Aaron Lopez

Aaron Lopez
Born	1731 Lisbon, Portugal
Died	May 28, 1782 Newport, Rhode Island
Resting place	Newport, Rhode Island
Nationality	Portuguese
Occupation	Merchant

Aaron Lopez (1731–1782), born Duarte Lopez, was a Portuguese Jewish merchant and philanthropist. Through his varied commercial ventures, he became the wealthiest person in Newport, Rhode Island, in British America. In 1761 and 1762, Lopez unsuccessfully sued the Colony of Rhode Island for citizenship.

Duarte Lopez was born in 1731 in Lisbon, Portugal. He belonged to a family of conversos who professed Catholicism while they continued to practice Judaism in secret. In 1750 Lopez married a woman named Anna, and within two years the couple had a daughter, Catherine.

Aaron's older brother José had left Portugal years earlier, reclaimed his Jewish identity, and taken the name Moses. Moses was naturalized in 1740 and granted a license by the General Assembly to make potash in 1753, and he became a successful merchant in Newport. In 1752 Duarte and his family moved to Newport, where they lived as Jews and became Aaron, Abigail, and Sarah.

Lopez established himself as a shopkeeper in Newport shortly after his arrival. By 1755 he was buying and selling goods throughout Rhode Island and dealing with agents in Boston and New York.

One of Lopez's early business interests was the trade in spermaceti, a coveted wax extracted from whale oil that was used to make fine candles. Lopez built a candle-making factory in Newport in 1756. By 1760, a dozen competitors had built similar plants in New England. Whalers couldn't supply the factories with enough spermaceti to meet the demand, and the price of whale oil was climbing. In 1761, Lopez joined eight other merchants to form a trust to control the price and distribution of whale oil.

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