Eurafrican-Barrow-Lousada

We begin with two fundamental truths; 6. Using 'Judaism' in the religious sense. 7. Using 'Jewishness' in the ethnic sense. This is a family-history site for the Barbadian branches of the Baruch/Baruh, Lousada and Barrow families, and for the African, Asian and European lines that met in them. It follows the layout of barrow-lousada.org: a fixed contents column and plain, readable chapters, with some innovations and room for flamboyance.

Genealogical claims below come from the research at barrow-lousada.org, Barbadian Anglican Archives, the oral testimony of Elders, Family Histories, and other cited sources, though we make note that Anglicization was likely common in Barbados. Where something is a proposal rather than a documented fact, it says so.

The Baruch Lousadas of Barbados

Four Baruh Lousada siblings (David, Aaron, Gracia and Abraham) appear in Wilfred Samuel's 1680 survey as the first of the family in Barbados. Aaron Baruch Louzada is described as a Barbados magnate present from 1659. Around 1705, four siblings went on to Jamaica, and four generations of Barbados Baruh Louzadas have been charted.

Barbados also left mixed-race Baruch Lousada descendants. Errol Barrow, first Prime Minister of independent Barbados, told Mordechai Arbell he descended from them; his elder sister Dame Nita Barrow became Governor-General in 1990, his cousin, Sir Hugh Springer aided in forming the Barbados Labour Party and served as the Governor General prior to Dame Nita Barrow, Sir Hugh Springer was left alone to conduct the opening ceremony of the Central Bank of Barbados following an organized boycott, the conflict stemmed from the seizure of assets in Spry Street, where Sephardic Jews historically resided, the Nidhei Israel was also seized at this time, which Sir Paul Altman rose up against.

The Barrow line

Simon Barrow of Barbados (1709–1801) was the son of an Ashkenazi man named Baruch. The name Shimon bar Baruch, "Simon son of Baruch," was most naturally anglicised to Simon Barrow. His son was named Baruch Barrow, after that grandfather.

The Barrow–Lousada link is likely to run through Livorno, where the Baruch Lousada name arose around 1640. Whether Simon's mother was a Baruch Lousada or a Levi Lousada is not settled, so his Sephardic ancestry stays uncertain. Simon's grandson Simon Barrow of Bath married into and worked alongside the Jamaican Baruh Lousadas.

Kasa Baruch / Kasa Baruh

Kasa Baruh, short for Kasa Baruh de Louzada, describes itself as an archive, dynasty and business run by the illegitimate descendants of The Barrow-Lousada. In Barbados the family is known by its anglicisation, Barrow. Its online house, El Mercado de Kasa (kasabaruch.com), calls itself a Dutch Barbadian, Baruh Lousada business specialising in Eurafrican Jewish culture and sells the book Eurafrican Jewry, The Six Treatises.

Kasa Baruh is clear that not everyone named Barrow descends from the lines demonstrated here, but everyone is free to contribute their histories and research: there were other Barrows and Baruh Lousadas, some Ashkenazi and some of unknown origin.

Pedigree of Dama di Louzada (as published by Kasa Baruh)

Gen.Person
1Pedro de Lousada
2Amador de Lousada, a shoemaker from Vinhais imprisoned by the Coimbra Inquisition
3David Baruch Louzada of Italy
4Aaron Baruch Lousada #376, Dutch Sephardic settler of Barbados (Italy, France, Amsterdam)
5Solomon Baruch Lousada #712
6Aaron Baruch Lousada #714
7Emanuel Lousada of St. Michael
8Amelia Baruh of St. Michael
9Hetibell Barrow of St. Michael
10Alfred Daniel Barrow and Philis Ann Lashley of St. John
11Benjamin Walter Barrow and Frances Elizabeth Deane of St. John
12Martin Luther Barrow and Annie Squires of St. John
13Hesther Hewell Squires and Oliver Errol Bowen of St. Michael
14Peter Anderson Bowen and Luceta Maria King of St. Michael
15Dama di Louzada of Christ Church and St. Michael

The #376, #712 and #714 numbers match the numbering used at barrow-lousada.org. There, Aaron #714 is the Barbados Aaron, son of Solomon #712, and Amelia Baruh is named as a possible carrier of the line Errol Barrow claimed. Amador de Lousada also appears in that site's Amsterdam research.

Maternal lines

Luceta Maria King's parents were Lance Neville King II and Merle Mary Shirley Springer. Kasa Baruh traces the Kings through Lance Neville Trehane King I and Vera Beatrice Yarde, and through Violet Trehane, of Portuguese Sephardic or Bnei Anusim descent. The Springers descend from Frederick Springer and Constance Callender, and Ione Springer (born Irene) descended from Florence Nightingale Barrow. The family held property on Spry Street near the synagogue district.

The Lousada claim

Errol Barrow said his ancestor was Shimon bar Baruch of Prague. Kasa Baruh proposes that its line came from Shimon's second wife or affair, Sarah Barrow, whose children included Joseph Barrow and "the coloured boy" Richard Barrow. It notes Sarah may have been a Lousada, which is not confirmed. Martin Luther Barrow, a Spanish-speaking traveller to Panama, told his daughter he was a relative of Errol Barrow. Luceta Maria King asserts through her mother, Merle, she is also a relative to him and Sir Hugh Springer, however there are many possibilities, we regard note 28, and question whether the Bella had Lousada ancestry; Note: 28. "It may be that some of the present-day Barrows of Barbados descend not from Simon Barrow and Bailah Montefiore but from the local Baruch Lousadas!" – If this were the case, then which Barrow would have had Barbadian descendants who retained the name Barrow becomes the question, and how do those descendants match Robert Barrow's likely birthdate, which was atleast 17 years before 1888, the Birth of Reginald Grant Barrow. It is also possible that Merle Mary Shirley descended from an alternative Barrow Springer marriage other than Florance Nightgale Barrow and Charles Springer, possibilities are yet to be explored. The origins of Constance Callander are also unknown. She was atleast partially of South-East Asian descent, whether or not she had European origins as well is unknown.

Therefore these are Kasa Baruh's own reconstructions. barrow-lousada.org treats Simon Barrow's mother and Sephardic ancestry as unsettled, but he was likely entirely Ashkenazi. Likewise, expect exceptions, as some descendants, like Hesther Hewell Squires of Martin Luther Barrow do not appear in wills nor do their fathers claim them on their birth records—a common practice in Barbados, and can only be proven by oral testimony, or in the case of Martin Luther, marriage to their mothers, Anne Barrow nee Squires. Knowledge of Martin Luther Barrow as Hesther's father arrived before the record proving that they were married, exemplifying the nature of these reconstructions. Peter Anderson Bowen suggests that his mother, Hesther, was not claimed by Martin Luther at birth because of a potentially questionable behaviour from Martin Luther Barrow, nevertheless, she would have other children for him. One of whom was murdered for being too prolific with men's wives, Leo Barrow, who Hesther cried for.

About Afro-Sephardic Genealogy

Afro-Sephardic Genealogy in Barbados is exceptionally difficult to reconstruct in the colonial period, a combination of oral testimony, Christian Records, chronological and geographical mapping, as well as cultural and ritual continuity is required to contextualise and make sense of Afro-Jewish lineages within Barbados that were excluded from Jewish and Christian record keeping within Barbados, in the event Christian records do not exist, the ancestor in question becomes invisible outside of wills or secondary documents.

About Crypto Judaism

Not much is known about Barbadian Crypto-Judaism, save for the fact that Barbadian Crypto-Jews are attracted to Seventh Day Adventism, however, Martin Luther Barrow, Lance Neville King II, and Merle Mary Shirley Springer practiced Crypto-Judaism, where as Martin Luther Barrow's rituals were spoken in Spanish in full view, blessings before and after food, or to ward from harm, Merle's rituals were secretive and spiritually intimate endeavors, likely inspired by the Masonic Lodge they all frequented. Lance Neville King II was also secretive, but he was more inline with Orthodox Jewish Practice, his house was also aligned East and ordained in blue like his attire, indicating that he may have researched and reconstructed his devotional prayers.

La Santa Jenchi da Roza Kuartzo

What it is. La Santa Jenchi di Roza Kuartzo, "The Holy Kinzhip of the Roze Quartz," is a sovereign, insular literary court of the Dutch-Anglo-Sephardic Barrow Lousada lineage. It is modelled on the aesthetics and pride of the Western Sephardic diaspora and treats literature as an instrument of Justice, Romance and Family honour.

Origin

The court began when the Dama, at the start of her campaign against the Barbadian state's violently constructed historical narrative about Dutch Sephardic Jews, decided to form a literary collective. Occupied with political and queer rivalries, she could not at first give it a coherent structure. In her words, La Santa Jenchi is her answer and her court.

Who leads it

Kasa Baruh di Louzada, headed by the Dama de Louzada, personally promotes the work of the individual courtly poets.

Admission

The pen

In La Jenchi the pen is a blade, a means to serenade, and a tool to deconstruct injustice. Prose is the gateway to each poet's soul.

Life within the court

Members share solidarity across their individual causes, trade with one another, promote each other's work, and give political advice, editorial help and rhetorical sparring. They vote on the court's collective stance on geopolitical matters and on human-rights concerns that affect its members.

Economics and status

The court will produce some free public projects and invest heavily in exclusive, limited or paywalled content, which funds its poets and allies. It aims for a sustainable economic model for creatives in the 21st century, and everyone it works with is commissioned appropriately. It is currently a work in progress and is not yet accepting applicants. Its closing line: "Though, we shall be, sy kere el d-o" (God willing).

Voices of the Kasa

"My loyalty chart as a Dutch Barbadian Sephardic Jew"

The Dama published a chart ranking her loyalties by reciprocity: the lower a group ranks, the worse its treatment of her, her community or her identity.

LevelGroup
BoundlessThe Dutch State
UnyieldingThe Jewish People; the LGBTQIA. Jewish law is judged case by case, and Rabbinic Judaism is treated with skepticism.
PresumedLa Naçaõ
Typically loyalEurafrican Jews
ConditionalOrthodox Jews; the Democratic Labour Party (DLP); Ashkenazi Jews
NoneIsrael; Barbados; the Barbados Jewish Community (BJC)

Her stated reasons: Israel ignored her when she was persecuted in a Christian state, and she objects to what she calls its Ashkenormativity. She says she cannot be loyal to those who maintain Spinoza's cherem, to Jewish institutions that erase Afro-Sephardic history, or to a DLP that does not represent "the Will of the Barrows and Springers." She would extend respect to Rabbinic Judaism if it began a reparative process for the victims of intra-Jewish slavery, and she asks why Tikkun Olam does not begin with repairing its own house.

"Slavery wins!" on being bullied out of Jewish identity

In a longer essay she describes being called Christian, or a non-Jew, by Ashkenazi commenters and by some who invoke the maternal law. Her argument is that if the enslaved children of Jewish men are not Jewish, then Jews did not enslave Jews and no remedy is owed. She asks whether one can be Dutch Sephardic without being Jewish, notes the pull toward self-erasure, and concludes that she will not let slavery win.

On contested ancestry

In recent posts she argues that Errol Barrow's Jewish descent is sometimes dismissed as "self-asserted," that the documentary record was shaped by a system that excluded Barbadian Barrows and Springers, and that families baptised in the same period should share the same timeline. Other writers in this field take a more cautious view, and this site keeps both on the page.

Spinozism & Spinozist Judaism

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) was born in Amsterdam to a Portuguese-Jewish family; Baruch is his given name, Benedictus in Latin. His Ethics argues that God and Nature are one substance (Deus sive Natura), that everything follows by necessity, and that freedom lies in understanding our place in that order. Spinozist Judaism is still forming, for strategic reasons, a secretive practice sustained by ethical doubt and skepticism of religious myths.

The Baruch Lousadas moved in the same world: the Barbados–Amsterdam–Livorno Sephardic trading network. A 1694 Amsterdam deed shows David Baruch Louzada buying half a house on Swanenburgherstraat that bore a plaque reading "Isle of Barbados." It is also suggested by Julian Land that the Spinozas were likely related to the Lousadas, though they were certainly in-laws.

Within Kasa Baruh the reference is pointed: its rationalism is a baseline of La Santa Jenchi, and its loyalty chart refuses those who "maintain Spinoza's Cherem," the 1656 ban that expelled him from the Amsterdam community.

Spinozism leans closely toward Reformist, Humanist, and Progressive Judaism as suitable means for institutional refuge and coalition building, given their acceptance of individualised philosophical interpretations of Jewish Identity and Law. Kasa Baruh maintains that Humanist Judaism must extend into the Caribbean, Israel and Latin America, while the Dama believes Reformist Judaism must "Become more Radical and unconstrained by Orthodox Hegemonies."

Sources