Tombstone of Rachel Pereira

Rachel Soares Pereira, who died in 1721 at the age of twenty-four, was married to Isaac Pereira. Floral motifs decorate the top of her gravestone, while the bottom panel contains a relief of a hand with an ax, reaching out of a cloud, to chop down a tree. This sort of symbolism was common on Jewish gravestones when someone died young. The Pereiras were members of a Sephardic Jewish community that originated with refugees from the Spanish Inquisition. By the time Rachel died, Jews made up 18 percent of Jamaica’s population.