[104] Cf. Dr. Kayserling, Monatsschrift, l. c., p. 213.
[105] For completeness' sake we reproduce this chapter from a recent sketch in the Menorah Monthly (Vol. XIX), for September, 1895, pp. 145-148, entitled: A 16th Century document written by David Ebron, a Jewish financier in America. This newly discovered letter is perhaps the most important evidence yet furnished of the services rendered by the Jews in the discovery and financial improvement of America, and deserves to be incorporated in this work. The book containing a copy of this document was lately published in Madrid (1891), under the title: Documentos Escogidos del Archivo de la Casa di Alba. See for other particulars the above quoted article in Menorah, note. We intend publishing Ebron's letter soon in the original.
[106] On the Marranos in Hispañiola and South America, Dr. Kayserling has published some interesting data in the P. A. J. H. S., No. 2; see also his Christopher Columbus and the Participation of the Jews in the Discovery of America (New York, 1894).
[107] The writer of these pages, in another paper, treats of the sufferings of the Marranos or New Christians in Mexico, Peru and Brazil from 1570 to 1750. See his article on "The Jewish Martyrs of the Inquisition in South America," in P. A. J. H. S., No. 4, (1895). Dr. Cyrus Adler furnishes in the same Publications, No. 4, a valuable sketch on the "Trial of Jorge de Almeida by the Inquisition in Mexico," 1590-1609, which sets forth the social condition of the secret Jews in that country at the end of the sixteenth century.
[108] The sources whence the materials contained in this chapter are taken, being for the most part accessible, and, as in a forthcoming essay on the Jews of Martinique, all the references will be incorporated in full, the writer merely quotes the following authorities: Notice sur la famille Gradis et sur la maison Gradis ét fils de Bordeaux, par Henri Gradis (1875), apud Graetz, "Die Familie Gradis," in his Monatsschrift, etc., Vol. XXIV (1875), pp. 447-459; XXV (1876), pp. 78-85; his Geschichte der Juden, Vol. XI (Leipzig, 1870), pp. 190, 200, 202, 223; see also Ad. Thierry: Dissertation sur cette quest, est-il des moyens de rendre les juifs plus heureux et plus utile en France—(ouvrage couronné) Paris, 1788; and several books on the history of the Jews in Bordeaux. In our narrative of the career of the Gradis family we follow Prof. Graetz, in his Monatsschrift, l. c.
[109] Cf. also Dr. Graetz, in Monatsschrift, Vol. XXIV, p. 557.
[110] This important fact is thus recorded by Prof. Graetz: (Geschichte der Juden, vol. XI, p. 190) "Gradis aus einer reichen und angesehenen Familie in Bordeaux, die grosse Bank- und ueber-seeische Geschaefte fuer die franzoesischen Colonien betrieb, eigene Schiffe ausruestete und dem franzoesischen Staate in den entfernten Besitzungen durch Ausloesung franzoesischer Gefangener aus den Haenden der Englaender Dienste geleistet hatte." See also the following note, which is still more explicit.
[111] Cf. Graetz, in Monatsschrift, vol. XXIV., p. 452: "... Abraham Gradis gab einem Geschaeftsfreunde in London den Auftrag, den gefangenen franzoesischen Capitaenen und Commandanten auf seine Rechnung Alles zu verabreichen, was sie noethig haben sollten, um ihre Lage zu erleichtern."
[112] Cf. G. A. Kohut's article on Jews in St. Thomas, Jamaica and Barbados, in the P. A. J. H. S., No. 4.
[113] See Koenen's Gesehiedenis, etc., p. 307-8: "... Toen in 1805 de Engelschen een vruchteloozen aanval op dit eiland deden, de Joden, aldaar woonachtig, hun plicht ter verdediging van hetzelve moedig betracht hebben, zoodat een van hen, zijnde Daniel Cardoso, geboortig van Amsterdam, bij die gelegenheid gesneuveld is." Cf. also Van Hamelsveld, Gesehiedenis der Joden, p. 363.