THE ROLE OF THE CARIBBEAN PIRATES IN AMERICA

England, France, Spain and Holland, masters of the world (1600-1700)​

While some Jews took up piracy in part to help make a better life for expelled Spanish Jews, others were motivated by revenge against the Spanish Inquisition.

It's a largely untold story of tragedy and triumph for a group who resisted forced conversion by the hypocritical Spanish Inquisition who tortured in the name of Jesus.  This group of Jewish pirates scattered throughout parts of Europe, Africa, and the New World. Several went on to play very important roles in history, especially the daring Lafitte Brothers.

 

pirate trivia

There are two words in French that can mean pirate, they are pirate and corsaire.

What does parlay mean?

Parlay is, according to the Code of the Brethern, set down by the pirates Morgan and Bartholomew, part of the pirate's code that allows a captured party the right to be taken to a ship's captain unharmed. If a pirate is captured by an enemy, he has the right to declare parlay, or temporary protection, until he may have an audience with the enemy captain. The term "parlay" likely comes from the French verb, "to speak" ie parler. Parlez means to speak to someone. In this case, that someone is the Captain. At this point, he cannot be harmed. Parlay's not considered concluded until said captives and captains have completed negotiations. More specifically, until negotiations have ended - or until "negotiations have broken off".​

Sephardic Pirates of the Revolutionary War

Facing torture and death in Spain, then Portugal, then in much of the New World, Jews were forced to emigrate over and over. Living under the strict anti-Semitic laws in Europe and the American Colonies meant Jews often had to look outside of normal society to find work. Piracy and privateering allowed them to win favor with (and therefore protection from) powerful government officials, seek out new lands to which they could emigrate, and prosper financially despite their situation.

UNTOLD STORY OF JEWISH PIRATEs-LAFITTES

 

Jean and Pierre Lafitte

Perhaps the most important Jewish pirate of all was the Caribbean pirate Jean Lafitte, a familiar name to many American schoolchildren. He and his men, pirates trained in cannon fire, came to the aid of General (later President) Andrew Jackson and played a critical role in winning the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812. A Jean Lafitte National Historic Park stands today on the outskirts of the city.

The Town Of Jean Lafitte in Louisiana USA

Jean Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar is the last bar to discover at the end of Bourbon Street, and is actually the oldest pub in the country. A New Orleans brick en poste building dating from around 1722, the pub is one of the three oldest buildings in New Orleans and houses many lingering spirits from that early period to the modern day.

Jean Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop and Bar
941 Bourban Street
New Orleans, Louisiana 70116
Tel: (504) 523-0066

The name “Barataria” first appeared on French maps in 1729 and means dishonesty at sea. In 1808, brothers Jean and Pierre Lafitte organized a group of smugglers and privateers and set up headquarters in the barrier island of Grand Terre. The Town of Jean Lafitte was incorporated in 1974.

Trinidad and Tobago Barataria

Barataria Louisiana, and Jean Lafitte

Brother Dominique

You was hired to rescue Napoleon from St. Helena and bring him to New Orleans, though Napoleon's death interfered with this plan substantially. Pierre and Jean sailed to Texas and established a colony of privateers off the coast of Galveston. Roger Kamenetz called it a "utopian pirate's den." Some of the pirates began peaceful lives along the shores of Barataria Bay. The Lafittes, however, went back to piracy.

Rabbi I. Harold Sharfman's book Jews on the Frontier also discuss Lafitte's life.

Lafitte was a Jew, born either in Western France or in what is now Haiti. Jean Lafitte's diary states he was born in Port-Au-Prince, Saint Domingue, in 1782. His mother died the next year, so Jean and his siblings were raised by their grandmother, the Sephardic Jew Zora Nadrimal. She told them of her flight from Spain to France with their mother to escape the Inquisition, which tortured and murdered their grandfather Abhorad. The brothers later claimed the Bordeaux region of France as their birthplace to snag French privateering credentials. Jean Lafitte was known as the "prince of pirates," "the terror of the Gulf," and the "hero of New Orleans." The family lived a peaceful life in Santo Domingo until the Slave Insurrection of 1791. The Lafitte/Laffite brothers escaped to Martinique where they purchased a Letter of Marque (makes it kosher to seize and loot enemy vessels).
No authenticated record of Jean Laffite's birth has been found, but it is generally believed that he was born sometime around 1780. When he applied for a French privateer commission in 1813 he claimed to be 32 years old; Pierre was believed to be about 40 in 1816. Their contemporaries nearly always distinguished between the two Laffite brothers as "the elder" and "the younger" and there is abundant documentary evidence that Pierre was the older of the two.
Pierre Laffite's death is well documented: he perished on the northern coast of the Yucatan peninsula in the fall of 1821. Jean Laffite disappeared into the "fog of history" after he escaped from prison in Puerto Principe, Cuba, in February, 1822. Reports of his death in a sea-fight in the Gulf of Honduras in 1823 have not yet been confirmed by primary sources. There are no confirmed "sightings" after the early 1820's.
Jean married a Danish Jewess, Cristiana Levine, and after four profitable years of privateering the family left for France with everything they owned. On the way their ship was taken by a Spanish Man of War. They were stripped and dumped on a sand Bay; days later an American schooner picked them up and took them to New Orleans where Cristiana shortly died of exhaustion and fever.

LAFITTE MET WITH KARL MARX & ABRAHAM LINCOLN!

Later, Jean became a labor leader in St. Louis. In 1847 he met with Marx and Engels and, admiring their work, opened an escrow account in Paris to help them. There is evidence that Lafitte tried to introduce Marx to the young Abraham Lincoln.

Michael K. Smith Professional Librarian and Archivist writes A Partial Lineage of Descent from Jean & Pierre Lafitte

Jean, who had substantially financed one of the earliest synagogues in Louisiana, is buried (perhaps) in a Jewish cemetery in Metairie. (More). Lafitte Cemetery

 

Professor Edward Bernard Glick Jerusalem Post (July 14, 2006) article on Lafitte's Jewish origins.

"[Lafitte] was a Sephardi Jew, as was his first wife, who was born in the Danish Virgin Islands. When living in New Orleans he waltzed as well as the high society crowd. It is said he preferred the company of the quadroons, dark-eyed beauties one-quarter Negro who in Southern society were demanded by wealthy men as mistresses. Lafitte had several and would provide for them well-furnished apartments in town. One of these was a lady named Madeleine Rigaud. Another, whom he visited regularly was Catherine Villars, whose sister Marie lived with and gave children to Pierre Lafitte. Church records indicate that "an illegitimate child" named Pierre was born to Jean and Catherine in 1816. In his prime, Lafitte ran not just one pirate sloop but a whole fleet of them simultaneously. He even bought a blacksmith shop in New Orleans, which he used as a front for fencing pirate loot. And he was one of the few buccaneers who didn't die in battle, in prison or on the gallows."
Glick claims the British tried to recruit Lafitte to guide them through the swamps to ambush the Americans, but Lafitte instead showed General "Old Hickory" Jackson Britain's battle plans to attack New Orleans. The rest is history.
Years before the Battle of New Orleans, Louisiana Governor William C. C. Claiborne placed a reward of $500 on Lafitte's head. Lafitte retaliated by putting a $5,000 bounty on the head of the governor. Neither collected.
Lafitte later commanded his own "kingdom" named Campeche on the island of Galveston, Texas, then nominally under Spanish rule. Some of Lafitte's trading activities were conducted by Jao de la Porta, a Portuguese Jew from Spanish Texas. Among their clients was Jim Bowie, made famous at the Alamo and also for the special knife. ~ Steven Plaut jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/36634/Putting_the_Oy_Back_.html

Professor Bernard Glick, a former professor from Temple University 

Many of the pirates of the Caribbean were Sephardic Jews who turned to piracy to get revenge on the Spanish Catholics who expelled them from Spain in 1492, murdered their families and stole their property. Six of Barbarossas chief officers were Jewish! This article sheds light on one of the most famous Jewish Pirates: Jean Lafitte the Jewish Pirate. One of the things I do since I retired from Philadelphia's Temple University is lecture on cruise ships. My signature talk is the 50-century old history of piracy whose practitioners I call the Seafaring Gangsters of the World. A few weeks before my first gig, I sent a draft of the talk to my history buff sister, Phyllis. She liked it, but was very unhappy that I had not mentioned Jean Lafitte. I told her I didn't include him because I intended to deal with the economics, the sociology, and the politics of piracy. She said I simply had to talk about Lafitte because he was unique. He was a Sephardic Jew.
In his prime, Lafitte ran not just one pirate sloop but a whole fleet of them simultaneously. He even bought a blacksmith shop in New Orleans, which he used as a front for fencing pirate loot. And he was one of the few buccaneers who didn't die in battle, in prison, or on the gallows. Though I didn't lecture about Lafitte at first, a circumstance of serendipity has made me do so ever since. I was flying to Norfolk, Virginia. The man in the seat next to me wore a skullcap and he began chatting with me in Gaelic-accented English. Though born in France, the friendly passenger now lives in Switzerland. We quickly established that we were both Jewish and that both of us had taught in Israel.
Then we had the following conversation: What are you doing on this plane? I asked.
I'm a mathematician. I work for an American company and I'm flying to Norfolk today because it has the US Navy's largest naval base and my company is trying to get a Navy contract. Now, what are you doing on this plane?
My wife and I are picking up a cruise ship in Norfolk Taking a vacation?
Not entirely. I'll be giving lectures on the ship…as many, in fact, as there are full days at sea.
What do you lecture about?
Since cruise lines frown on controversial topics I have talked about Israel once or twice, but I usually talk about Latin America, which is my second specialty, or the Panama Canal or Mexico's Isthmus of Tehantepec, or the voyages of Captain Cook to the South Pacific. But I always begin a cruise with a lecture on pirates. The kids love it and the old folks like it too.
Are you going to talk about Jean Lafitte?
No. And I repeated what my sister had told me.
He pulled out his wallet and handed me a business card. It had Melvyn J. Lafitte written on it.
Then he said, I am a direct descendent of Jean Lafitte. Your sister, Phyllis, is absolutely right. Our family, originally named Lefitto, lived in the Iberian Peninsula for centuries. When Ferdinand and Isabella re-conquered Spain and expelled the Jews in 1492, most of the Jews fled to North Africa. Others went to the Balkans or to Greece and Turkey. But some Sephardic Jews, my ancestors among them, crossed the Pyrenees and settled in France, where Jean was born in about 1780. He moved to French Santo Domingo during the Napoleonic period. However, a slave rebellion forced him to flee to New Orleans. Eventually he became a pirate, but he always called himself a privateer because that label has a more legal ring to it.

lafitte -- a true American patriotIn 1814, the British sought his aid in their pending attack on New Orleans. However, he passed their plans to the Americans and helped General Andrew Jackson beat them in 1815. A grateful Jackson, not yet President, saw to it that Lafitte and his family became American citizens. And, by the way, did you know that there is a town of Jean Lafitte, as well as a Jean Lafitte National Historical Park in Southwestern Louisiana?
I was flabbergasted, not so much by the saga of Jean Lafitte as retold by a proud descendant, but by the fact that the two of us had met so coincidentally in the skies over Georgia. Melvyn Lafitte lives in Geneva and I live in Portland, Oregon. These cities are 5,377 miles apart. Unlike him, I am mathematically challenged, so I don't know what the statistical probability is that a descendant of the Franco-Jewish-American pirate Jean Lafitte would board an airplane and sit next to me as I was agonizing over whether to mention his famous ancestor in my forthcoming talk.

more untold Jewish pirate facts

 

THE INQUISITION

The Story of Secret and Forcibly Converted Jews Jews Expulsion 

* While some Jews, like Samuel Pallache, took up piracy in part to help make a better life for expelled Spanish Jews, Kritzler said others were motivated by revenge on the Inquisition. 

Caribbean Sephardic Pirates of the Revolutionary War

The Caribbean 1600-1700

Pirates have hideouts in ● Kingston, Jamaica ● Virgin Islands ● St Dominique (Haiti) ● St Kitts ● Bahamas ● Tortuga

​Control of Caribbean leading up to Revolutionary War
Pirates have "gone legit" in an attempt to leverage competition among the imperialistic expansion of European nations. 

 

Jewish Pirates - Ladino (the language spoken by Jewish refugees expelled by the Spanish and Portuguese after the Reconquista)

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_pirates
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Pallache
3. Ching Shih "widow of Zheng" Widow of Zheng
4. Dragon Lady

Pirates of the Caribbean by Historian Eddie Kritzler
The factual world of Jewish pirates by Jamaican-born Jewish historian Ed Kritzler.

and

 

Sinan-the "famous jewish pirate"

Pirate / Ottoman Navy admiral Heyreddin Barbarossa's second-in-command was a famed Jewish pirate named Sinan one of several historical Jewish pirates sailing the high seas and doing battle with Spanish fleets during the 16th and 17th centuries.

Like much of Jewish history, Jewish piracy was born out of persecution, in this case the Spanish Inquisition. Sinan “the Great Jew” or the “Famous Jewish Pirate,” emigrated from Spain to Turkey in the first half of the 16th century. On August 20, 1534, Sinan led one hundred ships to the North African City of Tunis and captured the Spanish-controlled city on behalf of Ottoman sultan Suleiman. Controlling the strategic port city meant that Suleiman now controlled access to the Mediterranean Sea, allowing Muslim and Jewish trade and preventing Spain's Charles V from sending his own ships into the Mediterranean. In 1538 he destroyed the majority of the Spanish naval fleet off the coast of Greece. A year later he defeated even more Spanish troops on the Dalmatian coast. He continued his piracy as commander of the Turkish navy. In 1553 he took a fleet of 150 ships and ransacked the coasts of Italy and Sicily. It was his final recorded action. Turks called him Kaptan Pasha (Lord Captain).

Sinan's pirate flag (like many of the contemporary Ottoman naval flags) displayed a six-pointed star, called the Seal of Süleyman (Solomon) by the Ottomans. His legacy includes capturing Tunis from Spain in 1534, destruction of most Spain's fleet in 1538 and capturing Tripoli in 1551. Six thousand men were under his command. The Ottomans appointed him to be a naval commander. He is buried in a Jewish cemetery in Albania.Much the way Sinan's piracy gave rise to Samuel Palache, Samuel too inspired the next generation of Jewish pirates. [more]

Jewish refugees from Portugal first settled in Jamaica in 1511, probably originally as sugar growers, and some took up piracy. The British, led by Admiral William Penn (the father of the William Penn who established Philadelphia)

By 1720, as many as 20 percent of the residents of Kingston were Jews. Over time,Ashkenazi Jews arrived and their synagogues operated alongside the Sephardic ones (the congregations all merged in the 20th century). Jewish tombstones dating back to 1672 have been found there, with Portuguese, Hebrew and English inscriptions.[more]
Jewish pirates trace their origins to the expulsion of Iberian Jews during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions who prowled the Caribbean during the 17th century. These Sephardic Jews sailed to America in search of a new life free from religious persecution. Some settled in the Caribbean Islands. Their descendants, Kritzler argues, were highly motivated to strike at the ships of the Spanish Armada as vengeance for the oppression their forefathers had suffered. Proof of the existence of kosher pirates lies in a passage recounting the evacuation of the island's capital city following an attack by pirates. The passage said that "only a few Portuguese of the Hebrew nation remained in the city" in the national library of Jamaica. A few headstones in Jamaica's Jewish cemetery, carried the skull and crossbones symbol found on the pirate flag.

At the end of the fifteenth century, the Spanish Inquisition forced many Jews to flee the country. The most adventurous among them took to the high seas as freewheeling outlaws. In ships bearing names such as the Prophet Samuel, Queen Esther, and Shield of Abraham, they attacked and plundered the Spanish fleet while forming alliances with other European powers to ensure the safety of Jews living in hiding.

“The Great Jewish Pirate” Sinan, Barbarossa's  second-in-command"

Rabbi Samuel Palache and his brother, Joseph, who went from commanding pirate ships to founding the first openly Jewish community in the New World; and Abraham Cohen Henriques, an arms dealer who used his cunning and economic muscle to find safe havens for other Jews. The Portuguese were actually Sephardic Jews who had been merchants trading in Jamaica for 150 years. The Jewish pirate Moses Cohen Henriques, incidentally, laid his hand on plenty of gold in a 1628 heist against the Spanish Aramada - which turned out to be the single largest hold-up in the Spanish fleet's history. Moses Cohen Henriques, who participated in one of history's largest sea heists against Spain. In 1628, Henriques sailed together with Dutch Admiral Piet Hein, of the Dutch West India Company, who hated Spain after having been held as a slave for four years on a Spanish galleon. They raided Spanish ships off Matanzas Bay in Cuba, commandeering large amounts of gold and silver.
Henriques set up his own pirate "Treasure Island" on a deserted island off the Brazilian coast on which Jews could openly practice their religion. (He also served as adviser to Henry Morgan, perhaps the most famous pirate of all time; Errol Flynn played Morgan in the movie "Captain Blood.") After the recapture of Brazil by Portugal in 1654, some of these Jews would sail off to set up a brand new Jewish community in a place called New Amsterdam, now known as New York.
In many cases Jewish pirates collaborated with Holland, a friendly and welcoming state for Jews. One such pirate was Rabbi Samuel Pallache, a leader of the Moroccan Jewish community in Fez. Born in The Hague, he was son of a leading rabbi from Cordoba who ended up in Morocco. From there he was sent to Holland as envoy of the Moroccan sultan, who was seeking allies against Spain. He became a personal friend of Dutch Crown Prince Maurice, who commissioned him as a privateer, and served for years as a pirate under a Netherlands flag and with Dutch letters of marque. Rabbi Pallache recruited Marranos for his crews.
In other cases Jewish pirates worked for the Ottomans. A Jewish pirate named Sinan, known to his Spanish prey as "The Great Jew," was born in what is now Turkey and operated out of Algiers. He first served as second in command to the famous pirate Barbarossa. Their pirate flag carried a six-pointed star called the Seal of Solomon by the Ottomans. Sinan led the force that defeated a Genoan navy hired by Spain to rid the Barbary Coast of corsairs. He then conquered Tripoli in Libya, and was eventually appointed supreme Ottoman naval commander. He is buried in a Jewish cemetery in Albania.
A Jewish pirate named Yaakov Koriel commanded three pirate ships in the Caribbean. He later repented and ended up in Safed as one of the Kabbalah students of the Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria) and is buried near the Ari's grave.
A pirate named David Abrabanel, evidently from the same family as the famous Spanish rabbinic dynasty (which included Rabbi Isaac Abrabanel), joined British privateers after his family was butchered off the South American coast. He used the nom de guerre "Captain Davis" and commanded his own pirate vessel named The Jerusalem. According to at least one report, he was the person who discovered what is now called Easter Island.
Several Jewish corsairs operated against Spanish ships off the coast of Chile. There are reports that their galleys were kosher and they abstained from raids on the Sabbath. A maritime museum in Chile today holds letters of communication among these pirates composed in Hebrew.
One pirate leader was named Subatol Deul. On a trip up the coast he stumbled across a ship under the command of the pirate Henry Drake, son of Sir Francis Drake. They decided to create an alliance of anti-Spanish pirates, the "Black Flag Fraternity."
Deul and Drake reportedly buried treasure on an island near Coquimbo in 1645. A chapter in the book Piracy & Plunder: A Murderous Business, by Milton Meltzer, is devoted to Deul's swashbuckling career.
There also were Jewish corsairs based in Curacao next to Venezuela. The local Curacao rabbi once berated his community's pirates when they thoughtlessly attacked a ship owned by a fellow Jew. At least it wasn't done on the Sabbath.
The history of Jewish pirates goes far back: Josephus mentions Jewish pirates operating in the seas off the Land of Israel in Roman times. There is a drawing of a pirate ship inside Jason's Tomb in Jerusalem. The Hasmonean Hyrcanus accused Aristobulus, his brother, of "acts of piracy at sea." In its last days, the Seleucid empire (the one fought by the Maccabees) was plagued by Jewish and Arab pirates.
Skills developed by Jews over the centuries. Cartography, for example, was considered a Jewish specialty in the 15th and 16th centuries, and Christopher Columbus is believed to have consulted the work of a Jewish cartographer, one Abraham Cresque of Mallorca, who produced the Catalan Atlas in 1375. Portuguese Jewish cartographers and scientists contributed to Vasco Da Gama's voyage of discovery to the Cape of Good Hope in 1497. Jews also worked on ships as navigators.

The Inquisition never visited  Jamaica during Spanish occupation and its Jews were tolerated, because the island was given to the Columbus family as a personal estate in 1540.

In 1894 Meyer Kayserling in his book " Christopher Columbus and the Participation of the Jews in the Spanish and Portuguese Discoveries" (Christoph Columbus und der Anteil der Juden an den spanischen und portugiesischen Entdeckungen ) identifies Jews who helps Columbus. The names are: Juan Cabrero, Luis de Santangel, Gabriel Sanches and Alfonso de la Caballeria. Luis de Santangel introduced Columbus to Queen Isabella. There is a proof On February 15, 1493 Columbus send a personal letter of obligations to Luis de Santangel. (Luis de Santangel was a baptized Jew and died in1498) Captains' logs on the Niña and the Pinta were written in a variant of Ladino.

Known Jewish members of Columbus crew: interpreter Luis de Torres –settle in Cuba, Alonso de la Calle, Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia and ship doctor.
Jewish population on Jamaica: in 1700 – 80; in 1735 – 800; in 1881 - 2535

According Edmond S. Malka many of old Spanish towns had Hebrew names:
Maqueda from Masada
Barselona from Bar –Shelanu (our country site in Hebrew)
Sevilla from Shevil –Yah (Line of God in Hebrew)
jewishsphere.com/Directory/FamousJewishPirates.html

Jewish life and history across Jamaica--Bob Marley's grandfather & granduncle were Jewish white Jamaicans.​

History of Sephardic Jews: Al Hambra Decree; Sephardic Conquistadors; Sephardic Piracy