Edward Kritzler - Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T his book could not have been finished without the unflagging support of my sisters Mary Freedman and Helen Kritzler, and my Jamaican family Ainsley and Marjorie Henriques. I am indebted to the editorial advice of cousin Alan Wellikoff; lifelong friends Russell Karaviotis and Charles Shapiro for backing me with bucks; my ex-wife, Wendy Orange, for her continued encouragement; noted Sephardic author Jane Gerber for giving my research the necessary credibility and recommending my book to Doubleday; my agent, Mildred Marmur’s unstinting loyalty; my editors, Adam Bellow, Daniel Feder, and Melissa Danaczko, and publicists Chastity Lovely and Liz Hazelton at Doubleday. Other friends I want to thank are Jeffrey Phillipson for his unabated enthusiasm for my book; Allan Gordon, my role model for a Jewish pirate; and Vladimir Epelboym, my e-mail pen pal, who gave me many leads. Finally, when I look back over my life, I give thanks for the influence of Alan Freed, who fathered my rock ’n’ roll generation; foreign correspondent Bernard Diederich for showing me a life path; college newspaper editor Jules Older, who welcomed my adventure articles; Gabe Levenson, the dean of Jewish travel editors, for his unflagging support; and my Latin American history professor Larry Birns, raconteur extraordinaire.

All history books are written standing on the shoulders of other historians. In addition to those quoted, I would like to mention the writers whose works I found particularly valuable. For information on conversos in the New World: Seymour Liebman, Arnold Wiznitzer, Hugh Thomas, Irene Wright, Isaac Emmanuel, Zvi Loker, and Mordecai Arbell; for New World pioneers, the best reads are the books of Germán Arciniegas; the Jews in Dutch Brazil are documented by Arnold Wiznitzer and Anita Novinsky; for Spanish history, my favorite authors are Jane Gerber, J. H. Elliott, and Salvador de Madariaga; Samuel Tolkowsky writes most entertainingly on Jewish maritime heroes; the Sephardic Diaspora is documented in the voluminous works of Jonathan I. Israel and Daniel M. Swetschinski; pirates of the Caribbean are best covered by Dudley Pope, Alexander Winston, Anthony Gambrill, C. H. Haring, Stephen Talty, and buccaneer author John Esquemelin; the heyday of Port Royal by Robert F. Marx, Nuala Zahedieh, and David Buisseret; England in the seventeenth century is the specialty of Antonia Fraser; and the Jews of England are documented in the books and articles of Cecil Roth, William and Edgar Samuel, and Lucien Wolf. For Jamaica’s Jewish history, the best source is Jacob Andrade’s The Jews of Jamaica.

CHRONOLOGY

1492: Columbus sails on the historic 9th of Ab (August 2), the same day Jews must leave Spain.

1494: Columbus discovers Jamaica on second voyage.

1497: Forced conversion of Portugal’s Jews; Jewish children exiled to São Tome.

1500: Cabral with Jewish pilot discovers Brazil.

1502: Conversos barred from Spain’s colonies.

1503: Converso Fernao de Noronha granted monopoly to develop Brazil’s dyewood industry.

1503–1504: Columbus marooned in Jamaica, defeats mutiny; leaves his gold with cacique ally.

1505: Columbus returns to Spain; no record of gold mirrors.

1506: Columbus dies.

1508: Cuba’s bishop writes, “Practically every ship [is] filled with Hebrews and New Christians.”

1509: Seville conversos bribe king to trade in colonies; Henry Hudson discovers Hudson River.

1510: Diego Columbus sends Jewish loyalists to Jamaica to retrieve gold medallions.

1511: Formal settlement of Jamaica–Nueva Sevilla de Oro.

1513: Balboa discovers Pacific.

1521: Cortez’s army in Mexico includes 100 conversos; Charles V named Holy Roman Emperor.

1522: Verrazano captures ship loaded with Aztec gold; sails into New York harbor three years later.

1528: First auto-da-fé in New World in Mexico (Hernando Alonso).

1534: An eventful year: Charles V licenses conversos to settle Jamaica; São Tome Jews introduce sugar agro-industry to Brazil; Pizzaro conquers Peru; Cartier discovers Canada; Suleiman captures Persia with trusted Jewish physician Moses Hamon, who maintains a yeshiva in Salonika; Luther publishes German Bible; Henry VIII establishes Church of England.

1535: Charles V conquers Tunis; Barbarossa and Sinan, “the famous Jewish pirate” escape.

1536: Crown cedes Jamaica to Colon family; Inquisition commences in Portugal.

1568: Crown charges Columbus heir with importing goods for illegal export to the Main.

1568–1579: Conversos with Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh: Simon Fernando pilots Raleigh’s four voyages to America; Nemo da Silva, captured by Drake off Brazil in 1579, is abandoned fifteen months later in Mexico, where he is arrested by Inquisition as a judaizer.

1580–1640: Union of Spain and Portugal; resurgence of Inquisition; more conversos to Jamaica.

1597: English privateer Sir Anthony Shirley invades Jamaica and occupies it for two months.

1600: Melgarejo takes over Jamaica; institutes reforms and repels pirate “Motta the Portuguese.”

1609–1621: Spain and Dutch declare twelve-year armistice.

1609: Sultans’ envoy Palache signs trade and defense treaty with Dutch and secures Jewish rights.

1614: Palache arrested for piracy in England; Raleigh sails for El Dorado. Spain’s ambassador calls them pirates and demands their death; James agrees on Raleigh but Palache is set free.

1616: Palache’s state funeral in Amsterdam attended by William of Orange.

1618: Raleigh loses his head.

1618–1648: Thirty Years War: Catholic vs. Protestant; Jews sell arms and make loans to combatants.

1620: Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock—one of the continent’s first permanent settlements by Europeans.

1621: Dutch West India Co. formed; Pilgrims celebrate Thanksgiving modeled on Sukkoth.

1622: Ecclesiatical coup in Jamaica transfers power over church to the Bishop of Hispaniola.

1623: Jamaica’s Portuguese encourage Buckingham to invade with offer of gold mine.

1624–1625: Dutch temporarily capture and occupy Bahia, Brazil.

1624: Uriel da Costa excommunicated from Jewish community; Dutch settle New Amsterdam.

1628: Moses Cohen Henriques and Piet Heyn capture silver fleet; Buckingham assassinated.

1634: Dutch take Curaçao and Jews allowed to settle.

1635–1639: Lima Inquisition destroys Jewish community.

1640: Portugal regains independence; Columbus heir in Jamaica related to ruling Braganza line; “Bartholomew the Portuguese” assists invading English pirate; Uriel da Costa commits suicide.

1642–1649: Mexico Inquisition destroys community—only 13 of 109 victims escape execution.

1644: Converso Antonio de Montezinos claims he found Lost Tribes of Israel in Ecuador.

1648–1650: Ukrainian peasants led by Bogdam Chmielnicki slaughter 100,000 Polish Jews.

1650–1651: Menasseh Ben Israel’s book Hope of Israel, based on Montezinos’ claim, argues Messiah won’t come until Jews readmitted to England; Thurloe invites Ben Israel to England.

1654: Portugal recaptures Brazil; Dutch Jews aboard one refugee ship are “detained” in Jamaica as suspect heretics; eventually twenty-three “proven Jews” are set free to sail to New Amsterdam.

1655: DWIC authorizes Jewish settlement in New Amsterdam.

1655: England captures Jamaica; Cromwell opens Jamaica and Barbados to Jewish settlement.

1656: Robles trial in England; accused of being a Spaniard, Robles is freed when London’s Portuguese merchants come out as Jews and declare he is one of them. In Amsterdam, Spinoza is excommunicated for denying angels, the divine root of the Torah, and the immortality of the soul.