Two parts in one: [ii], 204, 160 = 366 pages (8 1/2 x 5 in.; 217 x 128 mm) on paper; catchwords throughout; foldout table of exports from Suriname 1700-1787 between pp. 76-77 of part 2. Minor cockling; slight intermittent foxing; small stain in lower-outer corner of pp. 101-104; tear near gutter of pp. 45-46. Quarter cloth over board, slightly worn; gilt title and decoration on upper board; gilt title on spine; modern flyleaves and pastedowns.

David de Isaac Cohen Nassy (1747-1806), a physician and publicist, was scion of Suriname’s leading Sephardic family and president of the Regenten (regents) of the local Jewish community. In this capacity, he was the first signatory of a communication to Christian Wilhelm von Dohm (1751-1820), a prominent German advocate of Jewish rights, who requested that Nassy, along with the other Regenten, compose a detailed study of the history of Jewish life in Suriname with the aim of proving thereby that Jews could become just as good citizens as Christians. The result of their efforts, originally published in French in two volumes as Essai historique sur la colonie de Surinam (Paramaribo, 1788), was translated three years later into Dutch, a copy of which comprises the present lot.  

A colony of Jewish exiles from Holland had settled and thrived in Brazil in the early seventeenth century; however, when the Portuguese recaptured the territory from the Dutch in 1654, the Jews were expelled. Instead of returning to Europe, though, a small group decid🌊ed to seek another home in the Americas. Having obtained a charter from the Dutch West Indies Company (Amsterdam Chamber) in Sep💙tember 1659, they established a colony on the island of Cayenne (later French Guiana). When French colonists took control of Cayenne in 1664, the Jews were again forced to leave, this time to the English (soon-to-be-Dutch) possession of Suriname.

With the Jews forming a sizable segment of the non-slave population of Suriname through the eighteenth century, the Essai/Geschiedenis still serves not only as the primary source on the history of the Jews of this Dutch colony, but as an important scholarly resource for information on the colony as a whole, including the text of the original Dutch charter for the colony and an extensive foldout chart of exports for the years 🍒1700-1787.

Provenance

Acad. Lugd. Bat. Bibl. (Leiden Univer🀅sity Library) (stamp on verso of title and on upper and lower paper edges)

Literature

Rudolf Bijlsma, “David de Is. C. Nassy, Author of the Essai historique sur Surinam,” in Robert Cohen (ed.), The Jewish Nation in Surinam: Historical Essays (Amsterdam: S. Emmering, 1982), 64-74.

Jonathan Israel, “The Dutch Jewish Enlightenment in Surinam, 1770-1800,” in Yosef Kaplan and Dan Michman (eds.), The Religious Cultures of Dutch Jewry (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2017), 183-206.