See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344210327
Dreaming of Equality: Francis Salvador, the American Jewish Revolutionary Patriot
Chapter · September 2020
CITATIONS READS 0 16
1 author:
Bonnie K. Goodman Concordia University Montreal
36 PUBLICATIONS 1 CITATION
SEE PROFILE
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
Jewish Response to the American Civil War, 1860-1913 View project
On This Day in History... View project
All content following this page was uploaded by Bonnie K. Goodman on 11 September 2020.
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.
1 DDrreeaammiinngg ooff EEqquuaalliittyy FFrraanncciiss SSaallvvaaddoorr,, tthhee AAmmeerriiccaann JJeewwiisshh RReevvoolluuttiioonnaarryy PPaattrriioott
OTD in History… January 11, 1775, Patriot Francis Salvador the first Jew elected joins the Provincial Congress of South Carolina
OTD in History… August 1, 1776, Patriot Francis Salvador the first Jewish death of the American Revolution
BByy BBoonnnniiiee KK... GGooooddmmaann,,, BBAA,,, MMLLIISS CCooppyyrriiigghhtt ©© 22002200
2
OTD in History… August 1, 1776, Patriot Francis Salvador the first Jew elected to serve in Provincial Congress of South Carolina dies in the American Revolution
By Bonnie K. Goodman, BA, MLIS
Copyright © 2020
3 Table of Contents DDrrreeaammiiinngg oofff EEqquuaallliiitttyy ...... 2 FFrrraanncciiiss SSaalllvvaaddoorrr,,, ttthhee AAmmeerrriiiccaann JJeewwiiisshh RReevvoollluutttiiioonnaarrryy PPaatttrrriiioottt ...... 2 OTD in History… January 11, 1775, Patriot Francis Salvador the first Jew elected joins the Provincial Congress of South Carolina ...... 2 OTD in History… August 1, 1776, Patriot Francis Salvador the first Jewish death of the American Revolution...... 2 OTD in History… August 1, 1776, Patriot Francis Salvador the first Jew elected to serve in Provincial Congress of South Carolina dies in the American Revolution ...... 3 Preface ...... 5 Introduction: The Jewish Position in Colonial America ...... 8 Jewish Rights in the American Colonies ...... 17 Jewish Support in the American Revolution ...... 25 Francis Salvador: Jewish Patriot ...... 31 The Salvador Family in England ...... 31 Francis Salvador and the South Carolina Provincial Congress ...... 35 Francis Salvador: Patriot Fighting the Loyalists in the Revolution ...... 42 Conclusion: President George Washington and the promise of Religious Freedom ...... 51 Bibliography...... 69 About the Author ...... 74
4
Preface
Since university, I have consistently been interested in American colonial and Revolutionary history. At McGill University, where I majored in history, American, and a lesser extent Jewish history, no professor specialized in that period teaching at the university. The only course the History Department offered was the American history survey until 1865. I wanted to learn more, unfortunately, and with busy schedules, students are rarely motivated to read outside their classes at the undergraduate level.
When I took the Masters in Arts in Judaic Studies at Concordia University I was fulfilling another dream to learn about American Jewish history, not that the department was that enthusiastic about my scholarly obsession. Judaic Studies was offered as part of the Department of Religion, not an independent Jewish Studies department, the emphasis was on the religious aspect as opposed to the social, political, and cultural elements that are at the least equally important in studying American Jewish History. I chose to research probably the most studied era in American history, the Civil War. Since then, I have focused my historical writing on anti-Semitism and American Jewish history in the South before, during, and after the Civil War.
Again I put aside my interest in learning more about the colonial and Revolutionary eras. Recently, I decided to fulfill this long waited academic dream. When I was in graduate school my interest peaked more when I worked as the features editor at the History News Network and edited the History Doyens series. Then I had the opportunity to speak with three of the greatest historians and scholars of that period, Edmund S. Morgan, Bernard Bailyn, and Gordon S. Wood. We have lost two of them, Morgan and Bailyn, who just died this past August. 1
I began writing the “On this Day in History” feature back in December 2007, when I was a features editor at the History News Network. My first edition was “December 17, 1862: Grant Issues General Order No. 11 Against the Jews.” 2 When I restarted writing my “On This Day in…
1 https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/169253 2 http://web.archive.org/web/20101201084015/http:/hnn.us/blogs/entries/45459.html
5 History” series in 2018, I decided to write every time about an American Revolutionary event when one came up on a date. Some of my most popular articles were on the First Continental Congress, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and the Treaty of Paris with many schools referencing these essays.
Still, I wanted to know more about the lives of the small Jewish minority in the pre-Revolutionary era than what I had read in the surveys during my academic studies. In 2013, I had touched upon the topic when I wrote about the court battle between Congregation Jeshuat Israel in Newport, Rhode Island, and Congregation Shearith Israel in New York. The two congregations were fighting over ownership of the Touro Synagogue building and the religious contents particularly, “Colonial-era silver Torah scroll finials handcrafted by prominent silversmith Myer Myers valued at more than $7 million.” 3
This is an argument reminiscent of the two congregations’ disagreements in 1790 over the writing of an address to President George Washington. In that disagreement, Jeshuat Israel won out in their historic address and Washington’s response, their exchange is remembered in history while Shearith Israel’s is but a footnote. This time round Shearith Israel won in appeals court and the Supreme Court failed to take up the case leaving Touro synagogue belonging to Shearith Israel. However, the colonial Jewish experience and history are more than this court battle two hundred and thirty years after the historic Washington addresses.
In 2019, I came upon Francis Salvador’s January 1775 election to South Carolina First Provincial Congress and started to write a short On This Day in History article. However, life and other more timely topics interrupted my work. This summer as I am editing my American Revolutionary “On This Day in History” anthology I decided to revisit Francis Salvador’s life. This essay “Dreaming of Equality: Francis Salvador the American Revolutionary Jewish Patriot” is just but an excerpt of what the manuscript blossomed into, and is a work in progress.
At the time of the American Revolution there might have been only 2,500 Jews spread over six port cities, however, American Jewish
3 https://www.jta.org/2018/06/15/united-states/nations-oldest-synagogue-newport-belongs-ny- congregation-appeals-court-says
6 contributions were already showing to be significant especially in their fight for their rights. Jews in that era laid the groundwork for the later larger waves of Jewish immigrants that would come from Central Europe in the antebellum era and the nearly four million East European Jews that started arriving in 1881. Without the hard-won fights for political and religious rights, these later Jewish immigrants would not have the opportunities to flourish as they did. Jewish heroes like Francis Salvador deserve to be remembered as an honor for their groundbreaking path and sacrifices for American Jewry.
Bonnie K. Goodman Montreal, Canada, September 7, 2020
7
Introduction: The Jewish Position in Colonial America
On this day in history January 11, 1775, Francis Salvador, the first Jew elected to a colonial public office begins his tenure on the revolutionary South Carolina Provincial Congress. Salvador was a recent immigrant to America having arrived in Charleston, South Carolina from London in 1773, a year later, he was elected to the South Carolina assembly becoming the first Jew elected to a political body in modern history, and then in 1775, he was reelected to Second Provincial Congress. Salvador became a Whig and supported the colonial revolt and then the fight for independence from Great Britain. Salvador made history again in on August 1, 1776, becoming the first Jewish casualty of the American Revolutionary War when a Cherokee native siding with the British killed and scalped him in battle.
Historian Samuel Rezneck indicates in his book Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution, Salvador “is one of the best- known recorded examples of a Jew, who served the Revolution to the ultimate degree losing his life in it.” 4 While historian Abram Vossen Goodman in his essay “South Carolina from Shaftesbury to Salvador” highlights, that Francis Salvador “was the first Jew in American history, and probably the first Jew in the modern world, to serve in an elective office… His career was not so much a tribute to the man himself as it was a symbol of the atmosphere of goodwill which prevailed in South Carolina.” 5
Salvador’s story in America mirrored the experience other Jews faced in the new world. By the time of the American Revolution colonial Jews could live with almost the same rights and freedoms as their Christian counterparts, they experienced freedom unheard of in the old world. They had freedom regarding trade, where they lived, and could even attend university, or hold political office, as Salvador did. They fought for the freedoms along with their revolutionary brothers. As historian Howard Sachar indicates in his book, A History of the Jews in America, “By 1776, the two thousand Jews of colonial America unquestionably were the freest
4 Samuel Rezneck, Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution, (Westport: Conn: Greenwood Press, 1975), 23. 5 Abram Vossen Goodman, “South Carolina from Shaftesbury to Salvador,” Leonard Dinnerstein and Mary D. Palsson, Jews in the South, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1973), 41.
8 Jews on earth.”6 While historian Hasia Diner in her survey The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000 compares, “Just as Americans were liberating themselves from British rule and creating new governmental forms, so too were Jews…. In this period of nation-building, American Jews came to enjoy a status unlike any their people had ever known.” 7
There was less anti-Semitism in the American colonies than any nation or kingdom; this allowed Jews more economic, political, and social freedoms than in the rest of the world. Historian Eli Faber observes, “Antisemitism did not throw up barriers that it did in contemporary Europe, where legal restrictions impeded Jewish mercantile and financial enterprise in many jurisdictions. On the contrary: rather than financial restrictions Jews in the American colonies enjoyed the same access to economic opportunity as their non-Jewish counterparts… Antisemitism, while it certainly existed in the colonies in the form of traditional stereotypes and a few rare, but minor, outburst, did not take the violent forms it frequently did in Europe, nor did it encompass the kinds of economic restrictions and legal disabilities that prevailed in many European jurisdictions.” 8
Still, from the moment the first group of Jewish immigrants arrived in September 1654 in New Amsterdam (Manhattan, New York) to create the first Jewish settlement in the American colonies the colonial governments restricted their rights. They did so for anti-Semitic reasons based on age-old stereotypes of Jews as greedy Shylocks whose Jewish religion would ruin the Christian hegemony. Jews fought back to gain their rights and the goal of religious and political freedom. The New Netherland Governor-General Peter Stuyvesant was the first foe the twenty-three Jewish immigrants encountered upon arrival in North America and he was set on refusing the Jews' rights although the colony chartered by the Dutch West India Company had granted them. When the company allowed Jews the freedoms and rights they had in the Netherlands, Stuyvesant took them away and added restrictions but colonial Jews were persistent and won the rights back and additional ones they did not have in Europe.
6 Howard M. Sachar, A History of the Jews in America, (New York: Vintage Books, 1993), 23. 7 Hasia R. Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 40, 43. 8 Eli, Faber “America's Earliest Jewish Settlers, 1654-1820,” Marc L. Raphael, The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 27.
9 The British ruled colonies were no differently some granted Jews more rights or freedoms while others were restrictive or even prevented Jews from settling in them, which was the extreme. Throughout the colonial period, Jews did experience anti-Semitism in the British American colonies. Historian Fritz Hirschfeld believes Jews were treated as second-class citizens. Hirschfeld notes, “And although the extreme bigotry and verbal abuse of Peter Stuyvesant and his kind had long since been ameliorated, the Jews were still widely regarded with suspicion and hostility, more often than not treated as second- class citizens subject to various forms of harassment and discrimination.” 9
The situation of Jews in the American colonies depended on the laws of the specific colony they lived and some were more tolerant than others. Additionally, as time went by, although the colonies might not have granted the rights to Jews they became more tolerant and Jews had more freedoms than they ever experienced in Europe. Colonial Jews “could reside anywhere: they could own land, engage in retail trade, and become artisans and craftsmen. Because the general environment was one in which toleration prevailed, Jews and Christians in the American colonies established business partnerships, formed personal friendships, summered together, and even on occasion married one another.” Already in colonial America, the legislatures granted equal “commercial privileges” to Jews. 10
Most of the colonies still had impediments in granting Jews any political rights. Despite this, colonial Jews had more rights than Jews in Europe. Historian Paul F. Boller indicates, “Nevertheless, by the time of the Revolution, as Oscar Handlin points out, they had gradually won civil, political, and religious rights that far exceeded anything their fellow – religionists in Europe enjoyed, even in Holland.” 11 The colonies promoted a free economy and that philosophy encouraged the immigration of all religions that helped grow the colonies’ business and trade. As Diner acknowledges, “Despite some prejudice and religious intolerance, American Jews in the 17th and 18th centuries had more freedom and fewer problems than any other Jews in the world. The special circumstances of life in colonial America and the early United States favored the acceptance of Jews
9 Fritz Hirschfeld, George Washington and the Jews, (Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press, 2005), 13. 10 Faber “America's Earliest Jewish Settlers, 1654-1820,” Raphael, The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America, 27. 11 BOLLER, PAUL F. “George Washington and the Jews.” Southwest Review, vol. 47, no. 2, 1962, pp. 120–127. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43467381, 121.
10 and their religious traditions. Before and after the Revolution, America was a raw, growing place that welcomed people who were willing to contribute to the economy… The colonies’ concerns about economic development also outweighed strong ties of ethnicity and the stigmas of national origins.” 12
When colonies limited the rights of Jews, usually they were not the target of these limited rights but Catholics. The Protestant Reformation and the division of Christianity from Catholicism into Protestantism resulted in prejudice between the two Christian denominations. Both sought to limit the rights of the Christian minorities in their countries and territories. Dinner notes, “These Protestant-dominated colonies expended much more energy restricting Catholics than they did Jews. The colonial experience itself owed much more of its cultural dynamic to the aftershocks of the Reformation than to any dispute between Christianity and Judaism.” 13 Even with the restrictions Catholics were less affected by the laws because they were the Christian majority in most European countries and the Pope ruled over Christianity.14
Jews, however, were added to the minority status but were not the target of the legal restrictions on religious minorities, which was a new development for Jews. In Europe they had always been the main focus of prejudice and restrictions on rights and liberties. The mindset for Jews was different even if they were not the target for the limitations on their rights. Jews were always the target of prejudice, hate, and violence in Europe. Either they experienced violence or were expelled for being Jews, not being the Christianity majority, and worshipping Jesus Christ which they were also accused of killing. As historian Leonard Dinnerstein explains in his book Antisemitism in America, “Jews, on the other hand, were always despised minorities in Europe who suffered legal disabilities in one country after another even when allowed to dwell there and even when individual Jews achieved outstanding social or economic recognition. Thus Jews, no matter how successful, were always wary that some crisis or other in a given nation would lead to contraction of rights, severe restrictions, or even expulsion. This was the Jewish experience in Europe since the end of the eleventh century.” 15
12 Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 22, 24. 13 Ibid., Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 24. 14 Leonard Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America, (New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 1994), x. 15 Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America, x.
11 Even without official restrictions, the colonies required anyone in any political and elected position or to serve on a jury to take their oath on the King James Version of the Bible. 16 Neither Jews nor Catholics would swear on that version of the bible; Jews would not swear on the New Testament, while Catholics would not swear on a Protestant version. According to Diner, “The stipulation excluded Catholics, perceived by colonial Americans as the embodiment of evil and served first and foremost to ward off Catholic influence in public life.” 17
Religious prejudice and tolerance in the colonies were different than in Europe. The colonies were a new settlement in a new world and to survive their economy and trade had to flourish. Tolerance stemmed from the need for the economy to succeed. Any tolerance towards Jews and other religious minorities was not about freedoms or liberties but the economy. As Diner explains, “Neither the colonies nor the Christians who lived in them believed in universal principles of religious liberty and freedom of expression. Rather, they believed in economic activity and commercial robustness. Religious intolerance basically interfered with the task of extracting raw materials from the land, processing them, and making them available for imperial markets.” 18 Jews were merchants and traders and they contributed greatly to the colonial economy.
In North America, the division of society was based less on religion, as had been the case in Europe but on skin color. In the American colonies race mattered more than religion, the difference that mattered was whether one was black or white; black meant enslavement, and white meant freedom. As Diner explains, “Most white people, regardless of religion, enjoyed a kind of equality by default.” 19 The first slaves arrived in the colonies in 1619 and by 1660 the slave system was established in the colonies. Early on every colony except Rhode Island participated in slavery but later on it was just practiced in the southern colonies where it flourished. Port cities participated in the slave trade bringing in slaves from Africa. Slave labor fueled the colonial economy in the American colonies, everyone in the colonies benefitted from farmers to merchants in the cities.
16 Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 24. 17 Ibid., Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 24. 18 Ibid., Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 24. 19 Ibid., Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 24.
12 Colonial Jews and other religious minorities benefitted from the new societal hierarchy in the American colonies. Diner recounts, "Their Jewishness had ipso facto put them outside the mainstream of society and rendered them different and defective. But in America, that position came to be occupied by Africans." 20 The first slaves arrived in Virginia in 1619, even before the arrival of the first Jews in 1654. Although slavery was not the system that it would become, by the time Jews began arriving, colonial society already set the distinction between black and white. Slavery spread throughout the American colonies with Rhode Island acting as an exemption.
There were two reasons Americans were motivated to impose the slavery system; slave labor was a driving force behind economic development, as well as the method of determining class status. Whiteness equaled freedom while slave ownership and the number of slaves owned indicated wealth and social status; it allowed the poorest of whites to remain always above blacks on the social ladder. Although Rhode Island did not allow slavery, Newport was the port for the trans-Atlantic slave trade and Jewish merchants in the city participated in the trade, “Aaron Lopez, Isaac Eliezer, Jacob Rodriguez Rivera, and Samuel Moses, notables in the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island, shipped rum and hardware, spices, spermaceti candles, lumber, fur, and African slaves.” 21 Diner explains:
"Slavery brought great riches to some. It enabled relatively poor white farmers to acquire land and wealth and to enjoy a comfortable social status. Its existence profoundly shaped American ideas about freedom. And obviously, the system of slavery was predicated on skin color, with whiteness the badge of privilege. Therefore, Jews in the colonies had yet another asset that served them well: they were white. They no longer bore the burden of being the stigmatized group whom others reviled and oppressed. As women and men considered among the privileged by virtue of their whiteness, they enjoyed relative tolerance and could increasingly demand, by virtue of the service they rendered to the colonies, and length of time in residence, the right to live freely. By the time the Jewish communities took root in America and increasing numbers of European Jews opted to live in America, to be “white” meant to be free, and not being white meant enduring enslavement.” 22
20 Ibid., Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 26. 21 Ibid., Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 26. 22 Ibid., Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 25-26.
13
Despite this defacto equality, the rights and privileges or restrictions Jews had depended on the specific colony, nothing could be taken for granted. Even with restrictions in rights especially regarding politics and civic life, colonial Jews hoped that they would gain those rights in the future. Since they were not the only religious group living with these restrictions made it easier. Diner explains:
“With regard to the earning of rights and privileges, inconsistency rather than universal entitlement prevailed among the various colonies. Jews always had to remain aware of local realities and to devise strategies to live with whatever rights their jurisdiction offered them. They could never rest content with what rights they had; nor did they, however, believe that those rights could never increase. The restrictions on Jewish male civic participation in colonial America existed in the context of a European culture in which Jews assumed that their religion set them apart from and put them at a clear disadvantage to the Christians among whom they lived. In America, however, Jews did not occupy that subordinate position alone. Others also experienced exclusion from privilege and political disabilities, and Jews sometimes made common cause with them.” 23
The situation improved dramatically for Jews in the colonies when Britain’s Parliament passed the Naturalization Act of 1740. The act allowed immigrants to the colonies to become naturalized citizens after residing there for seven years. Additionally, Jews gained a victory when Parliament no longer required oaths “using words of Christian profession.” According to Britain Jews would be allowed to participate in civic life, however, most of the colonies still prevented Jews and religious minorities from this right. The change in attitudes towards Jews stemmed from the growing reliance race as defining rights in the colonies, as slavery became more vital to the colonial economy. 24
Despite the auspicious start to Jews’ lives in the colonies by the time of the American Revolution there were 2,000 to 2,500 Jews living in the colonies. According to Diner, “Each of the five Jewish communities that existed on the eve of the American Revolution—New York, Philadelphia, Newport, Charleston, and Savannah—has its own history. In each the
23 Ibid., Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 23. 24 Ibid., Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 25.
14 process of initial settlement, consecration of a cemetery, formation of a congregation, and the building of a synagogue took place. In each Jews both accepted their status in the larger society and sought to expand the rights they enjoyed.” 25
When the thirteen colonies decided to rebel against Britain fighting for their rights and liberties, most colonial Jews joined in the fight hoping their liberties would be extended and they would be granted political equality. In July 1776, with American independence, the Second Continental Congress declared, “all men are created equal,” and in 1789, the ratified Constitution promised a separation between Church and state. The United States “Constitution provided full legal equality for men and prevented the national government from showing favor or discrimination based on one's religion.” 26 As Diner notes, “The process began of severing the bonds between religion and citizenship, between birthplace and access to full participation in civic life.”27 An independent America did not regulate religion or houses of worship and gave the individual rights with the Bill of Rights that were never seen in the government controlled countries of Europe.
Diner recounts, “The momentous events of the revolutionary era transformed America into a society built on individual entitlement rather than on corporate identities. In its emphasis on freedom of expression, however imperfectly realized, the United States became a society based on consent rather than descent. For the first time dissent also trumped descent.” 28 With these liberties, the small American Jewish population had the opportunity to join in participating in a full American life like their Christian neighbors. For Jewish Whigs participating, supporting, and fighting in the war for American Independence it was an opportunity to be part of the birth of a nation and gain an equal footing with their counterparts. Francis Salvador’s political and military firsts all for the American cause represented that promise of equality colonial Jews dreamed of obtaining. Still, America considered itself a Protestant Christian nation and religious minorities remained tolerated especially in the individual states. American Jewry would use their sacrifices during the war as a bargaining chip to obtain political
25 Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 26. 26 Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America, x. 27 Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 42. 28 Ibid., Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 42.
15 equality at the federal and state level, which took longer and more convincing to obtain.
16 Jewish Rights in the American Colonies
At the time, the American Revolution broke out there were only 2,000 to 2,500 Jews in the American colonies, most concentrated in the six-port cities, New York, Philadelphia, Newport, Charleston, and Savannah with less than a hundred fighting in the war. While the majority of the Jewish population lived in the port cities, Jewish traders and shopkeepers lived in the outlying frontier regions “selling goods to fur trappers, buying from the Indians, and speculating in lands.” 29
Jews’ first impression of the American colonies was hostile. In September 1654, twenty-three Jewish refugees arrived in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island seeking asylum. Meeting the Jewish refugees on the dock was “Peter Stuyvesant, the director-general of the colony,” and “Johannes Megapolensis, an official of the Dutch Reformed Church,” who did not want any Jews settling in the colony. Stuyvesant severely restricted the Jews’ rights to live, worship, own, and trade in the colony while he was in power. As Dinnerstein observes, “The attitudes observed in the residents of New Amsterdam paralleled those of most other colonists.” 30 In the early years, most of the colonies limited non-Protestants, Jews, and Catholics’ ability on public worship and charged them “special taxes.” However, as Dinnerstein notes “most of these burdens were later lifted or rarely enforced.” 31 Despite legal limits on Jewish rights in their roles as merchants and traders they interacted with the Christian majority, and their interactions and relationships “must be specifically defined by time and place.” 32
Each colony differed in the rights and restrictions imposed on religious minorities. Diner indicates, “Each colony had its own history of Jewish settlement and of granting rights to the Jews. But nowhere did the right of residence and of religious tolerance equate with full privileges of political participation for Jewish men.” 33 In the colonial period, Jews in Britain did not even have the rights of full citizens and their rights were limited. While some of the colonies in the most extreme did not even grant
29 Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 27. 30 Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America, 5. 31 Ibid., Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America, 5. 32 Ibid., Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America, 5. 33 Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 23.
17 Jews and religious minorities the right to reside in their boundaries. As Diner notes, “In some of the New England colonies, Jews did not even have the right of residence, let alone the right to build synagogues and establish communities. They probably also understood that what rights they had could be rescinded.” 34
In the North, the British colony of New York was the most inviting to Jews because of its history of tolerance dating back from colonial days. In 1664, Britain’s Duke of York conquered the New Netherlands and their colony New Amsterdam became New York. Afterward, in 1667, Jews began arriving in the new British controlled colony. The British lifted the restrictions, Peter Stuyvesant, the Governor-General of New Netherlands and his council imposed on the Jews. Britain loosened the restrictions to increase trade in the colony. The British Treaty of Breda from 1667 guaranteed all colonists “full rights of worship, trade, individual property, and inheritance to all inhabitants of the former New Netherlands. 35
Under Britain the Jewish population grew from a hundred in 1695 to 730 in 1730, however, afterward, Charleston with greater freedom and rights attracted more Jews and with fewer Jews going to New York. On the eve of the Revolution, in 1773 the New York community stagnated to just fewer than 250 Jews. 36 Mostly Sephardim migrated to New York among them Jews from “England, Holland, the Caribbean islands” with a small number of Ashkenazim from German countries.
At the start, there were a few restrictions on Jews they were allowed to hold office but could not build a synagogue and had paid taxes to the Anglican Church. However, in a couple of decades, the Protestant majority overlooked the restrictions; Jews did not have entire equality but freedom. In New York, the Protestants feared Catholics more than the small Jewish population. In 1706, New York Jews established their own congregation Shearith Israel, although it was in a rented building, they soon constructed a synagogue building in 1728 on Mill Street. Shearith Israel became the oldest congregation in America.
In 1727, the General Assembly of New York removed the stipulation of “on the true faith of a Christian” from the requirements for citizenship.
34 Ibid., Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 39. 35 Sachar, A History of the Jews in America, 18. 36 Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 27.
18 Dinnerstein notes, “By the end of the seventeenth century, Jews in New York City were able to purchase land, engage in retail trade, stand guard, and worship in public.” 37 New York was the main Jewish center until 1720. Jews in New York held political office and at the eve of the American Revolution had most of the rights that the Protestant majority had. 38
In Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Jews also lived in tolerant colonies. Jews started settling in the two colonies starting in 1656. Pennsylvania was Quaker and New Jersey was Anglican, both allowed Jews to live in relative freedom. Quaker William Penn founded his Pennsylvania colony as a “haven of religious freedom.” In 1706, Jews began settling in Philadelphia. By the mid-eighteenth century, there were very few restrictions only on political and voting rights for Jews. In Pennsylvania Jews could not vote or hold office. 39
Roger Williams also founded Rhode Island to be tolerant but circumstances and laws would change that at the turn of the eighteenth century. Jews began settling in Rhode Island in the 1640s and by 1678 they bought a plot of land for a cemetery, a sign that they intended to settle permanently. In the 1690s, the population grew by 100 when the Jews of Curaçao escaped a pandemic and decided to settle in the port city. 40 In the early years of the eighteenth century, Rhode Island’s General Assembly changed their laws and excluded Jews and Catholics from citizenship. Historian Stanley F. Chyet notes in his essay, “The Political Rights of the Jews in the United States: 1776-1840,” “Rhode Island's liberal law of 1665 was altered sometime between 1705 and 1719 to exclude Jews and Catholics from the rights of citizenship.” 41 After the law was altered, Jews occasionally moved in to Newport, and there is a historical record of Jews living there. In 1712, there a map indicates a “Jews Street” opposite the cemetery.
Newport was a wealthy port city in colonial time’s trade and commerce flourished and it was one of the cities where Jews flocked when settling in the colonies. Despite the change in political rights to Jews in the
37 Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America, 6. 38 Sachar, A History of the Jews in America, 18. 39 Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America, 6. 40 Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 27. 41 Stanley F. Chyet, “The Political Rights of the Jews in the United States: 1776-1840,” American. Jewish Archives Journal 10, no. 1 (1958), 17. http://www.americanjewisharchives.org/publications/journal/PDF/1958_10_01_00_chyet.pdf
19 colony, in the 1740s, Jews began settling in Newport in earnest, particularly starting in 1746. Atlantic commerce and trade in the port city attracted Jewish merchants to settle. Newport was a center of trade between “England, the Carribean and Africa.” As historians Jonathan Sarna and Ellen Smith note in The Jews of Rhode Island, “The Jewish community of Newport only really took off in the 1740s. It was then that the community entered its pre- Revolutionary ‘golden-age.’” 42 By the 1750s the community was large enough to form a synagogue; nine merchants from New York made the move to Newport. In 1756, the community organized a congregation, in 1759; they started building a synagogue which was completed in 1763, and then the congregation hired Isaac Touro to serve as its Hazzan and spiritual leader.
Jews did not fare as well in New England where except for Rhode Island Jews were considered second-class citizens and prohibited from living in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire. After Britain’s Glorious Revolution of 1688, the royal governors became more tolerant of Jews since they were not Catholics and Jews began dwelling in Massachusetts and Connecticut. As Sachar points out, “They were none-Catholics after-all.” The worst colony for Jews was Maryland, where there were restrictions for all non-Protestants and Jews where they were not granted any political rights. Still, by the mid-eighteenth century Jews had defacto rights of domicile, trade, worship and increasingly, franchise.” 43
In colonial times, there were was a scant amount of Jews living in the Southern colonies, in total there were approximately 300 Jews in the South at the time of the American Revolution. These Jews integrated into the colonies they lived in despite the fact that most did not have equal political rights with their Christian counterparts. Most worked as merchants, traders, storekeepers, artisans, sawmill operators, butchers, and a small minority of plantation owners. In colonial times the majority of the Jews resided in three Southern cities; Savannah, Georgia, Charleston, South Carolina, and a much lesser extent in Richmond, Virginia, Charleston had, however, the largest Jewish community and it was the center of Jewish life in the South.
In the seventeenth century, Hirschfeld observes in his book George Washington and the Jews, “South of New York in effect, there was no place
42 George M Goodwin and Ellen Smith. The Jews of Rhode Island. Waltham, Mass: Brandeis Univ. Press, 2004, 2. 43 Sachar, A History of the Jews in America, 18.
20 that appealed to Jews until Charleston rose and opened her doors to them.” 44 South Carolina was the most tolerant colony towards Jews according to historian Henry Feingold. Jews in South Carolina were allowed to vote and “hold political office.” 45 The Earl of Shaftesbury, Lord Ashley, Chancellor of the Exchequer invited liberal philosopher John Locke to write the colonial charter and Locke believed in religious tolerance and included those beliefs in the "Fundamental Constitution of Carolina." Soon the colony was attracting religious minorities including Jews and Huguenots. 46 When the first Jews arrived in 1680, they already had legal rights to “purchase property and worship.” Jews had the ability to vote to be elected to assemblies and “to trade, to worship, to execute legal documents, to sit on juries.” 47 Jews settled in South Carolina early on, between 1697 and 1740 there were fifteen Jewish men living in the colony.48 In 1697, South Carolina’s Jews fought for their rights, four Charles Town Jews joined with the colonies’ Huguenots and they petitioned “for the right of full citizenship.” 49
By the time of the American Revolution, according Sachar, Charleston had “two hundred Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews” and was “the second largest Jewish community in North America.” 50 Jews were attracted to South Carolina because the colony granted Jews all the rights they sought. Dinnerstein recounts, “Charleston had perhaps the most vibrant mercantile economy in America by 1776, and treated Jews almost as equals.” 51 Jews participated in most of the trades their Christian counterparts did, they engaged in a mix of trades, Jews were “small tradesman,” plantation owners particularly indigo and rice and they engaged in trade as importers and exporters, including the slave trade.
At the time of independence was declared, there “forty to fifty Jewish families” living in Charleston, enough that a “formal congregation” Beth
44 Fritz Hirschfeld, George Washington and the Jews, (Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press, 2005), 91. 45 Henry L. Feingold, Zion in America: The Jewish Experience from Colonial Times to the Present, (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1981), 29. 46 Feingold, Zion in America: The Jewish Experience from Colonial Times to the Present, 29. 47 Sachar, A History of the Jews in America, 19. 48 Faber, “America's Earliest Jewish Settlers, 1654-1820,” Raphael, The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America, 27. 49 Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 23. 50 Sachar, A History of the Jews in America, 22. 51 Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America, 6.
21 Elohim was established in 1749, and a cemetery by 1764. 52 South Carolina, especially its port city Charleston attracted the most Jewish settlers and from the 1790s until 1820 the city had a larger Jewish population than New York.53 During the Revolution most American Jews were Whigs supporting the independence, and according to Arthur Hertzberg all Jewish males in South Carolina fought for independence.
Salvador’s story in America began in 1732, with his grandfather also Francis (Daniel) Salvador, who was “the first Jewish director of the East India Company” The elder Salvador and fellow Beavis Marks Synagogue leaders Alvaro Lopes Suasso and Antonio da Costa moved a community of 42 Jews to Savannah, Georgia. 54 At the same time, a large number of Jews were escaping from Portugal, most were crypto-Jews, who during the inquisition had been forced to convert but secretly continued practicing Judaism. From 1700 and 1735, around 1,500 Jews escaped Portugal, and came to England. The rich Sephardic community worried that the newcomers would “drain” their financial resources and it would affect their standing. In England, Beavis Marks synagogue usually “assumed responsibility for the Jewish poor” but this time the synagogue leadership decided to send them to Georgia as a solution. 55
Jews were equally tolerated in the colony of Georgia established in 1733. James Oglethorpe founded Georgia in 1733; Georgia was planned as a plantation and was originally for “indebted prisoners.” The Georgia charter read, "There shall be liberty of conscience allowed in the worship of God to all persons...except Papists." 56 The first settlers began arriving in February 1733. The colony looked to limit one religious minority, Catholics, and also outlawed slavery and in doing so, their charter was welcoming to Jews earning it a reputation as a Jew colony.
The Christian majority, however, resented Sephardic Jews imposing on them indebted Ashkenazi Jews. 57 The Jews sent by Beavis Marks were
52 Arthur Hertzberg, The Jews in America: Four Centuries of an Uneasy Encounter: a History, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 91. 53 Faber, “America's Earliest Jewish Settlers, 1654-1820,” Raphael, The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America, 27. 54 David B. Green, “This Day in Jewish History // 1733: Savannah, Georgia Gets Its First Jews, Not That It Wants Them,” Haaretz, https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium--1.5408033 55 Sachar, A History of the Jews in America, 19. 56 Feingold, Zion in America: The Jewish Experience from Colonial Times to the Present, 29. 57 Feingold, Zion in America: The Jewish Experience from Colonial Times to the Present, 29.
22 destitute and upon hearing of the arrival, the Georgia trustees wanted to add Jews to the Catholics they did not want settling in the colony. Governor Oglethorpe “intervened” and welcomed the Jews and “he settled the newcomers on the fringes of his own tract of land, rented them a house for their religious services, and allocated a plot for their cemetery.” 58
On July 11, 1733, the 42 Jews arrived in Savannah, 34 were Sephardic the remaining were Ashkenazi from German lands and two families. Both Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews settled in Georgia working as both “farmers and tradesman.” Jews and Christians alike were put off by Georgia law prohibiting large tracts of lands for plantations and slavery; only when it became legal did the colony see its population increase. Officially Georgia only granted Protestants the vote and hold office, however, “by the mid- century” Jews were voting and in 1756 “two Jews were elected port officials of Savannah.” 59
In Georgia, the Jewish community established a congregation in Savannah in 1735 but a disagreement between the Sephardim and the Ashkenazim led to a split between the two branches. In 1740, when Britain and Spain went to war, the Sephardim feared their safety and left, and only three Ashkenazi families stayed. Only in the 1760s, did more Jews settle in the city. By the 1770s there were only six families and although they wanted to form a congregation there was not enough Jews. Only in the 1790s did the population grow enough for a congregation, while the synagogue was only built in 1820. The Sephardim that left Georgia settled in the colony of South Carolina in Charles Town, Charleston. 60 To help these families escaping Georgia the Salvador and DaCosta families purchased 200,000 acres of land in western South Carolina in a new frontier district Ninety–Six. 61
By the time of the Revolution, however, Jews still did have political rights in the majority of the colonies; they could not vote or hold political office. Diner recounts, “In most of the colonies and later some of the states, Jews could not vote, hold elected office, or serve on juries. These restrictions did not single out Jews. They applied to anyone who did not belong to the
58 “Francis Salvador.” Jewish Virtual Library. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/francis-salvador, Sachar, A History of the Jews in America. 59 Sachar, A History of the Jews in America. 60 Faber, “America's Earliest Jewish Settlers, 1654-1820,” Raphael, The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America, 27. 61 Pencak, Jews and Gentiles in Early America 1654–1800, 124; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Salvador
23 established, or official, Christian church—the Anglican church in some places, the Congregational in others.” 62 This exemption encompassed Jews, Catholics, and other Christian denominations.
However, for colonial Jews, true acceptance involved political equality, which was the ultimate achievement. As Diner explains, “The Jews who lived through the tumultuous decades of revolution and nation-building did so mindful of their piecemeal acceptance and relative equality and ever mindful of the restrictions that had early on been placed on them. Just as Americans were liberating themselves from British rule and creating new governmental forms, so too were Jews beginning the process of building new communities as they participated in building a new America.” 63 Francis Salvador’s rise in the political echelons in the days preceding American independence represented the dream becoming a reality, the possibility equality could be achieved, although the colonies and future states had yet to formally extend this ultimate right to American Jews.
62 Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 22. 63 Ibid., Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 40.
24 Jewish Support in the American Revolution
By the time of the American Revolution, there were 2,000 to 2,500 Jews living in the colonies, they only represented one-tenth of a percent of the American population, which was about two million.64 According to Diner, “Each of the five Jewish communities that existed on the eve of the American Revolution—New York, Philadelphia, Newport, Charleston, and Savannah—has its own history. In each the process of initial settlement, the consecration of a cemetery, formation of a congregation, and the building of a synagogue took place. In each Jews, both accepted their status in the larger society and sought to expand the rights they enjoyed.” 65
When the thirteen colonies decided to rebel against Britain fighting for their rights and liberties, most colonial Jews joined in the fight hoping their liberties would be extended and they would be granted political equality. In July 1776, with American independence, the Second Continental Congress declared, “all men are created equal,” and in 1789, the ratified Constitution promised a separation between Church and state. The United States “Constitution provided full legal equality for men and prevented the national government from showing favor or discrimination based on one's religion.” 66 As Diner notes, “The process began of severing the bonds between religion and citizenship, between birthplace and access to full participation in civic life.”67
An independent America did not regulate religion or houses of worship and with the Bill of Rights it granted the individual rights that were never seen in the government-controlled countries of Europe. Diner recounts, “The momentous events of the revolutionary era transformed America into a society built on individual entitlement rather than on corporate identities. In its emphasis on freedom of expression, however imperfectly realized, the United States became a society based on consent rather than descent. For the first time dissent also trumped descent.” 68
64 Jonathan D. Sarna, “THE IMPACT OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION ON AMERICAN JEWS,” Modern Judaism - A Journal of Jewish Ideas and Experience, Volume 1, Issue 2, September 1981, Pages 149–160, https://doi.org/10.1093/mj/1.2.149. 65 Ibid., Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 26. 66 Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America, x. 67 Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 42. 68 Ibid., Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 42.
25 With these liberties, the small American Jewish population had the opportunity to join in participating in a full American life like their Christian neighbors. For Jewish Whigs participating, supporting, and fighting in the war for American Independence was an opportunity to be part of the birth of a nation and gain an equal footing with their counterparts. Francis Salvador’s political and military firsts were all for the American cause and they represented that promise of equality colonial Jews dreamed of obtaining. Still, America considered itself a Protestant Christian nation and religious minorities remained tolerated especially in the individual states. American Jewry would use their sacrifices during the war as a bargaining chip to obtain political equality at the federal and state level, which took longer and more convincing to obtain.
When it came to the Revolution, the majority of American Jews sided with the Patriot Whigs. In the years leading up to the revolution, most American Jews rebelled and protested Britain’s increasing taxes and restrictions on the colonies. Historian Eli Faber notes, “Jews in American began to behave in a strikingly different manner: they began to comport themselves as if they actually had a role to play in public life.” 69 All over the six-port cities where most colonial Jews lived, they were getting more involved. In New York, for “several decades” since 1729, the colony allowed Jews to participate in public office by removing taking the oath on the Protestant Bible. American Jews were already allowed to participate in municipal politics. In Philadelphia, several Jewish joined their Christian counterparts in protesting the Stamp Act by signing the city’s nonimportation agreement to boycott all trade with Britain.70 In Savannah, two of the city’s Jews participated in the city’s “committee for revolutionary activities,” one even served as a chairman of the committee.
Most Jews were businessman and they objected to the British restrictive policies, the majority of the Jewish Patriots supported independence through financial means, while a minority fought in the militias and army. Some Jews, however, were reluctant to break and rebel against Britain. A few of the wealthy Jewish families in New York, Newport, Philadelphia, and were Loyalists including the Franks family, who supplied British forces, Rodrigo Pacheco, Philip Moses, and Abraham Wag
69 Faber “America's Earliest Jewish Settlers, 1654-1820,” Raphael, The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America, 27. 70 Faber “America's Earliest Jewish Settlers, 1654-1820,” Raphael, The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America, 37.
26 in New York, and Isaac Hart of Newport. Whigs forced Loyalist Jews into exile, David Franks left for England, while Isaac Hart fought with the British on Long Island and was killed for his loyalties. Others including the Gomez, Lopez, and Hays families were divided between being Loyalists or Whigs. 71 When the small number of Jewish families stayed in cities and towns occupied by Britain they made a statement showing they sided with Britain. 72
Whig Jews also were forced to leave their homes in British occupied cities “New York, Newport, Savannah, and Charleston.” American Jewish Patriots also made a statement leaving British occupied cities, proving their loyalty to the American cause. Most of these Patriot Jews joined the already one hundred Jewish families in Philadelphia, swelling the colony and city’s Jewish population and they remained throughout the war. The community built its first synagogue in 1782 because of the growing population. America’s small Jewish population was mostly affected by the war playing out where they lived. Rezneck explains, “The Jews were affected by their mere presence as well as by the necessity or opportunity of participation.”73
Almost a hundred Jewish revolutionary soldiers served in the Continental Army and “local and state militias.” Curator and historian Leon Huhner points out, “The Jews of the South during the American Revolution proved conclusively, not only that Jews were staunch Patriots but also that they were willing to shed their blood as well as risk their fortunes in their country's cause.” 74 Jews did not have much military experience, in most of the European country Jews, the governments did not allow Jews to serve as soldiers. As Rezneck points out “Jews were not historically or culturally accustomed to military service in the Western world.” 75 Many of the Jews who participated in the war did so because they were locally affected. Considering their numbers, however, American Jews made important contributions to the military aspect of the war. Rezneck describes, “Their role varied from place to place since they were involved in many zones of the war from north to south. Their participation, moreover, ranged from the
71 Sachar, A History of the Jews in America. 72 Faber “America's Earliest Jewish Settlers, 1654-1820,” Raphael, The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America, 37. 73 Rezneck, Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution, 21. 74 Hühner, Leon. “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War.” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, no. 9, 1901, pp. 107–122. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43058849, 107. 75 Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 107.
27 lowest level of foot soldier to relative higher officer rank and from supply service to actual combat.” 76
According to historians, it is difficult to determine the exact number of Jewish participants because of the Hebraic and Biblical sound of names in general; intermarriage and conversion, and that in outlying areas there may have been some Jews involved that were not counted. 77 Rezneck explains, “Moreover, there is no single standard or common denominator of patriotic service in a Revolution. As the records of membership applications for both the Daughters and Sons of the American Revolution a century later indicate, participation ranged widely from actual military service to some other civic and patriotic duty.”78 Military service ranged from “brief enrollment in a local militia” to volunteering to serve in the Continental Army for a longer time. 79 Their age also varied from the young to the old. Among the oldest involved in fighting in the war was Daniel Gomez, who was eighty when he volunteered for service and to raise a company. 80
Jewish contributions to the war were “operational” and not related policy-making with one rare exception, Francis Salvador. The Jewish population in America was small and a hundred men represented a good proportion of the Jewish male population. The Jewish men of Charleston joined Captain William Lushington’s company, which as Sachar recounts “became known as the ‘Jew Company.’” Despite their small numbers, Jews held high ranks within the military. As Sachar notes, “Mordecai Sheftall of Savannah was deputy commissary general of issue for Georgia. Colonel Solomon Bush became adjutant general of the Pennsylvania militia. Lieutenant Colonel David S. Franks—a cousin of the Loyalist David Franks—served as adjutant to General Benedict Arnold. Dr. Philip Moses Russell, George Washington’s surgeon, endured the hardships of Valley Forge.” 81
Patriot Jews also served as “blockade-runners, civilian contractors, and financiers.” 82 Most Jews, who contributed financially, saw their fortunes ruined by aiding the Revolutionary cause. Isaac Moses’ shipments
76 Rezneck, Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution, 22. 77 Ibid., Rezneck, Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution, 22. 78 Ibid., Rezneck, Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution, 22. 79 Ibid., Rezneck, Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution, 22. 80 Ibid., Rezneck, Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution, 23. 81 Sachar, A History of the Jews in America. 82 Ibid., Sachar, A History of the Jews in America.
28 successfully arrived from Amsterdam to the Caribbean island of Saint Eustatius and then to America but Aaron Lopez saw most of the merchant ships seized by the British. Jewish civilian contractors supplied the Continental Army with “clothing, gunpowder, lead, and other needed equipment.” Michael Gratz supplied the army with uniforms and Joseph Simon provided rifles. Six percent of American Jews outfitted American military ships, with Lopez outfitting the most.83
Haym Salomon was the most significant Jewish financier of the Revolutionary cause. Salomon moved from New York to Philadelphia and set about exchanging Continentals bills for French and Dutch currencies. For his services, he only took a meager one percent of the fees. The Continental Congress officially named him, “Broker to the Office of Finance of the United States,” and France named him, “Treasurer of the French Army in America.”84 Salomon also provided interest-free loans to “James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, James Wilson, Edmond Randolph, and Generals von Steuben, St. Clair, and Mifflin of the Continental Army. The diaries of Robert Morris, superintendent of finances, contain several appreciative references to the ‘little Jew broker.’” When Salomon died in 1745 at forty- five years old, he was $638,000 in debt to “public and private creditors,” with the government never returning the money they owed him.85
Despite Jewish contributions to the Revolutionary War, Jews were not involved with the declaring of independence itself. As Diner points out, “No Jews signed the Declaration of Independence. None sat through the deliberations in Philadelphia in 1787 that produced the Constitution, and none helped to persuade the voters in the newly independent states to ratify it.” 86 Diner acknowledged American Jews did play supporting roles. Southern Jew Moses Sheftall “chaired the nonimportation committee in Georgia.” 87 One Jew came close to participating in the decision-making process of independence, Francis Salvador, the only Jew to be elected to the South Carolina Provincial Congress and any legislative body in Colonial America.
83 Arthur Hertzberg, The Jews in America: Four Centuries of an Uneasy Encounter: a History, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 51. 84 Sachar, A History of the Jews in America. 85 Ibid., Sachar, A History of the Jews in America. 86 Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 44. 87 Ibid., Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 45.
29
30 Francis Salvador: Jewish Patriot
The Salvador Family in England
During the American Revolution, Francis Salvador was an exception among American Jews; he was part of the policy-making process in forming the new nation and also fought for its independence. Salvador was not in the colonies long but he loved the colony he lived and the freedoms it allowed him. Salvador served in South Carolina’s two Provincial Congresses in 1775 and 1776 and in the local militia before he was killed in battle not even a month after the thirteen colonies declared independence. Rezneck recounts, “A special case of Jewish military service ran its full course early in the Revolution and it’s unusual in its political respects as well, illustrating the remarkable circumstances in which individual Jews might find themselves.” Francis Salvador “is one of the best-known recorded examples of a Jew who served the Revolution to the ultimate degree of losing his life in it.” 88
Salvador was born in London, England in 1747, with the synagogue name, Daniel Jezurun Rodriquez, the family’s name, although they adopted Salvador which means savior. 89 Francis came from a long line where the family pushed the boundaries and limits the government had imposed on Jews. Sachar notes, “Francis Salvador was the grandson of the first Jewish director of the British East India Company.” 90 The Salvador family escaped the inquisition in Portugal immigrating to Holland before moving on to Britain in the seventeenth century. 91 According to Maurice Woolf in his article “Joseph Salvador 1716-1786,” the first record of the Salvador family in England is in “El Libro de los Acuerdos” from the Creechurch Lane Synagogue recording a “Jahacob Salvador, foreigner” paid a pound synagogue tax. Jacob Salvador was Francis’ great-grandfather and he came from Holland to set up a business in London on Lime Street.
Joseph Salvador was highly respected in the Jewish community and English Society, Leon Huhner notes in his article, “FRANCIS SALVADOR,
88 Rezneck, Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution, 23. 89 Ibid., Rezneck, Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution, 23. 90 Sachar, A History of the Jews in America, 91 “Francis Salvador.” Jewish Virtual Library. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/francis-salvador
31 A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” “Jacob Salvador, ranked among the foremost in England, and its members were numbered among the merchant princes of that country.” 92 His grandfather Francis Salvador served as the President of the Portuguese Congregation of London and he was the Director of the East India Company.
After Jacob died in 1736, his son, Francis (Daniel), Francis’ grandfather took over the business with most of the estate remaining in trust. Salvador’s family was wealthy and part of the British Jewish community’s elite. Francis and his son Joseph were merchants active in trade with Spain and Portugal and illegal trade to Jamaica and “the Spanish Main.” They also worked as the “London Factors” of the Cadiz merchants. In 1749, the Salvador brothers began a business of trading, but Jacob Salvador, Francis’s father died later in the year, at only 21-years-old leaving an estate of £ 40,000. Joseph continued the business with his father until he died in 1754, where he inherited the business and £8,500 in East India stock. Joseph also exported coral and imported diamonds, precious stones, and silver for the East India Company. 93
Joseph Salvador was also a leader of Britain’s Sephardic community; in 1746, he became the Parnas in the Beavis Marks Synagogue and he was elected to the post again in 1751, 1755, and 1765. He was involved in the establishment of the Beth Holim, Jewish hospital. Joseph also served as an ambassador for the community; he was responsible for thanking in a letter the Swedish King and Senate for inviting Portuguese Jews to move to Sweden. Joseph lobbied for the passage of the Jew Bill of 1753, which would have granted greater freedoms to foreign-born Jews. Joseph sent a letter to the Duke of Newcastle on January 14, where “outlines seven reasons why the bill should be enacted.”
Joseph was a well-known advocate for the bill and he was suspected to be the author of a pamphlet entitled, “Considerations on the Bill to permit persons professing the Jewish Religion to be Naturalised by Parliament. In several letters from a merchant in town to his friend in the country.” Joseph was speculated to also be the author of a second pamphlet “Further
92 Leon Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War.” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, no. 9, 1901, pp. 107–122. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43058849, 108. 93 Maurice Woolf, “Joseph Salvador 1716—1786.” Transactions (Jewish Historical Society of England), vol. 21, 1962, pp. 104–137. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/29777993.
32 considerations, etc.” Both pamphlets were signed “Philo Patriae” and were meant to appear as if they were written by a Christian but references to the Sephardic prayer book, and biographical anecdotes mentioning the Salvador family increased speculation Joseph was behind the pamphlets. Woolf notes, the “passages bear unmistakably the personal imprint of special pleading.” 94
The Salvador family was so wealthy Joseph loaned money to the British government. Joseph arranged for seven members of the Jewish community to have a personal audience with King George III when he ascended to the throne. The community “appointed seven delegates to offer the respects of the Portuguese nation to His Majesty.” The Jewish community chose Joseph to be the chairman of the delegates, and he was able to be received by the King’s Chamberlain, the Duke of Devonshire, and get an audience in front of the Committee to the King. Huhner indicates, “The family was beyond doubt the most distinguished in the congregation.” 95
Francis Salvador’s father died when he was still an infant and when his brother Moses had not yet been born; they still lived a privileged life. Francis grew up in the family’s wealth and privilege with tutors educating him and he traveled extensively, especially through France. Chief Justice Drayton remarked, "He was liberally educated by a private tutor and by the best masters, and was taught those accomplishments suitable to his wealth and rank in life." 96 Salvador was more educated than any other Jewish Patriot. Francis and his brother each inherited £60,000 from his father, which he received when he “became of age.” 97
Francis married his Uncle Joseph’s fourth daughter Sarah when he was twenty, obtaining a £13,000 dowry; they went on to have three children, a son John Lovel Salvador, and three daughters. Francis joined his uncle working as a merchant and lived “at Twickenham, near his mother and step- father, Abraham Prado.” 98 In 1755, the Salvadors took a financial hit after the earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal and when the East India Company failed. All the Salvadors had left with was their land holdings in South Carolina.
94 Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 95 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 108. 96 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 109-110; John Drayton, Memoirs of the American Revolution, (Charlestown: Printed by A.E. Miller, 1821), 348. 97 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 109-110; John Drayton, Memoirs of the American Revolution, 348. 98 Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 110.?
33 Francis Salvador’s uncle sent him to the new world to save the family fortunes; instead, he made his mark on American and Jewish history.
34 Francis Salvador and the South Carolina Provincial Congress
Francis Salvador was one of the few Jews made a political contribution in deliberations for American independence. In 1774 and 1776, he was elected to South Carolina’s First and Second Provincial Congress despite Jews in the colony not yet being “incorporated.” Salvador’s contribution was great, Faber notes, “He served on several of the congresses’ committees, helped to draft South Carolina’s first state constitution (which required a Christian oath to vote and serve in office), sat in the new state legislature after independence had been declared, and lost his life in battle against a Tory force.” 99
Joseph mortgaged Francis 5,000 acres of his land in South Carolina and 1773; he went over to America to try out his fortunes. In 1773, Francis was only twenty-six-years-old when he left his wife and children took the trip across the Atlantic to American colonies. His uncle and father-in-law, Joseph loaned him the land in South Carolina which was in “District 96 on the South Carolina frontier.”100 The family was in financial troubles and Francis was supposed to work the land for a financial gain and restore the family’s fortunes.101 According to James Picciotto’s 1875 study, Sketches of Anglo-Jewish History, Salvador went to South Carolina wrote one letter home, and never wrote again to his family. Picciotto recounted, "He never wrote again, a long silence ensued, and then it was reported that the unhappy man had been murdered and scalped by Indians." 102 Salvador did not have enough money to make the trip, his cousin, Mrs. Mendes da Costa gave Salvador “a part of her marriage settlement” to pay for his journey and settlement.103
Francis turned the land into a successful indigo plantation. In 1774, he settled in Coroneka, Cornacre with a friend Richard A. Rapley. Salvador bought slaves to work the land and plantation. Salvador planned to take his wife and children to South Carolina to live but the American Revolution came in the way. Sachar recounts, “Francis Salvador was also the son-in-law
99 Faber “America's Earliest Jewish Settlers, 1654-1820,” Raphael, The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America, 37. 100 Rezneck, Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution, 23. 101 Ibid., Rezneck, Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution, 23; Drayton, Memoirs of the American Revolution, 347–348. 102 Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 110. 103 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 110.
35 of the absentee owner of one hundred thousand acres of prime South Carolina soil. Dispatched to America in 1766 to care for this estate, Salvador transformed the plantation into a model of enlightened agriculture and achieved recognition as one of South Carolina’s pre-eminent citizens.” 104
Francis’s uncle influenced him with his political advocacy for the Jew Bill and his association with various members of Parliament and “familiarity” with cabinet ministers. This political exposure most likely affected his decision to get involved in colonial politics and the drive for independence. His uncle Joseph as other British Jews did not have the luxury of participating directly with politics because Jews were not allowed legally. In some American colonies, Jews had the freedom to run for office and Francis Salvador appreciated this as other Jews but more so because of his uncle. Hirschfeld called Francis Salvador, “an ambitious young fortune seeker.” 105 Soon Francis used his financial success to gain access to the political elite in South Carolina these were Patriots who objected to Britain’s oppressive policies imposed on the colonies.
The Congress, South Carolina’s revolutionary government began when South Carolina’s leading figures as other colonies were upset with Britain issuing the intolerable acts. As Hirschfeld recounts, “Most low country planters became increasingly agitated during the 1760s as Parliament sought to tighten its economic grip on the American colonies. Like most colonial legislatures, the South Carolina Commons was concerned that its legislative power was being usurped by Parliament.” 106 At a July 6, 1774, general meeting they voted to send five delegates to the First Continental Congress and created a committee of 99 to govern the colony since they did not have a Royal Governor, and William Bull, Jr. serving as acting governor.
By 1774, Salvador was already a member of the South Carolina general assembly, the first practicing Jew elected. Joseph Solomon Ottolenghi was the first Jew elected to a general assembly in Georgia in 1761 and remained a representative until 1765; however, he converted to
104 Sachar, A History of the Jews in America. 105 Hirschfeld, George Washington and the Jews, 92. 106 Ibid., Hirschfeld, George Washington and the Jews, 92.
36 Christianity. 107 In November 1774, they set up elections for a provincial Congress, which were held on December 19, 1774. Salvador was elected as one of the 184 representatives of the South Carolina Provincial Congress, which convened on January 11, 1775. Despite being Jewish and not being legally allowed to be elected to public office, no one objected to Salvador’s election. Salvador was elected along with his friend, Rapley, and others to represent the Ninety-Six District in the Provincial Congress.108 Representing the Ninety-Six district were Le Hammond, Patrick Calhoun, John Louis Gervais, Edward Rutledge, and Salvador. 109
The Congress only required the president to swear on the Protestant Christian Bible. Salvador worked on four committees while in the Provincial Congress. Two were policy-making committees drafting the Congress’ declaration of purpose and the new state constitution. The other two committees were responsible for preparing for battle, stockpiling munitions, and ensuring the frontier’s safety. 110 The Congress elected an Executive Council of Safety with Henry Laurens the President of the Council, essentially serving the role of governor while the Congress elected Charles Pinckney, the President of the First Session of the First Provincial Congress. Early on the Congress resolved to prepare militia to fight, "That it be recommended by this Congress, to all inhabitants of this colony, that they be diligently attentive in learning the use of arms; and that their officers be requested to train and exercise them at least once a fortnight." 111
On June 4, 1775, “the First Provincial Congress adopted the American Bill of Rights and the Articles of Confederation.” 112 The Provincial Congress drafted a Bill of Rights for their colony and wrote a letter to South Carolina's royal governor with the colony’s complaints against the King and British Government. In the Bill of Rights, the Congress stated, "That were entitled to life, liberty and property, and that they never ceded to any sovereign power whatever a right dispose of either without their constraint.” 113 The Congress also wrote a resolution supporting Massachusetts. The
107 B. H. Levy, “Joseph Solomon Ottolenghi Kosher Butcher in Italy—Christian Missionary in Georgia.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly, vol. 66, no. 2, 1982, pp. 119–144. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40580888. 108 Rezneck, Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution, 109 Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 113. 110 William Pencak, Jews and Gentiles in Early America: 1654-1800, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005); 123-125. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Salvador 111 https://www.carolana.com/SC/Revolution/sc_revolution_provincial_government.html 112 http://www.carolana.com/SC/Revolution/sc_revolution_provincial_government.html 113 Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 113.
37 King refused to recognize the Congress and the official response to their complaints suggested the rebels arm themselves, “The members who took part in this Congress certainly ran grave chances of arrest for treason and 114 confiscation of property.”
Francis Salvador worked with the Congress on establishing the state’s first constitution. Salvador would also be elected to the state’s first General assembly.115 Rezneck points out “Salvador was thus the first and only Jew to be a member of the state legislature and to play a quasi-policy making role in the revolution.” 116 Salvador befriended the revolutionary elite; he was acquainted and knew many of the Revolutionary leaders in South Carolina. Among them, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, John Rutledge, William Henry Drayton, Henry Laurens, and Samuel Hammond. 117 One of the committees Salvador served on was “responsible for the enforcement of the Continental Association.”118 Huhner believed that Salvador’s appointment to committees shows he was influential. On February 17, 1775, the Congress observed, "a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer before Almighty God devoutly to petition him to inspire the King with true wisdom, to defend the people of North America in their just title to freedom and to avert the impending calamities of civil war."119
Safety on the frontier was an important issue that plagued the Congress. The Loyalists antagonized the Patriots. After April 1775, with the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and the commencement of military hostility between Britain and the Patriots the situation became worse. The South had more Loyalists than the North; the committee Salvador belonged to tried to minimize hostilities between the two groups. On the South Carolina frontier between “the Broad and the Saluda rivers” Loyalists refused to agree to the rules of the Provincial Congress, the Association, or obey the orders of the Continental Congress or the Council of Safety. On September 16, 1775, the Loyalists and Patriots met and agreed that the Tories should not aide the British; if not there would be “severe punishment.” The agreement ended with “Done in Camp, near Ninety Six this 16th day of September 1775." Salvador acted as a witness for the
114 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 114. 115 Rezneck, Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution, 24. 116 Ibid., Rezneck, Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution, 24. 117 Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” ; Cyrus Adler, L. "Salvador, Francis". JewishEncyclopedia.com. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Salvador 118 Rezneck, Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution, 24. 119 Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 114.
38 Patriots; six Tories signed it, along with William Henry Drayton, who represented the Committee of Safety. 120
In 1775, Salvador was voted to join a committee to “enquire into the state of the interior parts of the colony lately in commotion.” Salvador’s duties were to convince the Tories and Loyalists in the North and Western parts of the colony to support the American cause.121 In July 1775, as part of his duties on the committee, Salvador accompanied evangelist William Tennant to North Carolina to “persuade some Tories to join the Revolution.”122 Tenant along with Salvador tried to convince the Tories, "They were fighting not against, but for their country." Tenant’s letter to Congress recounted one of his sermons in Boonesborough where he mentioned Salvador, writing, "In my efforts, I was ably seconded by Mr. Salvador." 123
In November 1775, when the Second Provincial Congress met, Salvador took on more of a leadership position and supported the colonies declaring independence. Salvador tried to convince the Congress to direct the delegation to the Continental Congress for South Carolina to vote for independence. Salvador’s greatest leadership contribution was chairing the Second Congress’ Ways and Means Committee “a select committee authorized to issue bills of credit as payment to members of the militia.” 124 Huhner recounts, “From the records of that historic assembly, we can plainly see the great confidence reposed by his colleagues in his ability, his judgment, and his fidelity.”125
The Congress appointed Salvador along with Pinckney, Middleton, and Ralph Izard to a committee to investigate William "Bloody Bill" Cunningham. In June 1775, Cunningham enlisted in “in South Carolina's 3rd Regiment of Rangers under Captain John Caldwell and Colonel William Thompson.” In June the Committee of safety wanted the troops to take Fort Charlotte located in the Ninety-Six. On July 12, the company took Fort Charlotte, “seizing over 1000 pounds of gunpowder, 18
120 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 114. 121 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Salvador 122 Hertzberg, The Jews in America: Four Centuries of an Uneasy Encounter: a History, 50. 123 Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 124 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 125 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,”
39 cannons, 15 muskets, and 343 cannonballs.” 126 Taking the fort for the Council of Safety helped “mark South Carolina’s entry into the Revolutionary War.” 127
On November 19, South Carolina’s Patriot troops continued in the Ninety-Six when Cunningham’s regiment aided Major Williamson against a Loyalist militia in the district, in a battle that lasted three days. The conflict continued on December 22, with the Battle of Great Cane Break, where the Patriots captured 130 Loyalists. The battle was personal for Cunningham since his cousin Patrick headed the Loyalists, the Patriots did not capture him and he escaped to the Cherokees. 128 After the battle, Cunningham requested a promotion he believed was promised to him when he was recruited.
In June 1776, as the Rangers moved to Charleston, Cunningham did not want to join but eventually went along. Capt. Caldwell denied Cunningham’s request, Cunningham continued trying to resign until Caldwell arrested him. Cunningham was going to be “court-martialed for insubordination and was sentenced to a public whipping.” However, when Cunningham wanted to return home, the Patriots controlled the Ninety-Six and William Ritchie, who was in Cunningham’s company vowed to kill him. In July 1776, Salvador wrote about Cunningham, "On the last accounts from town that Cunningham and his companions were set at liberty, we were near having a mutiny in camp.”129
On February 6, 1776, the Congress again appointed Salvador to the committee on Safety with Salvador Major Pinckney, Colonel Richardson, Col. Gervais, and Col. Thomas. The committee was required "to inquire into the state of the interior parts of the colony - to consider what means are proper to be pursued to preserve the peace and secure the safety, and to prevent future commotions therein, and also to consider the cases of the State prisoners." On February 21, Salvador presented the committee’s report to the Congress. 130
126 https://www.carolana.com/SC/Revolution/revolution_fort_charlotte.html; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Bill_Cunningham 127 https://www.carolana.com/SC/Revolution/revolution_fort_charlotte.html 128 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Bill_Cunningham 129 Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 120. 130 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 116.
40 As the chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, Salvador worked with some of the “prominent patriots” in the Congress. Salvador was also responsible for presenting the committee’s report to Congress. Among the monetary allocations was seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds to the Committee of Safety to protect Patriots and military preparedness. 131 As the committee chair, Salvador influenced the decisions of the Congress. They wanted to pay the president and commander-in-chief ten thousand pounds a year, Salvador opposed the measure and it was defeated in a 27 to 25 vote. Salvador was part of the committee responsible for funding the militia, "With all possible dispatch to stamp and any three of them to sign, and when stamped, signed and numbered, from time to time to deliver to the Colony Treasurers, bills amounting to 120,000 pounds for paying the army." 132
In March 1776, the Second Provincial Congress met for another session and Salvador remained actively part of the Congress. He was often associated with fellow representatives; “Middleton, De Saussure, Elias Horry, Bull, Locock, and Raply.” 133 The Congress appointed Salvador to be part of a committee responsible for choosing magistrates. Huhner recounts, “On March 29, 1776, Col. Charles Pinckney, Col. Daniel Horry and Mr. Salvador were appointed to ‘a committee to inquire and report the names of proper persons to be appointed Magistrates in the different districts of the Colony.’”134 The Congress’ record indicates:
"As this house is of opinion that the said ordinance being a matter of importance requires several great alterations to be made thereto, we do therefore propose that a conference should be held on the same, to sit without delay, and request, you will please to appoint a committee to meet a committee of this house on this business. Our committee are, the Hon. Col. Pinckney, and the Hon. Mr. Bee…. that Col. Pinckney, the Hon. Mr. Drayton, Mr. Salvador and Mr. Matthews be a committee to confer with the committee of the legislative council." 135
131 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 116. 132 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 115. 133 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 118. 134 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 135 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 117.
41 Francis Salvador: Patriot Fighting the Loyalists in the Revolution
Salvador actively fought for independence by joining Major Andrew Williamson’s led militia along with Rapley. During his time in Congress, Salvador was entrusted with “military affairs,” plans and supplies for the militia. The Patriot’s military men trusted him, Major Williamson confided in Salvador about military plans. On June 27, 1776, Major Williamson wrote in a letter from his Whitehall plantation that he sent ammunition, “powder and bullets” to Salvador. Williamson wrote, he "has no letters from Charlestown than those which he showed to Mr. Salvador when there." 136
The British and John Stuart, their superintendent made life increasingly difficult and dangerous for the Patriots on the frontier by aligning with the Cherokee natives and having the natives attack the Patriots. The natives attacked the Patriots in the interior, while Britain attacked them on the South Carolina coast. On July 1, 1776, the natives attacked the residents in the Ninety-Six district, “massacring without distinction of age or sex, all persons who fell into their power." The residents were not prepared with ammunition to fight back. Salvador rode to Major Andrew Williamson’s White Hall plantation to “raise the alarm” to the militia, "that Mr. Salvador forthwith mounted his horse and galloped to Major Williamson residing 28 miles away and gave the alarm." 137
Drayton recounted in his memoirs:
“Aaron Smith's sons arrived at the residence of Mr. Francis Salvador on Cornacre Creek, in Ninety-Six District, with two of his fingers shot away. He informed, that his father's house, at Little River, had been attacked by the Savages; and, that his father, mother, and five children, together with five Negro men, had been butchered by them. Mr. Salvador forthwith mounted his horse, and galloped to Major Andrew Williamson's residence, twenty- eight miles from thence; where, he found another of Captain Smith's sons, (Aaron Smith,) who had fortunately escaped, to alarm that part of the settlement. On the same morning, Mr. Stringer and one child, and three or four of Gillaspy's family, were also cut off.” 138
136 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 116. 137 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 118. 138 Drayton, Memoirs of the American Revolution, 340; I want to apologize for the offensive racial language, which has to be taken in the historical context.
42
Throughout July Major Williamson’s militia policed the district capturing two Loyalists. On July 18, 1776, Salvador wrote a letter to Drayton recounting what was happening in his district:
"The whole country was flying, some to make forts, others as low as Orangeburg. Williamson was employed night and day sending expresses to raise the militia, but the panic was so great that on Wednesday, the major and myself marched to the late Captain Smith's with only forty men. We have been gradually increasing ever since, though all the men in the county were loth to turnout till they had secured some kind of fancied security for their families. However, we had last night 500 men. I will not trouble you with more particulars as Major Williamson will send a circumstantial account to his Excellency (Rutledge). I am afraid the burden of the war will fall on this regiment and that the people over the river will do nothing.” 139
The next day on July 19, 1776, Salvador sent another letter to Drayton, telling him about “another battle” where the “Tories quitted the Indians after the repulse at Lindleys.” At the end of the letter, Salvador informs Williamson about the increase in the militia, writing, "We have day increased to 600 men." 140 Salvador’s letter recounts “of fleet in Charlestown Harbor; disputes in Provincial Congress between the Vice-president and Pinckney. He vises the promotion of individuals in the army criticizes the release of the notorious Cunningham, and many other subjects.” On July 22, Major Williamson, wrote from his camp at Barker's Creek, "Mr. Salvador has been with me since my first the field; he thinks of making a campaign to the nation.” 141
In July 1776, Drayton writes to Salvador about Charles Lee:
"Lee is very clever and very positive; the most positive of the poetical fates was, I scarce believe, more positive. Every idea of his must be right and of course every contrary idea in every other person must be wrong. However, the general has been very unlucky in his ideas sometimes…. From the zeal we have and that only for the welfare of the Common Cause, we are content to be silent to him on that point also.” 142
139 Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 118. 140 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 141 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 119. 142 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 119.
43
On July 24, Salvador was already in the field with Williamson and the militia. Drayton wrote to Salvador:
"And now, a word to the wise; it is expected that you make smooth work as you go, that you cut up every Indian cornfield and burn every Indian town. For my part, I shall never give my voice to a peace with the Cherokee nation upon other terms than their removal beyond the mountains. That victory will conduct your march is the expectation of, dear Sir, your most humble and obedient servant, William Henry Drayton." 143
In the early morning hours on August 1, 1776, Williamson’s contingent and Salvador met up with an ambush by Loyalists and the natives. At around two in the morning, the Tories and Cherokee Indian allies attacked at Esseneka, shooting and scalping Salvador alive. Hertzberg recounts, “Shot three times, [Francis] Salvador fell from his horse, was scalped while still alive, and died of wounds within the hour, Salvador, then 30, was the first Jew to die for the cause of the Patriots.”144 Captain Smith saw what happened but in the dark mistaken the man standing over Salvador was his manservant. In less than an hour, he was dead.
Major Williamson witnessed what happen to Salvador and he recounted what happened in an August 4, letter to John Rutledge, the President of South Carolina:
“I accordingly marched, about six o’clock in the evening, with three hundred and thirty men on horseback, (taking the two prisoners with me to show where the enemy were encamped, and told them, before I set out if I found they deceived me I would order them instantly to be put to death,) intending to surround their camp by daybreak, and to leave our horses about two miles behind, with a party of men to guard them. The river Keowee lying in our route, and only passable at a ford at Seneca, obliged me (though much against my inclination) to take that road. The enemy, either having discovered my march or laid themselves in ambush with a design to cut off any spies or party I had sent out, had taken possession of the first house in Seneca, and posted themselves behind a long fence, on an eminence close to the road where we were to march, and to prevent being
143 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 144 Hertzberg, The Jews in America: Four Centuries of an Uneasy Encounter: a History, 92.
44 discovered, had filled up the openings betwixt the rails with twigs of trees and corn-blades. They suffered the guides and advanced guard to pass, when a gun from the house was discharged, meant, as I suppose, for a signal for those placed behind the fence, who a few seconds after poured in a heavy fire upon my men, which, being unexpected, staggered my advanced party. Here Mr. Salvador received three wounds and fell by my side. My horse was shot down under me, but I received no hurt. Lieutenant Farar, of Captain Prince’s company, immediately supplied me with his horse. I desired him to take care of Mr. Salvador, but before he could find him in the dark the enemy, unfortunately, got his scalp, which was the only one taken. Captain Smith, son of the late Captain Aaron Smith, saw the Indian, but thought it was his servant taking care of his master, or could have prevented it. He died about half after two o'clock in the morning, forty-five minutes after he received the wound, sensible to the last. When I came up to him, after dislodging the enemy and speaking to him, he asked whether I had beat the enemy. I told him yes. He said he was glad of it, and shook me by the hand, and bade me farewell, and said he would die in a few minutes. Two men died in the morning, and six more who were badly wounded I have since sent down to the settlements, and given directions to Doctors Delahowe and Russell to attend them.” 145
Drayton memorialized Salvador in his memoirs, writing:
"His fate excited universal regret. . . . His manners were those of a polished gentleman, and as such he was intimately known and esteemed by the first Revolutionary characters of South Carolina. He also possessed their confidence in a great degree as his literary correspondence with them sufficiently proves. ... At the side of his friend, Major Williamson, he received those wounds which sacrificed his life in the service of his adopted country.” 146
Salvador was the first Jewish casualty of the American Revolution. According to Sachar, Salvador was also, “One of the first Charlestonians killed in action [was the beloved Francis Salvador] ambushed and scalped by Indians in the pay of the British.” 147
145 Rezneck, Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution, 23; http://www.carolinamilitia.com/col-williams-to-gov-rutledge-4-aug-1775/ 146 Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 121. 147 Sachar, Howard M. A History of the Jews in America,
45 Most historians agree that Salvador probably never knew that the Continental Congress declared independence. Salvador ardently supported independence and wanted South Carolina to vote in favor of it. The colony only learned about independence over three weeks later. On July 24, 1776, Drayton wrote to Salvador, as follows: " No news yet from Philadelphia; every ear is turned that way anxiously waiting for the word ' Independence.' I say, ' God speed the passage of it ‘Amen’ say you." 148
Salvador was remembered for his devotion to his religion to the cause of American independence, even early histories of the conflict in South Carolina. Nineteenth-century historian John A. Chapman in History of Edgefield County eulogized Salvador, writing, "He was a native of England of Hebrew parents and a Hebrew in religion. . . . He was a member of the General Assembly and warmly attached to the cause of Independence. . . . He was highly accomplished, honorable, and generous; he lived honored and respected, and his death was much lamented." Chapman pointed out Salvador’s importance to South Carolina’s history, "Mr. Salvador's name appears in every history of the State of South Carolina."149 Huhner points out Salvador’s important place in history, “Thus perished this Jewish patriot. How remarkable was his career. In the brief period of three years he, a stranger, attained a prominent place in the history of his adopted country. As a Jew by birth and a Jew by religion, he sat in a representative assembly and in the Provincial Congress and gained the esteem and friendship of the leading men of his day.” 150
At the turn of the twenty-first century, the history of Jews in the colonial and Revolutionary-era is less important than it was at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1981, historian Jonathan Sarna’s claimed, “There is no dearth of literature on the subject of Jews and the American Revolution. Jewish historians have chronicled the actions of Jewish Patriots, described and analyzed the contribution of Jewish financiers and merchants, and even devoted space to the controversial subject of Jewish Tories.” 151 The era no longer appeals to the majority of historians of the American Jewish experience.
148 Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 121. 149 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 122. 150 Ibid., Hühner, “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War,” 151 Sarna, “THE IMPACT OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION ON AMERICAN JEWS,” 149.
46 At the turn of the twentieth century, Amateur historians studied and wrote about the early era of American Jewish history more often and this is where Francis Salvador and the Salvador family received much more of a starring role in histories. Most historians look at the start of the mass Jewish immigration of East European Jews after the Russian pogroms of 1881 and the period after when nearly four million Jews flooded the American shores than the early period. Jacob Radar Marcus the doyen of modern American history focused most of his research on the early period. His writing on the topic has long been the standard; Jonathan Sarna called his Early American Jewry published in 1951 “path-breaking.” Marcus followed up with the four- volume United States Jewry. Marcus brought together the professional study of history and that of the three-hundred-year-old American Jewish experience.152
In 1975, Samuel Rezneck wrote his book, Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution the most recognizable history of Jews during that era. More recently there has been a resurgence of interest in Jewish history in the early era of American life. Historian Oscar Reiss wrote his volume, The Jews in Colonial America, (2004) which extended his survey of Jews of that era until the end of the Revolutionary period. Early American historian William Pencak delved into the same period in Jews and Gentiles in Early America: 1654-1800 examining the interaction of Jews with Christians in the colonies and the port cities Jews settled, New York, Newport, Charleston, Savannah, and Philadelphia (2005). Pencak took a neutral viewpoint rather than from a Jewish perspective.
While historian Fritz Hirschfeld examined the limited relationship between General and then-President George Washington and the small Jewish community in George Washington and the Jews (2005) Hirschfeld looked at Washington’s brief encounters during the French Indian War, the Revolutionary War, and his 1790 exchange of addresses with the six Jewish congregations. Hirschfeld’s book followed historian Paul F. Boller’s 1962 article, “George Washington and the Jews,” which mostly examined the exchanges of addresses.
The turn of the twenty-first century saw a resurgence in the study of the Revolutionary era with the publications of David McCullough’s biography, John Adams in 2001 and then examination of the year 1776
152 http://americanjewisharchives.org/about/marcus.php
47 published in 2005. Taking over Marcus’ study of the era is Eli Faber, who is now the foremost historian of that era of Jewish history having written A Time for Planting: The First Migration, 1654-1820 in 1992, and then contributing chapters to history anthologies. Most historians relegate the colonial and Revolutionary era to the many American Jewish history survey books.
In these survey books and briefly in the books about Jews in the colonial and Revolutionary era we find Francis Salvador’s story, hidden among the anecdotes of Jewish support for the American Revolution. It was not always the same way, in the first half of the twentieth century, filiopietistic Jewish historians, rabbis, congregations, and juvenile literature venerated the Revolutionary hero. Among the titles, Rabbi Bartlett A. Elzas “Joseph Salvador: Jewish Merchant Prince Who Came to South Carolina: He Raised a Hundred Pounds for the British Government at Two Hours Notice and was Held in High Esteem in England” (1903?) Rabbi Elzas published extensively about South Carolina Jewish history. Historian Leon Huhner’s short biographical article, “Francis Salvador: a prominent patriot of the Revolutionary War” (1901) Hunhner was the curator at the American Jewish Historical Society and wrote about Jews in the colonial era up to the new nation and the War of 1812 period, examining the lives of significant Jews and state and regional histories.
Some short histories again started to appear in time for the bicentennial of American independence and Salvador’s death. Rabbi Allan Tarshish’s Francis Salvador: a Revolutionary Hero (1970s) and Thomas J. Tobias, and Robert N. S. Whitelaw’s Historical Diorama: Francis Salvador (1747-1776), American Jewish Revolutionary Patriot (1970). The Salvador family history finally received the scholarly treatment in Maurice Woolf’s article “Joseph Salvador, 1716-1786,” (1968).
Francis Salvador’s story of the underdog, who became accepted and then a revolutionary hero made his life perfect for juvenile audiences. Among them Tama Levitan’s Fransis Salvador was written in Yiddish in 1949; Helen K. Hennig’s Francis Salvador in 1935, and Lionel Koppman’s Francis Salvador, Patriot, a juvenile book first published in 1953 and then reissued for the bicentennial in 1975. Just recently, Salvador was again featured in a children’s book on the American Revolution, Doreen Rappaport’s Victory Or Death! Stories of the American Revolution in 2003 when interest in that historical era remerged. Victory Or Death! recounted in
48 story form the Revolutionary exploits of eight heroes known and unknown from the era, Salvador had the honor to be one of the chosen.
Salvador’s contribution was that great to the Patriot cause in South Carolina and American Jewish history that on the bicentennial in 1776, the Jewish community of Charleston, with the approval of the historical commission of Charleston erected a plaque in Charleston City Hall Park dedicated to him. Rezneck notes, Francis Salvador “became the only Jewish soldier of the Revolution to be individually commemorated in the United States.” 153
The memorial reads:
Commemorating Francis Salvador 1747-1776 First Jew in South Carolina to hold public office and To die for American Independence He came to Charles Town from his He came to Charles Town from his native London in 1773 to develop extensive family landholdings in the frontier district of ninety six. As a deputy to the provincial congresses of South Carolina, 1775 and 1776, he served with distinction in the creation of this state and nation, participating as a volunteer in an expedition against Indians and Tories, he was killed from ambush near the Keowee river, August 1, 1776. Born an aristocrat, he became a democrat, an Englishman, he cast his lot with America. True to his ancient faith, he gave his life for new hopes of human liberty and understanding.
Francis Salvador, 1747-1776. This young English Jew settled near Coronaca in 1774, representing Ninety Six District in the provincial congresses of 1775-1776, and died in defense of his adopted home on Aug. 1, 1776. He was the first South Carolinian of his faith to hold an elective public office and the first to die for American independence.
153 Rezneck, Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution, 24.
49 Interest in Francis Salvador’s story is again gaining popularity with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical Hamilton in 2015. Miranda based his play on historian Ron Chernow’s bestselling biography, Alexander Hamilton (2004). Recently some blog posts have appeared about Salvador. In December 2016, a monetary note with Francis Salvador’s untouched signature sold for USD 4,000 at auction. The note was from “the South Carolina Provincial Congress. November 15, 1775. Five Shillings. Signed, ‘F. Salvador.’” Salvador represented the fulfillment of the promise of political equality for American Jewry but his life has yet to be given the historical examination is deserves despite the cyclical acknowledgments.
50
Conclusion: President George Washington and the promise of Religious Freedom
Despite the American promise of civil rights and liberties, American Jews did not receive them by most of the original states of the new United States of America. All of the states except for New York did not grant Jews equality for political participation in their state constitutions. New York again became the first to grant Jews full equality. In 1777, New York removed all obstacles and religious prerequisites for office holding. In the early years of the new nation, state governments started to remove Christianity and Protestantism as a prerequisite from their constitutions. Jewish loyalty during the Revolutionary War played a major part in their political inclusion. Jonathan Sarna indicates in his article, “The Impact of The American Revolution on American Jews,” “Jews realized that they could only win equality in popular eyes by demonstrating that being Jewish in no way conflicted with being American. They had to prove that non- Christians could still be loyal and devoted citizens. As we have seen, they had taken major steps in this direction simply by fighting in America's great war. This justified their being granted legal equality in the first place.” 154
The Constitutional framers' belief in the Enlightenment's philosophy on religious freedoms led to “the development of complete church-state separation in America-the post-Revolutionary development that was of greatest significance to Jews.” 155 Faber explains, “The American Revolution, therefore, was a decisive turning point when examined in the context of Jewish exclusion from the political realm. It proved to be a milestone in the shift from the status of an outsider to that of a participant in the civic order. Moreover, it provided ammunition for the struggle that yet lay ahead for equality of citizenship.”156
Although the colonies fought for their civil rights and liberties against Britain, most of the colonies did not extend that invite for political equality
154 Sarna, Jonathan D. “THE IMPACT OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION ON AMERICAN JEWS,” Modern Judaism - A Journal of Jewish Ideas and Experience, Volume 1, Issue 2, September 1981, Pages 149–160, https://doi.org/10.1093/mj/1.2.149, 153. 155 Ibid., Sarna, “THE IMPACT OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION ON AMERICAN JEWS,” 154. 156 Faber, “America's Earliest Jewish Settlers, 1654-1820,” Raphael, The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America, 37-38.
51 to their Jewish population in the constitutions. As Faber explains, “For despite the heady talk before and during the revolution about natural rights and the equality of all men, as well as the definition of the struggle with England as one to secure civil rights and liberties, twelve of the thirteen state constitutions adopted during the course of the conflict prescribed religious tests for voting and serving in office that continued to bar Jews.” 157 In 1777, New York became the only state to allow Jews to vote and hold office. The remaining nine states that created new constitutions made Christianity a requirement for “political participation.” Connecticut and Rhode Island did not create constitutions early on, instead, using their colonial charters that did not grant Jews political rights.
In 1783, Pennsylvania’s Jews protested the state adding to their constitution a requirement that those holding offices have to swear on both the Old and New Testament Bibles. They argued that participation in the Revolutionary War should have guaranteed them political rights.
…By the tenth section of the frame of government of this commonwealth, it is ordered that each member of the general assembly of representatives of the freemen of Pennsylvania, before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe a declaration, which ends in these words, “I do acknowledge the scriptures of the old and new testament to be given by divine inspiration,” to which is added an assurance, that “no further or other religious test shall ever hereafter be required of any civil officer or magistrate in this state.”
Your memorialists beg leave to observe, that this clause seems to limit the civil rights of your citizens to one very special article of the creed; whereas by the second paragraph of the declaration of the rights of the inhabitants, it is asserted without any other limitation than the professing the existence of God, in plain words, “that no man who acknowledges the being of a God can be justly deprived or abridged of any civil rights as a citizen on account of his religious sentiments.” But certainly, this religious test deprives the Jews of the most eminent rights of freemen, solemnly ascertained to all men who are not professed atheists.
May it please your honors: Although the Jews in Pennsylvania are but few in number, yet liberty of the people in one country, and the declaration of the
157 Faber, “America's Earliest Jewish Settlers, 1654-1820,” Raphael, The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America, 38.
52 government thereof, that these liberties are the rights of the people, may prove a powerful attractive to men, who live under restraints in another country. Holland and England have made valuable acquisitions of men, who for their religious sentiments, were distressed in their own countries. 158
Pennsylvania did not respond to the Jewish petition for “equal citizenship.”
In 1785, Virginia, the home of the Declaration of Independence author Thomas Jefferson granted all citizens equality. Jefferson wrote the "Act for Religious Freedom (1785)," which separated civil rights and religion, "all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or 159 affect their civil capacities." The Virginia Legislature “proclaimed religious freedom, disestablished the Episcopalian Church, and abolished all religious tests for participation in public life.” At that point, Virginia joined New York to provide Jews equal rights. Few Jews lived in Virginia at that time, “the acquisition of political equality hardly occurred because of Jewish initiative; the ideology and principles that emanated from the Revolution, after all did count too.” 160
As the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia Jewish leaders tried to convince the Founding Fathers and Constitutional framers to grant American Jews equality in the new nation’s constitution. They argued about natural rights but also brought up the Jewish sacrifices and loyalties during the American Revolution. On September 7, 1787, Jonas Philips wrote to President of the Convention George Washington. Phillips fought in the Revolutionary War; he was an American success story. In 1756, he came from Germany to Charleston as an indentured servant and rose up to become a successful New York merchant and one of the founders of Philadelphia’s Congregation Mikve Israel. Philips married Rebecca Marchado and they had 21 children, two of their offsprng became prominent in American history. Their “daughter Rachel married Michael Levy of Virginia” their son Uriah Phillips Levy served as a “commodore in the navy,” while their other son
158 https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/petition-of-the-philadelphia-synagogue-to-the- council-of-censors-of-pennsylvania/ 159 Sarna, “THE IMPACT OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION ON AMERICAN JEWS,” 153. 160 Faber, “America's Earliest Jewish Settlers, 1654-1820,” Raphael, The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America, 38.
53 “Jonas Philips Levy, commanded the U.S.S. America in the Mexican War and became captain of the port of Vera Cruz.” 161
When he wrote the letter, Jonas was unaware the Constitutional Convention already adopted religious freedom, James Madison wrote, “No religious test or qualification shall ever be annexed to any oath of office under the authority of the United States.”
Jonas rationalized equality for Jews to Washington in the letter:
“It is well Known among all the Citizens of the 13 united states that the Jews have been true and faithfull whigs; and during the late contest with England they have been foremost in aiding and assisting the states with their lifes and fortunes, they have supported the cause, have bravely fought and bleed for Liberty which they can not Enjoy.
Therefore if the honourable Convention shall in their Wisdom think fit and alter the said oath and leave out the words to viz.—and I do acknowledge the scriptures of the new testement to be given by devine inspiration, then the Israelites will think themself happy to live under a government where all Religious societys are on an Eaquel footing. I solecet this favour for my Self my Children and posterity and for the benefit of all the Israelites through the 13 United States of America.” 162
Although he wanted equality for American Jews, Phillips started his letter with both the Jewish and English calendar dates. Diner thinks the framers did not consider Phillips's letter. Dinner explains, “No doubt the framers paid little attention to Phillips’s letter, which he boldly dated ‘24th Ellul 5547 or Spr 7th 1787.’ They spent little time on matters of religion. Yet what they produced indeed conformed to his vision and proved to be transformative.” The framers decided to separate religion and state and make the country a secular nation that allowed all citizens to serve equally at the federal level. Diner explains the Constitution, “had nothing to say about the Jews, or about religion at all. By avoiding discussion of the role religion
161 Oscar Reiss, The Jews in Colonial America. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co, 2004, 156. 162 “To George Washington from Jonas Phillips, 7 September 1787,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-05-02-0291. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Confederation Series, vol. 5, 1 February 1787 – 31 December 1787, ed. W. W. Abbot. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997, pp. 317–319.] https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-05-02-0291
54 played in the governance of the new nation, the authors made it a voluntary matter. The document never mentioned, either directly or indirectly, any divine being who served as the ultimate source of political authority. It made no invocations to God. Rather, it spoke in the name of ‘We, the people.’” 163 American Jews “Like the Catholics, they also heartily endorsed the work of the Constitutional Convention and rejoiced especially that religious tests for office-holding (which still existed in most of the thirteen states) were prohibited in the Federal Constitution.”164
After his inauguration, Washington received congratulatory messages from communities and religious groups across the new nation. Both the Protestant denominations, Catholic and Jewish communities wrote to Washington to “remind him that they too should be considered part of the polity and asked him to keep in mind the religious diversity of the nation he would soon guide.” 165 Washington used his responses to assure these communities that he “deplored religious intolerance and bigotry and to proclaim his own devotion and that of his administration to the principles of religious freedom and the rights of conscience.” 166
Washington tried to convince all the religious groups about the benefits of the separation of religion and state. To the Protestant Christian denominations, he asked them to respect other religious groups including Catholics and Jews “with justice and liberty.” To the religious minorities, he promised them that religious freedom and equality would be honored and respected. Washington received twenty-two addresses of congratulations; three of them came from the six Jewish congregations. Washington’s responses were the first time he addressed the Jewish population and the country’s promise of freedom and equality towards them. Washington’s letters especially the one to Newport has been considered “of great historic interest as well as importance.” 167 Historian Morris Schappes notes, “For a century and a half these declarations have been used to confound the enemy in the ceaseless struggle against those who would subvert American ideals through the propagation of anti-Semitism and other doctrines of bigotry.” 168
163 Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 55-56. 164 PAUL F. BOLLER, “George Washington and the Jews.” Southwest Review, vol. 47, no. 2, 1962, pp. 120–127. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43467381, 121. 165 Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 57. 166 BOLLER, “George Washington and the Jews,” 123. 167 Ibid., BOLLER, “George Washington and the Jews,” 123. 168 Ibid., BOLLER, “George Washington and the Jews,” 123.
55 Before his presidency, Washington had little contact with Jews, most of them during the war in his capacity of Commanding General of the Continental Army. Washington's first major contact with colonial Jews was with David Franks during the French-Indian War. Franks obtained supplies for Washington’s army in Virginia. During the Revolutionary War, Washington helped Major David Salisbury Frank clear his name after being in traitor General Benedict Arnold’s staff. During the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia Washington “dined” with Mark Prager. Fritz Hirschfeld’s book George Washington and the Jews is the only book to try and examine Washington’s relationship with Jews before his letter promising religious freedom to the Jews of Newport. Hirschfeld argues, “Participation of the Jews in the War of Independence… shows how their individual courage and enterprise supported Washington's own goals and objectives. Although the linkage is not always direct, there is sufficient weight of circumstantial evidence to prove that a real relationship did exist between George Washington and the Jews.” 169
In 1790, President George Washington toured the new nation, as he toured communities handed Washington letters, to which he responded. On August 17, 1790, Washington made his stop in Newport, Rhode Island. Congregation Jeshuat Israel’s leadership came out to greet the president as he rode by and they handed him a letter, Diner notes, “The letter sent to Washington by the Jews of Newport has been the most quoted and most enduring document in American Jewish history.” 170 While Faber called it “the most important exchange of letters in American Jewish history between a president and the Jewish population.” 171
Newport had a boom in the mid-eighteenth century, trade and the economy grew attracting more people to the colony and city. As Smith and Sarna explain, “Growing economic ties with the West Indies, privateering, and the importation of slaves and contraband (especially sugar and molasses) brought new wealth to the community and resulted in a dramatic population increase-more than 40 percent in eighteen years.” Much of the Jewish population were Sephardim and converses that had escaped the inquisitions in Spain and Portugal and came to openly practice Judaism in America. Aaron Lopez, a conversos, whose family escaped the inquisition in
169 Fritz Hirschfeld, George Washington and the Jews, (Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press, 2005), 170 Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 7. 171 Faber, “America's Earliest Jewish Settlers, 1654-1820,” Raphael, The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America, 39.
56 Portugal, settled in the 1750s in Newport, he could openly practice Judaism, formally converting, and became the city’s most influential Jewish merchant.
In 1761, when merchants Aaron Lopez and Isaac Elizer petitioned for Rhode Island general court to grant them naturalization under the British Naturalization Act of 1740, the colonial legislature refused their request. The act required seven years of consecutive residence in a British colony to be eligible, both had satisfied the requirements; they were being refused citizenship based on their religion, as Jews. Smith and Sarna recount, the courts “claimed that the law applied only to underpopulated regions and that local law limited citizenship to believing Christians dubious claims in both cases.” 172
Aaron Lopez went into Massachusetts, petitioned that colony, and the Superior Court of Judicature granted Lopez his request. Elizer petitioned n New York were they granted him citizenship. Diner explains, “But nowhere did the right of residence and of religious tolerance equate with full privileges of political participation for Jewish men…. With regard to the earning of rights and privileges, inconsistency rather than universal entitlement prevailed among the various colonies.” 173 Smith and Sarna point out, “In so doing, both men revealed their determination to fight, as Jews, for their rights.” 174
The 1770s Newport had a Jewish population peak. At the time of the Revolution, historian Oscar Reiss claims there were 200 families and 1,100 Jews in Newport, while Faber thinks the number was closer to 22 families. 175 Smith and Sarna note, The Jewish population of Newport “numbered about two hundred men, women, and children, comprising roughly 2 percent of Newport's total population and about 10 percent of its substantial merchants.”
As the war commenced, the Provincial Congress’ Committee of Safety required all citizens take an oath to weed out any Loyalists. Moses
172 George M Goodwin and Ellen Smith, The Jews of Rhode Island, (Waltham, Mass: Brandeis Univ. Press, 2004), 3. 173 Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 23. 174 Goodwin and Smith, The Jews of Rhode Island, 3. 175 Eli Faber, “America's Earliest Jewish Settlers, 1654-1820,” Marc L. Raphael, The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008, 26.
57 Michael Hays refused to because “he was never a danger to his country, and he subject to many irregularities; and neither the Continental Congress nor any of the legislatures of any colony took any notice of the Jews in the war.” 176 Rhode Island did not grant Jews political rights even the Patriots fighting for independence did not feel it was important. The Patriots were suspicious of Hays’s loyalty because his sister Reyna was married to Rev. Isaac Touro, a known British Loyalist.
In 1776, the British invaded and occupied Newport and most of the Patriots left further south, including most of the Jewish population and the city’s merchants. The Jewish community left for other Jewish centers, including “New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, and Savannah. During the war shipping stopped, the community allowed alternative for the synagogue including a British hospital and as a town hall. The Hazzan and leader of the congregation Rev. Isaac Touro was a Loyalist and stayed with the congregation once the British took over Newport. Touro kept services going in the synagogue despite the entire city’s Jewish Whigs left for the South where the Patriots controlled cities. Touro also allowed the British to use the building as a hospital.
In 1780, the French Expeditionary Forces under General Rochambeau (Marshal Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau) gained control of Newport. From 1781 to 1784 the synagogue was used as a town hall, for the Rhode Island General Assembly, and the Supreme Court of Rhode Island also held their session in the building. 177 The city revived after the war, but the Newport Jewish community did not revive in the same way. After the war, the leading families of Newport remained; the Seixas, Levy, Lopez, and Rivera families. These families also held the title to the synagogue building.
Moses Seixas, the warden of Congregation Kahal Kadosh Jeshuat Israel, the Hebrew Congregation of Newport wrote the letter and presented it to Washington. Diner indicates, “While they made no specific requests of him or of the nation whose helm he stood ready to take, their letter implied a hope that the new government would protect them as it did all its citizens. Their letter expressed uncertainty about their future status in the nation they had helped to create.” 178
176 Oscar Reiss, The Jews in Colonial America, (Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co, 2004), 53. 177 Hirschfeld, George Washington and the Jews, 146. 178 Diner, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, 7.
58
“Permit the children of the stock of Abraham to approach you with the most cordial affection and esteem for your person and merits -- and to join with our fellow citizens in welcoming you to Newport.
With pleasure we reflect on those days -- those days of difficulty, and danger, when the God of Israel, who delivered David from the peril of the sword -- shielded Your head in the day of battle: and we rejoice to think, that the same Spirit, who rested in the Bosom of the greatly beloved Daniel enabling him to preside over the Provinces of the Babylonish Empire, rests and ever will rest, upon you, enabling you to discharge the arduous duties of Chief Magistrate in these States.
Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free Citizens, we now with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty disposer of all events behold a Government, erected by the Majesty of the People -- a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance -- but generously affording to all Liberty of conscience, and immunities of Citizenship: deeming every one, of whatever Nation, tongue, or language equal parts of the great governmental Machine:
This so ample and extensive Federal Union whose basis is Philanthropy, Mutual confidence and Public Virtue, we cannot but acknowledge to be the work of the Great God, who ruleth in the Armies of Heaven, and among the Inhabitants of the Earth, doing whatever seemeth him good.
For all these Blessings of civil and religious liberty which we enjoy under an equal benign administration, we desire to send up our thanks to the Ancient of Days, the great preserver of Men beseeching him, that the Angel who conducted our forefathers through the wilderness into the promised Land, may graciously conduct you through all the difficulties and dangers of this mortal life: And, when, like Joshua full of days and full of honour, you are gathered to your Fathers, may you be admitted into the Heavenly Paradise to partake of the water of life, and the tree of immortality.” 179
When Washington replied to the leaders of the “New Port” congregation, he echoed their words and made a promise to the Jews. This new “good government” will offer, he wrote, “to bigotry no sanction, to
179 https://www.tourosynagogue.org/history-learning/tsf-intro-menu/slom-scholarship/85-seixas-letter
59 persecution no assistance.” The “children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land” will do well so long as they “demean themselves as good citizens.”
While I receive, with much satisfaction, your Address replete with expressions of affection and esteem; I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you, that I shall always retain a grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced in my visit to Newport, from all classes of Citizens. The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet, from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and a happy people.
The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my Administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.180
180 “From George Washington to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, 18 August 1790,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-06- 02-0135. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 6, 1 July 1790 – 30 November 1790, ed. Mark A. Mastromarino. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996, pp. 284– 286.] https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-06-02-0135
60
Rhode Island would take until 1842 to replace its colonial charter with a state constitution.
The congregations from the six communities Newport, New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, Charleston, and Savannah were supposed to jointly address President Washington. In 1789, the leader of Mikveh Israel Congregation in Philadelphia, Manuel Josephson suggested the community sent a united congratulatory message to the new president. Josephson was a German immigrant and he served as a sutler for Britain during the French and Indian War. In 1762 until the outbreak of the American Revolution, Josephson served as the President of Shearith Israel. Afterward, Josephson fled to Philadelphia with the majority of Jewish Patriots. Josephson rose to be a communal leader in Philadelphia and in 1785 he became the president of Mikveh Israel.
The congregations could not agree on the address to the president and Newport was reluctant to join the larger Jewish congregations in the letter. Newport was reluctant to address the president before other groups in the state, “As we are so small in number, it would be treating the Legislature and other bodies in this state, with a great degree in indelicacy, for us to address the President… previous to any of them.” 181
The congregations all ended up sending similar letters to the president. The Jewish community in Savannah was the first, followed by Newport. Hirshfeld recounts, “Instead, of a single, strong, unifying message to the president at the beginning of his term in office, the six American congregations each went its own way.” 182 The Savannah Jewish community decided not to wait and on May 6, 1790, they sent their letter to President Washington. Levi Sheftall, the president of the Hebrew Congregation Mikve Israel wrote the letter to Washington.
“Sir, We have long been anxious of congratulating you on your appointment by unanimous approbation to the Presidential dignity of this country, and of testifying our unbounded confidence in your integrity and unblemished virtue: Yet, however exalted the station you now fill, it is still not equal to the
181 BOLLER, “George Washington and the Jews,” 123. 182 Hirschfeld, George Washington and the Jews, 139.
61 merit of your exalted service through an arduous and dangerous conflict, which has embosomed you in the hearts of her citizens. Our eccentric situation added to a diffidence founded on the most profound respect has thus long prevented our address, yet the delay has realised anticipation, given us an opportunity of presenting our grateful acknowledgement for the benedictions of Heaven through the energy of Federal influence and the equity of your administration.
Your unexampled liberality and extensive philanthropy have dispelled that cloud of bigotry and superstition which has long, as a veil, shaded religion—unrivetted the fetters of enthusiasm—enfranchised us with all the privileges and immunities of free citizens, and initiated us into the grand mass of legislative mechanism. By example you have taught us to endure the ravages of war with manly fortitude, and to enjoy the blessings of peace with reverence to the Deity, and benignity, and love to our fellow-creatures. My the great Author of worlds grant you all happiness—an uninterrupted series of health—addition of years to the number of your days and a continuation of guardianship to that freedom, under the auspices of Heaven, your magnanimity and wisdom have given these States.” 183
President Washington responded in a letter considered by historians as “gracious and flowing diction.” 184
I thank you, with great sincerity, for your congratulations on my appointment to the office which I have the honor to hold by the unanimous choice of my fellow-citizens; and especially for the expressions, which you are pleased to use in testifying the confidence that is reposed in me by your congregation.
As the delay, which has naturally intervened between my election and your address, has afforded an opportunity for appreciating the merits of the federal government, and for communicating your sentiments of its administration, I have rather to express my satisfaction, than regret, at a circumstance, which demonstrates (upon experiment) your attachment to the former, as well as approbation of the latter.
183 https://circle.org/jsource/george-washingtons-letters-to-the-synagogues/ 184 BOLLER, “George Washington and the Jews,” 123.
62 I rejoice, that a spirit of liberality and philanthropy is much more prevalent than it formerly was among the enlightened nations of the earth, and that your brethren will benefit thereby in proportion as it shall become still more extensive. Happily, the people of the United States of America have, in many instances, exhibited examples worthy of imitation, the salutary influence of which will doubtless extend much farther, if, gratefully enjoying those blessings of peace, which, under the favor of Heaven, have been obtained by fortitude in war, they shall conduct themselves with reverence to the Deity, and charity towards their fellow-creatures.
May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, and planted them in the promised land, whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of Heaven, and to make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.
Shearith Israel did not give up in the quest to address the president as a group. On June 20, 1790, the New York Congregation, including president Solomon Simson and the trustees represented by Isaac Moses sent a letter to the remaining four congregations asking them to collaborate on a letter.
“We are desirous of addressing the President of the United States in one general address, comprehending all the Congregations professing our Holy religion in America, as we are led to understand that mode will be less irksome to the president then troubling him to reply to every individual address.” give “us permission to Include you in the Address… transmit us a draft in what manner you would be desirous of having the address worded, that thereby we may collect the different Ideas of the Congregations, in whose behalf we may address.” 185
Shearith Israel remained upset with the Savannah congregation, writing, “We do not by any means, conceive ourselves well treated by the
185 “From George Washington to the Hebrew Congregations of Philadelphia, New York, Charleston, and Richmond, 13 December 1790,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-07-02-0036. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 7, 1 December 1790 – 21 March 1791, ed. Jack D. Warren, Jr. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998, pp. 61–64.] https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-07-02-0036
63 Georgians, who have officiously come forward without any previous notice . . . as nothing of that nature could have been required of them, unless done on a general plan.” 186 This time the Newport congregation agreed to participate but remained skeptical at upstaging the Christians in the state. On July 2, 1790, Moses Seixas replied for Newport stating, “Notwithstanding our reluctance of becoming the primary addressers from this state.” 187 Newport, however, did not want to write their own letter for consideration deferring to Shearith Israel to make the decisions. The Newport Congregation wrote, “Your sentiments will be properly express’d & unequivocally, relative to the Enfranchisement which is secured to us Jews by the Federal Constitution.” 188
Beth Elohim in Charleston agreed to a joint address but submitted a draft for Shearith Israel to consider. The congregation praised Washington and compared the president to “Moses, Joshua, Othniel, Gideon, Samuel, David, Maccabeus and holy men of the old, who were raised up by God, for the deliverance of our nation, His people from their oppression.” 189 Despite, having the approval of two other congregations, Shearith Israel did not write the address within the month.
In August 1790, President Washington planned to tour Rhode Island and although Jeshuat Israel was reluctant to appear presumptuous they decided to write a letter to present to the president on his trip. The Newport Congregation would no longer be the ones in the state to address Washington, the Presidents of the State Legislature and the King David Lodge of Masons were delivering addresses to President Washington. Of all the addresses the reluctant Newport Congregation would have the one best remembered in history for its content and message and Washington’s response to it.
Moses Seixas personally read the letter to the president and the President also responded to the congregation. Washington’s words became
186 BOLLER, “George Washington and the Jews,” 124; “From George Washington to the Hebrew Congregations of Philadelphia, New York, Charleston, and Richmond, 13 December 1790,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-07-02-0036. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 7, 1 December 1790 – 21 March 1791, ed. Jack D. Warren, Jr. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998, pp. 61–64.] https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-07-02-0036 187 BOLLER, “George Washington and the Jews,” 124. 188 Ibid., BOLLER, “George Washington and the Jews,” 124. 189 Ibid., BOLLER, “George Washington and the Jews,” 124.
64 the personal promise and contract between the new American nation and its small Jewish population that they are guaranteed religious freedom and equality as all any other “good citizen” of the country. “For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens.” No longer were Jews living with toleration, they were equal citizens guaranteed religious freedom.
The Newport Jewish community was very small when Washington came to Rhode Island in 1790. Faber recounts, “Newport as a whole declined as a result of the conflict and ultimately sank into obscurity as a commercial center. By 1800, therefore, Newport disappeared as a center of Jewish settlement in early America.” 190 The synagogue stopped services in 1792 and closed because there were not enough Jews in Newport left to conduct services. Reiss indicates, “The Jewish population decreased as the economy decreased. By 1789, there were ten Jewish families with 75 members. By 1820, there were only two Jewish families, and the last Jew left for New York in 1822.” 191 Lopez had donated the synagogue’s Torah, and after the congregation closed down the building the scrolls were sent to Congregation Shearith Israel in New York and kept in their Ark. The synagogue reopened 50 years later when the Jewish community grew through immigration.
Shearith Israel, New York’s Jewish congregation missed out on taking the lead to address the president and would only write a congratulatory letter in December. They found their opportunity when the government decided to move the capital from New York to Philadelphia and when Washington arrived they sent him a joint-congratulatory address. Hirschfeld recounts, “The four remaining congregations—Charleston, Richmond, Philadelphia, and New York—after lengthy bickering, finally got their act together and presented their joint address to the president, including an apology for the delay.” 192 The four congregations finally sent the letter to President Washington on December 13, 1790, four months after Newport sent their letter. Matthew Josephson, the President of Mikveh Israel presented the address to the president, reading it personally to Washington.
190 Faber, “America's Earliest Jewish Settlers, 1654-1820,” 28. 191 Reiss, The Jews in Colonial America, 54. 192 Hirschfeld, George Washington and the Jews, 139.
65 “It is reserved for you to unite in affection for your Character And Person, every political and religious denomination of Men; and in this will the Hebrew Congregations aforesaid, yield to no class of their fellow Citizens. “We have been hitherto prevented by various circumstances peculiar to our situation from adding our congratulations to those which the rest of America have offerd on your elevation to the Chair of the Fœderal governmt. Deign then illustrious Sir, to Accept this our homage.
“The wonders which the Lord of Hosts hath worked in the days of our Forefathers, have taught us to observe the greatness of his wisdom and his might, throughout the events of the late glorious revolution; and while we humble ourselves at his footstool in thanksgiving and praise for the blessing of his deliverance; we acknowledge you the Leader of the American Armies as his chosen and beloved servant; But not to your Sword alone is our present happiness to be ascribed; That indeed opend the way to the reign of Freedom, but never was it perfectly secure, till your hand gave birth to the Foederal Constitution, and you renounced the joys of retirement to Seal by your administration in Peace, what you had achieved in war.
“To ‘the eternal God who is thy refuge’, we Commit in our prayer the care of thy precious Life, and when full of years Thou shall be gatherd unto the People ‘thy righteousness shall go before thee’, and we shall remember amidst our regret, that the Lord hath set apart the Godly for himself; whilst thy name and thy Virtues will remain an indelible memorial on our minds” 193
According to Hirschfeld, “compared to the Savannah and Newport addresses, this one was tepid—nor did it have any real or meaningful Jewish theme.” 194
Washington responded:
The liberality of sentiment toward each other which marks every political and religious denomination of men in this Country, stands unparalleled in
193 “From George Washington to the Hebrew Congregations of Philadelphia, New York, Charleston, and Richmond, 13 December 1790,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-07-02-0036. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 7, 1 December 1790 – 21 March 1791, ed. Jack D. Warren, Jr. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998, pp. 61–64.] https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-07-02-0036 194 Hirschfeld, George Washington and the Jews, 139.
66 the history of Nations. The affection of such people is a treasure beyond the reach of calculation; and the repeated proofs which my fellow Citizens have given of their attachment to me, and approbation of my doings form the purest source of my temporal felicity. The affectionate expressions of your address again excite my gratitude, and receive my warmest acknowledgments.
The Power and Goodness of the Almighty were strongly Manifested in the events of our late glorious revolution; and his kind interposition in our behalf has been no less visible in the establishment of our present equal government. In war he directed the Sword; and in peace he has ruled in our Councils. My agency in both has been guided by the best intentions, and a sense of the duty which I owe my Country: and as my exertions have hitherto been amply rewarded by the Approbation of my fellow Citizens, I shall endeavour to deserve a continuance of it by my future conduct.
May the same temporal and eternal blessings which you implore for me, rest upon your Congregations. 195
Still, despite being less memorable in both American and American Jewish history Washington’s response to the four congregations remained committed to religious freedom for American Jews. Washington’s opening line confirmed his resolve about freedom and equality; “The liberality of sentiment toward each other which marks every political and religious denomination of men in this Country, stands unparalleled in the history of Nations.”
Washington’s promise to American Jewry convinced most of the states to lift the political restrictions on Jews and religious minorities. Some states, however, held out deep into the nineteenth century, however, most states gave in by 1830 and granted Jews political rights and equality. Still, for the majority of American Jews, there was a promise of equality. At the time of the Newport and Washington correspondence, eleven states did not grant all Jews political rights. Soon afterward, “The last laws that allowed
195 “From George Washington to the Hebrew Congregations of Philadelphia, New York, Charleston, and Richmond, 13 December 1790,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-07-02-0036. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 7, 1 December 1790 – 21 March 1791, ed. Jack D. Warren, Jr. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998, pp. 61–64.] https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-07-02-0036
67 Jews and others to be kept out of political life because of their religion were eliminated.” 196 Later in 1790, South Carolina and Pennsylvania granted Jews political equality. In 1792, Delaware extended these rights, and then Georgia in 1798.
As the century turned, seven states still tied political participation to Christianity. The Jewish communities of these states continued to lobby for their equality. After the Revolution, the Jewish community in Baltimore grew. Maryland had been one of the least tolerant colonies and that mindset remained as a state. Merchant Reuben Etting lobbied the state legislature repeatedly with petitions that allow Jews to participate in political life. Diner recounts, “In 1826, after a very heated debate, the Maryland state legislature passed the “Jew Bill,” which allowed Jews to hold political office.” Two states waited until after the Civil War and Reconstruction to give Jews full political rights, “New Hampshire removed its last legal restrictions on Jews in 1877, North Carolina in 1885.” 197
Overtures like those given to Francis Salvador allowing him an opportunity to shape the new nation gave American Jews a promise that soon would obtain the political equality that was elusive for most of the Jewish population worldwide. Salvador’s firsts for American Jewry, the first elected to serve in Revolutionary Congress and the first Jew to die in battle during the Revolutionary War opened up the door for equality to American Jewry in the new nation. Salvador and other Jews' contributions to the fight for independence, whether financial, military, political or their lives in battle would lead to the reward of equality. America would become the beacon of hope for Jews living in oppressive countries where anti-Jewish prejudice and anti-Semitism were virulent, violent, and a way of life. Throughout the nineteenth, Jews would swell America’s shores from Europe and beyond, because it was the only country in the world to allow Jews to be part of their promise that all men were created equal.
196 Diner, Jews in America, 33. 197 Ibid., Diner, Jews in America, 41.
68 Bibliography
“ITEMS RELATING TO CORRESPONDENCE OF JEWS WITH GEORGE WASHINGTON.” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, no. 27, 1920, pp. 217-222. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43058007.
BOLLER, PAUL F. “George Washington and the Jews.” Southwest Review, vol. 47, no. 2, 1962, pp. 120–127. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43467381.
BOONE, M. ELIZABETH. “Something of His Own Soil: Jewish History, Mural Painting, and Bernard Zakheim in San Francisco.” American Jewish History, vol. 90, no. 2, 2002, pp. 121-140. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23887242.
Brenner, Michael. A Short History of the Jews. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.
Chyet, Stanley F. “The Political Rights of the Jews in the United States: 1776-1840,” American. Jewish Archives Journal 10, no. 1 (1958).
Diner, Hasia R. Jews in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Diner, Hasia R. The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
Dinnerstein, Leonard. Antisemitism in America. New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 1994.
Drayton, John. Memoirs of the American Revolution. Charlestown: Printed by A.E. Miller, 1821.
Elzas, Barnett A. Joseph Salvador: Jewish Merchant Prince Who Came to South Carolina. Charleston: The Daggett printing Co., 1903.
Faber Eli, “America's Earliest Jewish Settlers, 1654-1820,” Marc L. Raphael, The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
69
FABER, ELI. “AMERICA’S EARLIEST JEWISH SETTLERS, 1654– 1820.” The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America, edited by Marc Lee Raphael, Columbia University Press, NEW YORK, 2008, pp. 21– 46. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/raph13222.4.
Feingold, Henry L. Zion in America: The Jewish Experience from Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1981.
Gibbes, Robert W. Documentary History of the American Revolution: Consisting of Letters and Papers Relating to the Contest for Liberty, Chiefly in South Carolina, from Originals in the Possession of the Editor, and Other Sources. New York: Appleton, 2005.
GIBBES, Robert W. Documentary History of the American Revolution, Consisting of Letters and Papers Relating to the Contest for Liberty, Chiefly in South Carolina ... 1764-1776. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1855.
GIBBES, Robert W. Documentary History of the American Revolution, Consisting of Letters and Papers Relating to the Contest for Liberty, Chiefly in South Carolina ... 1776-1782. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1857.
Goodman, Abram Vossen. “South Carolina from Shaftesbury to Salvador,” Leonard Dinnerstein and Mary D. Palsson. Jews in the South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1973.
Goodwin, George M, and Ellen Smith. The Jews of Rhode Island. Waltham, Mass: Brandeis Univ. Press, 2004.
Hennig, Helen K. Francis Salvador. [Cincinnati, Ohio]: [Union of American Hebrew Congregations], 1935.
Hershkowitz, Leo. “By Chance or Choice: Jews in New Amsterdam 1654,” de Halve Maen 77, no. 2 (2004), 24.
Hertzberg, Arthur. The Jews in America: Four Centuries of an Uneasy Encounter: a History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
Hirschfeld, Fritz. George Washington and the Jews. Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press, 2005.
70
Hühner, Leon. “FRANCIS SALVADOR, A Prominent Patriot of the Revolutionary War.” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, no. 9, 1901, pp. 107–122. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43058849.
Hühner, Leon. “WHENCE CAME THE FIRST JEWISH SETTLERS OF NEW YORK?” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, no. 9, 1901, pp. 75–85. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43058847.
Koppman, Lionel. Francis Salvador, Patriot. New York: National Jewish Welfare Board, 1975, 1953.
Lesser, Allen. Salvador: Gentleman-patriot of South Carolina. [Camden, New Jersey]: [Menorah Journal, Inc.], 1937.
Levy, B. H. “Joseph Solomon Ottolenghi Kosher Butcher in Italy—Christian Missionary in Georgia.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly, vol. 66, no. 2, 1982, pp. 119–144. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40580888.
Marcus, Jacob R. United States Jewry, 1776-1985. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2018.
Marcus, Jacob R. Jews and the American Revolution: A Bicentennial Documentary. Cincinnati: American Jewish Archives, Vol. XXVII, no. 2, November, 1975.
Morris, Richard B. “CIVIL LIBERTIES AND THE JEWISH TRADITION IN EARLY AMERICA.” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, vol. 46, no. 1, 1956, pp. 20–39. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43059883.
Oppenheim, Samuel. “More About Jacob Barsimson, the First Jewish Settler in New York,” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society. Philadelphia: Jewish Historical Society, 1910, 29: 39–52.
Oppenheim, Samuel. The Early History of the Jews in New York 1654–1664. New York: Jewish Historical Society, 1909, 37–43.
71 Pencak, William. Jews and Gentiles in Early America: 1654-1800. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.
Rappaport, Doreen, Joan C. Verniero, and Greg Call. Victory or Death!: Stories of the American Revolution. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.
Raphael, Marc L. The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
Reiss, Oscar. The Jews in Colonial America. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co, 2004.
Rezneck, Samuel. Unrecognized Patriots: The Jews in the American Revolution. Westport: Conn: Greenwood Press, 1975.
Rock, Howard B, Diana L. Linden, and Deborah D. Moore. Haven of Liberty: New York Jews in the New World, 1654-1865. New York: New York University Press, 2012.
Sachar, Howard M. A History of the Jews in America. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.
Sarna, Jonathan D. “THE IMPACT OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION ON AMERICAN JEWS,” Modern Judaism - A Journal of Jewish Ideas and Experience, Volume 1, Issue 2, September 1981, Pages 149– 160, https://doi.org/10.1093/mj/1.2.149
Tobias, Thomas J, and Robert N. S. Whitelaw. Historical Diorama: Francis Salvador (1747-1776), American Jewish Revolutionary Patriot. Washington, D.C.: [B'nai B'rith], 1970.
Wiznitzer, Arnold. “THE EXODUS FROM BRAZIL AND ARRIVAL IN NEW AMSTERDAM OF THE JEWISH PILGRIM FATHERS, 1654.” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, vol. 44, no. 2, 1954, pp. 80–97. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43058879.
WOLFF, EGON, and FRIEDA WOLFF. “THE PROBLEM OF THE FIRST JEWISH SETTLERS IN NEW AMSTERDAM, 1654.” Studia Rosenthaliana, vol. 15, no. 2, 1981, pp. 169–177. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41481466.
72
Woolf, Maurice. “Joseph Salvador 1716—1786.” Transactions (Jewish Historical Society of England), vol. 21, 1962, pp. 104–137. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/29777993.
73 About the Author
Bonnie K. Goodman, BA, MLIS is a Professional Librarian (CBPQ) and historian. She is the author of Silver Boom! The Rise and Decline of Leadville, Colorado as the United States Silver Capital, 1860–1896, The Mysterious Prince of the Confederacy: Judah P. Benjamin and the Jewish goal of whiteness in the South, We Used to be Friends? The Long Complicated History of Jews, Blacks, and Anti-Semitism, and the viral article, “OTD in History… October 19, 1796, Alexander Hamilton accuses Thomas Jefferson of having an affair with his slave creating a 200-year-old controversy over Sally Hemings.”
Ms. Goodman has a BA in History and Art History, and a Masters in Library and Information Studies both from McGill University has done graduate work in Jewish history at Concordia University as part of the MA in Judaic Studies, where she focused Medieval and Modern Judaism. Her research area is North American Jewish history, particularly American Jewish history, and her thesis was entitled, “Unconditional Loyalty to the Cause: Southern Whiteness, Jewish Women, and Antisemitism, 1860-1913.”
Ms. Goodman contributed the overviews and chronologies to the “History of American Presidential Elections, 1789–2008,” edited by Gil Troy, Arthur M. Schlesinger, and Fred L. Israel (2012). She is the former Features Editor at the History News Network and reporter at Examiner.com, where she covered politics, universities, religion, and news. She currently blogs at Medium, where she was a top writer in history and regularly writes on "On This Day in History (#OTD in #History)" Feature and on the Times of Israel. Her scholarly articles can be found on Academia.edu. She has over a dozen years of experience in education and political journalism.
74
View publication stats