Voyages of Discovery: Shalom matey!

The Voyages of Discovery were exceedingly dangerous and drew both men and women with an intense lust for adventure. Many were secret Jews who joined these adventurers not only to escape the Inquisition but also out of a natural boldness, coupled with a desire to regain the wealth and position they had previously held during what they would remember as their Golden Age in Spain.

Such attitudes were not limited to the Jews who chose to hide their Jewishness behind a crucifix but also those of their brethren who chose fight and flight over the dubious advantages offered by the Church for converting. One of the most notable examples of Jews who preferred exile to a life of subservience to the Church was a man who made his way to the Ottoman Empire and became known by the name Sinan, also referred to as “The Great Jew.”  The Spanish labeled him a pirate, and the Turks saw him as a loyal naval officer.

The first time this Jewish Pirate’s name appears in history is in the log books and letters mentioning him as second in command of a pirate ship under Hayreddin Barbarossa and later as being promoted to the captaincy of Barbarossa’s ship.

Hayreddin Barbarossa (1478- 1546) was an Ottoman admiral who dominated the Mediterranean for decades, raiding and capturing ships around the Mediterranean and even annexing Algeria from the Spanish and holding it in the face of repeated Spanish attempts to regain it. Sinan was one of his favorite captains, whom the Turks referred to as Kaptan Pasha (Lord-Captain). Sinan’s pirate flag and many contemporary Ottoman naval flags also displayed a six-pointed star called the Seal of Süleyman (Solomon) by the Ottomans. His legacy includes capturing Tunis from Spain in 1534, destroying most of Spain’s fleet in 1538, and capturing Tripoli in 1551. The Ottomans appointed him to be a naval commander. Six thousand men were under his command at the height of his career. He is buried in a Jewish cemetery in Albania. It was inconceivable that the Spanish, above all, or any Christian Europeans would have a practicing Jew as a naval commander. Their loss!

The Pirate Rabbi

Samuel Pallache (ca. 1550-1616), who grew up in Morocco, was known as the “Pirate Rabbi” because his father and grandfather were rabbis. He became an adult when “The Great Jew” died. Morocco had a thriving Jewish culture because the local Sultan allowed them to practice their religion peacefully as long as they acknowledged Islam as the state religion. Pallache was, as far as we have found, accused at one time or another of being a triple agent- for Morocco, for the Netherlands, even (!) for Spain. At first, like many, Samuel became a corsair- the group that later became known as the Barbary Pirates.

Pallache was, during this period, a loyal Moroccan corsair- which is to say, he was a pirate, preying primarily on Spanish and Portuguese shipping, paying the Sultan the share he demanded. In 1602 AD, things changed: the Sultan sent him to Spain as his representative to forge a trade deal —Muslim jewels for beeswax used for candles. Never one to miss an opportunity, Samuel offered intelligence information on his own Sultan as an entrée to the Spanish monarchy. Philip III refused to meet with them, as he was told they were Judaizing (bringing Marranos and Conversos back to Judaism). Still, he accepted the deal, and Pallache moved on to the Netherlands.

When he returned to Spain, Samuel spun the yarn that he (and his family, including his Rabbi father!) wanted to convert to Christianity and settle there. Instead of whatever scheme he intended to push forward, Samuel only got the Inquisition on his tail. Fleeing Spain at the first opportunity, Samuel even had the chutzpah (nerve) to write a letter to Philip III professing his continued (and false) loyalty.

Samuel next appeared in the Netherlands in 1608, where he persuaded Prince Maurice of Nassau to ally with his new Sultan, the ruler’s son who had meanwhile died in battle against Spain! By 1611, a treaty had been signed between Protestant Holland and Muslim Morocco. Samuel was rewarded by the Sultan with a gold chain medal and 600 florins for his trouble- plus a much more valuable plum: a monopoly on all trade with the Netherlands. Maneuvering between the Sultan and Prince Maurice, Samuel managed a deal that put a pirate fleet of Dutch seamen under the command of another Jew, Samuel’s younger brother Joseph, to harry and loot Spanish ships in the Mediterranean.

Later, storm-wrecked in England and was arrested at the allegation of the Spanish ambassador that Samuel was a Spanish citizen who had turned traitor, Samuel was released after being treated virtually as royalty by the English during his so-called imprisonment. When the Spanish ambassador complained that the English treated a Jew better than a (Spanish) Christian, the English authorities readily explained. After all, they said, Spain burned both (Protestant) Englishmen and Jews equally as heretics. As late as 1615, only ten months from death, Samuel was in the Netherlands concocting another scheme for ‘his’ Sultan; this was an attempt to regain a priceless collection of books that a Spanish pirate had seized and turned over to the Spanish monarch. This scheme was one of Samuel’s few failures —the books remained in Spain. Still, over a long life (66 being unusually long-lived for this era), Samuel conducted piracy, bound Holland and Morocco in the treaty, helped establish the Netherlands as a place Jews could worship in peace, put pirate fleets to sea, gaining both loot and revenge on Spain, and exacted a double revenge on the Spanish through both piracy and diplomacy.   That is not bad for a nice Jewish boy with a rabbinical education.

Jean Lafitte is the most famous American pirate.

Not only were Spanish ships still prime targets for pirates in general, but Lafitte especially disliked the Spanish. He purportedly said My Jewish-Spanish grandmother, a witness at the time of the Inquisition, inspired in me a hatred of the Spanish crown. Notice that his grandfather was murdered by the Inquisition for ‘Judaizing’ in 1765, 273 years after the Edict, meaning either his grandfather was not Jewish (unlikely) or people were willing to practice Judaism in the heart of darkness (Inquisition Spain) more than 10 generations after the Edict. This and other examples illustrate the persistence of the Jewish faith in the face of murderous hostility.

He was born on the Caribbean island of Santo Domingo to a Sephardic Jewish family. His grandmother raised him and his brother after his mother died in 1783. Lafitte describes a childhood in a kosher Jewish home run by his grandmother and his marriage to Cristiana Levine, from a Jewish family living in the Danish Virgin Islands. Going by ship to France, Lafitte and his family were waylaid by Spaniards who dumped them on an empty island, from which an American ship rescued them and took them to New Orleans, where Cristiana died shortly after that. Lafitte never forgot and never forgave the Spanish.

During the War of 1812, Lafitte assisted General Andrew Jackson in defending New Orleans, an event that would be immortalized as the Battle of New Orleans. Ol’ Hickory (as he was known) would go on to become the President of the United States. Afterward, prosperity brought law-abiding lives to many of the pirates. Still, Jean and Pierre sailed to Texas and established another pirate base off the coast of Galveston.

From then until his death in 1823 while attempting to overpower a Spanish ship, Lafitte was a spy, pirate, privateer (authorized by Colombia), and businessman.