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Country
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US
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Language of name of institution
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eng
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Contact information: postal address
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3101 Clifton Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45220
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Contact information: phone number
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001 513 487 3000
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Reference number
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SC-
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Type of reference number
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Archival reference number
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Title (official language of the state)
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Jamaica Jews wills
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Language of title
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eng
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Creator / accumulator
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American Jewish Archives
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Date(s)
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1673/1809
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Language(s)
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eng
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por
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spa
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Extent
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49 units
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Type of material
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Textual Material
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Scope and content
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The Small Collections of the American Jewish Archives comprise a series of typescript copies of wills of Jews living in Jamaica from other archives. The following wills are related to Sephardic Jews:
SC-4118: David Gomez (October 18, 1673) and Abraham Gomez (October 26, 1703).
SC-16506d: Henriques family wills, 1678-1809: Aaron Henriques (1800); Abigail Henriques (1760); Abraham Henriques (1729 and 1746); Benjamin Henriques (1809); David Henriques (1766); Esther Mendes Henriques (1761); Isaac Henriques (1737); Jacob Henriques (1760-61); Moses Henriques (1745 and 1763); and Stephen Gomez (1678).
SC-234: Alvares family wills: Abraham Alvares (August 1693); David Alvares (April 1693); Jacob B. Alvares (June 1723); Judith B. Alvares (November 1732); Moses Alvares (1729 and 1767); and Moses L. Alvares (July 1765).
SC-8450: Gabriel Moreno (1695).
SC-2813: Solomon de Leon (October 10, 1696).
SC-2640: Moses Athias da Silveira (March 8, 1698).
SC-8451: Gabriel Moreno (March 8, 1698).
SC-9380: David D. Pachexe (September 23, 1699).
SC-2760: Joseph de Leon (January 30, 1702).
SC-2759: Jacob Rodrigues de Leon (July 13, 1703).
SC-8675: David Lopez Narbona (August 7, 1707).
SC-2747: Abraham Cohen de Leon (March 24, 1708).
SC-2450: Isaac Coutinho (October 1, 1711).
SC-235: Isaac H. Alvin (March 6, 1722).
SC-7912: Massias family wills: Esther Massias (September 2, 1729); Isaac Massias (January 18, 1724); Jael Massias (May 5, 1730); and Joseph Massias (1722 and 1737).
SC-6566: Daniel Lopez Laguna (March 25, 1723).
SC-2728: Sarah de Cuna (June 6, 1723).
SC-9934: Quixano family wills: Abraham H. (October 25, 1753); Abraham M. (April 30, 1741); David M.(November 8, 1739); and Moses M. (July 1, 1723).
SC-9520: Benjamin Pereira (May 30, 1723).
SC-2506: Jacob Correa (October 15, 1724).
SC-8676: Jacob Narbona (September 9, 1725).
SC-9521: Isaac Pereira (December 1, 1725).
SC-1609: Moses Yeshurun Cardosso (March 13, 1726).
SC-3346: Moses Gabay Faro (September 25, 1728).
SC-2815: Abraham de Lion (October 5, 1730).
SC-2820: Joseph de Lyon (November 11, 1730).
SC-6725: David Carvalla Ledesma (May 22, 1732).
SC-9522: Menasseh Pereira (1737 and 1743).
SC-2718: Jacob de Castro, Jr. (November 20, 1738).
SC-2638: Mordechay da Silva (February 28, 1739).
SC-6565: Aaron Lopez Laguna (March 8, 1743).
SC-7387: Abraham Rodriques Lopez (April 14, 1743).
SC-7409: Mordshay Rodrigues Lopez (May 12, 1743).
SC-2786: Esther Policarpio de Olivera (May 26, 1743).
SC-2636: Daniel da Silva (March 18, 1757).
SC-2745: Abraham Cohen de Lara (May 12, 1763).
SC-2639: Raphael Mendes da Silva (September 13, 1764).
SC-2637: David Mendes da Silva (September 13, 1764).
SC-2714: David de Castro (March 12, 1767).
SC-3505: Isaac D. Fonseca (May 13, 1767).
SC-12383: Rachel Torres (March 3, 1768).
SC-2780: Isaac de Mella (November 17, 1768).
SC-16424: Solomon Nunes Flamengo (April 22, 1779).
SC-2725: Raphael de Cordova (June 26, 1794).
MF-140: Jamaica wills [microform], 1692-1798: typescript copies of commercial documents and wills.
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Archival history
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Some of these copies of Jamaica Jews' wills were made during an expedition to the Caribbean and South America undertaken in June-July 1952 by a group led by the director of the American Jewish Archives, Jacob Rader Marcus. Among other places, the group visited the Island Record Office in Spanish Town, which held copied wills up to 1765. See more on this expedition in Marcus (1953).
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Administrative / Biographical history
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The American Jewish Archives (AJA) resulted from the initiative of the historian Jacob Rader Marcus (1896-1995). In 1947, Marcus persuaded the President of the Hebrew Union College (HUC), Nelson Glueck (1900-71), to authorise the establishment of the AJA in the original library building of HUC in Cincinnati, Ohio. Glueck appointed Jacob Rader Marcus as director, Rabbi Bertram W. Korn (1918-79) as associate director, and Selma Stern-Teubler (1890-1981) as archivist. The AJA was founded with the aim of collecting, preserving, and making available for research materials on the history of Jews and Jewish communities in the Western Hemisphere, in particular in America. Therefore, over its history, the AJA has sought to obtain records of congregations and Jewish organisations, genealogical materials, papers of rabbis, and key figures in American Jewish history, among other Jewish-related materials. Since 1948, the AJA has published a semi-annual journal, The American Jewish Archives Journal, which is one of the major referred periodicals on American Jewish history.
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Author of the description
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Carla Vieira, 2023
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Bibliography
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Loker, Zvi. 1993. “Caribbean Jewish Wills: A Historical Source.” Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies 3: 296–302. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23536857
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Marcus, Jacob Rader. 1953. “The West India and South America Expedition of the American Jewish Archives.” The American Jewish Archives Journal 5 (1): 5–21.
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Mirvis, Stanley. 2015. “The Alvares Family Patriarchs and the Place of Pre-1692 Port Royal in the Western Sephardic Diaspora.” American Jewish Archives Journal 67 (2): 1–45.
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Mirvis, Stanley. 2016. “Ashkenazim and Sephardim in Colonial Jamaica 1692–1796.” In A Sefardic Pepper-Pot in the Caribbean, edited by Michael Studemund-Halévy, 109–23. Barcelona: Tirocino.
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Mirvis, Stanley. 2020. The Jews of Eighteenth-Century Jamaica: A Testamentary History of a Diaspora in Transition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
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Schorsch, Jonathan. 2004. Jews and Blacks in the Early Modern World. New York: Cambridge University Press.
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Snyder, Holly. 2010. “‘Under the Shado of Your Wings’: Religiosity in the Mental World of an Eighteenth-Century Jewish Merchant.” Early American Studies 8 (3): 581–622. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23546660.
