Chapter VI: Mexico (1)

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]