The Inquisitor-General of Spain, Cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros, on May 7, 1516, appointed Fray Juan Quevedo, Bishop of Cuba, his delegate for the Kingdom of Terra Firma, as the mainland of Spanish America was then called, and authorized him to select personally such officials as he needed to hunt down and exterminate the Marranos. Emperor Charles V. (1500–1558), with the permission of his former teacher, Cardinal Hadrian (1459–1523), the Dutch Grand-Inquisitor of Aragon who later became Pope (Hadrian or Adrian VI. 1522–23), issued an edict on May 25, 1520, whereby he ordained Alfonso Manso, Bishop of Porto Rico, and Pedro de Cordova, Vice Provincial of the Dominicans, as Inquisitors for the Indies and the islands of the ocean.
At first the secret Jews were not the only victims of the persecutions and not even the most numerous among them. “There were many heathenish natives who were forcibly converted by the mighty clerical arm of the Spanish conqueror, but who nevertheless remained at heart loyal to their hereditary belief and practised their idolatrous customs with as much zeal as the fear of discovery and consequent punishment would allow.” Fiendish atrocities were committed in the name of religion against those Indian Marranos, and the fearful persecutions depopulated the country to such an extent that the tyrants themselves perceived that they must desist.
The Inquisition in Spain itself had, however, fallen more or less into desuetude during the reign of the above-mentioned Emperor Charles V., who was the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, and had inherited their Spanish and American possessions. It was revived and invigorated under the more bigoted rule of his son, King Philip II. (1527–1598), who ascended the Spanish throne in 1556, after his father’s abdication. Under the new reign the laws of the Inquisition were codified and promulgated at Madrid on September 2, 1561. A printed copy of the new code was sent to America in 1569. Another document, dated February 5, 1569, issued by Cardinal Diego de Spinosa, General Apostolic Inquisitor against Heresy, Immorality and Apostasy, addressed “to the Reverend Inquisitors Apostolic ... in his Majesty’s Dominions and Seignories of the Provinces of Piru (Peru), New Spain and the new Kingdom of Granada and the other provinces and Bishoprics of the Indies of the Ocean” consists of forty sections prescribing the rules of procedure. (See Elkan Nathan Adler, The Inquisition in Peru, Publications XII, pp. 5–37.)
A later document containing the general edicts to be read on the third Sunday of Lent and the fourth Sunday of Anathema in every third year in the Cathedral of Lima and all the towns of the districts, was printed in Peru itself shortly after 1641, and records the names of the places which were included in the jurisdiction of those issuing it. It reads: “We, the Inquisitors against Heresy, Immorality and Apostasy in this city and Archbishopric of Los Reyes (Lima) with the Archbishopric of Los Charcas and Bishoprics of Quito, Cuzco, Rio de la Plata, Paraguay, Tucuman, Santiago and Concepcion of the Dominions of Chile, la Paz (Bolivia), Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Guamanga, Areguipa, and Truxillo, and in all the Dominions, Estates and Seignories of the Provinces of Peru, and its Viceroyalty Government and district of the Royal Audiencias thereto appertaining.” In this document we find the name of a new Christian sect which is to be punished for heresy together with the unbelievers who were known to the Inquisition of the earlier period. Lutherans are now enumerated among heretics after the Jews and the Mohamedans. Among the books and engravings which are considered as heretical and indecent are mentioned the books of Martin Luther and other heretics, the Alcoran or other Mohamedan books, “Biblias en romance” (Bibles in the vernacular) and others prohibited by the censorships and catalogues of the Holy Office, etc. Then follow lengthy descriptions of how to detect Jews, Mohamedans and Lutherans; and in the case of the first even the drinking of Kosher wine and the making of a “berakah” or pronouncing a blessing before tasting it are not omitted from the practices which characterized the secret Jew whom the Inquisition was to discover and punish.
But it seems that the Marranos came to America in large numbers despite all the severity of Philip II. His son Philip III. (1578–1621), who succeeded him in 1598, endeavored to prevent their emigrating to the New World and issued in the beginning of the seventeenth century, the following edict:
“We command and decree that no one recently converted to our holy faith, be he Jew or Moor, or the offspring of these, should settle in our Indies without our distinct permission. Furthermore we forbid most emphatically the immigration into New Spain of any one [who is at the expiration of some prescribed penance] newly reconciled with the Church; of the child or grandchild of any person who has ever worn the ‘san benito’ publicly; of the child or grandchild of any person who was either burnt as a heretic or otherwise punished for the crime of heresy, through either male or female descent. Should any one [falling under this category] presume to violate this law, his goods will be confiscated for the benefit of the royal treasury, and upon him the full measure of our grace or disgrace shall fall, so that under any circumstances and for all time he shall be banished from our Indies. Whosoever does not possess personal effects, however, should atone for his transgression by the public infliction of one hundred lashes.”
This characteristic specimen of anti-immigration legislation of three centuries ago, including what would in the colloquialism of to-day be called a “grandfather clause,” was the cause of much suffering; but it is not possible to state with any degree of certainty how far it was effective. It is probable that the number of Marranos in the “Indies” which belonged to the King of Spain went on increasing until about the middle of the seventeenth century, when certain territories were for the first time opened for them in the New World where they could practise Judaism openly.
CHAPTER III.
VICTIMS OF THE INQUISITION IN MEXICO AND IN PERU.
Impossibility of obtaining even approximately correct figures about the Inquisition—A few typical cases—The Carabajal family—Relaxation for several decades—The notable case of Francisco Maldonado de Silva.
The Inquisition, or, as it styled itself, the Holy Office, was an institution of tremendous power and influence which during its existence of more than three centuries deeply impressed the character of the Spanish and Portuguese peoples. A great number of books were written about it, but the material to be dealt with is so vast that none of the works purporting to be histories of the Inquisition really deserve that name. It has been mentioned already in the preceding chapter that an immense mass of documentary material which is heaped up in various archives awaits to be sifted and worked up. An idea of the actual quantity of this material can be obtained from the statement made by Mr. E. N. Adler, in the monogram on the Inquisition in Peru quoted above, that thirty-three million documents, relating to the Inquisition, are preserved in 80,000 “legajos” or bundles in the castille of Simancas, a small town, seven miles from Valladolid, in Spain.
It is therefore next to impossible to attempt to give a general review of the work of that awful tribunal in the old world or the new; it is even unsafe to quote figures as to the total number of trials, Autos da Fé or of victims, because most of the authorities contradict one another or disagree in vital points. Many facts which are given at one time as reasonably certain, are soon disproved by the discovery of more authentic records, which necessitates a constant changing of the time, the place and the identity of persons spoken of in such descriptions. It is therefore considered best to mention here only a few typical cases of victims about whose identity and Jewish extraction there can be no doubt. From these the reader may form his own opinion as to what was constantly