Atlantic diasporas : Jews, conversos, and crypto-Jews in the age of mercantilism, 1500-1800
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Atlantic diasporas : Jews, conversos, and crypto-Jews in the age of mercantilism, 1500-1800
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009
- : hbk
- : pbk
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Note
Includes bibliographic references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This wide-ranging narrative explores the role that Jews, Conversos, and Crypto-Jews played in settling and building the Atlantic world between 1500 and 1800. Through the interwoven themes of markets, politics, religion, culture, and identity, the essays here demonstrate that the world of Atlantic Jewry, most often typified by Port Jews involved in mercantile pursuits, was more complex than commonly depicted. The first section discusses the diaspora in relation to maritime systems, commerce, and culture on the Atlantic and includes an overview of Jewish history on both sides of the ocean. The second section provides an in-depth look at Jewish mercantilism, from settlements in Dutch America to involvement in building British, Portuguese, and other trading cultures to the dispersal of Sephardic merchants. In the third section, the chapter authors assess the roles of identity and religion in settling the Atlantic, looking closely at religious conversion; slavery; relationships among Jews, Christians, and Muslims; and the legacy of the lost tribes of Israel. A concluding commentary elucidates the fluidity of identity and boundaries in the formation of the Atlantic world.
Featuring chapters by Jonathan Israel, Natalie Zemon Davis, Aviva Ben-Ur, Holly Snyder, and other prominent Jewish historians, this collection opens new avenues of inquiry into the Jewish diaspora and integrates Jewish trade and settlements into the broader narrative of Atlantic exploration.
Table of Contents
Preface
Part I: Contexts
Chapter 1. Jews and Crypto-Jews in the Atlantic World Systems, 1500-1800
Chapter 2. Jewish History in an Age of Atlanticism
Part II: Mercantilism
Chapter 3. Networks of Colonial Entrpreneurs: The Founders of the Jewish Settlements in Dutch America, 1650s and 1660s
Chapter 4. Engligh Markets, Jewish Merchants, and Atlantic Endeavors: Jews and the Making of British Translantic Commerical Culture, 1650-1800
Chapter 5. La Nacion among the Nations: Portuguese and Other Maritime Trading Diasporas in the Atlantic, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries
Chapter 6. Sephardic Merchants in the Early Modern Atlantic and Beyond: Toward a Comparative Historical Approach to Business Cooperation
Part III: Identity and Religion
Chapter 7. Jews and New Christians in Dutch Brazil, 1630-1654
Chapter 8. A Matriarchal Matter: Slavery, Conversion, and Upward Mobility in Suriname's Jewish Community
Chapter 9. Catholics, Jews, and Muslims in Early Seventeenth-Century Guine
Chapter 10. "These Indians Are Jews!" Lost Tribes, Crypto-Jews, and Jewish Self-Fashioning in Antonio de Montezion's Relacion of 1644
Epilogue
Notes
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