Jews, slaves, and the slave trade
Subtitle: setting the record straight
By: Eli Faber.
Series: Reappraisals in Jewish social and intellectual history
Publisher: New York University Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 366
Subjects: Jews -- Caribbean Area -- History; Jewish slave traders -- Caribbean Area -- History; Slavery -- Caribbean Area -- History; Caribbean Area -- Ethnic relations
Description: In the wake of the civil rights movement, a great divide has opened up between African American and Jewish communities. What was historically a harmonious and supportive relationship has suffered from a powerful and oft-repeated legend, that Jews controlled and masterminded the slave trade and owned slaves on a large scale, well in excess of their own proportion in the population.

Eli Faber cuts through this cloud of mystification to recapture an important chapter in both Jewish and African diasporic history.

Focusing on the British empire, Faber assesses the extent to which Jews participated in the institution of slavery through investment in slave trading companies, ownership of slave ships, commercial activity as merchants who sold slaves upon their arrival from Africa, and direct ownership of slaves.

His unprecedented original research utilizing shipping and tax records, stock-transfer ledgers, censuses, slave registers, and synagogue records reveals, once and for all, the minimal nature of Jews involvement in the subjugation of Africans in the Americas.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 331-359) and index.
Table of contents: title: Acknowledgments; title: Tables; title: Abbreviations; title: Note on spelling and dating; title: Introduction; title: England's Jewish merchants and the slave trade; title: Jews and slaves in seventeenth-century Barbados and Jamaica; title: Jews and slavery in Jamaica, 1700-1780; title: Jews and slavery in Barbados and Nevis, 1700-1780; title: Jews and slaves on the threshold of abolition: Jamaica and Barbados, 1780-1820; title: Jewish merchants and slavery in the mainland colonies; title: Conclusion; title: Appendixes; title: Notes; title: Bibliography; title: Index.