Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom--and Revenge by Edward Kritzler

Author:Edward Kritzler [Kritzler, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780385528368
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2008-11-08T00:00:00+00:00

Your majesty [should] take the island [because Jamaica] is an outlet for all ships that reach there and defraud Your Majesty’s Royal Treasury…it is a large island with a great supply of provisions…it is sited so that all ships and fleets pass within its sight…If the enemy gets a footing there, none of our ships will escape from their hands and the fleets will run great risk.24

The report reflected the Cabildo’s view and had been prepared with their counsel. Relations between them and the loyal supporters of the Columbus family were further aggravated in 1640, when, after a sixty-year union, Portugal regained its independence. When the news reached Jamaica, it split the colony. The Spanish ranchers, loyal to Spain, turned against the Portugals loyal to the Columbus heir, who as fate would have it was a distant cousin of Portugal’s new king. As the Cabildo saw it, the protector of the Jews was now in the enemy camp. Through the ranchers’ intervention, troublesome Portugals began to be expelled from the island.

By 1643, the state of affairs had become so inflamed that the Portugals welcomed an English pirate as their liberator. Captain William Jackson, a privateer in the tradition of Sir Francis Drake, sacked Jamaica and went home convinced England could count on the Jews there to assist an invasion. His report to the Colonial Affairs Committee noted:

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