Israelites in the Americas, round three: Solomon's gold, the Code Noir, the hidden Jews, Africa's witness

SUMMARYIsraelites in the Americas, round three: Solomon's gold, the Code Noir, the hidden Jews, Africa's witness (Nov 3, 2026). Extends P201–P202.
RECORD, Columbus in his own words (Jamaica, July 7, 1503): "There were brought to Solomon at one journey six hundred and sixty-six quintals of gold"; "Josephus thinks that this gold was found in the Aurea"; "I contend that these mines of the Aurea are identical with those of Veragua" (Panama); David left "three thousand quintals of Indian gold to Solomon, to assist in building the Temple"; "Jerusalem and Mount Zion are to be rebuilt by the hands of Christians." (He says Aurea here, not Ophir; Peter Martyr reported Ophir, P202.)
RECORD, the Code Noir (Versailles, March 1685; registered by the Sovereign Council of Saint-Domingue May 6, 1687), Article 1: "we enjoin all of our officers to chase from our islands all the Jews who have established residence there," within three months, on pain of losing person and goods. Article 2 orders all enslaved people baptized Catholic; Article 3 bans every other religion in public. The first line of the slave code is about removing Jews. In Ayiti it was not enforced: 30–50 Jewish families lived at Cap-Français, Port-au-Prince, Léogâne, Jacmel and Les Cayes (merchant houses like Gradis of Bordeaux) until 1791, then scattered to Cuba, Jamaica and New Orleans (sephardicgenealogy.com).
RECORD, the hidden Jews of New Spain: the Carvajal family came with their uncle, the governor of Nuevo León, landing at Tampico in 1580; tried as Judaizers from 1589; Luis de Carvajal the Younger, his mother and three sisters were garroted and burned at the Mexico City auto-da-fé, Dec 8, 1596. His memoir (1591–1594), the earliest known writing by a Jew in the Americas, vanished from Mexico's national archive in 1932 and was recovered in 2016. The Inquisition ran tribunals in Mexico, Lima and Cartagena de Indias (1610).
RECORD, the first congregations: Kahal Zur Israel, Recife (about 1636), the first synagogue in the Americas; 23 Jews from Recife reach New Amsterdam (1654); Jodensavanne, Suriname (1600s); Mikvé Israel-Emanuel, Curaçao (building 1732), the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the Americas.
RECORD, Africa's own witness: Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative (1789), ch. 1: the Eboe (Igbo) circumcised "like the Jews," kept sacrifices, burnt offerings and purifications, and he put the color difference down to climate.
RECORD, Black Hebrew movements in the U.S.: William Saunders Crowdy, Church of God and Saints of Christ (Lawrence, Kansas, 1896); Wentworth Arthur Matthew, Commandment Keepers (Harlem, 1919)

PATTERNin the Spanish and French Americas, being a Jew was a crime the empire hunted (the Inquisition, Code Noir Article 1) at the same time its writers were calling the Natives Israelites. The colonial machine erased Israel from the people it ruled, on paper and by fire

LENS (WW9)the same machine that renamed the Indians "Negroes" first removed the Israelites from the islands. OPEN, needs deep research: the Saint-Domingue notarial records of Jewish families; the Cartagena tribunal's "judaizer" trials (names, origins); whether any Native or Black people were tried as Judaizers.