This peculiar position of the Jews in Spain and Portugal was also the cause of the immense number of conversions which gave these anti-Jewish nations a very large mixture of Jewish blood in their veins. The temptation to cling to the land and to the high social position which could not be enjoyed elsewhere was too strong for all but the strongest. Thus we find Marranos or secret Jews in all the higher walks of life in the times of the discovery of America. The more steadfast of their brethren who were equally prominent in the preceding period assisted in various ways earlier voyages of discovery, and even contributed indirectly to the success of the one great voyage, which did not begin until they were exiled from Spain forever.
But we must constantly bear in mind, when speaking of the Middle Ages and of the two centuries succeeding it, the sixteenth and the seventeenth, that the Jews did not possess the right of citizenship and were not, even when they were treated very well, considered as an integral part of the population. This was the chief weakness of their position and the ultimate cause of all the persecutions, massacres and expulsions. Still they had many opportunities and made the most of them to advance their own interests and those of the countries in which they dwelt. We find them in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in close touch with the current of national life in the countries which were most absorbed in enterprises of navigation and discovery. Many of them were still great merchants, numerous others were scholars, mathematicians and astronomers or astrologers; some had influence in political life as advisers or fiscal officials at the royal courts. They accomplished much, as Jews and as Marranos, even when the danger of persecution must have been ever-present, or later, when in constant terror of the Inquisition. Many of them could therefore participate in the work which led to the discovery of a New World, where their descendants were destined to find a home safer and more free than was ever dreamt of in medieval Jewish philosophy.
PART I.
THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE PERIOD.
CHAPTER I.
THE PARTICIPATION OF JEWS IN THE DISCOVERY OF THE NEW WORLD.
The Jew of Barcelona who has navigated the whole known world—Judah Cresques, “the Map Jew,” as director of the Academy of Navigation which was founded by Prince Henry the Navigator—One Jewish astronomer advises the King of Portugal to reject the plans of Columbus—Zacuto as one of the first influential men in Spain to encourage the discoverer of the New World—Abravanel, Senior and the Marranos Santangel and Sanchez who assisted Columbus—The voyage of discovery begun a day after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain—Luis de Torres and other Jews who went with Columbus—America discovered on “Hosannah Rabbah”—The Indians as the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel—Money taken from the Jews to defray the expenditure of the second voyage of Columbus—Vasco da Gama and the Jew Gaspar—Scrolls of the Thorah from Portugal sold in Cochin—Alphonse d’Albuquerque’s interpreter who returned to Judaism.
In the days when Church and State were one and indissoluble, and when all large national enterprises, such as wars or the search for new dominions by means of discovery, were undertaken avowedly in the name and for the glory of the Catholic religion, it could not have been expected that governments will make an effort to protect international trade as long as it was in Jewish hands. We must therefore go as far back as to the first half of the 14th century to find a record of Jews who went to sea on their own account in an independent way. According to the great authority on the subject of this chapter (Dr. M. Kayserling, “Christopher Columbus and the participation of the Jews in the Spanish and Portuguese Discoveries,” English translation by the late Prof. Charles Gross of Harvard University) Jaime III., the last king of Mallorca, testified in 1334 that Juceff Faquin, a Jew of Barcelona, “has navigated the whole then known world.” About a century later we find again a Jew prominently identified with navigation; but in this instance he is a scientific teacher, in the employ of an energetic prince who considered navigation as a national project of the greatest moment. Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal (1394–1460), who helped his father to capture Ceuta, in North Africa, and there “obtained information from Jewish travellers concerning the south coast of Guinea and the interior of Africa”, established a naval academy or school of navigation at the Villa do Iffante or Sagres, a seaport town which he caused to be built. He appointed as its director Mestre Jaime of Mallorca whose real name was Jafuda (Judah) Cresques, the son of Abraham Cresques of Palma, the capital of Mallorca. Jafuda was known as “the Map Jew,” and a map which he prepared for King Juan I. of Aragon and was presented by the latter to the King of France, is preserved in the National Library of Paris.[2] He became the teacher of the Portuguese in the art of navigation as well as in the manufacture of nautical instruments and maps. In this work he had no superior in his day.
While this Jewish scholar helped the Portuguese to many notable achievements in their daring voyages, another one, at a later period, was almost the direct cause of their being overtaken by the Spaniards in the race for new discoveries. For it was Joseph Vecinho, physician to King João, of Portugal, considered by the high court functionaries to be the greatest authority in nautical matters, who influenced the King to reject the plan submitted by Christopher Columbus (1446?–1506), and thereby caused the latter to leave Portugal for Spain in 1484.
Columbus came to Spain when Ferdinand and Isabella, with the aid of the newly introduced Inquisition, were despoiling the wealthy Marranos, who were burned at the stake in large numbers. The last war with the Moors had already begun.