Jacob Curiel, alias for Duarte Nunes da Costa

https://www.sfarad.es/curiel/

alias for Duarte Nunes da Costa

De alias Jacob Curiel is de naam die gebruikt wordt in de Port. Isr. Synagoge/Gemeenschap.

“Empires and entrepots”

p. 333

According to well-known genealogical narration, Duarte Nunes da Costa was born 26 September 1587 and was the eldest son of the Lisbon physician Dr. Jeronimo Nunes Ramires (1545-1609) and his wife Maria da Fonseca. Thus in accordance with Sephardi naming practice, Duarte named his eldest son after his own father. Jeronimo Nunes Ramires was in turn the son of a certain Duarte Nunes of Coimbra after whom Duarte Nunes da Costa himself was named. This Duarte Nunes, we know, was a moderately well-to-do cloth merchant and was almost certainly a crypto-Jew as a letter which mentions him, dating form 1560 tells u that he carried on a correspondences with a brother Fernao Nunes who had fled to the Ottoman Empire and reverted to open Judaism in Constantinople.

The exact date of Duarte’s ennoblement was 14 June 1641, see British Library MS.Add. 46912, fos. Llr-v; Jonathan I. Israel

“A Jewish Calendar for 64 years

1647- John Iv. Appointed Geronimo Nunes da Costa Portuguese Consul, and subsequently Agent and resident at the Hague; and was honored by him with letters Patents of Nobility. The services he rendered the Untied Providence were sod highly appreciated by the States General, that they presented him with a Gold Chain and a Medal set in diamonds.

1697- Alexander Nunes da Costa succeeded to his father’s post and honours, although the most powerful interests had been used by various parties to obtain the high offices he held.

Back in the Peninsula, the Curiel brothers’ cousin Duarte Nunes Vitoria and two of their sisters were seized by the Inquisition. They were interrogated, tortured, imprisoned and exhibited at auto-da-fé before escaping Portugal and formally reverting to Judaism in Holland. In their confessions before the Inquisition, they reported clandestine Jewish religious gatherings in the home of Jeronimo Nunes Ramires, and attested that their family’s spiritual guide in Lisbon had bee Dr. Felipe Rodrigues Montalto.

In any case, after joining Jewish communities in Amsterdam and Hamburg, Jacob and David Curiel established themselves as important merchants, and so, possessing the appropriate credentials, proceeded to play a part in communal government. Jacob appears to have been a key figure in one of the critical developments in communal life in Amsterdam; the establishment in 1622 of the imposta board, on which he, his brother David and their cousin Duarte Nunes Vitoria (Abraham Curiel) all served at various times. In the next generation, when the Imposta board was replaced by the Mahamad of the united community, Jacob’s son Moses assumed a similar role, serving six terms of the Mahamad.

Yet both Jacob and Moses Curiel also served the Portuguese crown, however surprising that might seen. Jacob served as its agent in Hamburg from 1641 to 1664. In return for his services, Joao IV of Portugal made him a knight of his royal household (cavaleiro fidalgo), a rank later granted to his eldest son Moses (Jeronimo Nunes da Costa), agent of the crown of Portugal in the Netherlands from 1645 to 1697 and a figure of considerable political influence. Both father and son appear to have harbored genuine patriotic feelings about Portugal. Like other Portuguese Jews, Moses championed the Portuguese causes when that kingdom gained its independence from Spain in 1640, and once stated that he would always be “a good Portuguese and faithful servant of His Majesty.”

References

• “The Surprising Origins of the Coryell Family of Colonial New Jersey.” Avotaynu Online: RESEARCH INTO THE ORIGINS AND MIGRATIONS OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE. (Monday, January 23, 2023) < link > Jacob Curiel was born in Coimbra, Portugal, on September 26, 1587, as Duarte Nunes da Costa. … We know from the unique E-BY145801 variation that Jacob was an ancestor of Abraham Coriell of New Jersey, but the intervening generations are unknown. Given the Curiel family history, the intervening generations might well have included gentile women. Jacob’s brother David apparently fathered children out of wedlock, as the Portuguese Jewish communities in northern Europe had more than their fair share of men crossing social boundaries and having children with non-Jewish women.
  

Update:

• References regarding the date of his passing: "E para que todo o tempo conste do primor com que neste cazo ouvro Jacob Curiel, paresseo justo fazer termo no livro da nassao, em Hamburgo, 13 de Sebat 5423"

If you convert the date to the date of the jewish calender his passing would be January 21st, 1663.
Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41481641?saml_data=eyJzYW1sVG9rZW4iOiJ...