ABSTRACT
This chapter purposes to show that in the work of that expansion the Jews played, if not the most decisive, at any rate a most prominent part. There were probably many Jews resident in the East Indies even in mediaeval times, and when the nations of Europe, after 1498, stretched out their hands to seize the lands of an ancient civilization, the Jews were welcomed as bulwarks of European supremacy, though primarily they came as pioneers of trade. The history of the Jews in the American colonies, and therefore the history of the colonies themselves, falls into two periods, separated by the expulsion of the Jews from Brazil in 1654. The position which the Jews had obtained for themselves in Central and South America was thus a powerful one. The Jews in the English colonies maintained active business relations with the West Indian Islands and with Brazil, resulting in a favourable balance of trade for the land of their sojourn.
