MEXICO.
The ostensible object of the Spanish conquests in the New World was the
propagation of the faith. This was the sole motive alleged by Alexander
VI, in the celebrated bull of 1493, conferring on the Spanish sovereigns
domination over the territories discovered by Columbus; it was asserted
in the codicil to Queen Isabella’s will, urging her husband and children
to keep it ever in view, and it was put forward in all the commissions
and instructions issued to the adventurers who converted the shores of
the Caribbean into scenes of oppression and carnage.[371] If Philip II
was solicitous to preserve the purity of the faith in his own dominions,
he was no less anxious to spread it beyond the seas; he prescribed this
as one of the chief duties of his officers, describing it as the
principal object of Spanish rule, to which all questions of profit and
advantage were to be regarded as subordinate.[372]
It must be admitted, however, that the effort to spread the gospel
lagged behind those directed to the acquisition of the precious metals.
It is true that, on the second voyage of Columbus, in 1493, the
sovereigns sent Fray Buil, with a dozen clerics and full papal
faculties, but he busied himself more in quarrelling with the admiral
than in converting the heathen.[373] The first regular missionaries of
whom we have knowledge were two Franciscans who, in 1500, accompanied
Bobadilla to the West Indies and, in a letter of October 12th of that
year, reported to the Observantine Vicar-general, Olivier Maillard, that
they found the natives eager for conversion and that they had baptized
three thousand in the first port which they reached in Hispañola.[374]
They were followed, in 1502, by a few more Franciscans under Fray Alonso
del Espinal, a worthy man, according to Las Casas, but who could think
of nothing but the _Summa Angelica_ of his brother Franciscan, Angelo da
Chivasso.[375] The first earnest effort to instruct the natives was made
by Fray Pedro de Córdova, who came in 1510 with two Dominicans and was
soon followed by ten or twelve more; during the succeeding years he and
the Franciscans founded some missionary stations on the coast of Tierra
Firme, but they were broken up by the Indians in 1523.[376] As, however,
we are told that none of the missionaries took the trouble to learn the
Indian languages, their evangelizing success may be doubted.[377]
The efforts to organize a church establishment proceeded but slowly at
first. Hispañola was divided into two bishoprics, San Domingo and la
Vega. For the former, at a date not definitely stated, the Franciscan,
García de Padilla, was appointed, but he died before setting out to take
possession. For the latter, Pero Suárez Deza, nephew of
Inquisitor-general Deza, was chosen and we are told that he governed his
see for some years[378] but, as he figures in the Lucero troubles of
Córdova, in 1506, as the “archbishop-elect of the Indies” the period of
his episcopate is not easily definable. However this may be, the first
bishop who appears in the episcopal lists of Hispañola is Alessandro
Geraldino, with the date of 1520.[379] Cortés, who had asked to have
bishoprics organized in his new conquests, speedily changed his mind and
requested Charles V to send out only friars. The priests of the Indians,
he said, were so rigidly held to modesty and chastity that, if the
people were to witness the pomp and disorderly lives of the Spanish
clergy, they would regard Christianity as a farce and their conversion
would be impracticable. Charles heeded the warning and, during the rest
of his reign, he appointed as bishops only members of the religious
Orders, while the secular clergy were but sparingly allowed to emigrate
and those who succeeded in going earned as a body a most unenviable
reputation.[380] The Church thus started grew rapidly and, towards the
close of the century, Padre Mendieta informs us that New Spain
(comprising Mexico and Central America) had ten bishoprics, besides the
metropolitan see of the capital, four hundred convents and as many
clerical districts, and that each of these eight hundred had numerous
churches in its charge.[381]
It seems strange that the Spanish monarchs, combining earnest desire for
the propagation of the faith with intense zeal for its purity, should
have so long postponed the extension of the Holy Office over their new
dominions, while thus active in building up the Church. The Indian
neophytes, it is true, were not in need of its ministrations, but the
colonists might well be a subject of concern. Manasseh ben Israel
(_circa_ 1644) tells us that, after the expulsion in 1492, many Jews and
Judaizing New Christians sought an asylum in the New World and that
Antonio Montesinos, a Spanish Jew who had long lived there, reported
that he found the Jewish rites carefully preserved, especially in
certain valleys of South America.[382] It is true that there were
repeated efforts to prohibit New Christians and those who had been
penanced by the Inquisition, with their descendants, from emigrating to
the Indies, but this was a provision difficult to enforce, and relief
from it was a financial expedient tempting to the chronically empty
treasury of Spain. In the great composition of Seville, in 1509, there
was a provision that, for twenty thousand ducats, the disability should
be in so far removed that such persons could go to the colonies and
trade there for two years, on each voyage. After Ferdinand’s death, this
was confirmed by Charles V, but he soon afterwards, September 24, 1518,
ordered the Casa de Contratacion of Seville not to permit them to
embark. They complained loudly of this violation of faith and, on
January 23, 1519, he ordered the Inquisition of Seville to examine the
agreement and, if it was found to contain such a clause, the prohibition
should be withdrawn. Six months later, on July 16th, it was renewed,
exciting fresh remonstrances that they were compelled to pay the money
while the privilege was denied. The matter was then referred to the
Suprema, which decided that the complaints were justified, whereupon
Charles, on December 13th, ordered the inquisitors of Seville to permit
them to go, provided the whole amount of the composition, eighty
thousand ducats, had been fully paid.[383] Thus, in one way or another,
the enterprising New Christians sought successfully to share in the
lucrative exploitation of the colonies, and it illustrates the
ineffectiveness of Spanish administration that, in 1537, it felt obliged
to call in papal assistance to supplement its deficiencies. Accordingly
Paul III, in his bull _Altitudo divini consilii_, forbade all apostates
from going to the Indies and commanded the colonial bishops to expel any
who might come.[384] Prince Philip followed this by a decree of August
14, 1543, ordering all viceroys, governors and courts to investigate
what Moorish slaves or freemen, recently converted, or sons of Jews
resided in the Indies and to banish all whom they might discover,
sending them to Spain in the first ships, for in no case were they to be
allowed to remain.[385]
It is evident that the persevering New Christians evaded these
regulations and that their success in this was a subject of solicitude,
yet there was long delay in providing effectual means to preserve the
faith from their contamination. It is true that, when bishoprics were
erected, the jurisdiction over heresy, inherent in the episcopal office,
might have been exercised on them, had not the Inquisition arrogated to
itself the exclusive cognizance over all matters of faith and regarded
with extreme jealousy all episcopal invasions of its province. This is
illustrated by a case in 1515 which shows how indisposed it was even to
delegate its power. Pedro de Leon, with his wife and daughter, had
sought refuge in Hispañola, where the episcopal provisor arrested them
and obtained confessions inculpating them and others. In place of
authorizing him to complete the trial and punish them, the Suprema
notified him that the inquisitor-general was sending a special messenger
to bring them back to Seville, together with any other fugitives whom
the provisor may have arrested, and he is commanded to deliver them
without delay or prevarication, under penalty of forfeiture of
temporalities and citizenship; moreover, the Admiral Diego Colon is
commanded to render aid and favor and the Contratacion of Seville is
required to furnish the messenger with a good ship to take him to the
Indies and to see that on his return he has a vessel with a captain
beyond suspicion and a place where the prisoners can be confined and
kept secluded from all communication.[386]
This was evidently a very cumbrous and costly method of dealing with
heretics, but it does not appear that the Holy Office consented to
delegate its powers until 1519, when Charles V, by a cédula of May 20th,
confirmed the appointment by Cardinal Adrian the inquisitor-general, of
Alfonso Manso, Bishop of Puertorico and the Dominican Pedro de Córdova,
as inquisitors of the Indies, and ordered all officials to render them
obedience and assistance.[387] On the death of Pedro, the appointing
power is said to have vested in the Audiencia of San Domingo which, in
1524, appointed Martin de Valencia as commissioner. He was a Franciscan
of high repute for holiness who in that year reached Mexico at the head
of a dozen of his brethren and was received by the Conquistadores on
their knees. We are told that he burnt a heretic and reconciled two
others, which if true would show that he was clothed with the full
powers of an inquisitor. He soon afterwards returned to Spain and we
hear of Fray Tomás Ortiz, Fray Domingo de Betanzos and Fray Vicente de
Santa María as succeeding him in 1526 and 1528, but the references to
these shadowy personalities are conflicting and there are no records of
their activity.[388]
With the appointment of bishops in New Spain, in 1527, and the gradual
systematic organization of the hierarchy, it would seem that special
inquisitoral powers were delegated to them, of the results of which we
have traces in the _sanbenitos_ or _tablillas_ of those burnt or
reconciled which were hung in the cathedrals. Early in the nineteenth
century Padre José Pichardo made a list of those remaining in the
cathedral of Mexico, which has recently been printed and from this we
learn that an auto de fe was celebrated in 1536, at which Andreas Morvan
was reconciled for Lutheranism, and another in 1539, when Francisco
Millan was reconciled for Judaism and a cacique of Tezcoco was burnt for
offering human sacrifices.[389] This latter stretch of authority by
Archbishop Zumárraga was contrary to the policy of the government and,
in 1543, Inquisitor-general Tavera superseded him by sending Francisco
Tello de Sandoval, inquisitor of Toledo, to Mexico to perform the same
office. His commission, dated July 18th of that year, empowers him to
take up and prosecute to the end all cases commenced by previous
inquisitors, and a letter of Prince Philip, July 24th, to the royal
officials of New Spain, commands them to give him all requisite
assistance.[390] It does not appear, however, that he was furnished with
officials to organize a tribunal and, as his principal charge was that
of a _visitador_ or inspector of the ecclesiastical establishment, it is
not probable that he accomplished much as inquisitor. The list of
sanbenitos shows no more autos de fe until 1555, by which time the work
had fallen back into the hands of Archbishop Montúfar, for the home
Government was evidently unwilling to assume the heavy cost of a fully
organized tribunal, and the bishops were ready to perform its duties.
When, in 1545, Las Casas, as Bishop of Chiapa, asked the royal Audiencia
of Gracia á Dios to sustain him in his episcopal jurisdiction against
his recalcitrant flock, he makes special reference to cases of the
Inquisition as included in it and, soon after this, in Peru, Juan
Matienzo says that the bishops exercised inquisitorial jurisdiction and
that, when any attempt was made to appeal from them, they would elude it
by claiming that they were acting as inquisitors.[391] That this was
recognized at home is manifested by Prince Philip, in 1553, extending to
the Indies the Concordia of Castile regulating the _fuero_ of familiars,
as though there was a regularly organized Inquisition throughout the
colonies.[392]
In the auto of 1555, Gerónimo Venzon, an Italian, was reconciled for
Lutheranism and it was followed by one in 1558, when María de Ocampo was
reconciled for pact with the demon.[393] There was also an Englishman
named Robert Thompson, condemned for Lutheranism to wear the sanbenito
for three years, and a Genoese, Agostino Boacio, for the same crime, to
perpetual prison and sanbenito. These two latter were shipped to Seville
to perform their penance, but Boacio managed to escape at the Azores. In
1560 there were seven Lutherans reconciled, concerning whom we have no
details; in 1561 a French Calvinist and a Greek schismatist and in 1562
two French Calvinists.[394] This shows that the episcopal Inquisition
was by no means inert, and a sentence rendered by the Ordinary of
Mexico, in 1568, indicates that its severity might cause the
installation of the regular Holy Office to be regarded rather as a
relief. A Flemish painter, Simon Pereyns, who had drifted to Mexico, in
a talk with a brother artist, Francisco Morales, chanced to utter the
common remark that simple fornication was not a sin and persisted in it
after remonstrance. That the episcopal Inquisition was thoroughly
established is indicated by his considering it prudent to denounce
himself to the Officiality, which he did on September 10, 1568. In Spain
this particular heresy, especially in _espontaneados_, was not severely
treated, but the provisor, Esteban de Portillo, took it seriously and
threw him in prison. During the trial Morales testified that Pereyns had
said that he preferred to paint portraits rather than images, which he
explained was because they paid better. This did not satisfy the
provisor who proceeded to torture him when he endured, without further
confession, three turns of the _cordeles_ and three jars of water
trickled down his throat on a linen cloth. This ought to have earned his
dismissal but, on December 4th, he was condemned to pay the costs of his
trial and to give security that he would not leave the city until he
should have painted a picture of Our Lady of Merced, as an altar-piece
for the church. He complied and it was duly hung in the cathedral.[395]
A still more forcible example of the abuse of episcopal inquisitorial
authority was the case of Don Pedro Juárez de Toledo, alcalde mayor of
Trinidad in Guatemala, arrested with sequestration of property by his
bishop, Bernardino de Villalpando, on a charge of heresy. He died in
September, 1569, with his trial unfinished; it was transferred to the
Inquisition on its establishment and, in the auto de fe of February 28,
1574, a sentence was rendered clearing his memory of all infamy, which
we are told gave much satisfaction for he was a man much honored and the
vindictiveness of the prosecution was notorious.[396]
These inquisitorial powers, however, were only enjoyed temporarily by
the bishops and when, in 1570, a tribunal was finally established in
Mexico, a circular was addressed to them formally warning them against
allowing their provisors or officials to exercise jurisdiction in
matters of faith and ordering them to transmit to the inquisitors any
evidence which they might have or might obtain in cases of heresy. The
bishops apparently were unwilling to surrender the jurisdiction to which
they had grown accustomed, for the command had to be repeated, May 26,
1585.[397]
It is worthy of remark that there seems to have been no pressure from
Rome to extend the Inquisition over the New World. St. Pius V,
notwithstanding his fierce inquisitorial activity in Italy, could give
Philip II the sanest and most temperate advice about the colonies. On
learning that the king proposed to send thither officials selected with
the utmost care, he wrote, August 18, 1568, to Inquisitor-general
Espinosa to encourage him in the good work. The surest way, he says, to
propagate the faith is to remove all unnecessary burdens and to so treat
the people that they may rejoice more and more to throw off the bonds of
idolatry and submit themselves to the sweet yoke of Christ; the
Christians who go thither should be such as to edify the people by their
lives and morals, so as to confirm the converts and to allure the
heathen to conversion.[398] To do Philip justice, he earnestly strove
to follow in the path thus wisely indicated, but Spanish
maladministration was too firmly rooted for him to succeed. If he could
not thus render the faith attractive he could at least preserve its
purity; the colonists were becoming too numerous for their aberrations
to be left to episcopal provisors, overburdened with a multiplicity of
other duties, and the only safety lay in extending to the colonies the
Inquisition whose tribunals would have no other function.
The incentive to this, however, was not so much the danger anticipated
from Judaizing New Christians as from the propaganda of the Reformers,
who were regarded as zealously engaged in sending to the New World their
heretical books and versions of Scripture and even as venturing there
personally in hopes of combining missionary work with the profits of
trade. This is the motive alleged by Philip II, in his cédulas of
January 25, 1569, and August 16, 1570, confirming the action of
Inquisitor-general Espinosa in founding the Mexican tribunal.[399]
Leonardo Donato, the Venetian envoy, in his report of 1573, assents to
this as the cause, not only of the establishment of the Mexican
Inquisition but also of the prohibition of intercourse with the colonies
to Germans and Flemings, although the latter were Spanish subjects.[400]
The Protestant missionary spirit in fact was, at this time, by no means
as ardent as the Inquisition sought to make the faithful believe, yet it
could reasonably point in justification to the number of Protestants who
furnished the material for the earlier inquisitorial activity.
Although the decision to establish colonial tribunals was reached and
made known in the cédula of January, 1569, Philip proceeded with his
usual dilatory caution. It was not until January 3, 1570, that Espinosa
notified Doctor Moya de Contreras, then Inquisitor of Murcia, that he
had been selected as senior inquisitor of the projected tribunal; he
was to enjoy a salary of three thousand pesos and the fruits of a
prebend in the cathedral; he was to have a colleague, a fiscal and a
notary or secretary, while such other officials as might be necessary
would be appointed on the spot, in accordance with instructions to be
given to him.[401] Contreras declined the appointment on the ground of
his health, which would not endure the voyage, and his poverty, for he
was endeavoring to place his sister in a convent. Espinosa insisted,
pointing out that the position would be but temporary and would lead to
promotion, which was verified for, in 1573, Contreras became Archbishop
of Mexico, served for a time as viceroy, and, on his return to Spain,
was made president of the Council of Indies.[402] The junior inquisitor
was the Licenciado Pascual de Cervantes, canon of Canaries, who was
instructed to learn the duties of his office from his experienced
senior. Their commissions bore date August 18, 1570, and empowered them
to evoke and continue all cases that might be in the hands of
inquisitors or episcopal officials. It was not until November 13th that
they set sail from San Lucar for the Canaries, where they hoped to take
passage on the fleet. In this they were disappointed, as it did not call
at the islands, and they were detained in Tenerife until June 2, 1571.
Cervantes died on the voyage July 26th and Contreras was wrecked on the
coast of Cuba, August 11th, but he found refuge on another vessel and
reached San Juan de Ulua August 18th. He entered the city of Mexico
September 12th, but the ceremonies of reception and installation were
delayed until November 4th.[403] These were of the most impressive
character. A proclamation, two days before, to sound of drum and
trumpet, had summoned to be present in the cathedral, under pain of
major excommunication, the whole population over twelve years of age.
From the building assigned to the tribunal, the viceroy and senior judge
of the royal court, followed by all the officials, conducted the
inquisitor to the church, where, after the sermon and before the
elevation of the host, the secretary of the Inquisition read the royal
letters addressed to the viceroy and all other officials, reciting at
great length the dangers of the heretic propaganda and commanding every
one to render all aid and service to the inquisitors and their
officials, arresting all whom they should designate and punishing with
the legal penalties those whom they should relax as heretics or
relapsed. Moreover the king took under his protection all those
connected with the Holy Office and warned his subjects that any injury
inflicted on them would be visited with the punishment due to violation
of the royal safeguard. Then an edict was read, embodying the oath of
obedience and pledging every one, under fearful maledictions, spiritual
and temporal, to aid the Inquisition in every way and to denounce and
persecute heretics as wolves and mad dogs. On this the viceroy arose
and, placing his hand on the gospels which lay on a table, took the oath
and all the officials present advanced in procession and followed his
example.
The Inquisition thus was fairly established in the city of Mexico; it
issued its Edict of Faith and, on November 10th, it published letters
addressed to all the inhabitants of its enormous district, stretching
from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Darien to the unknown regions
to the North, commanding them and their officials to take the same
portentous oath of obedience. In an age of faith, it is easy to see how
profound was the impression made when the population of every parish and
mission was assembled in its church and listened to such utterances in
the name of Christ and the pope, with their reduplication of threats and
promises, and each one was required to raise his right hand and solemnly
swear on the cross and the gospels to accept it all and obey it to the
letter.[404]
As communication between the tribunal and the Supreme Council in Madrid
was slow and irregular, there was necessity that it should have greater
independent authority than that allowed to the provincial Inquisitions
in Spain, which at this period were constantly becoming more and more
subject to the central head. Accordingly it was furnished not only with
the general Instructions current everywhere but with special elaborate
ones, providing among other matters that in the _consulta de fe_, or
meeting to decide upon a sentence, if there should be _discordia_ or
lack of unanimity among the inquisitors and the episcopal Ordinary (who
always took part in such matters) the case was not referred to the
Suprema, as in Spain, unless the question was as to relaxation to the
secular arm; if this was involved, the accused was to be sent to the
Suprema, which decided his fate. If the sentence was to torture or
reconciliation, or a milder penance, then the opinion prevailed of the
two inquisitors, or of the Ordinary and one of the inquisitors, while if
all three were discordant, then the consultors decided as to which of
the three opinions should be adopted. Appeals to the Suprema against
sentences of torture, or of extraordinary punishments, were similarly
replaced by giving the prisoner another hearing, allowing the fiscal to
argue against him and reconsidering the sentence in the consulta de
fe.[405] These instructions also prescribed the enforcement of the Index
of prohibited books, both as to the suppression of those existing in the
colony and the watchful supervision of imports, all of which Doctor
Contreras hastened to execute by requiring every owner of books to
present a sworn list of those in his possession. It would not be easy,
however, to define whence he derived his authority for his next step,
which was to forbid the departure from the land of any one without a
special licence from the Inquisition--a stretch of power which we are
told met with the hearty concurrence of the viceroy, Martin Enríquez,
who had not otherwise manifested much prepossession in favor of the new
jurisdiction thus established in his territories.[406]
The inquisitor evidently magnified his office and the result soon showed
how much more efficient was a tribunal of which the energies were
concentrated on a single object, than the desultory action of the
episcopal provisors. He had, on his arrival, lost no time in filling up
his staff by appointing an alguazil mayor, an alcaide of the secret
prisons, a _portero_ or apparitor and a messenger, as well as a receiver
of confiscations, to whom he assigned the handsome salary of six hundred
ducats, not anticipating how slender, for some time, were to be the
receipts from that source. His efforts were seconded at home for, by a
_carta orden_ of the Suprema, January 5, 1573, the Spanish tribunals
were instructed to give precedence over all other business to requests
from colonial Inquisitions for evidence to be taken and furnished,
experience having already shown the great benefit arising from their
establishment there.[407] The publication of the Edict of Faith had
brought in many denunciations; arrests were frequent and the number of
prisoners soon exceeded the capacity of the improvised prison--among
them some thirty-six Englishmen, the remnant of the hundred of Sir John
Hawkins’s men who had taken their chances on shore after the disaster at
San Juan de Ulua, in 1568.[408] The fruits of this energy were seen when
the first great auto de fe was celebrated February 28, 1574, with a
solemnity declared by eyewitnesses to be equal in everything, save the
presence of royalty, to that of Valladolid, May 21, 1559, when the
Spanish Lutherans suffered. A fortnight in advance it was announced
throughout the city with drums and trumpets, the Inquisition commenced
to erect its staging and the city authorities did the like for
themselves and their wives, and invited the judges and their wives to
seats on it. A week later, on learning that prominent officials from all
parts of the country were coming, the invitation was extended to them.
The population poured in from all quarters, crowding the streets and
occupying every spot from which the spectacle could be witnessed. The
night before was occupied in drilling, in the courtyard of the
Inquisition, the unfortunates who were to appear and at daylight they
were breakfasted on wine and slices of bread fried in honey.
The accounts of the auto as given by Señor Medina are somewhat confused,
but from them we gather that there were seventy-four sufferers in all.
Of these, three were for asserting that simple fornication between the
unmarried was no sin; twenty-seven were for bigamy; two for blasphemy;
one for wearing prohibited articles although his grandfather had been
burnt; two for “propositions;” one because he had made his wife confess
to him and thirty-six for Lutheranism, of whom two, George Ripley and
Marin Cornu were burnt. These Lutherans were all foreigners of various
nationalities, but mostly English, consisting of Hawkins’s men. One of
these, named Miles Phillips has left an account of the affair, in which
he says that his compatriots George Ripley, Peter Momfrie and Cornelius
the Irishman were burnt, sixty or sixty-one were scourged and sent to
the galleys and seven, of whom he was one, were condemned to serve in
convents; the wholesale scourging was performed the next day, through
the accustomed streets, the culprits being preceded by a crier calling
out “See these English Lutheran dogs, enemies of God!” while inquisitors
and familiars shouted to the executioners “Harder, harder, on these
English Lutherans!” Páramo, who doubtless had access to official
records, tells us that there were about eighty penitents in all, of whom
an Englishman and a Frenchman were burnt, some Judaizers were
reconciled, together with several bigamists and practitioners of
sorcery. One of these latter, he says, was a woman who had made her
husband come in two days to Mexico from Guatemala, two hundred leagues
away and, when asked by the inquisitor why she had done this, she
replied that it was in order to enjoy the sight of his beauty, the fact
being that he was the foulest of men. Bigamy, he adds, was a very
frequent crime, for men thought that, at so great a distance from Spain,
there was little chance of detection.[409]
Miles Phillips says that at the conclusion of the auto the victims
relaxed were burnt on the plaza, near the staging. This shows that no
proper preparation had been made for these solemnities and in fact, it
was not until 1596 that the municipality, at a cost of four hundred
pesos, constructed a _quemadero_ or burning place, where concremation
could be performed decently and in order. It was a ghastly adjunct to a
pleasure-ground, for it was situated at the east end of the Alameda.
There it remained until the stake was growing obsolete and was removed
in 1771 to enlarge the promenade.[410]
This was the last inquisitorial act of Doctor Contreras, whose
promotion to the archbishopric had already taken place. He had been
provided with a colleague by the promotion of the fiscal Bonilla in
1572, and the vacancy caused by his retirement was filled by the
appointment of Alonso Granero de Avalos. These held an auto March 6,
1575, in which there were thirty-one culprits, twenty-five of them for
bigamy and but one Protestant, the Irishman William Cornelius, who was
burnt. Less important was an auto celebrated February 19, 1576, with
thirteen culprits, all for minor offences, except an Englishman named
Thomas Farrar, a shoemaker long resident in Mexico, who was reconciled
for Protestantism. Another auto followed December 15, 1577, in which,
besides the customary minor offenders, three Englishmen, Paul Hawkins,
John Stone and Robert Cook, were reconciled for Protestantism and the
first Judaizer, Alvarez Pliego, abjured de vehementi and was fined in
500 pesos.[411] The Judaism which thus commenced to show itself speedily
furnished further victims for, in 1578, two Spaniards were burnt for it
and, in 1579, another, García González Bermejero, while a Frenchman,
Guillaume Potier, who escaped, was burnt in effigy for Calvinism. After
this, until 1590, the tribunal seems to have become indolent; but few
autos were celebrated and the culprits consisted of the miscellaneous
bigamists, blasphemers, sorcerers and soliciting confessors, whose cases
present no especial interest. With 1590 the yearly autos were resumed.
In that year nine Judaizers at least were reconciled, one was burnt in
person and one in effigy. With the advent of Alonso de Peralta as
inquisitor, in 1594, the tribunal seems to have been aroused to
increased activity and the auto of December 8, 1596, was a memorable one
in which there were sixty-six penitents, including twenty-two Judaizers
reconciled, nine burnt in person and ten in effigy. Even this was
exceeded by the great auto of March 26, 1601, also celebrated by
Peralta, in which there were one hundred and twenty four penitents, of
whom four were burnt in person and sixteen in effigy. There would seem
to have been a recrudescence of Protestantism, for among these were
twenty-three Lutherans and Calvinists.[412]
The Inquisition thus vindicated the necessity of its existence if the
land was to be purified of heresy and apostasy, for some of the
Judaizers had been practising their unhallowed rites for an incredible
length of time. García González Bermejero, who was burnt in 1579, had
been thus outraging the faith in Mexico for twenty years; Juan
Castellanos, who repented and was reconciled in 1590, had done so for
forty-eight years. Although their Judaism was almost public, for they
ate the paschal lamb and smeared their houses with blood, they were only
discovered through the confession of an accomplice tried in Spain, who
denounced González. Of a family of Portuguese Jews who suffered in 1592,
and the following years, we are told that the father, Francisco
Rodríguez Mattos, was a rabbi and a dogmatizer, or teacher. Fortunately
for him he was dead and was only burnt in effigy, as was likewise his
son, who escaped by flight. His four daughters repented and were
reconciled. They were in high social position and a cultured race, for
it is said that the youngest, a girl of seventeen, could recite all the
psalms of David and could repeat the prayer of Esther and other Hebrew
songs backwards. A brother of these girls, Luis de Carvajal, was
governor of the province of New Leon and a man who had rendered
essential service to the crown; for the crime of not denouncing them, he
was prosecuted, publicly penanced as a fautor of heresy and deprived of
his office; he relapsed, was tried and tortured in 1595 and was burnt in
the auto of December 8, 1596, together with his mother and three
sisters.[413] The men who founded the Mexican Inquisition knew their
duty and were resolute in its performance. They were kept busy for,
between 1574 and 1600, they despatched no less than 879 cases, or an
average of about thirty-four per annum.[414] Considering the complex
character of inquisitorial procedure, with its inevitable delays and
consumption of time, this represents a creditable degree of industry,
equal to that of the great tribunal of Toledo which, at the same period,
was averaging thirty-five cases per annum.
It will be observed that no Indians figure among the victims on these
occasions, since the zeal of Bishop Zumárraga, in 1536, burned the
cacique of Tezcoco. In fact, the native population was exempt from the
jurisdiction of the Inquisition. This exemption was originally
attributable to the theory held by the Conquistadores that the Indians
were too low in the scale of humanity to be capable of the faith--a
theory largely relied upon to excuse the cruelties inflicted upon them.
In 1517, when Las Casas was laboring in their behalf at the Spanish
court, this proposition was advanced by a member of the royal council to
Fray Reginaldo Montesino, who was assisting Las Casas and who promptly
declared it to be heretical. To settle the question, he asked one of the
foremost theologians of the time, Fray Juan Hurtado, to assemble the
doctors of the University of Salamanca to decide the matter; thirteen of
them debated it and drew up a series of conclusions which they all
signed, the final one being that whoever defended with pertinacity such
a proposition must be put to death by fire as a heretic.[415]
Notwithstanding this decision, the theory was so generally asserted in
the New World that Fray Julian Garcés, the first Bishop of Tlaxcala,
wrote to Paul III on the subject and elicited a brief of June 2, 1537,
condemning those who, to gratify their greed, asserted that the Indians
were like brutes to be reduced to servitude, and declaring them
competent to receive the faith and enjoy the sacraments.[416] Bishop
Zumárraga had already acted on this presumption when he burnt the
cacique and this suggested an obstacle, almost as damaging as the
popular theory, to the conversion which was the ostensible object of the
conquest, for it was evident that the _doctrineros_, or missionaries,
would find their labors nugatory if the Indians realized that, in
embracing the new faith, they would be liable to death by fire for
aberrations from it. To remove this impediment, Charles V, by a decree
of October 15, 1538, ordered that they should not be subject to the
inquisitorial process but that, in all matters of faith, they should be
relegated to the ordinary jurisdiction of their bishops. As the papal
delegation of power to the inquisitors gave them exclusive faculties in
all cases of faith, this imperial rescript would have been invalid
without papal sanction, but this had already been procured in the brief
_Altitudo divini consilii_ of Paul III, June 1, 1537.[417]
It was probably through an oversight that the commissions issued to
Francisco Tello de Sandoval in 1543 and to Dr. Contreras in 1570 granted
them jurisdiction without exception over every one, of whatever
condition, quality or state; possibly the latter may have commenced to
exercise it on the Indians, but the error was rectified by Philip II, in
a decree of December 30, 1571, ordering the inquisitors to observe their
instructions and the previous law, and the injunction had to be repeated
in 1575. Moreover, to silence any objections as to the episcopal power,
he procured from Gregory XIII a brief granting full faculties to the
bishops to absolve the Indians for heresy and all other reserved
cases.[418] The Indians thus remained exempt from prosecution by the
Inquisition--an exemption popularly attributed to their not being _gente
de razon_, or not rational enough to be responsible--which libel on
their intellect Las Casas considers as perhaps the worst of the many
offences committed upon them.[419] They could, however, endure this
philosophically so long as it exempted them from the Holy Office and
confided them to the more temperate zeal of the bishops.[420]
While the Inquisition, as we have seen, maintained its awful dignity
before the people, by the solemnity of its public functions and its
severity towards the evil-minded, all was not entirely serene within its
walls. In fact, its financial history illustrates so vividly some of the
aspects of Spanish colonial administration that it is worth recounting
in some detail. We have seen that Inquisitor Contreras was promised a
salary of three thousand pesos and a prebend in the cathedral, but he
was confronted with a decree of January 25, 1569, prescribing that the
income of all benefices enjoyed by inquisitors and fiscals in the Indies
was to be deducted from their salaries, and the retention of this
provision in the Recopilacion shows that it was not of mere temporary
validity.[421] It was doubtless however waived in favor of the
Inquisition, as was likewise another question which speedily arose.
The tribunal was expected to become self-supporting, from confiscations,
fines and pecuniary penances, but this required time and meanwhile
Philip granted it a subvention from the royal treasury, to continue
during his pleasure, of 10,000 pesos per annum, being 3000 each for two
inquisitors and a fiscal and 1000 for a notary. Although the tribunal
started with but one inquisitor, the thrifty receiver, or treasurer,
collected the salaries of two and, when called to account, claimed that
he spent the money on the maintenance of poor prisoners. The treasury
officials had no authority to allow this and refused further
disbursements till the amount was made good but, when Philip was
appealed to, he ordered, by a cédula of December 23, 1574, the
receiver’s claim to be allowed.[422] Thus early began the long-continued
bickering between the Holy Office and the treasury, which Philip had
already, in 1572, endeavored to quiet by instructing the inquisitors to
obtain their salaries direct from the viceroy and not from
subordinates, whom he forbade them to prosecute or excommunicate for the
purpose of enforcing their demands.[423]
While Philip had provided liberally for the superior officials, he had
taken no thought of the minor positions and, in spite of the solemnity
of the autos de fe and the successful persecution of heresy, the
internal working of the tribunal was pursued under difficulties, in the
absence of resources from confiscations. A curious insight into these
troubles is afforded by some correspondence of 1583 with
Inquisitor-general Quiroga by the two inquisitors, Santos García and
Bonilla. It seems that their _portero_ or apparitor, Pedro de Fonseca,
had exhibited to them a commission, which he had secretly obtained from
Quiroga, promoting him to the post of notary of sequestrations. They met
this piece of jobbery with the favorite inquisitorial formula--_obedecer
y no cumplir_, obeying without executing--for they say they obeyed it
without admitting him to the office until they could consult the
cardinal. This notariate, they say, is the least necessary of offices,
as there are no sequestrations or confiscations, and they have no other
portero and no money wherewith to pay a substitute: besides, Pedro is
destitute of all qualifications for the position. If a good salary could
be assured, proper persons would apply for the position but, in the
absence of salaries, the offices have not a good reputation and people
say they are bestowed on any one who will accept them. In view of the
poverty of the tribunal and small prospect of improvement they repeat
what they had previously said that, if the king will not provide for it,
it had better be abolished rather than maintained precariously, with the
officers relying on the hope of confiscations that never come, so that
one resigns today and another tomorrow, leaving only the alcaide and
portero, who are so poor that they would also have gone if they saw
other means of escaping their creditors. It is therefore suggested that,
in addition to the two inquisitors, the fiscal and the notary, salaries
be furnished of 600 ducats for an alguazil, 500 for an alcaide or
gaoler and 400 for a messenger--or otherwise that, as in Spain, a
canonry be suppressed for the benefit of the Inquisition, in each of the
eleven bishoprics of the district, though this would have its
disadvantages in view of the poverty of the churches and paucity of
ministers. Then, in another letter the inquisitors announce that they
have filled the vacant post of alguazil by appointing Don Pedro de
Villegas, for whom they ask Quiroga to send a commission; it is true,
they say, that he is too young, but then both he and his wife are
_limpio_--free from any taint of heretic blood--and he has the
indispensable qualification of possessing means to live on without a
salary and that, in the present condition of the Inquisition, is the
main thing to be considered.[424]
It is an emphatic testimony to the exhaustion of the royal treasury that
so pious a monarch as Philip II should have shown indifference to this
deplorable condition of a tribunal which had already given evidence so
conspicuous of its services to the faith, but he remained deaf to all
appeals and it was left to struggle on as best it could. As the number
of its reconciled penitents increased it felt the need of a _carcel
perpetua_ or penitential prison, for their confinement and, having no
funds wherewith to purchase a building, it besieged the Marquis of
Monterey, the viceroy, for an appropriation. In 1596 he yielded in so
far as to authorize the treasurer to lend the tribunal 2000 pesos, on
its giving security to return the money in case the royal approbation
should not be had within two years. The term elapsed without it, but
Philip III, September 13, 1599, graciously approved the expenditure, at
the same time warning the viceroy not to repeat such liberality without
previous permission.[425] Even though the monarchs were thus niggardly,
there were advantages in serving the Inquisition which in many cases
answered in lieu of salary, for official position conferred the _fuero_
or right to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition as well as substantial
exemptions. As early as 1572, Philip II decreed that, during the royal
pleasure, the inquisitors, the fiscal, the judge of confiscations, one
secretary, one receiver, one messenger and the alcaide of the secret
prison should be exempt from taxation and the royal officials were
ordered, under penalty of a thousand ducats and punishment at the king’s
pleasure, to observe this and protect them in all the honors and
exemptions which such officials enjoyed in Spain.[426]
A further, although illegal, relief was found by sharing in the
_repartimientos_ under which the Indians were allotted to Spaniards who
lived upon their enforced labor. It is to this cruel system that Las
Casas, Mendieta and Torquemada attribute the rapid wasting away of the
natives and the hatred which they bore to the Spaniards. Among other
attempts to diminish the evils arising from the system, repeated laws of
1530, 1532, 1542, 1551 and 1563 prohibited the allotment of Indians to
any officials or to prelates, clerics, religious houses, hospitals,
fraternities, etc. In spite of this, as soon as the Inquisition was
established, it claimed and was allowed its quota in the allotments. It
watched vigilantly, moreover, to see that it was not defrauded in any
way, for one of its earliest recorded acts, in 1572, was the prosecution
of Diego de Molina, the _repartidor de los Indios_ of San Juan, because,
in allotting the Indians of that place, the twelve assigned to the
Inquisition proved to be boys and incapables, while the useful ones, who
could be hired out advantageously, such as carpenters and masons, he
gave for bribes to others. He was mercifully let off with five days’
imprisonment and a forcible warning and doubtless served as a wholesome
example to other partitioners.[427] Like most of the salutary
legislation of Spain, it seems to have been impossible to enforce the
prohibition, and that the Inquisition continued to enjoy the unpaid
service of Indian serfs is manifested by its being specifically
included in subsequent repetitions of the law in 1609, 1627 and
1635.[428]
When, as we have seen, the Judaizers commenced to appear among the
penitents in the autos de fe, the longed-for relief derivable from
confiscations, fines and penances was at hand. Spanish finance was
already suffering the distress which was to become so acute and the
treasury naturally looked to find its burden lightened by the income
from these sources. It looked in vain, for whatever the tribunal
acquired from its victims it retained and it persisted, with incredible
audacity, in refusing even to render an account, although the
confiscations belonged to the crown which never renounced its claim to
them. In 1618 a royal cédula required the receiver to render itemized
statements of all receipts and expenditures; in 1621 Philip IV sought to
enforce this by ordering his viceroys in the Indies not to pay salaries
until proof should be furnished that the confiscations were insufficient
to meet them in whole or in part, and this was to be observed
inviolably, no matter what urgency there might be, but repetitions of
the decree, in 1624 and 1629, show how completely it was ignored.[429]
Not the slightest attention was paid to these repeated royal commands
and, to the last, the Inquisition never permitted either the king or the
Council of Indies to know what it acquired in this manner, although the
sums were large and the tribunal became wealthy through investments of
the surplus, besides making, with more or less regularity, very
considerable remittances to the Suprema.
Finding himself thus baffled by the immovable resistance of the Holy
Office, Philip, in 1627, sought to relieve his treasury by despoiling
the Church. He reported to Urban VIII that he expended 32,000 ducats a
year on the tribunals of Mexico, Lima and Cartagena, wherefore he prayed
that the bull of Paul IV, January 7, 1559, suppressing a prebend in
every cathedral and collegial church in Spain, for the benefit of the
Inquisition, might be extended to the Indies. Urban complied in a brief
of March 10, 1627, whereupon Philip ordered the archbishop and bishops
to remit to the senior inquisitors of their respective tribunals the
fruits of the prebends as they should fall in, furnishing, at the same
time, to the royal officials a statement of the sums thus paid, so that
the amount should be deducted from the salaries.[430] Receipts from this
source commenced at once and went on increasing as vacancies occurred,
amounting, according to the estimate of the Council of Indies, to 30,000
pesos per annum for the three tribunals, while the Suprema admitted that
those of Mexico and Lima produced about 11,000 pesos each, but those of
Cartagena, it said, yielded only about 5000.[431]
During this time there had been frequent collisions between the
inquisitors and the treasury officials, arising from the refusal of the
former to reveal the amount of the confiscations and penances and the
obedience, more or less persistent, of the latter to the royal commands
to require such statements as a condition precedent to paying the royal
subvention. In these collisions the inquisitors enforced their demands
as usual by prosecution and excommunication, giving rise to unseemly
controversies and, when the Suprema forbade their use of such measures,
they were reduced to impotence. In a letter of February 13, 1634, they
complained bitterly of this; during 1633, they said, in spite of all
their efforts, they received no money until October, after all the royal
officials had been paid and, as they had no other means of support, they
were exposed to the deepest humiliations.[432] The suppressed canonries,
however, introduced an element of pacification and, in the Concordia of
1633, between the Suprema and the Council of Indies, a plan to harmonize
differences was agreed upon which was a practical surrender to the
Inquisition. It provided that every year, before the first _tercios_
(four months’ instalments in advance) were paid, the receivers should
render a sworn itemized statement of all receipts and expenditures,
including confiscations, fines and penances, in accordance with the
royal cédulas and, when this was delivered to the viceroy, the tercios
should be paid in advance without delay. If the treasury officials
should take exception to any portion of the statement, they were to
forward it with their comments to the Council of Indies, but this was
not to interfere with the prompt payment of the salaries and the
inquisitors were to furnish the Suprema with their explanations. If the
statement should show a surplus applicable to the salaries, this was, if
agreed to by both parties, to be deducted from the second tercio; but if
the inquisitors presented any reasons why this tercio should be paid in
full, the treasury should pay it and the question be referred for
settlement to the two Councils. The inquisitors were not to proceed
against the treasury officials with censures or fines or other
penalties, but were to apply to the viceroy, to whom positive
instructions were sent to pay them punctually, both the arrearages then
unpaid and the current salaries, while any fines or penalties that had
been imposed were to be withdrawn or, if collected, to be refunded.[433]
This elaborate arrangement is only of importance as showing that, in
spite of the suppressed canonries, the treasury was still required to
support the tribunal and that the latter could be bound by no agreements
however solemnly entered into. Except at Cartagena it was never carried
into effect. No statement of receipts was ever rendered. In 1651, Count
Alva de Aliste, the viceroy, reported to Philip IV that he had no means
of learning what the confiscations amounted to but, on cautiously
sounding the inquisitors, they told him that they reported them to the
Suprema and would obey its instructions. They might well keep the facts
secret. In the exterminating persecution of the wealthy New Christians,
during the decade 1640-50, of which more hereafter, the confiscations
were very large, placing the tribunal at its ease for all future time,
besides what was embezzled by the inquisitors. The auto of 1646 yielded
38,732 pesos; that of 1647, 148,562. What was gathered in two autos held
in 1648 does not appear, but between November 20, 1646, and April 24,
1648, the inquisitors remitted 234,000 pesos in bills of exchange while
the crowning auto of 1649 furnished three millions more.[434] In spite
of this enormous influx of wealth, the Inquisition still maintained its
grip on the royal subvention of 10,000 pesos per annum, though for how
long it is impossible to determine with positiveness. In the prolonged
controversy which raged between the Suprema and the Council of Indies
over the relations of the colonial tribunals, the former, in 1667,
positively declared that, after 1633, there had been no subvention paid
in Mexico or Lima and this assertion was repeated in 1676, but the
statements of the Suprema are so full of duplicity that no reliance can
be reposed in them.[435] On the other hand, in 1668, we find the Council
of Indies earnestly advising the king to withdraw the subvention on the
ground that the tribunals were rich and could support themselves, as
they do in Castile; in 1675 it speaks of the payments as still
continuing and urges their discontinuance without consulting the
Suprema, as it is a matter wholly within the control of the treasury
and, in 1676, Carlos II answered the Suprema by demanding a prompt
decision as to a proposition made by the Council of Indies to
discontinue the subventions enjoyed by the three tribunals for the
salaries of their officials.[436] When they were definitely discontinued
it would be impossible to assert, but it is probable that those of
Mexico and Lima were stopped in 1677, while that of Cartagena was
prolonged even later. In 1683 Inquisitor Valera of that tribunal
complained that, owing to the exhaustion of the public treasury through
wars and piratical attacks, an arrearage had accumulated of thirty-three
_tercios_. He claimed that the king was indebted to the tribunal in the
sum of 58,000 pesos and he urged its transfer to Santa Fe, where the
royal treasury was in better condition to meet the obligation. The
transfer was not made, payments of the subvention became more and more
irregular and we shall see that in 1706 the tribunal was still
unavailingly endeavoring to enforce them.[437]
In a letter to the king, July 31, 1651, the viceroy, Alva de Aliste,
took the ground that the subvention had been merely a loan, to be repaid
when confiscations should come in, and as, within the last few years,
these had been large enough to settle the debt, he had had the accounts
examined and had found that, since the beginning, there had been
advanced for salaries 559,189 pesos, 6 tomines and 5 granos and, for
other purposes, 6837 pesos, 5 granos, wherefore he suggested that the
king should compel restitution of this amount.[438] To a treasury so
desperately embarrassed as that of Spain the prospect of such relief was
most welcome. Philip referred the viceroy’s letter to the Council of
Indies, which delayed its reply till December 12, 1652, when it advised
the king that examination showed that the salaries were to be defrayed
by the confiscations, which were to be reported to the treasury. The
only light that could be thrown upon the subject was to be sought in the
registration, by the Contratacion of Seville, of the amounts of silver
passing through it from Mexico and Peru and from these registers it
appeared that the colonial tribunals had remitted to the Suprema the
aggregate of 76,965 _pesos de ensayados_ and 85,454 _pesos de á ocho_,
thus showing that those tribunals had revenues largely in advance of
their needs. In view of the magnitude of the sums furnished by the
treasury, the extensive confiscations, the income of the suppressed
canonries and the dire necessities of the royal finances, it therefore
advised the king to call upon the Suprema for restitution and to furnish
statements of the amount of the confiscations from the beginning. To
this the king replied, in the ordinary formula of approval “It is well
and so have I ordered.”[439] When the Suprema was concerned, however,
obedience by no means followed royal orders and so it proved in this
case.
Philip’s weakness was shown in his next despatch to the viceroy,
February 1, 1653, in which he said that he had determined that the
Suprema should arrange to make restitution and that, to facilitate a
proper adjustment of the matter, it should furnish a statement of all
confiscations from the beginning, “for neither my Council of Indies nor
my viceroys have been able to obtain this, but only the records of the
shipments of silver from the Indies.”[440] There is no evidence that the
Suprema made any attempt to obey the royal commands or that it paid any
attention to a reiterated demand made on August 12, 1655. Then the
effort seems to have been abandoned and the matter was allowed to
slumber until attention was called to it again in 1666. Philip had
written, August 12, 1665, to the Marquis of Mansera, then Mexican
viceroy, urging him to extinguish the debt of 1,333,264 pesos, by which
amount the Mexican treasury was in arrears with its payments. The
viceroy replied, September 5, 1666, pointing out the difficulty of
accomplishing this and, at the same time, keeping up the remittances by
the fleet, which were imperatively required by the absolute needs of the
monarchy. He added that one of the chief causes of the indebtedness was
the large sums withdrawn from it by the salaries and expenses of the
Inquisition since its foundation in 1570; this had been intended as a
loan, until it could be repaid from the confiscations, fines and
penances but, although these had been large, restitution had never been
made. The cédula of 1653 had inferred that the matter would be settled
between the two councils and therefore the viceroys were powerless, but
he suggested that the tribunal was rich and held large amounts of
property; it had the disposition, which it might not have in future, to
commence making this just and long overdue payment. This despatch the
Council of Indies reported to the queen-regent, together with copies of
the royal cédulas of 1653 and 1655, in order that she might compel the
Suprema to make restitution, not only of the sums reported by Count Alva
de Aliste, but of what had since been paid to the tribunal, seeing that
it had the means to do so and was remitting such large amounts to the
Suprema.[441]
It is scarce worth while to follow in detail the discussion which
ensued, lasting, with true Spanish procrastination, until 1677, when the
effort to make the Inquisition refund seems to have been abandoned out
of sheer weariness. Of course the feeble queen-regent and the feebler
boy-king, Carlos II, failed in the attempt and the only importance to us
of the debate lies in the falsehoods and prevarications of the Suprema’s
defence. It was notorious that there had been heavy confiscations, for
persecution, as we have seen, had become active and exceedingly
profitable as the half-century had drawn to a close. The tribunal had
grown rich and had made large investments, besides the enormous
remittances to the Suprema, and these had been derived almost
exclusively from the confiscations and penances. Yet the Suprema
endeavored to make it appear that financially confiscation had been a
failure. There had been some confiscations, it admitted, in Mexico and
Lima; there was the one of Diego López de Fonseca, amounting to 79,965
pesos, but Jorje de Paz of Madrid and Simon Rodriguez Bueno of Seville
had come forward with claims amounting to more. They had asked to have
the money sent to the receiver of Seville for adjudication and, on its
arrival, the king had seized it and, by a cédula of July 14, 1652, had
bound himself to satisfy the claimants, which he did by assigning to
them certain matters. It was true that, in 1642, a number of Judaizing
Portuguese had been discovered in Mexico, of whom some had moderate
fortunes and one was reputed to be rich, but on the outbreak of the
Portuguese rebellion, for fear that the viceroy would embargo their
property, they had concealed it, and although the Inquisition had
published censures, only a little had been discovered, while there came
forward creditors with evidences of claims amounting to 400,000 pesos,
so that it was difficult to make the confiscations meet them, to say
nothing of the heavy expenses of feeding the prisoners, hiring houses to
serve as prisons and the increased number of officials required. Besides
this, there was protracted and costly litigation in investigating the
claims and detecting suspected frauds. For this, Archbishop Mañozca was
appointed visitador; on his death Medina Rico was sent out for the same
purpose and, when he died, the matter had not been settled, nor has it
yet.[442] If the Suprema was to be believed, confiscation cost more
than it came to.
In the same way it sought by garbled statements to conceal the fact that
it was secretly deriving a considerable revenue from the colonial
tribunals, thus proving that they were possessed of superabundant means.
In its private accounts for the year 1657, there is an item of 10,000
ducats from those of Mexico and Lima, with the remark that this is
always in arrears and is now two years overdue[443]--for the tribunals
were as anxious as the Suprema to conceal their gains. Yet it could not
hide the fact that it was in receipt of large remittances through the
Contratacion of Seville and the Government, in its extremity, had an
awkward habit of seizing what took its fancy and possibly paying for
silver in vellon, for we chance to hear of such an occurrence in 1639
and again in 1644.[444] The Council of Indies, as we have seen, did not
fail to call attention to the large amounts which it was thus receiving,
but it airily replied, in its consulta of November 16, 1667, that the
three tribunals had, at various times, remitted the aggregate of 130,803
pesos, 3 reales, as the proceeds of sales of _varas_ or offices of
alguazil, and that this and much more, from the home tribunals,
amounting in all to over 700,000 pesos, had been contributed to the
necessities of the State. It repeated this, May 11, 1676, with the
addition that the colonial tribunals had sent about 8000 pesos to the
fund for the attempted canonization of Pedro Arbués and that there were
also remittances for the _media añata_ of the officials and for the
deposits of aspirants to office to defray the expenses of the
investigations into _limpieza_--the whole manifesting extreme desire to
divert attention from the confiscations.[445] In spite of these
subterfuges there can be no question that the tribunals of Mexico and
Lima accumulated vast amounts of property. The magnificence of the
palace of the Mexican tribunal, rebuilt from 1732 to 1736, shows that it
could gratify its vanity with the most profuse expenditure.[446] That it
was fully able to do this without impairing its revenues may be assumed
from the assertion, in 1767, of the royal fiscal, when arguing a case of
competencia before the Audiencia, that if its accumulations were not
checked, the king would have but a small portion of territory in which
to exercise his jurisdiction.[447] Certain it is that the tribunal
continued to be able to render large pecuniary support to the home
institution. In 1693 we hear of a remittance of 93,705 pesos and in 1702
of 19,898 in spite of heavy defalcations by the receivers. This was
followed by remittances of 40,000 pesos in 1706, of 16,500 in 1720, and
of 31,500 in 1727. In 1771 the tribunal lent to the viceroy, for the
emergencies of the war with England, 60,000 pesos, which were repaid,
and, in 1795, a further loan was made of 40,000 to aid in the war then
raging.[448] As late as 1809 the Government seized a remittance from it
to the Suprema of 60,131-1/2 pesos and gave a receipt for the proceeds,
being 915,886 reales, for which, after the Restoration, we find the
Suprema claiming restitution.[449] In spite of these reiterated drains
we shall see hereafter what wealth the tribunal possessed when
suppressed.
* * * * *
If we are to trust the list of sanbenitos hung in the cathedral of
Mexico, after the great auto of 1601, there ensued a period of
comparative inaction for nearly half a century, in which Protestants
almost disappeared and were replaced by comparatively few
Judaizers.[450] The sanbenitos however represent only the serious cases
and the tribunal continued to gather its customary harvest of bigamists,
blasphemers, sorcerers, solicitors and other minor offenders, some of
whom yielded a liberal amount of fines.[451] In fact, a report of the
cases pending in 1625 amounts to the very considerable number of
sixty-three, showing that there was ample business on hand, receiving
attention with more or less diligence.[452] After this however the
activity of the tribunal diminished so greatly that, on July 12, 1638,
it reported that it had not a single case pending, and a year later that
it had but one, which was against a priest charged with solicitation in
the confessional.[453] This is a singular tribute to the efficacy of the
Edict of Faith--a proclamation requiring, under pain of excommunication,
the denunciation of all offences enumerated under it, of which any one
might be cognizant or have heard of in any way. According to rule, this
should be solemnly published every year in all parish and conventual
churches; it kept the faithful on the watch for all aberrations and
rendered every one a spy and an informer. It had, however, at this time,
fallen into desuetude. In a letter of February 13, 1634, the inquisitors
say that for ten years the publications had been suspended in
consequence of the indecency which attended it after the viceroys
refused to be present, owing to quarrels as to ceremonial, and they ask
that a royal order should be issued through the Council of Indies
requiring the attendance of the civil magistracy in the procession and
publication.[454]
Nearly ten years more, however, were to elapse, before the questions of
etiquette and precedence were settled, and at last, on March 1, 1643,
the Edict was read with all solemnity in the cathedral of Mexico and was
followed by an abundant harvest of denunciations.[455] How numerous
these habitually were may be gathered from partial statistics of those
received after a publication of the Edict in 1650. These were recorded
in eight books, of which four, representing presumably one-half, have
been preserved, containing altogether two hundred and fifty-four cases
of the most varied character, as may be seen by the summarized
classification below.[456]
The most significant feature in this mass of so-called testimony is the
manner in which the most trivial acts inferring suspicion were watched
and denounced, so that every man lived under a universal spy-system
stimulated by the readiness of the Inquisition to listen to and make
record of the veriest gossip passing from mouth to mouth. Thus one
informer relates how in 1642, eight years before, he saw Simon de
Paredes quietly put to one side on his plate a piece of pork that came
to him from among the miscellaneous contents of the olla. Another
gravely deposes how a man had casually told him that he had heard how a
miner named Blas Garcés, of the mines of Los Papagayos, now dead, had
once taken some of the herb Peyote to find some mines of which he had
chanced to see specimens, and the marvels which thence ensued.[457] From
the book of _Membretes_ kept by the tribunal it would appear that when
this kind of evidence did not lead to a prosecution it was carefully
preserved and indexed for reference in case of subsequent testimony
against an individual. Such was the training of the population and such
was the shadow of terror under which every man lived.
Meanwhile, during the quiescent period of the tribunal, the class of New
Christians, who secretly adhered to the ancient faith, increased and
prospered, accumulating wealth through the opportunities of the colonial
trade which they virtually monopolized. Their fancied security, however,
was approaching its end. The vigorous measures taken in Spain, between
1625 and 1640, to exterminate the Portuguese Judaizers, revealed the
names of many accomplices who had found refuge in the New World; these
were carefully noted and sent to the colonial tribunals.[458] Moreover,
from 1634 to 1639, the Lima Inquisition was busy in detecting and
punishing a large number of its most prominent merchants guilty of the
same apostasy, who had relations with their Mexican brethren, revealed
during the trials. The tribunal seems to have been somewhat slow in
realizing the opportunities thus afforded, but in 1642 there opened an
era of active and relentless persecution which was equally effective in
enriching its treasury and in purifying the faith. To prevent the escape
of its victims, on July 9th it sent orders to Vera Cruz prohibiting the
embarkation of any Portuguese who could not show a special licence from
it. A wealthy merchant named Manuel Alvarez de Arrellano had already
sailed for Spain, but his ship was wrecked on Santo Domingo and he was
compelled to return to Havana. The tribunal was on his track and, on
December 1st, it sent orders to its commissioner at Havana to arrest
him, seize all his property, sell it at auction and send him in chains
with the proceeds to Vera Cruz. This was successfully accomplished and,
in acknowledging his arrival, the tribunal gave further instructions as
to some cases of cochineal, which it understood to have been saved from
the wreck.[459]
There was small chance of escape for any culprit. The New Christians
were closely connected by family, religious and business ties, and each
new prisoner was forced to implicate his friends and kindred. Gabriel de
Granada, a child of 13, arrested in July, 1642, was made to give
evidence against 108 persons, including his entire family.[460] There
were then three inquisitors, Francisco de Estrada y Escobedo, Bernabé de
la Higuera y Amarilla and Juan Saenz de Mañozca, whose names became a
terror to the innocent as well as to the guilty. Their cruel zeal is
manifested in a letter to the Suprema virtually asking authority to
relax ten persons, although they had confessed and professed repentance
in time to entitle them, by the rules of the Inquisition, to
reconciliation.[461] It was a wild revel of prosecutions and
condemnations. Medina Rico, the _visitador_ or inspector who came in
1654, reported that, in reviewing the proceedings, he found that no
attention had been paid to the defences presented by the accused,
although in many cases they were just. A single case will indicate the
heartlessness of the tribunal. September 24, 1646, Doña Catalina de
Campos sought an audience to say that she was very sick and near unto
death and that she would die in the Catholic faith in which she had
lived. She was sent back to her cell, no attention was paid to her and
some days later she was found dead and gnawed by rats.[462]
The result of this method of administering justice was a succession of
_autos particulares_, in 1646, 1647 and 1648, followed by an _auto
general_ in 1649.
In 1646 there were thirty-eight Judaizers reconciled and, as
reconciliation, in addition to prison and sanbenito, inferred
confiscation, the harvest as we have seen was large. In 1647 the number
was twenty-one.[463] In 1648 there were two autos--a public one on March
29th and an _auto particular_ in the Jesuit church on March 30th. In the
former there were eleven penitents for various offences, eight Judaizers
penanced and eight reconciled, two reconciliations for Mahometanism,
twenty-one effigies of Judaizers burnt and one burning in person. In the
latter there was one penitent brought from the Philippines for suspicion
of Mahometanism, who escaped with abjuration _de levi_ and servitude for
life in a convent for instruction; there were two for personating
priesthood and administering sacraments without orders, who received 300
and 200 lashes respectively and were sent to the galleys; one for
marrying in orders, who abjured _de vehementi_ and was sent to serve in
a hospital for five years; a bigamist who had 200 lashes and the
galleys; a _curandera_, who employed charms to cure disease and was
visited with 200 lashes and perpetual exile from Puebla, and finally
there were twenty-one Judaizers. Of these, two escaped with fines of
2000 and 3000 ducats respectively and perpetual exile from Mexico, one
was only exiled and eighteen were reconciled with confiscation and
various terms of imprisonment, in addition to which five of them were
scourged and, of these latter, two were also sent to the galleys.[464]
The great _auto general_ of April 11, 1649, marks the apogee of the
Mexican Inquisition and of this we have a very florid account, written
by an official.[465] A month in advance the solemn proclamation
announcing it was made in Mexico, March 11th, with a gorgeous
procession, to the sound of trumpet and drum, and this had previously
been sent to every town in New Spain, so that it was published
everywhere at the same hour. Consequently, for a fortnight in advance of
the appointed day, crowds began to pour in, some of them from a distance
of a hundred or two hundred leagues, till, as we are told, it looked as
though the country had been depopulated. The reporter exhausts his
eloquence in describing the magnificence of the procession of the Green
Cross, on the afternoon preceding the auto, when all the nobles and
gentlemen of the city, in splendid holiday attire, took part, and the
standard of the Inquisition was borne by the Count of Santiago, whose
grandfather had done the same in the great auto of 1574 and his father
in that of 1601. A double line of coaches extended through the streets,
from the Inquisition to the plazuela del Volador, where the ceremonies
were to be performed, and so anxious were their occupants not to lose
their positions that they remained in them all night and until the show
was over. It might seem that all Mexico, from the highest to the lowest,
was assembled to demonstrate the ardor of its faith and to gain the
indulgence which the Vicar of Christ bestowed on those who were present
at these crowning exhibitions of the triumph of the Church Militant.
Inside of the Inquisition the night was spent in notifying of their
approaching fate those who were about to die and in preparing them for
death.
Of the one hundred and nine convicts there was but one Protestant, a
Frenchman named François Razin, condemned to abjure for vehement
suspicion of heresy and to two years’ service in a convent for
instructions; as he was penniless, we are told that he was not fined.
There were nine Judaizers who abjured for vehement suspicion and were
banished to Spain; three of them, being impoverished, were not fined but
on the other six were imposed mulcts, ranging from 1000 to 6000 ducats,
amounting in all to 15,000 ducats and one in addition had 200 lashes.
There were nineteen reconciled, whose estates of course were
confiscated, as also were those of the relaxed, seventy-eight in number.
Of these, fifty-seven were effigies of the dead, of whom ten had died in
prison, two of the latter being suicides, in addition to which were
eight effigies of fugitives. Thirteen were relaxed in person, but of
these twelve were garroted before burning, having professed repentance
and conversion in time. Only one was burnt alive--the hero of the
occasion, Tomás Treviño of Sobremonte. His mother had been burnt at
Valladolid, and nearly all of his kindred, as well as those of his wife,
had been inmates of the Inquisition. He had been reconciled in the auto
of 1625 and there could be no mercy for a relapsed apostate, though he
could have escaped the fiery death by professing conversion again. He
had lain in prison for five years during his trial, always denying his
guilt, but when notified of his conviction, the night before the auto,
he proclaimed himself a Jew, declaring that he would die as such, nor
could the combined efforts of all the assembled confessors shake his
resolution. To silence what were styled his blasphemies, he was taken to
the auto gagged, in spite of which he made audible assertion of his
faith and of his contempt for Christianity. It is related that, after
his sentence, when he was mounted to be taken to the quemadero, the
patient mule assigned to him refused to carry so great a sinner; six
others were tried with the same result and he was obliged to walk until
a broken-down horse was brought, which had not spirit enough to dislodge
its unholy burden. An Indian was mounted behind him, who sought to
convert him and, enraged at his failure, beat him about the mouth to
check his blasphemies. Undaunted to the last, he drew the blazing brands
towards him with his feet and his last audible words were--“Pile on the
wood; how much my money costs me!”[466]
The inquisitor-general, Arce y Reynoso, on October 15, 1649,
congratulated Philip IV on this triumph of the faith, which had been the
source of joy and consolation and universal applause, whereat the pious
monarch expressed his gratification and desired the inquisitors to be
thanked in his name. As summarized by Arce y Reynoso the results of the
four autos were two hundred and seven penitents of whom a hundred and
ninety were Jews, nearly all Portuguese. There was one drawback to his
satisfaction. The penitents sentenced to banishment were directed to be
sent to Spain, and repeated royal orders required that they should be
transported free of charge, but the captains of all vessels, both naval
and commercial, refused to carry them without pay and, as they had been
stripped of all their possessions, they could not defray the
passage-money themselves, while the Inquisition made no offer to supply
the funds. Consequently they remained in Vera Cruz or wandered through
the land, throwing off their sanbenitos and infecting the population
with their errors. Arce y Reynoso suggested to the king that he should
give them rations while on board ship so as to help to bring them over.
It never seemed to occur to him that the Inquisition, which was
enriching itself with their confiscations, could spare the trifle
requisite for the execution of its sentences on these homeless and
penniless wretches.[467]
After this supreme manifestation of its authority, the Inquisition
became again somewhat inert, for its attention was largely absorbed in
settling the details of the confiscations which involved the greater
portion of Mexican commerce.[468] The tribunal had its routine business
of bigamists, soliciting confessors and women guilty of so-called
sorcery--cases usually despatched in the audience-chamber--though there
was an _auto particular_ celebrated October 29, 1656. In 1659, however,
there was a public auto on November 19th which, though not large, merits
attention by its severity and the peculiarity of some of the
delinquents. Of these there were thirty-two in all--twelve blasphemers,
two bigamists, one forger, one false witness, one for violating the
secrecy of the prison, one who had been reconciled for Judaism in 1649
and had thrown off the sanbenito, a woman for suspicion of Judaism, an
alumbrado, or mystic, with visions and revelations. Then there were two
sisters Romero, prosecuted for fraudulent visions and revelations, of
whom one was acquitted and the other had 200 lashes and ten years’
service in a hospital--a third sister having been penanced in the auto
particular of 1656. There was also Manuel Méndez, a Portuguese,
suspected of Judaism, who had died in prison and was now acquitted.
Another Portuguese, Diego Díaz, was not so fortunate; he had been
condemned in 1649 to abjuration _de vehementi_ and perpetual banishment,
but he did not leave Mexico; arrested February 26, 1652, he had lain in
prison awaiting an auto and was now sentenced to be burnt alive as
pertinaciously impenitent; by mistake the executioner commenced to
garrote him, but was stopped by the alguazil mayor, who ordered the fire
lighted, so that he had both punishments. Similar was the case of
Francisco Botello, arrested in 1642, sentenced in 1649 to 200 lashes and
banishment, remaining in Mexico, arrested again in 1650 and now garroted
and burnt. These two cases indicate the treatment accorded to those
alluded to above, who, after being stripped of their property, were
ordered to leave the country, but were not furnished with means to do
so.
Another convict, Francisco López de Aponte, was accused of pact with the
demon and of heresies. He gave signs of insanity, but on examination by
physicians was pronounced sane. Under severe torture he remained
perfectly quiescent and insensible to pain, which could only be
explained by diabolical aid, so he was shaved all over and inspected
carefully for charms or for the devil’s mark, but in vain. A second
torture was endured with the same indifference and he was condemned to
relaxation as an apostate heretic. On the night before the auto he said
to the confessor who endeavored to convert him “There is no God, nor
hell, nor glory; it is all a lie; there is birth and death and that is
all.” During the auto he manifested no emotion and was burnt alive as an
impenitent.
Juan Gomez had been arrested, May 28, 1658, as an Illuminist and
_herége sacramentario_, for teaching many opinions contrary to the
Catholic faith. Condemned to relaxation, he maintained his heresies
until, during the auto, he weakened and professed repentance,
notwithstanding which he was burnt alive.
Pedro García de Arias was a wandering hermit who, although uneducated,
had written three mystic books containing erroneous doctrine. When on
trial he claimed that he had never committed sin, and he abused the
Inquisition, for which he was scourged through the streets with 200
lashes. When notified of his condemnation to relaxation he protested
that he would not beg for mercy, but on the staging he asked for an
audience, in which he insisted that there were no errors in what he had
written. Nevertheless he was garroted before burning, when his books,
hung around his neck, were consumed with him.
Sebastian Alvárez was an old man who claimed to be Jesus Christ, but was
pronounced to be sane by the experts who examined him. He persisted in
his delusion and was sentenced to relaxation. On the staging he asked
for an audience and was remanded to the Inquisition, where two days
later he had an audience and, as he still asserted himself to be Christ,
he was sentenced to burning alive if he did not retract. On the way to
the quemadero he retracted and was garroted before burning.