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The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews

by J. & L.T. Levin

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The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews

by J. & L.T. Levin

Volume 1. Negros at Auction .... PDF at RadioIslam

Throughout history Jews have faced charges of economic exploitation of Gentile communities
around the world. Indeed, no single group of people have faced blanket expulsion in
so many places around the world as frequently as have the Jews. The pattern and the charges
are familiar: monopolization, usury, "sharp practices," selling "cheap" goods, frequent bankruptcies,
etc. All such claims seem to preface the expulsion orders and are vigorously denied
both by those charged and by the Jewish writers of history.
But this is not the only charge that is made against Jews. Jews have been conclusively
linked to the greatest criminal endeavor ever undertaken against an entire race of people - a
crime against humanity - the Black African Holocaust. They were participants the entrapment
and forcible exportation of millions of Black African citizens into the wretched and inhuman
life of bondage for the financial benefit of Jews. The effects of this unspeakable tragedy are
still being felt among the peoples of the world at this very hour.
Deep within the recesses of the Jewish historical record is the irrefutable evidence that
the most prominent of the Jewish pilgrim fathers used kidnapped Black Africans disproportionately
more than any other ethnic or religious group in New World history and participated
in every aspect of the international slave trade. The immense wealth of Jews, as with most of
the White colonial fathers, was acquired by the brutal subjugation of Black Africans purely on
the basis of skin color - a concept unfamiliar to Moses. Now, compiled for the first time, the
Jewish sources reveal the extent of their complicity in Black slavery in the most graphic of
terms.
[viii]
Until now, the facts herein were known only to a few. Most have always assumed that
the relationship between Blacks and Jews has been mutually supportive, friendly and fruitful -
two suffering people bonding to overcome hatred and bigotry to achieve success. But history
tells an altogether different story. This report will focus on the hidden history of Blacks and
Jews from the Jewish historical record. Rabbi Henry Cohen, author of the book, Justice justice,
makes a telling point:
[T]he parallels between the Nazi terror and the American slave trade are more startling than we may
realize. When Negroes were brought from the heart of Africa to the American South, one-third died
enroute to the African coast and one-third died in the suffocating prisons on board ship. Once here,
families were purposely broken up; husbands, wives, and children forced to go their separate ways.
Must we be reminded of the death toll in the suffocating boxcars bound for Auschwitz or of the
tearing of children from their mothers' arms.'- 1
Furthermore, in Roberta Strauss Feuerlicht's, The Fate of the Jews: A People Torn Between
Israeli Power and Jewish Ethics, she confronts the reality of her people's western development:

[W]hether so many [Southern] Jews would have achieved so high a level of social, political, economic
and intellectual status and recognition, without the presence of the lowly and degraded slave,
is indeed dubious. How ironic that the distinctions bestowed upon [Jewish] men like Judah P. Ben-

1
Rabbi Henry Cohen, Justice, justice: A Jewish View of the Black Revolution (New York: Union of American
Hebrew Congregations, 1968), p. 48.
jamin were in some measure dependent upon the sufferings of the Negro slaves they bought and
sold with such equanimity.2
It is a relationship that needs further analysis - one that is not fully known. Hidden and
misunderstood, it is indeed time to reopen the files to review and reconsider, The Secret Relationship
Between Blacks and Jews.

...................................................................................................................

Jews and the African Slave Trade
Throughout the history of the practice, Jews have been involved in the purchase and
sale of human beings. This fact is confirmed by their own scholars and historians. In his book,
A History of the Jews, Solomon Grayzel states that "Jews were among the most important
slave dealers" in European society.3
Lady Magnus writes that in the Middle Ages, "The principal
purchasers of slaves were found among the Jews… [T]hey seemed to be always and
everywhere at hand to buy, and to have the means equally ready to pay."4
Henry L. Feingold
stated that "Jews who were frequently found at the heart of commerce could not have failed to
contribute a proportionate share to the [slave] trade directly or indirectly. In 1460, when Jews
were the masters of the nautical sciences in Portugal, that nation was importing 700-800
slaves yearly."5
The success of these medieval merchants was enhanced by their supreme linguistic
abilities. They spoke Arabic, Persian, Roman, Frankish, Spanish and Slavonic and "displayed
a business acumen far in advance of the times."6
[10]
The Jews' participation in the slave trade, particularl7
y their trafficking in non-Jewish
slaves, incited the moral indignation of Europe's Gentile population. The Europeans reacted
by taxing the Jews and some were expelled from their host countries for this activity.8
The

3
Solomon Grayzel, A History of the Jew: From Babylonian Exile to the End of World II (Philadelphia: Jewish
Publication Society of America, 1948), p. 312.
4
Lady Magnus, Outlines of Jewish History, revised by M. Friedlander (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society
of America, 1890), p. 107; Jewish Encyclopaedia (New York and London: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1905 -
1916), vol. 11, p. 402: "At the time of Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) Jews had become the chief traders in
this class of traffic."
5
Henry L. Feingold, Zion in America: The Jewish Experience from Colonial Times to the Present (New York:
Twayne Publishing, Inc., 1974), pp. 42-3.
6
Marcus Arkin, author of Aspects of Jewish Economic History (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of
America, 1975), pp. 44-5, reveals that in some European provinces, Jewish traders "appear to have held almost a
monopoly of international commerce - so much so that the words 'Judaeus' and 'mercator' appear as synonyms in
Carolingian documents." See S. D. Goitein, Jewish Letters of Medieval Traders (New Jersey: Princeton University
Press, 1973), pp. 6, 16, 17, 18. Also, Magnus, p. 152, confirms the same. Notice the juxtaposition of the first
two sentences of the Magnus passage:
They accepted the state of things, and so long as they were let alone, commerce, too, became in Jewish hands a
dignified, a useful, and an honourable calling. They dealt in slaves, as was the necessity of the time, and these
slaves were the better off for having Jewish masters; their trading fleets sailed on the Mediterranean, and their
ready-tongued travellers brought the products of the East to the markets of the West. But gradually all this sort of
commerce became impossible Then, by force of feeling as well as by law, the slave trade was put down.
The Universal Jewish Encyclopaedia, vol. 9, p. 565, states that, for the same reason, the Jews were "especially
adapted" to the slave trade.
7

8 EJ, vol. 14, pp. 1660-64; EHJ, pp. 271-72; According to Magnus (p. 106), however, "Selling people into slavery
has a dreadful sound, but in those days it was not quite so dreadful a thing, nor even so avoidable a one, as it
would be in these. Great tracts of cultivated land were constantly being laid waste; what was to be done with the
vanquished dwellers thereon?" S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, The Jewish Communities of the Arab
World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), vol.
1, p. 147, reasons similarly.
The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews 11
expulsion of Jews by European governments was not unusual, with most of the complaints
centered around economic exploitation, monopolizing, or "sharp practice." By 1500, with the
exception of certain parts of Italy, Western Europe had closed its doors to Jewish people.9
The
following listing is a partial record of the countries and dates of the Jew's expulsion from
various European communities.10
Mainz, 1012 Upper Bavaria, 1442 Genoa, 1515
France,1182 Netherlands, 1444 Naples, 1533
Upper Bavaria, 1276 Brandenburg, 1446 Italy, 1540
England, 1290 Mainz, 1462 Naples, 1541
France,1306 Mainz, 1483 Prague,1541
France,1322 Warsaw, 1483 Genoa, 1550
Saxony,1349 Spain, 1492 Bavaria, 1551
Hungary, 1360 Italy, 1492 Prague,1557
Belgium, 1370 Lithuania, 1495 Papal States, 1569
Slovakia, 1380 Portugal, 1496 Hungary, 1582
France,1394 Naples, 1496 Hamburg, 1649
Austria, 1420 Navarre, 1498 Vienna,1669
Lyons, 1420 Nuremberg, 1498 Slovakia, 1744
Cologne, 1424 Brandenburg, 1510 Bohemia/Moravia, 1744
Mainz, 1438 Prussia, 1510 Moscow, 1891
Augsburg, 1439
Over the next centuries the centers of Jewish development moved into the Western
Hemisphere where land and commercial [11] opportunities provided the incentives for immigration.
The open and ungoverned territory and the docile and vulnerable native population
offered an irresistible attraction to the "maligned race”. They acquired great wealth in their
Caribbean and South American enterprises and eventually moved into the American North
which became the economic focal point. It started with the forced expulsion of the Jews from
the Spanish empire and with the early explorer and "discoverer" of America, Christopher Columbus.

Columbus, Jews and the Slave Trade
“Not jewels, but Jews, were the real financial basis of the first expedition of Columbus.”11
On August 2, 1492, more than 300,000 Jews were expelled from Spain,12 ending their
five century involvement in the Black hostage trade in that region. In fact, the Spanish Jews
amassed large fortunes dealing in Christian slaves and became quite prominent within Spain's
hierarchy.13 They had obtained the most important offices and positions of trust in the cabinets

9
Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, "Between Amsterdam and New Amsterdam: The Place of Curaçao and the Caribbean
in Early Modern Jewish History," PAIHS, vol. 72 (1982-83), p. 173; Lee Anne Durham Seminario, The
History of the Blacks, The Jews and the Moors in Spain (Madrid, 1975), pp. 40-42. 10 Richard Siegel and Carl Rheins, editors, The Jewish Almanac (New York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1980), pp.
127-29.4
11 George Cohen, The Jew in the Making of America (Boston: Knights of Columbus, Stratford Company, 1924),
p. 33.
12 Seymour B. Liebman, The Jews in New Spain: Faith, Flame, and the Inquisition (Coral Gables, Florida: University
of Miami Press, 1970), p. 32: The actual number is in dispute. Some authorities have said that 160,000
families were expelled, while others have said 800,000 individuals; few have estimated over one million.
13 Harry L. Golden and Martin Rywell, Jews in American History: Their Contribution to the United States of
America (Charlotte: Henry Lewis Martin Co., 1950), p. 5; Feuerlicht, p. 39: "The golden age of Jewry in Spain
12 The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews
and counting houses of rulers and had maintained great influence over the regional trade causing
many to believe that the Jews exercised an unhealthy domination over the economy of the
region.14 The rulers were convinced enough to order all Jews to either convert to Christ or
leave Spain.
The Marranos: The Secret Jews
The Marranos were those compulsorily converted Jews and their descendants who
outwardly became Christians but secretly continued to meet in the synagogue, celebrated feast
days and observed the Jewish Sabbath. The name marrano may be derived [12] from the old
Castilian marrano (swine) or perhaps from the Arabic mahran (forbidden). In 1350, Spain
began a series of conversion drives to convert all Jews in Spain to Christianity (See the section
entitled, "The Spanish Inquisition"), and in unprecedented numbers, and with little resistance,
the Jews converted.15 This rush to mass conversion, an event, unparalleled in Jewish
history, is perhaps best summed up by Cecil Roth: "It was not difficult for insincere, temporizing
Jews to become insincere temporizing Christians16"
The "Marranos," also called conversos (the converted), or nefiti (the neophytes), or
"New Christians," were simply charged with not being Catholic. The same applied to the
Muslims, who were expelled in like manner and in greater numbers than the Jews.17 Some
fifty thousand Jews chose to convert rather than leave their land and their riches.18
Contrary to popular notions, those who left were not refugees searching for religious
freedom, but entrepreneurs looking for economic opportunities. When they fled, they brought
few Torah scrolls and even fewer copies of the Jewish holy book Talmud with them. When
asked what he thought most Marranos knew of Judaism after their flight from Spain and Portugal,
Roth answered in one word - "Nothing."19
The majority fled south and eastward to North Africa and to centers like Salonika,
Constantinople, Aleppo and Damascus;20 while others sought and found refuge in the Netherlands
where they “established synagogues, schools, cemeteries and a high level of wealth and
culture."21 Most escaped "with considerable sums of money."22 Though scattered throughout
the globe by political, [13] economic and religious circumstances, they would reunite later in
an unholy coalition of kidnappers and slave makers.

owed some of its wealth to an international network of Jewish slave traders. Bohemian Jews purchased Slavonians
and sold to Spanish Jews for resale to the Moors." Also, Jewish Encyclopaedia, vol. 11, p. 402. 14 M. Kayserling, Christopher Columbus and the Participation of the Jews in the Spanish and Portuguese Discoveries(New
York: Hermon Press, 1894), pp. 28, 29, 30, 31, 83. 15 Max I. Dimont, The Jews In America, The Roots, History, and Destiny of American Jews (New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1978), p. 23.
16 Dimont, p. 24.
17 Dimont, p. 27.
18 Dimont, p. 27; Liebman, The Jews in New Spain, p. 32: Father Mariana, a Jesuit, stated: "Many persons [condemned]
the resolution adopted by… Ferdinand in expelling so profitable and opulent a people, acquainted with
every mode of collecting wealth."
19 Dimont, p. 28.
20 Simeon J. Maslin, "1732 and 1982 in Curaçao,", AJHQ, vol. 72 (December, 1982), p. 158; According to Lee
Anne Durham Seminario, The History of the Blacks, the Jews and the Moors in Spain (Madrid, 1975), p. 17,
Jews were familiar with North Africa:
There are some Catalonian and Majorcan maps of the fourteenth century, drawn from the knowledge gleaned
from Jewish merchants who could travel with relative freedom in North Africa, and showing, with surprising
accuracy, the routes from the Mediterranean to the land of the Negroes in Guinea and the western Sudan
21 Maslin, p. 160.
22 Dr. M. Kayserling, "The Colonization of America by the Jews," PAJHS, vol. 2, (1894), p. 75.
The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews 13
The day after the Spanish expulsion, Christopher Columbus, whose actual name was
Cristobol Colon, took a group of Jewish refugees with him to the New World.23 Queen
Isabella signed the expulsion decree and Columbus' voyage order the very same day. But it
was not the queen or the king who funded the voyage. George Cohen, among many Jewish
historians, proclaims that wealthy Jews financed the expeditions of Columbus, and adds that
the story of Isabella's jewels "is not founded on facts," but rather it was an invention "intended
to glorify the Queen.”24
Three Marranos, Luis de Santagel (or Santangelo),25 a wealthy merchant, Gabriel Sanchez,26
the royal treasurer and his assistant, Juan Cabrero, influenced Queen Isabella to help
them finance the voyage. Cabrero and Santagel invested 17,000 ducats, which would be well
over $100,000 today.27 Alfonso de la Caballeria and Diego de Deza also provided funds;
Abraham Ben Samuel Zacuto provided astronomy and navigation equipment and Isaac Abravanel
also assisted. Six prominent Jews accompanied Columbus including Mastre Bernal, a
physician; Marco, a surgeon; Roderigo Sanchez, an [14] inspector; Luis de Torres, an interpreter;
and sailors Alfonso de la Calle,28 and Roderigo de Triana, who is claimed to be "the
first white man ever to see the new world."29 Torres settled in Cuba and has been credited with
introducing tobacco to Europe from his vast tobacco plantations.30

23 Max J. Kohler, "Luis De Santangel and Columbus," PAJHS, vol. 10 (1902), p. 162: Columbus himself, in his
journal, calls attention to the "coincidence" of his first voyage of discovery with the expulsion of the Jews from
Spain, in the following passage: "So, after having expelled the Jews from your dominions, your Highness, in the
same month of January, ordered me to proceed with a sufficient armament, to the said regions of India." For
further clarification see Kayserling, Christopher Columbus, p. 85 and p. 85 note. 24 G. Cohen, p. 37; Kayserling, Christopher Columbus, p. 74, states the same: "This story has recently been relegated
to the realm of fable."
25 Cecil Roth, History of the Marranos (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1932), pp. 272-73:
"The first royal grant to export grain and horses to America was made in favor of Luis de Santangel, who may
thus be reckoned the founder of two of the greatest American industries." Kohler, "Columbus,"p. 159: "In Emilio
Castelar's 'Life of Columbus,' Century Magazine, vol. 44 (July, 1892), p. 364, an interesting passage concerning
Columbus' indebtedness to the Jews reads as follows: "It is a historical fact that one day Ferdinand V, on his way
from Aragon to Castile, and needing some ready cash, as often happened, owing to the impoverishment of those
kingdoms, halted his horse at the door of Santangelo's house in Calatayud, and, dismounti ng, entered and obtained
a considerable sum from the latter's inexhaustible private coffers." Also, Kayserling, Christopher Columbus,
shows that this same Luis de Santangel, who was then chancellor of the royal household and comptroller
general of Aragon, personally advanced nearly all this money (pp. 55-79). He says (p. 75): “At that time "neither
Ferdinand nor Isabella, had at their disposal enough money to equip a fleet." See Kohler, "Columbus," p. 160.
26 Roth, Marranos, p. 272: "Gabriel Sanchez, the High Treasurer of Aragon, who was another of the explorer's
most fervent patrons, was of full Jewish blood, being a son of a converso couple..." 27 Two hundred years later a fully equipped sailing vessel might have cost $30,000.
28 Roth, Marranos, p. 272-73: "Mestre Bernal, who had been reconciled in 1490 for Judaizing."; "Rodrigo Sanches,
a relative of the High Treasurer, joined the party as Superintendent at the personal request of the Queen.";
Luis de Torres, the interpreter, was, according to Golden and Rywell, the first European to set foot in the new
land. Alonso de la Calle, whose very name denoted that he was born in the Jewish quarter."
29 According to Golden and Rywell, p. 9: "It was two o'clock in the morning when he shouted 'Land, Land.' The
sails were shortened and at daybreak Friday, October 12,1492, a new world was before them." Columbus
claimed that it was he who first sighted land in order to claim the royal gratuity of ten thousand maravedis and a
silk waistecoat promised to the one who made the first sighting. See Kayserling, Christopher Columbus, pp. 91,
110.
30 Levitan, p. 4; Golden and Rywell, p. 9, claim that Torres "acquired great tracts of land from the Indians." A
family member, Antonio de Torres, later commanded twelve of Columbus' fleet (Golden and Rywell, p. 7); Israel
Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages (New York: Atheneum, 1969), p. 138: "Tobacco, so far as its use
in Europe is concerned, was also discovered by a Jew, Luis de Torres, a companion of Columbus. The Church,
as is well known, raised many objections to the use of tobacco, and King James I's pedantic treatise only voiced
general prejudice. Jewish Rabbis, on the other hand, hailed the use of tobacco as an aid to sobriety." Abrahams,
p. 139, "It is worth noting that Jews early took to the trade in tobacco, a trade which they almost monopolize in
14 The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews
Cecil Roth's History of the Marranos:
The connection between the Jews and the discovery of America was not, however, merely a question
of fortuitous coincidence. The epoch-making expedition of 1492 was as a matter of fact very
largely a Jewish, or rather a Marrano, enterprise.31

...........................................................................................................................................

Columbus, the Slave Dealing Jew?
Christopher Columbus was an experienced sailor long before his infamous voyage
west. Sir Arthur Helps writes that, "In the course of [his] letters, [Columbus] speaks after the
fashion of a practised slave dealer." In fact, in 1498, his five ship expedition brought 600 Indians
to Spain as slaves. Two hundred were given to the masters of the ships and four hundred
sold in Spain.39 Columbus employed slave labor in gold mining even before sailing for the
New World. He helped to start the Portuguese West African settlement of San Jorge El Mina
(St. George of the Mines) in present-day Ghana, formerly known as the Gold Coast.40

..............................................................................................................................................

The Jews and Slavery in Colonial South
America and the Caribbean
"With the spread of sugar, cotton, cocoa, and other plantations the slave ships began to plow those waters, nor
can it be said that Jewish traders were absent from the hideous traffic."46
The Jewish Caribbean presence began in earnest with Columbus' initial foray into the
region. With these early Jewish colonists the economic motivation for the exploitation of millions
of Black Africans was introduced to the Western Hemisphere. The strategy seemed simple
enough - wealth would be amassed through a plantation economy driven by sugar cane.
The two companion enterprises of trading sugar and slaves were common occupations of Jews
in the Middle Ages.47 The early explorers had ascertained that the climate, both temperately
and financially, made the Caribbean a logical enterprise zone, and in this transfer of the sugar
industry into the eastern Caribbean, the history of the industry became entwined with the
western migration of the Jews. They were primarily the financiers and merchants and in a few
cases they were also the plantation masters.48 Jews from Portugal, Holland, England and all
over Europe advantaged themselves through the domination of the commerce of these island
regions, particularly in sugar.49
[19]
Jewish slave traders procured Black Africans by the tens of thousands and funneled
them to the plantations of South America and throughout the Caribbean.50 There remains no
documented trace of protest over this behavior - it was a purely commercial venture with
which Judaism did not interfere. Whether the local influence was Portuguese, Dutch or English,
the Black man and woman fared the same. In Curaçao in the seventeenth century, as well
as in the British colonies of Barbados and Jamaica in the eighteenth century, Jewish merchants
played a major role in the slave trade. In fact, in all the American colonies, whether
French (Martinique), British, or Dutch, Jewish merchants frequently dominated.51

..............................................................................................................................................

The Dutch West India Company
It is necessary to look more closely at the entity responsible for seizing and administering
colonies in Brazil and throughout the [23] Caribbean. The Dutch West India Company
was founded in 1621 for the sole purpose of making money. There was little concern as to
how this was to be achieved. Its primary method was to establish colonies and trading posts in
the New World and exploit the natural resources to then trade with Europe and the other colonies66
- an endeavor requiring many thousands of Black slaves. According to Company founder
William Usselincx: "Some people were so vile and slavish by nature that they were of no
use either to themselves or to others and had to be kept in servitude with all hardness."67
They raised capital by selling shares and by pirating Spanish and Portuguese silver
ships and plundering their cargoes.68 Wiznitzer's Jews in Colonial Brazil, is more explicit
about the Company's origins and methods:
Year after year, Dutch merchants equipped privateers and captured Portuguese ships with cargoes
destined for the mother country. In 1616, twenty-eight, and in 1623, seventy such ships were captured.
This is the context in which the East India and West India Companies were founded in Amsterdam,
in 1602 and 1621 respectively. Their economic objective was the acquisition of goods in
India, West Africa, and America through purchase, barter, or piracy and without Portuguese interference.
Another aim was political: to divide the Spanish fleet and, in general, to weaken Spain to
the greatest possible extent.69

63 Fortune, p. 71.
64 Max J. Kohler, "Phases of Jewish Life in New York Before 1800," PAJHS, vol. 2 (1894), p. 95; Anita Novinsky,
'Jewish Roots of Brazil," in Elkin and Merkx, p. 36. 65 Judith Laikin Elkin, Jews of the Latin American Republics (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1980), pp. 14-15.
66 Arnold Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil (Morningside Heights, New York: Columbia University Press,
1960), p. 48: The Dutch West India Company was authorized to appoint its own governors and officials in conquered
areas. The company was administered by a board of nineteen directors, called the Heeren XIX
67 Ernst van den Boogaart and Pieter C. Emmer, "The Dutch Participation in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1596-
1650," The Uncommon Market, editors, Henry A. Gemery and Jan S. Hogendorn (New York: Academic Press,
1975), p. 357.
68 EAJA, pp. 124-25. 69 Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil, p. 48.
The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews 21
Jews invested heavily and became willing partners in the company seeking "dividends
from silver, gold, furs, and [the] slave trade."70 At the time, Holland was the only country
where Jews [24] were permitted some semblance of religious and economic liberty. The
Dutch rulers, in promoting economic development, encouraged the immigration of Jews for
their business expertise and international connections and Holland soon became a center of
Jewish wealth and power. The Dutch had invented the doctrine of mercantilism, the notion
that the state existed not to save souls but to increase wealth, and for this the Jews were reputed
to be expert.71 Marcus Arkin writes: "Since the main industries in which [Jews] participated
(silken textiles, sugar refining, diamond cutting, and tobacco blending) were dependent
on colonial sources of supply, it is not surprising to find the Jews of Amsterdam concerned
with Dutch commerce to the Far East and the New World.... In the eighteenth century approximately
one-quarter of the [Dutch East India] company's shareholders were Jews, and its
ultimate decline brought ruin to many a wealthy [Jewish] family."72
[25]

70 Golden and Rywell, pp. 11, 13; EAJA, pp. 125-26 and notes 27 and 28. Bloom states that there is no accounting
of the exact investment of the Jews in the Company but cites the works of others who concur that while their
numbers were not more than 10%, their investment was much greater. Eighteen Jews of Amsterdam, by 1623,
had reportedly invested 36,100 guilders of the 7,108,106 guilders raised (one half of 1 %), in the West India
Company though actual figures have not been determined. Later, the influence of these investors in the establishment
of a Jewish community in colonia New York, over the objection of the Company's own governor, suggests
that the reported investment of the Jews is understated. See this document, section entitled, "New York."
See also Arkin, AJEH, p. 201 and Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic and the Hispanic World 1606-1661
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), p. 127. It is reputed that Dutch Jews may have owned as much as "fiveeighths"
of the Dutch East India Company, whose profits from precious metals, spices, coral and drugs were
magnificent. See John M. Shaftesley, Remember the Days: Essays on Anglo-Jewish History presented to Cecil
Roth by members of the Council of The Jewish Historical Society of England (The Jewish Historical Society of
England, 1966), pp. 127,135,139.
Another venture confirms Jewish interest in such enterprise. In describing the formation of the armored shipping
Brazil Company, David Grant Smith, pp. 237-38, suggests that "New Christians" were considered to be "the only
possible source for funds of such magnitude."
71 Arthur Hertzberg, The Jews in America: Four Centuries of an Uneasy Encounter: A History (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1989), p. 22: "and the purpose of this firm was not to foster Christianity among the Indians;
it existed to make money for its stockholders" Also ibid, p. 25. 72 Arkin, AJEH, p. 96 and 97; Roth, Marranos, p. 286. The East India Company brought the opium that later
infected the Orient. Jewish families like the Sassoons profited handsomely and more than a few American shipping
firms made their wealth in this drug trade. According to Stanley Jackson's, The Sassoons (New York: E.P.
Dutton & Co., Inc., 1968), p. 22: 'With rapid national addiction, the drug developed into one of the East India
Company's most profitable commodities. It became a very convenient medium of exchange when the Company
began buying more tea and silk from the Cantonese who insisted on being paid in silver. Since exports of cotton
could not balance the trade, opium was the only answer."
When the Chinese rulers, fearing the total destruction of their people, tried to stop it, the British stepped in (Jackson,
p. 23):
The East India Company's food ship Lord Amherst had docked at Shanghai in 1832 with members of a trade
mission eager to buy tea and silk in exchange for their own piece - goods and opium.... They seized and burned
twenty thousand chests worth upwards of £2 million. (Some outraged shippers valued their losses as high as £5
million.) It was the long-expected, and not unwelcome, signal for British warships to come to the aid of all honest
merchants in the sacred name of free trade. They demolished the weak Chinese forces in an operation which
would pay the plumpest of dividends for a full century. At the end of the so-called "war" in August 1842, a defeated
Emperor signed the Treaty of Nanking. Five ports, Canton (previously the only one in which the British
were allowed), Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai, were set aside for the conquerors.... The opium trade
remained illegal, but a kindlier and half-blind eye was now turned on smugglers who promptly set up their main
base on the island of Hong Kong, ceded to Britain. China had flowered overnight like a monstrous poppy.
The name of the ship, Lord Amherst, is a significant coincidence in that it was Sir Jeffrey Amherst, with the help
of Jewish traders, whose smallpoxed blankets were used to destroy the North American Indian population in a
similar use of chemical warfare. See this document, section entitled “Jews and the Red Man."
22 The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews
A Private Venture
It must be clarified that the bulk of the exploration of the West was promoted by private
firms and financed for the most part with private capital. The benefits of their discoveries
accrued to the investors in the firm, not necessarily to the government or the people of the
nation of origin. The monarch would invest the nation's military as his or her personal investment
in the enterprise.73 The expeditions of Columbus, for instance, were private ventures
of Jewish financiers who received notice of his "discoveries" even before Ferdinand and
Isabella.74
With the protection of the Dutch military, the principal maritime power at that time,
the Dutch West India Company colonized and settled the Western Hemisphere solely to establish
a steady flow of natural wealth back to its European investors, not to any national authority.
This is a critical distinction and the source of much of the animosity against the Jews. The
Gentiles were, for the most part, nationalists, owing their allegiance to the nation in whose
territory they resided. They respected the edicts of their government particularly with regard
to international relations. The Jews, on the other hand, considered themselves as Jews first,
particularly in international commerce. They remained internationalists without the patriotic
fervor of their Gentile countrymen. When their host country was at war with a trading partner
of the Jews, and on whom an embargo had been placed, the Jews would continue trade by
various methods including the changing the name of the ship and/or its owner to one suiting
the law in the port where they desired entry.75 They did not see this smuggling as illegal or
even harmful - just business.76 These were, after all, private transactions among private businesses
and individuals - not with any government [26] agency or national authority. But as
these arrangements flourished, the national interests were circumvented and the local governments
taxed and restricted the Jews as the leading traders.77 These restrictions led to the
historical application of the term "persecution," but evidence shows that the practice of subordinating
the national interest in pursuit of personal profit, and not religion, per se, raised the
ire of the Gentile.78

73 For example, S. D. Goitein, Jewish Letters of Medieval Traders, p. 10. 74 Golden and Rywell, pp. 5-9; Kohler, "Columbus," PAJHS, vol. 10 (1902), p. 162: 'Winsor, in his 'Christopher
Columbus'... judges the advance of funds to have been by Santangel from his private revenues and in the interest
of Castile only. And this seems to be proved by the invariable exclusion of Ferdinand's subjects from participation
in the advantages of trade in the new lands..."
75 EAJA, p. 147. 76 George Horowitz, in The Spirit of Jewish Law (New York: Central Book Company, 1963), pp. 79-80, claims
that Jews always made a distinction with regard to laws they were bound to respect: "For a Jew, compliance with
'Gentile' law in [some] matters was not required.... For Jews, the law of the nation, the general system of law
prevailing among the people in whose midst they dwelt was not binding..."
77 An example: Isaac S. Emmanuel's, The Jews of Coro, Venezuela (Cincinnati: American Jewish Archives,
1973), p. 8, recounts an ordinance passed on December 14, 1835 which taxed foreign merchants - apparently
targeted at Jews.
78 The arguments against the Jews in the Western settlements were primarily economic with religious bias playing
a minor role. The Jewish historians seem to support this contention in a number of recorded incidents:
Bloom, in EAJA, pp. 146-47, cites a classic example of the conflict in Curaqao in 1653 when the governor complained
that "the Jews were carrying on smuggling with Venezuela and the Greater Antilles, and that they
charged too much for goods they traded in, remonstrating that they demanded three times the price asked for the
same article in Holland. The Jews, on the other hand, complained that their trade was hindered and that they
were not granted enough privileges." See also Frank W. Pitman, The British West Indies (London: 1917), p. 136.
Also Bloom, EAJA, p. 136 and note no. 61, states that the Jews in Brazil "were accused [in a petition] of sharp
practice, trickery and frequent bankruptcy. Curiously enough, the names of some of the signatories might be
considered Jewish." EAJA, p. 146, states plainly that: "Jews were very active in this horse smuggling," in clear
violation of their Curaqaon charter. The government of Barbados makes explicit reference to Jews in illegal
economic activities in their Council Minutes of 1705 (see this volume "Barbados"). Another statement indicative
of the permeation of scurrilous business practices can be found in Emmanuel HJNA, p. 74. Of the Jewish busi-
The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews 23
[27]
The power of the Company's rulers rivaled that of the kings and queens of Europe,
evidenced by this exchange described by Arnold Wiznitzer:
In a letter of July 20, 1645, Gaspar Dias Fereira had proposed to the Portuguese king that he buy
Brazil from the Dutch for the sum of 3 million crazados, payable in six monthly installments. Sousa
Coutinho, the Portuguese ambassador at The Hague, considered this proposal very practical. The
Jesuit priest Antonio Vieira, a man who exercised considerable influence in Lisbon and Brazil at the
time, also advocated this solution. The negotiations, however, yielded no results, since the West India
Company declined the offer.79
The power to sell, and perhaps to buy, nations was in the hands of the Company's rulers, not the
monarch's, and even with such power writes Arthur Hertzberg, "The Jewish leaders in Amsterdam...knew
that they had the power to cajole or even to intimidate the West India Company..."80
The Company performed governmental functions including the licensing of expeditions,
issuing permits for slaves and collecting taxes from settlers engaged in commerce.81 In
1674, the debt-ridden Company dissolved, no longer able to administer its territories. Soon
thereafter it was reorganized, though undercapitalized, to attempt to maintain its former
power. Slave dealing was its major income source and again, Jews invested heavily.
..............................................................................................................................................

Jewish Expulsion
The massive numbers of imported and brutally treated Black slaves caused slave rebellions,
weakening the Dutch. The Portuguese regrouped and mounted a military campaign to
retrieve Brazil as well as the slave centers of Africa. The ensuing battles, [31] between 1645
and 1654, besieged the population with shortages of provisions which soon began to take a
heavy toll. Many of the Jews, who sided with the Dutch, were killed in the battle, many died
of starvation, the remainder were exposed to death from various causes. "Those who were
accustomed to delicacies were glad to be able to satisfy their hunger with dry bread," wrote
Peter Wiernik, "soon they could not obtain even this. They were in want of everything, and
were preserved alive as if by a miracle."98

90 Bloom, "Brazilian,"p. 63; Fortune, p. 71.
91 Bloom, "Book Reviews: The Dutch in Brazil, pp. 113, note 114. 92 Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil, pp. 72-3; Raphael, p. 14. 93 Bloom, "Brazilian,", pp. 63-4.
94 Elkin, p. 17.
95 94 Emmanuel HJNA, p. 75 note no. 52. see also Liebman, New World Jewry, p. 170, Johan Hartog, Curaqao
From Colonial Dependence to Autonomy (Aruba, Netherland Antilles, 1968), p. 178 and Swetschinski, p. 222. 96 Emmanuel HJNA, p. 75; ibid, vol. 2, p. 747. 97 Emmanuel HJNA, pp. 75-6 and note no. 55. 98 Wiemik, p. 39.
26 The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews
Many people died of inanition; swelling of the limbs was a symptom of approaching death. Cats
and dogs came to be regarded as delicacies. Negro slaves dug out the cadavers of horses and greedily
devoured them. The sight of the starving Negroes in the city was truly distressing.99
In the first Hebrew poem written in the Western Hemisphere, Isaac Aboab related the
events and his experiences between the outbreak of the rebellion in 1645 and the arrival of
two relief ships. His bitter contempt for a Black freedom-fighting ex-slave is evident in the
following paraphrase:
In the year of 5404 [1645], Portugal's king in his wrath schemed to destroy what was left of Israel.
From the gutter he raised an evil man, whose mother was of Negro descent, a man who did not
know his father's name [Joao Fernandes Vieira, the leader of the rebellion]. This evil man gathered
much gold and silver and led the revolt. He tried to overcome the ruling Dutch by ruse, but his
schemes were discovered. Then he fled to the woods until the hoped-for troops of the Portuguese
king came to his rescue. He then caused great trouble for the Jews. The revolt led to the siege of the
cities from the land and from the sea. I prayed and wept and implored the shepherd of Israel to send
help. I asked the people to fast to atone for their sins and to conciliate God.100
By 1654, the Jews sought refuge in Amsterdam, the Caribbean Islands, and further
north in New Amsterdam, later to be called New York.101 They continued in slave dealing,
either as buyers or sellers wherever they found refuge. Jews who returned to Amsterdam were
no less dependent on the Black slave. Nearly a century later in 1743, according to tax records,
of 422 Jews, 2 had seven slaves, 5 had [32] six slaves, 14 had four slaves, 21 had three slaves,
54 had two slaves, 282 had one slave, and 39 reported none.102
Jewish Slave Legacy
The legacy of this Jewish dominance over colonial Brazil is manifested centuries later
in the language and folklore of its citizenry. "There are even Bush Negroes," says Jacob Beller,
"with Jewish names who use Hebrew words in their language - no doubt descendants of
the slaves who worked on the Jewish-owned sugar plantations."103 Beller observed the lingering
remnant of Jewish oppression:
The time-honored anti-Semitic stereotypes were used, accusing Jews of being Communists, capitalists,
profiteers, bloodsuckers, etc. I was told that even the creoles, the great-grandchildren of the
slaves, now accuse the Jews of having enslaved and robbed their ancestors who were the true owners
of the land.104
The residual effect of the Jewish presence in Brazil has been codified in the language.
The Diccionario de la Academia Espanola, for example, includes the following:
Judio (fig.). Avaro, usurero [miser, usurer].
Judiada (fig. y fam.). Accion inhumana. Lucro excesivo y escandaloso. [Inhuman action. Excessive
and scandalous profit].
Hebreo (fig. y fam.). Mercado [merchant]. Usurero [usurer].
Sinagoga (fig.). Conciliabulo, en su a acepcion, vale decir, una junta para tratar de cosa. que es o se
presume ilicita. [Conspiracy. In its 2nd meaning, a meeting called to deal with something that is, or is presumed
to be, illicit].
Cohen [Name borne by priests of Israel.] Adivino, hechicero, alcahuete. [Soothsayer, sorcerer,
bawd].105
[33]

99 Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil, p. 101. 100 Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil, p. 103. The poem is entitled Zekher asiti leniflaot El (I have set a memorial
to God's miracles).
101 Bloom, "Brazilian," pp. 62-4; Golden and Rywell, pp. 10-15; Lucien Wolf, "American Elements in the ReSettlement,"
Transactions of The Jewish Historical Society of England (1896-1898, reprinted, 1971), vol. 3, p.
80.
102 EAJA, p. 214, note 36 103 Jacob Beller, Jews in Latin America (New York:

..............................................................................................................................................

Jewish Expulsion
The massive numbers of imported and brutally treated Black slaves caused slave rebellions,
weakening the Dutch. The Portuguese regrouped and mounted a military campaign to
retrieve Brazil as well as the slave centers of Africa. The ensuing battles, [31] between 1645
and 1654, besieged the population with shortages of provisions which soon began to take a
heavy toll. Many of the Jews, who sided with the Dutch, were killed in the battle, many died
of starvation, the remainder were exposed to death from various causes. "Those who were
accustomed to delicacies were glad to be able to satisfy their hunger with dry bread," wrote
Peter Wiernik, "soon they could not obtain even this. They were in want of everything, and
were preserved alive as if by a miracle."98

90 Bloom, "Brazilian,"p. 63; Fortune, p. 71.
91 Bloom, "Book Reviews: The Dutch in Brazil, pp. 113, note 114. 92 Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil, pp. 72-3; Raphael, p. 14. 93 Bloom, "Brazilian,", pp. 63-4.
94 Elkin, p. 17.
95 94 Emmanuel HJNA, p. 75 note no. 52. see also Liebman, New World Jewry, p. 170, Johan Hartog, Curaqao
From Colonial Dependence to Autonomy (Aruba, Netherland Antilles, 1968), p. 178 and Swetschinski, p. 222. 96 Emmanuel HJNA, p. 75; ibid, vol. 2, p. 747. 97 Emmanuel HJNA, pp. 75-6 and note no. 55. 98 Wiemik, p. 39.
26 The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews
Many people died of inanition; swelling of the limbs was a symptom of approaching death. Cats
and dogs came to be regarded as delicacies. Negro slaves dug out the cadavers of horses and greedily
devoured them. The sight of the starving Negroes in the city was truly distressing.99
In the first Hebrew poem written in the Western Hemisphere, Isaac Aboab related the
events and his experiences between the outbreak of the rebellion in 1645 and the arrival of
two relief ships. His bitter contempt for a Black freedom-fighting ex-slave is evident in the
following paraphrase:
In the year of 5404 [1645], Portugal's king in his wrath schemed to destroy what was left of Israel.
From the gutter he raised an evil man, whose mother was of Negro descent, a man who did not
know his father's name [Joao Fernandes Vieira, the leader of the rebellion]. This evil man gathered
much gold and silver and led the revolt. He tried to overcome the ruling Dutch by ruse, but his
schemes were discovered. Then he fled to the woods until the hoped-for troops of the Portuguese
king came to his rescue. He then caused great trouble for the Jews. The revolt led to the siege of the
cities from the land and from the sea. I prayed and wept and implored the shepherd of Israel to send
help. I asked the people to fast to atone for their sins and to conciliate God.100
By 1654, the Jews sought refuge in Amsterdam, the Caribbean Islands, and further
north in New Amsterdam, later to be called New York.101 They continued in slave dealing,
either as buyers or sellers wherever they found refuge. Jews who returned to Amsterdam were
no less dependent on the Black slave. Nearly a century later in 1743, according to tax records,
of 422 Jews, 2 had seven slaves, 5 had [32] six slaves, 14 had four slaves, 21 had three slaves,
54 had two slaves, 282 had one slave, and 39 reported none.102
Jewish Slave Legacy
The legacy of this Jewish dominance over colonial Brazil is manifested centuries later
in the language and folklore of its citizenry. "There are even Bush Negroes," says Jacob Beller,
"with Jewish names who use Hebrew words in their language - no doubt descendants of
the slaves who worked on the Jewish-owned sugar plantations."103 Beller observed the lingering
remnant of Jewish oppression:
The time-honored anti-Semitic stereotypes were used, accusing Jews of being Communists, capitalists,
profiteers, bloodsuckers, etc. I was told that even the creoles, the great-grandchildren of the
slaves, now accuse the Jews of having enslaved and robbed their ancestors who were the true owners
of the land.104
The residual effect of the Jewish presence in Brazil has been codified in the language.
The Diccionario de la Academia Espanola, for example, includes the following:
Judio (fig.). Avaro, usurero [miser, usurer].
Judiada (fig. y fam.). Accion inhumana. Lucro excesivo y escandaloso. [Inhuman action. Excessive
and scandalous profit].
Hebreo (fig. y fam.). Mercado [merchant]. Usurero [usurer].
Sinagoga (fig.). Conciliabulo, en su a acepcion, vale decir, una junta para tratar de cosa. que es o se
presume ilicita. [Conspiracy. In its 2nd meaning, a meeting called to deal with something that is, or is presumed
to be, illicit].
Cohen [Name borne by priests of Israel.] Adivino, hechicero, alcahuete. [Soothsayer, sorcerer,
bawd].105
[33]

99 Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil, p. 101. 100 Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil, p. 103. The poem is entitled Zekher asiti leniflaot El (I have set a memorial
to God's miracles).
101 Bloom, "Brazilian," pp. 62-4; Golden and Rywell, pp. 10-15; Lucien Wolf, "American Elements in the ReSettlement,"
Transactions of The Jewish Historical Society of England (1896-1898, reprinted, 1971), vol. 3, p.
80.
102 EAJA, p. 214, note 36 103 Jacob Beller, Jews in Latin America (New York:

The Black population in many of these regions was greater than that of Whites, sometimes
manifold greater, and as such these Blacks were expected to fight as well as work. The
question for the Inquisitors was, "which God will they fight for?"; but maybe more importantly,
"which God will they dig gold and silver for?" Jacob Beller, Jews in Latin America,
wrote that the mission of the Spanish Crown, "was to extract as much gold as possible from
the colonies, to spread Catholicism and to pursue those who were practicing Judaism in secret..."111
[35]
Where there were slaves, there were immense profits and Jews were frequently found
at the source.112 The Spanish Inquisition cannot be seen as a purely religious or a purely economic
phenomenon. The interests were varied and variable depending on the condition encountered
and the temperament of its local authorities. Clearly though, Black slaves and native
inhabitants played a significant role as the subject of many charges leveled at Jews in this
period.

....................................................................................................................................

Jewish Pirate, Jean Laffite
The smuggling business boomed after the United States prohibition on imported Africans
in 1808 opened a feverish activity in the Mexican gulf area as the price for a Black male
soared from $300 to $1,000 in New Orleans. Plantation owners from all along the Mississippi
River and its tributaries arrived to purchase more and more slaves in the clandestine trade.
Jewish pirate Jean Laffite smuggled goods and slaves into Louisiana, about 50 miles west of
New Orleans. From that station, river craft transported the slaves and merchandise north to St.
Louis and to nearby New Orleans.328
Laffite, whose enterprise spanned the Caribbean, marshalled the forces of the area's
maritime thugs in a massive operation against free trade. Rabbi Sharfman described the organizational
process:
… Jean Laffite noted that instead of taking advantage of the principle of supply and demand, the
buccaneer captains… in rivalry, stole each other's blacks, and offered prime males for sale at a mere
dollar a pound. Accusations and arguments between them would soon result in open warfare that
threatened the very existence of Barataria. It was then that the fighting captains agreed to unite under
Jean Laffite. Standing on a hillside before a motley assemblage of almost 500 sabre-rattling sea
robbers and cut-throats, knife-and-gun-brandishing felons and desperados, the Jewish Creole dandy
stood firm, yet relaxed, speaking in his gentlemanly fashion.329
[87]
Laffite dispatched 60 ships throughout the Caribbean to hunt Spanish slave ships and
then held weekly slave auctions at his retreat at Barataria on the Louisiana coast.330 The trade
was under the total control of Laffite, and as Sharfman put it, "No Baratarian dared disobey."
Amsterdam Jewish merchants were involved in arming these ships of terror as well as disposing
of the booty captured by these pirates.331

323 Liebman, New World Jewry, pp. 62-3. 324 Armytage, p. 46. 325 Wiernik, p. 52. 326 Fortune, p. 102; Fortune, p. 103: Customs Commissioner Cox claimed that, "The French traders land in the
night and nail up the gunns of the batterys on the Leeward coast, for want of matrosses being at their posts, they
steal and carry away our negroes, and put prohibited goods on shoar, all my care to the contrary being ineffectual
to prevent it."
327 Liebman, New World Jewry, p. 184. For discussion of Dutch involvement see Fortune, p. 104; See also Swetschinski,
p. 222.
328 Sharfman, p. 234. 329 Sharfman, p. 144. 330 Sharfman, p. 151. 331 Arkin, AJEH, p. 94; EAJA, p. 98: "Barbary Jews chose Leghorn as the market for slaves and booty. It was
often cheaper to buy piratical goods from there than to procure them directly from Barbary. Dutch Jews took
advantage of this trade. Beside their well-known transactions in slaves, they bought cotton, drugs, gall nuts,
fabrics, Tripolitan silks, [pearls), etc. in Leghorn."
66 The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews
Jewish merchants of New Orleans became closely associated with Jean Laffite. The
auction house of Jacobs & Asbridge operated by Maurice Barnett preferred the quality of Laffite's
African product. They "were sturdy and healthy, for only the hardiest blacks survived
confinement in the deep dark stuffy hulls of the slave ships, not to mention the contagious
diseases and brutal treatment that marked their months-long journey.332 Antonio Mendez, Civil
Commandant of a district outside of New Orleans aided the smuggling efforts,333 and another
Jew, New Orleans businessman David G. Seixas, a slaveowner himself, "acquired a schooner
and possibly arranged for their shipment and transport."334
As many as 400 Blacks were sold in a single day and smuggled into New Orleans by
Laffite and his agents. His operation was so extensive that he was said to monopolize Louisiana's
import trade and the commerce of the entire Mississippi Valley. By 1812, it was claimed
that Jewish pirate Jean Laffite had become the "greatest trader in all the West.”335
[88]
Summary
Jewish influence within the great western migration has been considerably understated
- and yet for the African it was of critical significance. Under the historical cloak of a national
identity, rather than a religious one, Jewish entrepreneurs ventured west and formed the commercial
base which made possible the settlement of the New World. Seymour Liebman, for
example, stated the unwritten - That "almost all historians attest that in the seventeenth century
in the New World, 'Portuguese' was synonymous with Jew'..."336
The commercial tradition of the European Jewish communities and their advantages in
international trade are indisputable. Sugar had transformed the islands into "agricultural bonanzas
and entrepots of commerce, creating the need for shipping, credit and capital, merchants,
wholesalers of dry goods and other manufactures, insurance of freight, and all the
other visible and invisible items of trade that broadened the economic base of the plantations."337
In 1712, Joseph Addison wrote,
They [Jews] are so disseminated through all the trading parts of the world, that they are becoming
the instrument by which the most distinct nations converse with one another and by which mankind
are knit together in general correspondence. They are like the pegs and nails in a great building
which, though they are but little valued in themselves, absolutely necessary to keep the whole frame
together.338
Slavery was essential to the New World mission of wealth building and therefore became
the most lucrative enterprise of the times - nothing moved without Black labor. The
1661 letter from the newly explored colony in Venezuela is our best insight:
Negroes are required here .... Do not regard this otherwise than it is written or as anything
but the honest truth, without exaggeration or hypocrisy and upon which you may rely.339
Jews, as an elementary fact, participated in the process by which millions of African
citizens were enslaved and murdered. Jewish wealth and freedom established, they set their
sights to the north.

.....................................................................................................................................................

Jews and Slavery in Colonial North America
The Jews arrived in North America primarily as refugees from Brazil and from the islands
of the Caribbean and met a population quite different from their own. The American
colonies represented a land of farmers and seaport merchants, and as late as the mideighteenth
century, nine-tenths of the inhabitants made their living from the soil.340 As many
as one-third to one-half of the entire Revolution-era population came from the class of indentured
servants, a class whose members were primarily the purged criminals of European
jails.341 The Jews, on the other hand, were of the mercantile class with an entrepreneurial tradition
and a worldwide network of commercial relationships. The majority of these Jews were
by no means poor and destitute "huddled masses," but instead were highly skilled and savvy
businessmen whose wealth on arrival far surpassed that of many other immigrants. "As almost
all the early Jewish settlers in America belonged to the wealthy classes," writes historian Peter
Wiernik, "it was natural for them to accept the institution of slavery as they found it, and to
derive as much benefit from it as other affluent men."
The earliest Jewish settlements were established in Newport, Rhode Island and New
York where there were numerous Jewish slave holders long before and right through the
American Revolution.342 Jews adapted to the business climate of colonial North America and
operated with the same skill they had demonstrated in the island regions to the south and accepted
Black slavery without question. In the North before 1800 and in the South all through
the colonial period, slaves were stocked as commodities by Jewish merchants.343 Countless
thousands of Africans were [90] brought here in colonial times as slaves by Jewish merchantshippers
and in the South, Jews began to enter the planter class in substantial numbers.344
The New York- and Newport-area Jews had established a highly efficient transAtlantic
shipping operation. Jews who settled in North Africa with access into the African
mainland arranged with African tribal traitors for the transport of Blacks to the Atlantic coast
for sale to the New World merchant-shippers. Liquor, feverishly distilled in the American
northeast, was used in Africa in much the same way as it was in the destruction of American
Indian civilization. The New England colonies became so dependent on the alcohol-for-slaves
trade that its absence, they claimed, would have idled two-thirds of all of its ships and caused

340 Stanley Feldstein, The Land That I Show You (New York: Anchor Press/ Doubleday, 1978), p. 12. 341 MCAJ2, p. 799. 342 Wiernik, p. 206; David Brener, The Jews of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. A Story With Two Beginnings (Lancaster:
Congregation Shaarai Shomayim, 1979), p. 2.
343 MUSJ1, p. 585; The Jewish historian Leon Hahner, "The Jews of Virginia from the Earliest Times to the
Close of the Eighteenth Century," PAJHS, vol. 20 (1911), p. 86, comments on the business acumen of the colonial
Jews:
It must be confessed that the Jew has a peculiar aptitude for mercantile enterprise. Whether carrying on commerce
on a large scale as at Newport or New York in colonial days, or as the small tradesman in less important
communities, he generally appears in our early records primarily as the merchant.
344 Lenni Brenner, Jews in America Today (Secaucus, New Jersey: Lyle Stuart Inc., 1986), pp. 221-22; Priscilla
Fishman, editor, Jews of the United States (New York: Quadrangle, 1973), p. 8: From the early colonial times,
"Jewish entrepreneurs were engaged in the slave trade on the North American mainland, participating in the
infamous triangular trade..."
68 The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews
massive unemployment, crippling its economy345 - their very lifeblood was slavery and the
slave trade. Jewish historian Henry L. Feingold, in a fit of understatement, put it this way:
"The traffic in human beings by the Portuguese, Dutch, French and English was an essential
ingredient of the early capital formation necessary for the development of the capitalist system,
and Jews who were frequently found at the heart of commerce could not have failed to
contribute to the [slave] trade directly or indirectly."346
It should be made very plain at this point that even until the Civil War era, Jews as a
community never interfered with the practice of slavery or registered any reservation about its
dehumanizing effects. When some colonies had proposed high tariffs on the importation of
slaves, intending to discourage the slave trade, Jewish merchants, Joseph Marks, Samson
Levy and David Franks protested, for they "were among those who wished to see the traffic
continue."347 Slavery was a business concern mitigated only [91] by the bottom line. Regionally,
one can discern no difference in attitude or philosophy of the Jews with regard to nonJewish
human bondage. Says Bertram W. Korn, "It would seem to be realistic to conclude
that any Jew who could afford to own slaves and had need for their services would do so."348
The eminent Dr. Marcus confirms this in his recent book, United States Jewry, 1776-1985:
All through the eighteenth century, into the early nineteenth, Jews in the North were to own black
servants; in the South, the few plantations owned by Jews were tilled with slave labor. In 1820, over
75 percent of all Jewish families in Charleston, Richmond, and Savannah owned slaves, employed
as domestic servants; almost 40 percent of all Jewish householders in the United States owned one
slave or more. There were no protests against slavery as such by Jews in the South, where they were
always outnumbered at least 100 to 1… But very few Jews anywhere in the United States protested
against chattel slavery on moral grounds.349
Joseph Weinberg was just as direct in his paper to conservative American rabbis:
[L]ike other white men in the caribbean and North America, some Jews were slave traders and slave
holders. There were occasional attempts to restrict Jewish activity by limiting the number of slaves
they could own and prohibiting the purchase of baptized slaves by Jews, but these provisions were
not enforced. Like other merchants of their day, the Jews found the slave trade to be a profitable
business. Some purchased Negroes to hire them out, while others worked them on their plantations.
In their treatment and dealings with slaves Jews behaved no better and no worse than other white
men; at times they beat recalcitrant slaves and had their share of black runaways.350
Several Jewish communities throughout North America took root and continued the
same lucrative commercial operations which had brought them so much success in other areas
of the globe. The slave market continued to offer the best return and the mercantile experience
of the Jews found them tooled and ready to take full advantage.
[92]
New York
"In May 1654 sixteen ships carrying the Jews of Brazil set out for Holland. Fifteen reached their
destination, but the sixteenth, carrying twenty-three Sephardi Jews, was blown off course. It was
captured by Spanish pirates and its cargo confiscated; the vessel was sunk, and the passengers held
to be sold as slaves. But the pirate ship was sighted by a French bark, the St. Charles, and the prisoners
were rescued. The penniless Jews were taken to New Amsterdam, the nearest port."351

345 "Thomas Fitch Papers," Collections (Hartford: Connecticut Historical Society), vol. 18 (1920), pp. 262-73. 346 Feingold, Zion, pp. 42-3; Marc Lee Raphael, Jews and Judaism in the United States: a Documentary History
(New York: Behrman House, Inc., 1983), p. 14.
347 Abram Vossen Goodman, American Overture: Jewish Rights in Colonial Times (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication
Society of America, 1947), p. 127.
348 Bertram W. Korn, "Jews and Negro Slavery in the Old South, 1789-1865," in Karp, JEA3, p. 184. 349 MUSJ1, p. 586; Robert G. Weisbord and Arthur Stein, Bittersweet Encounters (Westport, Connecticut: Negro
Universities Press, 1970), p. 20.
350 Weinberg, p. 34. 351 Dimont, p. 37. Though there is, as yet, no definitive proof, the pirates who accosted that refugee ship may
have also captured the Black slaves of these Jews. When the Portuguese recaptured Recife from the Dutch in
The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews 69
This, the humble beginnings of the greatest of the world's Jewish communities, as described
by Max I. Dimont. Today, more Jews live in New York City than in any other single
place on the globe - including Israel. There they wield immense influence and there they first
entered into North America. When the first Jews arrived in New Amsterdam (later called New
York) in 1654, it was to the chagrin of Peter Stuyvesant, the appointed director of the Dutch
West India Company's western affairs. Speaking of a shipment of African slaves he had just
received from Curaçao, Stuyvesant said he preferred them to the "unbelieving Jews."352 He
petitioned the [93] Company's directors in Holland to exclude further Jewish colonists, but
they replied that such action "would be unreasonable and improper, especially in view of the
big losses which this nation suffered from the conquest of Brazil and in view of the great fortune
which they have invested in the company."353
Stuyvesant's unwelcome of those twenty-three Jewish refugees from Brazil has been
perceived as the Jews' first encounter with American anti-Semitism, but as Arthur Hertzberg
writes: "though [Stuyvesant] did use such terms as 'Christ killers' or 'Christ rejecters,' as he
fought against letting them stay in town, his quarrel with them was primarily economic."
Generous land grants and privileges were awarded to those who agreed to farm the Caribbean
island frontiers to provide much needed staple crops for the western settlements. The Jews,
through Jo'ao de Yllan, were offered a Curaçaoan settlement under these conditions but preferred
instead to raise and smuggle horses and deal slaves. Stuyvesant, who was the former
governor of Curaçao and whose jurisdiction included the Caribbean islands, was left to continue
the expensive importation of European crops.354

1654, instead of reprisals, they pardoned all defenders of the Dutch colony which included the Jews and gave
them three months to sell their homes and to prepare to leave for Holland. It would be, at the very least, unusual,
for this class of wealthy merchants (reportedly 150 families) to be without slaves. They demonstrated no aversion
to the practice and used the African in every facet of their lives; from the plantation to the kitchen, and from
the synagogue to the docks, Blacks were well-represented as slaves of Jews. One would be hard pressed to believe
that these Jews would have boarded sixteen ships to establish new homes and left their most valuable
commodity on shore. That act alone would have been unprecedented since their westward migration from European
soil and would warrant careful historical scrutiny in and of itself. For just two of many examples, see Max
J. Kohler, 'New York," PAJHS, vol. 2 (1894), p. 96, who quotes Thomas Southey's, Chronological History of the
West Indies (London, 1827), vol. 1, p. 335: "They proceeded to Guadeloupe and were civilly received by M.
Houel, the governor; upwards of 900 persons of all ages landed - soldiers, merchants, women, children and
slaves, bringing with them immense riches." And second, Aizenberg, p. 500, describes the expelled Jews of Coro
in 1855 as consisting of 168 Jews and 88 slaves, among them." Also EAJA, p. 155; Arnold Wiznitzer, "The
Number of Jews in Dutch Brazil (1630-1654)," Jewish Social Studies, vol. 16 (1954), pp. 112-13; Arnold
Wiznitzer, "The Exodus from Brazil and Arrival in New Amsterdam of the Jewish Pilgrim Fathers, 1654,"
PAJHS, vol. 44 (December, 1954), pp. 81-3. 352 Robert St. John, Jews, justice and Judaism (New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1969), p. 7; An extensive
account of the circumstances surrounding the arrival of the Jews in New Amsterdam (New York) has been
offered by Samuel Oppenheim, "Early History of the Jews in New York, 1654-1664: Some New Matter on the
Subject," PAJHS, vol. 18 (1909), pp. 37-53. 353 Arkin, AJEH, P. 97; St. John, p. 14; Howard Morley Sachar, The Course of Modern Jewish History (New
York: Dell Publishing Co., 1958), p. 161; It is reported that the original Jewish investment in the Dutch West
India Company of 1623 amounted to only one half of 1 % of the total investment - hardly enough to be considered
a "great fortune." By 1654, this investment must have been increased substantially or the initial investment
was underreported.
354 A. Hertzberg, pp. 20-1,23; Goslinga, p. 55; Goodman, p. 75; Hartog, Curaw, p. 131. See also Friedenwald, p.
50: In September of 1670, Governor Thomas Modyford of Jamaica made a list of Jamaican landholders with the
"surprising" absence of Jewish names. According to historian Friedenwald: "This gives some standing to the
charges that they [Jews] would not become planters, but remained traders and merchants, made against them a
few years later." Also, Friedenwald, p. 59: A list of eminent planters in Barbados made in May of 1673, "contains
the name of no Jew." Though Jamaica and Barbados were English possessions at the time and not subject to
Stuyvesant or the Dutch West India Company, it nonetheless represents a Jewish behavior pattern that supports
Stuyvesant's claims. Stuyvesant also felt that Jews received unfair advantages in other Company settlements.
Author Peter Wiernik in History of the Jews in America, pp. 52-3: "Peter Stuyvesant (1592-1672), the Governor
70 The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews
After this initial conflict, reports Leo Hershkowitz in his study of Jewish community
development in New York, "There was a high [94] degree of toleration with few examples of
overt anti-Semitism."355 For the most part the Jews formed a separate class by their own predilection.
There were no ghettos, nor were they confined to any portion of the city, but they
tended to congregate in the Dock Ward fronting the East River.356 Their houses were exactly
the same as all the other houses in town,357 and in 1777 the German mercenary John Dohla
commented that, "the Jews of New York were not like those of Europe - they were clean
shaven, dressed like everyone else, ate pork and intermarried without scruple."358
In colonial New York, Jews constituted a major segment of the mercantile population,
and were an important part of colonial trade, "a fact often overlooked by historians," complains
Hershkowitz.359 They were engaged in money-lending, brokerage and banking from the
earliest colonial age.360 Slave dealing, then the most profitable of ventures, was financed
through the New York banking firms and though few records exist, the critical capital provided
by these firms, and which launched the African expeditions, cannot be understated.361
The trade of the Jewish merchants was primarily in agricultural products exchanged for rum,
slaves, and manufactured goods.362 One recorded cargo included "coconuts, coral, tobacco,
turpentine, sturgeon, wine, rum, two Negro boys, and one mulatto slave."363
The Jews traded with their co-religionists in Curaçao, Surinam, Saint Thomas, Barbados,
Madeira and Jamaica - these are referred to as the principal trading ports for New York
outside of England. It should be mentioned that these ports were the very same places where
Jewish settlements had been formed at an earlier day, and hence Jewish traders in New York
"had a marked advantage over [95] others in this West Indian trade.”364 Historian Peter

of New Netherlands, complained to the directors of the West India Company in the following year, that the Jews
in Curaçao were allowed to hold negro slaves and were granted other privileges not enjoyed by the colonies of
New Netherlands; and he demanded for his own people, if not more, at least the same privileges as were enjoyed
by 'the usurious and covetous Jews.'"
355 Leo Hershkowitz, "Some Aspects of the New York Jewish Merchant and Community, 1654-1820," PAJHS,
vol. 66 (1976), p. 12; Fishman, p. 5.
356 Kohler, "New York," p. 91; Hershkowitz, "New York," p. 11; Lee M. Friedman, Pilgrims in a New Land
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1948), p. 9: "The history of Israel in the United States is
no ghetto history, walled off from the history of the land.
357 A. Hertzberg, p. 24. 358 Hershkowitz, "New York," p. 28. 359 Hershkowitz, "New York," p. 25. 360 Kohler, "New York," p. 85 notes that "It is of considerable interest in this connection to note that Jews were
among the founders of the New York Stock Exchange in 1792."
361 Philip S. Foner, Business and Slavery (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press), pp.
164-68.
362 Hershkowitz, 'New York," pp. 11, 19, 26. 363 Hershkowitz, "New York," p. 26. 364 Kohler, 'New York," p. 79; A. Hertzberg, p. 25: "They kept in touch with other Jews all over the world, even
with secret communities in England and France, so that [wrote the French envoy in Holland] 'the Jews in Amsterdam
are the best informed about foreign commerce and news of all people in the world."'; Kohler, "Settlement
of the West," p. 24: "The inter-colonial trade which promptly sprang up in colonial times between Jewish
settlers in different and often distant colonies afforded further opportunities..."; Fishman, pp. 7-8: "For a variety
of reasons, Jewish settlers were heavily involved in overseas trade… Jewish merchants had built-in advantages
and special skills. They had a knowledge of the international market and a network of kinsmen-business associates
in the Caribbean, Italy, Spain, the Near East, and India. Knowledge of languages - Hebrew, Yiddish, German,
Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch - was an additional asset. In commercial correspondence of the period, letters
were written in three and sometimes four languages." See also S. D. Goitein, Jewish Letters of Medieval Traders,
p. 6.
See also Herbert I. Bloom's "A Study of Brazilian Jewish History," PAJHS, vol. 33 (1934), p. 67: "Jews are
known to have made use of their international connections to operate efficiently as purveyors of supplies…
[S]ome Jewish traders in Brazil utilized their connections with their coreligionists in Amsterdam to furnish New
The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews 71
Wiernik flatly stated that this trade, "was principally in the hands of Jews,"365 and Stanley
Feldstein describes the benefit:
America's Jewish merchants, using their religio-commercial connections, enjoyed a competitive advantage
over many non-Jews engaged in that same lucrative intercolonial trade. Since the West Indian
trade was a necessity to America's economy and since this trade was, in varying degrees, controlled
by Jewish mercantile houses, American Jewry was influential in the commercial destiny of
Britain's overseas empire.366
[96]
In 1717 and 1721, the Crown and the New York Postillion, owned by Nathan Simson
and his New York and London associates, sailed into the northern harbor with a total load of
217 Africans. The shipments came directly from the African coast and were "two of the largest
slave cargoes to be brought into New York in the first half of the eighteenth century."367 In
August of 1720, "Simon the Jew" (probably Simon Bonane or Bonave) was slave dealing.368
New York Jewish merchants were in several instances charged with and found guilty of "selling
demented and unsound slaves they had warranted as sound."369
They also held Black slaves for their personal comfort and status. During the first half
of the 1700s, Black slaves constituted 20% of New York's population with some Indians also
held in slavery,370 with every New York family of any wealth or comfort owning slaves.371 By
the 1720s Jews formed their religious community with some paying their dues by sending "a
Negro slave to clean the synagogue.”372
The Gomez family of New York "were for many years the recognized heads" of the
Jewish community,373 and in 1741, slaves belonging to them, and to Abraham Myers Cohen,
were accused of being involved in a threatened riot and insurrection.374 Sampson Simson, "one
of the most prominent members of the New York Chamber of Commerce" and one of the
drafters of its constitution, “was the largest trader among the New York Jews during the years
1757-1773." He was the owner of "a number of vessels engaged in trade with the East and

Holland with provisions and stores." See also the reference in Marcus Arkin, Aspects of Jewish Economic History
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1975), p. 97, and Swetschinski, p. 235. 365 Wiernik, p. 52. 366 Feldstein, p. 13; Sachar, p. 163: "As in Europe, the Jews in colonial America were almost exclusively a trading
people, active in intercolonial, Indian, and foreign trade. Their experience, literacy, and contacts overseas
enabled them to play a disproportionately large role in coastal shipping and ocean commerce." Raphael Mahler,
A History of Modern Jewry: 1780-1815 (New York: Schocken Books, 1971), p. 2:
The Jewish share in commerce with the West Indies - a vital sector in the economy of the American colonies -
was particularly prominent. The Jews of Newport took an outstanding position in this trade. Their contacts with
the local Jewish Kehillot, in some instances members of their own families, was a great advantage to Jewish
merchants in West Indian ports of call such as Barbados, Jamaica, Surinam, and Curaçao. Jewish businessmen in
most of the important seaport towns played a conspicuous role in this commerce, finance and industry of the
prospering colonies.
367 MEAJ1, pp. 64-5. 368 Kohler, “New York," p. 84. 369 MCAJ2, p. 795. 370 Hershkowitz, "New York," p. 12. On page 11 Hershkowitz adds: "Trade was primarily in agricultural products
exchanged for rum, slaves, and manufactured goods.”
371 Kohler, "New York," p. 84; Lee M. Friedman, Early American Jews (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 1934), p. 62: "[M]any of the early Jewish settlers were slave-owners…"
372 MCAJ2, p. 916. Saul Jacob Rubin, Third to None The Saga of Savannah Jewry 1733-1983 (Savannah, 1983),
pp. 117-18, provides evidence of the use of Black labor by Jews to perform duties in the synagogue: "The case of
the Shammash Henry was identified as a slave who was compensated five dollars "for his attention in cleaning
and lighting the lamps, etc. of the synagogue." According to Rubin, Henry was needed because the kindling of
lights on Shabbat is forbidden to Orthodox Jews, so that "a non-Jew is required to handle the 'work-related'
chores of the synagogue."
373 Miriam K. Freund, Jewish Merchants in Colonial America (New York: Behrman's Jewish Book House,
1939), p. 34.
374 Kohler, 'New York," p. 84.
72 The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews
West Indies," the Hardy, Sampson, Snow [97] Union, Polly among them.375 Jacob Franks "occasionally"
imported household slaves.376
The wealthiest Jewish families had domestic servants as a rule. Moses Beach's list of
affluent New Yorkers includes the following Jewish names with their estimated wealth:377
Samuel Abrams [Abrahams] $150,000
A.L. Gomez $200,000
David Hart $250,000
Uriah Hendricks $300,000
Widow Hendricks [Mrs. Harmon] $300,000
Hyman Solomon [Hayrn M. Salomon] $100,000
The following Jews were known dealers, owners, shippers or supporters of the slave
trade and of the enslavement of Black African citizens in early New York history.378
Issack Asher Uriah Hyarn Moses Michaels
Jacob Barsimson Abraham Isaacs (E)Manuel Myers
Joseph Bueno Joshua Isaacs Seixas Nathan
Solomon Myers Cohen Samuel Jacobs Simon Nathan
Jacob Fonseca Benjamin S. Judah Rodrigo Pacheco
Aberham Franckfort Cary Judah David Pardo
Jacob Franks Elizabeth Judah Isaac Pinheiro
Daniel Gomez Arthur Levy Rachel Pinto
David Gomez Eleazar Levy Morris Jacob Raphall
Isaac Gomez Hayman Levy Abraham Sarzedas
Lewis Gomez Isaac H. Levy Moses Seixas
Mordecai Gomez Jacob Levy Solomon Simpson
Rebekah Gomez Joseph Israel Levy Nathan Simson
Ephraim Hart Joshua Levy Simja De Torres
Judah Hays Moses Levy Benjamin Wolf
Harmon Hendricks Uriah Phillips Levy Alexander Zuntz
Uriah Hendricks Isaac R. Marques
[98]
Jewish Heads of Households in New York City, Census of 1830379
Head of Household Number of Black Slaves
M F
Emanuel Abrahams 1
L. B. Borwick 1
Rebecca Canter 1

375 Freund, p. 36; Kohler, "New York," p. 83. 376 MEAJ1, pp. 64-5. 377 Ira Rosenwaike, On the Edge of Greatness: A Portrait of American Jewry in the Early National Period (Cincinnati:
American Jewish Archives, 1985), p. 72.
378 A more detailed documentation of their involvement is provided in the chapter entitled "Jews of the Black
Holocaust." Also, Hershkowitz, "New York," pp. 29, 32, APPENDIX II.
379 Rosenwaike, Edge of Greatness, pp. 119-23, Table A-6.
The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews 73
Joseph Dreyfous 1
Nathan Emanuel 1
Bernard Hart 1
Joel Hart 1
Joseph L. Hays 1
Harman Hendricks 1
Henry Hendricks 1
David Henriques 1
Sampson M. Isaacks 1
Isaac Isaacs 1
Joseph Jacobs 1
Naphtali Judah 1
Aaron Levy 1
Jacob Levy Jr. 1
Moreland Michell 2
Moses L. Moses 1
Joshua Naar 1
Seixas Nathan 1
Abigail Phillips 1
Moses S. Phillips 1
M. B. Seixas 3
Benedict Solomon 1
Sophia Tobias 1
[99]
Newport, Rhode Island
"The Almighty Dispenser of all Events [now beholds] a Government which gives to bigotry no
sanction, to persecution no assistance but generously affording to all liberty of conscience and immunities
of citizenship deeming everyone of whatever nation or tongue or language, equal parts of
the great Government machine."380
Moses Seixas
Mr. Seixas, of course, saw no irony in the fact that Newport, Rhode Island became one
of the most active slave trading ports of North America, with the significant assistance of his
Jewish community. Indeed, as Jewish historians Edwin Wolf and Maxwell Whiteman have
reported, the Newport Jews "traded extensively in Negroes,"381 and for the thirty years during

380 See Morris U. Schappes, Documentary History of the Jews in the United States (New York: The Citadel
Press, 1950), p. 79: Moses Seixas, the Jewish representative of Newport's Masons and warden of the synagogue,
is quoted from a letter from the Newport Congregation to the President of the United States, George Washington,
August 17,1790. After the Revolutionary War, the Jews were accorded equal rights and freed of all legal restrictions,
and then continued to finance the enslavement, shipment and murder of Black Africans. See also William
G. McLoughlin, Rhode Island: A History (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1978), p. 105. 381 Wolf and Whiteman, pp. 190-91.
74 The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews
which Newport was a major commercial center, Jewish traders saw their most prosperous and
successful times.382 Rhode Island became the second largest slave dealing center behind only
South Carolina.383 Its three primary sources of wealth were the sugar trade, the slave trade, and
the fisheries - especially whaling - and most Rhode Island merchants engaged in all three.384
By 1760, 15 percent of Newport's population were Black slaves supplying labor to the lucrative
port industries and to the lavish estates of the Caucasian merchants.385
[100]
Newport was also the rum producing center of the colonial world and the primary destination
of the bulk of the sugar and molasses coming out of the West Indies. The infamous
Triangular slave traders carried the rum into Africa in exchange for kidnapped Black Africans,
many of them murdered in the process. From here many were taken to the West Indian
plantations to produce the sugar for the insatiable profiteers of colonial America.
The Jewish presence in Newport dates back to 1658 with another wave arriving in
1694, on a ship with "a number of Jewish families of wealth and respectability on board" who
settled there possibly from the Jewish stronghold of Curaçao.386 But a new order was established
in the 1750s when "hundreds of wealthy Israelites, a most distinguished class of merchants,
removed here from Spain, Portugal [and] Jamaica… and entered largely into business."
Among those were the families Lopez, Rivera, Polock, Hart and Hays.387 Dr. Henry
Feingold described the Jewish pilgrims:
The first group of fifteen Jewish families who arrived in Newport from Holland in the spring of
1658 were simple folk - soap boilers, brass workers, and small merchants… They owned seventeen
candle-making factories related to a wholly Jewish-owned spermacetti trust, twenty-two distilleries,
four sugar refineries for the making of rum to be used domestically and for the African trade, five
rope-walk factories, a Castile soap-manufacturing combine, several furniture factories, a potash
trust, and several smaller merchandizing establishments. The Jews of Newport also maintained a
sizable representation in the shipping and whaling industries.388

382 Max J. Kohler, "The Jews in Newport," PAJHS, vol. 6 (1897), p. 62. 383 "Some Old Papers Relating to the Newport Slave Trade," Newport Historical Society Bulletin, no. 62 Ouly,
1927), p. 12: "As many as 184 vessels were engaged in this trade at one time from the State of Rhode Island…
Let us realize that this meant that every day witnessed the arrival or departure of a slave ship."
384 McLoughlin, p. 63. 385 McLoughlin, pp. 64-5, and 106: "Census statistics in 1755 indicate 4,697 slaves (or 11.5 percent of the population).
Of these, 1,234 were in Newport, constituting 15 percent of that city. By 1774, census reports show only
3,761 slaves in the state, constituting 6.3 percent of the population."; Peter T. Coleman, The Transformation of
Rhode Island, 1790-1860 (Providence: Brown University Press, 1969), p. 14: "By mid-century, Rhode Island
numbered over 40,400 inhabitants, but many of them lived in towns newly acquired from Massachusetts, and in
Newport, particularly, about a sixth of the residents (over 1,100 people) were Negroes."
386 Kohler, "Newport," p. 66; According to Leon Hühner in his article, "The Jews of Virginia," p. 89: "It is interesting
to note that after the earthquake at Lisbon in 1755, a company of secret Jews embarked thence for America.
The captain of the vessel intended to land them on the Virginia coast, but adverse and violent winds led him
to seek refuge in Narragansett Bay, and these Jews subsequently became some of the most enterprising merchants
of Newport." One should also note that Jewish families of "wealth and respectability" invariably owned
slaves and likely migrated to Newport with many. The points of origin of these Jewish families were notoriously
central to the Jewish slave dealing empires of the Caribbean where wealth was measured in numbers of Black
slaves.
387 Kohler, "Newport," p. 69; Andrea Finkelstein Losben, "Newport's Jews and the American Revolution," Rhode
Island Jewish Historical Notes (Nov. 1976), vol. 7, no. 2, p. 260: 'Jews came to Rhode Island because of Roger
Williams' liberal policies toward religion and because Newport's harbor offered excellent commercial opportunities."

388 Feingold, Zion, p. 41; "Some Old Papers Relating to the Newport Slave Trade," Newport Historical Society
Bulletin Guly, 1927), no. 62, p. 12: The author here claims that "there were no less than 22 Stills waiting to turn
the sugar into rum…" This, coupled with Feingold's statement, seems to suggest that all the stills in Newport
were owned by the Jews.; Dr. Eric E. Hirshler, editor, Jews From Germany in the United States (New York:
Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1955), pp. 21-22: "Indeed, the Jews were leading in the establishment of the spermacetti
oil and candle syndicate." See also Fishman, p. 8, who claims that Jews controlled other products: "Jew-
The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews 75
[101]
The people whom Henry Feingold describes as "simple folk," in fact were the highpowered
commercial engine of the Northeast. The Newport Jewish merchants played a "leading
and very important part" in this commerce utilizing their well established ties in the West
Indies and all the other Colonies, as well as in England. From every port in the Caribbean,
Jewish merchants sent so many ships to Gentile as well as Jewish merchant-traders that their
rivals "often complained bitterly that they were monopolizing the West India trade."389 Spermacetti
candle making, the electric utility of the colonial age, was controlled by Jews and
was, in fact, the first American business monopoly. As in all colonial commerce it required
Black slaves. Distilling required Black cultivators and later, Black processors;390 the manufacture
of soap, a craft monopolized by Jews since the fourteenth century,391 required Black
manufacturers - most of whom were unpaid slaves of Jews. Even "Negro mechanics of some
skill" helped build the Newport synagogue.392
Newport’s Slave Trading Jews
Many Jews, if not directly implicated in the slave trade, showed passive acquiescence
by engaging in trades directly tied to slavery such as distilling, financing and insuring, shipbuilding
and outfitting (installers of bondage hardware). The Rhode Island slave trade employed
100-150 vessels annually, estimated Dr. Marcus, each [102] carrying to Jamaica 80-
100 Black men women and children.393 Feingold described how the Jews were connected:
From Africa they imported slaves and from the West Indies they received molasses from which
they distilled rum. A key aspect of the triangular trade involved the notorious middle passage, the
transportation of slaves from the west coast of Africa to the West Indies and eventually directly to
the Colonies. Newport was the major Colonial port for this traffic in people, so that it comes as no
surprise that Colonial Rhode Island boasted a higher proportion of slaves than any other colony.394
Nearly all Jews in Newport had Negro domestic slaves… Bartlett, R.I. Census, 1774,
shows only two Newport Jewish families without slaves."395 Some of those Jews with direct
ties to slavery as slave owners and/or traders were Saul Brown (a.k.a. Pardo), Isaac Elizer,
Naphtali Hart, Jacob Isaacs, Aaron Lopez, Abraham Sarzedas, Sarah Lopez, Abraham Rivera,
Moses Seixas, Jacob Rodriguez Rivera, Joseph Isacks, Simon Bonan, Amon Bonan, Delancena
Jew, Moses Levey, Widdow D. Roblus, Isaac D. Markeys, [Luis] Gomas.396

ish traders were among the first to introduce cocoa and chocolate to England, and at times they had a virtual
monopoly in the ginger trade." According to Harold Pollins, p. 53, the diamond-coral trade was nearly Jewishdominated.
Though Jews have claimed that discrimination barred them from participation in some trades, Pollins
asserts that "the main reason for specialisation was probably the Jews' conservative adherence to known goods
and known routes."
389 S. Broches, "Jewish Merchants in Colonial Rhode Island," Jews in New England (New York: Bloch Publishing,
1942), p. 10.
390 William G. McLoughlin, Rhode Island: A History (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1978), p. 64. 391 Feingold, Zion, p. 41. 392 MCAJ3, p. 1498; Weisbord and Stein, pp. 23-4. 393 MEAJ1, p. 141. These figures are exceedingly low but are included as a substantiation of participation of Jews
in the slave trade by an impeccable Jewish source.
394 Feingold, Zion, p. 42; Raphael, p. 14; Rudolf Glanz, "Notes on Early Jewish Peddling in America," Jewish
Social Studies, vol. 7 (1945), p. 121: "Doubtless they were active in Indian trade, supplying the Army, and in
real estate deals, but the center of their activities was triangular trade between the American colonies and the
motherland via the West Indies."
395 MCAJ3, p. 1528; According to Ira Rosenwaike, "An Estimate and Analysis of the Jewish Population of the
United States in 1790," Karp, JEA1, p. 393. Dimont, p. 44: "At the time of the Revolution, the Jewish community
in Newport comprised but fifty to seventy-five Jewish families, but their wealth and prestige outstripped that
of the Jewish community in New York."
396 MCAJ3, P. 1528; See also this document, chapter entitled "Jews of the Black Holocaust”.
76 The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews
The Newport Jewish community declined rapidly as a result of the Revolutionary War,
as it was targeted by the British as a center of commerce.397 Newporters, however, plunged
back into slaving after the Revolution in a desperate attempt to rebuild the town's shattered
economy.398 Newport's economy and untold lost Black lives notwithstanding, the Jews prospered
immensely and secured a significant part of their economic foundation from this port
city.
[103]
Pennsylvania
The Jews formed communities in Pennsylvania with diverse economic bases. To the
west were Indian traders and military arms suppliers, while the eastern community based in
Philadelphia were mainly merchant shippers.
Philadelphia in 1663 was a small settlement of tiny cabins called Wicaco. Individual
Jews appear in Philadelphia records as early as 1703, but it would not be until 1738 that Jewish
leadership formed to start a bonafide Jewish community.399 Joseph Simon, Jacob Franks,
Nathan Levy, Solomon Etting, and the Gratz family, among others, were the most prosperous
colonial families - and all practiced slavery. Levy Andrew Levy, an agent for Joseph Simon's
operation, "with his bride Susannah and their Negro female slave, proceeded westward on
horseback trailed by a file of horses laded with Simon goods… Her slave, one of the first
blacks in Pittsburgh… drew water, milked the cow, and cared for the horses."400 Two Jewish
writers on the region's history, Edwin Wolf and Maxwell Whiteman, cite a local example of a
Jewish clergyman as an owner of slaves:
The Reverend Jacob Cohen's short, teen-age, bound girl wore a spotted jean jacket, a striped linsey
petticoat, a spotted coarse shawl and a black wire-framed bonnet, when she ran away, and he was
forced to offer a dollar's reward for anyone who would bring her home or take her to the gaol [jail].
The Jews who could afford them had both servants and slaves. The Quakers were the only people
who as a religious denomination opposed the institution of slavery.401
Jews became increasingly prominent and influential in colonial Pennsylvania. The
firm of Levy, Franks & Simon (founded 1751) became the most powerful western merchant
conglomeration of its time. It was their 250 ton, 10 gun ship Myrtilla that brought the 2,000
pound Liberty Bell to the Philadelphia State House.402 Jacob Franks is said to have gotten his
share of business in armaments and slaves during Queen Anne's War (1702-13), which gave
Britain a monopoly in the slave trade.403
[104]
Philadelphia merchant Isaac Moses appears to have been associated with Joseph Reed,
Robert Morris and other businessmen in launching the first bank in the United States which
supplied provisions to the Continental Army of the United States.404 Again, the wealthiest
among them held slaves who tended their businesses, ships and homes. A published list of the
wealthy residents of Philadelphia

included estimates of the estates of the following Jews in
1820:405
..............................................................................................................................................

Jews and the Red Man
Jews were among those Europeans who saw the value of the fur pelts supplied by the
native American (Indian) and became known as Indian traders. Max J. Kohler writes that the
Jews "entered the new world through the Atlantic colonies controlled by the English charters,
and finally worked their way west, trading with the Indians."407 At first this trade was forbidden
to Jews in some Dutch controlled regions but they appealed to the West India Company at
Amsterdam, and in 1656 the restrictions were lifted408.
Second only to the slave trade, Indian trading was the most profitable of commercial
ventures.409 Cheap European trinkets and baubles were traded for the fur pelts of the Indian
trappers.410
[106]
Jacob Marcus recounts the involvement of some of the Jews in this commerce:
Da Costa of Charleston advertised Indian goods in 1757; Isaac De Lyon and James Lucena of Savannah
shipped out deerskins in the 1760's to pay for their English imports; and back in the woods
the Nunez brothers traded with the Indians among whom they lived and fathered a brood of halfbreeds.411
But this commerce was more than a matter of bartering with "local savages." They had
in mind vast projects in the fields of western trade and land development,412 and for this they
would necessarily have to gain the trust of the various Indian organizations whose welcoming
spirit opened the west to the Jews. The traders found themselves in a unique position to encourage
and assist the Europeans in the extermination of the Indians. As traders in the wilderness
they knew the trails and the tribal locations as well as the customs, wants and needs of
the Indians. As the European encroachment created lethal conflict, these Jewish traders often
supplied the European with weapons, staples and critical military intelligence. Once the Red

407 Kohler, "Settlement of the West," p. 33; Frances Dublin, "Jewish Colonial Enterprise in the Light of the
Amherst Papers (1758-1763)," PAJHS, vol. 35 (1939), p. 3: Among the Indian traders "number many Jews."
Dublin, p. 14: "Jews, considering their total number, formed a fairly large proportion of those engaged in the fur
trade."
408 Harry L. Golden and Martin Rywell, Jews in American History: Their Contribution to the United States of
America (Charlotte: Henry Lewis Martin Co., 1950), p. 15. 409 Dublin, p. 14: "The fur trade was one of the cornerstones of the colonial structure." 410 Joseph L. Blau and Salo W. Baron, editors, The Jews of the United States, 1790-1940 (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1963, 3 volumes), vol. 1, pp. 112-13. Jacob Marks, for example, furnished what were called
"mock garnets" to the Office of Indian Trade for trade with the Indians.
411 MCAJ2, p. 732; See the example in Leon Huhner, "Daniel Gomez, A Pioneer Merchant of Early New York,"
Karp, JEA1, p. 183. Gomez owned a tract of land that "had been selected, no doubt, because the purchaser realized
its irnmense advantage for purposes of barter and traffic with the natives. But 'Gomez the Jew was not content
to utilize this advantage on a small scale. Accordingly, between about 1717 and 1720, he built a massive
stone house in this hollow, close to the main Indian trail leading across the mountains to the Dans Kammer. The
site too, had been carefully selected, for near the house was a spring, which from time immemorial, was a favorite
place for the Indians."
412 Goodman, p. 129; Brener, p. 16: "...[T]he first major venture into the area [was] for the purpose of earning the
confidence of the Indians for future land concessions from them."
The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews 79
man was removed there was no one more advantageously positioned to seize the valuable
land than the Indian trader.
Rabbi 1. Harold Sharfman points out that the Indians came to hate the White settlers
with a passion, "for they hacked down trees, leveled roads where the deer trails ran, killed off
their buffalo and deer, and drove away wild game. "413 But still they were intrigued [107] by
the strange wares of the peddlers and the new sensation that came with the spirit in the bottle.
Joseph Simon was one of those Jewish peddlers that, according to Rabbi Sharfman,
Barter[ed] with the tribes exchanging colorful trinkets and a variety of eye-catching beads and the
like for valuable furs… Little did [the Indians] realize… that they were bartering away their civilization.
The iron kettles, shooting irons, and sundries they acquired for furs meant that they had to
kill for many pelts that exceeded their needs for clothing, food, and shelter. Dependency on the
white man's whiskey led to quarrelsomeness and murder of fellow braves. They fell prey to the diseases
of the pale faces for which they had no immunity - smallpox, measles and sexual diseases.414
Simon was one of those who supplied those items that would eventually degenerate
the Indian nation. He came to Lancaster, Pennsylvania about 1735 and soon became one of
the most prominent Indian traders and merchants and one of the largest landholders in America.
His land claims extended over Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and to the Mississippi River.415
In the Indian territory he had business interests with fellow Jews Barnard and Michael Gratz,
David Franks, Solomon Etting, Challender and Levy Andrew Levy.416 Simon, John Miller and
brewer Mordecai Moses Mordecai decided to process hard liquor to introduce into the Indian
trade.
[108]
When it appeared that war was imminent between the French, Indians and the British,
Simon began to make guns.417 By the 1770s it was said that the Simon conglomerate had a
"virtual monopoly" on the western trade.418

413 Sharfman, p. 6; George P. Graff, “Michigan's Jewish Settlers, Frontiersmen in Every Sense of the Word,"
Michigan Jewish History, vol. 10 January, 1970), p. 10, quotes Rabbi Richard C. Hertz in the "Introduction" to
The Beth El Story: "...the Indians regarded all white men, regardless of their national loyalties or creedal beliefs,
as predatory interlopers preying upon their precious hunting grounds." According to an account published by
Reverend Henry Cohen, "A Brave Frontiersman," PAJHS, vol. 8 (1900), p. 63, the Indians tried to reason with
the settlers:
This chief spoke at some length and to the point. It was the old story of honest, oppressed Indians, and treacherous,
tyrannical white men. Much truth was told with native eloquence, and the Great Father was asked to stop
the building of the iron road, which would soon drive away the buffalo and leave his children without food.
But the White man saw it another way (Rev. H. Cohen, p. 61):
The Indians became aggressive, exacting, and insulting. They preyed upon the settlers, stopped and robbed the
overland stages, seized stock, took possession of station-houses, and, when hungry passengers were seated at
their meals, turned them out, and themselves consumed all the scanty supply of provisions, and sometimes added
murder to their other offenses. Seeing the weakness of our military posts, they insulted and taunted the garrisons,
and occasionally robbed them.
414 Sharfman, pp. 2, 8-9; Brener, pp. 2, 8. 415 This, despite a ban on settlement west of the Alleghenies by Parliament. See Henry Necarsulmer, "The Early
Jewish Settlement at Lancaster, Pennsylvania," PAJHS, vol. 9 (1901), p. 31, cites Ellis and Evans' History of
Uncaster County (p. 18).
416 Markens, "Hebrews in America," PAJHS, vol. 9 (1901), p. 33; Eric E. Hirshler, editor, Jews From Germany
in the United States (New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1955), p. 25: "Simon was one of the foremost Indian
traders of his time."; Hirshler, p. 26: "Between Indian attacks and French ambitions Simon helped to shape
American and English policy at the source; as one of the largest landholders he was vitally interested in the promotion
of settlements." See also 'Notes. Joseph Simon, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania," PAJHS, vol. 1 (1893), p.
121.
417 Sharfman, pp. 19, 20; Brener, p. 12: "The partnership of Simon with Mordecai Moses Mordecai and John
Miller produced 'Distill'd Liquors,' 'Annesses, Caraway seeds, Callamus, Cinnamon, orange, Snake root and
spirits' combined to produce what we hope was an acceptable beverage." See also ibid, p. 16, for evidence of the
connection that liquor had with land negotiations with the Indians.
80 The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews
Other Jews made their fortunes exploiting the hapless Indian population. Hayman
Levy Company, was a leading Indian trader and Benjamin Lyon was their agent.419 Later,
Levy, Lyons & Company became "the largest fur trader of the colonies and one of the most
opulent merchants in the city."420 Hayman Levy shipped many goods to the western frontier
including a 1763 shipment that included "Iron, steel, paints, drygoods, scalping knives, Negro
slaves…"421 Levy's business ethics were challenged as in this 1774 letter to Levy from the
copybook of colonial merchant, Ephraim S. Williams:
…I am far from being satisfied with your persisting in charging me the 21/2 percent more in my
supplies than what you began with and what I expected would be the rule you should stick to. Had I
judged you capable of taking such an advantage without my approbation I would never have dealt
with you, nor am I yet so involved with you, but I can easily be off…422
Chapman Abraham was among the early merchants of Detroit and in 1765 he was selling
rum, in partnership with a man by the name of Lyons (possibly Benjamin Lyon).423 Before
them was Isaac [109] Miranda, who, "posing as a 'fashionable Christian,' gained the political
appointment of judge, swearing his oath upon a New Testament, but His Honor was soon
dismissed for defrauding the Indians ."424
Sending their packhorse trains across the mountains, the Jewish merchants fully hoped
to dominate the western trade, to control mercantile sales, to build new towns and colonies,
and to populate the vast territory between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi.425 This required
the expulsion of the owners and reallocation of the valuable land and resources - a fitting assignment
for the Royal forces of Britain and France.
..............................................................................................................................................

Jews and Smallpox
Sir Jeffery Amherst, the genocidal commander-in-chief of His Majesty's Forces in
North America, came in 1758 to fight the French after gaining a solid reputation as a British
officer in Germany in the War of the Austrian Secession. One of his responsibilities in his
new position was to annihilate the Indian population and it was he who conceived the strategy
to spread smallpox among them by way of infected gift blankets. His greatest adversary was
Chief Pontiac who had organized a coalition of Indian tribes to defend their homeland and
was successful in frustrating the European encroachments. Amherst felt that the Native
American "was the vilest race of beings that ever infested the earth, and whose riddance from
it must be esteemed a meritorious act, for the good of mankind" and should, upon capture,
immediately be put to death, their extirpation being the only security for our future safety, and their
late treacherous proceedings deserves no better treatment from our hands."440
Amherst's pathological hatred for the Indian knew no limits - co-existence was not an
option. In a postscript of a 1763 letter to Col. [112] Henry Bouquet, Amherst wrote:
Could it not be contrived to send the smallpox among these disaffected tribes of Indians? We must
on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them.
Rabbi Sharfman explains the events that followed and the involvement of the Jewish
Indian traders:
Captain Ecuyer then called upon Levy Andrew [Levy] at his trading post. He told how he tricked
the chief into accepting the deadly gifts and placed an order to replace the blankets and handkerchiefs.
This grim invoice accompanied the new goods, receipt of which was duly acknowledged by
Ecuyer:
Debtor: The Crown to Levy, Trent & Co., for sundries had by order of Captain Simeon
Ecuyer, Commandant… to sundries, got to replace in kind those which were taken from the
people in the hospital to convey the smallpox to the Indians, viz.,
2 blankets @ 2.00.
1 silk handkerchief @ .10.
1 linen do. 3.6
Total: 2.13.6
Fort Pitt, August 15, 1763
I do hereby certify that the above articles… were had for the uses above-mentioned.
S. Ecuyer, Captain, Commandant
Seventy Shawnee, Mingo, and Delaware, fell before the unseen enemy, smallpox.
Many more undoubtably died, for the Indians had no resistance to the white man's diseases.441
[113]

440 "Acquisitions," AJA, vol. 4 (1952), p. 42; "Acquisitions," AJA, vol. 16 (1964), p. 94; "Acquisitions," AJA, vol.
17 (1965), pp. 85, 91; Sharfman, p. 38. Other sources that can provide background on Pontiac and events surrounding
the conflict are Howard H. Peckham, Pontiac and the Indian Uprising (New York: Russell & Russell,
1947); Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., The Patriot Chiefs: A Chronicle of American Indian Resistance (New York: Viking
Press, 1958); Francis Parkman, The Conspiracy of Pontiac (New York, 1962). 441 Sharfman, p. 38; Dr. Marcus, in MCAJ2, p. 717, says that these Jews were associated with David Franks and
his family of Philadelphia who he says, seem to have been "the leading Jewish supplyman in North America for
more than twenty years from about 1755 until about 1778," and whose firm (p. 715) was "to become England's
chief, though not sole agents for army supply during the French and Indian War." And on p. 716, "It was
[Frank's] syndicate, the largest among the army purveyors, that secured the contracts for victualling his majesty's
forces in North America, including the thirteen colonies along the coast below the Bay of Fundy, the Canadian
provinces, the transallegheny frontier, the Illinois country, and the Old Southwest along the lower Mississippi.
The syndicate reached out into the West Indies as well and shipped provisions to the armed forces in the Bahamas
and on Bermuda, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Jamaica."
Also Sharfman, p. 290: Bouquet replied that he would try to distribute germ-laden blankets among the Indians
"as it is a pity to expose good men against them, I wish we could make use of the Spanish method, to hunt them
with English dogs ... who would, I think effectually extirpate or remove that vermin."
The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews 83
The inevitable defeat of the Indians left vast tracts of land available for White development
and the Indian traders were the primary beneficiary. "There was only one hope on
which the future of western commerce could be secured," writes Rabbi Sharfman:
Indian land to which the Jewish and Quaker firms had rightful claims. Both sought compensation
for their losses at Bloody Run near Fort Detroit, suffered during the Pontiac Uprising in 1763.
Though fierce competition divided the two major western firms in the Ohio, they united to seek
joint compensation.
Simon, Levy & Franks, in concert with Baynton, Wharton & Morgan, claimed their despoiled
goods totaled an astronomical 86,000 pounds. Referring to themselves as 'suffering traders,' the
merchant-princes of the western trade consolidated to form a land company by which they attempted
to gain compensation in Indian land. They called their proposed colony 'The Indiana Company,'
seeking Indian territory south of the Ohio, in western Virginia, the region then known as Indiana.442
On November 5, 1768, 3,000 braves from the Iroquois Six Nations bartered for trinkets
and goods an immense expanse of territory stretching from western New York to eastern
Kentucky. Of this, the Jewish and Quaker Indiana Company would receive 2,500,000 acres -
a land eventually divided into the states of Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia.443
As each tribe succumbed to either disease, slaughter or retreat, "rightful claims" were
made. On July 5, 1773, the different tribes of the Indian nations in Illinois conveyed to
twenty-two residents of Lancaster and of the surrounding country a tract of land which now
embraces the southern half of Illinois. Eight Jews were interested in its purchase; Moses
Franks, Jacob Franks, David Franks, Bernard Gratz, Michael Gratz, Moses Franks, Jr., Joseph
Simon, and smallpox co-conspirator Levy Andrew Levy.444
It was only a matter of time before the pogrom reduced the once mighty Indian nation
to but a few holocaust survivors. Those who had won the trust of the Indians were the greatest
beneficiaries of [114] their extinction.445 Augusta Levy, wife of Winnebago Indian trader John
Meyer Levy, witnessed the Indian's expulsion from the Minnesota area in 1848 with these
words:
…in the spring there was a great excitement over the removal of the Indians. [John] was very glad
they were going… he had had enough of the Indians.
There are other references to Jews and Indians in the Jewish historical record. In the
Battle of Beecher Island, the "Little Jew," Sigmund Shlesinger (1848-1928), entered into his
diary on Monday September 21, 1868, that he had "Scalpt 3 Indians which were found about
15 feet from my hole consealt in grass. For purpose of collecting bounty."446 Records show
that as late as the 1880s Solomon Bibo of New Mexico was charged with defrauding the Indians
of grazing land.447
The disregard for the humanity of the Red man and woman is demonstrated in the
scholarship of the foremost Jewish historian, Jacob Rader Marcus, who describes the mockery
of an Indian by Hyam Myer's "Wild West" show, and further calls it "the spirit of enterprise":
Like many of his fellow merchants in the Canadian fur trade, Myers had suffered reverses
during the French and Indian War and presumably in the Indian uprising that followed
it. To recoup his fortunes, he had his friend Sampson Simson intercede with Sir William
Johnson for formal permission to exhibit some Mohawks in Europe. Myers sailed with the

442 Sharfman, p. 45. 443 Sharfman, p. 45. 444 Henry Necarsulmer, "The Early Jewish Settlement at Lancaster, Pennsylvania," PAJHS, vol. 9 (1901), pp.
334; See also Kohler, "Settlement of the West," p. 24, and Fishman, p. 9.
445 Brener, pp. 15-6. 446 Burt A. Siegel, "The Little Jew Was There: Biographical Sketch of Sigmund Shlesinger," AJA, vol. 20 (1968),
p. 25; Jacob R. Marcus, Studies in American Jewish History (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1969), p.
235. See the full account by Rev. H. Cohen, p. 59.
447 "Trail Blazers of the Trans-Mississippi West," AJA, vol. 8 (June, 1952), p. 83. Also see the Records of the
Bureau of Indian Affairs: 1884-1885, "Bibo Lease of Acorna Lands."
84 The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews
Indians before the proper certificate was forthcoming from the Indian Commissioner, and had
already begun to parade them in Holland and in the taverns of London when the Lords of
Trade urged Lieutenant-Governor Cadwallader Colden in New York to have Johnson put an
end to the undertaking. From all indications Myers made no money on his grand European
tour, for he ended up owing the Indians money - or refusing to pay them. Then, as now, there
was "no business like show business!”448


 

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