Alexander Bravo (1797 – March 1868), sometimes spelled Alexandre Bravo, was a
Jamaican-born
Sephardic Jewish
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefar ...
merchant, politician, slave plantation owner and
Auditor-General of Jamaica. Bravo was the first Jew to be elected to the
House of Assembly of Jamaica.
Biography
Alexandre Moses Bravo was born at
Kingston
Kingston may refer to:
Places
* List of places called Kingston, including the five most populated:
** Kingston, Jamaica
** Kingston upon Hull, England
** City of Kingston, Victoria, Australia
** Kingston, Ontario, Canada
** Kingston upon Thames, ...
, St. Andrew Parish, Jamaica to Moses Bravo (1758–1831), a Sephardic Jewish mechant and slave plantation owner in
Jamaica (dealing with sugar cane and coffee) and his wife Abigail da Castro. Alexander Bravo was seated at a villa named Bravo Penn. He was a member of the Kingston Common Council and Custos of the parish of Clarendon. He had three brothers, including Charles Clement and Phineas Bravo.
According to the ''
Legacies of British Slave-Ownership
The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, formerly the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership, is a research centre of University College, London (UCL) which focuses on revealing the impact of Britis ...
'' at the
University College London, Bravo was awarded a payment as a slave trader in the aftermath of the
Slavery Abolition Act 1833 with the
Slave Compensation Act 1837. The British Government took out a £15 million loan (worth £ in ) with interest from
Nathan Mayer Rothschild
Nathan Mayer Rothschild (16 September 1777 – 28 July 1836) was an English-German banker, businessman and financier. Born in Frankfurt am Main in Germany, he was the third of the five sons of Gutle (Schnapper) and Mayer Amschel Rothschild, an ...
and
Moses Montefiore which was subsequently paid off by the British taxpayers (ending in 2015). Bravo was associated with ten different claims,
the slave plantations mostly associated with Bravo was Knight's Estate at Vere, Marly Mount at St Dorothy and Mount Moses at Clarendon. Bravo owned 614 slaves in Jamaica and received a £13,157 payment at the time (worth £ in ).
Bravo was defeated at the January 1832 election for the Kingston Common Council by Price Watkins, the first coloured man to run for election to the council. According to Kathleen E. A. Monteith writing in ''Jamaica in Slavery and Freedom: History, Heritage and Culture'' (2001), the election results represented an alliance of free blacks and coloureds in alliance against Bravo; the result was 142 to Watkins, 92 to Bravo. In 1835, Bravo became the first Jew to be elected to the
House of Assembly of Jamaica.
[ Retrieved on 20 March 2019.]
Personal life
Bravo was married to Sarah Nunes Henriques and had a number of children, including Moses (1825-1903), Alexandre Kelly (born 1829), Harriet Redware (1830-1920) and others.
See also
*
History of the Jews in Jamaica
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bravo, Alexander
1797 births
1868 deaths
19th-century farmers
19th-century landowners
19th-century Sephardi Jews
Jamaican planters
19th-century Jamaican politicians
Members of the House of Assembly of Jamaica
Jamaican Jews
British slave owners
Recipients of payments from the Slavery Abolition Act 1833
Jamaican slave owners