bay of matanzas cuba september 8th 1628
good war the boarding party screams as
they climb the sides of the four spanish
galleons
a volley of muskets boom from the
attacking dutch ships
spanish sailors cower on the decks of
their vessels running below
or jumping in the water the dutch fleet
has hunted them for a full day
they'd taken three vessels yesterday and
forced nine more to surrender
these four galleons the largest in the
treasure fleet departing from mexico
are the last ones left and they're
loaded with the riches of new spain
gold silver indigo and carmine dye
an unimaginable amount of wealth this is
the first time a spanish treasure fleet
has been taken
and the dutch have done it without
suffering a single casualty
all thanks to a young man who's first
over the rail
moses cohen henriquez an exiled iberian
jew who has just helped arranged the
most lucrative
score in pirate history
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thanks so much to brilliant for helping
us present today's historic tale
spain's expulsion of the jews in 1492
and columbus's first voyage that same
year
were not entirely separate events they
very quickly became intertwined
conversos played a part in early spanish
exploration conquest and imperialism
they marched into mexico with cortez
secretly settled in peru
and helped build jamaica when it was
under the columbus family
they also set up sizable if underground
communities throughout new spain and
brazil
of course legally speaking there were no
jews in the new world
because a spanish law of 1501 decreed
that to depart for the new world
interested settlers must be catholic and
prove
a purity of blood stretching back
multiple generations
therefore disqualifying anyone with a
single jewish ancestor
but of course through illicit means
forged paperwork or simply jumping ship
they made it because the expanding
frontier of the spanish empire proved an
irresistible draw
sure there was the attraction of gold
land and new commerce routes but the
colonies also put them
far from the reach of the inquisition
and offered a chance to start a new life
free from scrutiny sephardic heritage
became less of a stigma in the colonies
where the rough and ready environment
tended to sand down distinctions in fact
it became common for spanish catholic
men to marry women from converso
families
especially since the colonial
settlements men outnumbered women 10 to
1.
and far from keeping the jews out the
purity of blood laws provided plausible
deniability for those
trying to hide their past because i mean
of course they're not jewish
uh didn't you know there are no jews in
the new world
the spanish crown says so but not
everyone got with the program
even as early as 1508 the bishop of cuba
was writing to complain
that practically every ship docking in
havana is filled with hebrews and new
christians
and indeed many became leading citizens
of the spanish colonies
especially in jamaica after king charles
v essentially decided to look the other
way as an influx of portuguese jews
immigrated there
to save the struggling colony turning
its main industry from gold mining to
sugar production and port services
now there's a way to tell this story
that's triumphant where oppressed jewish
people
strike out into the new world finding
success and on occasion revenge for
their poor treatment
but the past is sadly not that simple
because to march with the conquistadors
engage in piracy and build up the
industry of the caribbean
was to be complicit in many horrors from
slavery to the genocide of native
peoples
and that bears mentioning just because a
group is oppressed
doesn't mean they can't also oppress
others just
something to keep in mind but despite
the more permissive atmosphere of the
colonies the jews living in new spain
themselves
were not free from danger in 1528
hernandezo
became the first person in new spain to
be exposed and
executed by the inquisition alonso had
been a conquistador during the spanish
invasion
a carpenter who helped build ships for
cortes then
afterward he'd gotten a land grant and
run the richest pork and beef farm in
mexico
secretly accused of keeping jewish
traditions and pouring wine over his
infant son's head
to wash away a baptism he confessed
under torture
and was burned in mexico city's main
plaza and he wasn't the only one
throughout the next century the burning
pyres of the spanish and portuguese
inquisition
would light in places as far away as
peru and brazil
in fact the inquisition went so global
that in 1567
a conversa woman named leonor de fonseca
was arrested in the portuguese colony of
macau china
and shipped to goa india to stand trial
for conducting jewish
ceremonies and while she was cleared
after she insisted the accusations came
from her enemies
she died in prison before her release
and it was in this atmosphere of
increasing
inquisitional reach that moses cohen
henriquez came to the scene
part of a new generation of jewish
pirates that like samuel polacci
positioned themselves as willing
warriors in the naval clashes
between the dutch republic and spain
palacie's brief piracy career had taken
place during what was known as the 12
years truce
a pause in the larger 80 years war that
the dutch fought with spain
at first the objective was dutch
independence but when that was achieved
the conflict then merged with the larger
30 years war
and okay sorry for all of the x years
war labels
really all you need to know is this once
the dutch republic gained independence
their focus shifted to a worldwide
conflict of supporting protestant states
in europe
and trying to snatch colonies from spain
and portugal abroad
then around 1606 the four-year-old
antonio valles henriquez arrived in
amsterdam
his father had fled portugal after being
paraded in an auto defeat
and forced to give much of his wealth to
the church before being pardoned
but now breathing the free air of
amsterdam henriquez's father
openly practiced as a jew for the first
time
and to celebrate this renewal he also
changed his son's names
his eldest son would now be known as
moses cohen henriques
now little is known about henriquez's
childhood though he appears to have
grown up in the less prestigious
neighborhood of amsterdam's jewish
quarter
and may have had some connection to the
palace family but by 1623 when
hostilities between spain and the dutch
republic resumed
the forces of the dutch west india
company struck out for the americas
their leader was vice admiral pete hine
a man who hated the spanish after
spending four years as a galley slave
and right there at his side now old
enough to be swig and rum
was moses cohen henriques in fact
henriquez may have been one of the dutch
jews who assisted in an attack
on brazil in 1623 weathering a year-long
siege
trying to hold a port after that failed
he reportedly
served as a spy in spain learning when
the next treasure fleet would sail from
the new world
and alerting pete how to intercept it
the capture of that treasure fleet
was the greatest ever on record totaling
11.5 million gilders
which would be equivalent to over a
billion dollars today
this massive amount of booty took five
days to unload
and filled hundreds of carts it was so
huge it funded the dutch army for eight
months
and to put a cap on it the dutch
suffered no casualties and the spanish
few
yet putting any sailors they captured
ashore with supplies
the next year henriquez took his spy act
to brazil
living in the colonies northeast where
he recruited allies among the converso
community and gathered intelligence for
a second dutch invasion
then in 1630 he returned with the fleet
leading the force into the territory and
greeting the local converso population
who then discarded the mask of
conversion and declared themselves
openly as jews
it would become the first legal jewish
community in the americas
henriquez made his home there using his
share of the treasure fleet to set
himself up as a privateer
not to mention purchasing a private
island that he fortified as a pirate
base
though a decade later he would sell that
island to the governor
while dutch brazil would only exist for
24 years
it would massively change the region
particularly because the dutch west
india company
imported 26 000 african slaves to brazil
beginning yet another horrible legacy
but the portuguese took it back
in 1654 and while many of the dutch jews
stayed in brazil
23 boarded a ship and went north hoping
to find a home in another dutch colony
new amsterdam joining the early jewish
community of what would become new york
but moses cohen henriques on the other
hand went to jamaica
that same year english ships sent by
oliver cromwell had landed in the
spanish colony
with spain having recently declared
columbus's family ruled to be at an end
and the crown intending to govern the
colony directly the resident portuguese
jewish population
was only too happy to welcome the
english who within months
declared all their lands open to jews
now to secure
jamaica the english essentially made it
a buccaneer port
a haven for pirates to resupply and
fence goods while
also defending the island with no
financial commitment to the crown
loopholes sephardic jews flocked there
enough that it had a street of jewish
shops
and two synagogues their floors covered
with sand in sephardic style
to remind the worshippers of when they
practiced in secret and had to muffle
their footsteps
henriquez finished out his life there
his citizenship papers
signed by none other than the infamous
pirate henry morgan who of course by
then
was the lieutenant governor now we could
go on and on about other jewish pirates
or those suspected to have jewish
heritage
but ultimately that's not why we wanted
to do this series
we wanted to do it because talking about
diaspora is hard
it's hard to get the everyday public
interested and it's hard to grasp how
movements of mostly ordinary people
changed history plus it's not often we
can look at how the big changes whether
it's the settlement of the americas or
the protestant reformation
impacted the groups that didn't fit
within the traditional bounds of
religion or nationhood
and some of these places even as far as
brazil morocco and jamaica
still have small sephardic communities
today part of a history of the world
that's more complicated and varied than
we ever see at first reading
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