Early Life
Duarte Lopez was born in 1731 in Lisbon, Portugal. He belonged to a family of conversos who professed Catholicism while they continued to practice Judaism in secret. In 1750 Lopez married a woman named Anna, and within two years the couple had a daughter, Catherine.
Aaron's older brother José had left Portugal years earlier, reclaimed his Jewish identity, and taken the name Moses. Moses was naturalized in 1740 and granted a license by the General Assembly to make potash in 1753, and he became a successful merchant in Newport. In 1752 Duarte and his family moved to Newport, where they lived as Jews and became Aaron, Abigail, and Sarah.
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Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)