Jewish pirates

Jewish pirates were Jewish people who engaged in piracy. While there is some mention of the phenomenon in antiquity, especially during the Hasmonean period (c. 140–37 BCE), most Jewish pirates were Sephardim who operated in the years following the Alhambra Decree of 1492 ordering the expulsion of Iberia's Jews. Upon fleeing Spain and Portugal, some of these Jews became pirates and turned to attacking the Catholic empires' shipping as both Barbary corsairs from their refuge in the Ottoman dominions, as well as privateers bearing letters of marque from Spanish rivals such as the United Netherlands.

Many Jews also gave economic support to privateers that attacked Spanish ships. The pirates stole valuables from Spanish treasure galleons and sold the treasure to Jewish merchants. Those Jewish merchants then sold the treasure and valuables onward for a profit, and used their money to support the pirates raids against the Spanish.^[1] They considered it an effective revenge strategy for their expulsion and the Inquisition's continued religious persecution of their Jewish and converso brethren in both the Old and New Worlds.^[2]