The Coffee Trader is a historical novel by David Liss, set in 17th-centuryAmsterdam. The story revolves around the activities of commodity trader Miguel Lienzo, who is a Jewish refugee from the Portuguese Inquisition. Recovering from near financial ruin, he embarks on a coffee trading scheme with a Dutch woman, kept secret because it is forbidden by his community council. Miguel navigates the social structures of the Amsterdam business world, the politics of the council, and the plots of competitors bringing this new import to Europe.[1]
The character of Miguel Lienzo is the great-uncle of Benjamin Weaver, the protagonist of Liss's first novel, A Conspiracy of Paper.[2] This novel is set about 60 years earlier, but is not a prequel; as stated by Liss, Miguel Lienzo is a very different kind of character from the English great-nephew whom he would never meet.
The book has been published in translation into Chinese, Danish, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese and Turkish.[3]
Plot summary
The year is 1659. Miguel Lienzo is in financial trouble as a result of some trades in sugar that have gone poorly. He is being pursued by his creditors and is looking for a way out of his current problems. His friend Geertruid persuades him to invest in coffee, a little-known commodity in Europe. After trying coffee for himself at a Turkish coffee house, he is convinced that there could be a market for the beverage in Europe. He devises a scheme to manipulate the price of coffee by buying up as much as possible on several exchanges around Europe simultaneously. Miguel gets Geertruid to front the money for the initial purchases, and he arranges for most of the foreign trades, ordering 90 barrels of coffee through an Amsterdam broker named Isaiah Nunes.
Meanwhile, Miguel is living with his younger brother Daniel and his young wife, Hannah, who is pregnant. Miguel owes money to Daniel as well as to other creditors, but his coffee scheme will take months to pay off, and he is on the verge of losing more money on some bad investments in a brandy futures contract. His long-time enemy Solomon Parido approaches him with overtures of friendship and an offer to connect Miguel with a buyer for the brandy futures. Though skeptical, Miguel goes through with the trade, only to see the price of brandy rise just before close of trading. While the trade mitigated Miguel's potential losses, it cost him money he might have earned if he had retained them. On the advice of Alonzo Alferonda, Miguel is able to earn a significant profit on whale oil futures, which costs Parido considerably and enables Miguel to pay off many of his debts and regain some standing in the community.
Several intrigues follow. Miguel finds a mutual attraction with his sister-in-law Hannah. Parido catches wind of Miguel's interest in coffee, and appears to have coffee interests of his own. Parido uses his influence with the Jewish ruling council, the Ma'amad, to censure Miguel. Miguel receives threats from creditors still waiting to be paid, even as he is himself waiting to be paid for his profits in the whale oil trade. He begins to have suspicions about Geertruid's trustworthiness and takes some of her coffee-investment money to pay some of his creditors. Miguel and Daniel's relationship is strained by many of these events.
When Nunes's coffee shipment arrives in Amsterdam, it appears that Nunes has promised it to both Parido and Miguel Lienzo. Parido and Lienzo place a wager on the final price of coffee for the day, and both attempt to manipulate the price in their favor. Miguel wins the wager and a considerable sum, but betrays Geertruid in the process, believing Geertruid to having been Parido's spy. He repays her initial investment, but cuts her out of the profits she was expecting.
Hannah deceives Daniel by informing him that their baby is actually Miguel's and, along with his bankruptcy, Daniel informs her that he is leaving the city and will grant her a divorce. She goes to Miguel's house and they plan to marry. Miguel learns that Geertruid was working for Alferonda, not Parido; he tries too late to make amends. Geertruid leaves the city with her companion, Hendrick, but not before Hendrick beats Miguel's sometime-friend Joachim in retribution for Miguel's betrayal. Miguel and Hannah have a son, Samuel, and later another boy. His prosperous future now lies securely in the coffee trade.
Characters
Lienzo household
Miguel Lienzo - a Portuguese Jewish merchant living in Amsterdam. Miguel is the main viewpoint character of the novel.
Daniel Lienzo - Miguel's younger brother; Miguel is indebted to Daniel and is living in Daniel's basement.
Hannah - Daniel's wife, who is pregnant. Raised Catholic, and unaware of her Jewish heritage until her wedding day. She is an occasional viewpoint character in the novel.
Annetje - Daniel and Hannah's maid, and Miguel's occasional lover; she is Catholic.
Jewish characters
Solomon Parido - an influential Jewish merchant; a parnass on the Jewish Ma'amad, the local council that controls the affairs of Sephardic Jews in Amsterdam. Miguel had previously been engaged to Parido's daughter, but he earned Parido's enmity when he was caught in flagrante delicto with Parido's maid.
Alonzo Alferonda "The Userer" - a moneylender, and Parido's enemy. Parido was angered by Alferonda's acting against his combination in a salt trade and managed to have him excommunicated from the Jewish community for helping shunned and poorer "Tudesco" Jews. He is a viewpoint character in the novel, as related through passages framed as excerpts from his memoirs.
Isaiah Nunes - a friend of Miguel's and a broker on the Amsterdam Exchange.
Ricardo - a broker on the exchange.
Dutch characters
Geertruid Damhuis - a widow who does business on the Exchange; a friend of Miguel.
Hendrick - Geertruid's companion and bodyguard.
Joachim Waagenaar - a Dutch businessmen who lost his fortune in a deal in which Miguel also lost money; he blames Miguel for the loss.
Critical reception
The Coffee Trader was published in 2003 to generally positive reviews. Several reviewers noted the novel's depth of historical detail, including mention of the three pages of bibliography at the end of the book.[4][5] Others mention the intricacy of the plot;[4][6] writing for The New York Times, Thomas Mallon described "the book's commercial plot to be as complicated as it is expert",[1] requiring occasional narrative recaps to help the reader keep track of its intricacies. Despite the "careful attention" to setting, Mallon wished for a bit more "time and place" as a break from the rapid and intricate plot.[1]
The novel shows considerable attention to historical detail. In the "historical note" appended to the novel, the author notes that many modern business methods, especially those having to do with the stock market, came into being in 17th-century Holland.[7]:384–385New York Times reviewer Thomas Mallon writes that the Amsterdam of the novel is "a kind of information age, where wealth follows from what one knows or can trick others into believing."[1] Historian Adam Sutcliffe also sees the seeds of modernity in the novel's portrayal of Amsterdam "as a crucible of modernity is based above all in the easy contact between Jews and non-Jews," but finds that Liss goes too far in this portrayal, saying that "there appears to be almost no cultural distance between... an intensely Calvinist [Dutch] society... [and] the Sephardim... steeped in their very different Iberian sensibility."[5]:425 Sutcliffe concludes, "The commercial, cultural, and political modernity of this Amsterdam milieu underpins the familiar fascination of The Coffee Trader. The less recognizably modern aspects of Sephardic life are marginal to Liss's narrative, but they Liss has said that the novel was originally focused on the chocolate trade, but he switched the focal commodity because "coffee was a better fit"[2] and that "coffee and business go so naturally together."[7]:386 In an interview, Liss was asked whether Miguel was based on a particular historical figure; he replied that Miguel "is entirely made up based on the sort of character I wanted to see in that situation."[2]
Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the Iberian Peninsula. The term, which is derived from the Hebrew Sepharad, can also refer to the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa, who were also heavily influenced by Sephardic law and customs. Many Iberian Jewish exiled families also later sought refuge in those Jewish communities, resulting in ethnic and cultural integration with those communities over the span of many centuries. The majority of Sephardim live in Israel.
The History of Sephardic Jews in England consists of the Sephardic Jews' contribution and achievement in England.
The resettlement of the Jews in England was an informal arrangement during the Commonwealth of England in the mid-1650s, which allowed Jews to practice their faith openly. It forms a prominent part of the history of the Jews in England. It happened directly after two events. Firstly a prominent rabbi Menasseh ben Israel came to the country from the Netherlands to make the case for Jewish resettlement, and secondly a Spanish New Christian merchant Antonio Robles requested that he be classified as a Jew rather than Spaniard during the war between England and Spain.
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Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the few centuries following the forced expulsion of unconverted Jews from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497. They should therefore be distinguished both from the descendants of those expelled in 1492 and from the present-day Jewish communities of Spain and Portugal.
The community of Sephardic Jews in the Netherlands, particularly in Amsterdam, was of major importance in the seventeenth century. The Portuguese Jews in the Netherlands did not refer to themselves as "Sephardim", but rather as "Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation." The Portuguese-speaking community grew from conversos, Jews forced to convert to Catholicism in Spain and Portugal, who rejudaized under rabbinical authority, to create an openly self-identified Portuguese Jewish community. As a result of the expulsions from Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1496, as well as the religious persecution by the Inquisition that followed, many Spanish and Portuguese Jews left the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the 15th century and throughout the 16th century, in search of religious freedom. Some migrated to the newly independent Dutch provinces which allowed Jews to become residents. Many Jews who left for the Dutch provinces were crypto-Jews. Others had been sincere New Christians, who, despite their conversion, were targeted by Old Christians as suspect. Some of these sought to return to the religion of their ancestors. Ashkenazi Jews began migrating to the Netherlands in the mid-seventeenth century, but Portuguese Jews viewed them with ambivalence.
The history of the Jews in Europe spans a period of over two thousand years. Jews, a Semitic people descending from the Judeans of Judea in the Southern Levant, began migrating to Europe just before the rise of the Roman Empire, although Alexandrian Jews had already migrated to Rome, and some Gentiles had undergone Judaization on a few occasions. A notable early event in the history of the Jews in the Roman Empire was the 63 BCE siege of Jerusalem, where Pompey had interfered in the Hasmonean civil war.
A Conspiracy of Paper is a historical mystery novel by David Liss, set in London in the period leading up to the bursting of the South Sea Bubble in 1720.
Miguel de Barrios was a poet, playwright, and historian, born in Montilla, Spain to a Portuguese converso family. He eventually settled in Amsterdam in the Portuguese Jewish community. He was a prolific author, whose best known work is a memorialization of victims of the Inquistion, Contra la verdad no hay fuerza, and a laudatory portrayal of Amsterdam's Sephardic community, Triumpho del govierno popular (1683). He was one of several writers to focus on "the [Jewish] Law's perfection, eternity and superiority." In his work, Triumpho del govierno popular (1682) he gave an explanation for the permanent expulsion of Spinoza from the Amsterdam synagogue, saying it was Spinoza's defiance of rabbinic authority and declaration that "the Jews have no obligation to observe Mosaic Law."
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The history of the Jews in Amsterdam focuses on the historical center of the Dutch Jewish community, comprising both Portuguese Jews originally from both Spain and Portugal and Ashkenazi Jews, originally from central Europe. The two separate groups have had a continuing presence since the seventeenth century. Amsterdam has been called a Jerusalem of the West and the "Dutch Jerusalem". The Holocaust in the Netherlands devastated the Jewish community, with the Nazis murdering over 80% of Amsterdam's 79,000 Jews, but the community has managed to rebuild a vibrant and living Jewish life for its approximately 15,000 present members.
The history of the Jews in Jamaica predominantly dates back to migrants from Spain and Portugal. Starting in 1509, many Jews began fleeing from Spain because of the persecution of the Holy Inquisition. When the English captured Jamaica from Spain in 1655, the Jews who were living as conversos began to practice Judaism openly. By 1611, the Island of Jamaica had reached an estimated population of 1,500 people. An estimated 75 of those people were described as "foreigners," which may have included some Portuguese Jews. Many Jamaican Jews were involved in the Atlantic slave trade, both owning and trading in enslaved Black people.
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Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, was a British financier and banker, activist, philanthropist and Sheriff of London. Born to an Italian Sephardic Jewish family based in London, after he achieved success, he donated large sums of money to promote industry, business, economic development, education and health among the Jewish community in the Levant. He founded Mishkenot Sha'ananim in 1860, the first Jewish settlement outside the Old City of Jerusalem.
Francisco Lopes Suasso, second Baron d'Avernas le Gras was a banker and financier of the Dutch Republic. He was also known within the Sephardic Jewish community as Abraham Israel Suasso.
Emanuel Raphael Belilios, was a banker, opium dealer, philanthropist and businessman, born in Calcutta, British India and active in Hong Kong. His father, Raphael Emanuel Belilios, was a member of a Jewish Venetian family. Belilios married Simha Ezra in 1855, and in 1862 he settled in Hong Kong and engaged in trade. His success saw him described in the British press at the time as "one of the merchant princes of the colony."
Moses Uri ben Yoseph HaLevi, also Moses Uri Levi or Moses Uri Halewi or Philip Uri Joosten Halevi [not to be confused with Moses ben Joseph ben Merwan Ha-Levi] was originally a German rabbi who become an instrumental figure and a key founder of the Spanish-Portuguese community of Amsterdam. Born likely in the German city of Wittmund, Germany or Braunschweig, in the year 1602 he became the first chief rabbi of the Jewish Community of Amsterdam. He is considered to be the founder of the first Jewish community in Amsterdam and the first rabbi of a Sephardic community in Northern Europe.
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