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C H A P T E R 2 Jews and Conversos during the Age of Discovery A geographer would look at the terra firma of the Atlantic World—whether continental, coastal, peninsular, or island—and observe that the land, always bounded by the ocean, strides the hemispheres between Canada (Montreal) in the north and Brazil (Recife) in the south. Yet in this vastness, I have placed my focus firmly on the American Atlantic and the Jewish settlements to be found there. As we have seen, the historiographic perspective that takes this same zone as its subject of inquiry begins in the early fifteenth century in Portugal and Spain. Here we encounter familiar themes—most often told from a Europeanized cultural vantage—of Europeans exploring, then colonizing, territories in, or islands en route to, Africa, North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.1 We should never become blasé about the scale of this endeavor undertaken by discoverers living on the cusp of the early modern epoch. Voyages were launched across the earth’s second largest body of water, on a metric covering nearly one-fifth of the planet’s surface, with maritime technology that, however inventive and adaptive, still should make us marvel at those adventurers, sailors, and merchants traveling, for them, great unknown distances in, for us, relatively small wooden ships. In ancient Greek history, the eponymous name “Atlantic”—it refers to the Titan Atlas—was first mentioned by Herodotus (c. 450 b.c.e.).2 The Hebrew Bible contains its first reference to what might be the Atlantic World when the prophet Obadiah (c. early 600s b.c.e.) places Jews in the land of “Sepharad,” a name later (c. 200 c.e.) associated with the Iberian Peninsula.3 This is the etymological source of the name Sephardim, denoting the Spanish-Portuguese Jews whose migrations and traditions we have traced so attentively. If we go farther back in time (c. 1500–300 b.c.e.), there was Israel’s neighbor Phoenicia, whose homeland—northern Canaan in the biblical Hebrew geography—stretched along the coastal Levant. The Phoenician sphere of settlement or maritime trade moved westward, impressively, from Tyre (in the east) through the entire Mediterranean, probably beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, and, at least as 52 Jewish Sanctuary in the Atlantic World a commercial network, expanding into the Atlantic to touch southern Britain and northwestern Africa. Whatever associations might plausibly have existed between the Hebrews and the Phoenicians, we have no archaeological record of Jewish settlement to corroborate Obadiah’s reference—that hypothetical presence of Jews near Gibraltar or in Iberia—until fully seven centuries later.4 From the first century c.e., there is the first actual physical evidence of Jews in contact with the Atlantic, specifically in the Roman provinces of Hispania (Spain), Gallia (French Gaul), and Mauretania (Morocco).5 Of course, for historical priority, dauntless exploratory zeal, and navigational brilliance, neither Columbus nor any other European people took precedence over the Vikings. Beginning in the ninth century, their small ships were rowed and sailed across the North Atlantic, reaching both Greenland and Newfoundland . But by the fifteenth century, the Norse settlements of North America were abandoned.6 During the high Middle Ages (c. 1000–1300), European demand for luxury items from both Arab lands and Asia—spices, silks, sugar, and precious stones and metals—grew steadily as news of Acre and Jerusalem was augmented by a new awareness of China. First returning Crusaders—they would periodically militate toward the Holy Land for almost two centuries after the first expedition in 1095—reported on the fabulous wealth of Muslim rulers. Then Marco Polo (1254–1324) described the Silk Road and the riches to be found not only among the Mongols but also along the central Asian trade arteries. European imaginations were sparked; their coffers were opened for trade. In this expanding market, Jewish merchants, bringing an expert knowledge of Arabic as well as familiarity with various Muslim societies, would play a part. Certainly their Mediterranean contacts, financial skills, and mobility proved useful in the import of valuable goods into the West. For Jews, whether in the Levant, North Africa, or Iberia, this economic role often led to wealth coterminus with exceptional cultural accomplishment. This was the world that produced Moses ben-Maimon (1138–1204), also called the Rambam as well as Maimonides. Let him serve as an icon of philosophical, intellectual, and scholarly achievement that was broadly based and influential. For medieval Jews, however, there...

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