mentioned above. Some unique communities associated with the Americas include: Sephardic Bnei Anusim are the descendants of Sephardi Jewish nominal converts (conversos) to Catholicism who immigrated to the New World escaping the Spanish Inquisition in Spain and Portugal. Following the establishment of the Inquisition in the Iberian colonies, again they hid their ancestry and beliefs. Their numbers are difficult to ascertain as most are at least nominally Catholic, having been converted by force or coercion, or married into the religion. Collectively, people of Sephardic Bnei Anusim Jewish descent in Latin America is in the millions. Most would be of mixed ancestry, although a few claim some communities may have been able to maintain a degree of endogamy (marrying only other Crypto-Jews) throughout the centuries. They may or may not consider themselves Jewish, some may continue to preserve some of their Jewish heritage in secrecy, many others may not even be aware of it. The majority would not be halakhically Jewish, but small numbers of various communities have formally returned to Judaism over the past decade, legitimizing their status as Jews. See also Anusim. Amazonian Jews are mainly the descendants of Moroccan Jews who migrated to the Amazon basin in the 19th and early 20th centuries. While many remain in traditional Jewish communities in the region, mostly in the northern Brazilian cities of Belém and Manaus, or as part of larger Jewish communities in other Brazilian cities, others scattered in the region and mixed into the local population. Iquitos Jews are mostly the mixed descendants of Moroccan Jewish traders who arrived in the Peruvian city of Iquitos during the rubber boom of the 1880s and the local mestizo or Amerindian population. In the late 20th century they began to explore their Jewish heritage, and as most of them lacked a Jewish matrilineal descent, a formal conversion would be required for them to be recognized as Jews under religious law. After years of study, with the help of Conservative rabbis from Lima, the United States, Argentina and Chile, most of them converted to Judaism and moved to Israel between 2003 and 2014. B'nai Moshe are converts to Judaism originally from Trujillo, Peru. They are also known as Inca Jews, a name derived from the fact that they can trace indigenous Amerindian descent, as most are mestizos (persons of both Spanish and Amerindian descent) though none with any known ancestors from other Jewish