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DEFYING MERCANTILISM: ILLICIT TRADE, TRUST, AND THE JAMAICAN SEPHARDIM, 1660–1730

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2017

NUALA ZAHEDIEH
NUALA ZAHEDIEH*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Abstract

Recent historians have highlighted the importance of the web of illicit commercial transactions which connected competing imperial networks to create an integrated Atlantic economy but have paid little attention to how co-operation worked across borders. Of necessity, participants acted without the legal institutions which are often afforded a central role in narratives of modernization. In the case of Jamaica, a hub of illicit trade, most merchants found it difficult to survive in this high-risk environment but members of the Sephardic diaspora, a traditional, communitarian group, had competitive advantages which they exploited with vigour. They did not rely on innate attributes of kinship, ethnicity, or religion. They closed entry and built on a favourable historical and geographical legacy to cultivate attributes which maintained high levels of social discipline with credible rewards and punishments which were reinforced by their outsider status. Their competitive advantages did stimulate retaliation but also allowed the Sephardim to combine with the Christian elite to capture rent-seeking opportunities. Far from falling away as modernization gained pace, the Sephardic diaspora survived and flourished by constructing the strong private-order institutions needed in large swathes of the economy where neither impersonal corporations, nor state enforcement mechanisms, were able to manage risk.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 77 - 102
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

Earlier versions of the article were given at seminars at the Huntington Library, CA, the Institute of Historical Research, London, the University of Edinburgh, and the British Group of Early American Historians. The author is grateful for helpful discussion on each occasion. The author is also grateful to Christian Koot and the anonymous referees for their constructive comments.

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39 Lynch to Arlington, 2 Mar. 1672, TNA CO 1/28, fo. 46–46b; Molesworth to Williamson, 28 Sept. 1672, TNA CO 1/29, fo. 7b.

40 Halls to Brailsford, 11 Mar. 1688/9, 14 Mar. 1688/9, Brailsford papers, TNA C 110/152.

41 By his death in 1696, William Hall had refocused his business away from contraband commerce with only £243 tied up in two small ventures on the coast and £2,763 in island trade, inventory of William Hall, Oct. 1699, National Archives of Jamaica, Spanish Town (NAJ), Inv. 1B/ii/3, vol. 5, fos. 35–8.

42 Beeston to Lords of Trade, 1700, TNA CO 138/10; Houston, Memoirs, pp. 222–8.

43 Zahedieh, ‘Merchants of Port Royal’, pp. 578–80; ‘Memorandum given in by the naval officer’, 25 Mar. 1679, TNA CO 1/43, fo. 59.

44 Zahedieh, ‘Merchants of Port Royal’, pp. 590–1.

45 According to a report of 1709, in 1706/7, Jamaica re-exported slaves to the value of £56,000; woollens at £149,000, hats, linens at £66,500, and sundries at £3,500, Cambridge University Library, C(h) H Pa. 122/162.

46 Inchiquin to Lords of Trade, 12 Aug. 1691, TNA CO 138/7, fo. 19; ‘An estimate of what value is shipt every year from Jamaica to England’, 24 July 1700, TNA CO 138/10, fo. 76; Handasyd to Lords of Trade, 19 Nov. 1706, TNA CO 137/7, no. 35.

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63 ‘List of the several regiments of foot and troops of horse in Jamaica’, TNA CO 1/45, fos. 1–25. Not all Jews can be identified by name. Most had Spanish or Portuguese names but some were anglicized. In 1718, Abraham Martin, ‘of the Jewish nation’, gave evidence in court and swore on the 5 Books of David. TNA CO 137/13, no. 19.

64 Memorandum from the Jews about tax, 1700, TNA CO 138/10, fo. 82.

65 Benjamin Bravo to William Wood, 17 Feb. 1736, TNA CO 137/22, fo. 34.

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67 In 1692, a list of twelve Jewish plantation owners was submitted to the Lords of Trade to counter claims that they neglected planting. It included five of the nine Jews in Table 1 (David Alvarez, Moses Jesuran Cardosa, Joseph da Costa Alveringa, Jacob Mendez Gutterez, the widow of Solomon Gabay). TNA CO 390. In Dec. 1706, a group of so-called ‘planting Jews’ petitioned for an exemption from the separate tax imposed on their community ‘in the lump’. 10 Dec. 1706, JAJ, i, p. 405.

68 Inventory of Abraham Alvarez, Oct. 1693, NAJ, Inv. 1B/ii/3, vol. 3, fo. 507; tombstone, 4 Mar. 1693, Barnett, R. D. and Wright, P., The Jews of Jamaica and Jewish tombstone inscriptions, 1663–1882 (Jerusalem, 1997), 62Google Scholar.

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71 Over half the Jewish merchant inventories suggest an involvement in Spanish trade compared with 25 per cent of all the Port Royal inventories; Zahedieh, ‘Merchants of Port Royal’, p. 579.

72 ‘Memoria of what goods may be fit for Sta Marta, the rest of the Tierre Firma’, 11 May 1668, Westminster Abbey Muniments 11,940. On the importance of foreign goods, see the South Sea Company's cargoes, BL Add. MS 25,562, no. 15.

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75 Nathan Simson left eighty-eight bills of lading from 1719 until 1724 which show the importance of the Jamaican entrepot to his New York provision business although it had not yet outstripped Curacao with 38 per cent of his cargoes consigned to Curacao, 29 per cent to Jamaica, 22 per cent to London, and the remaining 11 per cent for lesser Caribbean ports and Amsterdam. Simson papers, TNA C 104/13. On Jews and the provision trade in New York, see Gelfand, Noah L., ‘A transatlantic approach to understanding the formation of a Jewish community in New Netherland and New York’, New York History, 89 (2008), pp. 375–95Google Scholar.

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78 ‘Memorandum given in by the naval officer’, 25 Mar. 1679, TNA CO 1/43, fo. 59.

79 ‘List of the regiments’, TNA CO 1/45, fos. 1–25; naval officers returns, 2 Apr. 1703–25 Apr. 1705, TNA CO 142/13; petition of Jacob Rodriguez, Deleon, and Jacob Lopes Torres, overseers of the synagogue, Journal of Assembly of Jamaica, 23 Mar. 1688, TNA CO 140/2, fo. 114.

80 Moses Cardosa acted for the Halls in the 1680s. Brailsford papers, TNA C 110/152.

81 Houston, Memoirs, p. 309.

82 Diego and Abraham Gonzalez to Nathan Simson, 17 July 1723, Simson papers, TNA C 104/14, pt 1; Marcus, Colonial American Jew, pp. 42–66; Brown, ‘South Sea Company’, p. 671; El Gov. de Yucatan contra Alonso Matheos sobre el tratos commercios con el enemigo Ingles, AGI Mexico 48, R. 1, no. 42; Selwood, Diversity and difference, p. 143.

83 Long, Edward, A history of Jamaica (3 vols., 1774)Google Scholar, ii, p. 116.

84 Inventory of Jacob Baruch Alvarez, 10 June 1724, NAJ, Inv. 1B/ii/3, vol. 14, fos. 60–1.

85 Copy of a letter of credit, 17 Jan. 1694/5, TNA CO 138/7, fo. 358.

86 ‘Book belonging to Thomas Stubbs’, TNA HCA 30/664; Yogev, Gedalia, Diamonds and coral: Anglo-Dutch Jews and eighteenth-century trade (Leicester, 1978)Google Scholar.

87 Dummer's contract with the Post Office in 1704 allowed him to carry cargoes which allowed him to move into Spanish American trade via Jamaica in partnership with his brother and the Mears brothers, Jacob and Sampson. Jacob Mears had spent sixteen years trading in Jamaica and claimed knowledge of the trade and contacts with co-religionists in Spanish America. Steele, Ian K., The English Atlantic, 1675–1740: an exploration of communication and community (Oxford, 1986), pp. 176–7Google Scholar.

88 For example, David Gomez owned the Betty ketch included in a list of ships trading for logwood, TNA CO 138/1, fo. 105.

89 ‘Memo given in by the naval officer’, 25 Mar. 1679, TNA CO 1/43, fo. 59; Woolf, Maurice, ‘Foreign trade of London Jews in the seventeenth century’, Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England, 24 (1974), pp. 38–58 Google Scholar.

90 Perara and Gomezsera v. Calloway, Sept. 1672, TNA HCA 13/77.

91 London Port Books, 1717; West Yorkshire Record Office, Sheepscar Branch, Leeds; JAJ, vol. ii, pp. 325, 348, 525, 527.

92 John Taylor, ‘Taylor's history of his life and travels in Jamaica’, 1688, NLJ MS 105, fo. 499; Houston, Memoirs, p. 277.

93 Meyers, ‘Ethnic distinctions and wealth’, p. 75.

94 Petition of the merchants of Port Royal to Sir Thomas Lynch concerning the Jews, 11 June 1672, TNA CO 1/28, no. 63.

95 Erikson, Emily, Between monopoly and free trade: the East India Company, 1600–1757 (Princeton, NJ, 2014)Google Scholar.

96 Perara and Gomezsera v. Calloway, Sept. 1672, TNA HCA 13/77.

97 Studnicki-Gizbert, ‘La Nación among the nations’, pp. 77–8.

98 117 tombstone inscriptions in the Port Royal burial ground are from between 1680 and 1730. The majority (75 per cent) are in Portuguese and almost all the remainder in Spanish with one in English. Barnett and Wright, Tombstone inscriptions. Deposition of Abraham Perara Delgado, 1672, TNA HCA 13/77.

99 The construction of a synagogue is not required for religious services, or practising a proper Jewish life. The necessity for worship is to have a Mingan (ten Jewish males) while the space can be anywhere. John Peeke sold a plot measuring 63 feet by 36 feet to the Jewish community represented by Abraham David Gabay, Moses Jesuran Cordosa, Asperius, and a further Gabay. Deed, 29 Jan. 1677, Island Record Office, Spanish Town, Jamaica, Deeds OS, vol. viii, p. 87.

100 The importance of the synagogue is reflected in wills: it was the custom to leave bequests to the synagogue. Andrade, Jacob A. P. M., A record of the Jews in Jamaica from the English conquest to the present times (Kingston, Jamaica, 1941)Google Scholar.

101 Cooter, R. and Landa, Janet, ‘Personal versus impersonal trade: the size of trading firms and contract law’, International Review of Law and Economics, 4 (1984), pp. 15–22 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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103 ‘By their parsimonious living which I do not charge as a fault in them they have the means of underselling the English’, Beeston to Lords of Trade, TNA CO 138/10, fo. 85. Similar quotes abound.

104 Knight, James, Natural, moral, and political history of Jamaica (1742), fo. 74bGoogle Scholar.

105 In 1732, Judith Baruch Alvarez left £100 ‘for making a convenient causeway or walk from the usual place of landing of corpses…to the burial place of the Jewish Nation’. Will of Judith Baruch Alvarez, 12 Sept. 1732, Andrade, Record.

106 Memo from Baron de Belmonte, 1 Jan. 1700, TNA CO 138/10, fos. 2–3.

107 Receipts of sale for New York provisions, 1719–23, Simson papers, TNA C 104/14, pt 1.

108 The Yeshibah is mentioned in wills. Moses Cardosa left it £5, will of Moses Cardosa, 9 Dec. 1725, Andrade, Record.

109 Carr, J. and Landa, Janet, ‘The economics of symbols, clan names and religion’, Journal of Legal Studies, 13 (1983), pp. 135–56Google Scholar; Iannaccone, Laurence, ‘Why strict churches are strong’, American Journal of Sociology, 99 (1994), pp. 1180–211Google Scholar.

110 Barry and Brooks, eds., Middling sorts, pp. 84–112; Withington, Phil, Society in early modern England: the vernacular origins of some powerful ideas (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 102–33, 171–201Google Scholar.

111 Articles of Agreement between Solomon Gabay and David Lopez Narbona, 9 July 1674, Island Record Office, Spanish Town, Deeds, OS i, vol. 1, fos. 215–16.

112 Petition to Thomas Lynch, 1672, TNA CO 1/28, no. 63; Zahedieh, ‘Capture of the Blue Dove’; Perara and Gomezsera v. Calloway, 25 Sept. 1672, TNA HCA 13/77.

113 Gelfand, ‘Transatlantic approach’, pp. 379, 381; Andrade, Record.

114 Inventory of Joseph da Costa Alveringa, 1 Aug. 1700, NAJ, Inv. 1B/ii/3, vol. 5, fos. 44–5; Richard Brown v. Andrew Lopez and Co., HCA 13/82; Yogev, Diamonds and coral, p. 36.

115 Will of Isaac Rodriquez Marques, 5 Oct. 1707, in Herschowitz, Leo, Wills of early New York Jews, 1704–1799 (New York, NY, 1967), pp. 8–10 Google Scholar; Rock, Howard B., New York Jews in the New World, 1654–1865 (New York, NY, 2013), p. 129Google Scholar.

116 Herschowitz, Wills.

117 Hancock, Oceans of wine. Abraham and Diego Gonzalez's correspondence with the New York merchant Nathan Simson shows that they also had strong links with Amsterdam, Barbados, Bayonne, Bordeaux, Curacao, St Eustatius, St Thomas, and the Iberian empires as well as London. Simson papers, TNA C 104/14.

118 On effects of itineracy in managing opportunism in long-distance trade, Costa, Leonor Freire, Rocha, Maria Manuela, and Araujo, Tanya, ‘Social capital and economic performance: trust and distrust in eighteenth-century gold shipments from Brazil’, European Review of Economic History, 15 (2010), pp. 1–27 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

119 Simson papers, TNA C 104/14; Cohen, Robert, ‘Sampson and Jacob Mears, merchants’, Jewish Historical Quarterly, 67 (1978), pp. 233–45Google Scholar. The inscription on the tomb of Solomon Levy of 5 Aug. 1690 noted that Levy was born in Germany. Barnett and Wright, Tombstone inscriptions.

120 Jessica Roitman, ‘Us and them: inter-cultural trade and the Sephardim, 1595–1640’ (Ph.D. thesis, Leiden, 2009).

121 Memorial of the Jews enclosed with letter from Beeston to Lords of Trade, 3 May 1700, TNA CO 138/10, fo. 80; response of the Council to the Petition of the Jews, 1700, TNA CO 138/10, fo. 86; JAJ, i, p. 257, ii, pp. 392, 541.

122 Long, History, i, pp. 79–100.

123 Houston, Memoirs, pp. 79–100.

124 Abraham and Diego Gonzalez to Simson, 1725, Simson papers, TNA C 104/14.

125 Cohen, ‘Sampson and Jacob Mears’, p. 234. A sample of thirty Admiralty cases relating to Jamaica between 1674 and 1696 includes four involving Jews but no cases of Jews suing Jews. TNA HCA 13/77–82.

126 Fifteen Jewish wills provide an insight into family discipline. Island Record Office, Spanish Town, Wills, Liber 17, 18.

127 Richman, Barak, ‘How community institutions create economic advantage: Jewish diamond merchants in New York’, Law and Social Inquiry, 31 (2006), pp. 383–420 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

128 The Halls traded with Cardoza, Gomez, Gonzalez, de Leon, Narbona, Nunez, and da Silva Solis. Brailsford papers, TNA C 110/152.

129 Houston, Memoirs, p. 277.

130 Council of Jamaica, 1700, TNA CO 138/10, fos. 80–6.

131 Kaplan, Yosef, ‘The place of the Herem in the Sefardic community of Hamburg during the seventeenth century’, in Seudemund-Halevy, Michael and Koj, Peter, eds., Die Sefarden in Hamburg: Zur geschichte einer meinheit (Hamburg, 1994)Google Scholar; Swetschinski, Daniel, Reluctant cosmopolitans: the Portuguese Jews of seventeenth-century Amsterdam (London, 2000)Google Scholar.

132 Francis Hall to Thomas Brailsford, 11 Mar. 1688/9, 20 Jan. 1689/90, Brailsford papers, TNA C 110/152.

133 Brailsford papers, TNA C 110/152; Simson papers, TNA C 104/14.

134 Beeston to Lords of Trade, TNA CO 138/10, fo. 85; petition to Sir Thomas Lynch, 1672, TNA CO 1/28, no. 65.

135 ‘Act declaring what persons shall be qualified to sit in Assemblies’, 1711, JAJ, ii, p. 38.

136 Memo of Jews about taxes, 3 May 1700, TNA CO 138/10, fo. 80.

137 Samuel, ‘Sir William Davidson’; Lynch to Arlington, 17 Dec. 1671, TNA 1/27, fo. 167; Zahedieh, ‘Regulation, rent-seeking’. Lawes to Lords of Trade, 21 June 1718, TNA CO 137/13, pt 1, no. 14. In the 1720s, the Assembly claimed that the trade on the coast had been engrossed by the men-of-war in association with the leading Jewish supercargoes. Isaac Lamego had been concerned in about ten voyages with Captain Lawes and three or four with Captain Dent. This had been to the detriment of smaller traders who had been excluded. JAJ, ii, pp. 338, 482–3.

138 Wood put forward a petition in support of the Jews with ninety-two signatures of which fifty were from Christians. William Wood to Lords of Trade, 18 Feb. 1736, TNA CO 137/22, fo. 35.