The Dutch West India Company controlled territory in South America known as Guiana. Though fertile, it was left idle in favor of the development of Brazil. When the Portuguese reclaimed Brazil in 1654, the Company drew up a prospectus inviting Jews, "under tempting conditions," to settle the wild coast of Western Guiana including provisions for slave labor:
A Rulle in What Manner and Condition That the Negroes Shall Be Delivered in the Wilde Cust [sic] 1. That there shall bee delivered in the said Cust soe many negroes as each shall have occasion for, The which shall be Paide heere shewing the Receipt, in ready money at one hundred and fifty guilders for each man or woman.
2. Children from eight to twelve years that shall counte, two for one piece, under the eight yeares three for one the breeding goeth with the mother.
3. Hee that shall advance the Paiment before the Receipt comes shall enjoy the discounnte of Tenn £Cent.
4. To all them that shall Paye and buy for Ready mony if thei will thei shall have sutch number of negroes. Trusted to pay within five years and after them shall Pay for each man, woman or child as above the sume of two hundred and fifty and he that shall advanse the Paiment shall have discount of Tean Per Cent a yeare and them that shall buy for ready money shall be ingaged for the Paiment of the others.
Some of these documents, discovered among the Egerton Manuscripts in the British Museum, are evidence of an English grant of privileges to the Jews. They were apparently drafted by Jews in Holland in 1657, and approved by the colonization committee on November 12, of that same year, though some amendments were added later. The price and availability of Black Africans to the Jewish settlers appeared as a critical issue throughout the documentation. The agreement appears to have been revised through negotiations with "a committee of the Jewish nation." The addendum is entitled, "Request for the Enlargement of the Printed and Published Conditions Relating to the Colonization of the Continental Wild Coast," and alters the initial contract in a number of ways, but primarily assures the colonists that the authorities: [intend] to keep the wild coast well provided with merchandise and negroes so as to promote their local sale and use. [W]hen the country is developed and provided with everything they will then make regulations to let merchandise and negroes go out from there upon a certain toll.
See Samuel Oppenheim, "An Early Jewish Colony in Western Guiana: Supplemental Data," Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, vol. 17 (1909). Other supplementary data is supplied in The Secret Realtionship Between Blacks and Jews, pp. 49-56.
"The West India Company, which monopolized imports of slaves
from Africa, sold slaves at public auctions against cash payment.
It happened that cash was mostly in the hands of Jews. The buyers
who appeared at the auctions were almost always Jews, and because
of this lack of competitors they could buy slaves at low prices.
On the other hand, there also was no competition in the selling
of the slaves to the plantation owners and other buyers, and most
of them purchased on credit payable at the next harvest in sugar.
Profits up to 300 percent of the purchase value were often realized
with high interest rates....If it happened that the date of such
an auction fell on a Jewish holiday the auction had to be postponed.
This occurred on Friday, October 21, 1644."
Arnold Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil (1960), pp. 72-3;
[Note: Wiznitzer, Arnold Aharon, educator; Born in Austria, December 20, 1899; Ph.D., University of Vienna, 1920; Doctor of Hebrew Literature, Jewish Theological Seminary of America; Emeritus research professor, University of Judaism, Los Angeles; Contributor to historical journals in the United States and Brazil including the Journal of Jewish Social Studies and the Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society. Former president, Brazilian-Jewish Institute of Historical Research.]
Dr. Herbert I. Bloom:
"The Christian inhabitants [of Brazil] were envious because the Jews owned some of the best plantations in the river valley of Pernambuco and were among the leading slave-holders and slave traders in the colony."1 "Slave trad[ing] was one of the most important Jewish activities here [in Surinam] as elsewhere in the colonies."2
1. , "A Study of Brazilian Jewish History 1623-1654, Based Chiefly Upon the Findings of the Late Samuel Oppenheim," Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, vol. 33 (1934), p. 63.
2. The Economic Activities of the Jews of Amsterdam in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Port Washington, New York/London: Kennikat Press, 1937), p. 159.
[Bloom is a rabbi; B.A., Columbia University, 1923, Ph.D., 1937; M.H.L., Jewish Institute of Religion, 1928, D.D., 1955; rabbi, Temple Albert, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1928-31. President Kingston Ministerial Association, 1945-46, and 1959-60; B'nai B'rith; Zionist Organization of America; vice-president, National Prison Chaplain Board, since 1962; Social Action Committee of Central Conference of American Rabbis, since 1947; Author: The Jews of Dutch Brazil, 1936; The Economic Activities of the Jews of Amsterdam, 1937.]
"The Jews of the Joden Savanne [Surinam] were also foremost in the suppression of the successive negro revolts, from 1690 to 1722: these as a matter of fact were largely directed against them, as being the greatest slave-holders of the region."
Dr. Cecil Roth, History of the Marranos (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1932), p. 292.
Jews participated in atrocities against the Black captive slaves and sometimes led them. In Surinam, Jon Stedman describes a remarkable scene he witnessed of a Black man being "broken alive upon the rack, without the benefit of the coup de grace or mercy-stroke" a slow execution presided over by a Jew named De Vries. The Black man was laid upon a wooden cross with arms and legs expanded and was fastened by ropes. The executioner, himself a slave, chopped off his left hand, "next took up a heavy iron bar, with which, by repeated blows, he broke his bones to shivers, til the marrow, blood, and splinters flew about the field; but the prisoner never uttered a groan nor a sigh. The ropes being next unlashed, I imagined him dead, and felt happy; till the magistrates stirring to depart, he writhed himself from the cross, when he fell on the grass, and damned them all, as a set of barbarous rascals; at the same time removing his right hand by the help of his teeth, he rested his head on part of the timber, and asked the by-standers for a pipe of tobacco, which was infamously answered by kicking and spitting on him; till I, with some American seamen, thought proper to prevent it. He then begged that his head might be chopped off; but to no purpose. At last, seeing no end to his misery, he declared, "that though he had deserved death, he had not expected to die so many deaths: however, (said he) you christians have missed your aim at last, and I now care not, were I to remain thus one month longer." After which he sung two extempore songs (with a clear voice) the subjects of which were, to bid adieu to his living friends, and to acquaint his deceased relations that in a very little time he should be with them, to enjoy their company for ever in a better place. This done, he calmly entered into conversation with some gentlemen concerning his trial; relating every particular with uncommon tranquillity "But," said he abruptly, "by the sun it must be eight o'clock; and by any longer discourse I should be sorry to be the cause of your losing your breakfast." Then, casting his eyes on a Jew, whose name was De Vries, "A-propos, sir," said he, "won't you please to pay me the ten shillings you owe me?" "For what to do?" "To buy meat and drink, to be sure don't you perceive I am to be kept alive?" Which speech, on seeing the Jew stare like a fool, this mangled wretch accompanied with a loud and hearty laugh. Next, observing the soldier that stood sentinel over him biting occasionally on a piece of dry bread, he asked him "how it came to pass, that he, a white man, should have no meat to eat along with it?" "Because I am not so rich," answered the soldier. "Then I will make you a present, sir," said the negro; "first, pick my hand that was chopped off clean to the bones, next begin to devour my body, till you are glutted; when you will have both bread and meat, as best becomes you"; which piece of humour was followed by a second laugh; and thus he continued, until I left him, which was about three hours after the dreadful execution. Wonderful it is indeed, that human nature should be able to endure so much torture, which assuredly could only be supported by a mixture of rage, contempt, pride, and the glory of braving his tormentors, from whom he was so soon to escape."
Amid the brutal repression of the Black slaves of Surinam, the Jews prayed:
God, blessed and mighty through Eternity, Oh Lord of Hosts, we come as supplicants before Thee to pray for the peace of the country as Thou hast commanded by Thy prophet. Seek the peace of the city whither I have banished you and pray on its behalf unto the Lord, for in its peace shall you have peace. (Jer. xxix, 7.) Oh, Lord our King! Exalted, mighty and tremendous Creator of all, who givest answer in times of trouble, have compassion upon us; have mercy, save and deliver those who are setting out to fight our enemies the negroes, cruel and rebellious. Oh, Lord of Hosts, lead them in peace and guide them towards life according to their desires. Redeem them from the hand of the wicked and the oppressor; from sickness and ambush, from spoilers and plunderers on the road, from evil and dangerous beasts, from the snakes and serpents in the woods and on the plains from all injury and loss both by day and by night. As it is written: "Thou shalt not fear the terror of the night nor the arrow that flieth by day, nor the pestilence that stalketh in the darkness nor the disease that wasteth at noonday. (Ps. xci, 5, 6.) [Here follows a number of additional appropriate quotations from scripture.] Teach and guide them with good counsel and the spirit of Thy knowledge, be to them strength and refuge to subdue, to conquer and destroy beneath their feet all cruel and rebellious Africans, our enemies who are planning evil against us. ...Listen to our prayer for Thou art He who heareth the prayers of all. Amen.
"Miscellaneous Items Relating to Jews of North America," Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, vol. 27 (1920), pp. 223-24.
"By the 1670s the colony of Surinam had 30,000 slaves, and the number rose to 75,000 before the crisis of the French Revolution created unrest throughout the Caribbean and mainland regions....While the Dutch colonization was typical of the Caribbean, with few whites and few free colored living in a society made up by over three-quarters black slaves, it also developed features which marked the colony as unique in several ways. Among the planters in the 17th and 18th centuries was an important minority of Jews. In the 1690s there were more than a hundred Jewish families, who owned 9,000 slaves working on 40 sugar estates. Although Jewish slave-owners were to be found in the Dutch West India islands and in Pernambuco in the 17th century, few if any owned plantations or were active primary commodity producers. But in Surinam by the 1760s, Jewish families owned 115 of the colonies 591 estates and formed the largest number of native-born whites. There even developed a small free mulatto Jewish community which in 1759 formed their own synagogue. But both white and mulatto Jews declined at the end of the 18th century, and by 1791 they were an insignificant element in the society."
Herbert S. Klein, _African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean, New York_ (Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 132-33,
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