In 1624 most of the inhabitants of the town Pernambuco (Recife), in the future Dutch colony of Brazil were Sephardic Jews who had been banned by the Portuguese Inquisition to this town at the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. As some years afterward the Dutch in Brazil appealed to Holland for craftsmen of all kinds, many Jews went to Brazil; about 600 Jews left Amsterdam in 1642, accompanied by two distinguished scholars – Isaac Aboab da Fonseca and Moses Raphael de Aguilar. In the struggle between Holland and Portugal for the possession of Brazil the Dutch were supported by the Jews.