Legend of the Dead

“There is no deeper mark of being a Jew than exile”

In 1654, fifteen hundred Jews were driven from a Dutch colony in Brazil by a conquering Portuguese army. A fleet of sixteen ships transported the Jews back to Europe. However, one ship got lost in a storm. Drifting alone in the Atlantic, the ship was captured by pirates who brought the Jews to New Amsterdam. Penniless and unwelcome there, the refugees struggled to survive the wilderness of North America and the hostility of those seeking to control it.

One young refugee, Benjamin Vieira, works in the fur trade along the North River before being captured by a Mohawk warrior. After a daring escape, he makes his way east to New England where he takes refuge with the powerful Narragansett tribe. Benjamin believes a Jew must make his home wherever he is able. But tribal elders disagree. They contend Benjamin must live among his own people, Jewish merchants who have settled in Newport, Rhode Island. But Benjamin’s life in the colonies is soon threatened by a bloody war between the English colonists and the Native Americans.

And Benjamin doesn’t know which side he is on.

Set against the backdrop of the first Jewish settlement in North America in 1654 and King Philip’s War from 1675-1676, Legend of the Dead is a story about the transformation of the New World and one young man’s attempt to carve his place within it.