Читать книгу The History of the Jewish People in America - Peter Wiernik - Страница 17

Table of Contents

Poverty of the first Jewish immigrants to New Amsterdam—Stuyvesant’s opposition overruled by the Dutch West India Company—Privileges and restrictions—Contributions to build the wall from which Wall street takes its name—The first cemetery—Exemption from military duty—Little change at the beginning of the English rule—The first synagogue after a liberal decree by the Duke of York—Marranos brought back in boats which carried grain to Portugal—Hebrew learning—Question about the Jews as voters and as witnesses—Peter Kalm’s description of the Jews of New York about 1745—Hyman Levy, the employer of the original Astor.

The wealth which made the Spanish and Portuguese Jew welcome, or at least insured him sufferance, in the other Dutch and English colonies of the New World, was absent in the case of those who first settled in what is now New York. In September, 1654, the year in which the Dutch lost control of Brazil and the great Jewish community of Recife was scattered, there arrived in the port of New Amsterdam (as New York was called by its Dutch founders) the barque St. Catarina, of which Jacques de la Motthe was master, from Cape St. Anthony (Cuba?), carrying twenty-seven Jews, men, women and children. These passengers, the first Jews to arrive in what is now the United States, were so poor that their goods had to be sold by the master of the vessel by public auction for the payment of their passage. The amount realized by the sale being insufficient, he applied to the Court of Burgomaster and the Schoepens that one or two of them, as principals, be held as security for the payment of the balance in accordance with the contract made with him by which each person signing it had bound himself for the payment of the whole amount, and under which he had taken two of them, David Israel and Moses Ambrosius, as principal debtors.

The court accordingly ordered that they should be placed under civil arrest, in the custody of the provost marshal, until they should have made satisfaction; that the captain should be answerable for their support while in custody, as security for which a certain proportion of the proceeds of the sale was directed to be left in the hands of the secretary of the colony. But as no further proceedings appear upon the records, the matter was doubtless arranged and was probably nothing more than a dispute or misunderstanding between them and the captain as to whether they were bound to make good the deficiency, which was probably enhanced by the forced sale of their effects by auction.6 It is more likely that their embarrassment was only temporary and was due to their being robbed shortly before or after they left their last stopping place or residence, which was probably Jamaica. (See Leon Hühner, Whence came the First Jewish Settlers of New York? “Publications,” IX, p. 75 ff.) It is mentioned that some of them were awaiting remittances, which must have come in time to enable the refugees to hold their own until the question of permitting them to remain in the colony was settled in their favor through correspondence with Holland.

Peter Stuyvesant, the governor of the colony, a man of strong will and strong prejudices, was hostile to the new arrivals, and he soon wrote to the Directors of the Dutch West India Company in Amsterdam requesting that “none of the Jewish nation be permitted to infest New Netherland.” He received a reply that such a course “would be unreasonable and unfair, especially because of the considerable loss sustained by the Jews in the taking of Brazil, and also because of the large amount of capital which they have invested in the shares of this company. After many consultations we have decided and resolved upon a certain petition made by said Portuguese Jews, that they shall have permission to sail to and trade in New Netherland and to live and remain there, provided that the poor among them shall not become a burden to the company or to the community, but be supported by their own nation.” This is the end of the reply, dated, April 26, 1655, which began with the ominous sentence: “We would have liked to agree to your wishes and request, that the new territories should not be further invaded by people of the Jewish race, for we forsee from such immigration the same difficulties which you fear.” But the influence of the Jews in Amsterdam overcame the predilections and the fears of the company, and a special act was issued July 15, 1655, expressly giving Jews in New Netherlands the privileges contained in the above letter to the governor.

Before the favorable decision could arrive from Holland, the position of the Jews was precarious. On the 1st of March, 1655, Abraham de la Simon was brought before the Court of Burgomaster and the Schoepens upon the complaint of the Schout or Sheriff for keeping open his store on Sunday during the sermon, and selling at retail. The Sheriff on that occasion informed the court that the Governor and Council had resolved that the Jews who had come in the preceding autumn, as well as those that had recently arrived from Holland, must prepare to depart forthwith. The Court, which was also a council for the municipal government of the city, was asked by the Sheriff whether it had any objection to make; whereupon, says the record, it was decided that the Governor’s resolution should take its course.

There is reason to believe that some Jews left on account of that resolution before the orders from Holland arrived. They presumably went to Rhode Island. Those who remained were still objects of the Governor’s aversion, and even the more friendly Company was not too liberal. A letter from the directors to Stuyvesant, dated, March 13, 1556, contains the following: “The permission given to the Jews to go to New Netherlands and enjoy the same privileges as they have here (in Amsterdam), has been granted only as far as civil and political rights are concerned, without giving the said Jews a claim to the privilege of exercising their religion in a synagogue or a gathering.”

But it must be said to the credit of the directors that they insisted on what they granted to the Jews, and in another letter, dated, June 14, 1556, they write to the self-willed governor: “We have seen and heard with displeasure, that against our orders of the 15th of February, 1655, issued at the request of the Jewish or Portuguese nation, you have forbidden them to trade to Fort Orange (Albany) and the South River (Delaware), also the purchase of real estate, which is granted to them without difficulty here in this country, and we wish it had not been done, and you have obeyed your orders which you must always execute punctually and with more respect. Jews or Portuguese people, however, shall not be employed in any public service (to which they are neither admitted in this city) nor allowed to have open retail shops; but they may quietly and peacefully carry on their business as beforesaid and exercise in all quietness their religion within their houses, for which end they must without doubt endeavor to build their houses close together in a convenient place on one or the other side of New Amsterdam—at their choice—as they do here.”

These instructions came as the result of a petition sent to the directors by Abraham d’Lucena, Salvatore d’Andrade and Jacob Cohen, for themselves and in the name of others of the Jewish nation, asking for a confirmation of the privileges, which was thus granted. These three and two other Jews, Joseph da Costa and David Frera, were in the preceding year, 1655, assessed each 1,000 florins to defray the cost of erecting the outer fence or city wall, from which Wall street takes its name. It was the same amount as was imposed upon the wealthiest of the citizens, and the five adduced it as a reason for their being entitled to the rights to trade and to hold real property.

Abraham d’Lucena, who appears to have been the most prominent of the early Jewish immigrants, and several others, applied in July, 1655, for a burying ground; but the request was refused with the reply “that there was no need for it yet.” There was need for it, however, about a year later, and on July 14, 1656, a lot was granted to them outside of the city for a place of interment. This is the old cemetery on Oliver street and New Bowery, which was augmented by further purchases in the following century.

The city was at that time exposed to attacks from Spanish cruisers and pirates, and to assaults from hostile Indians. The encroachments of the English on Long Island and Westchester was a subject of constant anxiety, England never having conceded the rights of the Dutch to settle New Netherlands. This caused all the male inhabitants capable of bearing arms to enroll in the Burgher Guard, and a watch was kept up night and day with the steadiness and vigilance of a beleaguered town. A few months after the arrival of the Jewish immigrants the question arose whether the adult males among them should be incorporated in the Burgher Guard; the officers of the guard submitting the question to the Governor and Council. It was duly deliberated upon and an ordinance was passed (August 28, 1655), which, after reciting “the unwillingness of the mass of the citizens to be fellow-soldiers of the aforesaid nation” or watch in the same guard-house, and the fact that the Jews in Holland did not serve in the train bands of the cities, but paid a compensation for their exemption therefrom, declared that they should be exempt from that military service, and for such exemption each male person between the ages of sixteen and sixty shall pay a monthly contribution of sixty-five stivers.

Jacob Barsimson and Asser Levy (d. 1682) petitioned to be allowed to stand guard like other burghers, or to be relieved from the tax, which was refused by the Governor and Council with the remark that “they might go elsewhere if they liked.” But after the last order from Amsterdam favorable to the claims of the Jews was received, Asser Levy applied to be admitted to the right of citizenship, and exhibited his certificate to the court to show that he had been a burgher in Amsterdam. His request, as well as the one made for the same purpose by Salvatore d’Andrade and others, was not complied with. The matter was brought before the Governor and Council, and as the directions from Holland were controlling, an order was made April 21, 1657, that the Burgomaster should admit them to that privilege. Here the struggle virtually ended, and they were no longer troubled during the Dutch rule.

When the British captured the city in 1664 and renamed it New York, the condition of the Jews remained practically unchanged. There is a record of at least one Jew who removed from Newport to New York in that period, and had difficulties with the local authorities because they enforced against him the regulation which did not permit a Jew to engage in retail trade. The Charter of Liberties and Privileges which was adopted in 1683 by the colonial legislature declared that “no one should be molested, punished, disquieted or called in question for his religious opinion, who professed faith in God by Jesus Christ,” which meant that the Jews and unbelievers were excluded from the privileges of religious freedom. A petition by the Jews to Governor Dongan, in 1686, for liberty to exercise their religion, i. e., to have public worship, was consequently decided in the negative. But James, Duke of York (afterwards King James II., 1633–1701), to whom New York was granted by his brother, had previously sent out instructions, which arrived about that time, “to permit all persons of what religion soever, quietly to inhabit within the government, and to give no disturbance or disquiet whatsoever for or by reason of their differing in matters of religion.”

The exact date when the Jews took advantage of that liberal decree is not known, but it is presumed that the religious services, which had been heretofore conducted semi-privately, were soon performed in a house devoted to that purpose. It is certain that there was a Jewish Synagogue in New York in 1695, probably as early as 1691, while the restrictions as to trade were removed a few years before. The Synagogue, the first on the North American continent, was situated on the south side of the present Beaver street, between Broadway and Broad street. When it became too small for the community which was increasing in wealth and in numbers, a new edifice was erected in 1728 on Mill street (about the present site of South William street), where the congregation, which now assumed the name of “Shearith Israel” (Remnant of Israel), continued to worship for more than a century.

A profitable commerce was carried on between New York and the West Indies at the beginning of the eighteenth century in which numerous Jewish merchants participated. There was also carried on, though for a short period, a considerable business of exporting wheat to Portugal, on account of the scarcity in Europe about the close of the French war. Abraham d’Lucena and Louis Moses Gomez, who engaged in that traffic to Portugal, not only became two of the most affluent of the Jewish residents of New York, but they also incidentally caused an increase of the number of their co-religionists in the community. It is presumed that the vessels which carried grain to the Iberian peninsula brought Jewish or Marrano passengers on the return voyage. Most of the new Jewish names which began to appear here about that time are of undoubted Spanish and Portuguese origin. But there were also in the city Jews from other countries. When the Rev. John Sharpe proposed the erection of a school-library and chapel in New York, in 1712–13, he points out among the advantages which the city afforded for that purpose that: “It is possible also to learn Hebrew here as well as in Europe, there being a Synagogue of Jews, and many ingenious men of that nation from Poland, Hungary, Germany, etc.”

The above-mentioned Louis Moses Gomez (b. Madrid, 1654; d. New York, 1740) who arrived in America about 1700, was until the time of his death one of the principal merchants of New York. He had five sons, and his descendants have intermarried with most of the old-time American-Jewish families.

While the community was increasing in number and wealth, something occurred which sharply reminded the Jews that the time of complete emancipation had not yet come. In 1737 the election of Col. Frederick Phillips as representative of the General Assembly for the County of Westchester was contested by Captain Cornelius Van Horne. Colonel Phillips called several Jews to give evidence on his behalf, when an objection was made to their competency as witnesses. After arguments on both sides were heard, they were informed by the speaker that it was the opinion of the House that “none of the Jewish profession could be admitted as evidence.” It seems that Jews had voted at the election, for after again hearing arguments from the counsel of both parties, the House resolved that, as it did not appear that persons of the Jewish religion had a right to vote for members of Parliament in Great Britain, it was the unanimous opinion of the House that they could not be admitted to vote for Representatives in the colony. This decision has been described by a later historian as remarkable, and in explanation of it he says: “That Catholics and Jews had long been peculiarly obnoxious to the colonists,” that “the first settlers being Dutch and mostly of the Reformed Protestant religion, and the migration from England, since the colony belonged to the Crown, being principally Episcopal, both united in their aversion to the Catholics and the Jews.” (Quoted by Daly, The Settlement of the Jews in North America, p. 46.)7

The general condition of the Jews of New York was, nevertheless, highly favorable, as is attested by Peter Kalm (1715–79), the Swedish botanist and traveler, who spent a considerable time in the colony in the following decade. He says: “There are many Jews settled in New York who possess great privileges. They have a Synagogue and houses, great country-seats of their own property, and are allowed to keep shops in the town. They have likewise several ships which they freight and send out with their goods; in fine, the Jews enjoy all the privileges in common to the other inhabitants of this town and province.”

The increase of the community between that time and the American Revolution was very slow in comparison with the fast growth of the general population of the city, which was less than 5,000 in 1700, about 9,000 in 1750, and nearly 23,000 in 1776. The natural increase and the additions which the Jewish community received by immigration, chiefly from England, was barely sufficient to counteract the loss of others who went to Newport, Charleston and Philadelphia. But, though small, it continued to be a highly respectable and influential body, having among its members some of the principal merchants of the city. Of this number was Hayman Levy (d. 1790) who carried on an extensive business chiefly with the Indians, and by winning their respect and confidence became the largest fur trader in the colonies. Upon his books are entries of moneys paid to John Jacob Astor (1763–1848), the founder of the Astor family, for beating furs at the rate of one dollar a day. Miss Zeporah Levy (d. 1833), a daughter of Hayman, was married in 1779 to Benjamin Hendricks, a native of New York, the founder of a well-known and long-maintained Jewish commercial house.