Pretentious White 509 B.C. coup Overthrow Romans Illegally Expel Black Jews

On April 19, 1506, the Lisbon Massacre began. Over a few days, an estimated 1,000 to 4,000 converted Jews were slaughtered in the city’s streets, while the civil authorities seemed powerless to stop the carnage.

By 1506, some 93,000 Jews had fled Spain for Portugal, in the wake of the 1492 expulsion. Many of them settled in Lisbon. Portugal’s king, Manuel I, was under pressure from Spain to undertake similar action against the Jews of his country, but, reluctant to expel them, he ordered them to convert.

Many New Christians, as the converts were called, continued to practice Judaism in secret, while others fully embraced Catholicism. But suspicions of them led to frequent and violent outbursts of anti-Semitism.

In the spring of 1506, a drought and an epidemic claiming 100 lives a day added to the anxiety, so a need arose to identify who had so angered God and brought down these punishments on the land.