A bit of information on jews settling in the Leeward Islands who became sugar planters and merchants; the French and the Spanairds who hated them; and why they were finally kicked off the island.

The Sefardim of the Island of Nevis

Mordechai Arbell

Nevis, one of the places where a Jewish community existed, is a small island in the group called Leeward Islands Nevis was among the list of "Caribee Islands" to which proprietary rights were granted in the King's letter patent of 2 July 1627 to the Earl of Carlisle. There is a theory that Spanish seafarers, seeing the island under the morning haze, thought it looked as if it were covered by snow, and therefore called it "La isla de los nieves" ("the island of snows"). The famous Sefardi poet, Daniel Levy de Barrios, still refers to that idea in a poem he wrote two generations later, "Nieves" ("Snows").

In 1628, the plantation of Anthony Hilton on the island of St. Kitts was destroyed by Carib Indians. The governor, Sir Thomas Warner of St. Kitts, acting in the name of the Earl of Carlisle, gave permission to Hilton to settle Nevis and appointed him its lieutenant governor. The number of settlers was augmented by people coming from the island of Barbuda where they had been raided time and again by the Caribs, prompting them to move to Nevis. Some of the settlers, in addition to their attempt to gain a livelihood through planting, turned to buccaneering which led to repeated attacks by the Spanish and the destruction of the first plantations.

The Spaniards saw the English in St. Kitts and Nevis as trespassers, and when the Spanish Admiral Fadrique de Toledo appeared in Nevis (7 Sept. 1629) with 30 armed vessels, the English indentured servants, being badly treated by their masters, deserted to the enemy and Nevis had to surrender. Anthony Hilton left for the island of Tortuga as a buccaneer. Peace was restored by the Treaty of Madrid 1620.1

The Puritan rebellion in England sent many exiled royalists to the West Indies, and Nevis acquired a group of prominent and affluent English families who became successful planters. The existence of healthy mineral springs (still extant) made Nevis, by the 18th century, "a center of West Indian social life, rivaling in pomp and circumstances Bath and even London itself."2 Jews may have been in Nevis as sugar merchants, and some may have settled as planters, as early as the 1650s; it was only after 1671, however, when a separate administration was installed in the Leeward Islands, independent of the Government of Barbados, that there are records of a Jewish settlement in Nevis. The heavy export tax in Barbados as well as the limitations and disabilities imposed on the Jews at various levels of life yielded a movement of Barbados Jews settling in Nevis.

Nevis was an overpopulated island in the 17th century. In 1640 the combined population of St. Kitts and Nevis reached 20,000. Nevis settlers attempted settlement in Antigua, Monteserrat, St. Lucia, and Marie Galante, but ferocious attacks by Carib Indians coupled with French attacks and the ultimate occupation of St. Lucia and Marie Galante by the French made the desired sites unattractive.

The 1678 census lists 8 Jewish families and that of 1707 census, 6.3 Not all Jews were listed since these censuses took into account only permanent residents and property owners. The Jewish population fluctuated, shifting between Barbados and Nevis. The families listed in 1678-Isaac Senior, Abraham Rezio, Salomon Israel, Daniel Mendez, and Rachel Mendez-are not in the list of 1707. Only Salomon Israel appears twice, together with Isaac Lobatto, Hananiah Arrobas, Isaac Pinheiro, Abraham Bueno de Mesquita, and Ralph Abendana.

Levy de Barrios, who wrote in Amsterdam but who was personally familiar with the Caribbean, having spent a period in the island of Tobago, wrote in 1688: Ya in seis ciudades anglas, se publica luz de sies juntas de Israel Sagrada, tres en Nieves, London, Jamaica, quarta and quinta en dos partes de Barbados, sexta en Madras-Patan se verifica.4 [translation: "Already in six English cities it is known about the light of the six holy congregations of Israel, three in Nieves, London, Jamaica, the fourth and fifth in two parts of Barbados, the sixth exists in Madras-Patan."5]

These words illustrate how precise Levy de Barrio's information was; he knew about the two communities in Barbados at that time, Bridgetown and Speighstown, and of the small community in Madras. Incidentally, the London community was not much bigger than the five others mentioned in 1688. In the lack of any written Nevis Jewish community records, the only evidence of Jewish life there is the remnant of its Jewish cemetery-a path, called "Jew's Walk," leading from the cemetery to an old house known as the "Jew's school."

The oldest grave is that of Esther Marache, who died on 20 February 1679. Her family is not on the census list. The Barbados Jews preferred to be the official residents of Barbados and transients in Nevis. Taking into account that a 1689 epidemic of fever and a 1706 French attack reduced the population of Nevis by one-third, the existence of a Jewish cemetery as early as 1679, and a congregation, and perhaps a synagogue, in 1688 show that the Jewish population was much larger than indicated by the censuses.

The scarce information about the Jewish community in Nevis derives solely from sources which mention it incidentally. The presence of Jews in the Leeward Islands is noted in several documents. There were Jews in St. Kitts, but they had to abandon it owing to the prolonged war on the island between the English and the French. Some Jews settled in Antigua (the Gideon Abudiente family from Barbados, before reaching Nevis). There were Jews in Anguilla, but the only real community existed in Nevis in the 17th century. We do find, however, in the will-dated 20 October 1708-of the man who purchased the land for the first Jewish cemetery of New York, Joseph Bueno de Mesquita of New York, "I leave to my beloved brother Abraham Bueno de Mesquita of the Island of Nevis my five books of the Law of Moses in parchment with the ornaments of plate."6

The Leeward Island Council and Assembly passed an act on 31 August 1694, "An Act against Jews ingrossing Commodities imported in the Leeward Islands, and trading with the slaves belonging to the inhabitants of the same."7 The important role Jews played in the introduction of sugar planting and sugar trading in Nevis prompted the repeal of the same act on 10 December 1701, when the Leeward Islands Council met in Nevis, the reason given as the "many and great grievances sustained by reason from the said act." 8

Accusations about Jew trading with slaves, such as those already encountered in Jamaica and Barbados, were also made in Nevis. A description, by Nevis historian Karen Fog Olwig, of the market where the slaves sold their produce explains that: While the market seems to have been patronized primarily by the white population during the 17th century, during the 18th century, when the white population of small farmers and laborers had virtually disappeared from Nevis, the market became entirely dominated by the slaves...It was held Sunday morning in Charlestown...Negroes bring fowls, Indian corn, yam...It is no longer acceptable for the white population to trade at the markets, perhaps because they were held primarily by slaves, and on Sundays, and Robertson,9 noted that only Jews and lesser sort of Christians" traded with slaves. 10

By 1724 the Jewish population had grown, and although they had less disabilities than in Jamaica and Barbados, and despite the above-mentioned Salomon Israel having served as a jury foreman and as a witness of wills for Christian friends, there was still some enmity against the Jews. Rev. Robertson, in a 1724 letter to the Bishop of London clearly expressing his anti-Jewish feelings, also provided important information by describing the situation of the Jews in Charlestown in the first part of the 18th century.

The Parish consists of the Town (Charlestown) and 3-4 small plantations, about 70 householders, with their families being in all (children included) some 300 whites, whereof one fourth are Jews, who have a synagogue here and are very accepted to the country part of the island, but far from being so in town, by whom they are charged with taking the bread out of Christian mouths. And this, with the encouragement said to be given to transient traders, above what is given to the settlers, is by many thought to be the true cause of the strange decay of this place.-At present there is not above 3 or 4 Christian families of note in my parish.11

As it happened in the West Indies, Jews were respected all the time they were in their plantations and provided help with their know-how on tropical agriculture. Once they were in the cities engaged in commerce, they were seen as unfair competitors, and the hate they generated fostered limitations of their rights and a series of disabilities, removed only in the 19th century. With the gradual depopulation of Nevis, and the movement of Jews from Barbados to it, the percentage of Jews in Nevis rose to one-quarter of the white population of Charlestown, although that meant only about 70 souls. The decline of the Nevis Jewish population began in the second half of the 18th century. The sugar trade declined, and Nevis Jews had to look for new prospects. The last grave in the cemetery is that of Jacob Vas Mendes, dated 13 November 1768. Most Nevis Jews joined the Sefardic Jewish congregations in the British colonies of North America.
By the beginning of the 19th century there was little trace of the Jews. The main body of the white population consisted of masons, blacksmiths, poor cotton growers, seamen, fisherman, and tavern keepers. "It looks as though the Jews had almost deserted the island."12

http://www.sefarad.org/publication/lm/035/15.html