Alexander Bravo


Alexander Bravo, sometimes spelled Alexandre Bravo, was a Jamaican-born Sephardic Jewish merchant, politician, slave plantation owner and Auditor-General of Jamaica. Bravo was the first Jewish person to be elected to the House of Assembly of Jamaica.

Biography

Alexandre Moses Bravo was born at Kingston, St. Andrew Parish, Jamaica to Moses Bravo, a Sephardic Jewish mechant and slave plantation owner in Jamaica and his wife Abigail da Castro. Alexander Bravo was seated at a villa named Bravo Penn. He was a member of the Kingston Com,on 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 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 with interest from Nathan Mayer Rothschild and Moses Montefiore which was subsequently paid off by the British taxpayers. 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.
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, 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 Jewish person to be elected to the House of Assembly of Jamaica.

Personal life

Bravo was married to Sarah Nunes Henriques and had a number of children, including Moses, Alexandre Kelly, Harriet Redware and others.

Footnotes