The Myth of John de Sequeyra, Thomas Jefferson and the Introduction of Tomatoes into North America
While writing by article debunking the false jewish claim that they invented pizza (1) I came across the historical claim by historian and former Deputy Prime Minister of Israel Abba Eban that Thomas Jefferson credited a Sephardi jew named John de Sequeyra with first spreading the belief that tomatoes were safe to eat.
As Aaron Reich summarizes it:
‘Tomatoes were brought to North America during the slave trade. At the time, slaves would eat them, as they had learned how to tell if it was poisonous or not.
But according to some, it wasn't accepted as an edible food until the work of the Jewish physician, Dr. John de Sequeyra, also known as Dr. Siccary by some, changed that. His family had lived in England but had once been court physicians to the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs.
Sequeyra believed tomatoes to actually be healthy and could help prolong life, and had told this to American founding father Thomas Jefferson, as he was taking care of Jefferson's father.
An account in the American Jewish Archives details how Jefferson, following the teachings of Sequeyra, ate a tomato in public before a crowd and lived to tell the tale.
In his book, My People: Abba Eban's History of the Jews, Volume 2, Eban also credits this doctor for proving tomatoes to be safe to eat.
"You can be grateful to Dr. Siccary... who in 1773 proved that tomatoes were safe to eat," Eban wrote.
Eventually, tomatoes became more popular and accepted.’ (2)
The problem with this narrative is that it lacks any appropriate historical context because while it is often claimed that Europeans and also Americans believed that tomatoes were poisonous, because they were a member of the nightshade family and English barber-surgeon John Gerard’s heavily plagiarized 1597 ‘Herball’ popularized the idea. (3)
The truth is that tomatoes were being widely consumed in Europe from at least 1734 when marinara sauce was first invented in Naples (4) and had been cultivated as a foodstuff in Italy since at least the sixteenth century. (5)
Further the fact that tomatoes were already widely grown and eaten in colonial America – specifically by black slaves – as the British and French West Indies in the eighteen century (6) also eliminates the possibility of de Sequeyra’s involvement in their introduction to the United States or spreading the knowledge that they were a non-poisonous foodstuff.
Indeed Harold Gill Jr. writing about just this issue observed in 1972 concerning de Sequeyra that:
‘Practically nothing is known of his life in Virginia even though he was a well-known physician. Thomas Jefferson credited him with the introduction of the tomato into Virginia.’ (7)
Gill’s point here is that Jefferson credited de Sequeyra as being the person who informed him that tomatoes were not – in fact – poisonous probably because de Sequeyra had seen black slaves eating them and knew that they were not – as educated opinion allegedly had it – poisonous.
Jefferson then simply (and falsely) credited de Sequeyra with ‘introducing the tomato into Virginia’ when it was already there and being eaten, which reflects not de Sequeyra’s alleged medical knowledge but rather Jefferson’s simple medical ignorance and overreliance on books for his opinions.
Simply put: John de Sequeyra had absolutely nothing to do with the introduction of the tomato into colonial America nor did he have any real role in popularizing the idea that it was safe to eat.
References
(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-the-pizza
(2) https://www.jpost.com/food-recipes/article-695956
(3) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-the-tomato-was-feared-in-europe-for-more-than-200-years-863735/ also see https://www.thecollector.com/history-of-tomato/
(4) Carol Helstosky, 2008, ‘Pizza: A Global History’, 1st Edition, Reaktion Books: London, pp. 21-22
(5) Ibid., p. 21
(6) Wesley Greene, 2012, ‘Vegetable Gardening the Colonial Williamsburg Way’, 1st Edition, Rodale: New York, p. 194
(7) Harold Gill Jr., 1972, ‘The Apothecary in Colonial Virginia’, 1st Edition, The University Press of Virginia: Charlottesville, p. 95