Francis Salvador

Francis Salvador (1747 – August 1, 1776) was a young English plantation owner in the colony of South Carolina from the Sephardic Jewish community of London; in 1774 he was the first Jew to be elected to public office in the colonies when chosen for the Provincial Congress. He had joined the independence cause and in 1776 was the first Jew killed in the American Revolutionary War, fighting with the militia on the South Carolina frontier against Loyalists and their Cherokee allies.

Francis Salvador was born to Jacob Salvador and his wife in London , where a Spanish and Portuguese Jewish (Sephardic) community had developed since the 17th century. His uncle, Joseph Salvador, was a prominent businessman, the only Jewish director of the British East India Company. His grandfather Francis Salvador was the boy's namesake. Francis' father died when he was two, and his younger brother Moses was born soon after.

The boys were tutored privately and raised in wealth. When the sons came of age, they each inherited £60,000. Salvador became active with his uncle Joseph and the wealthy DaCosta family of London in plans to settle poor Jews and their family members in the New World.

Francis Salvador married Sarah Salvador, his first cousin and Joseph's second daughter. Her father gave her a £13,000 dowry. They had a son, John Lovel Salvador, and three daughters before the senior Salvador emigrated in late 1773 to South Carolina.

In 1733 the London Sephardic community sent 42 Jews to Savannah with the first English settlers in present-day Georgia. When Spain attacked Georgia in 1740, most of the Jewish families fled north to Charleston, fearing the Spanish Inquisition might be imposed in Georgia. In the 1730s Sephardic Jews from London began emigrating to Charleston as a preferred destination. They were later joined by Jews from Germany, the Netherlands and the West Indies.

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