Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean by Edward Kritzler
Kritzler, Edward. 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. London: JR books, 2009.
Ok don’t get excited by the title of this book. We have a Jewish pirate captain, and then we have a bunch of Jews in the New World, and we have pirates, but I’m not convinced we have plural Jewish pirates. Still, this book starts from inside period (1492) and ends post period (1665). The majority of it is post-period. Despite this, I’m going to write about it, because it was fascinating, and the end dates for the SCA are pretty arbitrary anyway.
This book talks a lot about the Inquisition, as that’s what encouraged so many Jews to flee Spain and try their luck in the New World, or Holland. It discusses the fact that nothing could save you from the Inquisition - even death, as dead heretics were dug up and posthumously burned and their property confiscated.
Jews were outlawed from both France and England for centuries, but when the two countries took over some Caribbean islands, Jews were allowed. Kritzler suggests this is because the Jews were actually responsible for the takeover, and without them, England and France wouldn’t have dared attempt to take the islands from Spain. This is an interesting supposition, although there is only one letter in support of it (although that letter is pretty damning evidence).
Another interesting thing is that Jamaica, as Columbus and his heirs’ personal property, rather than a part of the Spanish Empire proper, were off limits to the inquisitors. A large population of Jews lived there happily, and I’m told their graves are still there, though in a bad part of town that a tourist probably doesn’t want to go into. So it’s interesting how much autonomy the heirs of Columbus had.
It is also mentioned that Purim was a special holiday for the conversos, the majority of whom were really secret Jews. This is because Esther was also a secret Jew. They equated Haman with the grand inquisitor. So that’s an interesting look at when Purim became about costumes and hiding your identity rather than celebrating “they tried to kill us; we survived; let’s eat!”
This book has some really good information in it, even if it doesn’t really have the information promised in the title, however half or more of the book is post period. Look at it if you have time, or if you are specifically interested in the New World, but otherwise you can probably give it a pass. Also pick it up if you don’t care that the information is not specifically relevant to the SCA but it still fascinating, and you want to learn a little about post-period Jewish history.
Available in paperback or kindle from amazon