40. Richard Dunn, Sugar and Slaves (Chapel Hilclass="underline" University of North Carolina Press, 1972), 61; Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil, 88; Bloom, “A Study,” 90.
41. Contraband trade via Amsterdam was so popular that in 1662 Spanish trading galleons, despite a two-year absence from the New World, went home with their holds half full.
42. Dutch territory in northeast Brazil included the provinces of Pernambuco, Itamaraca, Paraíba, and Rio Grande do Norte.
43. Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil, 88–89 (transcript of letter in Wiznitzer’s appendix).
44. Bloom, The Economic Activities of the Jews, 138, 138n.
45. Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil, 93.
46. Ibid., 116–17.
47. Ibid., 95–96.
48. Bloom, “A Study,” 94.
49. Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil, 98.
50. I. S. Emmanuel, “New Light on Early American Jewry,” American Jewish Archives 8 (1955), 11.
51. Ibid., 9–13: Abraham da Costa was the head of the Parnassim who signed the petition that resulted in the Patenta Onrossa. He was the younger brother of Uriel, who had killed himself after renouncing his heretic beliefs, and elder brother to Joseph, who would later refer to the Patenta Onrossa in the struggle to achieve civil rights in New Amsterdam.
52. Ibid., 43–44.
53. Arnold Wiznitzer, “Jewish Soldiers in Dutch Brazil (1630–1654),” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 46 (September 1956), 46.
54. Ibid., 48.
55. Bloom, “A Study,” 126.
56. Ibid.
57. Ibid., 137.
58. Ibid., 130–31.
59. Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil, 108–9, 210: text of King John’s reply.
60. Roth, A History of the Marranos, 306: Portugal’s reconquest of Brazil was due in large part to him. Da Silva “provided ships, supplies, and munitions to the army.” After he was accused of judaizing, his trial dragged on for five years. Da Silva was finally freed after he appeared as a pentitent, and in 1662, the king sent him to England with Catherine of Braganza to administer her dowry. Though he remained in London, he never joined the now legal Jewish community.
61. Bloom, “A Study…” 136–37.
62. Simon Wolf, The American Jew as Patriot, Soldier and Citizen (Boston: Gregg Press, 1972), 449.
63. Wiznitzer, The Records of the Earliest Jewish Community, 55n44.
64. Liebman, “The Great Conspiracy in Peru,” 176–90; Liebman, The Jews in New Spain, 225–35.
65. They could settle in the six small Dutch islands of Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, St. Eustacius, and St. Martin, and although France and England were still off-limits, they were welcome in the French Caribbean islands Guadaloupe and Martinque, and the English colonies Barbados and Nevis.
Chapter Seven: Exodus to Heretic Island
1. Arnold Wiznitzer, “The Exodus from Brazil and Arrival in New Amsterdam of the Jewish Pilgrim Fathers in 1654,” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 44 (Philadelphia, September 1954), 80–97.
2. Captain Thomas Southey, Chronological History of the West Indies (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1968; reprint of 1827 edition): In 1568, the Crown accused the current heir, Don Luis Colón, of “blocking an investigation into charges the Admiral had used his private jurisdiction on Jamaica to cover illegal trade.” The charge was he imported more goods than the island needed for the sole purpose of exporting them to other colonies. This was in violation of the mercantile system that mandated first profits to the homeland, i.e., all goods had to come and go via Seville. Richard Bloome, A Description of the Island of Jamaica with the other Isles and Territories in America in which English are Related (London, 1672), 44: When the English conquered Jamaica, “the number of inhabitants did not exceed 3,000 of which half were slaves. And the reason why it was so thinly peopled was…chiefly because this isle was held in proprietorship by the heirs of Columbus who received the revenues and placed governors as absolute Lord of it. And at first it was planted by a kind of Portugals, the society of whom the Spaniard abhors.”
3. Francis J. Osborne, History of the Catholic Church in Jamaica (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1988), 84: The synod decreed the Jamaican abbot should come under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Santo Domingo on February 15, 1624.
4. Frank Cundall and Joseph Pietersz, Jamaica Under the Spaniards, abstracted from the Archives of Seville (Kingston: Institute of Jamaica, 1919), 17: Miguel Delgado, one of the Portugals who founded La Vega (Spanish Town) in 1534, was lieutenant governor in 1583; Morales, Spanish Jamaica, 86: Diego de Mercado ruled from 1583 to 1597. Prominent Jamaicans who bore those names were all of Jewish ancestry. See Jacob Andrade, A Record of the Jews of Jamaica (Kingston: Jamaica Times, 1941).
5. Cundall and Pietersz, Jamaica Under the Spaniards, 21, 26.
6. Ibid., 30.
7. Ibid., 30–31.
8. Ibid., 17–34. Melgarejo’s thirst for power exceeded his authority. Though loyal to the Crown, he had no qualms about feathering his own nest. After Philip II’s death in 1604, six merchants petitioned Philip III, accusing the governor of corruption, and “prayed he might be recalled.” They alleged he traded with foreign ships and pirates, “while taking for himself and his lieutenants all negroes and merchandise which entered the island.” However, the king was pleased with Melgarejo’s performance and appointed him to another term. When Melgarejo left office, Philip III, “on the petition of the people of Jamaica,” pardoned the illicit traders.
9. Ibid., 24.
10. Ibid., 47, 48: Jamaica’s governor tried, without success “to take from Francisco de Leyba Ysazi [sic] a tannery he has on the river which cause a lot of sickness being so near the town.”
11. Osborne, History of the Catholic Church in Jamaica, Appendix C, 445–76, lists the synod decrees. Don Nuño’s abbot, Mateo de Moreno, attended the synod, but the novice prelate was outmaneuvered by forces aligned against the Columbus family.
12. Cundall and Pietersz, Jamaica Under the Spaniards, 44–45; S.A.G. Taylor, The Western Design: An Account of Cromwell’s Expedition to the Caribbean (Kingston: Institute of Jamaica and Jamaican Historical Society, 1969), 74.
13. Robert F. Marx, Treasure Fleets of the Spanish Main (Cleveland: World Publishing Co., 1968), 4–5. Charles impatiently waited for the galleons: “The importance of the treasure from the New World to Spain can be readily understood from the following dispatch sent by the Venetian ambassador in Spain to the doge in September 1567:…‘there was great anxiety all over Spain over the delay of the arrival of the treasure fleet from the Indies and, when the Genoese bankers informed the King that unless the fleet reached port shortly, that they would be unable to negotiate any further loans for him, Philip II fell into such a state of shock that he had to be confined to bed by his physicians…I am happy to inform you that news has just arrived from Seville that the fleet has made port safely and there is now great rejoicing not only here in the Royal Court, but all over the land as well.’”