Jewish Pirates had operated in the Meditteranean for many years. Rabbi Samuel Palache, and Sinan the Jew, was Barbarossa’s 2nd in command. In the New World, Chile was Suboltol Deul base, and Moses Cohen Henriques’ pirate island was off the coast of Brazil.

Jamaica’s Bartholomew the Portuguese, was known as the most successful failure. He was famous not for his great captures of treasure but for his amazing escapes. Jean Lafitte, known to Americans as the hero of the battle of New Orleans wrote; “my Jewish-Spanish grandmother, a witness at the time of the Inquisition, inspired in me a hatred of the Spanish crown”

In 1628 Moses Cohen Henriques captured the Spanish Silver fleet, a billion dollar haul in today’s currency.

From the very beginning, secret Jews sailed with the explorers, marched with the conquistadors and were among the first settlers in every New World colony.

This early history is largely unknown because Jews had to keep their heritage hidden and pose as New Christians from Portugal, the one settler group that did not require proof of Catholic ancestry.

Jews set up businesses in the New World and were merchants, traders and ship owners. Jews made up the  merchant class in the Spanish Empire. As long as they pretended to be Christian and delivered the goods, no one questioned too closely their religiosity.

Each Spanish colony had an underground community of Jews known only to each other and brethren in other colonies.  Jews established a global tribe of inside traders, a world wide intelligence network bonded by heritage, language and a hatred for Spain.

Once their trade network established, Jews became expendable. In the l6th and l7th centuries, thousands of New World conversos were arrested, tortured and tried. Found guilty, their wealth was confiscated, and they were first flogged, then either imprisoned, strangled, burned to ash, condemned to work in the salt mines of Venezuela, or row galley ships across the Pacific from which none returned.