The Jewish settlers played a role in the trading business of the colonies, but were often faced with anti-Jewish discrimination from both governmental entities and individuals.
Gans was a renowned metallurgist and mining expert, who was recruited by Sir Walter Raleigh for the 1585 expedition to found a permanent settlement in the Virginia territory, which became the Roanoke Colony.
[3][4][5] On July 8, 1654, Jacob Barsimson left Holland and arrived aboard Peartree on August 22 in the port of New Amsterdam (in Lower Manhattan, where Wall Street is today).
Asser Levy (Van Swellem) is first mentioned in public records in New Amsterdam in 1654, in connection with the group of 23 Jews who arrived as refugees from Brazil.
He wrote a letter to the directors of the Dutch West India Company dated September 22, 1654: The Jews who have arrived would nearly all like to remain here, but learning that they (with their customary usury and deceitful trading with the Christians) were very repugnant to the inferior magistrates, as also to the people having the most affection for you; the Deaconry also fearing that owing to their present indigence they might become a charge in the coming winter, we have, for the benefit of this weak and newly developing place and the land in general, deemed it useful to require them in a friendly way to depart, praying also most seriously in this connection, for ourselves as also for the general community of your worships, that the deceitful race—such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ—be not allowed to further infect and trouble this new colony to the detraction of your worships and the dissatisfaction of your worships' most affectionate subjects.However, the directors of the Dutch West India Company included several influential Jews, who interceded on the refugees' behalf.
Company officials rebuffed Stuyvesant and ordered him, in a letter dated April 26, 1655, to let the Jews remain in New Amsterdam, "provided the poor among them shall not become a burden to the company or to the community, but be supported by their own nation": We would have liked to effectuate and fulfill your wishes and request that the new territories should no more be allowed to be infected by people of the Jewish nation, for we foresee therefrom the same difficulties which you fear, but after having further weighed and considered the matter, we observe that this would be somewhat unreasonable and unfair, especially because of the considerable loss sustained by this nation, with others, in the taking of Brazil, as also because of the large amount of capital which they still have invested in the shares of this company.
Therefore after many deliberations we have finally decided and resolved to apostille [annotate] upon a certain petition presented by said Portuguese Jews that these people may travel and trade to and in New Netherland and live and remain there, provided the poor among them shall not become a burden to the company or to the community, but be supported by their own nation.
Oliver Cromwell (British Protector from 1649 through 1660, through his son Richard) lifted this prohibition, and the founding of the first major Jewish settlement soon followed in Newport, Rhode Island.
In 1672, Rabba Couty attained prominence with his appeal to the King's Council in England from a decree passed against him by the courts of Jamaica, as a result of which one of his ships was seized and declared forfeited.
That they did so privately in a place of worship is evident from a map of New York, dated 1695, which shows the location of a synagogue on Beaver Street, also that Saul Brown was the minister, and that the congregation comprised 20 families.
In 1710, the minister of the congregation, Abraham de Lucena, was granted exemption from civil and military service by reason of his ministerial functions, and reference is made to the enjoyment of the same privileges by his predecessors.
The minutes of the Congregation Shearith Israel of New York begin in 1729, when it was located on Mill Street, and refer to records dating back as far as 1706.
An act passed by the New York General Assembly on November 15, 1727, provided that when the oath of abjuration was to be taken by any British subject professing the Jewish religion, the words "upon the true faith of a Christian" might be omitted.
A bitter political controversy of 1737 resulted in the decision by the General Assembly that Jews should not be allowed to vote for members of that body.
Between this time and the Revolutionary War the Jewish community in this colony increased slowly, with immigrants coming mostly from Spain, Portugal, and the West Indies.
In 1661, when Albany was but a trading-post, Asser Levy owned real estate there, but between that date and the early years of the nineteenth century there are no records of any settlers in that town.
A group of Jews settled in Newport, Rhode Island in the late 1600s due to the official religious tolerance of the colony as established by Roger Williams.
In other parts of New England there were probably occasional settlers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but the intolerance of the Puritans rendered impossible the establishment of any religious communities.
Of interest in connection with this shifting of the population is the fact that many of these abandoned farms, especially in Connecticut, have been taken up by Russian Jews, who, principally as dairy farmers, have added a new and useful element to the agricultural community.
It would seem that only a few Jews found their way to Maryland during the first half of the 17th century, and that the first settlers of this colony came as individuals, and not in considerable numbers at any time, as was the case in New York, Newport, Savannah, and Charleston.
The most prominent figure, who was unquestionably a Jew, was a Dr. Jacob Lumbrozo, who had arrived January 24, 1656, and who, in 1658, was tried for blasphemy, but was released by reason of the general amnesty granted in honor of the accession of Richard Cromwell (March 3, 1658).
He was one of the earliest medical practitioners in the colony, and his career casts much light upon the history and nature of religious tolerance in Maryland.
As early as 1747 a number of persons held religious services in a small house in Sterling alley, and afterward in Cherry alley—between Third and Fourth streets.
Attempts, indeed, were made in 1761 and 1773 to form one, but none was established until the influx of Jews from New York during the Revolutionary War, with the arrival of Gershom Mendes Seixas, gave the community sufficient strength to carry out this cherished object.
It would appear that a movement was set on foot in London to settle some Jews in the colony even before James Oglethorpe, in June, 1733, led his first band of followers to the point which soon after became the city of Savannah.
Although their arrival was unexpected, the liberal-minded governor welcomed them gladly, notwithstanding that he was aware that the trustees of the colony in England had expressed some opposition to permitting Jews to settle there.
A dispute with the trustees of the colony respecting the introduction of slaves caused an extensive emigration to South Carolina in 1741, and resulted in the dissolution of the congregation.
But in 1751 a number of Jews returned to Georgia, and in the same year the trustees sent over Joseph Ottolenghe to superintend the somewhat extensive silk-industry in the colony.
In 1748, some prominent London Jews set on foot a scheme for the acquisition of a tract of 200,000 acres (80,937 ha) (809 km2) of land in South Carolina.
[6] Moses Lindo, likewise a London Jew, who arrived in 1756, became actively engaged in indigo manufacture,[6] spending large sums in its development, and making this one of the principal industries of the state.