(Parliamentary Act, West Indies). Toleration Laws. Copies of the Laws passed by the several Colonial Legislatures, for the Relief of the Catholics, the Removal of the Disabilities of the Jews, and of Free Persons of Colour, During the Last Six Years

Jewish settlers in Barbados were subject to various restrictions even from the very beginning of the community. Most often the agitators for these restrictions were their Christian business rivals, who controlled the colonial legislature. The English Naturalization Act of 1740 afforded the Jews of Barbados various securities, but they continued to be subject to special taxation and other indignities. Later, the community enjoyed great prosperity during the first decades of the 19th-century, and it was during this period that a series of colonial acts greatly ameliorated the Jews’ position. However, following a devastating hurricane in 1831, the community began to decline and many of its members resettled in the United States. See JE, Vol. II, pp.523-5; Marcus, Colonial American Jew, 100-113. At least one other British colony, Jamaica, also concerned itself with improving the rights of the Jews during this very same period. Similarly, the Jews of the United States in this period were still struggling to solidify their position, and only the previous decade the Jews of Maryland successfully waged a struggle for civil equality. All these laws brought to a close the long struggle for emancipation in the British colonial world. This last stage of the struggle presaged the renewed struggle for full emancipation in England itself. As opposed to the rapid passage of the acts in the colonies, the English Jew Bill of 1830 was rejected by Parliament for many years. A closely related Bill that passed in the Jamaican legislature, was sold at Kestenbaum Auction XXIX, (June, 2005), Lot 83