Joachim Gans

Joachim Gans (other spellings: Jeochim, Jochim, Gaunz, Ganse, Gaunse) was a Bohemian mining expert and renowned for being the first recorded Jew in North America.

Gans was born in Prague, Kingdom of Bohemia, and therefore was most likely related to David Gans, who settled there in 1564.

He is first mentioned in his professional capacity at Keswick, Cumberland, in 1581.

He introduced a new process for the "making of Copper, vitriall, and Coppris, and smeltinge of Copper and leade ures." Gans figured in the English state papers of the reign of Elizabeth I and a full description of his operations is preserved in these documents, printed by Donald. Gans's most dramatic scientific discovery was to reduce the time to purify a batch of copper ore from sixteen weeks to just four days. Additionally, Gans was able to use the impurities removed from the copper ore in textile mordants.

Gans became the first Bohemian and the first recorded Jew in colonial America when, in 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh recruited him for an expedition to found a permanent settlement in the Virginia territory of the New World.

Sir Richard Grenville, leader of Raleigh's expedition, founded the Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island off the coast of modern North Carolina in 1585. Among the ruins at the Roanoke site, archaeologists have discovered lumps of smelted copper and a goldsmith’s crucible attributed to Gans's work at the colony. Because the royal mining company failed to resupply colonists who were also becoming increasingly fearful of conflicts with the Indians, they accepted an offer from Sir Francis Drake in June 1586 to sail them to England. Each of the colonists, including Gans, left North America.

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