GONZÁLEZ: It’s August, 28, 1766. A ship sits in Newport harbor, ready to sail to the Gold Coast of Africa with the instructions to buy as many Africans as possible, enslave them, and transport them to Barbados, where they will be sold to the highest bidders.

NUNES: The ship’s captain is Nathaniel Briggs, a man from Tiverton, Rhode Island, who knows the routes to West Africa like the back of his hand. He was hired for this journey, as he would be hired for years to come, by a man named Aaron Lopez.  

GONZÁLEZ: At this point in his life, Aaron Lopez is one of the most successful merchants in Newport.

NUNES: Which is saying something, because Newport is a bustling seaport, thriving from international trade. The whole town is getting rich.

GONZÁLEZ: Right, but Lopez is on another level. He is the second highest taxpayer in Newport. He owns as many as 15 ships and backs the voyages of dozens more. 

NUNES: He’s an entrepreneur who has his hands in lots of different trades, including candles, rum and slaves. He plays the game, and he plays it well. But, he’s not allowed the same privileges as everybody else. That’s because he’s Jewish.

GONZÁLEZ: In this episode of Mosaic, we tell the story of Aaron Lopez, a religious refugee who comes to the colony of Rhode Island with nothing but his faith and his family and becomes a pillar of the Jewish community.

NUNES: But there’s an irony to this story: this man seeking his freedom here uses his newfound power to help build the most oppressive institution our country has ever known: slavery. 

GONZÁLEZ: Hey everyone, this is Ana.

NUNES: And I’m Alex. 

GONZÁLEZ: So, Alex, last week, we talked about religion and how important it is to immigrants. 

NUNES: A lot of people come here for the promise of religious freedom.  But what they get is religious tolerance. It’s not the same thing.

GONZÁLEZ: Right. This is especially true for Aaron Lopez. He’s born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1731 to a big Jewish family.

NUNES: But he’s born under the Spanish Inquisition, which has been going on for 300 years and killed or displaced countless people who are not Catholic. 

GONZÁLEZ: So, Aaron Lopez and his family are known as conversos or marranos. They live ostensibly Catholic lives, but they are still practicing their Jewish faith in total secrecy. 

NUNES: And Aaron’s name isn’t Aaron. He’s baptised Duarte, a Catholic Spanish name. That provides him some level of protection from the inquisition officials in Portugal, who are constantly looking for ways to arrest or kill conversos. 

GONZÁLEZ: But beyond this thin layer of safety, Portugal is a really dangerous place to be Jewish. And there aren’t many opportunities for a young guy like Duarte.

SNYDER: Lopez is fortunate in that he has an older half brother and his older half brother’s cousin and brother in law who's been living in New York for at least a decade and who've established ties and they've now just established a home in Newport where they're trying to promote business.

GONZÁLEZ: This is Holly Snyder. She’s a historian who specializes in colonial Jews, especially Aaron Lopez.

SNYDER: That’s the connection. That’s the familial connection. So, he is a beneficiary of chain migration. They're going to sponsor him and help him get set up.

GONZÁLEZ: By 1752, 20-year-old Duarte Lopez is married with a young daughter and another baby on the way, and his family has already settled in the New World. 

NUNES: And Duarte’s family has told him not only will the New World allow him to make more money than he ever dreamed of, he can also be freely Jewish. He decides to set sail.

NUNES: Duarte and his wife and child spend the summer at sea. They arrive safely on the shores of Newport on October 13, 1752. 

GONZÁLEZ: They move in with Duarte’s brother, Moses, in the center of town. And they begin living, for the first time in their lives, as Jews.

NUNES: The first thing Duarte does is abandon his Christian name. He chooses to be called Aaron. His wife, Ana, becomes Abigail. And their daughter, Catarina, becomes Sarah. 

GONZÁLEZ: And also following tradition, Aaron gets circumsized. 

SNYDER: Which cannot have been fun, especially, yeah no, with risk of infection and no antibiotics. Yes this it was very risky. It's the mark of the covenant. You know your covenant with God. So it's a it's a sign of your purpose a sign of your seriousness about your adherence to Judaism.

GONZÁLEZ: Another thing that speaks to the strength of Aaron’s commitment to Judaism is that there’s no temple in Newport. Yet. Soon, Aaron would help change that in a way that we can still see today. But for now, there’s no Synagogue anywhere in the Colonies outside of New York. So, Aaron’s probably getting circumcised at home, by a community member.

 NUNES: The Jewish community also helps him out in his business, right?

GONZÁLEZ: Yeah. His brother, Moses, and cousin, Jacob, have set up a trading company. Their biggest seller is candles.

NUNES: But not just any ol’ candles. It’s spermaceti candles. They’re made out of the head matter from a Sperm whale, hence the name.

GONZÁLEZ: And Spermaceti candles are the hottest invention of the 1700s, y’all. Before Spermaceti candles, people were using tallow candles, made out of animal fat. Like bacon grease. Imagine lighting your home by burning bacon grease?

NUNES: Yeah, Moses and Jacob’s candles are revolutionary. They’ve tinkered with the recipe and made a long-lasting candle that burns pure white, with little smoke. But they need someone to help them reach people outside of Newport. That’s where Aaron comes in.

SNYDER: Aaron starts doing the marketing. And not only is he marketing the spermaceti candles that they are so carefully producing. But he starts having a little shop.

NUNES: Aaron sells his family’s candles in this shop, and he also starts using his connections in the Jewish community to build his inventory and trade networks. 

GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, and this is when Aaron’s religious life and his business life intersect. He starts using his money and networks to look into the future for the Jewish community..

NUNES: In 1757, Aaron asks his connection in London for some prayer books, menorahs, and mezuzahs, which are small fixtures people place on doorways that have bits of the torah in them. 

GONZÁLEZ: And Aaron’s donating a lot of money to the eventual building of a synagogue. In 1759, the community acquires a small plot of land in Newport and a cantor named Isaac Touro, who comes over from Amsterdam. 

NUNES: In that same year, Aaron Lopez lays the cornerstone of what would become Touro Synagogue, the oldest remaining Synagogue building in America today.

GONZÁLEZ: While the Synagogue is being built, Aaron’s store is becoming incredibly popular. Newporters can buy anything from candles and rum to bibles and looking glasses. And Aaron is beginning to ship his goods all over the colonies. 

SNYDER: He's making several layers of network. He's starting to cultivate other contacts in New York. And contacts in the Caribbean. He's got contacts in Lisbon that he can play on. He's developing contacts with important merchants in London and Bristol who can tell him you know what prices he's likely to have to pay for the English goods that people want on the Colonial side of things because they can't make them themselves under the law under British law.

GONZÁLEZ: Britain is starting to control colonial trade even more. And even though Aaron has only been in the colonies for 8 years at this point, he’s becoming an expert at navigating all of these imperial obstacles and making profit despite them.

NUNES: And he has dreams of growing even bigger. International trade is risky. Not only are the seas rough and sailors prone to disease, there’s piracy and lawlessness. 

GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, Jack Sparrows everywhere. And young Aaron wants to protect himself legally. Right now, no government will do that. He’s fled Portugal, and he doesn’t have British citizenship. 

NUNES: So, in 1761, Aaron decides to apply for naturalization, just like his brother and cousin did when they got to New York 20 years ago.

GONZÁLEZ: Only this time, it’s in Rhode Island. But, Aaron doesn’t expect an issue. He’s a law-abiding citizen, making tons of money, paying taxes. 

NUNES: Plus, it’s the law. British Parliament passed the Naturalization Act in 1740, which allows all foreign-born people who have lived in the colonies for at least 7 years to gain citizenship and the protection of British law.

GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, and he’s in the colony Roger Williams built around the idea of religious freedom. The Charter of Rhode Island literally says you can’t be bothered or punished if you have any differences of opinion “in matters of religion”.

NUNES: So, Aaron thinks his case is air-tight. He and a fellow Jewish merchant, Isaac Elizer, go to the Rhode Island government to get their citizenship in September of 1761.

GONZÁLEZ: This is the response the assembly gives Lopez and Elizer: RI ASSEMBLY: Foreasmuch as Aaron Lopez hath declared himself to be by religion a Jew, this Assembly doth not admit him nor any other of that religion to the full freedom of this colony, so that the said Aaron Lopez nor any other of said religion is liable to be chosen into any office in this colony nor allowed to give a vote as a freeman in choosing others.

NUNES: And this from a colony that was founded on religious freedom.

GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, I was honestly shocked when I read that response. And thinking about how all of Aaron’s non-jewish contemporaries -- the Brown family, the Champlins, the Hopkins and Tillinghasts-- can all use their money and power to get elected to office. Meanwhile, Aaron can’t even vote. 

NUNES: But this ruling doesn’t stop Aaron and Isaac. They appeal to the upper house of the assembly. They’re met with another denial.

RI ASSEMBLY: Colony being already so full of People that man of his Majesty’s good Subjects born within the same have removed and settled in Nova Scotia…. By the Charter granted to this colony it appears that the free and quiet Enjoyment of the Christian Religion and a Desire of propagating the same were the principal Views with which this Colony was settled.

NUNES: What happened here? How could the Rhode Island government make this ruling? British Parliament says Jewish people can become citizens.

GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, it’s not based in law, really. It’s just thinly-veiled antisemitism. Holly explains more.

SNYDER: Rhode Island unfortunately decided that it did not want to abide by that particular law of parliament. And it may have been at the behest of one or two particular individuals who were devout Baptists and didn't want Jews in Rhode Island. [Ana off-mic: who are those people?] Yeah the members of the Ward family.

GONZÁLEZ: Richard Ward and his son Samuel Ward are mega-powerful Newport politicians. They are descendants of the first families of Rhode Island Colony, and they are ardent Protestants. They don’t want anyone from any other religions challenging them. 

NUNES: So, they make up some bogus line, like “our colony is full, sorry”

SNYDER: All of these things are kind of demonstrably false. You know Jews have been naturalized in every other British colony under the 1740 act. But it becomes a convenient excuse for Samuel Ward and his buddies to kind of deny Lopez and Elizer the right to be naturalized in Rhode Island.

GONZÁLEZ: Aaron decides that he can’t win in Rhode Island. He moves to Massachusetts. He sets up residency there for one month and on October 15, 1762, Aaron Lopez becomes the first Jewish citizen in Massachusetts Bay Colony.

GONZÁLEZ: While this is all going on, a ship carrying goods from New England is sailing up and down the west coast of Africa, trading rum for enslaved Africans.

NUNES: This is when Aaron decides to become a slave trader. He and his cousin finance a slave ship in the fall of 1761. The ship makes its first voyage to Jamaica, picks up rum and goes to Africa. The rum is traded for human cargo. Months later, Aaron’s first shipment of enslaved people is sold to the highest bidders in South Carolina.  

GONZÁLEZ: Just when I was rooting for him…

NUNES: I know, this really complicates how we think of Aaron Lopez. On one hand, he’s persecuted for his whole life. 

GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, he flees the Spanish Inquisition, comes to the New World for a better life, builds a really successful business, and becomes a founding member of the Jewish community in Newport. 

NUNES: But on the other hand, he’s a slave trader.

GONZÁLEZ: In some ways, his entrance into the slave trade strikes me as trying to keep up with the Joneses. You know, he’s not wealthy yet, and he’s an entrepreneur trying out all of these different trading industries: spermaceti candles, rum, chocolate,tea, other British goods. 

NUNES: Yeah, slavery is, at this time, just another industry for Lopez to try his hand in. And it’s legal.

SNYDER: You know it's it's brutal to kind of talk about human beings in that way. But that's exactly how they were seen. They were just another kind of cargo or another kind of livestock. As shocking as that sounds to us now. That is the way they saw it. And that's the way they justified what they did.

GONZÁLEZ: For the next 12 years, Aaron Lopez finances the voyages of close to 30 slave ships, forcing over 1,000 Africans into lifetimes of oppression and enslavement.

GONZÁLEZ: Well can we take a look at the other documents quickly?

SNYDER: Yeah, sure. Yes. Yeah. Now this is a logbook that we. We got through the president's office 

GONZÁLEZ: Holly works at the Hay Library at Brown University. It deals mostly in special collections. She’s pulled some historical documents for me to look at. 

SNYDER: This logbook is a record of two slaving voyages made by Tiverton Captain Nathaniel Briggs. The first one in the Betsy and the second one in the brigantine Sally.

GONZÁLEZ: The first thing we look at is this logbook. It’s where Captain Nathaniel Briggs writes down everything that happens on his voyages to share with Aaron Lopez when he gets back to Newport. It’s an oversized book, handwritten, about an inch thick. The pages are scrawled with dates, notes about what the ships are carrying, and how they’re faring on the seas.

SNYDER: So he leaves in August, August 28 the 1766. And after several weeks, he arrives in Africa. And the log book sort of stops because once the captains get to Africa, they are just coasting to find various points at which they can purchase slaves.

GONZÁLEZ: The whole time he's just riding up and down the coast he's purchasing…

SNYDER: He's purchasing, he's delivering cargo that has been shipped from Rhode Island to some of these places. Often that's cheap rum made in Rhode Island. Not the good stuff from the West Indies, but the cheap Rhode Island rum is getting sold off to these slaving ports in Africa.

GONZÁLEZ: After months of trade, Captain Briggs sets sail to Barbados. This particular voyage is disastrous. 

SNYDER: It's February. They've loaded up the ship, and they've got 246 slaves on it, and they're sailing off to Barbados with 246 slaves. And as you go through this log book, you find that a month into the voyage the slaves start dying of flux.

GONZÁLEZ: Flux is a generic name for vomit and diarrhea. A result of 246 people living below a ship deck with no sanitation. No sunshine, and minimal food. 

SNYDER: Every week there's at least one more person. And there are even references where they talk about the sailors having to throw the dead overboard. And at one date I think there are eight people who die or 11 people who die. All in all they probably lose 10 percent of the cargo on this one voyage. So out of 246 slaves that they start with, they're less than 200 by the time they arrive in Barbados and the log book is silent about what happens to those people once they reach Barbados. But we know from other documents that when a slave ship reached the Caribbean, the slaves were sold to whoever would buy them. Sometimes at auction, sometimes individual sales. People just come onboard the ship and say, “Oh, I want that one.” Just the way they go into a store and say, “I'd like that barrel of flour.” It seems harsh to say that, but that's kind of how the thinking went.

GONZÁLEZ: And what ages, what ages are the people on the ship?

SNYDER: They could be any age. It's hard to say because he doesn't distinguish in this logbook. But he does note that there are men and women and boys and girls. So, we know that they were minors aboard, and we don't know how old these children were, but we know that they were not adults.

GONZÁLEZ: Aaron Lopez makes no mention of his feelings on the slave trade or even of this particularly bad voyage. Holly says, that’s pretty typical.

SNYDER: What you what you get from his perspective is sort of a resounding silence. You get sailing instructions: OK as the owner here your instructions for this voyage: sail straight away to Cape Coast Castle. There’s no sense of “Yeah, this is a bad trade because it involves treating human beings in a bad way.” There’s no sense of that.

NUNES: Aaron Lopez is removed from the whole process. He invests the money, supplies the goods, and counts the money the captains give him. 

GONZÁLEZ: And he funnels that money back into his world in Newport.  

GONZÁLEZ: December 2nd, 1763 is a Friday during Hanukkah. Aaron Lopez and his family are standing in a crowd on Spring Street in Newport. He’s a wealthier man than he’s ever been. 

NUNES: And he and his wife and their entire extended family are watching the leaders of Newport’s Jewish community carry three copies of the Torah into a beautiful new building that Aaron’s money and leadership made possible.

GONZÁLEZ: He sings and prays with his community as they celebrate the grand opening of their long-awaited house of worship, known colloquially as Touro Synagogue.

STOKES: So just get a sense of things: At the time that this was completed in 1763, it would not have been painted. It would have been an unwashed brick, an exposed brick…

GONZÁLEZ: Today, Touro Synagogue stills stands on top of a hill, overlooking Newport. It’s gorgeously maintained, with a pristine garden and a security guard. You need to pay to get in. I’m outside of the temple with Keith Stokes.

STOKES: So this would have been this whole area would have been on the hill, looking down into the waterfront, a number of places of worship, and Touro being at the very center. So this is unique because it's being built to be seen.

GONZÁLEZ: Keith explains that the first Jews who came to Rhode Island were looking for tolerance. But Aaron Lopez’s crew wants total freedom and equality. And they get it. Including the slave trade and slave labor. Keith also tells me that enslaved people did the actual physical building of Touro synagogue. I should also mention that Keith is of both Jewish and African heritage. He traces his family back to the colonial era on both sides. 

GONZÁLEZ: When you, you know you deal with this history of Touro synagogue. How do you deal with the fact that it was built by enslaved people?

STOKES: Every existing colonial building in Newport had some level of direct or indirect slave labor. But again what I try to present is that these buildings then and today are seen as architectural masterpiece. And the men and women and children worked on them were not beasts of the fields. They were artisans. And if we recognize the historic importance of those buildings, shouldn't we also recognize the historic importance of the people who built them?

GONZÁLEZ: In the next episode of Mosaic, Keith tells me more about the lives of those enslaved people in Newport. The artisans, the pastry makers, the mothers and fathers and their families. 

NUNES: And we conclude the story of Aaron Lopez, a Jewish refugee who builds a business, funds a synagogue, and enslaves thousands of people. 

GONZÁLEZ: That’s next week on Mosaic, a podcast about immigration. 

NUNES: Mosaic is a production of The Public’s Radio. Edited by Sally Eisele with production help from James Baumgartner and Aaron Selbig. Our original music is by Bryn Bliska. A special thanks to Jacob Sapon for helping us with our Jewish musical selections this week. And to John Bender for being the voice of the Rhode Island Assembly. And thanks to Newport Historical Society for access to the Aaron Lopez manuscript collection.  Torey Malatia is the general manager of the Public’s Radio. I’m Alex Nunes.

GONZÁLEZ: And I’m Ana González. Thanks for listening.