History

Who Branca Dias was

Merchant, teacher, sugar-mill owner and, in secret, a Jew. The Inquisition tried her while she lived and denounced her after she died. The people turned her into a legend.

  1. c. 1515

    Born in Viana, northern Portugal, into a New Christian family.

  2. 1543

    Her mother and sister are arrested by the Inquisition in Lisbon. Branca sends word: keep quiet and condemn no one. The message lands her in prison.

  3. 1545

    She confesses, has her sentence reduced and is freed. She never denounced anyone.

  4. c. 1551

    She crosses the Atlantic with her children to Pernambuco, where her husband, Diogo Fernandes, had the Camaragibe sugar mill. In Olinda she opens a school where girls learn to sew, embroider and cook.

  5. before 1588

    She dies in Pernambuco.

  6. 1593

    The Inquisition reaches Pernambuco. Her former pupils describe what they saw in her house on Saturdays, including the yellow stew.

The legend

In Recife they say she threw her silver into a stream before her arrest, which is why it's called the Riacho da Prata, the Silver Stream. Her ghost in white is said to appear at the Açude do Prata on full-moon nights. In Paraíba they say she was burned. She wasn't: she died at home.

The legend became a play (O Santo Inquérito, Dias Gomes, 1966), a poem (Drummond, 1978) and a comic (2019). And many families in Brazil's Northeast say they descend from her.

Children and descendants

Branca and Diogo had eleven children, seven born in Portugal and four in Pernambuco: Inês, Brites, Violante, Guiomar, Manoel Afonso, Baltazar, Jorge, Isabel, Ana da Paz, Andreza Jorge and Felipa da Paz. She also raised Briolanja, Diogo's daughter. Daughters and granddaughters were tried after 1593; Brites Fernandes was arrested in 1601.

Genealogists link many families of Brazil's Northeast to her, above all in the Acaraú valley and Sobral in Ceará, and in Paraíba, Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Norte. In Cândido Pinheiro Koren de Lima's genealogy (Branca Dias, 3 vols., 2012–2016), among many others:

  • José LinharesPresident of Brazil (1945–1946) and of the Supreme Federal Court · Koren de Lima, pp. 279–281
  • Ciro, Cid and Ivo Gomespoliticians: Ciro, former governor of Ceará and minister; Cid, governor of Ceará and senator; Ivo, mayor of Sobral · pp. 134–135, 776, 1014
  • Tasso Jereissatithree times governor of Ceará, and senator · pp. 306, 496
  • Virgílio Távoratwice governor of Ceará, senator and minister · p. 1025
  • Armando Falcão, Sílvio Frota, Henrique Sabóiaministers of Justice (1974–1979), the Army (1974–1977) and the Navy (1985–1990) · pp. 119–120, 255, 947
  • Domingos Olímpio, Gustavo Barrosowriters: the author of Luzia-Homem (1903), and the member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters · pp. 234–236; vol. 3
  • Cândido Pinheiro Koren de Limathe genealogist himself · pp. 306–307

Also named as descendants:

  • Anittasinger · research by the genealogist Marcos Seneor
  • Renato Aragão, Mariana Ximenes, Belchior, Marisa Montecomedian, actress and singers
  • João Felipe de Saboia Ribeiro, Alexey Dodsworth, Paulo Leãopolitician, writer (author of the comic about her), and actor and filmmaker
  • Fernando Raja Gabaglia, Hugo Gouthierhead of the Colégio Pedro II and diplomat · Léa Freitag, Pesquisa FAPESP

The irony

Branca's descendants include Gustavo Barroso (1888–1959), and no one in Brazil did more to spread hatred of Jews. A chief ideologue of Integralism, Brazil's green-shirted fascism, he translated the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in 1936, the forgery the tsarist police cooked up to justify pogroms, and added an introduction swearing it was genuine. Then came the flood: Brasil, colônia de banqueiros, A sinagoga paulista and more pamphlets blaming “the Jew” for everything wrong with the country. He presided over the Brazilian Academy of Letters and ran the National Historical Museum; what history kept of him is the propaganda.

Barroso spent his life hunting for Jews hidden in Brazil's past. He only had to look at his own family tree: he descends from a New Christian who told her mother to keep quiet before the Inquisition, who kept the Sabbath with the table laid, and whose daughters were arrested for Judaism. The man who translated the Protocols is a descendant, many generations down, of the woman with the yellow pot. She stood up to the Inquisition and gave no one away. He did the inquisitors' work for free.

In culture

  • O Santo Inquérito, Dias Gomes (1966)Play: Branca becomes a young woman in 1750 Paraíba · book on Amazon
  • “Branca Dias”, Nana Caymmi (1976)By Edu Lobo and Cacaso, on the album Renascer · YouTube · Spotify
  • Romance d’A Pedra do Reino, Ariano Suassuna (1971)“A célebre Branca Dias foi um desses casos”, the famous Branca Dias was one of those cases (Folheto L, “O Inquérito”) · Amazon
  • “Branca Dias”, Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1978)Poem in Discurso de primavera e algumas sombras · read the poem
  • “Branca Dias”, Fortuna (2020)With Lia de Itamaracá, directed by Samy Waitzberg · video · Spotify · documentary on YouTube
  • A máscara da morte branca, Dodsworth and Sagara (2019)Comic, Draco · Amazon

Books about her

  • Cândido Pinheiro Koren de Lima, Branca DiasGenealogy in 3 volumes · Fundação Gilberto Freyre · FGF shop
  • Koren de Lima, Branca Dias: filhos, netos e a InquisiçãoFundação Gilberto Freyre, 2015 · FGF shop
  • Zilma Ferreira Pinto, Descendência de Branca DiasFrom the 1593–1595 denunciations · Instituto Paraibano de Genealogia e Heráldica, 1994
  • Miguel Real, Memórias de Branca DiasNovel · Quidnovi, 2009 · Amazon
  • Arnaldo Niskier, Branca Dias: o martírioConsultor, 2017 · Amazon

The trial record

Read more

Branca's trial is in the Torre do Tombo archive in Lisbon (no. 5736). The 1593 denunciations were published in 1929. On her life, see Mônica Queiroz (2024); on the legend, Geraldo Joffily (1971), who revives Irenêo Joffily's question of 1896: “Por que entre tantas vítimas … a memória popular só conservou o nome de Branca Dias?”, why, of so many victims, did popular memory keep only Branca Dias's name?

All sources