Manuscript Legal Document, signed by Hananel and Jacob Mendes da Costa, authorizing three New York merchants, Nicholas Low, Thomas Lawrence and Jacob Morris, to represent their commercial interests in the New World.

(ANGLO-AMERICAN JUDAICA)

June 1st

London

1785

Manuscript on paper. English cursive script.

The Anglo-Jewish brothers, Hananel and Jacob of the aristocratic Mendes da Costa family were among those merchants who contributed to the economic rebirth of New York following the devastation of seven years of British occupation during the Revolutionary War. Trans-Atlantic trade was at its zenith during the post-Colonial years. What is unusual about the activities of the Mendes da Costa brothers is that the local merchants they chose to empower as their New York agents in this document cannot be identified as Jews. Merchant Sephardic families in Europe generally hired other Sephardim to represent their interests in the New World. The Mendes da Costa brothers no doubt would have preferred to hire agents who were co-religionists, but they may have been unable to do so since the Jewish community of New York had fled the city in advance of the British occupation and returned only slowly after the cessation of hostilities. See: H. Pollins, Economic History of the Jews in England (1982); W. D. Rubinstein, A History of the Jews in the English-Speaking World: Great Britain (1996); E. Faber, A Time for Planting: The First Migration 1654-1820 (1992); Costa, Isaac da. Noble Families Among the Sephardic Jews (1936)