Chapter VIII: New Granada (2)

They used their power for their own enrichment, dividing among themselves the moneys in the coffer and paying no debts unless they were bribed. That they should soon be involved in strife with the municipality, was inevitable. In 1641 an excessive scarcity caused by the ravages of locusts led the cabildo, or city authorities, to prescribe maximum prices for provisions and to order an examination into the quantities of produce in the several plantations, so as to prevent exportation. Ortiz and his officials claimed exemption from these regulations; he ordered the secretary of the cabildo to furnish him with its proceedings, that he might see which of the regidores voted for them, so that he might imprison them, as was done with Don Cristóval de Bermúdez and Don Baltasar de Escovar, on complaint of the servants of the officials, for distributing provisions equally--arbitrary imprisonment without observing any formalities or opportunity for defence. Then, as the secretary did not comply with the demand, he was similarly thrown in prison. When meat was brought into the city for distribution the servants of the officials claimed whole carcasses, which they cut up and retailed at excessive prices. Driven to extremities, the city complained to the king of the violence of the tribunal and the excesses of its officials, when Ortiz again demanded a copy of the proceedings of the cabildo, leading to further intolerable vexations, which caused it to send the regidor, Nicolás Heras Pantoja as procurator to ask for a visitador.[805]

This imprisonment in the secret prison, we may remark, was an inveterate abuse; it was in itself the severest punishment, as it implied heresy and inflicted indelible infamy on the individual and his posterity. It was the subject of repeated complaints and, at last, a consulta of the Council of Indies, June 14, 1646, led the king to order the Suprema to instruct the Cartagena tribunal not to molest the people; when any one was arrested for matters not of faith, he must be placed in a decent prison, outside of the Inquisition. The Suprema had already taken such action in letters of April 28, 1645, and it repeated this July 28, 1646. Yet a letter from Cartagena of June 10, 1649, represented that, in spite of these orders, the inquisitors continued to throw many people into the secret prison, for causes not of faith, till at length three citizens who had been thus dishonored supplicated the king to remedy the great injuries thus inflicted. The Council of Indies, in a consulta of February 21, 1650, represented strongly to the king the disorders arising from the disregard of his commands and urged that positive orders to obey be given to the inquisitors. This he sent with his endorsement to the Suprema, which, on April 8th, wrote to the tribunal to observe its previous instructions--but without producing permanent effect.[806]

Meanwhile the prayer of the city for a visitador had been answered after a fashion, though not in consequence of its supplication. According to a statement of the Suprema in 1646, it had, at the close of 1642, determined to send an inspector to Lima and Cartagena, as those tribunals had not been visited since their foundation. There had recently been great sequestrations and confiscations, giving rise in Lima to over two thousand lawsuits, while in Cartagena it was necessary to investigate the settlements made with the claimants and the net collections secured. There were no charges, it said, against the inquisitors and it was only the financial matters that were concerned. There was hesitation as to the selection of a visitor; he had to be an old inquisitor and no one would accept the position without the assurance of a good benefice in the Indies or of a place in the Suprema itself. To give him more authority it was resolved to make him a member of the Suprema and to swear him in before his departure. Unfortunately the choice fell upon Dr. Martin Real, then serving in the tribunal of Toledo, a man of learning and imbued with the highest conceptions of inquisitorial authority, who had acted as visitor in Sicily, where he earned the reputation of a breeder of troubles, through his ungovernable temper and headstrong character. This was known to the Suprema, but it was thought that what he had suffered in consequence of it and the warnings that would be given would render him cautious. Philip IV objected, in view of what had occurred in Sicily, and suggested other names, but yielded on condition that he should not take the oath as councillor until the day of his departure. Then the Council of Indies protested against the appointment as dangerous to the peace of the colonies, but the Suprema represented that the matter had gone too far to be reconsidered without disgracing Real; that the opposition came from those who desired to prevent the visitation and that it did not concern the inquisitors but only the confiscations. The king made no further objection and Real was duly commissioned and departed early in 1643.[807]

The result justified fully the apprehensions of Philip and the Council of Indies, but it may be doubted whether the most even-tempered visitor, honestly bent on performing his duty, could have averted an explosion. The object of the mission was the investigation of the finances; there can be little question that, as in the other tribunals, false reports had been made as to the results of the enormous confiscations accruing from the prosecution of the Judaizing New Christians, and an inspection of the accounts was to be prevented at all hazards. The city was in a state of combustion with the chronic quarrels between the tribunal and the civil and military authorities. Real’s temper would not allow him to be neutral and it was easy to create a situation which should preclude the dreaded investigation. Such, at least, is the most rational explanation of the events as they can be disentangled from the somewhat conflicting accounts that have reached us.

Towards the end of July, 1643, Real arrived in Cartagena and with him came a new inquisitor, Juan Bautista de Villadiego, a man nearly seventy years of age, and a fiscal, Pedro Triunfo de Socaya. Real’s first act was to forbid Ortiz and Uriarte from entrance to the secreto, evidently with a view of examinating their accounts without interference, at the same time handing them appointments to equivalent positions in Llerena and Logroño--the favorite method used by the Suprema when officials had destroyed their usefulness where they were. Villadiego however refused to let Real have the keys of the money-chest, so the object of his visitation was frustrated and he revenged himself by exceeding the powers of his commission and assuming control of the tribunal. To obtain the keys of the coffer he led a disorderly crowd to Villadiego’s house, broke it open, personally assaulted him, seized the furniture and sold it at auction to pay the fine which he had imposed on him. Real further espoused the cause of the governor and cabildo and interfered by liberating a secretary whom Villadiego had arrested in order to learn who had voted against him. Then Villadiego endeavored to establish a rival tribunal in his own house and appointed officials to run it, a schism which lasted for two months, until Real judicially sentenced him to consider his house as a prison. Villadiego thereupon, on the night of February 11, 1644, with his own hands, posted notices that Real was excommunicated and Real retorted by arresting him.

He was replaced by Juan Pereira Castro, who took possession as inquisitor, August 22, 1644, and lost no time in organizing a faction among the officials and the clergy against Real and was concerned in libels upon him which were posted on the night of September 3d. For this, on insufficient evidence, Real arrested Ortiz de la Masa, an ecclesiastic of high standing, and proposed to torture him, which created an immense scandal among both clergy and laity. Pereira in vain endeavored to release him and, on January 25, 1645, he and Real exchanged excommunications, resulting in an interdict under which the city lay for many months. A few days later, on January 28th, Pereira, the fiscal Socaya and the notary, Tomás de Vega, locked themselves up in the tribunal for fear of arrest, and there they remained for seven months, solacing their self-inflicted captivity with feasting and gambling, while Real could neither get his salary nor the papers which were necessary for the business of his visitation. Many of those whom he had treated harshly hurried to Spain and brought suits against him in the Suprema, and we hear of Socaya sending with them forty bars of silver to substantiate their complaints.

The Suprema was not a little perplexed by the turn which affairs had taken. It ordered Villadiego to be restored to his place in the tribunal, an order received February 17, 1645, but it was accompanied with a summons to present himself at court within four months. This he disobeyed and recommenced to hold a tribunal in his own house, with the object, as Pereira wrote in February, 1646, of diverting attention from the scandals of his licentious life. To this Villadiego retorted by accusing Pereira of defending the gaoler in his crimes with female prisoners and of holding indecent banquets with him and the fiscal. The only immediate solution to the troubles seemed to lie in the recall of Real; he was ordered home and left Cartagena at the end of October, 1645. As the time of his arrival in Spain approached, the Suprema grew uneasy at the prospect of receiving him as a member and, February 16, 1646, it presented a consulta to Philip IV containing a condensed narrative of his doings and representing that his seat in the Council was intended, not as a reward for past services but as an incentive to those he was to render; his visitation had cost 20,000 pesos and had brought no results, nor was it held advisable that he should be allowed to repeat his performances in Lima. Besides, it would be indecent for him to sit in judgement on the numerous suits brought against him in the Suprema so that, all things being considered, it was suggested that his membership should be suspended until those suits were settled--a suggestion to which the king cordially assented.[808]

The inquisitors were not so busy quarrelling among themselves but that they had leisure to keep up dissensions with the secular authorities. A bitter struggle with the governor was occupying the court in 1644 and 1645, leading the Junta de Guerra de Indias, on November 9th of the latter year, to urge that instructions be sent to the tribunal not to excommunicate the governor and captain-general on account of the evils that would result.[809] Then a consulta of the Council of Indies, March 7, 1647, complained of the invasions of secular jurisdiction, in violation of the Concordia of 1610, causing regrettable disturbances. It alluded especially to a competencia with the royal Audiencia of Santa Fe over a civil case of the familiar Rodrigo de Oviedo y Luron, in which 1500 pesos were deposited with Capitan Francisco Beltran de Cairedo to await the adjudication of the claims of his creditors, when the tribunal stepped in and seized the money, although it had no jurisdiction over the civil cases of familiars. The Council therefore asked that the tribunal be ordered to abstain from civil cases and that its competencias with the Audiencias of Santa Fe, Panamá and Santo Domingo be settled--an appeal to which the king returned no answer, as he doubtless transmitted it to the Suprema, where it probably lay buried.[810]

As long as Real was on the ground, Villadiego and Pereira united in efforts to destroy him, but as soon as he departed they quarrelled and, in February 1646, Pereira commenced a prosecution against his colleague for holding a tribunal in his own house. The only hope of restoring the Inquisition to decency and usefulness seemed to lie in another visitation. This time the choice fell upon Pedro de Medina Rico, Inquisitor of Seville, whom we have already met in his subsequent discharge of similar duties in Mexico. He arrived in Cartagena, December 11, 1648, and found everything in disorder. As he wrote, May 19, 1649, the prisoners were rotting in the dungeons, some of whom had been lying there for eight years. He set vigorously at work with the cases, but it was difficult to make progress. There was no clock in the city; the hours were announced by the soldiers of the guard in the streets with a bell, but they were irregular and little attention was paid to them. The officials came late to their duties and left early; Pereira was especially brief in his attendance and, when he came, thought of nothing but getting away. Medina Rico therefore begged the Suprema to send out a fitting person to serve as secretary and also two inquisitors of learning and probity; Pereira was worthy of severe punishment and ought on no account to be allowed to remain.[811]

Medina Rico of course was at once involved in bitter antagonism with the officials whom he had come to reform; his powers however were limited and he was unable to use censures or arrest, which put him at a disadvantage, and there were no such exhibitions of violence as characterized the visitation of his predecessor. The Governor Pedro Zapata, moreover, took sides with the incumbents and wrote to the Council of Indies complaining that the city had been kept in a turmoil for ten years, attributable to the delay of the visitadors in completing their visitations. Real had been there for two years and returned, leaving the task incomplete and now Medina Rico has been at work for a year, with no prospect of completion, on account of which the city is in great affliction, dreading a renewal of former disturbances. Philip transmitted this to the Suprema, March 13, 1649, ordering, for the sake of peace, that Medina Rico be instructed to finish as speedily as possible. To this the Suprema replied that the illness of Pereira had thrown the unfinished business of the tribunal on Medina Rico, but that orders had already been despatched to him to complete his task without loss of time. Zapata continued his complaints and the Marquis of Miranda de Auta, President of the Audiencia of Santa Fe, joined in condemning his arbitrary acts; in civil cases he had arrested the procurators of pleaders and he had issued letters to the judges of the Audiencia threatening that in three days they would be posted as excommunicates.[812]

Medina Rico’s task was difficult for the abuses of the tribunal were so inveterate that the sharpest measures were necessary. Real’s report, based on 231 witnesses, brought sixty-eight charges against Villadiego and a hundred and thirteen against Pereira, but his hurried departure had prevented his submitting it to the accused for their defence and it therefore could not be acted upon. Fresh evidence was naturally hard to obtain. The people knew the power of Pereira and Uriarte and that they were favored by the governor and the Bishop of Santa Marta; they had seen the failure of Real’s visitation and anticipated the same result from the present one, when vengeance would follow on all who deposed against them. Medina Rico was therefore obliged to proceed cautiously. He states that he had to take precautions against attempts on his life by Uriarte and that such fears were not groundless for there was evidence in his hands that the former notary, Luis Blanco del Salcedo, was poisoned by his wife and the Inquisitor Juan Ortiz, then receiver, who subsequently married her; Inquisitor Cortázar was poisoned by Ortiz and Uriarte, who intercepted his letters accusing them to the Suprema. Rodrigo de Oviedo was killed by order of Uriarte, whose accomplice he had been. There was, he said, every facility for such crimes in this land filled with evil negroes; it was held for certain that in this way perished Bishop Cristóbal de Lazárraga and all his family; to poison was attributable the death of Juan de Lorrigui, acting fiscal, and also that of the governor who was in office at the time of his arrival.[813]

In spite of these apprehensions he gathered evidence, confirmatory of Real’s charges and of subsequent misdeeds and, under pressing orders to betake himself to Mexico, towards the summer of 1650 he drew up accusations against the inquisitors and the chief officials. Those against Pereira were virtually the same as Martin Real’s. Villadiego he accused of friendship with Jews who had been penanced, of receiving gifts and loans from them and using them as agents to sell goods for him; he was continually exacting gifts and abused those who refused them and there was also his general licentiousness with women. The fiscal, Bernardo de Eyzaguirre, was charged with embezzling the money of the prisoners. Secretary Uriarte he accused of selling his influence to the kindred of those on trial, giving them information and advice and arranging to bribe the consultors and episcopal Ordinary; of encompassing the death of his accomplice Rodrigo de Oviedo, who threatened to denounce him; of falsifying the accounts and robbing the tribunal to the amount of 200,000 pesos; after the death of Cortázar, he had a secret door made by which he entered the secreto to commit these thefts and he embezzled the property of the accused by bribing those in charge of it, in addition to all which his life was scandalously incontinent. Against Juan Ortiz he reproduced the sixty general charges made by Real and added seventy-nine special ones of the same character--bribery, receiving presents, appropriating the property of prisoners, falsified accounts, subornation and violence--when a butcher did not give him the best meat, he summoned him to the tribunal and struck him a blow on the head that left him senseless.[814]

In July, 1650, there arrived a new fiscal, Juan de Mesa, who was to be associated with Medina Rico, in case Uriarte recused him, as in fact he did. Pereira had become so apprehensive as to the results of the visitation that Mesa, on August 4th, in handing him the charges, told him that they would kill him. It so turned out. Pereira took them and pondered over them until midnight. In the morning he sent for a physician who at once told him that his case was hopeless and, on the 13th, he was dead. Uriarte followed him to the grave, on February 1, 1651, and Medina Rico’s task was accomplished. He was under orders to start for Mexico, but was detained by prolonged illness and did not leave Cartagena until June 8, 1654.[815]

The perennial quarrels with the authorities continued, of which the Council of Indies complained in a consulta to Philip IV, May 14, 1652.[816] Matters were not improved when, about this time, there came a new inquisitor, Diego del Corro Carrascal, followed shortly by Pedro de Salas y Pedroso as fiscal, who was soon promoted to the inquisitorship. He was so completely dominated by his senior that the Suprema took him to task, after which he manifested his independence by perpetual _discordias_, which left the accused perishing in the prison, awaiting the slow decisions in Spain. Corro Carrascal moreover was rebuked by the Suprema for cruelty and for speculating on the operations of the tribunal by having the confiscations bought in for him at the auctions at low prices. His dissolute life was so notorious that Governor Zapata said that his going out at night in disguise and having amours with married women passed into a proverb.[817] The dissension between the inquisitors grew bitterer until, in 1658, they had a common object of dislike in a new fiscal, Guerra de Latrás, a man who had had a somewhat distinguished career as doctor of laws, professor and author, and who had served in various important positions. The Suprema had often reproved the tribunal for its disregard of established procedure and Guerra sought to reduce it to order, bringing upon himself the hostility of the inquisitors, who characterized his representations as childish. Early in 1660 he had a fall from his mule and broke his arm, which incapacitated him from writing; the inquisitors refused to allow him to employ an assistant and the business of the tribunal was paralyzed. In 1665 Corro Carrascal was made President of New Granada, Salas fell sick and was absent for weeks at a time and, in this atrophy, the Inquisition ceased to inspire awe or even respect. The opportunity was propitious for the secular power to reassert itself, and the Governor, Benito de Figueroa y Barrantes, availed himself of it. August 23, 1666, meeting the executioner who was scourging two penitents through the accustomed streets, he sent three of his soldiers to release them. The tribunal prosecuted the soldiers and, on the 29th, had two of them arrested by its secretary, Gonzalo de Carvajal, who, in the process, fired a shot and had a struggle with one of the soldiers. Figueroa thereupon surrounded the Inquisition with guards to starve out the inmates; Guerra sought an interview and agreed to surrender the prisoners but, four days later, the governor arrested Carvajal, threw him fettered into the public prison, sequestrating his property and taking his confession in the torture-chamber. Guerra and Salas proceeded to prosecute the governor and proclaimed a _cessatio a divinis_. The bishop intervened and Carvajal was relieved of his chains, but remained in prison. The affair completely discredited the Inquisition; as the new fiscal, Montoyo y Angulo, reported, April 16, 1669, there was no petty official who did not think himself able to give orders to those of the tribunal.[818]

It had not, however, as yet reached the depth of its degradation. Salas had died, December 28, 1667; Guerra had been promoted some months earlier to the inquisitorship and he too died March 21, 1671, leaving the fiscal Luis de Bruna Rico alone. Then, August 19, 1673, there came a new inquisitor, Juan Gómez de Mier, followed, in 1674, by a colleague, Alvaro Bernardo de Quirós, and a new fiscal, José de Padilla, Bruna Rico having been transferred to Lima. The colleagues speedily quarrelled and Padilla joined Mier to oppose Quirós. The latter, on his arrival, had observed the abuses current in the importation of merchandise and slaves and wrote on the subject to the Council of Indies. The governor, who was compromised, succeeded in winning him over, so that he spent most of his time in the governor’s house card-playing and wrote to the Council, withdrawing his charges. It was too late, however, for Juan de Mier y Salinas, a judge at Santa Fe, was commissioned to investigate and came to Cartagena, where he lodged in the house of his uncle, the Inquisitor Mier. The two commenced making arrests and the inculpated took asylum in the churches. Among them was a friend of Quirós, who exerted himself in vain to protect him, and in failing to do so broke definitely with his colleague. He allied himself closely with the governor, for whom he drew up edicts, notably one in 1678 which, under pretext of a threatened attack by the French, discharged all the prisoners and put an end to the prosecutions. He is described as wandering around at all hours of the day and night, mingling with every body, even dancing in public and universally despised. Mier’s association with his nephew the judge brought upon him a shower of denunciations; he held relations with the English of Jamaica, who sent him negroes; these he entered at night as prisoners of the Inquisition, guarded by the alguazil mayor, through whom, moreover, he sold positions--commissionerships and the like--to all who would pay for them. The fiscal Padilla shut himself up in his house and would see no one. The master spirit of the tribunal was the secretary, Miguel de Echarri, to whom were attributed all the evil deeds of Mier. Every one went to him for the distribution of favors; his anteroom was like that of a viceroy and presents were showered upon him; he was assiduous in the gambling-houses and, as Fray Juan Cabeza de Vaca had written, January 30, 1670, “while he is in this city there will neither be peace in the tribunal nor will the people be without a demon to disturb everybody and keep them in open war.”[819]

This state of affairs continued for years. Mier was transferred to Mexico and Quirós to Lima in December, 1681, leaving as sole inquisitor Padilla, who died March 31, 1682, appointing as successor ad interim the Archdeacon Andrés de Torres. Matters took a new aspect with the arrival, March 27, 1683, of a new inquisitor, Francisco Valera, who had filled important offices in Lima. He dismissed Torres and made Echarri fiscal; he gave five hours a day, in the tribunal, to cases of faith and three hours in his house to affairs of property. He pushed the pending trials to conclusion and in five months, August 29th, he celebrated an auto de fe.[820] Under such a man the tribunal was speedily lifted from its degradation, but he had the defects of his qualities, and his imperious temper speedily involved him in a struggle of which the scandal was greater than that of any previous one.[821]

In 1681, two years before Valera’s arrival, there had come to Cartagena a new bishop, Manuel de Benavides y Piedrola, who seems to have been impulsive and inconsiderate. Almost at once he fell into trouble by listening to the prayer of the nuns of Santa Clara, who desired to transfer their obedience from the Franciscans to the episcopal provisor, leading to a contest which was envenomed by the bishop’s endeavor to restrain the disorderly intercourse between friars and nuns. Castillo de la Concha, the President of New Granada, ranged himself against the bishop, on whom a sentence of banishment was pronounced, to which he replied by casting an interdict on the city and leaving it. The populace took sides with a vehemence which led to frequent riots and almost to civil war, during which the nuns sustained a siege of six months.

Valera, on seeing the condition of affairs, endeavored to make peace and sought the bishop in his retreat, but was unsuccessful and his disappointment was aggravated by the bishop’s refusal to allow him to celebrate mass in his own house during the interdict. On his return to Cartagena he boldly celebrated mass, which greatly encouraged the anti-episcopal faction. Matters however seemed to be settling down, when, by order of President Castillo, Diego de Baños, Bishop of Santa Marta, came to Cartagena and removed the interdict. The two bishops exchanged excommunications and the quarrel became fiercer and more intricate than ever. Castillo ordered Benavides to leave the diocese, but he refused and excommunicated the governor and all the authorities; in fact, his enemies said that he had a mania for such censures and once excommunicated an object which he saw through the blinds of a balcony, without knowing whether it was a bag of cocoa or a sack of wool.

Valera was not long in being involved in the conflict. The authorities had armed the citizens and broke by force into the cathedral, seizing three ecclesiastics, whom the governor threw into the fort of Bocachica; one of them, Baltasar de la Fuente, was a commissioner of the tribunal and claimed the fuero, but Valera refused to come to his assistance. When, however, the governor ordered Benavides to withdraw the censures, the latter excommunicated Gerónimo Isabal, the advocate who signed the letter, and it chanced that he was also acting advocate of prisoners in the tribunal, though without a commission, and Valera sprang to his assistance and demanded the papers. Benavides retorted with an edict declaring that Isabal was not entitled to the fuero for defect of title, that Valera had incurred censures for not protecting la Fuente and that he, as episcopal inquisitor, would supply any deficiencies in the tribunal. One account states that as Valera kept himself housed, the bishop went there personally and affixed the edict to his door; another asserts that he led a mob of negroes and mulattos to seize the inquisitor, who barely escaped by a back door and took refuge in the tribunal.

The edict was printed and posted throughout the town, when the alguazil mayor of the Inquisition tore it down and arrested the ecclesiastics who were concerned in it. Benavides went to the tribunal to rescue them and was contumeliously refused admittance; the governor came and a scene ensued, the accounts of which are irreconcileable, but which served still further to scandalize the people and inflame the passions of both sides. The unlucky clerics, after two years of prison, were fined and exiled. Benavides meanwhile had the cathedral bells tolled for an interdict, when all the other bells in the city were rung to drown them--a brazen warfare to which the people had become accustomed. Then he ordered a _cessatio a divinis_, but the convents refused to observe it; the Bishop of Santa Marta pronounced it null and Valera posted a declaration that he raised it. The Audiencia of Santa Fe had ordered the expulsion of Benavides and now it fined him 4000 pesos for delay in executing the decree. The cathedral was surrounded with guards; the chapter fortified it, but the Bishop of Santa Marta had the doors broken open and ordered the chapter, to declare the see vacant. On their refusal, the provisor, treasurer and _maestre-escuela_ were arrested and the cathedral was handed over to priests of his faction. A certain Don Gómez de Atienza declared that he wished Benavides had come forward to resist this desecration, for he would have finished him. The vengeance of heaven was not long delayed, for that night a tempest of unexampled violence burst over Cartagena; the lightning sought out Atienza in the midst of his family and slew him, while another bolt struck his farm in the country, burnt his granaries and killed his mules. He was buried with much pomp by the Bishop of Santa Marta and his dead mules were hidden, to keep the people in ignorance.

A new governor, Juan Martínez Pando, on his arrival was ordered by the Audiencia to remove Benavides, but it was impossible to ship him away, for the buccaneers commanded the sea. He was confined in his house under strict guard and his temporalities were seized. The clergy and people who were faithful to him were arrested, banished and their properties confiscated. The nuns of Santa Clara refused to recognize the confessors appointed for them, when the convent was broken open and in spite of their resistance they were beaten and confined on bread and water, while some of them were put in irons. The Archbishop of Santa Fe had ordered the Bishop of Santa Marta to retire and leave Benavides in possession, but the mandate was taken from the messenger, was pronounced to be forged, and prosecutions were brought against all who professed obedience to it.

Matters took a sudden turn when there came a royal cédula of May 16, 1683, addressed to Valera ordering him to replace Benavides in his see, which he accordingly did with extraordinary pomp. That he was master of the situation was generally recognized and peace for a time was restored, although he refused the bishop’s demand for the return of the clergy and domestics whom he had exiled. Then Benavides’ position was further strengthened by a papal brief of November 3, 1683, based wholly on the adverse representations of the Audiencia, ordering the nuns of Santa Clara to be remitted to his care. Thus the original cause of quarrel was settled and the troubles which followed were a simple trial of strength between the episcopacy and the Inquisition.

Passions had not yet exhausted themselves and the struggle for supremacy had not been decided. A new element of discord came with the arrival in November, 1684, of another inquisitor, Juan Ortiz de Zárate, who regarded Valera as having been timid and irresolute in the quarrel and boasted of his own unyielding firmness. Causes of dissension were not lacking and open war broke out when Benavides removed, perhaps with unnecessary violence, seats which the inquisitors had placed in the church, giving as a reason the “tertulia” or talkative crowd thus attracted. Thereupon they excommunicated the bishop and ordered his name to be omitted from the mass, to enforce which they excommunicated, fined and banished the dean and the Prior of San Agustin for including it. The bishop had torn down the edicts of his excommunication, had ostentatiously celebrated mass and had ordered the arrest of the clergy who would not assist him, which led the tribunal to order him to keep his house as a prison, an order enforced by obtaining from the governor a guard which rendered him practically a prisoner. During this turmoil it is easy to imagine the condition of the community, terrorized by the Inquisition. The majority of the people, we are told, favored the bishop, but were afraid of the absolute power exercised by the tribunal, with the support of the governor. The better part of the clergy saved themselves by flight and there was general demoralization. To render their victory complete the inquisitors assembled the chapter in order to have the see declared vacant. All but two voted in the negative and left the room, when the remaining two declared the vacancy and elected provisors to govern the diocese.

Then three vessels arrived from Spain which it was hoped would bring despatches putting an end to the troubles. Nothing was given out as to their nature, but it was observed that each night the guard at the bishop’s palace was reduced until it was entirely withdrawn and Benavides was released after a confinement that had lasted from April 13 to August 22, 1687. At the same time there arrived Gómez Suárez de Figueroa as inquisitor to replace Valera, who had been transferred to Lima early in 1685 but who had awaited the arrival of his successor; he sailed September 2, 1687, reaching Panamá on the 23d and Lima in June, 1688.

Suárez at first seemed inclined to deprecate the excesses of his predecessor, but the traditions and interest of the Inquisition were too strong and he soon yielded to them. The tribunal still held the bishop to be excommunicated. The news of the terrible earthquake of Lima, March 9, 1687, improved by the preachers, caused a wave of religious fervor in which many persons abandoned their scandalous lives and applied to Benavides for licences to marry but, when the banns were published, the inquisitors excommunicated the officiating priests. They also gave notice that all who communicated with the bishop must seek absolution at their hands--an absolution which they ostentatiously administered. Seeing them thus determined to carry on war to the knife, he resolved to publish a papal brief of January 15, 1687, which he had received. This treated the matter as exclusively a quarrel between him and Valera; it recognized fully the justice of his side and stated that the nuncio at Madrid had been ordered to prevail with the king that all his rights should be restored to him and that he should have public satisfaction for injuries endured. Although this brief had passed the Royal Council, when he applied to the civil authorities for aid in its publication this was refused and when he circulated copies the inquisitors stigmatized it as a forgery. They filled their prison with the bishop’s supporters and they garrotted in the plaza a Franciscan named Francisco Ramírez, without observing any formalities or even degrading him from holy orders--a tragedy in which the governor, Francisco de Castro, acted the part of executioner.

A new governor, Don Martin de Ceballos y la Cerda, brought with him a royal cédula, ordering the restitution of the bishop to his full rights and jurisdiction. This was received with rejoicings, which showed how few had been really opposed to him, although terrorism had forced men to dissemble. One article of the cédula, however, commanding the restitution of all fines and confiscated property, was not obeyed, because the judge commissioned to enforce it belonged to the inquisitorial faction and had the support of Ceballos, with whom the bishop had speedily quarrelled. This encouraged the tribunal to a renewal of molestation. When the bishop ordered the prosecution of Doctor Francisco Javier de Cárdenas, for abuses committed in a visitation, the inquisitors threatened the provisor that, if he did not release Cárdenas, he should be imprisoned as the bishop had been. During the troubles the tribunal had been conducted without the necessary concurrence of an episcopal Ordinary. To remedy this, Benavides appointed Don José Pedro Medrano to act, but the inquisitors took away his commission and refused to allow him to serve. Seeing that the contest was endless, the bishop resolved to present himself at the court and embarked in an English vessel for London, but hearing in Jamaica of the expulsion of James II, he returned to Cartagena to await the arrival of the Spanish galleons. When they came, they brought a despatch calling him to Madrid and he accompanied them on their return.

At this point the narrative in both Groot and Medina fails us and we know nothing of his reception at court, except that it was not wholly to his satisfaction. We learn from a consulta of the Council of Indies, in 1696, that Innocent XI had rendered a decision invalidating the excommunications uttered by the inquisitors and affirming those proclaimed by the bishop and that all comprised under the latter must obtain absolution. To do this would be so unexampled a humiliation that the Suprema had not enforced it, and Benavides had, without asking the royal permission, gone to Rome to accomplish its execution. This placed him in antagonism with all Spanish traditions and, in 1695, the ambassador was endeavoring to obtain papal authority to carry him back to Spain, but apparently without success, for in 1696 he was still there. The indomitable old man died in Cádiz, but in what year is not known and the see remained vacant until 1713.[822]

However the Suprema may have interposed to prevent the humiliation of the inquisitors, it set its seal of disapprobation on Valera. His transfer to Lima indicates that it considered, early in the quarrel, that his usefulness in Cartagena was ended. His action during the interval between 1685 and 1688 evidently confirmed the unfavorable impression and, as we have seen, he was met, on his arrival at Lima, with orders from the Suprema to return to Spain--orders which he evaded--and in 1691 the Viceroy Moncada was instructed by the king to ship him home. As this was merely a royal command, it received no attention, and he continued to exercise his functions; apparently he had profited by experience for we hear of no controversies with either the spiritual or temporal power. With the advent of the Bourbon dynasty, however, there came a determination to curb inquisitorial exuberance and his Cartagena performances were not forgotten. In 1703 there came orders from both the king and inquisitor-general to jubilate him on half his salary, the other half being applied to the Church of Cartagena, in consideration of the controversy which he had with it, thus condemning him to make to it such reparation as he could. The sentence came too late, however, as he had died on August 2, 1702.[823]

Governor Ceballos had no reason to congratulate himself on siding with the tribunal against Bishop Benavides. Its excesses had convinced the court that some thorough change was necessary if peace and harmony were to be restored in the colony and a Junta of two members each, of the Suprema and of the Council of Indies, was ordered to carry it into effect, but these intentions were balked by the members of the Suprema never meeting their colleagues.[824] Nothing was done and the absence of the bishop left the tribunal in absolute command of the city. How despotically it exercised its authority is shown in a plaintive despatch of Governor Ceballos, January, 1693, reciting how the butcher of the public shambles having refused to give the preference to a negro of Inquisitor Suárez, the latter sent the gaoler of the secret prison to bring the butcher bound to the prison or, if he could not be found, then one of the regidores of the city in his place. The butcher was found and thrown into the prison, where he was still lying. The governor says that he was afraid to take the proper steps and contented himself with addressing a civil request to Suárez, which was disregarded. He found it impossible to get legal evidence as to the affair, for witnesses were in such terror that they would make no formal depositions. On January 13th, after drawing up a despatch on the subject, he went to his residence, whither came Secretary Luna of the tribunal, accompanied by a mob of followers and, with much disturbance, required him under threat of major excommunication and other censures to sign letters declaring that the case belonged to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and that he abandoned it; also that all references to the matter be erased from the books of the municipality and all the papers be delivered to the tribunal. In this strait he consulted with Don Francisco Gorrechategui, President of the Royal Audiencia of Santa Fe, and Don Fernando de la Riva Aguero, Judge of the Audiencia of Panamá, but they could render him no assistance; he was helpless and, for the sake of peace, he submitted to the demands of the Inquisition.[825] When such was the condition to which the tribunal had reduced the civil and military power in Cartagena, we need no further explanation of the ease with which the French adventurers captured it in 1697.

That catastrophe, as we have seen, was the turning-point in the history of the tribunal, which thenceforth rapidly declined. In 1705, Pablo de Ozaeta took possession as fiscal and found himself alone, in consequence of the severe illness of Inquisitor Lazaeta, until the arrival of Manuel de Verdeja y Cosio as his colleague. There was a lively quarrel on foot with the governor, Juan Díaz Pimienta, to whom the tribunal had imputed the concealment of the property of a person deceased. The two secretaries, Echarri and Ventura de Urtecho, took his part and were excommunicated and arrested, Urtecho being banished for eight years and Echarri ordered to leave the city within twenty-four hours, while his son was thrown into the secret prison. On the other hand, Pimienta seized Luis de Cabrera, the notary of sequestrations, and threw him into the fort of Bocachica, where he died in the course of eight months, and, on another occasion, acting on a royal order, he took, from Lazaeta’s house, Julian Antonio de Tejada, who had been sent out to report on the capture. To avenge these insults, the tribunal commenced twenty-four prosecutions against the governor, but it was in no position to assert itself. In a letter of February 27, 1706, it exhaled its griefs. Ozaeta and Verdeja were ailing--one wanted to go to Spain and the other to be transferred to Mexico. Everything was in ruin; the money coffer was empty; for ten years no galleons had arrived; Pimienta slighted Lazaeta at every turn, so that for eighteen months he had been obliged to shut himself up in his house. As for Ozaeta, Verdeja, in a letter of September 13th, accused him of devoting himself wholly to trade. He had brought merchandise with him and was the agent of foreign merchants, whose goods he introduced without paying duties, and there was no business of this kind, throughout the extensive district of the tribunal, that was not under his control. He was allowed to enjoy this profitable commerce until 1716, when he returned to Spain and was rewarded with an appointment to the tribunal of Llerena.[826]

He was replaced in Cartagena by Tomás Gutiérrez Escalante who did as little honor as his predecessor to the Holy Office, though he retained his position until his death, in 1738. He was involved in bitter quarrels with the governor, Francisco Baloco, of which the details are lacking, though we may assume that he was in fault, for constant complaints of him were sent to the Suprema, and the Bishop Molleda y Clerque (1734-41) accused him of interfering in matters beyond his jurisdiction and that in his house there was nothing but banquets and gambling. One of these feasts was given in honor of the saint’s day of a young mulatto girl whom he kept and whom his guests had to honor.[827] After this we cease to hear of troubles with the civil authorities, but the dissensions between the officials of the tribunal continued to the end of the century and the exhortations and commands of the Suprema were fruitless in maintaining harmony.[828]

* * * * *

The financial history of the tribunal, at least during the seventeenth century, is similar to that which we have already traced in Mexico and Peru. As we have seen, when Philip III established it in 1610 he was careful to specify that the royal subvention of 8400 ducats was to continue only as long as the confiscations and fines and penalties were insufficient; the receiver was ordered to furnish a yearly statement of his receipts which were to be deducted from the payments to be made by the treasury. Clearly as this program was laid out, it is perhaps needless to say that it never received the slightest attention from the tribunal. It had not been long in operation when the fruits of its industry began to pour in. A letter of July 22, 1621, conveyed the pleasing information that it had secured the handsome sum of 149,000 pesos from the confiscated estate of the Judaizer Francisco Gómez de Leon.[829] Windfalls such as this were of course exceptional, but a more or less steady stream of smaller amounts can scarce have failed to reward its activity. Still this brought no relief to the royal treasury, which was regularly called upon for the subvention and, in 1630, we chance to hear of the complaints of the treasury officials, who were summoned before the tribunal and scolded when they had not funds wherewith to meet the demands promptly.[830] In 1633 there duly came the suppression of a canonry in every cathedral of the district for the benefit of the tribunal--a measure designed for the relief of the royal treasury--but the revenues of the prebends were quietly absorbed without relaxing hold on the subvention.

Wealth flowed in with the discovery of Judaizers in 1636, whose confiscations were announced in the auto de fe of March 25, 1638. That of Juan Rodriguez Mesa amounted to 65,000 pesos; that of Blas de Paz Pinto to 50,000; of Francisco Rodríguez Pinto to 40,000, while the smaller ones brought the aggregate up to 200,000, as reported, June, 1638, by Andrés de Castro the receiver who assuredly did not exaggerate, and besides this there were confiscations in Havana amounting to 150,000.[831] In 1639 there came orders to sell at auction three _varas_ of alguaziles, one each in Santa Fe, Caracas and Popayan, but competition was not eager and we do not know the amount realized.[832] The tribunal was evidently accumulating abundant capital, although it was obliged to contribute a part of its gains to the Suprema. In 1644 the latter alludes to a remittance shortly expected from Cartagena of about 10,000 ducats; by a letter of September 24, 1650, it appears that the tribunal admitted to having on hand 187,677 pesos; according to a certificate of June 30, 1659, there had been deposited in the money coffer 430,414 pesos and, although there had been more than 100,000 remitted to the Suprema, there was ample left. In addition there were houses and lands; there were 95,332 invested in censos, yielding about 4000 a year but the royal subvention was still regularly collected, the 8400 ducats being reckoned at 11,500 pesos.[833]

The subvention continued to be paid though, with the increasing penury of the Spanish treasury, it was apt to be in arrears. In 1670 we find the Suprema ordering the tribunal to use gentle methods; it learns that the garrison is unpaid and therefore the fault may be with the governor; the last payment collected was for the _tercio_ (four months) of November, 1668, and the annual amount alluded to is 8400 ducats. The tribunal was not satisfied and, in its replies of May 6 and October 8, 1671, it asks for permission to apply pressure; the governor excuses himself by the expenditures necessary to provide for the safety of the place, but these pretexts will never be lacking, the civil salaries are regularly paid and the garrison is partially so. Yet the arrearage to the tribunal had been diminished and was reduced to only three tercios, showing that at least two years’ subvention had been collected during the past twelvemonth.[834] Then the arrearage increased and on April 17, 1674, the tribunal reported it at nearly eighteen months, whereupon the Suprema, February 3, 1675, addressed a strong remonstrance to the queen-regent, threatening that if the officials were not paid regularly they would be obliged to desert their posts; it recapitulated the financial history of the tribunal; the royal grant, in 1610, of 8400 ducats per annum, until the confiscations and fines and penances should suffice, followed by the suppression of the prebends in 1633, and it had the effrontery to assert that since then the prebends and fines and penances had been deducted from the subvention; the royal officials asserted that there were no moneys appropriated for the purpose, and that they could not pay without special orders, wherefore the queen was asked to make the subvention a first charge on the treasury. Against this the Council of Indies protested vigorously on March 9th, going over the whole history of the matter and pointing out that whatever was paid to the Inquisition must be withdrawn from the protection of the coasts, ravaged constantly by the buccaneers, and especially of Cartagena, which was the object of their special cupidity. In fact, large expenditures were made on the defences of the city, which was the entrepôt of the shipments of the precious metals to Spain; as the Council stated, the royal treasuries of Santa Fe and Quito had already been drawn upon to the amount of 17,390,300 mrs. for that purpose.[835]

The debate went on, without either side abandoning its position. The Suprema, on May 11, 1676, insisted that the subvention was a necessity for the tribunal. Five of the canonries produced a total of only 2535 pesos and the sixth, of Puerto Rico, only about 100; the revenues from investments were 5491 pesos while the expenses were 18,770, so that even with the subvention there was a deficit. It is evident that not much faith was felt in these figures, for the Count of Peñaranda, in a consulta of December 10, 1677, pointed out that there never had been any statement furnished as to the amount of the confiscations and fines and penances, nor had any effort been made to obtain from Cartagena and Peru, as there had been from Mexico, restitution of the sums improperly obtained from the treasury, to which they were evidently large enough to afford sensible relief.[836]

In some Cartagena documents of 1684 we find the first evidence that the treasury had the benefit of other receipts of the tribunal. On June 2d the receiver presented to Inquisitor Valera a dolorous complaint as to the financial condition. In the failure to collect the royal subvention it had been impossible to pay the salaries and other expenses without drawing upon the funds held for creditors of confiscated estates awaiting settlement. The buildings of the Inquisition and its houses were out of repair and threatening ruin; the last payment obtained from the treasury was up to the end of October, 1678, since when there had accrued 61,764 pesos, 5 reales, 22 mrs. from which was to be deducted, of collections from the canonries, 8221 pesos, 3 quartellos, leaving a balance due of 53,543 pesos, 4 reales, 31 mrs., which Valera was urged to collect in order that the fund held for creditors might be reimbursed and the necessary repairs made to the buildings. Thereupon Valera addressed to the governor, Don Juan Pando de Estrada, a vigorous appeal, embodying the receiver’s statement of the account and asking at least for a partial payment. The governor submitted this to the treasury officials, who admitted the correctness of the statement, and from their figures it appears that in the settlements from November 1, 1675, to October 31, 1678, due allowance had been made for receipts from the canonries--but they add that in 1680 a royal cédula had ordered the archbishop and bishops to report to them all payments to the tribunal on account of the canonries, an order which had been obeyed only by the Bishop of Cartagena. They professed the utmost desire to pay the Inquisition and deplored their inability, in view of the demands of the home government for remittances and the indispensable outlays for the maintenance and safety of the city.