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It is the history of Iberian Jews, disguised as Christians, who pioneered the New World as explorers, conquistadors, cowboys, and pirates, transformed sugar cultivation into an agro-industry that they introduced to the Caribbean, and created the first trade network spanning the seven seas. Figures are imprecise, but it is estimated that conversos numbered around ten thousand in the midseventeenth century, or 5 percent of the 200,000 settlers in the New
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Edward Kritzler (Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom and Revenge)