Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean

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.

1657: In England, London Jews open a synagogue in a house on Creechurch Lane.

1657: Buccaneers of Tortuga invited to call Jamaica home.

1661–1662: Charles on throne rejects petitions to expel Jews; backs “gold finding” Jews.

1663: Six Jews arrive in Jamaica “on a royal mission to find a gold mine known to them.”

1664: Jews banished; mission declared a fraud and Isaac Israel ordered to return king’s necklace.

1664: New Amsterdam becomes New York.

1665: New York Jews obtain freedom of worship and other advantages of English citizenship.

1670: Morgan takes Panama; Madrid treaty recognizes English conquest; Cohen back in Jamaica.

1671: Cohen buys land in isolated river valley.

1672: Merchants try to expel Jews; Beeston charges Jews are aliens and seizes a Jew’s ship; Charles establishes Royal African Company for slave trade.

1674: Surinam Jews petition to come to Jamaica.

1675: Cohen vs. Cohen: Brothers’ Revealing Lawsuit.

1675: Grand opening of Amsterdam synagogue, still used today.