The Xuetes (Catalan pronunciation: [ʃuˈətə]; singular Xueta, also known as Xuetons and spelled as Chuetas) are a social group on the Spanish island of Majorca, in the Mediterranean Sea, who are descendants of Majorcan Jews that either were conversos (forcible converts to Christianity) or were Crypto-Jews, forced to keep their religion hidden.

The Xueta surnames are Aguiló, Bonnin, Cortès, Fortesa, Fuster, Martí, Miró, Picó, Pinya/Piña, Pomar, Segura, Tarongí, Valentí, Valleriola and Valls, as publicly displayed on the convent of Santo Domingo.

[7] Likewise, the population is subject to certain pathologies of genetic origin, such as Familial Mediterranean fever,[8] shared with the Sephardi Jews and a high frequency of iron overload particular to that community.

It largely replaced former Aljama in taking care of the group's social needs, for instance, assistance to the needy, an internal organ of justice, officiating at weddings, and supporting religious cohesion.

In 1488, while some of the last converts of 1435 were still alive, the first Inquisitors of the Spanish Inquisition – a tribunal newly created by the Catholic Monarchs as part of an effort to forge a nation state on the base of religious uniformity – arrived in Majorca.

After this period, the Majorcan Inquisition ceased to act against the judaizers, even though there were signs of prohibited practices; the causes may have been: the participation of the inquisitorial structure in conflicts between local armed factions (bandositats); the appearance of new religious phenomena such as some conversions to Islam and Protestantism or the control of the morality of the clergy.

Because of the intense exterior economic activity, the Xuetes resumed their contact with the international communities of Jews, especially of Livorno, of Rome, of Marseille, and of Amsterdam, through whom the converts had access to Jewish literature.

It is known that Rafel Valls, known as "el Rabí" ("the Rabbi") religious leader of the Majorcan converts, traveled to Alexandria and Smyrna in the era of Sabbatai Zevi, but it is unknown whether he had any contact with him.

In 1674, the prosecutor of the Majorca tribunal sent a report to the Supreme Inquisition in which he accused the Majorcan crypto-Jews of 33 charges, among them their refusal to marry "cristianos de natura" ("natural Christians") and their social rejection of those who did so; the practice of secrecy; the giving of Old Testament names to their children; the identification with their tribe of origin, and the arrangement of marriages as a function of that fact; the exclusion in their homes of the iconography of the New Testament and the presence of those of the Old; contempt for and insults toward Christians; exercising professions related to weights and measures in order to trick Christians; holding positions in the Church in order to mock them later with impunity; applying their own legal system; taking up collections for their own poor; financing a synagogue in Rome, where they had a representative; holding clandestine meetings; complying with Jewish dietary practices, including those of animal sacrifice and of fast days; the observance of the Jewish Sabbath; and avoidance of Last Rites at the time of death.

Part of the penalty consisted of the confiscation of all of the goods of the condemned, which were valued at two million Majorcan lliura which, according to the usual procedures of the inquisition, had to be paid in actual currency.

Once the jail penalties were served, a great part of those who persisted in the Jewish faith, whose clandestine practices were noticed, harassed by inquisitorial vigilance and vexed by a society they considered responsible for the economic crisis provoked by the confiscations, decided to gradually flee the island in small groups.

On 7 March 1688, a large group of converts embarked clandestinely on an English vessel, but unexpected rough weather prevented them from leaving, and at daybreak they returned to their houses.

The trials lasted three years and the cohesion of the group was weakened by a strict regime of isolation, which prevented any joint action, together with a perception of religious defeat due to the impossibility of escape.

The sentences dictated by the Inquisition included other penalties that were to be maintained for at least two generations: those in the household of the condemned, as well as their children and grandchildren, could not hold public offices, be ordained as priests, marry persons other than Xuetes, carry jewelry or ride a horse.

Some of the latter perceived the French dynasty as a modernizing element in terms of religion and society, since Bourbon France had never exhibited an attitude of repression and discrimination comparable to the Habsburg rule in Spain, renewed – in the case of Majorca – with Charles II.

He was sentenced to jail and his properties seized but, as the war ended with a Bourbon victory, he was rewarded with rights associated to the lesser nobility; this did not affect the rest of the community.

In 1773, the Xuetes designated a group of six deputies – popularly known by the name of perruques (the wigs) because of the luxurious adornment they used during their lobbying – in order to address King Charles III to make a claim for outright social and juridical equality with other Majorcans.

Also, with reservations, the king showed himself to be favorable to the establishment of outright professional liberty and the participation of the Xuetes in the navy and army, but gave instructions that these dispositions would not take effect until some time had passed in order to allow the controversy to ease.

The king designated a panel to study the problem; the panel proposed the withdrawal of the sambenets; the prohibition of Faith Triumphant; the dispersion throughout the city, if necessary by force, of the Xuetes and the elimination of all formal mechanisms of mutual assistance among them; access without restriction to all ecclesiastical, university and military positions; the abolition of the guilds; and the suppression of the statutes of "purity of blood", and, if this were not possible, to limit these to 100 years; these last two were proposed to be applied throughout the kingdom.

Then began a new period of consultations and a new trial, which generated in October 1785 a second Cédula Real, which largely ignored the panel's proposal, and was limited to allowing access to the army and the civil administration.

For those remaining at Segell, the same attitudes of social discrimination, matrimonial endogamy and traditional professions were kept but, in any case, segregation was overt and public in the world of education and religion, bastions untouched by the reforms of Charles III.

Although the ideological duality within the Xueta community can be traced back to a time prior to the inquisitorial trials, it was in this context of violent sudden changes that it became clear that one faction, clearly a minority, yet influential, was declaredly liberal, later republican, and moderately anticlerical, fighting for the liquidation of all traces of discrimination; and another, probably the majority, yet almost imperceptible in historical records, was ideologically conservative, fervently religious, and wanted to go as unnoticed as possible.

At root, both strategies wished to attain the same goal: the disappearance of the Xueta issue, although they wanted to resolve it in different ways: one by making the injustice visible and the other by blending into the surrounding society.

Coinciding with these progressive periods, the Xuetes formed social clubs and associations of mutual aid; it is also during this time that they gained positions in political institutions via the liberal parties.

Josep Tarongí (1847–1890), priest and writer, encountered difficulties in studying and graduating, but was ultimately ordained; because of his Xueta extraction, he obtained a position outside Majorca.

Nazi authorities requested lists of persons with Jewish ancestry, planning to deport them to camps as in France and Italy but the intervention of the bishop of Majorca Josep Miralles blocked their delivery.

The mixing of German and Italian troops with locals led some Palma women intending to marry foreign soldiers to obtain from the mayor Mateo Zaforteza Musoles certificates of not having Jewish ancestry.

It was also enhanced during the 1960s in some revivalist movements which did not go further than the case of Nicolau Aguiló, who in 1977 emigrated to Israel and returned to Judaism with the name Nissan Ben-Avraham, later obtaining the title of rabbi.

In any case, Judaism and the Xuetes have had a relation of a certain ambivalence in that dealing with Jews who have adhered to a Christian tradition had been a matter not contemplated by the political and religious authorities of Israel.

Several Xueta institutions have been created in recent years: the association RCA-Llegat Jueu ("Jewish Legacy"), the investigative group Memòria del Carrer,[12] the religious group Institut Rafel Valls, the magazine Segell,[13] and the city of Palma has joined the Red de Juderias de España[14] ("Network of Spanish Jewries", Spanish cities with a historic Jewish presence).