Manuel I Expels Jews from Portugal

1496

The Portuguese king, under pressure from his Spanish in-laws, ordered Jews to convert or leave. Many chose conversion under duress; others boarded ships for Morocco, the Ottoman Empire, and the Low Countries. Iberian Jewish life, which had thrived for centuries, was being systematically dismantled in a single generation. The forced conversions created a population of New Christians whose sincerity was perpetually suspected, fueling the Portuguese Inquisition for three centuries.