“…By 1741, the Gentile population of the island had had enough of the Jews’ method of commerce and proposed and passed a special tax and enumerated several reasons calling for such action. The act was read to the legislature on May 7, 1741, a portion of which follows:
[indented paragraph:] “…That the Jews in this island are a very wealthy body, their gains considerable and acquired with great ease and indolence, and with little risk, and their fortunes so disposed, that the usual Methods of laying taxes will not affect them; they are generally concerned in, nay have almost entirely engrossed, the whole retail trade of this island, furnished people with materials of luxury, tempt them to live and dress above their circumstances, carry on a traffic with our slaves greatly prejudicial to the planter and fair trader, encouraging the negroes to steal commodities from their masters, which they sell in order to barter with the Jews, at considerable and under values; and, when by such means they have amassed great wealth, they lay out their money at interest, by which public stock is no way increased; and it must ever be against the interest and policy of every country, to encourage the heaping up of riches among them: That is in this light the Jews are taxed separately, and not on account of religion or country, nor does the present tax exceed what they have paid forty years ago, when their riches are not so great as they are at present, and their numbers have been daily increasing under a taxation of this sort ever since…
Quoting source: The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews (p 46)
Referenced source: George Fortunatus Judah, “The Jews’ Tribute in Jamaica,” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, vol. 18 (1909), pp. 71-71.
