VV(5) - Sephardim #2

[David Morris]

http://www.angelfire.com/al/AttardBezzinaLawrenc/Slaves/Slave.html

The Jewish Slave Community of Malta
"On the island of Malta, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there 
existed a Jewish community composed exclusively of slaves captured by the 
Order of St. John, a community protected by the Inquisition and presided 
over by a Non- Jew."

"In 1530, Charles V made over Malta to the knights Hospitaller of the Order 
of ST. John, who had been driven from Rhodes nine years earlier by the 
Moslems. The whole raison d’`etre of the body and its tenure of Malta lay in 
the supposition of a continual state of hostility between the Moslem world 
and Christendom, of which the members of the Order were, in a sense, the 
knights-errant. Accordingly, they waged continual maritime warfare, hardly 
distinguishable from piracy, against the Moslem powers. Seaports were raided 
and their inhabitants carried off.

Shipping was preyed on indiscriminately, captured vessels being brought to 
Malta, and crew and passengers sold into captivity. Throughout the rule of 
the Knights, which lasted until they capitulated to the French in 1798, the 
islands were thus a last European refuge of slave traffic and slave labour.

The victims were any persons, of whatever standing, race, age or sex, who 
happened to be sailing on the captured ships. Jews made up a large 
proportion of the Levantine merchant class and were hence peculiarly subject 
to capture. Because of their nomadic way of life, disproportionately large 
numbers were to be found in any vessel sailing the Eastern ports. Also they 
formed a considerable element in the population of the Moslem ports subject 
to raids. So, soon after the establishment of the Knights in Malta, the name 
of Malta begins to be found with increasing frequency in Jewish literature, 
and always with an evil association."



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