on June 25, 2020

Resende Costa Family, the inconfidentes

on June 25, 2020

Família Resende Costa, os inconfidentes
Residence of Inconfidentes in Arraial da Lage represented by the painter Jair Neri.

The family Resende Costa registered its name in the history of Brazil, especially after the participation of some of its members in the Inconfidência Mineira (1788-1789), and today, the composite surname is even the name of a small municipality in Minas Gerais. But what few know is that in addition to nobility, the descendants of this family bring in their blood the inheritance Sephardic Jewish.

The surname Resende

Like most of the surnames belonging to the Portuguese nobiliarch (book of the genealogies of the nobility), Resende emerged after one of the battles to regain the Iberian territory, dominated by the Moors. A strategic and fertile region in the Douro River valley was conquered by Dom Rosendo Hermigiz, great-grandson of the sixth king of León - Dom Ramiro II, who died in 950. After the victory, the lands were added to the then Kingdom of León and Castile.

In recognition of his achievement, D. Rosendo received, around 1030, part of those lands from King D. Fernando Magno, settling there with his family, the Baião. The corruption of the name Rosendo was adopted as the name of the family frazenda, Rezende (in archaic writing). The first to become known by the name of the property was Dom Martim Afonso de Baião - the “de Resende”. However, Resende only started to be used definitively as family surname when, around 1270, the King of Navarra, Filipe III, granted the coat of arms to Afonso Rodrigues de Resende, nephew of the aforementioned Dom Martim Afonso de Baião, in recognition of the family's righteousness and vassalage.


In the lands where the family farm was located, over time, the village of Resende was formed, in the district of Viseu, North region and Tâmega e Sousa sub-region, with just over 3,000 inhabitants. Headquarters of the municipality, it is right next to the municipality of Baião, which received the name of the family that originated the Resendes. The small village stands out for its rich traditional cuisine and centenary buildings.

The surname Costa

The surname Coast it would have appeared in the 13th century, used by a Portuguese noble family of Greek origin, whose patriarch would have been Nicolau Kosta. Other authors claim that the origin would be even more remote (12th century) and would be linked to the designation of Quinta da Costa, Comarca de Guimarães, which belonged to Gonçalo da Costa.

Another possible origin would be Jewish. According to scholars, it would be a corruption of the Hebrew surname Cohen, being used to identify new Christians (or Sephardic Jews), that is to say those who had been forced to abandon Judaism and were forcibly converted to Catholicism. In addition, some Angolan and Brazilian families use the surname in reference to the ancestors who would have lived on the maritime “coast”, with no relation to the families mentioned above.

The Resendes Costa

The first Brazilians to use the composite surname Resende Costa are descended from the Portuguese couple, born in Azores archipelago, João de Resende Costa (island of Saint Helena) and Helena Maria de Jesus (Fayal Island), which lived in the 18th century in Minas Gerais, at the time a major pole of population attraction due to the mining cycle. The couple had a total of 15 children, 6 women and 9 men, including José, who would participate in the Inconfidência Mineira.

João Resende da Costa was the son of Ana da Costa and Manuel de Resende, captain's great-grandson Sebastião de Freitas, reputed new christian who lived in the region that would become the current state of São Paulo, and Maria Pedroso de Alvarenga. It turns out that this couple's daughter, Catharina de Freitas, married the Azorean Jorges de Resendes and there were children.

Returning to the inconfident José Resende Costa, he was born in the territory of the then chapel of Santo Antônio da Lagoa Dourada, parish of Arraial de Prados (now Prados-MG). Marrying Anna Alves Preto, had the son namesake, José de Resende Costa, also unconfident, and Francisca Cândida de Resende. In addition to being a rich farmer, Resende Costa was a captain in the Auxiliary Cavalry Regiment of the Vila de São João del-Rei, with jurisdiction over Lage and Santa Rita (now Ritápolis, MG).


One of Inconfidência's financiers and mentors, José Resende Costa ended up in prison and had assets confiscated, dying in 1798, at the age of 68. In honor of his participation, together with his son, in the conjuration, the village of Lage, where he built his fortune, was named after his family in 1911, becoming the current municipality of Resende Costa, from where his descendants spread. throughout the region. Several families from Minas Gerais descended from this lineage, including Miranda, Monteiro, Moraes, Nunes, Pereira and Santos.

Important to remember: Last names are indications, but they do not determine whether or not you are descendants of Sephardic Jews. To prove this link, a genealogical study is really necessary.