Who was Rafael Cohen Henriquez from Curaçao
Executive summary
Rafael Cohen Henriquez was a member of Curaçao’s Sephardi Jewish Cohen Henriquez family, recorded in genealogical databases as born 8 June 1850 in Curaçao and dying 23 July 1921 in Curaçao [1] [2]. Contemporary biographical detail beyond birth, death and family connections is scarce in the reporting provided, and some modern entries with similar names likely refer to different individuals [3].
1. Identity and vital statistics
Genealogical records identify Rafael Cohen Henriquez with a birth date of 8 June 1850 in Curaçao and a death date of 23 July 1921 in Curaçao, and list parents as Mozes (Moses) de David Cohen Henriquez and Hannah Mordechay (née Alvares Correa Pinedo) [1] [2]. These same family trees place him in the extended Cohen Henriquez lineage that appears repeatedly across Caribbean genealogical sources [4] [5].
2. Family context: a prominent Sephardi household
The Cohen Henriquez surname recurs in Curaçao’s long-established Sephardi Jewish community, a mercantile and socially prominent group with roots tracing back to Iberian and Dutch migrations; multiple genealogical and local-community datasets show the Cohen Henriquez family across generations in Curaçao society [4] [6]. That context likely shaped Rafael’s identity and social milieu, although the specific role he played—occupation, civic work, or prominence—is not documented in the sources provided [6].
3. Siblings, descendants and local ties
Genealogical compilations link Rafael to numerous siblings and relatives recorded in Curaçao civil and family-tree records, reflecting intermarriage among leading island families [1] [5]. These sources suggest he belonged to the same extended network that produced other locally notable figures—such as Rebecca Cohen Henriquez, a later family member active in women’s civic life—though Rebecca was born in 1864 and her detailed biography is separate from Rafael’s entries [7].
4. Documentary limits and name collisions
Available reporting is heavily genealogical and does not provide narrative biographical material—no employment records, no civic registers, no contemporary press accounts—so assertions about Rafael’s life beyond dates and parentage must be treated as unconfirmed by these sources [1] [2]. In addition, modern databases list others with similar or extended names (for example a Rafael Cohen Henriquez Del Valle appearing in business-data compilations), indicating the potential for conflating distinct individuals across jurisdictions like Panama, Venezuela and the Netherlands if care is not taken [3].
5. What can reasonably be concluded
On the balance of the available reporting, Rafael Cohen Henriquez should be understood primarily as a 19th‑century Curaçao-born member of the established Sephardi Cohen Henriquez family, with documented birth and death dates and identified parentage in multiple genealogical repositories [1] [2] [4]. Beyond that baseline, the materials supplied do not substantiate claims about occupation, public roles, or personal achievements, and therefore no authoritative biographical portrait can be drawn from these sources alone [1] [2].
6. Open questions and next steps for research
Filling the gaps would require consulting Curaçao civil registers, synagogue records, local newspapers, notarial archives and family papers to seek occupational entries, obituaries, property records or civic mentions that the genealogical aggregators do not capture; those primary archives are not present in the current dataset, so the precise contours of Rafael’s life remain to be documented by archival research [1] [2]. Researchers should also distinguish this Rafael from similarly named contemporary or later individuals in business registries to avoid conflation [3].