Jamaica

Sephardic Jews of Jamaica

The capture of Jamaica in 1655 provided the English with a base for contraband trade with Spanish America. Jews are reported to have arrived on the island in 1663. I believe claims that ‘secret’ Jews greeted the English when they landed is a fantasy

On 7th June 1692,Port Royal including its synagogue was destroyed by a great earthquake. The Neveh Shalom synagogue was consecrated in 1704.

An employee of the South Sea Company, James Houston, claimed that Jews from Kingston handled the contraband trade for the company between 1734 and 1737, in conjunction with the company’s agents and New Christian contacts in Spanish America.

Jamaica was a slave society. Most enslaved people lived and worked on large plantations. There were a few Sephardim who owned large estates, such as the Lindos, but most Jews lived more modestly. They may still have owned slaves, but relationships would be personal. Sometimes they were intimate.

When slavery was abolished it was the slaveowner rather than the enslaved people who received compensation! Ancestry.com has a free to search database, Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers, 1813-1834.

It is always worth reviewing the relationships between slave-owning men and their sons, and enslaved women and children. While the morality of the situation is obvious and there is a clear power dynamic, often there were complexities in the personal relationships. A white man could not marry a black woman, but some records show men leaving bequests for women and children. Men who believe they have Jewish ancestry (or women with an agreeable father, brother, patrilineal uncle, cousin, etc) may consider taking a Y-DNA test and then asking the Avotaynu DNA project to compare the result with their database.

Freed slaves might sometimes adopt the surname of their former owners, just as Jews baptised in Spain might have taken the surname of a godparent. If applying for a Portuguese passport due to Sephardic ancestry then you need to prove descent.

Most Sephardim in Jamaica came from England, so it is always worth checking the English records, including those of the London Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ synagogue.

Sephardic Jewish Genealogy in Jamaica

As a genealogist in London, I attend genealogy shows with the Jewish Genealogical Society. Every show at least one black person gingerly approaches the stall with the words “You won’t believe this but…” Many Jamaicans have Sephardic Jewish ancestry. For you, this is your history too. Also, if you can prove Sephardic ancestry then you are eligible to apply for Portuguese citizenship.

The historic records of the Sephardic Jewish community of Jamaica were destroyed in a fire in 1882. There are workarounds, but these are incomplete. Major research resources for Jewish genealogy in Jamaica include:

Jamaica is currently a hot research topic in Sephardic genealogy. Below are some recent Sephardic World talks on the island.

Steve Delgado Porter tells the story of the Delgado family.

Stephen Delgado Porter’s talk to the Sephardic World group on 13 December 2020

The Jews of Jamaica, an interview with Ainsley Cohen Henriques.

A talk by Dr Stanley Mirvis, a leading scholar on the Jews of Jamaica, to Sephardic World.

Below is a recording of the Sephardic Genealogical Society meeting of 12 December 2021 launching the Jamaican Jewish Cemeteries Preservation Fund’s (JJCPF) database of Jewish burial grounds in Jamaica.

Other Resources for Researching Jews in Jamaica

Books useful for Jamaican Jewish genealogy include:

  • The Jews of Eighteenth-Century Jamaica – A Testamentary History of a Diaspora in Transition by Stanley Mirvis contains a review of Wills, some in Jamaica and some in London, of Sephardic Jews in Jamaica and contains some genealogy.
  • The Jews of Jamaica : tombstone inscriptions, 1663-1880 by Richard David Barnett, Philip Wright, Oron Yoffe
  • The Knell of Parting Day: A History of the Jews of Port Royal and the Hunt’s Bay Cemetery by Marilyn Delevante (Kingston: 2008)
  • Links in the Chain. The Colonial Experience of an Anglo-Jewish Family. (HART of Jamaica) Chesler, Muriel
  • The island of one people : an account of the history of the Jews of Jamaica by Marilyn and Alberga Delevante, Anthony, Anthony Alberga
  • The Jewish nation of the Caribbean : the Spanish-Portuguese Jewish settlements in the Caribbean and the Guianas by Mordehay Arbell
  • Jamaican Records – a research manual by Stephen Porter (pre-Internet)

The archives of The Gleener, Jamaica’s newspaper of record founded in 1834 by two Sephardic Jewish brothers, Jacob and Joshua de Cordova, is worth checking. So too British newspaper archives, especially if your ancestors were wealthy.

There will be references to Sephardim in Jamaica in the archives of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ Congregation of London, now held by the London Metropolitan Archives. Some of this collection has been digitised by the National Library of Israel. Honestly, this is may be lot of work for little return. There will probably be useful information in the British National Archives. a number Jews from Jamaica were endenizened (given the right to live in British territory) in the 17th and early 18th Centuries.

The International Jewish Cemetery Project shares a report that there are up to twenty-one Jewish burial grounds on Jamaica. The Jewish Jamaican Journeys Facebook page, managed by Marina Delfos, is a good place to seek information.

The Jewish Atlantic World website includes some gravestones from Jamaica.

Also have a look at the the ISJM report, photos, an article by Rachel Frankel and her website.

The United Congregation of Israelites – Kahal Kadosh Shaare Shalom -in Kingston. Mr Ainsley Henriques in Kingston is the local expert on Sephardic history.

There is a Jamaica Jewish Genealogy group on Facebook.

Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean

A typical European-style gravestone – indicating the brevity of life – with a symbol later adopted by Hollywood as a pirate flag

We need to mention Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean by the late Edward Kritzler. Everyone who knew Ed had great affection for him. He seems to have been a tremendous character. The book, though….

He seems to have cobbled together and misunderstood or misrepresented facts for the sake of a good yarn. Treat the book for what it is, good fun. It is not history. It is not even close to history.

It starts from a misunderstanding of what the Inquisition was, what pirates were and who were pirates, and then confused early modern gravestone design with Hollywood imagery. There is now a small – largely Ashkenazi – industry pumping out nonsense around this theme. I hope Ed is looking down upon us, entertained.

Can someone from Jamaica help me with this one?!

The Jew Fish! I wonder what fish this was: “The Jew-fish is a very good Fish, and I judge so called by the English, because it hath Scales and Fins, and therefore a clean Fish, according to the Levitical Law, and the Jews at Jamaica buy them, and eat them very freely. It is a very large Fish, shaped much like a Cod, but a great deal bigger; one will weigh three, or four, or five Hundred Weight. It hath a large Head, with great Fins and Scales, as big as an Half-Crown, answerable to the bigness of his Body, It is very sweet Meat, and commonly fat. This Fish lives among the Rocks; there are plenty of them in the West-Indies, about Jamaica, and the Coast of Caraccos; but chiefly in these Seas, especially more Westward.”

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