ABSTRACT
In 1747 Amsterdam’s Portuguese congregation devised a plan to send a third of its poor to Surinam. The remarkable sum of 100,000 guilders was set aside for the colonization scheme (equivalent to around a million euros), of which 30,000 guilders was to cover the purchase and cultivation of land in that part of the New World. It was not the first time the Portuguese congregation had sought a solution to the problem of poverty that involved sending the poor away, although it had no legal power to expel Jews from the city. It did so nevertheless, and it was not unique in its approach. While the Dutch Republic transferred only a modest number of poor people to its colonies, other powers such as Britain, France and Portugal implemented similar measures on a bigger scale.
