Itinerario, Vol. 40, No. 2, 293–310.

© 2016 Research Institute for History, Leiden University

doi:10.1017/S0165115316000371

Economics, Empire, Eschatology: The

Global Context of Jewish Settlement in
the Americas, 1650–70

J E S S I C A V A N C E R O I T M A N*
E-mail: [email protected]

The Dutch and English offered Spanish and Portuguese Jews inducements such as
liberties unheard of in Europe until the mid-nineteenth century in order to lure them to
their New World colonies. As compelling as the economic and military rationales
for Jewish settlement were, there were also “spiritual” reasons to encourage Jewish
settlement – and for Jews, themselves, to venture to the colonies. The mid-seventeenth
century was a time of eschatological fervor in both Christian and the Jewish communities
and millenarianism and messianism formed the backdrops against which Jewish
colonization in the New World occurred. The seventeenth century saw an increasingly
acute expectation of apocalyptic events by Christians and Jews, and was marked by an
outpouring of messianic prophecy all over Europe and the Mediterranean. This article
will discuss whether the English and/or the Dutch encouraged Jewish settlement in the
New World with the idea that it could help in ushering in the much yearned for second
coming. It will also discuss whether Jews may have been tempted to go to the colonies
with the idea that they were helping to bring about the dispersion described in Daniel
12:7 – a scattering that was necessary before the prophesized “Second Coming”.

Keywords: Jews, Guyanas, Early Modern, Eschatology, Colonization.

Daniel Levi de Barrios (1635–1701) came from a family persecuted by the Inquisition.
One of his relatives, Isaac de Almeyda Bernal, was burned at the stake when Barrios
was twenty years old. Barrios is known today as the preeminent converso (descendent
of Jews converted, whether forcibly or not, to Christianity) poet, and historian of
the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam in the latter part of the
seventeenth century. Yet, long before he became famous as a writer throughout the
western Sephardic diaspora, he was a colonist in a fledgling settlement of Jews
founded on the very edges of the South American continent. In one of his poems, he
laments that “She died in Tobago, Debora my wife.”1 This poem records de Barrios’
tragic loss of his young wife in this outpost of the Dutch empire. When their vessel

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 294 Jessica Vance Roitman

dropped anchor she was already very ill, and she died shortly after the group’s arrival in
Tobago on the “Wild Coast,” near the Spanish-held island of Trinidad. As newlyweds
in Livorno in 1660, the couple had joined a group of 150 Jews bound for the New
World. Devastated by his loss, Barrios temporarily abandoned Judaism and left for
Europe. But other Jews stayed in the region, joining settlers from such diverse places as
the Duchy of Courland in the Baltic in attempts to populate the area.2
The Wild Coast, bounded to the south by the Amazon River and to the north by
the Orinoco, which comprises present-day Guyana, French Guyana (see Gayle
Brunelle’s contribution), and Suriname, is now a largely forgotten economic and
political backwater.3 But in the seventeenth century, it was the object of competing
imperial ambitions. The Wild Coast was a constantly shifting frontier for the
contestation of European rivalries, as the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, English, and
French, not to mention groups such as the aforementioned Courlanders, all competed
for control of this region. The European powers hoped to establish profitable
plantation settlements, as well as trading posts. Moreover, the English, French, and
Dutch sought to challenge Spanish and Portuguese hegemony on the mainland—an
Iberian supremacy that the fall of Dutch Brazil in 1654 had reinforced. Yet to control
the region, all the imperial powers were desperately in need of colonists to populate
their settlements.
In the 1650s and 1660s, the Dutch, to a lesser extent the English, and for a short
period even the French (before the Code Noir in 1685) vied for Portuguese and
Spanish Jewish settlers on the Wild Coast, as well as in the Caribbean and the North
American colonies. For the Dutch and English, this meant offering inducements such
as liberties unheard of in Europe until the mid-nineteenth century, to attract these
colonists. They hoped to keep these settlers, some of whom were “seasoned” by their
experiences in Dutch-controlled Brazil, in order to make a go of their struggling
agricultural and mercantile endeavours.4 Moreover, in these sparsely populated
regions, especially in places like Tobago on the Wild Coast where the death of Eur-
opeans such as Debora Vaez, de Barrios’ wife, was generally the rule rather than the
exception, colonization was vital to the intertwined imperatives of mercantilist eco-
nomic ideology and strategic military positioning. Settlers formed a bulwark against
the encroachment of other nations, and Jews were often as inclined as (or even more
so than) other Europeans to venture to the New World.
This essay will show that it makes little sense to look at Jewish colonization in the
Americas in isolation, nor to look at this colonization as a purely strategic endeavour.
As pressing as the need for settlers in these outposts was, the New World was only one
corner of the stage on which imperial ambitions were played out. Jews were also being
offered expanded rights and privileges in European cities such as Modena (Italy) and
Glückstadt (Denmark/Germany) at the same time and were, in fact, active agents in
the negotiation of these same rights and privileges. Moreover, it must not be forgotten
that the mid-seventeenth century was not only a time of imperial jockeying for
territory on a global scale, but also a time of eschatological fervour in both Christian
and the Jewish communities. Millenarianism and messianism, the often entwined

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 Economics, Empire, Eschatology 295

ideas in Judeo-Christian theology that the end of the present times is imminent,
because the arrival of the promised Messiah is impending, formed the backdrop
against which Jewish colonization in the New World occurred. Thus, the competition
for Jewish settlers in the Americas must be placed in its global economic, political,
and religious context.

The Great Game: The Geopolitical Background of Jewish Settlement

The Dutch had had an ambitious start in the Atlantic in the early seventeenth
century, with the triumphant phase of their revolt against the Habsburg monarchy
(1568–1648) and the rise of the Republic as the commercial centre of Europe, the
founding of the first Dutch West India Company (WIC) in 1621, explorations and
conquests in both the Americas and Africa, crowned by a significant role in the spread
of the plantation complex, including African slavery, to the Caribbean. This “Dutch
moment in Atlantic history” was a period of military ambitions, framed in the wider
context of the Dutch Revolt against the Spanish and an ensuing relatively short-lived
Dutch hegemonic role in the Atlantic. This period extended from 1600 through the
1670s—a period that coincided with the settlement of Portuguese Jews in the Dutch
Republic, where they were allowed the open practice of their religion. However, these
glory days of the Dutch Atlantic empire were already on the wane after the
consolidation of Iberian power in South America following the Portuguese reconquest
of Brazil in 1654, and the nearly simultaneous consolidation of control over the
disputed trading posts on the west coast of Africa.
The Dutch Revolt against the Habsburgs had already ended with the Peace of
Münster and Osnabrück in 1648. With the fall of Dutch Brazil six years later, the
Spanish and the Dutch were largely at peace with one another, though hostilities with
Portugal would continue until 1669. However, the conclusion of these hostilities
coincided with other political and military events playing out on a global stage—
events that were to have strong repercussions for Jewish settlement in the New World.
Now that the Dutch and Iberians were no longer at war, the stage was set for other
rivalries to come to the fore. The First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–54) was fought over
trade, but resolved little between the two states. Meanwhile, the English and
the French had begun to supersede the Dutch as the major threat to the Spanish
Americas, and both the English and French were at war with Spain during the second
half of the 1650s.
During this same period, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the English
Commonwealth, launched his Western Design (see the contribution by David Smith)
with the intention of making inroads into Spanish territories in the Greater Antilles
(including Cuba, the Cayman Islands, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica).
Although his plans failed, they were part of a wider intensification of European conflict
and competition in North America and the Caribbean, including the Wild Coast. Only
rarely did a territory remain the long-term property of a single European state during
the mid-to-late seventeenth century. This increasing rivalry in the region was, of course,

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 296 Jessica Vance Roitman

a reaction to the shifting geopolitical circumstances after the reconquests and reasser-
tions of Iberian Atlantic hegemony on the South American mainland. The English,
French, and, especially, the Dutch were left scrambling for strategic positions on the
very edge of the South American continent, in the Caribbean islands, as well as in
North America. But these rivalries also went hand in hand with the development and
growth of plantation agriculture, particularly for sugar, and the concomitant increase
in the trade in enslaved Africans. In addition to the imperial strategic imperatives for
the stimulation of settlement, then, there were also increasingly important economic
factors at play as European markets for colonial products—tobacco, cotton, indigo,
cacao, and, most of all, sugar—continued to expand.
Therefore, there was a flurry of settlement activity all over the Americas in the
mid-seventeenth century—from the early 1650s until the end of the Second Anglo-Dutch
War (1665–67)—as the English, French, Dutch, and even smaller states sought to carve
out profitable colonial empires for themselves while checking the advances of their
European rivals. But these empires could not be created without settlers. The Zeeland
Chamber of the WIC tried to stimulate emigration in 1656 by offering inducements such
as land in the colony, transport to the region, and a sufficient supply of slaves to any
inhabitant of the United Provinces who would go to the Wild Coast. Despite these
inducements, potential colonists were in short supply. They were scared off by the risks of
the long voyage and the perilous conditions in the colonies themselves, including the
threat of Amerindian attack and the dangers posed by disease.
In 1657, an English agent in Livorno wrote home to say that the Dutch were “very
wisely and politickly” attempting to “invyte many families of Jews and grant them
many privileges and immunities.”5 And there were many families in Livorno to invite.
Livorno’s Jewish population had grown because of its liberal provisions for Jewish
settlement and its location on major trading routes. It was especially well placed to
receive refugees following the loss of Dutch Brazil three years before, as well as
the Venetian war with the Ottoman empire (1645–69), which affected the Jewish
communities in Venice and its Greek colonies such as the islands of Zante, Split, and
Corfu, not to mention the increased persecution of New Christians in Spain after the
fall of Count-Duke Olivares, the king’s favourite, chief minister, and protector of the
New Christians, in 1643. Thus, the Dutch seem to have been actively recruiting
Jewish settlers, perhaps because a significant number of them had stayed in Dutch
Brazil. And they found willing colonists like Daniel and Debora Vaez de Barrios who
set sail from this port to Tobago.
Yet Daniel and Debora might also have been tempted to stay in the Italian
peninsula. In fact, there was such an influx of Jews to Livorno because Tuscany
offered some of the most (if not the most) liberal terms for Jewish settlement in
Europe at the time. In response, other Italian states took steps to attract Sephardim.
The Duke of Savoy declared Nice to be a free port in 1648 and invited Sephardic
merchants, several of whom were known to have come from the Dutch Republic and
from Dutch Brazil. The Duke of Modena, in turn, issued three charters allowing for
Jewish settlement in 1652–53, because “Sephardic immigrants are wealthy people and

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 Economics, Empire, Eschatology 297

very apt to introduce traffic and commerce.”6 And his efforts bore fruit. Jewish
immigrants streamed into the city. Most of the sixty or so families of immigrants that
came to Modena arrived from Venice, but nine families are listed as having come
from Amsterdam or Hamburg, where there had been a Sephardic community since
the early 1600s. Perhaps the fact that these cities were siphoning off these valuable
merchants inspired Dutch attempts to keep Jews. At nearly the same time, Jewish
refugees from Dutch Brazil attained the right to settle and practice Judaism in
Middelburg and new Sephardic communities were established in Amersfoort,
Nijkerk, and Rotterdam—towns previously closed to Jewish settlement. Moreover,
the king of Denmark had granted privileges for Jewish settlement in Glückstadt
and there was likely already a nascent Jewish community in the English colony of
Barbados by the late 1640s.
All of which illustrates that (Spanish and Portuguese) Jews were viewed by various
European states as a valuable asset to be induced to settle in their European or New
World territories. There was a paucity of European Christians inclined to settle in
these regions at least in part due to the extremely high death rates of those Europeans
who did venture to the other side of the Atlantic. This was known in Europe. Even the
promotional material that most lauded the Wild Coast had to admit that new settlers
would likely be sick. In George Warren’s otherwise lyrical description of Suriname,
he acknowledges that newcomers would suffer from “fevers and agues . . . yaws . . .
and dropsy.”7 Gerardus de Myst, a member of a failed Dutch attempt at settlement
on the Wild Coast in the late seventeenth century, wrote in his widely-read narrative
of the expedition that one of the first things that the settlers had to do in the torrential
rain was to set up a rudimentary hospital for all the sick.8 And with every such
straggling group of survivors from these failed colonization attempts who returned to
tell their sad tales, Europeans became even less willing to venture across the ocean
to these disease-ridden climes.
Therefore, European states were willing to offer incentives even greater than those
offered in Europe to lure them to the Americas. At the same time, Jews themselves
were active agents in securing rights to settle in Europe and the New World.
Menasseh ben Israel, the well-known Portuguese Jewish scholar, was tireless in his
efforts to arrange permission for Jews to live in England. And, as the leaders of the
“Portuguese Nation” (Sephardic Jews) of the Dutch Republic wrote to the Amster-
dam Chamber of the WIC in 1655 to lobby for permission to settle in the North
American colony of New Netherland, “The more of loyal people that go to live” in
the [American] colonies, “the better it is in regard to the population of the country.”9

Jewish Settlements, Rights, and Privileges

The foundations had been laid for the extension of rights and privileges to encourage
“these loyal people” to settle from nearly the beginning of Dutch colonization in the
Americas. There was already provision made for the extension of liberties to Jews in
the plan for how Dutch Bahia in Brazil was to be governed (1624), and these

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 298 Jessica Vance Roitman

provisions were reiterated in the guidelines for the administration of all WIC colonies
in 1629.10 In the plans for the conquest of Brazil approved by the States General, the
WIC promised that “the liberty of Spaniards, Portuguese, and natives, whether they
be Roman Catholics or Jews, will be respected.” As was the case in other Dutch
overseas territories, the WIC established the Dutch Reformed Church for public
worship, but discouraged “inquires in matters of conscience or in their private
homes.” In Brazil, it was explicitly stated that “no one should dare to disquiet or
disturb them [Catholics or Jews] or cause them any hardship—under the penalty of
arbitrary punishments or . . . severe or exemplary reproof.”11 The Jews had more
extensive rights in Dutch Brazil than they did in the metropolis. For instance, they
could engage in retail trade, which was denied to them in Amsterdam. This “Brazilian
blueprint” led to the gradual development of rights for Jews in the Dutch territories of
the New World, usually as the result of political or commercial exigencies.
One of the most important of these rights was the recognition of belonging or
citizenship on a “proto-national” level. In 1641, the States General signed a truce with
Portugal. Included in this truce was a stipulation that Dutch Jews would be protected
on Portuguese territory, just as all other Dutchmen and women were.12 This status
was also asserted in the draft version of the 1648 peace treaty with Spain, which stated
that people of “the Jewish Nation” would receive the same treatment as other Dutch
citizens in the empire, and that no inquiries were to be made about their religious
beliefs, nor were their goods to be confiscated by the Inquisition.13 This draft, how-
ever, was never signed. Perhaps even more significant than these articles having to do
with the Portuguese empire, specifically, was the fact that, from 1645, Jews were
considered full subjects of the Dutch state in Brazil, meaning that they were not to be
treated any differently than non-Jews by foreign powers. This was a status that was
not extended in the Republic itself until 1657 when the States of Holland and the
States General declared that Jews were “subjects” of the Dutch Republic—
a declaration that was issued over and against the seizures of Jewish-owned ships and
cargoes by the Spaniards.14
So the rights and privileges enjoyed by the Jewish settlers of Brazil set an example
for both the “Old World” and for subsequent Jewish colonization in the Americas.
The blueprint had been laid for what sort of legal protection potential Jewish
colonists might expect from European states, and a glimpse had been seen of the
lengths to which these same states might go to attract or keep these settlers. In fact,
the Portuguese made some attempt to keep the Dutch, both Protestant and Jewish, in
Brazil after they retook the territory. They included a pardon in article one of the
surrender for “all nations of whatever quality or religion they may be . . . although
they may have been rebellious against the Crown of Portugal—the same also granted
to all Jews.”15
There is no evidence that many Dutch Protestants or Jews accepted this pardon
and stayed. However, the “adventure” of Jewish settlement in the New World was far
from over. Some exiles from Dutch Brazil went directly to other Dutch Atlantic
colonies, such as the twenty-three refugees who turned up in New Amsterdam,

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 Economics, Empire, Eschatology 299

although these were the exception rather than the rule. The majority of refugees from
Dutch Brazil returned to the Dutch Republic or other locations in Europe, including
Livorno, rather than moving directly to new American locales. Nevertheless,
Jews continued to be ready, willing, and able to settle in the Americas, even after the
fiasco of New Holland, as the Dutch colony in Brazil was called, and some European
states were more than happy to stimulate this settlement—if only out of a sort of
enlightened self-interest.
In 1648, the WIC invited colonists—of whatever stripe—to settle in Curaçao. In
1651, João de Yllan, a Portuguese Jew based in Amsterdam with experience in Dutch
Brazil, received a patent to bring fifty Jewish colonists to the island. But how would
such a settlement actually have worked, in theory if not in practice? The Dutch
Republic farmed out settlement in the colonies partly through the WIC, partly
through mixed semi-state and partly through strictly private initiatives. The latter
option, the so-called patroons—grants of parcels of land—were issued to applicants
such as Yllan, with the understanding that they would ensure its colonization with at
least fifty colonists within three years’ time. In this, the Dutch were similar to other
European states. For instance, Portugal used a system of so-called “captaincies” and
the English gave large grants of land to individual settlers and consortiums of
investors to arrange for the colonization of vast swathes of territory under what might
also be termed at least semifeudal conditions, such as the right to operate their own
courts of justice. However, these sorts of settlement schemes met with limited success
and died out fairly quickly.16
Such was the case with Yllan’s proposed settlement on Curaçao. The directors
of the WIC wrote to Peter Stuyvesant, the governor of Curaçao (1642–44), that
“He [Yllan] intends to bring a considerable number of people there to settle and
cultivate the land, but we began to suspect that he and his associates have quite
another object in view, namely, to trade from there to the West Indies and the Main.
Be that as it may, we are willing to make the experiment.”17 However, the experiment
never fully got off the ground—it seems that Yllan was not able to bring enough
settlers—and was superseded by a grant made to David Nassy in 1652, also to set up a
colony on Curaçao. In the agreements drawn up to allow for Nassy’s grant, the
stipulations do not explicitly mention the freedom to worship but do state that Jews
are not to work on the Christian Sabbath.18 Once again, though, not much seems to
have come of this scheme.
Although there was no official granting of a patroon for Jewish settlement in New
Netherland in North America, as previously mentioned, a small group of Jewish
refugees from Dutch Brazil had arrived in the colony in 1654. This set off a flurry of
correspondence about whether Jews should be allowed to settle there at all and, if so,
under what conditions. After much back-and-forth between the directors of the WIC,
Governor Stuyvesant, and the Amsterdam Jewish community, Jews in the colony
were granted “the same liberty that is granted them in this country [Dutch Republic]
with respect to civil and political liberties.”19 Though these liberties were relatively
generous, it should also be remembered that, in Amsterdam, guild restrictions

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 300 Jessica Vance Roitman

excluded Jews from most crafts (except those having to do with colonial trade such as
diamond-processing, chocolate making, and working with tobacco) and shopkeep-
ing. They were not allowed to serve in the civil militias in Amsterdam, in contrast
to New Netherland where Jews did take on that obligation, much to Stuyvesant’s
chagrin. However, in Amsterdam, they could meet in synagogues to worship, while in
New Amsterdam they were not allowed to “carry on their religion in synagogues or
gatherings,” though this was a restriction in place for all non-Reformed groups, not
just Jews.
So it is clear that, despite the desire to attract settlers, the Dutch were unwilling to
extend the extensive rights that Jews had enjoyed in Brazil to Jews in their other
American territories. Yet the WIC may have begun to feel pressure from the growing
Jewish immigration to Barbados, colonized by the rival English, where sugar
cultivation had begun to take off. In 1655, David Raphael de Mercado, a Jewish
sugar planter with extensive experience in Brazil, was authorized by the English
government to go to Barbados, where he joined a small community of Jews who had
been trickling onto the island since the 1640s. At this point, the WIC seemed willing
to grant more favourable concessions for Jewish settlement. In 1657, David Nassy,
apparently not to be deterred even after the limited success of his Curaçao initiative,
and a group of Jews who had recently left Brazil and were residing in Middelburg,
met with a committee formed by the Zeeland Chamber of the WIC about setting up
Jewish settlements in “Nova Zeelanda” on the Wild Coast along the Pomeroon,
Essequibo, and Cayenne Rivers.
The so-called “Essequibo liberties” hammered out during these meetings in
Middelburg guaranteed unprecedented privileges for Jewish settlers. Along with
liberty of conscience which was not in and of itself a new right, as it was granted in all
cases, Jews were allowed to “exercise their religious customs and ceremonies” and
were to be given land to build their own synagogues, schools, and cemeteries.
Moreover, Jews were exempted from appearing in court on the Sabbath and other
holidays, were not required to serve in the militias except in case of emergency, and,
echoing the “proto-national” citizenship rights awarded in Dutch Brazil, all Jews
were to be “accepted as burghers, even as natives of the province of Zeeland.” (It is
not clear what this actually entailed, however.) Two representatives of the Jewish
community were to be at “all general meetings for the common welfare and
commerce.” Jews could engage in any occupation, had full burghers’ rights to trade,
and the right to exercise minor judicial functions within their community. And the
Jewish community was also promised communal autonomy to govern its member-
ship as it saw fit.20 These rights and privileges were considered so attractive that they
were advertised in Livorno where a copy of the terms was sent to the Sephardic
congregation. And where, it is likely, Daniel and Debora de Barrios heard of them
and were tempted to embark on their ill-fated adventure.
With these rights guaranteed, there began an intense period of Jewish settlement
on the Wild Coast. Small colonies of Jews sprang up, though not in isolation from
non-Jewish settlements. In fact, it was only Remire in Cayenne, for which

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 Economics, Empire, Eschatology 301

David Nassy had arranged a patroon with the WIC in 1659, that seems to have been
intended to be an exclusively Jewish settlement. The responsibility for settlement in
the area had been given to three towns in the province of Zeeland—Middelburg,
Veere, and Vlissingen (Flushing)—and there were, in addition, efforts to encourage
colonization by non-Jewish merchants such as Jan Claessen Langendijck, who
brought in settlers for his colonies of Cayenne and Tobago, and by the brothers
Adriaen and Cornelis Lampsins from Vlissingen. The ship Concordia sailed to the
small settlement on the Pomeroon with French, Dutch, and Jewish colonists. The
English traveller John Scott described the colony on the Essequibo in 1658 as follows:
“The twelfth Collonie was of Dutch settled by the Zealanders in the rivers Borowma
(Pomeroon), Wacopon and Moroca, having been draue of from Tobago anno
1650 [sic]. And ye yeare following a great Collonie of Dutch and Jewes, draue of from
Brazile, by the Portugaize, settled there, and being Experienced Planters, that soone
grew a flourishing Collonie.”21
But this intense period of colonization was destined to be short-lived. By 1666,
these colonies had been taken over from the Dutch (though the WIC would later
regain some of them). The French conquered Cayenne in 1664 with a fleet of five
vessels and 1,200 French colonists. Various concessions were made to the Dutch after
the takeover, including “the free and most public exercise of religion [for the
Protestants]; the Jews also receive the free exercise of their religion; that the expenses
incurred by the patroon and individuals of the Hebrew colony shall be repaid.”22 This
may seem surprising. However, the events occurred before the promulgation of the
Code Noir in 1685, which outlawed non-Catholic settlement in France’s overseas
territories. While French policy was not particularly favourable to Jewish settlement,
and open Jewish settlement was not allowed in the metropolis, there was clearly a
desire to keep settlers, whatever their religion, in this sparsely populated colony.
Indeed, Jews had been granted the privilege to “deal with commerce” in 1658 on
Martinique. A Catholic priest visiting Martinique in 1662 reported that, “the Jews
that are not tolerated in France have found a French island to practice Judaism.” In
1671, Louis XIV’s minister, Colbert, wrote Martinique’s governor, M. de Baas, “By
this letter, I inform you that my intention is that . . . they have the same privileges
as the inhabitants of the said islands, and you allow them complete liberty of
conscience.”23 In a further example of pragmatic toleration, when complaints were
made in 1664 about the Jews on Martinique, the governor at the time, Prouville de
Tracy, received a directive in which it was stated that “The King does not want to
alter what has been practiced till now towards the Huguenots and the Jews.”24
Despite this example of toleration on Martinique and the offer of the free exercise
of their religion in newly conquered Cayenne, around 300 to 400 Jews chose to leave
after the French took over the Wild Coast settlement. The Jews from Cayenne moved
to the settlement in Essequibo, but their residency was disrupted by the Second
Anglo-Dutch War (1665–67), when the English took possession of the territory. The
English expelled the Jews from this colony and those living on the Pomeroon River in
1666. This seems strange because Jews were welcomed in the English settlement of

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 302 Jessica Vance Roitman

Suriname, and it seems that many or most of the exiles drifted into the English colony,
including, quite possibly, the aforementioned David Nassy, who was instrumental to
the foundation of the Jewish community in Suriname and, in fact, was of great
importance to the colony as a whole. Despite having expelled the Jewish settlers from
the other settlements, the English had actually been active in encouraging Jewish
settlement in Suriname. In 1665, the English government opined that
Whereas it is good and sound policy to encourage as much as possible whatever may
tend to the increase of a new colony, and to invite persons of whatsoever country and
religion, to come and reside here and traffic with us; . . . we have found that the Hebrew
nation now already resident here, have, with their persons and property proved
themselves useful and beneficial to this colony, and being desirous to encourage them to
continue their residence, and trade here.25

In this same year, the English authorities granted several privileges to the Jewish
population, based almost entirely on the Dutch “Essequibo liberties,” including
freedom of worship, the free exercise of their customs, and exemption from work on
Sabbaths and holidays. Likewise, on Sundays they were allowed to work, to have
their slaves work, and to visit relatives.
However, the English interlude in Suriname was also to be brief, as the colony was
taken over by a fleet sent by the Admiralty of Zeeland in 1667 as part of the ongoing
hostilities between England, the Dutch Republic, and France (now allied with the
Dutch). The new Dutch rulers maintained the privileges granted by the English to the
Jews already in the colony. In fact, as Alison Games shows, the Dutch maintained
many of practices set up by the English, including agricultural ones.26 A year later,
the States of Zeeland went a step further and affirmed that all Jews in their new
territory were to be considered as if Dutch-born. And in 1669 they confirmed all the
rights granted by the English (rights, ironically, that were based on their own liberties
granted for settlement in Essequibo), including the right to work on Sunday,
dispensation from court appearances on Saturdays, the dispensation of guard duty
(Jews were allowed to form their own militias in 1671), the right to open Jewish
schools on Sunday, and the freedom to select coreligionists “to govern their
synagogues and administer the general affairs of their nation” in 1669.
The Dutch certainly already had an established precedent for the confirmation of
Jewish privileges in Suriname. After all, the rights the English had granted them had been
based on the liberties extended for Jewish settlement on the Wild Coast—rights granted
in an effort to encourage Jewish colonists to come to their territory. Yet the 1668
extension of Dutch citizenship status to Jews in the colony points to concerns beyond
legal precedent. The Treaty of Breda (1667) gave New Netherland to the English, who
had also conquered the strategically important Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655. The
English were also making inroads on the Wild Coast, and Barbados was becoming a
sugar-producing powerhouse with a “Governor [who] has countenanced Jews who have
become very numerous and engrossed the greatest part of the trade of the island.”27 To
counter these territorial gains and their rival’s increasing economic might, it was more
important than ever to hold on to valuable colonists.

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 Economics, Empire, Eschatology 303

In a more extreme example of what the Portuguese had tried to do after they took
over Brazil a little more than a decade before, the Dutch hoped to keep the Jewish
settlers already resident in Suriname by confirming existing rights and extending
more extensive privileges. But they also tried to keep Jewish settlers in Suriname by
any means necessary. The Dutch stalled in allowing Jewish settlers to leave with the
other English colonists after their takeover, as the terms of the peace treaty had
stipulated. One of the English negotiators wrote to the English government that, “the
Hollanders denied that the Jewes were his Majesties subjects or free denizens.”28
Though ultimately successful, negotiations on behalf of ten Portuguese Jewish
planters who desired to immigrate with 322 slaves to Jamaica from Suriname under
the terms of the Treaty of Breda dragged on for over seven years. In the end, the
departure of these settlers mattered little, and it was Suriname (along with Curaçao)
where the rights and privileges given to Jews allowed for growth of a flourishing
community in which anywhere from one-third to one-half of the white population
would be Jewish by the mid-eighteenth century.

Why Did Jews Go to the New World?

Thus far, this essay has looked at Jewish settlement in the New World from the
perspective of the European states that encouraged it. As has been argued thus
far, these states saw settlers as a valuable asset. They had strategic importance in
populating regions considered of value in the global geopolitical game of trying to
check other states’ imperial advances. So colonization was encouraged and Jews were
considered to be of importance in this overall strategy. Some had been “seasoned” by
their experiences in Dutch Brazil and, therefore, knew something of plantation
agriculture. Moreover, they might have built up the sorts of immunities to tropical
diseases that killed off so many other colonists. In addition, their knowledge of
Spanish and Portuguese and their connections to inter-imperial trade networks were
already recognized and appreciated. But why did Jews themselves choose to embark
on these dangerous expeditions?
Of course, there were very real economic incentives. As one of the pamphlets circu-
lating in the Dutch Republic around this time, said, “Guyana is one of the most delightful,
pleasurable, fertile and richest lands under heaven.” The products, such as “sugar cane,
tobacco, cotton, ginger, cacao, indigo and dyewood” were praised as “there for great
profit and gains to be made.” The sea and the rivers were full of the “largest, most
beautiful and delicate fish of all sorts.” Moreover, “it was always summer.”29
For Jews with experience in tropical agriculture, such as the veterans of Dutch
Brazil, a return to the Americas was possibly appealing, especially given the growing
poverty of the Portuguese Jewish communities in Europe. These communities were
struggling to absorb the Brazilian refugees, most of whom had lost all their posses-
sions and were in need of charity. These same communities were also trying to help
New Christians fleeing from Spain after the intensification of Inquisitorial persecu-
tion and migrants from Venice and its colonies due to the ongoing war with the

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 304 Jessica Vance Roitman

Ottoman Turks. So even Jews without experience in tropical agriculture and trade,
such as Daniel and Debora de Barrios, might have been tempted by the prospects of a
land of eternal summer in the Americas.
And Jews like Daniel and Debora who read the “Essequibo liberties” in the synagogue
in Livorno (and possibly in other cities in Europe) would no doubt have been tempted by
the opportunity to live openly as Jews, following the customs of their faith and practicing
whatever trades and occupations they saw fit. After all, even the most “liberal” and
“tolerant” of European cities and states such as Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Livorno
imposed limitations on the Jewish communities living within their borders. Moreover,
the fall of Count-Duke Olivares and the subsequent increase in the persecution of New
Christians reinforced the fact that Jews in Europe were only as safe as their powerful
protectors. So the promise of rights far more extensive than those offered in Europe was
no doubt a powerful inducement to move to the New World.
As reasonable as these rationales for Jews to settle in the New World might
have been, it should not be forgotten that, as noted previously, the middle of the
seventeenth century saw an increasingly acute expectation of apocalyptic events
among both Christians and Jews, marked by an outpouring of messianic prophecy all
over Europe and the Mediterranean. Protestants in England and The Netherlands
had calculated that 1655–56 would be decisive, beginning with the conversion of the
Jews.30 Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel proclaimed in 1655 that the coming of the
Messiah was imminent because a Portuguese explorer had reported finding one of
the ten lost tribes of Israel in the Andes Mountains in Colombia.
In 1644, Antonio de Montezinos came to Amsterdam testified under oath before
Menasseh ben Israel “and [d]ivers other chiefe men of the Portugall Nation” about his
discovery. Simultaneously other reports about the appearance of the ten tribes reached
Jews and Christians, creating an atmosphere of excitement that, as Menasseh ben Israel
would write, “the day of the promised Messiah unto us doth draw near.”31 The discovery
of Israelites in South America was proof of the increasing dispersion of Israel, and, as
Menasseh ben Israel pointed out in both Miqweh Israel (1650) and, six years later, in his
Vindiciae Judaeorum, according to Daniel 12:7 (“And when he shall have accomplished
to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished”), this general
dispersion was a necessary precondition for the Second Coming of the Messiah.32
In short, the spread of Jews throughout the world, including the New World, would
help usher in the end of days. Both Christian and Jewish millenarians hoped to effect
this by enabling Jews to live peacefully in territories controlled by Christian states. This
plan was among the motivations for the meeting in 1651, at which the members of an
English mission in Holland assured Menasseh ben Israel that Oliver Cromwell would
welcome the return of the Jews to a country from which they had been expelled nearly
five hundred years earlier.33 Despite long negotiations, Menasseh’s request for the
readmission of Jews to England was rejected (though a blind eye was turned to Jews
entering the country, which became a sort of de facto readmission); but the story
nevertheless illustrates the importance that both Christian and Jewish communities
attached to prophecies about the Jews and their dispersion.34

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 Economics, Empire, Eschatology 305

A decade and a half after his departure for the New World, Daniel Levi de Barrios
became a follower of Sabbatai Zvi, who claimed to be the long-awaited Jewish messiah
and whose appearance on the scene brought about a brief, but intense, period of
messianic fervour among Jews. De Barrios continued with his messianic and
millenarian tendencies. In his Atlas angélico de la Gran Bretaña, published in 1688, he
elaborated on the spiritual significance of the birth of the Prince of Wales in June
of 1688, interpreting the event as a hidden defeat of popery in London and a triumph of
the Protestant religion. He based his interpretation on chapter 19 of the Book of Isaiah.
Barrios was deeply imbued with the idea that contemporary political events such as the
Glorious Revolution in England were of profound spiritual significance for all mankind
and had been foretold and announced in Scripture. Well after 1688, de Barrios
continued to see the Glorious Revolution and events connected with it as the fulfilment
of mystical prognostications of William III’s triumph and “Dutch salvation.”35
So it not unlikely that at least some Jews such as Barrios were propelled by
messianic beliefs and thought they might be helping to bring about the messianic age
by venturing to far corners of the globe. This is not to say, of course, that the majority
of Jews who embarked to the New World in the colonizing schemes of the
mid-seventeenth century were necessarily driven by messianic fervour. Yet some,
such as Barrios, seemed to have been, and this sort of ideology certainly formed a
backdrop to these same colonizing efforts. Menasseh ben Israel’s thought was quite
influential among Jews and Protestants alike.
There is some debate among historians concerning whether or not Menasseh’s
personal motives for pursuing the readmission of the Jews by England were primarily
political or religious. Ismar Schorsch, for example, argues that the idea of England
being a final place for Jews to inhabit in order to bring about the coming of the
Messiah was hardly present in Hope of Israel, but, rather, was developed by
Menasseh later in order to appeal to English Christians with Millenarian beliefs.36
Oliver Cromwell, for instance, was a fervent believer in the imminence of the Second
Coming, which Menasseh no doubt knew.37
It is certainly not the case that either the English or the Dutch encouraged Jewish
settlement in the New World with the express idea of ushering in the much yearned for
Second Coming. Yet, with religious issues holding such an important part in the conflicts
all over Europe, it is hard not to think that this millenarian and messianic thinking, when
combined with the pragmatic strategic and economic imperatives for European settlers in
the New World, must have affected Jewish settlement to some extent.

Conclusion
When newlyweds Daniel and Debora de Barrios set out from Livorno in 1660, they
were embarking on a journey to a still new world. They could have hoped for
adventure and the beginning of a new life together in an exotic paradise. They may
have hoped for economic stability, to prosper away from the cities of Europe like
their own Livorno, which was crowded with Jewish refugees. Daniel’s experience of

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 306 Jessica Vance Roitman

exile from Spain and the execution of his relative, Isaac de Almeyda Bernal in 1655 by
the Inquisition, may have made the extensive liberties in their Wild Coast settlements
advertised by the Dutch in Livorno particularly attractive to him. And, if his later
fervent messianism is any indication, Daniel and Debora might have wanted to go to
the Americas to contribute to the dispersion of the Jewish people to all corners of the
globe, which would hasten the prophesized coming of the Messiah. These same
combinations of reasons might have compelled other Jewish settlers, as well.
European states, likewise, had their own rationales—economic, strategic, and even
religious. The Dutch above all needed settlers to populate their new territories. The
growing plantation complex meant that unwilling settlers—enslaved Africans—were
an increasingly important part of the picture, as were colonists of all sorts who would
be helpful in the imperial New World endeavours. Thus, some European states were
willing to offer Jews progressively more rights if they would help in the colonizing
efforts. Jews were useful. At least some Jews had experience in tropical agriculture,
many spoke multiple languages, including Spanish and Portuguese, and quite a few
were connected to trans-imperial trading networks. Offering Jews the right to openly
practice their religion, allowing them to work on Sundays, and to govern their own
communities as they saw fit likely seemed a relatively small price to pay in exchange
for the perceived benefits these settlers could bring. Of course, at an official level,
religious difference still mattered, but economic, military, and political utility coun-
ted for more. Nor should it be forgotten that there was always a gap between official
policy and actual practice when it came to the rights and privileges that Jews had
in Europe’s overseas colonies, which sometimes meant that Jews enjoyed more
privileges and rights than they had on paper, and other times fewer.
In any case, Jewish colonization in the Americas was part of a larger series
of movements. The New World was only one corner of the stage on which imperial
ambitions were played out. Jews were also being offered expanded rights and
privileges in European cities in the 1650s and 1660s. This stemmed not (only) from
some sort of enlightened tolerance, but from economic and strategic imperatives. And
though the coming of the Messiah may not have been the foremost rationale for the
Protestant Dutch Republic or England, millenarianism and messianism formed the
backdrops against which a growing presence in Europe was tolerated and in which
Jewish colonization in the New World was actually encouraged. Placing the
competition for Jewish settlers in the Americas in its global economic, political, and
religious context, therefore, is vitally important for understanding how and why
European states acted as they did and, in turn, how and why Jews acted and reacted
to American colonization.

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 Economics, Empire, Eschatology 309

Notes
* Jessica Vance Roitman is a researcher at Founders of the Jewish Settlements in
the Royal Netherlands Institute of Dutch America, 1650s and 1660s.”
Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies 5 MacPherson, Annals of Commerce, 2.472.
(KITLV) and a Lecturer at Leiden 6 Balletti, Gli Ebrei e gli Estensi, 223–24.
University. She works on diverse topics, 7 Warren, An Impartial Description of
including Jewish history, Early Modern Surinam upon the continent of Guiana
(Atlantic) history, slavery, migration, in America (NP, 1667), 4.
and the formation of identities. 8 de Myst, Verloren Arbeyt ofte klaar en
1 Zwarts, “Een Episode Uit de Joodsche kortbondigh vertoogh van de colonie in de
Kolonisatie van Guyana (1660),” 519. landstreke Guiana aan de vaste kuste van
2 Arbell, The Jewish Nation of the America.
Caribbean: The Spanish-Portuguese 9 Oppenheim, “The Early History of the
Jewish Settlements in the Caribbean and Jews in New York, 1654–1664: Some
the Guianas. New Matter on the Subject,” 10.
3 There has been a recent resurgence in 10 National Archives of the Netherlands,
academic interest in colonial Suriname. The Hague (hereafter NL-HaNA),
See, for instance, Games, “Cohabitation, Staten-Generaal, 1.01.02, inv. nr. 5751,
Suriname-Style: English Inhabitants in Groot placaet-boeck, vervattende de pla-
Dutch Suriname after 1667”; Davis, caten, ordonnantien ende edicten van de
“Regaining Jerusalem: Eschatology and Staten Generael der Vereenighde Neder-
Slavery in Jewish Colonization in landen, ende van de Staten van Hollandt
Seventeenth-Century Suriname”; idem, en West-Vrieslandt, mitsgaders vande
“Physicians, Healers, and their Remedies Staten van Zeelandt, 2.1235.
in Colonial Suriname”; idem, “Judges, 11 NL-HaNA, Staten-Generaal, 1.01.02,
Masters, Diviners: Slaves’ Experience of inv. nr. 5751A, 13 October 1629.
Criminal Justice in Colonial Suriname”; 12 Israel, Conflicts of Empires: Spain, the
Fatah-Black, White Lies and Black Low Countries, and the Struggle for
Markets: Evading Metropolitan Author- World Supremacy, 1585–1713, 150–51.
ity in Colonial Suriname, 1650–1800; 13 NL-HaNA, Collectie Aitzema, 1584–1669,
Zijlstra, Anglo-Dutch Suriname: Ethnic 1.10.02, inv. nr. 66–67, clauses 8 and 9,
Interaction and Colonial Transition in August 1648.
the Caribbean, 1651–1682; idem, 14 Groot placaet-boeck (The Hague, 1770),
“Competing for European Settlers: Local 7.59–60. The Jews were declared by
Loyalties of Colonial Governments in the States of Holland and the States
Suriname and Jamaica, 1660–1680”; General to be “waarlyk zyn onderdaa-
Aviva Ben-Ur, “Purim in the Public nen” (truly their subjects). See also
Eye: Leisure, Violence, and Cultural Tels-Elias, “De Resolutie van de Staten
Convergence in the Dutch Atlantic”; van Holland van 12 Juli 1657 en de
Ben-Ur and Roitman, “Adultery Here Civiele Status van de Nederlandse
and There: Crossing Sexual Boundaries Joden,” 56–57.
in the Dutch Jewish Atlantic”; Roitman, 15 Accord van Brasilien, Mede van ‘t Recif,
“Portuguese Jews, Amerindians, and the Maurits-Stadt ende de omleggende Forten
frontiers of encounter in colonial Suri- van Brasil.
name”; and idem, “Creating Confusion 16 For more on these settlements, see Roper
in the Colonies: Jews, Citizenship, and and Van Ruymbeke, eds., Constructing
the Dutch and British Atlantics.” Early Modern Empires: Proprietary
4 For more on this, see Klooster, “Net- Ventures in the Atlantic World,
works of Colonial Entrepreneurs: The 1500–1750.

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 310 Jessica Vance Roitman

17 http://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/ which remains the fullest discussion of

files/5913/8016/5529/Correspondence_ Manasseh ben Israel and the negotiations
1647–1653.pdf. for the readmission of the Jews to England
18 http://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/ in 1655.
files/5313/6082/3614/Curacao_Transcrip 31 Menasseh ben Israel to Drury, 23
tion.pdf. December 1649, in Wolf, ed., Menasseh
19 Amsterdam Chamber (WIC) to Stuyve- ben Israel’s mission to Oliver Cromwell:
sant, 14 June 1656, in Oppenheim, being a reprint of the pamphlets published
“Early History of the Jews,” 21. by Menasseh ben Israel to promote the
20 Egerton MS. No. 2,395, fol. 46, British re-admission of the Jews to England
Museum. Oppenheim, “An Early Jewish 1649–1656, lxxviii; Thorowgood, Jews
Colony in Western Guiana, 1658–1666: in America, or, Probabilities, that those
And its Relation to the Jews in Surinam, Indians are Judaical, made more probable
Cayenne and Tobago,” 176–78. by some additionals to the former con-
21 Netscher, Geschiedenis van de koloniën jectures An accurate discourse is premised
Essequebo, Demerary en Berbice, van de of Mr. John Elliot, (who first preached the
vestiging der Nederlanders aldaar tot op Gospel to the natives in their own lan-
onzen tijd, 74–75. guage) touching their origination, and his
22 Watt and Rodway, Chronological history vindication of the planters.
of the discovery and settlement of Guiana, 32 See Davis, “Regaining Jerusalem.”
1493–1668, 1–166. 33 James, Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion,
23 Cahen, “Les Juifs de la Martinique au and Politics: The Theologico-Political
XVII siècle,” 98. Treatise, 79.
24 Ibid., 96. 34 Ibid.
25 Gottheil, “Contributions to the History 35 Den Boer and Israel, “William III in the
of the Jews in Surinam,” 144–145. Eyes of Amsterdam Sephardi Writers: The
26 Games, “Cohabitation, Suriname-Style.” Reactions of Miguel de Barrios, José Penso
27 Sainsbury, ed., Calendar of State Papers, Vega and Manuel de León,” 447–48.
Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 36 Schorsch, “From Messianism to Realpo-
1661–1668, no. 289. litik: Menasseh Ben Israel and the Read-
28 Sainsbury, ed., Calendar of State Papers mission of the Jews to England.”
Colonial, America and West Indies, 37 Cromwell was not a millenarian in the
1675–1676, no. 924. formal sense of contemporary groups
29 Een vertoogh van de considerabele colo- such as the Fifth Monarchists. His vision
nie, by de [...] Staten van Hollandt ende was much more of England as a chosen
West-Vrieslandt, uytgeset op de vaste people or elect nation journeying
kust van America, 15–16, Koninklijke through the wilderness on their way to
Bibliotheek, Den Haag, pamphlet the promised land. See Davis, Oliver
number 11388. Cromwell and also his essay “Cromwell’s
30 See Katz, Philo-Semitism and the Read- Religion.” I thank Professor David L.
mission of the Jews to England, 1603–1655, Smith for these citations.

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