This document (ref 103) aims to resolve family money squabbles which evidently persisted until and beyond the 1695 death of the Barbados magnate Aaron Baruh Lousada #376 - his will and that of his wife Rachel Gomez Henriques are summarized here. From footnote 8 of Wilfred Samuel's survey of 1680 Jewish Barbados (ref 5) we could see that such irritations already existed in 1685! The death of Moses Baruh Lousada #46 seems to have occurred during the preparation of the document (see amendment on page 2) - he died on 2 Feb 1699 or thereabouts, and the document is notarized 19 Nov 1699. Curiously David Baruh Lousada #44 died shortly afterwards on 22 Dec 1699. The document lists payments in 3 different currencies - pounds, guilders and Barbados money. The fact that the agreement is silent on Gracia #43 of Barbados and Curacao probably means that while she assisted in business the widow of Aaron #376 after his death in 1695 her financial interests were confined to the Mercado business. We read the agreement to refer to Moses #1585 as brother of David #44 on page 1 (together with Abraham #45), and distinguish him from Moses #46 of London, who on page 2 is acknowledged as deceased and represented by his son Mordechai and as having had the alias Antonio. The 2 key parties to the agreement were David Baruh Lousada and Isaac Gomez the London brother of Rachel Gomez Henriques and it seems that David's compromises were key to the agreement in favour of London and Barbados! We thus consider the 'brothers' fall into 2 groups - the older cohort comprising Moses #46, Aaron #376 and Jacob #1388 (who died in 1681 and is not mentioned); and the younger cohort comprising David #44, Abraham #45 Moses #1585. Their birth years were 1640 (David), ~1650 (Moses) with Abraham's probably in between. That is, Moses #1585 and Abraham #45 being younger than David #44 were his full brothers. There is no mention of Solomon #1501 probably of the younger cohort who may have died since 1688 when he is commemorated at the Amsterdam synagogue. The absence of Moses #1585 in the will of Jacob Israel Pereira - where his full brother Abraham #45 is acknowledged as a 'cousin germain' of Jacob's father - probably reflects Moses #1585 spending his entire life in Surinam and Curacao (with David #44 being his prime Amsterdam correspondent) while Abraham #45 moved usefully between London and Amsterdam at a time when Jacob was developing his business as military contractor for William of Orange. |