Despite the polemical subtitle, a scholarly and meticulously
researched account of Jewish participation in the slave trade in
the British colonies of the Caribbean and in the US. In 1991, the
Historical Research Department of the Nation of Islam published an
inflammatory document entitled The Secret Relationship Between
Blacks and Jews, which charged that Jews had financed and dominated
the slave trade in the American colonies and early US. According to
Faber (History/John Jay College, City University of New York), this
study's conclusions have been widely accepted as fact, despite
grave defects in historical methodology, with deleterious
consequences for historical scholarship and race relations. Here
limiting his study to slavery in the British Atlantic colonies in
the 17th through the 19th centuries, the author uses primary source
material, including shipping and tax records and other commercial
documents, to refute the anti-Semitic theme of The Secret
Relationship. Faber concludes that Jewish involvement in the
Atlantic slave trade was exceedingly limited: by successively
examining the small, (initially predominantly Sephardic) Jewish
communities of Barbados, Nevis, and Jamaica, and mainland colonies
like Newport and New York City, Faber persuasively demonstrates
that Jewish participation in the slave trade in each area consisted
of tiny percentages of slave sales and ownership, from the earliest
years of settlement through the abolition of the slave trade in the
19th century. A well-researched study that neither allocates blame
nor exonerates the participants in the peculiar institution, but
puts to rest a pernicious anti-Semitic libel of recent coinage.
(Kirkus Reviews)
"Stunning."
"--Publishers Weekly"
"A well-researched study that neither allocates blame nor
exonerates the participants in the peculiar institution, but puts
to rest a pernicious anti-Semitic libel of recent coinage."
"--Kirkus Reviews"
"For anyone in search of ammunition to refute farfetched claims
about Jewish culpability for the enslavement of Africans in
America, this is the place to look."
"--Peter Kolchin, Los Angeles Times"
"Exhaustive. . . . A scholarly, careful work."
"--The Washington Post Book World (front page)"
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.
In this groundbreaking book, likely to stand as the definitive
word on the subject, 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 theAmericas.
A crucial corrective, Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade lays to
rest one of the most contested historical controversies of our
time.
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