A new congregation, which called itself “Neweh Shalom” and occupied a tract across the harbor from Willemsted, was organized about 1740, and its Synagogue in the “Otrabanda” was consecrated on Ellul 12, 5505 (1745). It was established chiefly in order to save those who lived there from crossing the water on the Sabbath to attend divine services, and for a time it was regarded as merely a branch of the older congregation and as under its direction. This led to a series of disputes which culminated, in 1749, in an open breach. It was settled by the intervention of Prince William Charles of Orange-Nassau, in a decree dated April 30, 1750, in which the original jurisdiction of the older congregation, subject to the regulations of the Portuguese community of Amsterdam, was sustained. The arrangement lasted for the following one hundred and twenty years, when the younger congregation became independent (1870).
The increase in numbers and material well-being continued during the nineteenth century, but the community was not without internal dissensions. It was due to one of these controversies between the Parnassim and the ministers that a society called the “Porvenir” was founded in 1862. In the following year it developed into a Reform Congregation under the name “Emanuel,” whose new Synagogue, in the quarter “Scharlo,” was dedicated in 1866. About three years before a moderate change in the direction of reform was introduced into the liturgy of the oldest congregation.
The congregations of Curaçao now have more than one thousand members, nearly four-fifths of it belonging to Mickweh Israel. The Jews are among the leading citizens of the island, in business, as well as in the professions; they occupy executive and judicial positions, and are well represented among the officers of the militia. Almost all of them, like in Holland itself, are true to their religion, and there are probably less apostasies and intermarriages than in any other free community in which the emancipation of the Jews has been fully carried out in theory as well as in practice.
The Jewish settlements in the British West Indies also enjoyed long periods of increase and prosperity; but they declined when the English colonies of the North American continent, and later, the United States, offered a wider field of activities and better opportunities under conditions which were so similar to those prevailing in the older places as to make the change of residence a matter of very little inconvenience. The oldest settlement under the English flag in the West Indies was probably on the island of Barbadoes, where, it is believed, Jews came first in 1628. On April 27, 1655, Oliver Cromwell issued passes to Abraham de Mercado, M. D., Hebrew, and his son, Raphael, to go to Barbadoes to exercise his profession. In 1656 the Jews were granted, upon petition, the enjoyment of the privileges of the laws and statutes of the Commonwealth of England and of the Island relating to foreigners and strangers.
In April, 1661, Benjamin de Caseres, Henry de Caseres and Jacob Fraso petitioned the King of England to permit them to live and trade in Barbadoes and Surinam. Their petition was supported by the King of Denmark, which tends to prove that they must have been men of considerable importance. In the report made by the Commissioners of Foreign Plantations, to whom it was referred, it is stated that the whole question of the advisability of allowing Jews to reside in and trade with his majesty’s colonies “hath been long and often debated.” The merchants of England were opposed to the admission of Jews, because of their ability to control trade wherever they entered, and because they would divert it from England to foreign countries. The planters, on the contrary, favored their admission and accused the merchants of aiming to appropriate the whole trade to themselves. The commissioners refrained from deciding the general question, but advised that these three highly recommended Jews, who had behaved themselves well and with general satisfaction in Barbadoes, should be granted a special license to reside there or in any other plantations.
The Jewish community was soon increased to a considerable extent, partly by the arrival of former members of the dissolved colony of Cayenne (1664). It is recorded in the minutes of the vestry of St. Michael’s Parish (July 9, 1666) “that the Jews inhabiting this Parish do pay the quantity of 35,000 pounds Muscovado sugar, to be levied by themselves and paid to Senior Lewis Dias and Senior Jeronimo Roderigos, who are hereby ordered to pay it to the present church wardens.” The order is repeated in October, 1666, and again in 1667; and in that year another order making the levy for the year 20,000 pounds was issued. In 1669 the order in January was for 14,000 pounds, and in March for 16,000. In 1670 it was again for 16,000, but the Jews sent in a petition declaring the amount to be excessive. This had the effect of reducing the amount of the tax to 7,000 pounds in 1671 and to “half of what was levied last year” in 1672. For the following five years it was mostly 7,000 pounds a year, “levied for their trade.” In 1680 it is 8,500 pounds, apportioned among forty-five Jews, some being made to contribute only twelve pounds, several others as high as 792 each, with David Raphael de Mercado heading the list with 1,075 pounds. (See list of names in “Publications,” XIX, pp. 174–75.)
Antonio Rodrigo Rigio, Abraham Levi Regio, Lewis Dias, Isaac Jerajo Coutinho, Abraham Pereira, David Baruch Louzada and other Hebrews who were made free denizens by His Majesty’s letters patent, petitioned in 1669 about the refusal to accept the testimony of Jews in the courts of the colony. The governor, in forwarding the petition, says, that “they had not been exposed to any other injuries in their trade or otherwise.” But the privilege granted was only for cases “relating to trade and dealing.” Special taxes continued to be imposed at various times until 1761, when all additional burdens were lifted, and afterward the Jews were rated and paid taxes on the same scale as other inhabitants. All political disabilities were removed by act of the local government in 1802, and by act of Parliament in 1820.
The number of Jews in Barbadoes was never as large as that of Surinam. In 1681 the total Jewish population of the island was 260. They went on increasing slowly, the great majority living in Bridgetown (where the first Synagogue was erected, probably prior to 1679) and a small number in Speightstown. In 1792, at the beginning of the period of the greatest prosperity of the community, the congregation of Bridgetown had 147 members, and 17 pensioners were supported. The name of the congregation was “Kehol Kodesh Nidhe Israel,” and its ministers were all selected by the vestry of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in London.
The decline of the Jewish community of Barbadoes dates from the great hurricane in 1831 which devastated the island, and also destroyed the Synagogue. Though a new edifice was erected and dedicated in 1833, and even a religious school was established several years later, the members kept on leaving the island for the United States, most of them going to Philadelphia. In 1848 there were only 71 Jews left. In 1873, those remaining petitioned for relief from taxation of property held by the congregation. The census of 1882 showed 21 Jews, and the number was still smaller at the end of the nineteenth century.