COUTINHO

COUTINHO (also Cotinio, Cothino, Cotinsio, Cutinho, etc.), Portuguese marrano family, branches of which settled in Amsterdam, Hamburg, Brazil, and Jamaica in the 17th and 18th centuries. Notable among the Amsterdam branch were MOSES BEN ABRAHAM MENDES COUTINHO who in 1696 bought the printing house of david de castro tartas , which he owned until 1711. Among the works he printed was an edition of the Torah with the Targum Onkelos and Rashi's commentary, in 5,000 copies; SEBASTIAN COUTINHO (17th century) was one of the largest importers of sugar from Portugal and England in the 17th century; FRANCISCO DE SOUSA COUTINHO was representative of the king of Portugal in Holland and took part   in an embassy sent by the king to the Scandinavian countries in 1641. The Amsterdam Jewish journal Neiuwsblad voor Israëliten was published by the firm S.M. Coutinho Jr. between 1884 and 1894. GONSALVO LOPES COUTINHO (17th century) was among the first Portuguese Jewish settlers in glueckstadt near Hamburg, where he established a sugar refinery, an oil mill, and a soap factory. The brothers Abendana of Hamburg were sons of Manoel Pereira Coutinho of Lisbon, five of whose daughters were nuns in a convent in that city. The family HENRIQUEZ CUTINHO was among 12 Jewish families who settled in Curaçao 16 years after the Dutch conquest in 1634. LOURENÇA COUTINHO, the mother of the poet Antonio José da Silva , was arrested by the Inquisition in Rio de Janeiro in 1713 as a Judaizer and taken to Lisbon. She was again arrested in 1737, and subsequently died in prison. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J.L. D'Azevedo, Historia dos Christãos Novos Portugueses (1921), index; J.S. da Silva Rosa, Geschiedenis der portugeesche Joden te Amsterdam 1593–1925 (1925), 31, 145; H.I. Bloom, Economic Activities of the Jews of Amsterdam in the 17th and 18th Centuries (1937), index; H. Kellenbenz, Sephardim an der unteren Elbe (1958), index.