The mass conversion of Jews in Portugal to Catholicism in 1497, which led to the creation of a Converso or New Christian social group within that society, evolved at the precise moment when Portugal became a seaborne empire. Many Conversos prospered in this emerging merchant class, becoming dominant in international trade and banking. From the sixteenth century onwards, they were called: "businessmen" or "men of commerce" ("hómens de negócios"), adding a socio-economic stereotype to the religious accusation of being judaizers or "potential Jews." However, that cliché also served Conversos and their sympathizers to claim that Portugal's prosperity depended on these "men of commerce. " Therefore, to avoid economical collapse Conversos have to be integrated, they argued, into the "Old Christian " society, including the elites. To attain that goal, prejudices against them, the biased procedures adopted by the Portuguese Inquisition and the juridical ethnic segregation inspired by the "laws of purity of blood " would have to disappear.
During the seventeenth century, several tracts imbued with Mercantilism subsumed Iberian economic restoration to Converso integration. These pro-Converso writings were far from being homogeneous, since beyond diversity of approach, all of them had to reconcile their calls for integration with the recognition that Christians of Jewish descents could be perceived as a separate group, since they were gifted in commerce. Thus, while the Spanish licenciado Martín González de Cellorigo (1565?-1630?) [fig. 1] advocated a royal policy of integration of the group, the PortugueseConverso merchant Duarte Gomes Solis (c. 1561- c. 1630) [fig. 2] called to reduce it to a small group of rich New Christian merchants. The great preacher and missionary Jesuit, Father António Vieira (1608- 1697) [fig. 3], was the most persistent and brilliant advocate on behalf of the Portuguese Conversos. For him, a real integration of the New Christians into Catholic society was needed both to ensure Portugal's economic prosperity and to enable that kingdom to fulfill the role of promoting Christian messianic salvation.
