Seminário
In Plain Sight: Sex and Scandal in the Streets of Curaçao

Seminários: Os Judeus em Portugal e na Diáspora

28 de Abril de 2022

18h00

Sala B112.B - FLUL

Coordenação: Ana Maria S. A. Rodrigues e José da Silva Horta

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No âmbito dos seminários «Os Judeus em Portugal e na Diáspora», realiza-se o seminário:

In Plain Sight: Sex and Scandal in the Streets of Curaçao

Jessica Roitman
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

ABSTRACT

In 1775, the Portuguese Jewish community of Curaçao, then numbering around 1100, was rocked by a bitter dispute involving allegations of sexual misconduct or, as the sources put it, “unpermitted familiarity”. The case threatened the social cohesion of the community and reminds us that the boundaries between the public and the private, especially in closely knit communities, could be porous indeed. The relationship between the adulterous lovers was conducted in plain sight of much of the city of Willemstad. Witnesses to their affair included a broad swathe of colonial society: housewives, merchants, doctors, colonial officials, enslaved and free people of color. They revealed their personal knowledge of the relationship and repeated hearsay, most of which was garnered on the streets of Willemstad after the affair became a matter of not only public interest, but intense and long-running legal wrangling that spanned continents.