Moses Elias Levy

Who was Moses Elias Levy?

Moses Elias Levy was a Jewish-American businessman and a social and religious reformer. He was unusual for the fact that he was a slaveholder as well as an advocate for the gradual emancipation of slaves. Levy published "A Plan for the Abolition of Slavery" in London in 1828, achieving celebrity at the height of the antislavery campaign. In the United States, Levy eventually purchased 100,000 acres in north-central Florida where he established Pilgrimage Plantation, a refuge for persecuted European Jews, and was also one of the founders of the town of Micanopy. Levy is frequently noted as the father of U.S. Senator David Levy Yulee. Pilgrimage Plantation, the first communitarian refuge for displaced European Jews in America was destroyed by Seminole forces in 1835 during the onset of the Second Seminole War.