catholic clergyman. Like the Pintos, the Lopes family belonged to the nuevos cristianos, or new Christians – descendants of the Jews in Portugal who had become Christian in 1497, by order of the Portuguese king. Like the Pintos, the Lopes family, who had moved to Bordeaux, had by no means forgotten their Jewish heritage. One of Antonio’s brothers – a merchant like himself – and some of his sisters also converted to their ancestral faith in the north.

In any case, the decision was made in Lillo, and the marriage contract was drawn up – perhaps the substantial dowry of 130,000 guilders was the deciding factor, as merchants like Antonio were practical by nature. Six months later – probably at the end of March 1654 – Antonio and Rachel were married. Antonio had moved to the Dutch Republic, undergone circumcision and adopted a Jewish name: from then on, he was known within the Jewish community as Isaac Israel Suasso. Under this name, on 1 May 1654, he purchased two properties in Amsterdam, the Grote and Kleine Hercules, located at the corner of Raamgracht and Groenburgwal, diagonally opposite the Zuiderkerk (Southern Church). He lived for the next twenty years with Rachel and her children. The family expanded with the birth of six more children, two boys and four girls.

Migrant city

The neighbourhood where they lived was relatively new, having only become part of the city half a century earlier, and it was home to numerous newcomers. Antonio’s brothers-in-law lived nearby, on Sint Antoniesbreestraat, and they were by no means the only Portuguese merchants residing there.

The members of the nação, or the “nation”, like many immigrants past and present, preferred to live close to one another. They were not the only ones. On the streets, Antonio would have heard not only his own Portuguese, but also the familiar sounds of French and Spanish, Dutch in all its forms, German, Norwegian, English, Italian, Armenian and possibly even African languages. A small African community had also emerged in Amsterdam, some of whom had lived in slavery, while others had arrived as servants accompanying the Portuguese. With the latter, Antonio shared not only the language but often also the Jewish faith. This was not a given: in his neighbourhood, he encountered churches of various Protestant denominations and would have been able to find the house churches of Catholics and Armenians.

Many of Antonio’s neighbours were merchants like himself or in some way involved in the global trade of the Vermaerde Koopstadt (Renowned Trading City) as sailors, shipbuilders or dockworkers. From the Grote and Kleine Hercules, Antonio could easily walk to warehouses and shipyards – from his house to the Stock Exchange, built in 1609, it was a ten-minute stroll, and the East India House was just a stone’s throw away.

By 1654, Amsterdam was at the height of its power and prosperity. The mighty trading city on the River IJ had ensured that, with the Peace of Münster in 1648, the River Scheldt remained closed. This made Antwerp a lot less interesting to the Portugaelse Coopluijden (Portuguese merchants) such as the Pintos and Antonio. Throughout the seventeenth century, Portuguese migrants continued to arrive in Amsterdam, much to the satisfaction of the city council.

Antonio and his fellow Portuguese were, in fact, affluent knowledge workers: not only did they bring their often considerable wealth to the city on the IJ, but also their expertise in African, American and Asian trade goods, as well as their extensive trading networks in Portugal, Spain and the colonies of these southern European world powers. Antonio embodied this perfectly: as a young man, he had travelled through Spain as a wool merchant. In Amsterdam, he imported large quantities of high-quality Spanish wool, as it was in high demand among the large Dutch textile industry of the time.

Like many Portuguese, he also participated in trade in Cádiz, the hub of the Spanish trading empire, and in large-scale smuggling trade between the Dutch Republic and the Spanish colonies. He imported diamonds and gemstones from India and also invested in shares of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Dutch West India Company (WIC). In 1674, he was already the largest Jewish shareholder in the West India Company, with 107,667 guilders; his son inherited 129,000 guilders in VOC shares. Many Portuguese were, like him, deeply involved in global trade – and thus also in the exploitation that it often involved.

Mother in Israël

While Amsterdam’s city council was welcoming to the Portuguese, when many of them sought to return to the faith of their ancestors, they were initially hesitant. Jews had never lived in Amsterdam before, and the Dutch had traditionally held prejudices against them. Yet a combination of Amsterdam’s tolerance, a sense of recognition – had Dutch Protestants not also been persecuted by the Spanish king? – and, last but not least, the desire to retain the wealthy knowledge workers with their valuable networks, proved decisive.

By the time Antonio settled in Amsterdam in 1654, around 3,600 Jews were already living there, making up 1.4 per cent of the population. Close to his home was the synagogue of the Portuguese Jews. The still-existing community Kahal Kados Talmud Tora had been the hub of the Portuguese community since 1639. Wealthy merchants governed the community and had appointed rabbis who could teach new Jews like them the faith.

Upon his arrival, Antonio naturally became a yehid, or member of Talmud Torah. He immediately turned out to be the wealthiest member and paid the highest possible annual contribution of seventy-five guilders. He was also swiftly appointed to the community’s government board and served, among other things, as parnas (elder) four times. During his tenure, he was one of the parnassim who, on 27 July 1656, excommunicated the young merchant Bento de Spinoza from the community. In 1654, he had conducted business with Spinoza, who had paid him 1,780 guilders. Spinoza chose a completely different path in life, but he was not the only Portuguese who struggled to adhere to the rules of Talmud Torah. Not all of Amsterdam’s nuevos cristianos returned to Judaism, and within the community, there were frequent disputes over religious matters. Even the rabbis themselves could hold fiercely opposing views.

Yet the community flourished and grew. A defining moment for the Portuguese Jews was the ceremonial inauguration of their Esnoga, the synagogue that immediately became renowned far and wide and was built between 1671 and 1675. Until then, it had been unthinkable in Europe for a synagogue to be built on such a grand scale and to stand so prominently: for centuries, it towered above the surrounding buildings. From the very beginning, the Esnoga attracted numerous foreign visitors who came to admire the building and experience the Jewish worship services. Antonio, of course, contributed to its construction, donating six hundred guilders – the largest individual contribution.

The influence of Jewish Amsterdam was significant. Elsewhere, Portuguese Jews began establishing their own communities, including in London, where Antonio’s younger brother settled and also served as parnas. The Amsterdam community set an example – an Em be-Yisrael, a Mother in Israel. The reputation of Amsterdam’s tolerance spread among other Jewish communities across Europe. By the time Antonio arrived in the city, Jews from Central Europe had also made Amsterdam their home.

Two communities

The Portuguese Jews were not entirely pleased with this: they regarded the newcomers as poor, uneducated and ignorant. Soon, the Central European Jews formed their own community under gentle pressure. Thus, two Jewish communities emerged in Amsterdam: the Ashkenazim, from Ashkenaz (or Central Europe) and the Sephardim, from Sepharad (the Hebrew name for Spain).

Someone like Antonio had little in common with the first-mentioned fellow believers. As a highly educated and wealthy Portuguese, he dressed in Western European fashion and probably could not understand the Yiddish spoken by the bearded Ashkenazim, who often wore traditional Eastern European attire. Christian Amsterdammers, too, had little regard for these Jews. Yet their numbers steadily increased, driven by persecution in Central Europe as well as the lure of Amsterdam’s prosperity.

During Antonio’s lifetime, the Sephardim were the dominant Jewish community, numbering between four and six thousand inhabitants around 1700. At that time, the Ashkenazim numbered approximately 3,200 but grew to 15,000 in the 18th century, while the Sephardim remained at around 5,000. By 1800, Amsterdam’s Jewish population of over 20,000 people made up about ten per cent of the city’s total population. Even though it continued to increase, that percentage remained stable until the Shoah. Also for the Ashkenazim, Amsterdam became ir va’ em be’yisrael – a city and mother in Israel.

The Sephardim kept their distance from the Ashkenazim, even though the latter often worked for the wealthy Portuguese. However, the outside world did not always recognise the distinction between the two groups. Jews generally felt safe in Amsterdam, but even in this tolerant merchant city, tensions existed between different population groups. Jews were frequently insulted and sometimes attacked, though never by their neighbours. A striking phenomenon were the bridge fights between Jewish and Christian boys on the Blauwbrug, the bridge over the Amstel near Antonio’s home. Such bridge fights occurred throughout the city and could last for hours. They often resulted in injuries and, on occasion, even fatalities.

Seventeenth-century expat

It is unknown whether Antonio ever experienced mistreatment. The self-assured portrait he had painted suggests he was not someone who would allow himself to be pushed around. Certainly not later in life, as by then he had gained considerable prestige and even acquired a baronial title. By 1674, Antonio was the wealthiest Jew in Amsterdam, with an estimated fortune of 231,000 guilders. He was followed by his mother-in-law and his brother-in-law Isaac, who were worth 130,000 and 125,000 guilders, respectively. These amounts were almost certainly underestimated.

Antonio did not remain in Amsterdam, however. Like many Portuguese in that respect, he was an expat who could just as easily settle elsewhere. From 15 February 1674, he became the representative of the Spanish king and, in his own words, a “marchand-banquier”, a merchant banker who lent large sums of money to both the Spanish king and Stadtholder William III, allies in a prolonged war against France. Presumably, that is why he moved to The Hague, where the stadtholder’s court was based. The Spanish king was unable to repay his debts and therefore elevated Antonio to the nobility in 1676. He was granted the right to purchase the Barony of Avernas-le-Gras, a small village on the border between Brabant and Liège.

There is no doubt that Antonio valued his new noble status: when he wrote his will in 1677, he was about to travel to his barony. He continued to constantly travel between Amsterdam, Antwerp and The Hague. He also determined that he should be buried wherever he died. That place turned out to be The Hague, where he passed away on 9 March 1685. However, his son had him buried at Beth Haim, the Portuguese-Jewish cemetery in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel. There, he too would be laid to rest, for although the Suasso barons mostly lived elsewhere, they remained loyal to their city and mother in Israel. They only sold their ancestral home on the Raamgracht in 1800.

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