Alexander Bravo (1797 – March 1868), sometimes spelled Alexandre Bravo, was a Jamaican-born Sephardic Jewish merchant, politician, slave plantation owner and Auditor-General of Jamaica. Bravo was the first Jew to be elected to the House of Assembly of Jamaica.[1]

Biography

Alexandre Moses Bravo was born at Kingston, St. Andrew Parish, Jamaica to Moses Bravo (1758–1831), a Sephardic Jewish mechant and slave plantation owner in Jamaica (dealing with sugar cane and coffee) and his wife Abigail da Castro.[2] Alexander Bravo was seated at a villa named Bravo Penn. He was a member of the Kingston Common Council and Custos of the parish of Clarendon.[3] He had three brothers, including Charles Clement and Phineas Bravo.

According to the Legacies of British Slave-Ownership at the University College London, Bravo was awarded a payment as a slave trader in the aftermath of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 with the Slave Compensation Act 1837. The British Government took out a £15 million loan (worth £1.51 billion in 2023)[4] with interest from Nathan Mayer Rothschild and Moses Montefiore which was subsequently paid off by the British taxpayers (ending in 2015). Bravo was associated with ten different claims, the slave plantations mostly associated with Bravo was Knight's Estate at Vere, Marly Mount at St Dorothy and Mount Moses at Clarendon. Bravo owned 614 slaves in Jamaica and received a £13,157 payment at the time (worth £1.33 million in 2023).[4][5]

Bravo was defeated at the January 1832 election for the Kingston Common Council by Price Watkins, the first coloured man to run for election to the council. According to Kathleen E. A. Monteith writing in Jamaica in Slavery and Freedom: History, Heritage and Culture (2001), the election results represented an alliance of free blacks and coloureds in alliance against Bravo; the result was 142 to Watkins, 92 to Bravo.[6] In 1835, Bravo became the first Jew to be elected to the House of Assembly of Jamaica.[1][7][8]

Personal life

Bravo was married to Sarah Nunes Henriques and had a number of children, including Moses (1825-1903), Alexandre Kelly (born 1829), Harriet Redware (1830-1920) and others.

See also

References

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 Senior 1987, p. 160
  2. ↑ "Moses Bravo". University College London. Retrieved on 20 March 2019.
  3. ↑ Guerney 1840, p. 121
  4. 1 2 UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  5. ↑ "Alexander Bravo". University College London. Retrieved on 20 March 2019.
  6. ↑ Monteith 2001, p. 308
  7. ↑ "Caribbean History: Remembering Jamaica's Moses Delgado". Caribbean Journal. Retrieved on 20 March 2019.
  8. ↑ "Jamaica". Jewish Encyclopedia. Retrieved on 20 March 2019.

Bibliography

  • Andrade, Jacob A. P. M. (1941). A Record of the Jews in Jamaica from the English Conquest to the Present Times. Jamaica.
  • Faber, Eli (2000). Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight. NYU Press. ISBN 0814728790.
  • Guerney, Joseph John (1840). A Winter in the West Indies: Described in Familiar Letters to Henry Clay, of Kentucky. J. Murray.
  • Monteith, Kathleen E A (2001). Jamaica in Slavery and Freedom: History, Heritage and Culture. University of the West Indies Press. ISBN 976640108X.
  • Senior, Olive (1987). A-Z of Jamaican Heritage. Heinemann Educational Books (Caribbean). ISBN 9766050627.
  • Yoffe, Oron (1997). The Jews of Jamaica: tombstone inscriptions, 1663-1880. Ben Zvi Institute. ISBN 9652350680.
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