Swashbuckling Jews on
the High Seas
The late journalist
and amateur historian Edward Kritzler has spun a yarn of how a group nominally
Christian Sephardi Jews (Conversos) were placed at the core of New World trade
and became feared pirates on the Spanish Main. To be sure they were seeking
monetary gain and religious freedom; they also sought revenge against Spain for
the crime of the Inquisition.
The story begins with
exile of Jews from Spain in 1492. Most went to the Ottoman Empire in the east
and Morocco, but more than a few ended up in the Western Hemisphere. Indeed,
the Jews of Spain and Portugal were not only traders, but they were also
navigators. A case in point was Vasco da Gama’s navigator on his great voyages.
The Jews established themselves in Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, and the West Indies.
However, as the long arm of the Inquisition reached into the heart of Latin
America, many Jews fled to the West Indies and to the Dutch colony of Recife in
Brazil.
Once in the West
Indies the Jews became pirates but were really privateers in the service of The
Netherlands and England. In case of the Dutch, they were in the service of the
quasi-governmental Dutch West India Company. The goal of the British and the
Dutch was to break the Spanish monopoly on trade to Latin America. Because all
trade had to go through the Caribbean, it became a great hunting ground for
roving fleets of pirate ships.
The most famous Jewish
pirate was Rabbi Samuel Pallache who pillaged Spanish shipping for many years.
He would go on to be one of the founders of the new Jewish community in
Amsterdam. Amsterdam offered high degree of tolerance for the Jewish community
and many of its members grew rich from piracy and legitimate trade. Because of
their primacy in trade, when Olver Cromwell seized control of Britain, he
allowed Jews to return his country. Indeed, the Jews of the Caribbean were
instrumental in Britain seizing control of the island of Jamaica. There we see
the Jewish pirates working hand-in-glove with the most famous pirate of the
era, Henry Morgan.
Kritzler offers up
other vignettes as well. For example, Christopher Columbus was very friendly
with the Converso Jews and was given Jamaica by the Spanish king for his
exploratory efforts. As a consequence, under both Spanish and British rule
Jamaica offered a safe haven. Another safe haven was the island of Nevis where
Alexander Hamilton was born. And it was the Jewish traders of the Dutch colony
of Recife who had to flee after the Portuguese retook its colony that ended up
to being the first Jews in New Amsterdam.
Although Kritzler was not an academic and his history has some issues, he brought to life the role of a rogue Jewish community that opened up the Western Hemisphere to global commerce that helped bring on the mercantile revolution
