Portmanteau Jews: Sephardim and Race in the Early Modern Atlantic World

NOTES

• Gilroy , Paul . 1993 . The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness Cambridge : Harvard University Press . Jeffrey W. Bolster, Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997).
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• de Rephael Meldola , David . 1753 . Sefer Divrei David Amsterdam : Hirsch Levi Rofe . “Foreign Language” p. 141a (responsum no.54). All translations are mine unless otherwise noted.
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• Melkman , J. 1951 . David Franco Mendes: A Hebrew Poet Jerusalem and Amsterdam : Massadah/Joachimsthal's Boekhandel, Uitgevers- en Drukkerrijbedrijf . Cited in p. 13.
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• 2000 . This essay reworks material from Jonathan Schorsch, ‘Jews and Blacks in the Early Modern Mediterranean and Atlantic Worlds, 1450–1800’ (PhD Dissertation, University of California-Berkeley,). A revised version will be published by Cambridge University Press (forthcoming 2003).
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• Israel , Menasseh ben . 1652 . Nishmat Hayyim 136 Amsterdam : Shmuel Abravanel Soeiro . a-b (3rd art., ch.24).
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• Third article, ch.23: “Foreign Language”
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• Evileos [Y] los temerosos de Dios, fundan el palacio de la Sabiduria, en los cimientos del temor, por no haver ciencia como temer el Divino castigo; ni delirio como despreciarlo con las presunciones de excederlo: los primeros que no la preciaron fueron los que el noticioso Aldrete llama descendientes de Chus: y los que temen à Dios son, los que con Salomon dominan à los Evileos Evelim, (Locos) Temor del Señor es principio de Sabiduria: Ciencia, y castigo los locos despreciaron (Daniel Levi [Miguel] de Barrios, Triumpho del govierno popular, y de la antiguedad holandesa [n.p., n.d. (1683)] p.66).
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• Barrios , De . Triumpho pp.48, 54–8.
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• Possevino , Antonio . Bibliotheca Selecta de Ratione Studiorum (n.p., 1607 [orig. 1603?]), bk.15, ch.19.
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• José Aldrete , Bernardo . 1614 . Varias antigvedades de españa africa y otras provincias 165 Amberes : A costa de luan Hasrey .
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• Borst , Arno . Der Turmbau von Babel: Geschichte der Meinungen Über Ursprung und Vielfalt der Sprachen und Völker 4 vols, in 6 parts (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1957–63), II, p.406.
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• Agrippa , Enrique Cornelio . 1528 . Historia de las cosas de etiopía Toledo See, for example, and Manuel Almeida (1580–1646), Historia de Etiopía, the latter not published in its entirety.
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• Ross , Robert , ed. 1982 . Racism and Colonialism: Essays on Ideology and Social Structure 45 The Hague : Martinus Nijhoff . Ernst van den Boogaart, ‘Colour Prejudice and the Yardstick of Civility: the Initial Dutch Confrontation with Black Africans, 1590–1635’, ed. by n.37; Eli Faber, Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 16, citing Johannes Menne Postma, The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p.10.
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• 1627 . ‘Libro dos termos da ymposta da naçao’, 20 Tamuz 5387 Archive of the Portuguese Jewish Community of Amsterdam, Gemeente Archief Amsterdam (hereafter GAA), sec.334, no. 13, fol.42.
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• Cohen , Robert . 1991 . Jews in Another Environment: Surinam in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century 161 Leiden : E.J. Brill . .
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• Escamoth (undated [1640]), GAA, sec.334, no. 19.
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• ‘Livros dos Acordos da Nacao e Ascamot’, GAA, sec.334, no. 19, fol. 173.
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• Teensma , B. N. 1997 . “ ‘The Brazilian Letters of Vicent Joachim Soler’, in ” . In Dutch Brazil 61 vol.1, Documents in the Leiden University Library (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Index,)
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• ‘Livros dos Acordos da Nacao e Ascamot’, 24 Nisan 5407 (1647), GAA, sec.334, no. 19, fol.224.
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• 1986 . Reports of the Israeli National Academy of Sciences , 7 : 168 ‘Livros dos Acordos da Nacao e Ascamot’, 9 Sh'vat 5418 (1658), GAA, sec.334, no. 19, fol.426; cited also in Yosef Kaplan, ‘The Portuguese Community in Amsterdam in the Seventeenth Century: Between Tradition and Change (Hebrew)’, no.6 (Jerusalem: Israeli National Academy of Sciences,)
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• Palmer , Colin A. 1976 . Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico, 1570–1650 54 Cambridge : Harvard University Press .
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• 1978 . The Church Militant and Iberian Expansion, 1440–1770 Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press . In 1555 the first Mexican Ecclesiastical Provincial Council declared Indians, mestizos, mulattos, descendants of Moors, Jews and persons sentenced by the Inquisition ‘inherently unworthy of the sacerdotal office’. The Third Provincial Council (1585) relaxed this somewhat, admitting ‘Mexicans who are descended in the first degree from Amerindians, or from Moors, or from parents of whom one is a Negro’. By implication, full-blood Indians and Blacks remained unacceptable for admission. All from C.R. Boxer, pp. 15–16.
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• Ibid. 9
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• Bar-Asher , Shalom , ed. 1977 . The Taqanot of the Jews of Morocco: A Collection of Communal Ordinances from the 16th to 18th Century as found in ‘(Kerem Hemer’ II by Avraham Ankawa Jerusalem : Zalman Shazar Center/Hebrew University . The communal ordinances of the Sephardic congregations in Morocco, for instance, made no mention of issues related to the burial or ritual participation of slaves. See ed. by
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• 1971 . The Dutch in the Caribbean and on the Wild Coast, 1580–1680 368 – 69 . Assen : Van Gorcum . On the segregation of Calvinism and slaves, see Cornelis Ch. Goslinga, R.A.J, van Lier, Frontier Society: A Social Analysis of the History of Surinam (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971), pp.72–74; Rosemary Brana-Shute, ‘The Manumission of Slaves in Suriname, 1760–1828’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Florida, 1985), 256–58.
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• Israel , Jonathan . 1989 . “ ‘Menasseh ben Israel and the Dutch Sephardic Colonization Movement of the Mid-Seventeenth Century (1645–1657)’, in ” . In Menasseh ben Israel and His World Edited by: Kaplan , Yosef , Méchoulan , Henry and Popkin , Richard H. Leiden : E.J. Brill . ed. by p. 106.
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• Haskamah . 1954 . 69 32 [dated 5409/1649]; translated in Arnold Wiznitzer, The Records of the Earliest Jewish Community in the New World (New York: American Jewish Historical Society,)
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• escama ‘Reformation of the [ordinance] of the year [16]39 which treats the circumcising of goyim [non-Jews]. The Gentlemen of the Mahamad declare that the same penalty of herem [one of the three forms of excommunication] [will apply] to any who circumcise blacks or mulatos and also any who immerse them ritually or any who act as a witness for them, seeing them bathe, or any other Man or woman who is not of our Hebrew nation. The Gentlemen of the Mahamad [declare] that a slavewoman, having some occasion of [the birth of] a son or daughter by a Jew, who will come to the bathhouse [to bathe the child] or [a child?] from Portugal who should be born in his house by his [concubine?] may do as he sees fit/Reformassao da escama de an 39: que trata sobre o sircunsidar goim declaraô os SSres. do Mahamad que a mesma Pena de herem [illegible word] em quem sircumsidar negros ou mulatos e tambem quem os Banhar ou ser testigo de os ver banhar ou qualquer outra Pessoa ou mulher q nao ser de nossa nassaö hebrea, os SSres. do Mahamad q Escrava [?] avendo algua oCaziaô de algún filho ou filha de judeu q venga de abanha ou De portugal [?] que se Criasse em sua Caza Com seu intimo [?] poderaö dispor Como lhe paraser’ (Livro dos Acordos, 24 Shvat 5410 [1650], GAA 334, no.19, fol.281).
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• Blackburn , Robin . 1997 . The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern, 1492–1800 64 London : Verso . Robert C.-H. Shell, Blackburn's source, framed this step in a manner that well illuminates the trajectory of the Jewish discourse under discussion, ‘Baptism, a public imperative for the Catholic church, became a household choice for the Reformed Christian’ (Robert C.-H. Shell, Children of Bondage: A Social History of the Slave Society at the Cape of Good Hope, 1652–1838 [Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press/University Press of New England, 1994], p.334).
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• Puckrein , Gary A. 1984 . Little England: Plantation Society and Anglo-Barbadian Politics, 1627–1700 23 New York : New York University Press .
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• Hartog , J. 1968 . Curaçao: from Colonial Dependence to Autonomy 148 Aruba : De Wit .
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• Isaac , S. and Emmanuel , Suzanne A. 1970 . History of the Jews of the Netherlands Antilles, 2 vols. (Cincinnati: American Jewish Archives,), I, p.146.
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• Marcus , Jacob Rader . 1970 . The Colonial American Jew, 1492–1776 3 vols. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press,), I, p.200.
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• 1768 . Brit Yitshak Amsterdam : Gerard Johann Janson/House of Mondui . My emphasis; Selomoh Levy Maduro, pp.15b-16a.
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• Hebrew He did so by conflating the cessation of Canaanite slave laws with the time universally assigned to the end of slaves, the point at which the jubilee year supposedly was no longer observed (because of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, the absence of the 12 tribal representatives, etc.). Levy Maduro's view went counter to that of Maimonides, who specifically distinguished between the laws pertaining to Hebrew slaves—dependent on the Temple, the jubilee—and the ‘eternal’ laws pertaining to Canaanite slaves (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Slaves, V, p. 17).
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• 1957 . Precious Stones of Curaçao: Curaçaon Jewry 1656–1957 209 – 13 . New York : Bloch Publishing Co. . On the Maduros of Curaçao, see Isaac S. Emmanuel
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• Emmanuel . Jews in the Netherlands Antilles (see note 32), II, p.653.
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• Unfortunately, I have been unable yet to find any pertinent evidence from seventeenth- century Surinam.
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• Cohen . Jews in Another Environment (see note 15), p. 159.
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• Brana-Shute . ‘Manumission of Slaves’ (see note 25), p.260.
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• Marcus , Jacob R. , Chyet , F. and Cohen , Simon , eds. 1974 . 71 Cincinnati/New York : American Jewish Archives/KTAV Publishing House . Historical Essay on the Colony of Surinam, 1788, ed. by The name is probably a mistake for De Britto, a prominent Sephardic planter family.
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• Shulkhan Arukh Among the library's holdings: the talmudic tractates Kidushin, Gitin, Ketubot and Yebamot (among others); a commentary on the (though in bad condition [mal tratado]); and, perhaps most crucially, three different multi-volume editions of the Shulkhan Arukh itself (Records of Jurators of Surinam; Portuguese Jewish Communion [sic]/Archief der Nederlandsch-Portugeesch-Israelietische Gemeente in Suriname, Algemeen Rijks Archief, The Hague, no.25 = American Jewish Archives [hereafter AJA] microfilm reel 67h, fols.48–49).
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• Hilfman , P. A. 1909 . ‘Notes on the History of the Jews in Surinam’ . Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society , 18 185, provided a list of the rabbis serving in Surinam until 1750.
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• Barnett , Richard D. ‘The Correspondence of the Mahamad of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation of London during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’ . Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England , 20 (1959/1961), 17.
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• Maimonides . Mishneh Torah Laws of Slaves, 6.4; Karo, Shulkhan Arukh, Yoreh De'ah, sec.267:77–78.
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• Cohen . Jews in Another Environment p.305, n.39. I have not yet found this crucial document.
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• Korn , Bertram Wallace , ed. A Bicentennial Festschrift for Jacob Rader Marcus The 1713 codicil of Daniel Ulloa stated that if his daughter ‘has no children, the slaves are to revert after her death to Sarah's siblings and their heirs and assigns’ (Bertram Wallace Korn, ‘Barbadian Jewish Wills, 1676–1740’, in ed. by [Waltham, MA/New York: American Jewish Historical Society/Ktav, 1976], p.306), while the 1733 will of Miriam Arobas specified that should any of her children ‘die before reaching the age of twenty-one and without issue, the slaves bequeathed to that child are to be divided equally among the other children named, and their heirs and assigns’ (Ibid., 307). Similar clauses can be found among Surinamese Jews as well, for instance, in the will of Abraham da Costa (12 August 1768; Records of Jurators of Surinam; Jurator Isaac Nassy, Minutes, 1763–74. Jurator Jacob de Barrios, Minutes and registered acts, 1779–80/Archief der Nederlandsch-Portugeesch-Israelietische Gemeente in Suriname, no.784 = AJA microfilm reel 67a, frame 777).
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• France , ed. 1991 . Jews in the Caribbean: Evidence on the History of the Jews in the Caribbean Zone in Colonial Times 83 Jerusalem : Misgav Yerushalayim . Yzidro had been in Surinam since at least 1735 or so, when his name was mentioned as a teacher in the Jodensavane community (AJA microfilm reel 67h, frame 143). He had been born in Spain, fled to England and studied in Amsterdam with David Israel Athias, before leaving for the Caribbean. His wife came from the Sephardic community of Bayonne, ed. by (Zvi Loker [], p., n.1–2).
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• Yzidro , Abraham Gabay . 1763 . Yad Avraham. ve-Hu Hibur ha-Azharot 4 Amsterdam : Leib b. Moshe Zusmans/Jan Janson . b. My translation ignores the rhyme scheme: “(foreign language)” Yzidro substituted, no doubt based on his experience in plantation slave societies, the traditional term ‘Canaanite’ slave with ‘Kushite’.
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• 1993 . 54 Entries of 22 September 1800 and 10 March 1801, Minute Book of the Mahamad and Adjuntos 1791–1808 (MS 328), Lauderdale Road Synagogue, London; cited in Joanna Westphal, ‘Jews in a Colonial Society: The Jewish Community of Barbados, 1654–1833’, unpublished MA thesis (London: University College, London University,)
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• Davis , David Brion . 1966 . The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture 263 Ithaca : Cornell University Press .
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• Vaughan , Alden T. 1995 . Roots of American Racism: Essays on the Colonial Experience Oxford : Oxford University Press . Cited in p. 170.
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• 1944 . El indoamericanismo y el problema racial en las Américas 75 The term ‘pigmentocracy’ was first used by the Chilean Alejandro Lipschiitz, 2nd ed. (Santiago de Chile,), and passim, then picked up by Magnus Mörner, Race Mixture in the History of Latin America (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1967), p.54, whence it entered the scholarly vocabulary. It was later used by Boxer, The Church Militant (see note 23), p.38.
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