There were very few Jews in colonial America. However, when choosing sides, they supported the new nation in its fight for freedom.
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PHILADELPHIA — Josh Perelman said Jews were a huge minority in colonial America. But they played an extraordinary role in the fight for freedom, he added.
Perelman, senior advisor for content and strategic projects at the Weizmann National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, recently gave USA TODAY a tour of the museum in advance of the exhibition “The First Salute,” which opens on April 23. The exhibit focuses on the role of a small Jewish community and a small Caribbean island in the War of Independence effort.
Jews first settled in the New World in 1654, coming from Amsterdam and living in New Amsterdam, the Dutch colony that later became New York City. Some came from Brazil, and while they enjoyed some degree of self-determination while under Dutch rule, when the colony came under Portuguese rule, they decided to leave Brazil rather than face forced conversion to Christianity, persecution, or worse.
Many of America’s early Jewish families had surnames such as López, Rodríguez, and Gomez, which had roots in the Iberian Peninsula, but were expelled from the peninsula in 1492 by order of the Catholic King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I after the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition.
“Just as Isabella and Ferdinand waved goodbye to Christopher Columbus, they waved goodbye to Jews,” Perelman said. “…by driving them out of the country.”
Perelman said Jews, like many before and after them, came to America because they saw it as a land of opportunity, a place to start anew and a place where they could decide their future.
New Amsterdam, old prejudice
“Myths about Jews exist to this day,” Perelman said as he walked up the museum’s steps from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. “But Jews are no different from any other minority. No one is monolithic.”
The Jews who landed in New Amsterdam found that they were not immediately welcomed there. Governor Peter Stuyvesant, a strict Calvinist, considered Jews “hateful enemies and blasphemers” and warned that if Jews were allowed to stay, “the Lutherans and Papists cannot be rejected.”
Jewish leaders and those who valued their skills as merchants and merchants successfully advocated for them to remain in New Amsterdam on the condition that they hold no public worship. Jews were also prohibited from owning real estate, joining the militia, opening shops, and holding public office. They should have taken care of themselves, Perelman said, so they did so by forming their own mutual aid groups and community organizations.
“There was this conflict,” Perelman explained. “Will this new world be a monoculture, or an open society with both diversity and homogeneity?”
Soon there will be a Jewish community in Newport, Rhode Island. Savannah, Georgia. Charleston, South Carolina. Philadelphia, and even New York.
Disputes over the economy lead to war
In the Old World, before the Industrial Revolution, wealth meant owning land, and Jews were relegated to “lower” occupations such as finance, mercantilism, and trading. They brought those skills and connections to the New World, settling in cities with busy ports. Philadelphia had a tradition of Quaker religious tolerance, and New York and Newport were particularly hospitable to Jews.
“In many ways, Jews enjoyed more freedom here than in Europe,” Perelman said, noting that while anti-Semitism was real in America, it was not the violent and vicious anti-Semitism of the Old World. Jews here “felt a greater sense of agency and were able to overcome the situation without fear of violent retaliation.”
Perelman pointed out that the American Revolution began as a series of grievances about taxation, representation, and national self-determination that evolved into loftier ideas about freedom.
“One of the more remarkable aspects of this work is the idea of freedom emerging and living,” he says. “It’s a revolution, it’s revolutionary.”
Islands that helped arm the revolution
St. Eustatius is a small island in the Caribbean that, according to the U.S. Naval Research Institute, served as an “Arsenal Depot of the American Revolutionary War,” an eight-square-mile Dutch outpost that provided a means of escaping the British blockade when war broke out, and ships that carried gunpowder and ammunition to the Continental Army with the aid of Jewish merchants and merchants.
Jewish merchant connections “became invaluable in supplying the Continental Army with gunpowder, munitions, and clothing,” Perelman said. “Their families and trade networks placed them in places like Amsterdam, Paris, and the Caribbean,” but it was important that the colonies lacked a military industry and were thus beyond the reach of British troops.
In 1781, British forces led by General John Vaughan and Admiral George Rodney occupied the island, drawing widespread condemnation as Rodney’s first mission was to imprison, strip and deport all Jewish men on the island, stripping them of their property and exhuming their graves for further plunder. However, Rodney, an avid gambler, remained on the island too long, giving the Americans the opening they needed to get much-needed help from the French.
A plea from General Washington: “Send Chaim Salomon.”
Haim Salomon was born in Poland, but arrived in New York in 1775, joined the Sons of Liberty, founded a stockbroker, and worked with Philadelphia merchant Robert Morris to secure and manage funds for the revolutionary cause. However, Salomon was arrested by the British on suspicion of being a spy.
During his captivity, the polyglot Salomon acted as an interpreter between British and Hessian troops, convincing some of his troops to desert or defect to the American side. Arrested again in 1778, Salomon fled to Philadelphia, where he once again collaborated with Morris to secure funding for the Continental Army and donated much of his personal wealth to the cause. At Yorktown, Congress and General George Washington found themselves short of funds to pay for the troops. Washington told Morris to “send Chaim Salomon,” who raised the money and changed the course of the final battle of the war.
But for all his efforts, Salomon is often ignored in historical writing, writes historian James A. Percoco on Battlefields.org. He died penniless in 1785.
a risk worth taking
American Jews considered their efforts to support the American Revolution “worth the risk,” Perelman said, and for many of them, the risk paid off. As the new nation’s first president, Washington reiterated his guarantee of religious freedom. After visiting Newport in 1790 and meeting with one of the Jewish leaders, Moses Seixas, Washington wrote that the new national government “should give no sanction to prejudice, no support to persecution.”
By leveraging their skills and connections, Jews “joined shoulder to shoulder with[the Founding Fathers]” in the revolutionary cause, including the approximately 100 Jews who fought against the Continental Army.
“Like everyone else, they had to choose between maintaining the status quo and risking their lives and livelihoods for ambitious ideals and an uncertain future,” Perelman said. “Most people in the colonies and the Caribbean believed in those ideals.”
Phaedra Torresan is a national correspondent for USA TODAY and writes about history and Americana. Email us at ptrethan@usatoday.com, X @wordsbyphaedra, BlueSky @byphaedra, or Threads @by_phaedra.
