Sephardic Jews in Georgia, United States
It is claimed that a group of ‘Sephardic Jews’ (meaning New Christians) established a gold mining village in Georgia’s Nacoochee Valley. If true, they possibly travelled up from the Spanish colony at Santa Elena, la Florida (now Paris Island, South Carolina). Apparently the settlement was seen by a British (meaning English) army patrol in 1693.
If there is archaeology and documented reports, then I am willing to believe there was a settlement of some type. I think the basis of the claim that the settlers were Jewish rests on the belief that an inscription uses the Ladino word for prayer, rather than Spanish. However, Ladino was a language unknown to the New Christians. See also and this .
Personally I need stronger evidence before I am persuaded. The claim that Sephardic Jews moved beyond the reach of Spanish power in the New World is also made with the respect to claimed communities in New Mexico.
Anything is possible, but it doesn’t ring true for me. These were New Christians, not Mormons. It was not how they generally behaved. And why go to the back of beyond rather than, for example, Amsterdam or Livorno? Why carve your marriage on a rock (in an unknown language!) if there may have been witnesses? Why not have a Catholic wedding as New Christians ordinarily did? If they were mining gold, is there any evidence of the gold being exported anywhere?
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