Luis de Torres (died 1493) was a Spanish interpreter of Jewish origin who served Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to America in 1492. Chosen for his knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic, he is regarded as the first person of Jewish origin to settle in the Americas.
Background
Ethnicity:
Born into a Jewish family, according to the existing profile and the Jewish historical tradition. He was baptized as a Catholic shortly before the 1492 expedition, a conversion made under the pressure of the expulsion edict against Spain's Jews.
Luis de Torres's origins are known mainly from accounts of his service in 1492 rather than from records of his childhood. Jewish historical tradition holds that he was born with the name Yosef ben HaLevi HaIvri, meaning Joseph, son of Levi the Hebrew, and that he later took the name Luis de Torres after his conversion.
He grew up and lived in Spain at a time when the Catholic Monarchs were tightening control over religious life. The Spanish Inquisition, established in 1478, pursued conversos suspected of secretly keeping Jewish practices. In March 1492, the Edict of Expulsion ordered Jews who refused baptism to leave the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, a decree that formed the backdrop to the departure of Columbus's expedition.
Torres's linguistic skills were the basis of his employment. His command of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic made him useful to a Spanish nobleman in the southeastern kingdom of Murcia, and the same skills later led Columbus to choose him for the voyage.
Career
Before 1492, Torres worked as an interpreter in the service of Juan Chacón, adelantado of Murcia. The adelantado was a frontier governor who combined military command with administrative authority in the Murcian region, which had a substantial Jewish population before 1492. According to the Spanish scholar Juan Bautista Vilar, Torres accompanied Chacón on the conquest of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada and served as his secretary for Arabic correspondence.
Columbus chose Torres as the official interpreter for his expedition, which sailed from Palos on August 3, 1492. The voyage was financed by the Spanish crown and aimed to reach Asia by sailing west. Columbus expected Torres's knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic to help him communicate with Asian Jewish traders and, possibly, with descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. His logbook entry for October 14 shows that Columbus also planned for Torres to teach captured natives Castilian so they could later serve as interpreters.
After the expedition reached Cuba, which Columbus believed to be the Asian mainland, he sent Torres and the sailor Rodrigo de Jerez inland on November 2, 1492. Their mission was to find the local ruler and gather information about the Great Khan described by Marco Polo. The two men were welcomed with great honor in an Indigenous village and returned four days later. They reported the local custom of drying leaves, placing them in cane pipes, and inhaling the smoke, which is recorded as the first European encounter with tobacco.
When Columbus sailed for Spain on January 4, 1493, Torres was one of 39 men left at La Navidad, a settlement on the island of Hispaniola. Columbus returned at the end of 1493 and found that the garrison had been destroyed by internal fighting and an Indigenous attack, which was a reprisal for the Spaniards' abduction of native women. Indigenous memories recorded that one settler had spoken disparagingly of Catholicism, and the historian Gould suggested that this man may have been Torres.
On September 22, 1508, Torres's widow, Catalina Sánchez, living in Moguer in Andalusia, received a grant from the Spanish treasury in recognition of her husband's services. Later traditions about Torres developed considerably. Meyer Kayserling's 1894 book on Columbus and Jewish participation in Spanish and Portuguese discoveries popularized the story that Torres became a wealthy landowner in the West Indies, but Kayserling appears to have confused him with another Spanish explorer who received an estate and Indigenous slaves in Cuba in 1514. The story of Torres addressing an Indigenous crowd in Hebrew is generally regarded as a literary invention, and the claim that he named the turkey after the Hebrew word for parrot belongs to legend. The Luis de Torres Synagogue in Freeport, Bahamas, is named in his honor.
Achievements
Reported the local practice of smoking dried leaves in cane pipes after his inland mission from Cuba in November 1492, an account recorded as the first European encounter with tobacco.
Regarded as the first person of Jewish origin to settle in the Americas, as he remained at La Navidad on Hispaniola when Columbus sailed for Spain in January 1493.
Religion
Torres was born into a Jewish family, and his documented religious life began in Judaism. Judaism is a monotheistic faith rooted in the Hebrew Bible, centered on covenant, the study of Torah, and communal prayer. In late fifteenth-century Spain, Jewish communities had lived for centuries under royal protection, but they also faced growing hostility and pressure to convert.
Before sailing with Columbus in 1492, Torres converted to Catholicism, the Western Christian tradition that recognizes papal authority and the sacraments of the Church. The Catholic Monarchs required Christian conformity from their subjects, and converts from Judaism, known as conversos, were subject to scrutiny by the Spanish Inquisition. Torres's conversion was made to avoid the expulsion edict, and accounts suggest it was probably not a voluntary decision.
Connections
Torres was married to Catalina Sánchez. Their relationship is documented through the royal grant she received in 1508 after his service had ended, which records her as his widow and places her in Moguer, Andalusia.
Wife:
Catalina Sánchez
Lived in Moguer, Andalusia, and received a grant from the Spanish treasury on September 22, 1508, in recompense for her husband's services.
Gould y Quincy, Nueva lista documentada de los tripulantes de Colón en 1492: Luis de Torres, Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia
Documented list of the crew of Columbus's 1492 voyage, with a study of Torres's background and his probable conversion.
1927
Encyclopedia of Judaism, entry Torres, Luis de
Reference entry describing Torres as a Jewish-born interpreter for Columbus's 1492 expedition who was baptized shortly before it sailed and knew Hebrew, Aramaic, and some Arabic.
Christopher Columbus and His Interpreters
Study by Ingrid Kurz examining the interpreters who accompanied Columbus, including Torres's role in the expedition's communication with the Indigenous peoples.
