Caceres family
Caceres was the name of a family, members of which lived in Venezuela, Portugal, the Netherlands, England, Mexico, Honduras, Peru, Suriname, the West Indies, and the United States.
This was soon discovered; the deponent, her mother, and brothers were arrested by order of the Inquisition; and Antonio Dias de Caceres, fearing a similar fate, went to China.
There he lived three years, came back to Mexico, feigned at first estrangement from his wife, because she was a "Judaizing" penitent, and finally, seeming to yield to the entreaties of friends who sought to bring them together, became nominally reconciled to her and set about in earnest to obey the behests of the Mosaic law.
His daughter, the above-mentioned Leonor de Caceres, figured as a penitent at an auto da fé held in the city of Mexico on March 25, 1601.
Daniel Levi de Barrios celebrates him in verse in the prologue to his allegorical comedy Contra la Verdad no ay Fuerça.
The translation of Caceres, published at Amsterdam in 1663, and dedicated to Don Emanuel, prince of Portugal, consists of two parts, the first dealing with the various sciences, the second with moral philosophy.
The title "Poeta, Predicador, y Jaxam, de la Ley Sancta Escritor" (Poet, Preacher, and Cantor, Writer of the Holy Law), given to Caceres by his contemporaries, shows the eminent position which he occupied in the Jewish community of Amsterdam.
"De la Ley Sancta Escritor" refers to the Spanish translation of the Bible, which he edited, revised, and corrected, and which was published in 1661, soon after his death.
He was prominent in mercantile affairs in Hamburg, London, South America, and the West Indies; and his transactions extended to many parts of the world.
[9] He joined Antonio Fernandez Carvajal in the acquisition of the Bet Cholim cemetery in London, and was one of the petitioners who signed the document presented to Oliver Cromwell by Manasseh ben Israel in March 1656.
At a later date the king of Denmark gave Caceres's brother a letter of recommendation to Charles II of England, which was instrumental in procuring for the Jews in the West Indies an extension of commercial facilities.
Together with this memorandum Caceres submitted to the protector a remarkable scheme for the conquest of Chile,[11] wherein he proposed to enlist "men of his own nation" (meaning Jews), and offered to lead the expedition in person.
In his letter of instructions Cromwell refers to the desirability of hindering the Spanish trade with Peru and Cartagena, and of striving with the Spaniards for the mastery of all those seas.
In Peru, he is considered a national hero for leading the resistance to Chilean occupation during the War of the Pacific (1879–1883), where he fought as a General in the Peruvian Army.
