Abraham Senior Teixeira

Abraham Senior Teixeira , also Abraham Senior and Diego Teixeira de Sampayo (born around 1581 probably in Lisbon ; died on January 6, 1666 in Hamburg ) was a Portuguese-Jewish banker and wholesale merchant. He worked for the Prince of Holstein-Gottorf and the King of Denmark and was the financial administrator of Queen Christina of Sweden after her abdication.

Life

Teixeira came from a noble, very wealthy Marran family. His Christian name was Diego Teixeira with the addition "de Sampayo" or "de Mattos". Like the family of his father Dom Manuel Teixeira de Sampayo, that of his mother Guimar Lopes belonged to the so-called New Christians (cristãos novos). Teixeira settled in Brazil for a short time . From 1613 he carried out his international business mostly from Antwerp . In 1616 he married Braca de Rodrigo de Andrade there, from a likewise neo-Christian-Marran family. After her death in 1622, he took her niece Anna Sara de Jorge de Andrade as his wife, who gave birth to their son Manuel Teixeira in 1631 .

In 1622 Teixeira was elected consul of the "Portuguese nation" for the first time in Antwerp. In 1643 the Spanish court confirmed its aristocratic origin and its coat of arms. After a short stay in Cologne, he settled in Hamburg in July 1646 and ran an important trading company here with his son Manuel. Various European royal courts were supplied with luxury items, money and exchange transactions were handled primarily for the Prince of Holstein-Gottorf and the King of Denmark , and they were involved in the overseas and jewelery trade. Queen Christina , who abdicated in 1654 , made Teixeira her resident in Hamburg in 1655 and entrusted him with the management of her property.

In 1647 Teixeira officially converted to Judaism. On Good Friday he had himself and his son Manuel circumcised and took the Jewish name Abraham . Accordingly, Abraham Senior Teixeira calls his tomb in the Jewish cemetery on Königstrasse in Altona. The event caused a sensation and the protest of the pastor and senior citizen of the Ministry of Spirituality, Johannes Müller , who also polemicized against the presence of Jews in Hamburg. Emperor Ferdinand II protested at the City Council of Hamburg against the " apostasy " that Teixeira had lived as a Catholic in Antwerp. However, the Hamburg council saw no reason to intervene; Other people before Teixeira would have done the same. A trial against Teixeira before the Reich Chamber Court tax was ended in 1654 with a pardon from the court. Even contemporaries suspected that the prosecution was an excuse to confiscate Teixeira's fortune, which the Hamburg envoy in Vienna estimated at 200,000 to 300,000 guilders .

1657 obtained Teixeira from King Friedrich III. of Denmark freedoms for the Jews, which Christian V later confirmed. Also in 1657 Teixeira was elected to the board of the Sephardic community in Hamburg. In 1658 he paid more than a sixth of the community contributions, 660 of 3106 marks. He made several valuable donations to the community and gave money to buy a plot of land for a synagogue. Two foundations went back to him: to equip needy virgins and to release prisoners . During the construction of the main church Sankt Michaelis (1647–1669) he procured the copper sheet for the roof and paid for it.

Teixeira died on January 6, 1666. He is buried with his second wife Sara Senior Teixeira (died December 5, 1693) in the Jewish cemetery in Hamburg-Altona. At his funeral there were riots, the mourners were insulted and pelted with dirt. His business was continued after his death by his son Manuel Teixeira.

literature

• Michael Studemund-Halévy : Biographical Lexicon of the Hamburg Sephardic Islands. The grave inscriptions of the Portuguese cemetery on Königstrasse in Hamburg-Altona . Christians, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-7672-1293-5 , ( Hamburg contributions to the history of German Jews 22).
• Michael Studemund-Halévy: "Ministers from foreign powers reside in Hamburg". Sephardic residents in Hamburg. In: Rotraud Ries, J. Friedrich Battenberg (Ed.): Court Jews - Economy and Interculturality. The Jewish business elite in the 18th century . Christians, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-7672-1410-5 , ( Hamburg contributions to the history of German Jews 25), pp. 154–176, (about Christina's Hamburg bankers and residents Diogo [Abraham] and Manoel [Isaac] Senior Teixeira) .
• Michael Studemund-Halévy, in: Kirsten Heinsohn : The Jewish Hamburg. A historical reference work. Wallstein Verlag 2006, p. 229 Senior Teixeira, family .
• Michael Studemund-Halévy:  Teixeira, Diogo. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 26, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-428-11207-5 , p. 9 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Max Grunwald : Portuguese graves on German soil. Contributions to the history of culture and art . Janssen, Hamburg 1902.
• Isidore Singer, Meyer Kayserling :  Diego Teixeira Sampayo (Abraham Senior Teixeira). In: Isidore Singer (Ed.): Jewish Encyclopedia . Funk and Wagnalls, New York 1901-1906.
• Heinrich Graetz History of the Jews from the earliest times to the present. Leipzig 1897, Volume 10, pp. 425–428 (Abraham Diego Texeira and Manuel Isaak Texeira)
• Selma Stern: The court Jew in the age of absolutism. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2001. Page 94 ff.
• Hermann Kellenbenz : Diego and Manoel Teixeira and their Hamburg company , in: Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte , 42nd vol., H. 4 (1955), pp. 289-352.

Web link

• Senior Teixeira, family. In: dasjuedischehamburg.de

Remarks

1. ↑ Max Grunwald: Portuguese graves on German soil. Contributions to the history of culture and art. Janssen, Hamburg, 1902, p. 124.
2. ^ Günter Böhme: Anti-Jewish resentments. In: The Sephardi in Hamburg. Edited by Michael Studemund-Halévy. Volume 1: On the history of a minority. Pp. 89, 98 books.google