Return to the Jewish Arrival to New Amsterdam 1654
In my post of January 14, 2010 called Who Was Asser Levy I wrote about the story of how the Shearith Israel Congregation came to become the first Jewish congregation in New Amsterdam.
The story shows that the congregation was formed due to the emigration of 23 Jewish refugees from the former Dutch colony of Nieuw Holland in 1654 to New Amsterdam. Their arrival put them at odds with the Dutch Director-General of New Amsterdam Peter Stuyvesant. Though Stuyvesant tried to have these refugees expelled from his colony, his attempts were rebuked by the Dutch West India company and by 1657 the Jewish refugees won full rights within the colony. Ok, that's the story in a nutshell. As with any historical event, there is always more than meets the eye and my research on the matter has dug up a more elaborate scenario. So here goes.
It is accurate that the Dutch colony of Nieuw Holland was taken over by the Portuguese under General Francisco Barreto de Menezes. Menezes gave the order that those who did not want to live under Portuguese rule in the colony had six months to leave. In order to facilitate the evacuation, Menezes provides the colony's refugees with sixteen ships that were to sail from Nieuw Holland to Holland. In making the journey to Europe, many of the ships faced peril in the form of dangerous conditions and pirates. Many of these ships did not make it to Europe. The ship that carried the Jewish refugees was one such ship.
Here is where I find different branches to the story. In my original post, I said that the Jewish refugees arrived in New Amsterdam during the month of September of 1654 aboard the ship the Sainte Catherine. Ana Domingos and Paulo Mendes Pinto in their article Tracing the History of the First Jews in the US state the following:
One of the boats was attacked by pirates in Cuba, but the lives of twenty-three Portuguese Jews were saved by a French ship, the Sainthe Catherine...On September 7, 1654, the Sain the Catherine arrived in Dutch waters at the port of the city of Nieuw Amsterdam. Its captain, Jacques de la Motthe, said farewell to the ones he saved, leaving behind the first Jewish settlers in North America.
Well that was very nice of Captain de la Motthe. But like I said before, there is always more than meets the eye. Abraham J. Peck in his article Creating Jewish New York sheds more light on Captain de la Motthe's motives:
The generally accepted history is that in late August or early September of 1654, a French ship--called variously the St. Catherine or St. Charles--captained by Jacques de la Motthe, arrived in the harbor of New Amsterdam with a number of Dutch refugees, including 23 Jewish men, women, and children, presumably from Recife. The surviving documentary references have given rise to a number of theories regarding the route and circumstances that brought these pioneers to Peter Stuyvesant's small village.
At least two Jews met the boat: Solomon Pieters or Petersen, who appears briefly in the Dutch records as advocate for the Jews in their first dealings with Stuyvesant; and Jacob Barsimson, an Ashkenazi trader who had just arrived in the colony. Captain de la Motthe sued his Jewish passengers for the promised fare, and when they were unable to meet his demands, two heads of family were imprisoned as hostages until funds to pay the debt could be obtained from relatives in Amsterdam.
To further shed light to the arrival of the Jewish refugees to New Amsterdam, I found the following from the passenger logs from the St. Charles on Olivetreegeneology.com:
St. Charles 1654
The Dutch administrations in Brazil, which succeeded that of Gov. Maurice, were inefficient and corrupt. The Portuguese revolted and the Dutch finally capitulated January 25, 1654. They were given three months in which either to depart or to embrace the Roman Catholic religion and become Portuguese citizens. In April 1654, there was a fleet of sixteen Dutch ships in the Harbor of Recif to evacuate the Dutch Protestants together with a small number of Dutch and Portuguese Jews.
On 7 Sept. 1654 Capt. Jacques de la Motthe/Motte, skipper of the St. Charles, appeared in court with a petition. He required payment for freight and board 'of the Jews whom he brought here from Cape St. Anthony". de la Motte states that "the Netherlanders who came over with them" are not included in his suit and that they have paid him. Solomon Pietersen "a Jew" appears and says that "900 guilders of the 2500 are paid and that there are 23 souls, big and little [meaning adults and children] who must pay equally"
[Source: The Records of New Amsterdam from 1653 to 1674 Anno Domini, edited by Berthold Fernow in 7 volumes. reprint Genealogical Publishing Co. Inc. Baltimore. 1976 Vol. I Minutes of the Court of Burgomasters and Schepens 1653-1655 p 240]
The names I have found so far (using primary records only) are:
Abram Israel
David Israel
Asser Levy
Moses Ambrosius
Judicq de Mereda
It is not clear if Solomon Pietersen was on board the ship so I have not added his name to the list.
Another passenger (non-Jewish) was Dominie Joannes Polhemius
From what can be pieced together about them, it seem probable that the twenty-three consisted of six family heads---four men (with their wives) and two other women who in all likelihood were widows, since they were counted separately---and thirteen young people. The heads of the families were Asser Levy, Abraham Israel De Piza (or Dias), David Israel Faro, Mose Lumbosco, and ---the two women---Judith (or Judica) Mercado) (or De Mercado, or de Mereda) and Ricke (or Rachel) Nunes. [Source: The Grandees: America's Sephardic Elite by Stephen Birmingham]
Leo Hershkowitz in his article By Chance or Choice: Jews in New Amsterdam 1654 adds the following to the argument:
In late summer 1654, two ships anchored in New Amsterdam roadstead. One, the Peereboom(Peartree), arrived from Amsterdam on or about August 22. The other, a Dutch vessel named the St.[Sint] Catrina, is often referred to as the French warship St. Catherine or St. Charles. Yet, only the name St. Catrina appears in original records, having entered a few days before September 7 from the West Indies. The Peereboom, Jan Pietersz Ketel, skipper, left Amsterdam July 8 for London, soon after peace negotiations in April concluded the first Anglo-Dutch War (1652–1654). Following a short stay, the Peereboom sailed for New Amsterdam, where passengers and cargo were ferried ashore, as there were no suitable docks or wharves. Among those who disembarked were Jacob Barsimon, probably together with Asser Levy and Solomon Pietersen. These were the first known Jews to set foot in the Dutch settlement, and with them begins the history of that community in New York.
So what does all this mean. I believe that the arrival of the Jewish refugees to New Amsterdam was much more complicated than I posted. The fact that the refugees and their possessions were basically held for ransom by the Captain of the St Catherine. The story of the battle between Captain de la Motthe and the Jewish refugees was documented in detail in The Green Bag: An Entertaining Magazine for Lawyers 1901. Lee M. Friedman documents in his article The Petition of Jacques de la Motthe (Volume XIII No 8 August 1901 Pg 396-398) the attempts of Captain de la Motthe to receive payment of the Jewish refugees. He attempted to do so by means of filing suit against the refugees and later through the attempted sale of their possessions by public auction. In the end, the refugees appealed to the better nature of the crew of the Saint Catherine. The crew heard the pleas of the Jewish representative Solomon Pietersen and decided to wait for their payment until their return to New Amsterdam on a later voyage.
It was at this point that Stuyvesant attempted to have the refugees removed from the colony by his appealing to the West India Company. His appeal was rejected due to the Jewish influence within the West India Company and the belief that the colony was there to make money. As the saying goes: The rest is history.
The story shows that the congregation was formed due to the emigration of 23 Jewish refugees from the former Dutch colony of Nieuw Holland in 1654 to New Amsterdam. Their arrival put them at odds with the Dutch Director-General of New Amsterdam Peter Stuyvesant. Though Stuyvesant tried to have these refugees expelled from his colony, his attempts were rebuked by the Dutch West India company and by 1657 the Jewish refugees won full rights within the colony. Ok, that's the story in a nutshell. As with any historical event, there is always more than meets the eye and my research on the matter has dug up a more elaborate scenario. So here goes.
It is accurate that the Dutch colony of Nieuw Holland was taken over by the Portuguese under General Francisco Barreto de Menezes. Menezes gave the order that those who did not want to live under Portuguese rule in the colony had six months to leave. In order to facilitate the evacuation, Menezes provides the colony's refugees with sixteen ships that were to sail from Nieuw Holland to Holland. In making the journey to Europe, many of the ships faced peril in the form of dangerous conditions and pirates. Many of these ships did not make it to Europe. The ship that carried the Jewish refugees was one such ship.
Here is where I find different branches to the story. In my original post, I said that the Jewish refugees arrived in New Amsterdam during the month of September of 1654 aboard the ship the Sainte Catherine. Ana Domingos and Paulo Mendes Pinto in their article Tracing the History of the First Jews in the US state the following:
One of the boats was attacked by pirates in Cuba, but the lives of twenty-three Portuguese Jews were saved by a French ship, the Sainthe Catherine...On September 7, 1654, the Sain the Catherine arrived in Dutch waters at the port of the city of Nieuw Amsterdam. Its captain, Jacques de la Motthe, said farewell to the ones he saved, leaving behind the first Jewish settlers in North America.
Well that was very nice of Captain de la Motthe. But like I said before, there is always more than meets the eye. Abraham J. Peck in his article Creating Jewish New York sheds more light on Captain de la Motthe's motives:
The generally accepted history is that in late August or early September of 1654, a French ship--called variously the St. Catherine or St. Charles--captained by Jacques de la Motthe, arrived in the harbor of New Amsterdam with a number of Dutch refugees, including 23 Jewish men, women, and children, presumably from Recife. The surviving documentary references have given rise to a number of theories regarding the route and circumstances that brought these pioneers to Peter Stuyvesant's small village.
At least two Jews met the boat: Solomon Pieters or Petersen, who appears briefly in the Dutch records as advocate for the Jews in their first dealings with Stuyvesant; and Jacob Barsimson, an Ashkenazi trader who had just arrived in the colony. Captain de la Motthe sued his Jewish passengers for the promised fare, and when they were unable to meet his demands, two heads of family were imprisoned as hostages until funds to pay the debt could be obtained from relatives in Amsterdam.
To further shed light to the arrival of the Jewish refugees to New Amsterdam, I found the following from the passenger logs from the St. Charles on Olivetreegeneology.com:
St. Charles 1654
The Dutch administrations in Brazil, which succeeded that of Gov. Maurice, were inefficient and corrupt. The Portuguese revolted and the Dutch finally capitulated January 25, 1654. They were given three months in which either to depart or to embrace the Roman Catholic religion and become Portuguese citizens. In April 1654, there was a fleet of sixteen Dutch ships in the Harbor of Recif to evacuate the Dutch Protestants together with a small number of Dutch and Portuguese Jews.
On 7 Sept. 1654 Capt. Jacques de la Motthe/Motte, skipper of the St. Charles, appeared in court with a petition. He required payment for freight and board 'of the Jews whom he brought here from Cape St. Anthony". de la Motte states that "the Netherlanders who came over with them" are not included in his suit and that they have paid him. Solomon Pietersen "a Jew" appears and says that "900 guilders of the 2500 are paid and that there are 23 souls, big and little [meaning adults and children] who must pay equally"
[Source: The Records of New Amsterdam from 1653 to 1674 Anno Domini, edited by Berthold Fernow in 7 volumes. reprint Genealogical Publishing Co. Inc. Baltimore. 1976 Vol. I Minutes of the Court of Burgomasters and Schepens 1653-1655 p 240]
The names I have found so far (using primary records only) are:
Abram Israel
David Israel
Asser Levy
Moses Ambrosius
Judicq de Mereda
It is not clear if Solomon Pietersen was on board the ship so I have not added his name to the list.
Another passenger (non-Jewish) was Dominie Joannes Polhemius
From what can be pieced together about them, it seem probable that the twenty-three consisted of six family heads---four men (with their wives) and two other women who in all likelihood were widows, since they were counted separately---and thirteen young people. The heads of the families were Asser Levy, Abraham Israel De Piza (or Dias), David Israel Faro, Mose Lumbosco, and ---the two women---Judith (or Judica) Mercado) (or De Mercado, or de Mereda) and Ricke (or Rachel) Nunes. [Source: The Grandees: America's Sephardic Elite by Stephen Birmingham]
Leo Hershkowitz in his article By Chance or Choice: Jews in New Amsterdam 1654 adds the following to the argument:
In late summer 1654, two ships anchored in New Amsterdam roadstead. One, the Peereboom(Peartree), arrived from Amsterdam on or about August 22. The other, a Dutch vessel named the St.[Sint] Catrina, is often referred to as the French warship St. Catherine or St. Charles. Yet, only the name St. Catrina appears in original records, having entered a few days before September 7 from the West Indies. The Peereboom, Jan Pietersz Ketel, skipper, left Amsterdam July 8 for London, soon after peace negotiations in April concluded the first Anglo-Dutch War (1652–1654). Following a short stay, the Peereboom sailed for New Amsterdam, where passengers and cargo were ferried ashore, as there were no suitable docks or wharves. Among those who disembarked were Jacob Barsimon, probably together with Asser Levy and Solomon Pietersen. These were the first known Jews to set foot in the Dutch settlement, and with them begins the history of that community in New York.
So what does all this mean. I believe that the arrival of the Jewish refugees to New Amsterdam was much more complicated than I posted. The fact that the refugees and their possessions were basically held for ransom by the Captain of the St Catherine. The story of the battle between Captain de la Motthe and the Jewish refugees was documented in detail in The Green Bag: An Entertaining Magazine for Lawyers 1901. Lee M. Friedman documents in his article The Petition of Jacques de la Motthe (Volume XIII No 8 August 1901 Pg 396-398) the attempts of Captain de la Motthe to receive payment of the Jewish refugees. He attempted to do so by means of filing suit against the refugees and later through the attempted sale of their possessions by public auction. In the end, the refugees appealed to the better nature of the crew of the Saint Catherine. The crew heard the pleas of the Jewish representative Solomon Pietersen and decided to wait for their payment until their return to New Amsterdam on a later voyage.
It was at this point that Stuyvesant attempted to have the refugees removed from the colony by his appealing to the West India Company. His appeal was rejected due to the Jewish influence within the West India Company and the belief that the colony was there to make money. As the saying goes: The rest is history.
FH.
For Further Reading:
Challenges and triumphs since 23 Jews landed in New Amsterdam in 1654.
By Abraham J. Peck
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Reprinted with permission from Sephardim in the Americas: Studies in Culture and History (The University of Alabama Press).
As is well known, the first Jewish settlement in what became the United States was in Dutch New Amsterdam. The generally accepted history is that in late August or early September of 1654, a French ship–called variously the St. Catherine or St. Charles–captained by Jacques de la Motthe, arrived in the harbor of New Amsterdam with a number of Dutch refugees, including 23 Jewish men, women, and children, presumably from Recife. The surviving documentary references have given rise to a number of theories regarding the route and circumstances that brought these pioneers to Peter Stuyvesant’s small village.
At least two Jews met the boat: Solomon Pieters or Petersen, who appears briefly in the Dutch records as advocate for the Jews in their first dealings with Stuyvesant; and Jacob Barsimson, an Ashkenazi trader who had just arrived in the colony. Captain de la Motthe sued his Jewish passengers for the promised fare, and when they were unable to meet his demands, two heads of family were imprisoned as hostages until funds to pay the debt could be obtained from relatives in Amsterdam.
Initial Hostility
Stuyvesant, who objected to any settlers who were not members of the Dutch Reformed Church, attempted to evict the Jews, but Jewish stockholders in Amsterdam prevailed on the Dutch West India Company to order the narrow-minded governor to let them remain. Possibly at the instigation of the Amsterdam Jewish community, six heads of Sephardic families, led by Abraham de Lucena, went to New Amsterdam as settlers in March 1655 to investigate its business potential. They brought a Torah scroll with them, an indication that a private synagogue was created.
Stuyvesant, determined to drive the Jewish settlers out of New Amsterdam, made efforts to restrict their trade, prohibited their owning property, and taxed them to pay for the town watch. When Barsimson and Asser Levy the community butcher–both Ashkenazim–protested that they had “burgher” (i.e., citizenship) rights from Amsterdam and should be allowed to take their turn as guards on the town wall, Amsterdam ruled in their favor. In 1655, the Jews applied for a plot of land for a cemetery, but the governor denied the request, pointing out that no one had yet died. The following year the death of one of the Jews compelled him to designate “a little hook of land” beyond the town wall. This site has long since disappeared.
Stuyvesant’s recalcitrance and the extreme cold of New Amsterdam’s winters led the Sephardic Jews to depart for Amsterdam, London, or the Caribbean, where relatives were better established. By 1663, the Torah scroll had been returned to Amsterdam. In 1664 a large British fleet forced Stuyvesant to surrender without firing a shot, and all residents who remained in what was now New York were required to sign an oath of allegiance to the English crown.
The one Jewish name on the list was Asser Levy’s. He seems to have maintained the only Jewish presence of record in British New York until he was joined in 168o by relatives from Amsterdam. Levy’s death on February 1, 1681/82 and burial in the old cemetery unquestionably led Sephardi Joseph Bueno de Mesquita to purchase a separate burying ground for his own family and for a growing group of Sephardim in the community.
Creating a Synagogue
The earliest mention of Jewish worship dates to 1682, but public worship was proscribed until a decade later. A map from 1695 shows a rented synagogue location on Beaver Street; five years later the synagogue had moved to a house owned by John Harpendinck, shoemaker, on Mill Street. By 1728, probably inspired by the erection of a number of churches, the Jewish community purchased a plot adjacent to the Harpendinck house and built America’s first synagogue.
The papers of Nathan Simson, a former president of the congregation who moved back to England in 1722, show that in his day the Ashkenazim already outnumbered the Sephardim. The new synagogue, completed in 1730, set the tone for colonial American Jewry by continuing to use the Sephardic form of worship already in place since the arrival of its first lay reader, Saul Brown (né Pardo). Why? Because the community was too small to underwrite the building fund and relied heavily on donations from the wealthier Sephardic communities.
The incumbent hazzan [cantor], Moses Lopez da Fonseca, was the son of Curaçao’s rabbi. That community sent the most generous contribution to New York with the stipulation that even though New York was full of “Tedeschi” (Portuguese for “Germans”), the gift was predicated on New York’s using the Sephardic ritual. Although Nathan Simson had referred to the congregation as Shearith Jacob (“Remnant of Jacob”), its official title became Shearith Israel.
Another factor may have favored the maintenance of Sephardic custom: In the small town that New York was, Jews lived among non-Jews, and the latter found Jews and Jewish worship of some interest. Sephardic worship, led by a hazzan, must have been considered more dignified for non-Jewish observers than the unstructured babel that was Ashkenazic worship.
The congregation, recognizing that the Ashkenazim were more versed in halakhah (Jewish law), engaged them for such synagogue functions as shohet and bodek (kosher butcher and inspector), andmohel (circumciser). However, for the conduct of worship the New York congregation sought Sephardim who could chant in the Sephardic mode. They were greatly assisted by the appearance in 1761 of an English translation of the Sephardic prayerbook for the eve of the holidays, followed five years later by a more complete prayer-book for the year, both presumably the work of Isaac Pinto, an educated layman.
The Revolutionary War
Shearith Israel was often hard-pressed to find a qualified hazzan. Those it did obtain did not stay long. How the members must have welcomed in 1768 a native son reared in the congregation, Gershom Mendes Seixas! He served for 48 years, interrupted by the Revolutionary War. In August 1776, when it was apparent that George Washington was losing the Battle of Brooklyn Heights, Seixas gathered the synagogue’s scrolls and appurtenances in a wagon and joined other patriot congregants and his relatives from Newport, Rhode Island, in Connecticut.
The British remained in control of New York until the surrender in 1783. Those members of the community who had no other place to go kept the synagogue open, joined by an occasional Tory hazzan and by Jewish Hessian soldiers who opted to remain in New York when their contracts with the British army ended. The majority of New York’s Jews were either shopkeepers or international traders.
Following the Revolution, the scattered leaders of Shearith Israel returned. By this time, the congregation’s leaders were almost all Ashkenazic, but they were so accustomed to the Sephardic ritual that it has remained the minhag [custom]. Shearith Israel’s strict control of Jewish religious life in New York was all-pervasive. Every Jew who arrived in the community was required to affiliate and to contribute as his means permitted. The congregation was also the sole social-service agency, dispensing charity and caring for the aged, the sick, and the transient.
Following the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, there was a revival of immigration of Ashkenazic Jews. The newcomers asked permission to hold their own separate services under the aegis of Shearith Israel, but when their request was denied, they broke away and in 1825 organized B’nai Jeshurun, New York’s first Ashkenazic-rite congregation. By mid-century, Shearith Israel’s preeminence in New York’s Jewish communal affairs was gradually yielding to the far larger German immigrant community.
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