Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) Census, and has the second largest Jewish population in Latin America after Argentina. The Jewish Confederation of Brazil (CONIB) estimates that there are more than 120,000 Jews in Brazil. First Jewish arrivals There have been Jews in what is now Brazil since the first Portuguese arrived in the country in 1500, notably Mestre João and Gaspar da Gama who arrived in the first ships. A number of Sephardic Jews immigrated to Brazil during its early settlements. They were known as "New Christians" - Conversos (pt.) or Marranos (sp.) — Jews obliged to convert to Roman Catholicism by the Portuguese crown. The Jews from Portugal avoided immigrating to Brazil, because they would also be persecuted by the Inquisition. Most of the Portuguese Conversos took refuge in Mediterranean countries such as in North Africa, Italy, Greece and the Middle East, and others emigrated to countries that tolerated Judaism, such as the Netherlands, England and Germany. Many Sephardic Jews from Holland and England worked with the maritime trade of the Dutch West India Company, especially with the sugar production in the northeast of Brazil. The first Jews who arrived in South America were Sephardic Jews who, after being expelled from Brazil by the Portuguese, settled in the northeast Dutch colony. Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue was the first synagogue in the Americas, established in Recife in 1636 and a community of about 1450 Sephardic Jews lived there. When the Portuguese retook Recife in 1654, 23 Jews from the community escaped to the Dutch North American colony of New Amsterdam, that in 1664 would become New York City. In the final decades of the 18th century, some Conversos came to southeastern Brazil to work in the gold mines. Many were arrested, accused of Judaism. Brazilian families that descend from the Conversos are mainly concentrated in the states of Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Pará and Bahia. Most sources state that the first synagogue of Belém, Sha'ar haShamaim ("Gate of Heaven"), was founded in 1824. There are, however, controversies; Samuel Benchimol, author of Eretz Amazônia: Os Judeus na Amazônia, affirms that the first synagogue in Belém was Eshel Avraham ("Abraham's Tamarisk") and that it was established in 1823 or 1824, while Sha'ar haShamaim was founded in 1826 or 1828. The Jewish population in the capital of Grão-Pará had by 1842 an established necropolis. Agricultural settlements Because of unfavorable conditions