title: Colonial Brazil

text: Tomé de Sousa, first Governor General of Brazil, brought the first group of Jesuits to the colony. More than any other religious order, the Jesuits represented the spiritual side of the enterprise and were destined to play a central role in the colonial history of Brazil. The spreading of the Catholic faith was an important justification for the Portuguese conquests, and the Jesuits were officially supported by the king, who instructed Tomé de Sousa to give them all the support needed to Christianise the indigenous people.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The first Jesuits, guided by Father Manuel da Nóbrega and including prominent figures like Juan de Azpilcueta Navarro, Leonardo Nunes and later Joseph of Anchieta, established the first Jesuit missions in Salvador and in São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga, the settlement that gave rise to the city of São Paulo. Nóbrega and Anchieta were instrumental in the defeat of the French colonists of France Antarctique by managing to pacify the Tamoio natives, who had previously fought the Portuguese. The Jesuits took part in the foundation of the city of Rio de Janeiro in 1565.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The success of the Jesuits in converting the indigenous people to Catholicism is linked to their capacity to understand the native culture, especially the language. The first grammar of the Tupi language was compiled by Joseph of Anchieta and printed in Coimbra in 1595. The Jesuits often gathered the aborigines into communities of resettlement called "aldeias", similar in intent to the reductions implemented by Francisco de Toledo in southern Peru during the 1560s. where the natives worked for the community and were evangelized. Founded in the aftermath of the campaign undertaken by Mem de Sá from 1557 to force the submission of Salvadoran natives, the "aldeias" marked the transition of Jesuit policy from conversion by persuasion alone to the acceptance of force as a means of organizing natives with a means to then evangelizing them. Nevertheless, these "aldeias" were unattractive to the natives due to the introduction of epidemic diseases to the communities, the forced settlement of "aldeia" natives elsewhere to labor, and raiding of the "aldeias" by colonists eager to steal laborers for themselves thus causing natives to flee the settlements. The "aldeia" model would again be used, though also unsuccessfully, by the Governor of the captaincy of São Paulo, , in 1765, in order to encourage mestizos, natives, and mulattoes to abandon slash-and-burn agriculture and adopt a sedentary farming lifestyle.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The Jesuits had frequent disputes with other colonists who wanted to enslave the natives, but also with the hierarchy of the Catholic Church itself. Following the creation of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of São Salvador da Bahia by the Pope, Bishop Pero Fernandes Sardinha arrived in Bahia in 1552 and took issue with the Jesuit mission led by Manoel da Nóbrega. Sardinha opposed the Jesuits taking part in indigenous dances and playing indigenous instruments since he viewed these activities had little effect on conversion. The use of interpreters at confession by the Jesuits was also railed against by Sardinha who opposed the appropriation of indigenous culture for evangelization. Sardinha also challenged the Jesuit prohibition on waging war against and enslaving the indigenous population, eventually forcing Nóbrega to leave Bahia for the Jesuit mission at São Vicente in late 1552 to return only at the conclusion of the Sardinha's tenure. The action of the Jesuits saved many natives from slavery, but also disturbed their ancestral way of life and inadvertently helped spread infectious diseases against which the aborigines had no natural defenses. Slave labour and trade were essential for the economy of Brazil and other American colonies, and the Jesuits usually did not object to the enslavement of African people.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The potential riches of tropical Brazil led the French, who did not recognize the Tordesillas Treaty that divided the world between the Spanish and the Portuguese, to attempt to colonize parts of Brazil. In 1555, the Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon founded a settlement within Guanabara Bay, in an island in front of today's Rio de Janeiro. The colony, named France Antarctique, led to conflict with Governor General Mem de Sá, who waged war against the colony in 1560. Estácio de Sá, nephew of the Governor, founded Rio de Janeiro in 1565 and managed to expel the last French settlers in 1567. Jesuit priests Manuel da Nóbrega and Joseph of Anchieta were instrumental in the Portuguese victory by pacifying the natives who supported the French.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Another French colony, France Équinoxiale, was founded in 1612 in present-day São Luís, in the North of Brazil. In 1614 the French were again expelled from São Luís by the Portuguese.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Since the initial attempts to find gold and silver failed, the Portuguese colonists adopted an economy based on the production of agricultural goods that were to be exported to Europe. Tobacco and cotton and some other agricultural goods were produced, but sugar became by far the most important Brazilian colonial product until the early 18th century. The first sugarcane farms were established in the mid-16th century and were the key for the success of the captaincies of São Vicente and Pernambuco, leading sugarcane plantations to quickly spread to other coastal areas in colonial Brazil. Initially, the Portuguese attempted to utilize Indian slaves for sugar cultivation, but shifted to the use of black African slave labor. While the availability of Amerindians did decrease due to epidemics afflicting the coastal native population and the declaration of king Sebastian I's 1570 law which proclaimed the liberty of Brazilian natives, the enslavement of indigenous people increased after 1570. A new slave trade emerged where indigenous people were brought from the "sertões" or “inland wilderness frontiers” by mixed-race mameluco under the loophole in the 1570 law that they were captured in just wars against native groups who "customarily" attacked the Portuguese. By 1580, as many as 40,000 natives could have been taken from the interior to toil as slaves on Brazil's interior, and this enslavement of indigenous people continued right throughout the colonial period.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The period of sugar-based economy (1530 – c. 1700) is known as the sugar cycle in Brazil. The development of the sugar complex occurred over time, with a variety of models. The dependencies of the farm included a "casa-grande" (big house) where the owner of the farm lived with his family, and the "senzala", where the slaves were kept. A notable early study of this complex is by Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre. This arrangement was depicted in engravings and paintings by Frans Post as a feature of an apparently harmonious society.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Initially, the Portuguese relied on enslaved Amerindians to work on sugarcane harvesting and processing, but they soon began importing enslaved Africans from West Africa, though the enslavement of indigenous people continued. The Portuguese had established several commercial facilities in West Africa, where West African slaves were bought from African slave traders. The enslaved West Africans were then sent via slave ships to Brazil, chained and in crowded conditions. Enslaved West Africans were more desirable and practical because many came from sedentary, agriculture-based societies and did not require as much training in how to farm as did members of Amerindian societies, which tended to not be primarily agricultural. Africans were also less vulnerable to disease than Amerindians were. The importation of enslaved Africans into Brazil was heavily influenced by the rise of sugar and gold industries in the colony; from 1600 until 1650, sugar accounted for 95% of Brazil's exports.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Slave labor demands varied based on region and on the type of harvest crop. In the Bahia region, where sugar was the main crop, conditions for enslaved peoples were extremely harsh. It was often cheaper for slaveowners to literally work enslaved peoples to death over the course of a few years and replace them with newly imported enslaved people. Areas where manioc, a subsistence crop, was cultivated also utilized high numbers of enslaved peoples. In these areas, 40 to 60 percent of the population was enslaved. These regions were characterized by fewer work demands and better living and working conditions for enslaved peoples as compared to labor conditions for enslaved populations in sugar regions.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The Portuguese attempted to severely restrict colonial trade, meaning that Brazil was only allowed to export and import goods from Portugal and other Portuguese colonies. Brazil exported sugar, tobacco, cotton and native products and imported from Portugal wine, olive oil, textiles and luxury goods – the latter imported by Portugal from other European countries. Africa played an essential role as the supplier of slaves, and Brazilian slave traders in Africa frequently exchanged "cachaça", a distilled spirit derived from sugarcane, and shells, for slaves. This comprised what is now known as the triangular trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas during the colonial period.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Merchants during the sugar age were crucial to the economic development of the colony, the link between the sugar production areas, coastal Portuguese cities, and Europe. Merchants in the early came from many nations, including Germans, Flemings, and Italians, but Portuguese merchants came to dominate the trade in Brazil. During the union of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns (1580–1640), to be active in Spanish America as well, especially trading African slaves.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Even though Brazilian sugar was reputed as being of high quality, the industry faced a crisis during the 17th and 18th centuries when the Dutch and the French started producing sugar in the Antilles, located much closer to Europe, causing sugar prices to fall.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Brazil had coastal cities and towns, which have been considered far less important than colonial settlements in Spanish America, but like Spanish America, urban settlements were important as the sites of institutional life of church and state, as well as urban groups of merchants. Unlike many areas of Spanish America, there was no dense, sedentary indigenous population which had already created settlements, but cities and towns in Brazil were similar to those in Spanish Colonial Venezuela. Port cities allowed Portuguese trade goods to enter, including African slaves, and export goods of sugar and later gold and coffee to be exported to Portugal and beyond. Coastal cities of Olinda (founded 1537), Salvador (1549), Santos (1545), Vitória (1551), and Rio de Janeiro (1565) were also vital in the defense against pirates. Only São Paulo was an important inland city. Unlike the network of towns and cities that developed in most areas of Spanish America, the coastal cities and their hinterlands were oriented toward Portugal directly with little connection otherwise. With sugar as the major export commodity in the early period and the necessity to process cane into exportable refined sugar on-site, the sugar "engenhos" had resident artisans and barber-surgeons, and functioned in some ways as small towns. Also unlike most Spanish settlements, Brazilian cities and towns did not have a uniform lay-out of central plaza and a check board pattern of streets, often because the topography defeated such an orderly layout.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Converted Jews, so-called New Christians, many of whom were merchants, played a role in colonial Brazil. Their "importance in the colonial may be one explanation why the Inquisition was not permanently established in Brazil during the Iberian Union." New Christians were well integrated into institutional life, serving in civil as well as ecclesiastical offices. The relative lack of persecution and abundance of opportunity allowed them to have a significant place in society. With the Iberian Union (1580-1640), many migrated to Spanish America.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: In 1580, a succession crisis led to the union of Portugal and Spain being ruled by the Habsburg king Philip II. The unification of the crowns of the two Iberian kingdoms, known as the Iberian Union, lasted until 1640 when the Portuguese revolted. During the union the institutions of both kingdoms remained separate. For Portuguese merchants, many of whom were Christian converts from Judaism ("New Christians") or their descendants, the union of crowns presented commercial opportunities in the slave trade to Spanish America. The Seventeen Provinces obtained independence from Spain in 1581, leading Philip II to prohibit commerce with Dutch ships, including in Brazil. Since the Dutch had invested large sums in financing sugar production in the Brazilian Northeast and were important as shippers of sugar, a conflict began with Dutch privateers plundering the coast: they sacked Salvador in 1604, from which they removed large amounts of gold and silver before a joint Spanish-Portuguese fleet recaptured the town. The city was captured again by the Dutch in May 1624 before being surrendered to a Luso-Spanish armada 11 months later.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: From 1630 to 1654, the Dutch set up more permanently in commercial Recife and aristocratic Olinda. With the capture of Paraíba in 1635, the Dutch controlled a long stretch of the coast most accessible to Europe (Dutch Brazil), without, however, penetrating the interior. The large Dutch ships were unable to moor in the coastal inlets where lighter Portuguese shipping came and went. Ironically, the result of the Dutch capture of the sugar coast was a higher price of sugar in Amsterdam. During the Nieuw Holland episode, the colonists of the Dutch West India Company in Brazil were in a constant state of siege, in spite of the presence of the count John Maurice of Nassau as governor (1637–1644) in Recife (renamed Mauritstaad). Nassau invited scientific commissions to research the local flora and fauna, resulting in added knowledge of the territory. Moreover, he set up a city project for Recife and Olinda, which was partially accomplished. Remnants survive into the modern era. After several years of open warfare, the Dutch finally withdrew in 1654; the Portuguese paid off a war debt in payments of salt. Few Dutch cultural and ethnic influences remain, but Albert Eckhout's paintings of amerindians and slaves, as well as his still lifes are important works of baroque art.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Unlike neighboring Spanish America, Brazil was a slave society from its outset. The African slave trade was inherent to the economic and social structure of the colony. Years before the North American slave trade got underway, more slaves had been brought to Brazil than would ever reach the Thirteen Colonies. It can be estimated that around 35% of all Africans captured in the Atlantic slave trade were sent to Brazil. The slave trade in Brazil would continue for nearly two hundred years and last the longest of any country in the Americas. African slaves had a higher monetary value than indigenous slaves largely because many of them came from agricultural societies and thus were already familiar with the work needed to maintain the profitable sugar plantations of Brazil. Also, African slaves were already immune to several of the Old World diseases that killed many indigenous people and were less likely to flee, as compared to indigenous slaves, since their place of origin was so inaccessible. However, many African slaves did in fact flee and created their own communities of runaway slaves called "quilombos", which often became established political and economic entities.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Work on the sugarcane plantations in Northeast Brazil and other areas relied heavily on slave labor, mostly of west African origin. These enslaved people worked to resist slavery in many ways. Some of the most common forms of resistance involved engaging in sluggishness and sabotage. Other ways these enslaved peoples resisted was by exacting violence upon themselves and their babies, often to the point of death, and by seeking revenge against their masters. Another type of resistance to slavery was flight and, with the dense vegetation of the tropics, runaway slaves fled in numbers and for slave owners, this was an "endemic problem." The realities of being on a frontier that was policed in less than optimal ways fostered the successful escapes of enslaved people. Since the early 17th century there are indications of runaway slaves organizing themselves into settlements in the Brazilian hinterland. These settlements, called "mocambos" and "quilombos", were usually small and relatively close to sugar fields, and attracted not only African slaves but also people of indigenous origin.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: "Quilombos" were often viewed by Portuguese colonists as “parasitic,” relying upon theft of livestock and crops, “extortion, and sporadic raiding” for sustenance. Often, the victims of this raiding were not white sugar planters but blacks who sold produce grown on their own plots. Other accounts document the actions of members of q"uilombos" to successfully prospect gold and diamonds and to engage in trade with white-controlled cities.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: While the reasons for fugitive settlement are varied, "quilombos" were rarely wholly self-sufficient and although inhabitants may have engaged in agricultural pursuits, they depended on a kind of parasitic economy where proximity to settled areas were usually prerequisites for their long-term success. Unlike the "palenque" in Spanish America or maroon settlements in the West Indies, Portuguese officials rebuked any kind of agreements to standardize the "quilombos" out of the fear of drawing even more fugitive slaves to their communities. The largest of the "quilombos" was the Quilombo dos Palmares, located in today's Alagoas state, which grew to many thousands during the disruption of Portuguese rule with the Dutch incursion. Palmares was governed by leaders Ganga Zumba and his successor, Zumbi. The terminology for the settlements and leaders come directly from Angola, with "quilombo," an Angolan word for military villages of diverse settlers, and the "nganga a nzumbi" "was the priest responsible for the spiritual defense of the community." The Dutch and later the Portuguese attempted several times to conquer Palmares, until an army led by famed São Paulo-born Domingos Jorge Velho managed to destroy the great quilombo and kill Zumbi in 1695. Brazilian feature film director Carlos Diegues made a film about Palmares called simply "Quilombo". Of the many "quilombos" that once existed in Brazil, some have survived to this day as isolated rural communities.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Portuguese colonists sought to destroy these fugitive communities because they threatened the economic and social order of the slave regime in Brazil. There was a constant fear among colonists that enslaved peoples would revolt and resist slavery. Two settler objectives were to discourage enslaved peoples from trying to escape and to close down their options for escape. Strategies used by Portuguese colonists to prevent enslaved people from fleeing included apprehending escapees before they had the opportunity to band together. Slave catchers mounted expeditions with the intent to destroy fugitive communities. These expeditions destroyed "mocambos" and either killed or re-enslaved inhabitants These expeditions were conducted by soldiers and mercenaries, many of whom were supported by local people or by the government's military. As a result, many fugitive communities were heavily fortified. Amerindians were sometimes utilized as ‘slave catchers’ or as part of a larger set of defenses against slave uprisings that had been orchestrated by cities and towns. At the same time, some Amerindians resisted the colonizers’ efforts to prevent uprisings by surreptitiously incorporating into their villages those who had escaped slavery.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Many of the details surrounding the inner political and social structure of the "quilombos" remain a mystery, and the information available today is limited by the fact that it usually comes from colonial accounts of their destruction. More is known about the Quilombo dos Palmares because it was "the longest-lived and largest fugitive community" in Colonial Brazil. Like any polity, Palmares and other "quilombos" changed over time. "Quilombos" drew on both African and European influences, often emulating the realities of colonial society in Brazil. In Palmares, slavery, which also existed in Africa, continued. "Quilombos", like plantations, were most likely composed of people from different African groups. Religious syncretism, combining African and Christian elements, was prevalent. The Bahian "quilombo" of Buraco de Tatu is described as a "well-organized" village in which people probably practiced monogamy and lived on rectangular-shaped houses that made up neat rows, emulating a plantation "senzala". "Quilombos" were often well fortified, with swampy dikes and false roads leading to "covered traps" and "sharpened stakes," like those used in Africa. The gender imbalance among African slaves was a result of the planters' preference for male labor, and men in "quilombos" not only raided for crops and goods, but for women; the women taken back to the quilombos were often black or mulatto.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: In Minas Gerais, the mining economy particularly favored the formation of "quilombos". The skilled slaves that worked in mines were highly valuable to their owners, but, as long as they continued to cede their findings, they were often allowed freedom of movement within the mining districts. Slaves and freed blacks made up to three-fourths of the region's population, and runaways could easily hide among the "sea of coloreds." The region's mountains and large tracts of unsettled land provided potential hideouts. Civil unrest combined with other forms of resistance against the colonial government severely hindered the anti-"quilombo" efforts of slaveowners and local authorities. In fact, to the dismay of colonial authorities, slaves participated in these anti-government movements, often armed by their owners.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: As mentioned, indigenous people could be both allies and enemies of runaway slaves. From the late 1500s and as late as 1627, in southern Bahia, a "syncretic Messianic religion" called Santidade gained popularity among both indigenous people and runaway slaves, who joined forces and carried out raids in the region, even stealing slaves from Salvador.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Since the 16th century the exploration of the Brazilian inland was attempted several times, mostly to try to find mineral riches like the silver mines found in 1546 by the Spanish in Potosí (now in Bolivia). Since no riches were initially found, colonisation was restricted to the coast where the climate and soil were suitable for sugarcane plantations.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Key to understanding inland expansion in Brazil is understanding the colony's economic structure. Brazil was constructed as an export colony, and less so as a place for permanent European settlement. This led to a culture of extraction that was unsustainable in terms of land and labor uses.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: At sugar plantations in the north, land was worked exhaustively with no concern for ensuring its long-term productivity. As soon as the land was exhausted, plantation owners would simply abandon their plots, shifting the sugar frontier to new plots as the supply of land seemed endless to them. Economic incentives to increase profits drove this pattern of planting, while the abandoned lands rarely recovered.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The expeditions to inland Brazil are divided into two types: the "entradas" and the "bandeiras". The "entradas" were done in the name of the Portuguese crown and were financed by the colonial government. Its main objective was to find mineral riches, as well as to explore and chart unknown territory. The "bandeiras", on the other hand, were private initiatives sponsored and carried out mostly by settlers of the São Paulo region (the "Paulistas"). The expeditions of the "bandeirantes", as these adventurers were called, were aimed at obtaining native slaves for trade and finding mineral riches. "Banderia" expeditions often consisted of a field officer, his slaves, a chaplain, a scribe, a mapmaker, white colonists, livestock, and medical professionals, among others. In several-month-long marches, such groups entered lands that were not yet occupied by colonizers by were doubtless part of the homelands of Amerindians. The "bandeirantes", who at the time were mostly of mixed Portuguese and native ancestry, knew all the old indigenous pathways (the ) through the Brazilian inland and were acclimated to the harsh conditions of these journeys.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: At the end of the 17th century, the "bandeirantes"' expeditions discovered gold in central Brazil, in the region of Minas Gerais, which started a gold rush that led to a dramatic urban development of inland Brazil during the 18th century. Additionally, inland expeditions led to westward expansion of the frontiers of colonial Brazil, beyond the limits established by the Treaty of Tordesillas.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: When white fugitives fleeing tax collectors, military enlistment, and the law entered the backlands of the Atlantic Forest, they formed racially-mixed settlements that became sites of "cultural and genetic exchange".


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Some tribes like the Caiapo managed to fend off the Europeans for years, while adopting Old World agricultural practices. However, the expansion of the mining frontier pushed many indigenous tribes off their land. An increasing number of them went to the "aldeias" to evade the threat of enslavement by colonists or conflicts with other indigenous groups. In 1755, in an attempt to transform this wandering population into a more productive, assimilated peasantry modeled on Europe's own peasants, the marquis of Pombal abolished the enslavement of natives and legal discrimination against the Europeans who married them, banning the use of the term "caboclo", a pejorative used to refer to a mestizo or a detribalized indigenous person.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Along the frontier, racial mixing between people of indigenous, European, and African ancestry resulted in various physical spaces for cultural interchange that historian Warren Dean has called the "caboclo frontier". Portuguese colonial authorities were characterized by their refusal to cooperate or negotiate with "quilombos", seeing them as a threat to the social order, but caboclo settlements integrated the indigenous into what Darren describes as "neo-European customs [or an Africanized version of them]". Runaway slaves, forming "quilombos" or finding refuge in the backlands of the forest, came into contact with indigenous people and introduced them to the Portuguese language. Frontier army agent Guido Thomaz Marlière noted: "a fugitive black can accomplish more among the Indians than all the missionaries together..." One "quilombo" in specific, Piolho, was "officially tolerated" for its ability to pacify indigenous tribes. At the same time, colonial officials disapproved of unions between runaway black slaves and indigenous people. In 1771, when an indigenous captain-major of an "aldeia" married an African woman, he was dismissed from his position.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The inhabitants of the caboclo frontier exchanged belief systems, musical traditions, remedies, fishing and hunting techniques, and other customs with each other. The Tupi language enriched Portuguese with new words for native flora and fauna, as well as for places. Africanisms, such as the Kimbundu word "fubá" (maize meal) also became part of Brazilian Portuguese.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The Black Irmandade was the result of the blacks and mulattos beginning to create custom and culture. Although Blacks were considered of “the lowest rabble”, their agricultural skills and that they came from Europe along with the white Europeans gave them an upper hand in social ranking. These Afro-Portuguese blacks developed a complex culture that can best be highlighted through their celebrations and festivities that took place in Bahia, Brazil. In these festivities lies a combination of African beliefs and practices with not only a Christian impact but also the impact of living in a new land. The Irmandade put a large value on the extensiveness of one's burial as to die alone and “anonymously” would be a representation of a poor person. The Irmandade of Bahia, Brazil, highlights the rising racial and cultural complexity that would take place between the native indigenous, African slaves, and white Europeans in the years to come.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: While the first major gold deposits were found at the end of the 17th century, there is record of gold being found in the area of São Vicente in the end of the 16th century. In the century or so between these initial sightings of gold and the first findings of major gold deposits, not much revenue was made, but two important modes of interacting with gold in Brazil came into place. Firstly, in the initial goldfields and smelting houses run by the Portuguese monarchy, the crown forced indigenous people into slave labor. Hundreds of thousands of people were shipped from Africa to be enslaved to work in mines by the end of the 17th century, but this process began with a couple hundred indigenous people enslaved into the gold industry at the first ventures for gold by the Crown in Brazil a century earlier. Secondly, people referred to as "faiscadores" or "garimpeiros" illegally prospected and mined for gold, dodging Portuguese taxes on precious metals. Prospectors illegally mining gold separate from the Portuguese crown was a problem for the monarchy for over a hundred years after the beginning of gold mining in Brazil.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The discovery of gold was met with great enthusiasm by Portugal, which had an economy in disarray following years of wars against Spain and the Netherlands. A gold rush quickly ensued, with people from other parts of the colony and Portugal flooding the region in the first half of the 18th century. The large portion of the Brazilian inland where gold was extracted became known as Minas Gerais (General Mines). Gold mining in this area became the main economic activity of colonial Brazil during the 18th century. In Portugal, the gold was mainly used to pay for industrialized goods such as textiles and weapons from other European nations (since Portugal lacked an industrial economy) to, especially during the reign of king John V, construct Baroque buildings such as the Convent of Mafra. Apart from gold, diamond deposits were also found in 1729 around the village of Tijuco, now Diamantina. A famous figure in Brazilian history of this era was Xica da Silva, a slave woman who had a long-term relationship in Diamantina with a Portuguese official; the couple had thirteen children and she died a rich woman. In the hilly landscape of Minas Gerais, gold was present in alluvial deposits around streams and was extracted using pans and other similar instruments that required little technology. Gold extraction was mostly done by slaves. The Gold industry brought hundreds of thousands of Africans to Brazil as slaves. The Portuguese Crown allowed particulars to extract the gold, requiring a fifth (20%) of the gold (the "quinto") to be sent to the colonial government as tribute. To prevent smuggling and extract the "quinto", in 1725 the government ordered all gold to be cast into bars in the "Casas de Fundição" (Casting Houses), and sent armies to the region to prevent disturbances and oversee the mining process. The Royal tribute was very unpopular in Minas Gerais, and gold was frequently hidden from colonial authorities. Eventually, the "quinto" contributed to rebellious movements like the Vila Rica revolt, in 1720, and the "Inconfidência Mineira", in 1789.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Several historians have noted that the trade deficit of Portugal in relation to the British while the Methuen Treaty was in force served to redirect much of the gold mined in Brazil during the 18th century to Britain. The Methuen Treaty was a trade treaty signed between the British and Portuguese, by which all woolen cloth imported from Britain would be tax-free in Portugal, whereas Portuguese wine exported to Britain would be taxed at one-third of the previous import tax on wines. Port wine had become increasingly popular in Britain at that time, but cloth amounted to a larger share of the trade value than wines, hence Portugal eventually incurred a trade deficit with the British.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The large number of adventurers coming to Minas Gerais led to the foundation of several settlements, the first of which was created in 1711: Vila Rica de Ouro Preto, Sabará and Mariana, followed by São João del-Rei (1713), Serro, Caeté (1714), Pitangui (1715) and São José do Rio das Mortes (1717, now Tiradentes). In contrast to other regions of colonial Brazil, people coming to Minas Gerais settled mostly in villages instead of the countryside.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: In 1763, the capital of colonial Brazil was transferred from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro, which was located closer to the mining region and provided a harbor to ship the gold to Europe.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: According to historian Maria Marcílio, "In 1700 Portugal had a population of about two million people. During the eighteenth century, approximately 400,000 left for [the Portuguese colony of] Brazil, despite efforts by the crown to place severe restrictions on emigration."


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Gold production declined towards the end of the 18th century, beginning a period of relative stagnation of the Brazilian hinterland.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: In an attempt to expand the borders of colonial Brazil and profit from the silver mines of Potosí, the Portuguese Overseas Council (the "Conselho Ultramarino") ordered colonial governor Manuel Lobo to establish a settlement on the shore of the River Plate, in a region that legally belonged to Spain. In 1679, Manuel Lobo founded Colónia do Sacramento on the margin opposite to Buenos Aires. The fortified settlement quickly became an important point of illegal commerce between the Spanish and Portuguese colonies. Spain and Portugal fought over the enclave on several occasions (1681, 1704, 1735).


title: Colonial Brazil

text: In addition to Colónia do Sacramento, several settlements were established in Southern Brazil in the late 17th and 18th century, some with peasants from the Azores Islands. The towns founded in this period include Curitiba (1668), Florianópolis (1675), Rio Grande (1736), Porto Alegre (1742) and others, and helped keep southern Brazil firmly under Portuguese control.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The conflicts over the Southern colonial frontiers led to the signing of the Treaty of Madrid (1750), in which Spain and Portugal agreed to a considerable Southwestward expansion of colonial Brazil. According to the treaty, Colónia do Sacramento was to be given to Spain in exchange for the territories of "São Miguel das Missões", a region occupied by Jesuit missions dedicated to evangelizing the Guaraní natives. Resistance by the Jesuits and the Guaraní led to the Guaraní War (1756), in which Portuguese and Spanish troops destroyed the missions. Colónia do Sacramento kept changing hands until 1777, when it was definitively conquered by the colonial governor of Buenos Aires.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: In 1788/89, Minas Gerais was the setting of the most important conspiracy against colonial authorities, the so-called "Inconfidência Mineira", inspired by the ideals of the French liberal philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment and the successful American Revolution of 1776. The conspirators largely belonged to the white upper class of Minas Gerais. Many had studied in Europe, especially in the University of Coimbra, and some had large debts with the colonial government. In the context of declining gold production, the intention of the Portuguese government to impose the obligatory payment of all debts (the "derrama") was a leading cause behind the conspiracy. The conspirators wanted to create a republic in which the leader would be chosen through democratic elections. The capital would be São João del-Rei, and Ouro Preto would become a university town. The structure of the society, including the right to property and the ownership of slaves, would be kept intact.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The conspiracy was discovered by the Portuguese colonial government in 1789, before the planned military rebellion could take place. Eleven of the conspirators were exiled to Portuguese colonial possessions in Angola, but Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, nicknamed Tiradentes, was sentenced to death. Tiradentes was hanged in Rio de Janeiro in 1792, drawn and quartered, and his body parts displayed in several towns. He later became a symbol of the struggle for Brazilian independence and liberty from Portuguese rule.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The Inconfidência Mineira was not the only rebellious movement in colonial Brazil against the Portuguese. Later, in 1798, there was the "Inconfidência Baiana" in Salvador. In this episode, which had more participation of common people, four people were hanged, and 41 were jailed. Members included slaves, middle-class people and even some landowners.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Colonial practices destroyed much of the Brazilian forest. This was made possible in part by colonial view of the natural world as a disposable collection of utilities with no inherent value.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Mining practices significantly harmed the land. To facilitate the extraction of gold, large swaths of forest along hillsides were burned in some regions. 4,000 square kilometers of the Atlantic Forest region were denuded for mining, leaving the terrain "bald and deserted". This massive destruction of the natural environment was a consequence of the colonial culture of extraction and unsustainability.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: As the gold rush subsided, many Portuguese colonists abandoned mining for farming and animal husbandry. Farming practices extended inland expansion farther into the Brazilian forest. The colonists began to set in motion what became a nearly unstoppable trend with profound cumulative effects. The Portuguese colonists' decisions to pursue the economic strategy of agriculture and to adopt particular agricultural practices significantly transformed the Brazilian environment. The Portuguese colonists viewed farming as a beneficial taming of the frontier, urging mestizos, mulattoes, and indigenous peoples to abandon life in the wild forest and adopt agriculture. Colonial farming practices in the forest were unsustainable, greatly exploiting the land. Slash-and-burn practices were used liberally, and colonial responses to the presence of the ant genus "Atta" encouraged both large-scale abandonment of fields and extensive clearing of additional lands. "Atta" effectively resisted agriculture. In only a few years, the ants constructed elaborate and complex colonies that colonists found nearly impossible to destroy and that made hoeing and plowing extremely difficult. Instead of fighting the ants, colonists ceded their fields to the ants, created new fields through burning, then a few years later ceded their new fields to the ants.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: This environmental transformation contrasted sharply with Brazilian Amerindian land-management concepts and practices. Unlike in many areas of Central and South America, in Brazil Amerindians did not significantly disrupt and damage biotic communities. Amerindians maintained very small communities, and their total numbers were small. In addition, they prioritized the long-term agricultural productivity of the land, utilizing cultivation, hunting, and gathering practices that were sustainable.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The introduction of European livestock—cattle, horses, and pigs—also radically transformed the land. Indigenous flora in the interior of Brazil withered and died in the face of repeated trampling by cattle; the flora were replaced by grasses able to adapt to such abuse. Cattle also overgrazed fertile fields, killing vegetation that was able to survive extensive trampling. Scrubby noxious plants, some of which were poisonous, replaced this vegetation. Colonists responded to these unwanted plants by burning innumerable large pastures, a practice that killed countless small animals and greatly damaged soil nutrients.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The mining of gold and diamonds shaped the internal economy of agriculture. Although slash-and-burn agriculture was able to feed the mining region throughout the 1700s, deforestation and the degradation of the land made farming increasingly difficult in the long term and forced farmers to look for grasses further away from these mining centers. As a result, by 1800, foodstuffs were carried on mule trains by "tropeiros" as far as 100 kilometers just to reach Ouro Preto. Although the colonial authorities encouraged the mining industry, like the Jesuits before them, they also noticed the negative effects of slash-and-burn agriculture.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: In 1765, Luís António de Sousa Botelho became the governor of the captaincy of São Paulo. He attempted to stop slash-and-burn agriculture through the imposition of a village social order. Botelho encouraged mestizos, mulattos, assimilated indigenous people, and "Paulista" farmers to take up the plow and use the manure of draft animals as fertilizer, but his reforms did not work for several reasons. Botelho's propositions did not appeal to farmers because farmers would have to work more hours without any guarantee or probability of actually increasing their harvest. The colonial land policy favored the elite, who could afford purchasing expensive land titles. Because these small-scale farmers were unable to attain land titles to make their fields their property, they were uninvested in sustainable farming practices. Botelho also saw slavery as a hindrance to the agricultural development of the region. Although his reforms were unsuccessful and he was not able to implement all of his ideas, Botelho did recognize that mercantilism and militarism impeded the growth of agriculture.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Other impediments to the growth of agriculture, included the criminalization and vilification of the poor. Heavy taxes were expected in cash from poor farmers. While reimbursements could be delayed for years, when taxes were not paid, the family's young men were forced into military service. One governor in Minas Gerais noted with dismay that white settlers seemed to reject all forms of intensive manual labor in the hopes of increasing their chances at upward social mobility. Botelho, himself, "conscripted almost 5,000 men from an adult population that could not have numbered more than 35,000." Unemployed men were designated as "vadios" or "vagabundos" and enlisted in the military or sent to the frontier along convicts. Some of the men managed to escape the authorities and found refuge in the Atlantic forest, where they became subsistence farmers or prospectors; these men would later come to form part of the "caboclo frontier."


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The pests and plagues that invaded farmers' crops were a significant barrier to the growth of agriculture. Rodents, insects, and birds ate many crops, but the most pervasive pests were the leaf-cutting ants, or "saúva" (in Tupi). These ants are difficult to eliminate as, even today, they are difficult to study because they work at night and live below the ground. Farmers at that time, were unsure on how to deal with "saúva", and unfortunately, resorted to countermeasures, like slash-and-burn, that only exacerbated the problem.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: As with agriculture, the mining economy shaped the cattle raising industry from its outset. Beef was eaten by miners and was "the preferred source of protein in the neo-European diet" of Colonial Brazil. Cattle raising spread from São Paulo to the Guarapuava plains.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Cattle were not particularly cared for. No fodder was provided, and even castrating and branding were often neglected. As a result, there was a severe mortality rate during the dry season, and it took several years for cattle to reach a sellable weight. Salt served as a poor dietary supplement for cattle, and this inadequate use, simply made salt-preserved meats and dairy products "unnecessarily expensive." Catte suffered from intestinal parasites and ticks. In their attempts to escape pests and threats, they often moved into forest margins, disrupting their ecosystems. As mentioned, cattle raising changed the native landscape from palatable grasses to "scrubby, noxious" plants, but trying to eliminate them by burning only worked temporarily. In the long term, burning these grasses caused erosion, reduced soil permeability, and produced degraded, innutritious pasture prone to becoming hosting ticks and poisonous plant species. Cattle took longer to reach their weight, and by choosing the largest animals, herders only worsened the breed through "negative selective pressure." Although they were edible and fire-resistant, the African grasses that eventually replaced native ones were not as nutritious because they were not planted in variety to provide a more balanced diet.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Because of degraded grasslands, high mortality rate, slow growth, and low population, like agriculture, the cattle raising industry in Colonial Brazil was not very productive. In fact, hunter-gatherers in this area could have attained more meat than the cattle breeders, who annually produced a maximum of "five kilograms of meat per hectare." Thus, wasteful agricultural practices and irresponsible cattle raising methods not only led to the degradation of the native landscape; they also did little for the long-term economic development of the region. Historian Warren Dean acknowledges the effects that colonialism and capitalism had on the seemingly "useless" and "wasteful" exploitation of the Atlantic Forest, yet he also warns the reader against ascribing the whole blame on colonialism and capitalism. According to Dean, there is evidence to suggest colonists accepted "regal authority" only when it supported their interests and that "colonies were not necessarily condemned to [lower] levels of capital formation." "Resistance to the demands of imperialism," says Dean, can have as "forceful and determinant [of an effect on] the formation of states and nations as imperialism itself."


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian peninsula set off major changes there and in both Portugal's and Spain's overseas empires. In 1807 French troops of Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Britain's ally, Portugal. Prince Regent John (future king John VI), who had governed since 1792 on behalf of his mother, queen Maria I, ordered the transfer of the Portuguese royal court to Brazil before he could be deposed by the invading army. In January 1808, prince John and his court arrived in Salvador, where he signed a commercial regulation that opened commerce between Brazil and friendly nations (Britain). This important law broke the colonial pact that, until then, allowed Brazil to maintain direct commercial relations with Portugal only.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: In March 1808, the court arrived in Rio de Janeiro. In 1815, during the Congress of Vienna, Prince John created the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves by elevating Brazil to the rank of kingdom and increasing its administrative autonomy.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: In 1816, with the death of queen Maria, prince John succeeded as monarch, and the ceremony of his acclamation was held in Rio de Janeiro in February 1818.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Among the important measures taken by prince John in his years in Brazil were incentives to commerce and industry, the permission to print newspapers and books, the creation of two medicine schools, military academies, and the first bank of Brazil. In Rio de Janeiro he also created a powder factory, a Botanical Garden, an art academy ("Escola Nacional de Belas Artes") and an opera house ("Teatro São João"). All these measures greatly advanced the independence of Brazil in relation to Portugal and made the later political separation between the two countries inevitable.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The heir of John VI, prince Pedro, remained in Brazil. The Portuguese "Cortes" demanded that Brazil return to its former condition of colony and that the heir return to Portugal. Prince Pedro, influenced by the Rio de Janeiro Municipal Senate ("Senado da Câmara"), refused to return to Portugal in the famous "Dia do Fico" (January 9, 1822). Political independence came on 7 September 1822, and the prince was crowned emperor in Rio de Janeiro as Dom Pedro I, ending 322 years of dominance of Portugal over Brazil.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The detailed history of the administrative changes in the administration of colonial Brazil is as follows:


title: Colonial Brazil

text: From 1534 (immediately after the start the Portuguese attempts to effectively colonize Brazil) until 1549, Brazil was divided by the Portuguese Crown in private and autonomous colonies known as "hereditary captaincies" ("capitanias hereditárias"), or "captaincy colonies" ("colónias capitanias").


title: Colonial Brazil

text: In 1549, Portuguese King John III abolished the system of private colonies, and the fifteen existing hereditary captaincies were incorporated into a single Crown colony, the Governorate General of Brazil.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The individual captaincies, now under the administration of the Portuguese Crown (and no longer called colonies or hereditary captaincies, but simply captaincies of Brazil), continued to exist as provinces or districts within the colony until the end of the colonial era in 1815.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: The unified Governorate General of Brazil, with its capital city in Salvador, existed during three periods: from 1549 to 1572, from 1578 to 1607 and from 1613 to 1621. Between 1572 and 1578 and again between 1607 and 1613, the colony was split in two, and during those periods the Governorate General of Brazil did not exist, being replaced by two separate Governorates: the Governorate General of Bahia, in the North, with its seat in the city of Salvador, and the Governorate General of Rio de Janeiro, in the South, with its seat in the city of Rio de Janeiro.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: In 1621, an administrative reorganization took place, and the Governorate General of Brazil became known as the State of Brazil ("Estado do Brasil"), keeping Salvador as its capital city. With this administrative remodeling, the unity of the colony was once again interrupted, as a portion of territory in the northern part of modern Brazil became an autonomous colony, separate from the State of Brazil: the State of Maranhão, with its capital city in São Luiz.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: In 1652, the State of Maranhão was extinguished, and its territory was briefly added to the State of Brazil, reunifying the colonial administration once more.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: However, in 1654, the territories of the former State of Maranhão were again separated from the State of Brazil, and the Captaincy of Grão-Pará was also split from Brazil. In this restructuring, the territories of Grão-Pará and Maranhão, severed from Brazil, were united in a single State, initially named as State of Maranhão and Grão-Pará, having São Luiz as its capital city. This newly created State incorporated territories recently acquired by the Portuguese west of the Tordesillas line.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: In 1751, the State of Maranhão and Grão-Pará was renamed as the State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão, and its capital city as transferred from São Luiz (in Maranhão) to Belém (in the part of the State that was then known as Grão-Pará).


title: Colonial Brazil

text: In 1763, the capital city of the State of Brazil was transferred from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro. At the same time, the title of the King's representative heading the government of the State of Brazil was officially changed from Governor General to Viceroy (Governors coming from the high nobility had been using the title of Viceroy since about 1640). However, the name of Brazil was never changed to Viceroyalty of Brazil. That title, although sometimes used by modern writers, is not proper, as the colony continued to be titled State of Brazil.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: In 1772, in a short-lived territorial reorganization, the State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão was split in two: the State of Grão-Pará and Rio Negro (better known simply as the State of Grão-Pará), with the city of Belém as its capital, and the State of Maranhão and Piauí (better known simply as the State of Maranhão), with its seat in the city of São Luiz.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: Thus from 1772 until another territorial reorganization in 1775 there were three distinct Portuguese States in South America: the State of Brazil, the State of Grão-Pará and Rio Negro, and the State of Maranhão and Piauí.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: In 1775, in a final territorial reorganization, the colony was once again reunified: the State of Maranhão and Piauí and the State of Grão-Pará and Rio Negro were both abolished, and their territories were incorporated into the territory of the State of Brazil. The State of Brazil was thus expanded; it became the sole Portuguese State in South America; and it now included in its territory the whole of the Portuguese possessions in the American Continent. Indeed, with the reorganization of 1775, for the first time since 1654, all the Portuguese territories in the New World were once again united under a single colonial government. Rio de Janeiro, that had become the capital of the State of Brazil in 1763, continued to be the capital, now of the unified colony.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: In 1808, the Portuguese Court was transferred to Brazil as direct consequence of the invasion of Portugal during the Napoleonic Wars. The office of Viceroy of Brazil ceased to exist upon the arrival of the Royal Family in Rio de Janeiro, since the Prince Regent, the future King John VI, assumed personal control of the government of the colony, that became the provisional seat of the whole Portuguese Empire.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: In 1815, Brazil ceased to be a colony, upon the elevation of the State of Brazil to the rank of a kingdom, the Kingdom of Brazil, and the simultaneous political union of that kingdom with the Kingdoms of Portugal and the Algarves, forming a single sovereign State, the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. That political union would last until 1822 when Brazil declared its independence from the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves and became the Empire of Brazil, a sovereign nation in the territory of the former Kingdom of Brazil. The separation was recognized by Portugal with the signing of the 1825 Treaty of Rio de Janeiro.


title: Colonial Brazil

text: With the creation of the Kingdom of Brazil in 1815, the former captaincies of the State of Brazil became provinces within the new Kingdom, and after independence, they became the provinces of the Empire of Brazil.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Jewish religious movements, sometimes called "denominations", include different groups within Judaism which have developed among Jews from ancient times. Today, the most prominent divisions are between traditionalist Orthodox movements (including Haredi and Religious Zionist () sects); modernist movements such as Conservative, Masorti and Reform Judaism; and secular or Jews.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: The movements differ in their views on various issues. These issues include the level of observance, the methodology for interpreting and understanding Jewish law, biblical authorship, textual criticism, and the nature or role of the messiah (or messianic age). Across these movements, there are marked differences in liturgy, especially in the language in which services are conducted, with the more traditional movements emphasizing Hebrew. The sharpest theological division occurs between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews who adhere to other denominations, such that the non-Orthodox movements are sometimes referred to collectively as the "liberal denominations" or "progressive streams".


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Some Jews reject the term "denomination" as a label for different groups and ideologies within Judaism, arguing that the notion of denomination has a specifically Christian resonance that does not translate easily into the Jewish context. However, in recent years the "American Jewish Year Book" has adopted "denomination", as have many scholars and theologians.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Commonly used terms are "movements", as well as "denominations", "varieties", "traditions", "groupings", "streams", "branches", "trends", and such. Sometimes, as an option, only three main currents of Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative and Reform) are named traditions, and divisions within them are called movements.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: The Jewish groups themselves reject characterization as sects. Sects are traditionally defined as religious subgroups that have broken off from the main body, and this separation usually becomes irreparable over time. Within Judaism, individuals and families often switch affiliation, and individuals are free to marry one another, although the major denominations disagree on who is a Jew. It is not unusual for clergy and Jewish educators trained in one of the liberal denominations to serve in another, and left with no choice, many small Jewish communities combine elements of several movements to achieve a viable level of membership.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Relationships between Jewish religious movements are varied; they are sometimes marked by interdenominational cooperation outside of the realm of "halakha" (Jewish law), such as the New York Board of Rabbis, and sometimes not. Some of the movements sometimes cooperate by uniting with one another in community federations and in campus organizations such as the Hillel Foundation. Jewish religious denominations are distinct from, but often linked to, Jewish ethnic divisions and Jewish political movements.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: The Samaritans regard themselves as direct descendants of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh in the northern Kingdom of Israel, which was conquered by Assyria in 722 BCE. Modern genetics has suggested some truth to both the claims of the Samaritans and of the Jews in account to the Talmud.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Samaritan Torah preserves a version of the Torah in slightly variant forms. The first historical references to the Samaritans date from the Babylonian Exile. According to the Talmud, Samaritans are to be treated as Jews in matters where their practice agrees with the mainstream but are otherwise to be treated as non-Jews. The Samaritans have dwindled to two communities of about 700 individuals. One such community is located in the Israeli city of Holon, while the other is located near Nablus on Mount Gerizim, in the West Bank.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Today, Samaritans need to officially go through formal conversion to Judaism in order to be considered Jewish. One example is Israeli TV personality Sofi Tsedaka who was brought up Samaritan and converted to Judaism at the age of 18.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Prior to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Jews of the Roman province of Judaea were divided into several movements, sometimes warring among themselves: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots, and ultimately early Christians. Many historic sources such as Flavius Josephus, the New Testament and the recovered fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, attest to the divisions among Jews at this time. Rabbinical writings from later periods, including the Talmud, further attest these ancient schisms.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: The main internal struggles during this era were between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, as well as the early Christians, and also the Essenes and Zealots. The Pharisees wanted to maintain the authority and traditions of classical Torah teachings and began the early teachings of the Mishna, maintaining the authority of the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish court. According to Josephus, the Sadducees differed from the Pharisees on a number of doctrinal grounds, notably rejecting ideas of life after death. They appear to have dominated the aristocracy and the temple, but their influence over the wider Jewish population was limited. The Essenes preached an ascetic way of life. The Zealots advocated armed rebellion against any foreign power such as Rome. All were at violent logger-heads with each other, leading to the confusion and disunity that ended with the destruction of the Second Temple and the sacking of Jerusalem by Rome. The Jewish Christians were the original Jewish followers of Jesus. The radical interpretation of Moses' Law by Jesus' disciples and their belief he is the Son of God, along with the development of the New Testament, ensured that Christianity and Judaism would become distinctively different religions.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Most streams of modern Judaism developed from the Pharisaic movement, which became known as Rabbinic Judaism (in Hebrew "Yahadut Rabanit" – יהדות רבנית) with the compilation of the Oral Torah into the Mishna. After the Bar Kokhba revolt and the destruction of the Second Temple the other movements disappeared from the historical record, yet the Sadducees probably kept on existing in a non-organized form for at least several more decades.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Non-Rabbinic Judaism—Sadducees, Nazarenes, Karaite Judaism, Samaritanism, and Haymanot—contrasts with Rabbinic Judaism and does not recognize the Oral Torah as a divine authority nor the rabbinic procedures used to interpret Jewish scripture.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: The tradition of the "Qara'im" survives in Karaite Judaism, started in the early 9th century when non-rabbinic sages like Benjamin Nahawandi and their followers took the rejection of the Oral Torah by Anan ben David to the new level of seeking the plain meaning of the Tanakh's text. Karaite Jews accept only the Tanakh as divinely inspired, not recognizing the authority that Rabbinites ascribe to basic rabbinic works like the Talmud and the Midrashim.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Although there are numerous Jewish ethnic communities, there are several that are large enough to be considered predominant. Generally, they do not constitute separate religious branches within Judaism, but rather separate cultural traditions (nuschaot) and rites of prayer (minhagim). Ashkenazi Jews compose about 75% of the world's Jewish population. Sephardi Jews and Mizrahi Jews compose the greatest part of the rest, with about 20% of the world's Jewish population. Israel has two Chief Rabbi—one for the Ashkenazic, another for the Sephardic with Mizrahi Jews. The remaining 5% of Jews are divided among a wide array of small groups (such as the Beta Israel group of Ethiopian Jews who follow the Haymanot branch of Judaism), some of which are nearing extinction as a result of assimilation and intermarriage into surrounding non-Jewish cultures or surrounding Jewish cultures.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: The Enlightenment had a tremendous effect on Jewish identity and on ideas about the importance and role of Jewish observance. Due to the geographical distribution and the geopolitical entities affected by the Enlightenment, this philosophical revolution essentially affected only the Ashkenazi community; however, because of the predominance of the Ashkenazi community in Israeli politics and in Jewish leadership worldwide, the effects have been significant for all Jews.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Sephardic Judaism is the practice of Judaism as observed by the Sephardim (Spanish and Portuguese Jews). The Mizrahi Jews (including Maghrebi) are all Oriental Jewry. Some definitions of "Sephardic" also include Mizrahi, many of whom follow the same traditions of worship but have different ethno-cultural traditions. So far as it is peculiar to themselves and not shared with other Jewish groups such as the Ashkenazim (German rite).


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Sephardim are primarily the descendants of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula. They may be divided into the families that left in the Expulsion of 1492 and those that remained as crypto-Jews, Marranos and those who left in the following few centuries. In religious parlance, and by many in modern Israel, the term is used in a broader sense to include all Jews of Ottoman or other Asian or African backgrounds (Mizrahi Jews), whether or not they have any historic link to Spain, although some prefer to distinguish between Sephardim proper and Mizraḥi Jews.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Sephardic and Mizrachi Jewish synagogues are generally considered Orthodox or Sephardic Haredim by non-Sephardic Jews, and are primarily run according to the Orthodox tradition, even though many of the congregants may not keep a level of observance on par with traditional Orthodox belief. For example, many congregants will drive to the synagogue on the Shabbat, in violation of "halakha", while discreetly entering the synagogue so as not to offend more observant congregants. However, not all Sephardim are Orthodox; among the pioneers of the Reform Judaism movement in the 1820s there was the Sephardic congregation Beth Elohim in Charleston, South Carolina.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Unlike the predominantly Ashkenazic Reform, and Reconstructionist denominations, Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews who are not observant generally believe that Orthodox Judaism's interpretation and legislation of "halakha" is appropriate, and true to the original philosophy of Judaism. That being said, Sephardic and Mizrachi rabbis tend to hold different, and generally more lenient, positions on "halakha" than their Ashkenazi counterparts, but since these positions are based on rulings of Talmudic scholars as well as well-documented traditions that can be linked back to well-known codifiers of Jewish law, Ashkenazic and Hasidic Rabbis do not believe that these positions are incorrect, but rather that they are the appropriate interpretation of "halakha" for Jews of Sephardic and Mizrachi descent.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: The Yemenite Jews—the Dor Daim and other movements—use a separate Baladi-rite. The Yemenite and the Aramaic speaking Kurdish Jews are the only communities who maintain the tradition of reading the Torah in the synagogue in both Hebrew and the Aramaic Targum ("translation"). Most non-Yemenite synagogues have a specified person called a Baal Koreh, who reads from the Torah scroll when congregants are called to the Torah scroll for an aliyah. In the Yemenite tradition, each person called to the Torah scroll for an aliyah reads for himself.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: The Shas, a religious political party in Israel, represents the interests of the Orthodox/Haredi Sephardim and Mizrahim.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Hasidic Judaism was founded by Israel ben Eliezer (1700–1760), also known as the Baal Shem Tov, whose followers had previously called themselves "Freylechn" ("happy ones") and now they call themselves "Hasidim" ("pious, holy ones"). His charismatic disciples attracted many followers among Ashkenazi Jews, and they also established numerous Hasidic groups across Europe. The Baal Shem Tov came at a time when the Jewish masses of Eastern Europe were reeling from the bewilderment and disappointment which were engendered in them by the two notorious Jewish false messiahs, Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676) and Jacob Frank (1726–1791), and their respective followers. Hasidic Judaism eventually became the way of life for many Jews in Eastern Europe. The Hasidim are organized into independent "courts" or dynasties, each dynasty is headed by its own hereditary spiritual leader-"rebbe". Unlike other Ashkenazim, most Hasidim use some variation of "Nusach Sefard", a blend of Ashkenazi and Sephardi liturgies, based on the innovations of the Kabbalist Isaac Luria. Neo-Hasidism is a term which refers to trends of interest in the teachings of Kabbalah and Hasidism which are expressed by members of other existing Jewish movements.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: In the late 18th century, there was a serious schism between Hasidic and non-Hasidic Jews. European Jews who rejected the Hasidic movement were dubbed "Mitnagdim" ("opponents") by the followers of the Baal Shem Tov. Lithuania became the centre of this opposition under the leadership of "Vilna Gaon" (Elijah ben Solomon Zalman), which adopted the epithets "Litvishe" (Yiddish word), "Litvaks" (in Slavic) or "Lita'im" (in Hebrew) those epithets refer to Haredi Jews who are not Hasidim (and not Hardalim or Sephardic Haredim). Since then, all of the Hasidic Jewish groups have been theologically subsumed into mainstream Orthodox Judaism, particularly, Haredi Judaism, but cultural differences persist. The Lithuanian spirituality was mainly incorporated into the Musar movement.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Late-18th-century Europe, and then the rest of the world, was swept by a group of intellectual, social and political movements that taken together were referred to as the Enlightenment. These movements promoted scientific thinking, free thought, and allowed people to question previously unshaken religious dogmas. The emancipation of the Jews in many European communities, and the Haskalah movement started by Moses Mendelssohn, brought the Enlightenment to the Jewish community.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: In response to the challenges of integrating Jewish life with Enlightenment values, German Jews in the early 19th century began to develop the concept of Reform Judaism, adapting Jewish practice to the new conditions of an increasingly urbanized and secular community. Staunch opponents of the Reform movement became known as Orthodox Jews. Later, members of the Reform movement who felt that it was moving away from tradition too quickly formed the Conservative movement. At the same time, the notion "traditional Judaism" includes the Orthodox with Conservative or solely the Orthodox Jews.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Orthodox Jews generally see themselves as practicing normative Judaism, rather than belonging to a particular movement. Within Orthodox Judaism, there is a spectrum of communities and practices, ranging from ultra-Orthodox Haredi Judaism ("Haredim") and Jewish fundamentalism to Modern Orthodox Judaism (with Neo-Orthodoxy, Open Orthodoxy, and Religious Zionism). Orthodox Jews who opposed the Haskalah became known as Haredi Jews ("Haredim"). Orthodox Jews who were sympathetic to the Haskalah formed what became known as neo-Orthodox or modern Orthodox Jews. The father of neo-Orthodoxy was the influenced German rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, who proclaimed principle Torah im Derech Eretz—the strict observance of the Jewish Law in an active social life—in 1851, he become the rabbi of first Orthodox separatist group from Reform community of Frankfurt am Main. In addition, the "Centrist" Orthodoxy was represented by American rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik affiliated with the Orthodox Union.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: In Israel, Orthodox Judaism occupies a privileged position: solely an Orthodox rabbi may become the Chief rabbi and Chief military rabbi; and only Orthodox synagogues have the right to conduct Jewish marriages.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Reform Judaism, also known as Liberal or Progressive Judaism, originally began in Germany, the Netherlands and the United States circa 1820 as a reaction to modernity, stresses assimilation and integration with society and a personal interpretation of the Torah. The German rabbi and scholar Abraham Geiger with principles of Judaism as religion and not ethnicity, progressive revelation, historical-critical approach, the centrality of the Prophetic books, and superiority of ethical aspects to the ceremonial ones has become the main ideologist of the "Classical" Reform.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Conservative or "Masorti" Judaism, originated in Germany in the 19th century, but became institutionalized in the United States, where it was to become the largest Jewish movement. After the division between Reform and Orthodox Judaism, the Conservative movement tried to provide Jews seeking liberalization of Orthodox theology and practice with a more traditional and halakhically-based alternative to Reform Judaism. It has spread to Ashkenazi communities in Anglophone countries and Israel.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Neolog Judaism, a movement in the Kingdom of Hungary and in its territories ceded in 1920, is similar to the more traditional branch of American Conservative Judaism.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: The particular forms which the denominations have taken on have been shaped by immigration of the Ashkenazi Jewish communities, once concentrated in eastern and central Europe, to western and mostly Anglophone countries (in particular, in North America). In the middle of the 20th century, the institutional division of North American Jewry between Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox movements still reflected immigrant origins. Reform Jews at that time were predominantly of German or western European origin, while both Conservative and Orthodox Judaism came primarily from eastern European countries.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: The issue of Zionism was once very divisive in the Jewish community. Religious Zionism combines Zionism and Orthodox Judaism, based on the teachings of rabbis Zvi Hirsch Kalischer and Abraham Isaac Kook. The name Hardalim ("Nationalist Haredim") refers to the Haredi-oriented variety of Religious Zionism. Another mode is Reform Zionism as Zionist arm of Reform Judaism.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Religious Zionists ("datim") have embraced the Zionist movement, including Religious Kibbutz Movement, as part of the divine plan to bring or speed up the messianic era.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Ultra-Orthodox Jewish non-Zionists believed that the return to Israel could only happen with the coming of the Messiah, and that a political attempt to re-establish a Jewish state through human means alone was contrary to God's plan. Non-Zionists believed that Jews should integrate into the countries in which they lived, rather than moving to the Land of Israel. The original founders of Reform Judaism in Germany rejected traditional prayers for the restoration of Jerusalem. The view among Reform Jews that Judaism was strictly a religion rather than a nation with cultural identity, and that Jews should be assimilated, loyal citizens of their host nations, led to a non-Zionist, and sometimes anti-Zionist, stance. After events of the 20th century, most importantly the Holocaust and the establishment of the modern State of Israel, opposition to Zionism largely disappeared within Reform Judaism.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Among most religious non-Zionists, such as Chabad, there is a de facto recognition of Israel, but only as a secular non-religious state.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: A few of the fringe groups of the anti-Zionists, with marginal ideology, does not recognize the legitimacy of the Israeli state. Among them are both the Orthodox (the Satmar Hasidism, Edah HaChareidis, Neturei Karta) and Reform (American Council for Judaism).


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Among the most striking differences between the Jewish movements in the 21st century is their response to pressures of assimilation, such as intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews. Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis have been most accepting of intermarried couples, with some rabbis willing to officiate in mixed religious ceremonies, although most insist that children in such families be raised strictly Jewish. Conservative rabbis are not permitted to officiate in such marriages, but are supportive of couples when the non-Jewish partner wishes to convert to Judaism and raise children as Jewish.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: The Beta Israel (House of Israel), also known as Ethiopian Jews, are a Jewish community that developed in Ethiopia and lived there for centuries. Most of the Beta Israel emigrated to Israel in the late 20th century. They practiced Haymanot, a religion which is generally recognized as a non-Rabbinic form of Judaism (in Israel, they practice a mixture of Haymanot and Rabbinic Judaism). To the Beta Israel, the holiest book is the "Orit" (a word which means the "law"), and it consists of the Torah and the Books of Joshua, Judges and Ruth. Until the middle of the 20th century, the Beta Israel of Ethiopia were the only modern Jewish group which practiced a monastic tradition which the monks adhered to by living in monasteries which were separated from the Jewish villages.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: The secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews" (origin from Greek kryptos – κρυπτός, 'hidden').


title: Jewish religious movements

text: In the United States, Reform rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn is one of the leaders of the outreach to the descendants of those Crypto-Jews who wish to renew their ties with the Jewish people.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: The Crimean Karaites ( Karaims) are an ethnicity which is derived from Turkic Karaim-speaking adherents of Karaite Judaism in Eastern Europe, especially in Crimea. They were probably Jewish by origin, but due to political pressure and other reasons, many of them began to claim that they were Turks, descendants of the Khazars. During the era when Crimea was a part of the Russian Empire, the Crimean Karaite leaders persuaded the Russian rulers to exempt Karaites from the anti-Semitic regulations which were imposed upon Jews. These Karaites were recognized as non-Jews during the Nazi occupation. Some of them even served in the SS. The ideology of de-Judaization and the revival of Tengrism were imbued with the works of the contemporary leaders of the Karaites in Crimea. While the members of several Karaite congregations were registered as Turks, some of them retained Jewish customs. In the 1990s, many Karaites emigrated to Israel, under the Law of Return. The largest Karaite community has since then resided in Israel.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Igbo people of Nigeria who practice a form of Judaism. Judaism has been documented in parts of Nigeria since the precolonial period, from as early as the 1500s, but is not known to have been practiced in the Igbo region in precolonial times. Nowadays, up to 30,000 Igbos are practicing some form of Judaism.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: The Subbotniks are a movement of Jews of Russian ethnic origin which split off from other Sabbatarians in the late 18th century. The majority of the Subbotniks practiced Rabbinic and Karaite Judaism, a minority of them practiced Spiritual Christianity. Subbotnik families settled in the Holy Land which was then a part of the Ottoman Empire, in the 1880s, as part of the Zionist First Aliyah in order to escape oppression in the Russian Empire and later, most of them married other Jews. Their descendants included Israeli Jews such as Alexander Zaïd, Major-General Alik Ron, and the mother of Ariel Sharon.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: A type of Judaism that is predominantly practiced in African communities, both inside and outside Africa (such as North America). It is theologically characterized by the selective acceptance of the Judaic faith (in some cases, such selective acceptance has historical circumstances), and the belief system of Black Judaism is significantly different from the belief system of the mainstream movements of Judaism. In addition, although Black Judaic communities adopt Judaic practices such as the celebration of Jewish holidays and the recital of Jewish prayers, some of them are generally not considered legitimate Jews by mainstream Jewish societies.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Formed in the early 20th century by Alfred G. Moses and Morris Lichtenstein, Jewish Science was founded as a counterweight Jewish movement to Christian Science. Jewish Science sees God as a force or energy penetrating the reality of the Universe and emphasis is placed upon the role of affirmative prayer in personal healing and spiritual growth. The Society of Jewish Science in New York is the institutional arm of the movement regularly publishing "The Interpreter", the movement's primary literary publication.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Founded by rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, a split from Conservative Judaism that views Judaism as a progressively evolving civilization with focus on Jewish community. The central organization is "Reconstructing Judaism". Assessments of its impact range from being recognized as the 4th major stream of Judaism to described as a smaller movement.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: A nontheistic worldwide movement that emphasizes Jewish culture and history as the sources of Jewish identity. Originated in Detroit in 1965 with the founding figure, Reform rabbi Sherwin Wine, in 1969 was established the Society for Humanistic Judaism.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: The neo-Hasidic movement inspired by the counterculture of the 1960s and founded in the late 1960s in San Francisco (where opened the House of Love and Prayer), then in Israel, by a musician, Lubavich's Hasidic rabbi Shlomo Carlebach for the return of secular youth to the bosom of Orthodox Judaism. The movement has no organisational agenda and promotes Carlebach minyan, a song-filled form of Jewish worship.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Partly syncretistic movement founded in the mid-1970s by ex-Lubavich's Hasidic rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and rooted in the counterculture of the 1960s and the Havurat Shalom group. The "Bnei ʻOr" (Songs of Light) in Philadelphia—the first Renewal community—later was established the ambrella organisation "ALEPH: the Alliance for Jewish Renewal". Its syncretism includes Kabbalah, neo-Hasidism, Reconstructionist Judaism, Western Buddhist meditation, Sufism, New Age, feminism, liberalism, and so on, tends to embrace the ecstatic worship style. Renewal congregations tend to be inclusive on the subject of who is a Jew and had avoided affiliation with any Jewish communities.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: The term occasionally applied to describe either individuals or new congregations, aspecially established by rabbi David Weiss Halivni in 1984 in US Union for Traditional Judaism, located between the Conservative and Modern Orthodox. While most scholars consider "Union for Traditional Judaism" (formerly Union for Traditional Conservative Judaism) as a new movement, some attribute it to the right wing of Conservative Judaism.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: A New Age worldwide organisation established in 1984 by American rabbi Philip Berg, that popularizes Jewish mysticism among a universal audience.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: A Haredi sect formed in the 1980s by Israeli-Canadian rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, follows a strict version of halakha, including its own unique practices such as lengthy prayer sessions, arranged marriages between teenagers, and head-to-toe coverings for females.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: A movement founded by Avi Weiss in the late 1990s in US, with its own schools for religious ordination, both for men (Yeshivat Chovevei Torah) and women (Yeshivat Maharat). The movement declarates liberal, or inclusive Orthodoxy with women's ordination, full accepting LGBT members, and reducing stringent rules for conversion.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: A controversial ultra-Orthodox group with a Jewish burqa-style covering of a woman's entire body, including a veil covering the face. Also known as the "Taliban Women" and the "Taliban Mothers" (נשות הטאליבן).


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Made up of followers who seek to combine parts of Rabbinic Judaism with a belief in Jesus as the Messiah and other Christian beliefs. It is not regarded as Judaism by the major movements of Judaism, and is considered a form of Protestant Christianity. People who had become Messianic Jews as, in fact, Christians were not therefore eligible for Aliyah under the Law of Return. "Scholars are divided as to whether to call Messianic Judaism a Christian or Jewish Sect."


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Remark: Baal teshuva movement—a description of the return of secular Jews to religious Judaism and involved with all the Jewish movements.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: The very idea of Jewish denominationalism is contested by some Jews and Jewish non-denominational organisations, which consider themselves to be "trans-denominational" or "post-denominational". The term "trans-denominational" also applied to describe new movements located on the religious continuum between some major streams, as an instance, Conservadox (Union for Traditional Judaism).


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Organizations such as these believe that the formal divisions that have arisen among the "denominations" in contemporary Jewish history are unnecessarily divisive, as well as religiously and intellectually simplistic. According to Rachel Rosenthal, "the post-denominational Jew refuses to be labeled or categorized in a religion that thrives on stereotypes. He has seen what the institutional branches of Judaism have to offer and believes that a better Judaism can be created." Such Jews might, out of necessity, affiliate with a synagogue associated with a particular movement, but their own personal Jewish ideology is often shaped by a variety of influences from more than one denomination.


title: Jewish religious movements

text: Noahidism, Noahides, or Bnei Noah (, "Sons of Noah") is a new religious movement which is based upon the Seven Laws of Noah. Historically, the Hebrew term "Bnei Noah" has been applied to all non-Jews because Jews believe that they are the descendants of Noah. Nowadays, however, it is specifically used to refer to those "Righteous Gentiles" who observe the Seven Laws of Noah. According to Jewish law, non-Jews (Gentiles) are not obligated to convert to Judaism, but they are required to observe the Seven Laws of Noah in order to be assured that they will have a place in the World to Come (Olam Ha-Ba), the final reward of the righteous. The modern Noahide movement was founded in the 1990s by Orthodox rabbis from Israel (mainly tied Hasidic and Zionist).


title: The Reverend

text: The Reverend is an honorific style most often placed before the names of Christian clergy and ministers. There are sometimes differences in the way the style is used in different countries and church traditions. "The Reverend" is correctly called a "style" but is often and in some dictionaries called a title, form of address, or title of respect. The style is also sometimes used by leaders in other religions such as Judaism and Buddhism.


title: The Reverend

text: The term is an anglicisation of the Latin "reverendus", the style originally used in Latin documents in medieval Europe. It is the gerundive or future passive participle of the verb "revereri" ("to respect; to revere"), meaning "[one who is] to be revered/must be respected". "The Reverend" is therefore equivalent to "The Honourable" or "The Venerable". It is paired with a modifier or noun for some offices in some religious traditions: Lutheran archbishops, Anglican archbishops, and most Catholic bishops are usually styled "The Most Reverend" ("reverendissimus"); other Lutheran bishops, Anglican bishops, and Catholic bishops are styled "The Right Reverend".


title: The Reverend

text: With Christian clergy, the forms "His Reverence" and "Her Reverence" are also sometimes used, along with their parallel in direct address, "Your Reverence". The abbreviation "HR" is sometimes used.


title: The Reverend

text: In traditional and formal English usage it is still considered incorrect to drop the definite article, "the", before "Reverend". In practice, however, "the" is often not used in both written and spoken English. When the style is used within a sentence, "the" is correctly in lower-case. The usual abbreviations for "Reverend" are "Rev.", "Revd" and "Rev'd".


title: The Reverend

text: "The Reverend" is traditionally used as an adjectival form with first names (or initials) and surname (e.g. "The Reverend John Smith" or "The Reverend J. F. Smith"); "The Reverend Father Smith" or "The Reverend Mr Smith" are correct though now old-fashioned uses. Use of the prefix with the surname alone ("The Reverend Smith") is considered a solecism in traditional usage: it would be as irregular as calling the person in question "The Well-Respected Smith". In some countries, especially Britain, Anglican clergy are acceptably addressed by the title of their office, such as "Vicar", "Rector", or "Archdeacon".


title: The Reverend

text: In the 20th and 21st centuries, it has been increasingly common for "reverend" to be used as a noun and for clergy to be referred to as being either "a reverend" or "the reverend" ("I talked to the reverend about the wedding service.") or to be addressed as "Reverend" or, for example, "Reverend Smith" or "the Reverend Smith". This has traditionally been considered grammatically incorrect on the basis that it is equivalent to referring to a judge as being "an honourable" or an adult man as being "a mister".


title: The Reverend

text: Although it is formally an incorrect use of the term, "Reverend" is sometimes used alone, without a name, as a reference to a member of the clergy and treated as a normal English noun requiring a definite or indefinite article (e.g. "We spoke to the reverend yesterday."). It is likewise incorrect to form the plural "Reverends". Some dictionaries, however, do place the noun rather than the adjective as the word's principal form, owing to an increasing use of the word as a noun among people with no religious background or knowledge of traditional styles of ecclesiastical address. When several clergy are referred to, they are often styled individually (e.g. "The Reverend John Smith and the Reverend Henry Brown"); but in a list of clergy, "The Revv" is sometimes put before the list of names, especially in the Catholic Church in the United Kingdom and Ireland.


title: The Reverend

text: In some churches, especially Protestant churches in the United States, ordained ministers are often addressed as "Pastor" (as in "Pastor John" or "Pastor Smith"). "Pastor", however, is considered more correct in some churches when the minister in question is the head of a church or congregation. Some Protestant churches style their male ministers "The Reverend Mister" and a variation for female ministers.


title: The Reverend

text: Male Christian priests are sometimes addressed as "Father" or, for example, as "Father John" or "Father Smith". However, in official correspondence, such priests are not normally referred to as "Father John", "Father Smith", or "Father John Smith", but as "The Reverend John Smith". "Father" as an informal title is used for Catholic, Orthodox and Old Catholic priests and for many priests of the Anglican and Lutheran churches. In England, however, even Catholic priests were often referred to as "Mr" until the 20th century except when members of a religious order. "Mr" is still usual for priests of the Church of England.


title: The Reverend

text: Some female Anglican or Old Catholic priests use the style "The Reverend Mother" and are addressed as "Mother".


title: The Reverend

text: In a unique case, "Reverend" was used to refer to a church consistory, a local administrative body. "Reverend Coetus" and "Reverend Assembly" were used to refer to the entire body of local officials during the transformation of the Dutch Reformed Church in the mid-18th century.


title: The Reverend

text: "The Reverend" may be modified to reflect ecclesiastical standing and rank. Modifications vary across religious traditions and countries. Some common examples are:


title: The Reverend

text: None of the clergy are usually addressed in speech as "Reverend" or "The Reverend" alone. Generally, "Father" is acceptable for all three orders of clergy, though in some countries this is customary for priests only. Deacons may be addressed as "Deacon", honorary prelates as "Monsignor"; bishops and archbishops as "Your Excellency" (or "Your Grace" in Commonwealth countries), or, in informal settings, as "Bishop", "Archbishop", etc.


title: The Reverend

text: Among Southern Baptists in the United States, pastors are often referred to in written communication and formal address as "Reverend". However, Southern Baptist pastors are often orally addressed as either "Brother" (e.g., "Brother Smith", as New Testament writers describe Christians as being brothers and sisters in Christ) or "Pastor" (as in "Pastor Smith" or simply "Pastor" without the pastor's last name).


title: The Reverend

text: Many African American Baptists use "Reverend" informally and formally, however correctly "The Reverend John Smith" or "The Reverend Mary Smith".


title: The Reverend

text: In some Methodist churches, especially in the United States, ordained and licensed ministers are usually addressed as "Reverend", unless they hold a doctorate in which case they are often addressed in formal situations as "The Reverend Doctor". In informal situations "Reverend" is used. "The Reverend", however, is used in more formal or in written communication, along with "His/Her Reverence" or "Your Reverence". "Brother" or "Sister" is used in some places, although these are formally used to address members of Methodist religious orders, such as the Saint Brigid of Kildare Monastery. Use of these forms of address differs depending on the location of the church or annual conference.


title: The Reverend

text: In British Methodism, ordained ministers can be either presbyters (ministers of word and sacrament) or deacons (ministers of witness and service). Presbyters are addressed as "The Revd" (with given name and surname) or as Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms with surname alone.


title: The Reverend

text: The United Methodist Church in the United States often addresses its ministers as "Reverend" (e.g., "Reverend Smith"). "The Reverend", however, is still used in more formal or official written communication.


title: The Reverend

text: Church ministers are styled "The Reverend". The moderators of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, the Presbyterian Church of Australia, the Presbyterian Church in Canada and the United Church of Canada, when ordained clergy, are styled "The Right Reverend" during their year of service and "The Very Reverend" afterwards. Moderators of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) are styled simply "The Reverend". By tradition in the Church of Scotland, the ministers of St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh (also known as the High Kirk of Edinburgh) and Paisley Abbey are styled "The Very Reverend". In Presbyterian courts where elders hold equal status with ministers it is correct to refer to ministers by their title (Mr, Mrs, Dr, Prof etc.). Traditionally in Scotland ministers are referred to in their communities in this way and this is an entirely correct form of address.


title: The Reverend

text: Like some other groups that assert the lack of clerical titles within the church as narrated in the New Testament, congregations in the Restoration Movement (i.e., influenced by Barton Warren Stone and Alexander Campbell), often disdain use of "The Reverend" and instead use the more generalized designation "Brother". The practice is universal within the Churches of Christ and prevalent in the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ but has become uncommon in the Disciples of Christ, which use "The Reverend" for ordained ministers.


title: The Reverend

text: Internally, members of the priesthood do not use "The Reverend" as a style, but are generally known as "brother" or "sister" or by their specific priesthood office ("deacon", "teacher" or "priest" are often appended after the person's name, instead of, for example, "Deacon John Adams" or "Deacon Adams", and generally only in written form; in contrast, elders, bishops, evangelists, apostles, etc. are often, for example, known as "Bishop John Smith" or "Bishop Smith"). Any member of the priesthood who presides over a congregation can, and often is, known as "pastor" or (if an elder), "presiding elder". Such use might only be in reference to occupying that position ("she is the pastor") as opposed to being used as a style ("Pastor Jane"). Priesthood members presiding over multiple congregations or various church councils are often termed "president". Externally, in ecumenical settings, "The Reverend" is sometimes used.


title: The Reverend

text: In some countries, including the United States, the title "Pastor" (such as "Pastor Smith" in more formal address or "Pastor John" in less formal) is often used in many nondenominational Christian traditions rather than "The Reverend" or "Reverend".


title: The Reverend

text: The primary Jewish religious leader is a rabbi, which denotes that they have received rabbinical ordination ("semicha"). They are addressed as "Rabbi" or "Rabbi Surname" or (especially in Sephardic and Mizrachi) as Hakham.