A Man of Three Worlds: Samuel Pallache, a Moroccan Jew in Catholic and Protestant Europe

Chapter 5: After Samuel: The Pallache Family

Chapter 5 After Samuel The Pallache Family Several members of the Pallache family continued to live in the Dutch Republic after Samuel’s death. A notarial document recording the purchase by the Neve Salom community of Samuel’s Torah scrolls provides some details of the makeup of the family at this time. The document mentions , on the one hand, Samuel’s widow Reina/Malca (equivalent names, since “Malca” or “Malika” means queen, i.e., Spanish “Reina,” in both Arabic and Hebrew) and his son Isaac; it also refers to Samuel’s brother Joseph, his wife Benvenida, and their several children. Joseph’s children are not all named in this document, but we know from other sources that he had a total of five sons: Isaac, Moses, Joshua, David, and Abraham. Joseph Pallache may also have had a daughter by the name of Amalia: a tombstone bearing this name stands in the Ouderkerk cemetery alongside those of Samuel, Joseph, and David, but it is too seriously damaged to determine her exact relationship to them. Samuel Pallache also had at least one other son apart from Isaac, a certain Jacob-Carlos, of whom we know only that he was employed as an agent of the sultan of Morocco in Denmark in 1654.1 The most important members of the Pallache family, both before and after the death of Samuel, were undoubtedly his brother Joseph and Joseph ’s sons Moses and David. Joseph continued to live in Amsterdam as an agent of the Moroccan sultan until the end of his own life. Moses settled at the Moroccan court after 1618 and became a translator and inter- preter to successive sultans, while David acted as deputy to both his father and Moses, especially at times when Joseph was forced to leave Holland for Morocco. Moses Pallache, who had already become known as Samuel ’s faithful assistant during the final years of his life, soon assumed the role of family head once his uncle had gone. joseph and moses Samuel’s death left the family in a difficult position. When Joseph made a journey to Morocco in 1616, he was given a frosty reception by Muley Zaydan, whose subsequent letter to the States General failed to clarify whether he intended to give Joseph his continued support. Zaydan was concerned about the legitimacy of the Pallache family’s activities in the Netherlands and asked to be shown accounts covering the final years of Samuel’s life. The sultan was particularly interested in checking the records of incomes from the sales of various cargoes personally entrusted to Samuel, as well as seeing proof of expenditure on arms and munitions that Samuel had acquired on Zaydan’s behalf. For this purpose, Zaydan sent a special commissioner, Jacques Jancart, to the Dutch Republic with instructions to carry out a thorough inquiry into possible Pallache misdemeanors . Jancart’s brief also covered other issues, such as the best way to share out the booty from the ships Samuel had captured. Muley Zaydan took the view that he had sponsored Samuel and his crew, and that all the booty taken should therefore belong to him alone.2 The States General informed Joseph Pallache of Jancart’s arrival in The Hague in January 1617, and also wrote to the admiralties of Rotterdam and Middelburg to brief them on Jancart’s mission and request them to place accounts books at Jancart’s disposal, together with all the booty seized by Samuel Pallache. They also authorized Jancart to take legal action against Joseph Pallache if necessary.3 With the Pallache family now in such a dubious position, Muley Zaydan started to turn to other Jewish servants to work for him in the Netherlands, and in February 1617, he sent Israel ben Cheloha and Muchy Levy to The Hague with merchandise and letters of recommendation to the States General.4 In the meantime, Joseph Pallache was forced to ask the States General for a loan of money. Although committed to assisting Jancart in the realization of his investigative work, it granted Joseph the loan, and officials also took it upon themselves to write a long letter to Muley Zaydan in July 1617 testifying to the constant devotion and loyalty that Samuel, Joseph, 102 a man of three worlds and Moses Pallache had always shown toward their sultan. The letter went on to claim that the Pallaches would never have been able to...