250 Years Ago: Francis Salvador, Gentleman of South Carolina
I’m often delighted with the bits of history I find as I write these “250 Years Ago” essays each week. This is one of those times.
When I say “delighted,” I mean that I love finding tidbits of history that were well-known when they happened but were lost in the historical narrative. This is by no means a delightful story.
It seems of little note that a man named Francis Salvador was elected to the South Carolina Provincial Congress on January 11, 1775. But this is an unexpectedly important milestone in American history. Salvador was the first Jewish person elected to public office in the colonies that would later become the United States, and his story is worth noting.
Salvador was born into a prominent Sephardic Jewish family in London, originally of Portuguese descent. The family had been part of the Sephardic diaspora that settled in England after fleeing the Inquisition in Iberia. As you probably recall, Jews were expelled from Spain under the 1492 Alhambra Decree; Portugal followed suit in 1497. Although some Jews remained in Iberia and practiced their faith secretly while outwardly adopting Christianity, others fled to the Ottoman Empire, North Africa, and parts of Europe – including the Netherlands and Italy.
Salvador’s family was among those who went to the Netherlands, which had become a haven for Jews due to its relatively tolerant religious policies. Amsterdam, in particular, became a center of Sephardic Jewish life, commerce, and culture.
His family was involved in trade and finance, with connections across the Atlantic world. His great-grandfather Jacob is first noted in London Synagogue records in the early 18th century and his Uncle Joseph was the first Jewish director of the British East India Company. Joseph plays an important role in the Salvador family story; he bought more than 100,000 acres of land in South Carolina to serve as a possible settlement for poor English Jews (this would be important for the story of the Salvador family). His father, also named Jacob, had just begun to work in the family business when he died in 1749 at the age of 21.
The younger Francis Salvador was an infant when his father died, and his brother Moses had not yet been born, but they still lived a privileged life. The boys were well educated and traveled extensively, and they each inherited £60,000 when they came of age. When Francis married his cousin, Sarah, he obtained a dowry of an additional £13,000; they went on to have three daughters.
However, financial difficulties struck in 1755, when the Salvadors took a financial hit after an earthquake in Lisbon and the (probably unrelated) failure of the East India Company. Stripped of their Iberian land holdings and their wealth in England, the young Francis Salvador moved to the family land in South Carolina in 1773. He left his wife and children behind, expecting to send for them once he was settled. He soon acquired more land and began raising indigo, the second most important cash crop (after rice) in the colony.
Salvador became active in the local community, using his education, connections, and charisma to gain influence among both Jewish and non-Jewish settlers. He had arrived in the colony at a time of growing political unrest and soon became involved in local politics. He became so involved that he wrote only one letter home before he died in 1776.
In 1774, Salvador was elected to the South Carolina Provincial Congress, making him the first Jew to hold public office in the American colonies. He was re-elected in 1775 and became a vocal advocate for American independence from British rule.
Salvador worked closely with revolutionary leaders like Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, John Rutledge, and Henry Laurens, and supported measures to organize militias and oppose British control. He helped to draft South Carolina’s first state constitution and sat in the new state legislature after independence had been declared. His views on independence were undoubtedly shaped by his experience as a Jew in England, where Jews were not allowed to participate directly in politics. Although it was technically illegal for Jews to hold office or even vote in the colony at the time, no one objected to Salvador holding his elected positions.
In 1776, Salvador joined the militia to defend the frontier from attacks by British-backed Cherokee forces. Early in that year, as tensions escalated, the British orchestrated an attack by their Native American allies on South Carolina’s frontier towns to divert attention from the impending British assault on the coast. On July 1, the Indians launched their attack, prompting Francis Salvador to ride 28 miles to warn the Americans of the imminent danger. For this feat, he earned the nickname “Southern Paul Revere.” One month later, on July 31*, 1776, during an engagement known as the Cherokee Campaign, Salvador was shot and fatally wounded near the Keowee River. He became the first Jewish patriot to die in the fight for American independence.
*Some sources say this was on August 1, 1776.
His death was reported in a letter written by a fellow soldier, Colonel William Thompson:
“Here, Mr. Salvador received three wounds; and, fell by my side. . . . I desired [Lieutenant Farar], to take care of Mr. Salvador; but, before he could find him in the dark, the enemy unfortunately got his scalp: which, was the only one taken. . . . He died, about half after two o’clock in the morning: forty-five minutes after he received the wounds, sensible to the last. When I came up to him, after dislodging the enemy, and speaking to him, he asked, whether I had beat the enemy? I told him yes. He said he was glad of it, and shook me by the hand – and bade me farewell – and said, he would die in a few minutes.”
If you want to know more, here’s a brief YouTube video summarizing Salvador’s life and significance.
Interesting vignette. Salvador is underappreciated as one of America's founders!
What a story and such a loss. We should all know about Francis Salvador and reflect on what makes this country great and how we may aspire to improve ourselves.