->Marcocapelle: /* References */removed grandparent category of Category:British people of Portuguese-Jewish descent

2021-09-20T05:02:58Z

References: removed grandparent category of Category:British people of Portuguese-Jewish descent

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{{for|the French scholar|Joseph Salvador (scholar)}}
'''Joseph Salvador''' (1716–1786) was a British businessman in [[London]]. Descended from [[Spanish and Portuguese Jews|Portuguese Sephardic Jews]], he is often mistakenly referred to as having been the first and only Jew to serve as a director of the [[British East India Company]]. While Salvador invested considerable sums in East India Company stock and was active in Company politics in the 1760s, there is no evidence of his serving as a director.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Woolf |first=Maurice |year=1968 |title=Joseph Salvador, 1716-86 |journal=Transactions, Jewish Historical Society of England |volume=21 |pages=104–137 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Philips |first1=C.H. |last2=Philips |first2=D. |year=1941 |title=Alphabetical List of Directors of the East India Company from 1758 to 1858 |journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society |volume=73 |issue=4 |pages=325–336 |doi=10.1017/S0035869X00097616 |url=http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0035869X00097616}}</ref>

Salvador's ancestors had escaped persecution during the [[Portuguese Inquisition]] and migrated to the [[Netherlands]]. From there they immigrated to [[London]], [[England]] in the eighteenth century. Salvador belonged to the [[Portugal|Portuguese]] [[Sephardic]] Jewish [[synagogue]] in London, and was a leader in the affairs of this Portuguese-speaking community. He was a prominent businessman and financier. He lobbied for the [[Jew Bill of 1753|1753 Jew Bill]] to extend full citizenship and civil rights to Jews.

In 1759, Salvador was elected a Fellow of the [[Royal Society]]. When [[George III of the United Kingdom|George III]] ascended the throne of England, Salvador headed the seven-man delegation that congratulated him on behalf of England's Jewish community.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rousseau |first1=G.S. |last2=Haycock |first2=David |year=2000 |title=The Jew of Crane Court: Emanuel Mendes Da Costa (1717–91), Natural History and Natural Excess |journal=JNL of the History of Science |volume=38 |issue=120 |pages=127–170 |doi=10.1177/007327530003800201 |s2cid=161134195 |url=http://www.shpltd.co.uk/rousseau-jewofcrancourt.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070702191945/http://www.shpltd.co.uk/rousseau-jewofcrancourt.pdf |archive-date=2007-07-02 }}</ref> Salvador was a pro-Hanovarian [[freemason]] belonging to the [[Premier Grand Lodge of England]] and was engaged in [[Jacobitism|anti-Jacobite]] activities.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.academia.edu/38843117|title=Early Jacobite Victories, Later Hanoverian Triumph: 1745-1746|last1=Marsha Keith Schuchard |date=1 December 2019|work=Academia.edu|access-date=1 December 2019}}</ref>

Salvador was also a great patron; together with the DaCosta family, he sponsored transportation for 42 poor Jews to [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] in 1733. These colonists lay the groundwork for what was to become the Jewish communities of the city of [[Savannah, Georgia|Savannah]] and [[Charleston, South Carolina]]. Many migrated from Savannah to Charleston after the Spanish attacked Georgia, as they feared getting caught in another Inquisition. From the 1730s, Charleston became the preferred destination for Sephardic Jews in the South.

Salvador and the DaCosta family bought hundreds of thousands of acres in [[Ninety Six National Historic Site|Ninety-Six District]] in the colony of South Carolina in the 1730s. He was eventually financially ruined after the [[1755 Lisbon earthquake|great earthquake]] that destroyed [[Lisbon]] in 1755, as he had invested considerably in property in that city.

Joseph's nephew was [[Francis Salvador]], who emigrated to South Carolina in 1773, buying 7,000 acres in Ninety-Six District. He joined the American Patriot cause and in 1774 was elected to the Provincial Congress, the first Jew to be elected to public office in the Thirteen Colonies (and future United States.) In August 1776, he was killed in a battle in South Carolina, the first Jew to be killed in the [[American Revolutionary War]].

==See also==
* [[Sampson Gideon]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{BDBJ}}
{{Premier Grand Lodge of England}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Salvador, Joseph}}
[[Category:1716 births]]
[[Category:1786 deaths]]
[[Category:British people of Portuguese-Jewish descent]]
[[Category:18th-century Sephardi Jews]]
[[Category:English Sephardi Jews]]
[[Category:Directors of the British East India Company]]
[[Category:18th-century English businesspeople]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:Presidents of the Board of Deputies of British Jews]]
[[Category:Freemasons of the Premier Grand Lodge of England]]

Joseph Salvador - Revision history

->Marcocapelle: /* References */removed grandparent category of Category:British people of Portuguese-Jewish descent