17th Century Jews: Carving a Place in the New World
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| The Jewish Quarter of Amsterdam |
Historian Christopher Hill described 17th-century
England as “a world turned upside down”. The expression is taken from a ballad
popular during the English Civil War. Hill and other historians have described
in detail how the 17th century was a time when people sought to free
themselves from authoritarian bonds: separatists broke from the English church,
the middle class refused to continue to bow down to the propertied class, merchants
exploiting the resources of the New World amassed fortunes that rivaled those
of their landed betters, and women took to the stage, replacing male performers
dressed in drag.
Another important, though quieter, change in the 17th
century was the establishment of Jewish communities in the New World and key
locations in Protestant Europe. During the 16th century, Iberian
Jewish refugees of the Catholic Inquisition poured into the few European cities
that granted them entry. The largest of these was Amsterdam. During the 17th
century, hundreds of Jews left the crowded Jewish neighborhoods in Amsterdam for
Dutch settlements such as Recife in Brazil, Manhattan in New Amsterdam, and the
Caribbean islands of St. Martin, Bonaire, Curaçao, St. Eustatius, Aruba, Saba,
and Tortola.
However, Jews did not only settle in Dutch lands. A small,
secret community of Jews lived in London during the 17th century under
the protection of Oliver Cromwell. By 1677, there is evidence of a Jewish
community in Newport, Rhode Island, the English colony established by Roger
Williams as a safe haven from the theocratic rule of Puritans in Massachusetts
Bay, Plymouth, and Connecticut.
Why should these Jewish settlements matter to a 17th-century
historian? Because it is in moments of social upheaval that the ‘other’ has a
chance of gaining a foothold in a new order. With their vast European contacts,
Jewish merchants created valuable trade networks throughout the Atlantic world.
They challenged civil injustices in colonial courts, established relationships
with politicians and preachers, and risked everything they had to preserve
their new freedoms and their old traditions. During a century of great change,
European Jews carved a place for themselves in the New World and as well as the
old one.
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| Oliver Cromwell with his secretary, John Milton |
It is now no more that
toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people
that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily
the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to
persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its
protection, should demean themselves as good citizens.
The century that turned the world upside down was the
century in which Jews began their journey from a persecuted people to a tolerated
minority. But it wasn’t until the end of the subsequent century that Jews were promised
full rights in a nation that welcomed them with no expectation other than that
they “demean themselves as good citizens.”
You can read about the 1656 readmission of the Jews to
England in Patricia O’Sullivan’s Hope of Israel, about the 17th-century Jewish communities in New
Amsterdam and Newport in Legend of theDead, and about how the Jews of St. Eustatius helped the Americans win
their War of Independence against the British in A Notable Occupation. Visit Patricia's website for more details by clicking HERE.
Patricia O’Sullivan
