Privacy in Recife, Freedom in Amsterdam: Juliana’s practical strategies of autonomy across the Atlantic

In 1654, the Dutch colony of Pernambuco in northeastern Brazil was decisively recaptured by the Portuguese. In the process, many families were displaced to other Dutch territories, especially Jewish families in danger of being targeted by the Inquisition under the reestablished Portuguese rule. The present chapter follows historical traces left by one Jewish household in particular—that of Eliau Burgos—as they travelled from Pernambuco, briefly settled in Amsterdam, and then proceeded to Barbados. The focus is on Juliana, an enslaved woman who belonged to Burgos. Using the displacement of the Burgos household as a case study, this chapter aims to examine ways in which privacy, intimacy, and trust were informally leveraged in relationships of racialised subjugation in the colonial context of the seventeenth century.