Chapter VIII: New Granada (3)

This the governor transmitted to the tribunal with the assurance of his deep regret and a request for a statement of its other receipts, in order that an accurate balance could be reached. Valera met this last demand by procuring from the receiver and his predecessor sworn statements that nothing had been received from confiscations, fines and penances, the truth of which may be doubted in view of the receiver’s previous complaint as to the use made of the sums in litigation with creditors of confiscated penitents--but he added that, if there had been receipts from these sources, they were especially appropriated to the secret and necessary expenses of the Inquisition, which was a manifest falsehood. Moreover, as the tribunal was a creditor of the treasury, and it appeared that there were no funds applicable to the discharge of the debt, it had a right to have a detailed statement of receipts and expenditures, to lay before the king, with a request for relief. What reply the governor made to this impudent demand, we have no means of knowing, but we may assume that the tribunal fared no better in the future. It had appealed, October 1, 1683, to the Suprema, setting forth its deplorable condition; as it was forbidden to use pressure, it was at the mercy of the officials and it asked that the treasurers of Santa Fe and Quito be instructed to remit directly to its receiver. For some reason this appeal was not considered by the Suprema until April 10, 1685, and then it was simply ordered to be filed away with the other papers.[837]

We may reasonably assume that much of the distress, thus movingly represented, was fictitious, to parry the demands of the Suprema for the contributions which it was accustomed to exact. Notwithstanding the recalcitrancy of the royal officials, the tribunal by diligent siege managed to extract an occasional payment and, though it unquestionably suffered heavily at the capture of Cartagena, in 1697, what with the prebends and the occasional fortunate capture of a wealthy penitent, it would seem not to have suffered from the lack of means. At least so the Suprema thought when, in a letter of June 15, 1705, it ordered the tribunal to be prompt in remitting the contribution demanded of it. Thus spurred, on February 27, 1706, it sent 6000 pesos, which it stated it had been obliged to borrow, as it had no resources save to pledge repayment out of the first moneys it should receive, and it expected to do this out of the estate of Don Juan de Zavaleta, the settlement of which was hourly expected. It went on to give a dolorous account of its condition. The capture of the city had left it in a miserable state--all the money in its coffers was taken and all its buildings and houses were damaged. Its chief means of support, it says, is the royal subvention, but for six years it had failed to receive any important assistance from this; arrearages due amount to more than 140,000 pesos and its applications to the treasury are met with enmity and ill-will. The suppressed canonries produce less than 5000 pesos a year; as for the houses, they have declined greatly in value; for more than ten years the galleons have ceased to visit the port and commerce has so decreased that the houses are generally untenanted and repairs consume most of the rentals received.[838]

In this sombre description there is doubtless a large element of truth. The kingdom of New Granada, though less than two centuries old, was already decaying and the Inquisition necessarily suffered with the rest of the community. Its poverty became so pressing that, in 1739, the houses held by it were sold on ground-rents. To add to its misfortunes, as we have seen, in 1741, during the bombardment by Admiral Vernon, a bomb dismantled the Inquisition so that it had to be torn down and it was not rebuilt until 1766. Still the tribunal managed to exist and when, in 1811, it was expelled from Cartagena, it had 4000 pesos in its coffer.[839]

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When came the Revolution the Inquisition evidently had lost all claim on the respect of the people and was one of the early objects against which popular detestation was directed, rendering its career in those turbulent times different from that of its sister tribunals. Before Hidalgo raised the banner of revolt, in September, 1810, already in July insurrection had broken out in Santa Fe and, on August 13th, a revolutionary Junta was established in Cartagena, although complete independence of the Spanish crown was not yet contemplated. Matters remained for a year in this uncertain condition, during which the tribunal sought to ingratiate itself with the rising forces of Revolution by acquitting and discharging a patriotic priest, Juan A. Estévez sent to it by the Santa Fe Government to be imprisoned and punished for a sermon characterized as seditious; and it furthermore dismissed its commissioner, Doctor Lasso, who had started the prosecution--a service warmly recognized by the Supreme Junta in a manifesto of September 25, 1810.[840]

As in Spain, the Liberals were careful to proclaim their adhesion to the principle of intolerance. The Constitution of Cádiz in 1812 declared that the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman faith was the religion of the State and that no other worship, public or private, would be permitted, while the Articles of Federation of the Provinces of New Granada enumerated among their duties that of maintaining the Catholic religion in its purity and integrity.[841] Yet when the Revolution culminated for the time in Cartagena, November 11, 1811, by an armed rising of the people, one of the demands made on the Junta was that the Inquisition be suppressed and the inquisitors be handed their passports. The Junta was prompt in executing the popular wishes. The same day it issued a decree that all who did not favor independence should leave the country within eight days, and it summoned the various corporations to come forward and take the oath of independence.[842] The next day, notice was sent to the tribunal that its existence was incompatible with the new order of affairs, and that the inquisitors, with such officials as desired to follow them, must sail for Spain within fifteen days, while those who remained must forthwith take the oath; all papers were to be transferred to the bishops of the dioceses to which they referred and the property was to be made over to the public treasury. To this the inquisitors replied, on the following day, that the decision had been extorted by an armed mob and, as soon as popular agitation should subside, they expected to resume the august functions confided to them by Divine Providence. Insistence, however, brought compliance and, on November 28th, they announced their readiness to go, though not to Spain; the authorities took possession of all their property and the papers connected therewith, but it was not until December 17th that their passports were sent, and further delays postponed their departure until January 1, 1812, when they sailed for Santa Marta. There they erected their tribunal and remained for about a year, when the occupation of the place by the revolutionary forces caused their transfer to Puertobelo. When Santa Marta was regained by the royalists they returned there and soon afterwards they received news of the suppression of the Inquisition by the Córtes of Cádiz in February, 1813. This rendered their condition more precarious than ever. In a report of July 8, 1815, they state that on their ejection from Cartagena, they notified the various chapters to preserve the fruits of their prebends for them; those of Santiago de Cuba, Havana and Panamá came regularly, but were paid into the royal treasury; those of Puertobelo and Santo Domingo were held back through fear of pirates; that of Caracas by the revolution, so that they were in arrears of their salaries by five tercios and had been living on borrowed money.[843] If their salaries were but twenty months in arrears, in July, 1815, it indicates that the previous complaints of poverty had been exaggerated and it suggests that, in spite of the seizure of property, they had succeeded in carrying from Cartagena a fair supply of funds.

The triumph of the Spanish War of Independence and the restoration of Fernando VII in the Spring of 1814 changed the face of affairs. The whole power of the monarchy could be directed to the subjugation of the revolted colonies and, in 1815, a heavy force was sent, under Don Pablo Morillo, to effect that of New Granada. Although the Inquisition had been revived in Spain by royal decree of July 21, 1814, it was not until March 31, 1815, that the joyful news reached Santa Marta, where the inquisitors celebrated it with a solemn mass and Te Deum and the announcement that they resumed their duties, although, to keep up the semblance of a tribunal, they had appointed as fiscal the alcaide of the secret prison and as secretary the alcaide of the penitential prison. Morillo reached Santa Marta on July 24th and on August 15th he advanced to reduce Cartagena, accompanied by the senior inquisitor, José Oderiz, whom he appointed as _teniente vicario general_ of his army. After a siege of a hundred days, in which the inhabitants were almost destroyed by famine and pestilence, Cartagena fell on December 6th and Oderiz at once took measures to seize prohibited books and resume his authority. The other inquisitor, Prudencio de Castro, deferred the transfer of the tribunal until May, 1816, awaiting the restoration of sanitary conditions in the unhappy city, and it could not fully commence operations until January 21, 1817, the date at which the two secretaries, who had remained behind, were reinstated in office, after undergoing the process of “purification,” to remove all taint of liberalism. Morillo himself had accepted the position of honorary alguazil.[844]

On April 29, 1818, there was a solemn publication of the Edict of Faith and of the Edict of Grace of the Suprema for heresies occasioned by the war. This was followed in the afternoon by a procession through the streets carrying the banner of the Inquisition; the standard-bearer was Colonel Jiminez, accompanied by the principal officers of the army, to whom the ceremonial was a farce, for we are told that they were nearly all Free-Masons.[845] It was not until near the end of the year, however, that the organization of the tribunal was completed, by the arrival of the new fiscal, José Antonio de Aguirrezabal. Although thus ready for business, it had little to do, in the disturbed condition of the land, and it was in no condition to render active service. As it reported, September 25, 1819, it was suffering acutely from poverty, without means to repair its building which threatened ruin; it was unable to imprison offenders because they could not be fed; the salaries were unpaid and the officials had no means of livelihood, for there were no charitable hands to solace their misery. In fact, its last case was that of Don Rafael Barragan of Santa Fe, for propositions. His accusation dated back to 1813; after infinite trouble he was thrown into the secret prison and, in September, 1818, his sentence was read in the audience chamber with closed doors; he abjured _de levi_ and was absolved _ad cautelam_.[846]

The Revolution of 1820 in Spain revived the energies of the patriots who felt that they had little to fear from further efforts of subjugation. The suppression of the Inquisition by the royal decree of March 9, 1820, seems to have attracted little attention in New Granada and, if the tribunal continued to exist, it must have disappeared when Cartagena was captured by the revolutionists in October, 1821. Still, on September 3d of that year the Vice-president of the United States of Colombia, Doctor José María Castillo, deemed it necessary to issue a decree declaring the Inquisition abolished. No traces of it should be allowed to exist and therefore the authorities of Cundinamarca were ordered not to permit the commissioner in Santa Fe to exercise his office. In future no inquisitorial edicts should be published, no books should be suppressed except by the Government and no ecclesiastical authority should supervise their importation. As the commissioner at Santa Fe, Doctor Santiago Torres, had previously died in exile, the zeal of the vice-president was somewhat superfluous except in so far as the edict deprived the bishops of censorship.[847]

Shortly after this the Congress of the United States of Colombia adopted a law declaring the Inquisition extinguished forever and never to be re-established. All its properties were appropriated to the State. The bishops were restored to their ancient jurisdiction over matters of faith, but appeal from their decisions lay to the civil courts. This however applied exclusively to Catholics. Foreigners of other faiths were assured against molestation on account of religion, so long as they observed due respect to the national one, and finally the civil power assumed to regulate the external discipline of the Church, such as the prohibition of books and similar matters.[848] As the United States of Colombia then embraced the whole of the Spanish South American possessions, north of Peru, these liberal principles were effective over a wide expanse of territory and, when the victory of Ayacucho, December 10, 1824, finally destroyed the Spanish power in Peru and liberated the colonies, the last chance disappeared that the reactionary government of Spain might attempt to revive the Inquisition.

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Many causes contributed to the decay of the Spanish colonies, but among them not the least was the impossibility of settled and orderly administration occasioned by the multiplicity of rival jurisdictions, inherited from the medieval conceptions of the relations of Church and State. There were the military represented by the viceroy, and the civil by the Audiencia; the spiritual, exercised by the bishops over the secular clergy; the numerous Regular Orders, exempt from the bishops and subjected each to its own provincial; the Cruzada, whose numerous officials owed obedience only to the Commissioner General or his representative, and finally the Inquisition which claimed supremacy over all, in a sphere of action the limits of which it defined practically at its pleasure. Of these the most disturbing element was the Inquisition, armed with the irresistible weapon of excommunication, by which it could paralyze its antagonists at will, and the arbitrary power of arrest, which inspired general terror. We have seen what manner of men it was that Spain habitually sent to the colonies to wield this irresponsible authority, the use which they made of it and, when their abuse of it became unbearable, how they were rewarded by transfer to better tribunals or to episcopal seats. The commissioners whom they distributed through the provinces aped their masters and carried oppression and discord to every corner of the land, while the ægis of protection was extended over every criminal who could claim any connection, however illusory or fraudulent, with the tribunals.

Complaints to the Council of Indies came pouring in by every fleet from bishops, governors, officials and individuals. These were duly laid before the king, who referred them to the Suprema; it would promise to call for a report from the tribunals and this would be the last of the matter, for however severely it might berate its subordinates in secret, it steadfastly defended them in public. In 1696 the Council submitted an elaborate consulta to Carlos II, recapitulating a number of flagrant cases, occurring from Mexico to Cumaná, and its fruitless efforts to obtain redress; it pointed out how completely the tribunals disregarded the provisions of the Concordias and the impossibility of securing their observance; it suggested various reforms, the most radical of which was depriving the Inquisition of its temporal jurisdiction; it declared the matter to be of greater importance than any other that could arise in the monarchy, and it concluded with an earnest and eloquent appeal for immediate action. The Inquisition, it said, was founding a supreme monarchy, superior to all others in the State. It was regarded with universal hatred in all the regions of the Indies and with servile fear by all, from the lowest to the greatest.[849]

Of course nothing was done and the condition of the colonies went on steadily deteriorating. To this the Inquisition contributed not only as a leading factor in internal misgovernment, but also by its hideous system under which the affluence of the tribunals depended upon the confiscations which they could levy. We have seen how large a part this played in their financial vicissitudes and how it was regarded on all hands with eager expectation, and it is doing no injustice to the kind of men sent out as inquisitors to assume that it was a motive far more potent than the desire to maintain the faith with exact justice. To say nothing of the cruel wrongs inflicted on countless victims, commerce could not flourish when the gains of the trader only served to render him a tempting prey to such men, armed with irresponsible power exercised through the inquisitorial process and shielded from criticism by the secrecy of procedure and the stern punishment administered for complaint. The Suprema was constantly calling for remittances and, to satisfy its exigencies and their own wants, there could be small hesitation in prosecuting any merchant whose success might excite cupidity, especially when trade was so largely in the hands of descendants of New Christians. The benumbing effect of this on the withering prosperity of the colonies is self-evident.

How it fared with New Granada, under all the various depressing influences of Spanish policy, is described in a report, made in 1772, by Francisco Antonio Moreno y Escandon. The condition of the colony is represented as most deplorable and the tone of the report is that of utter hopelessness, in view of the universal decay and dilapidation. The local officials everywhere were indifferent and neglectful of duty; the people steeped in poverty; trade almost extinct; capital lacking and no opportunities of its employment, for the only source of support was the cultivation of little patches of land and the mining of the precious metals. There were no manufactures and no means of retaining money in the country, for, though it was bountiful in products, it was unable to cultivate for export in consequence of the restrictions imposed by the home Government; if freedom of export could be had for its cocoa, tobacco, precious woods, etc., it would flourish. The mines were still as rich as ever, but their product was greatly decreased; the province of Chico, which had large mineral wealth, was approachable by the river Atrato but, since 1730, the navigation of that stream was forbidden under pain of death. It is true that, in 1772, Viceroy Mexia obtained permission to send two vessels a year up the river, but the permits for this were held at a prohibitory price. The commerce with Spain consisted in one or two ships, with registered cargoes, annually from Cádiz to Cartagena, whence the goods were conveyed into the interior, but so burdened with duties and expenses that there was no profit in the trade. In the consequent absence of all industry every one sought to obtain support from the Government by procuring some little office. The frontier territories were “Missions,” under charge of frailes, the different Orders having charge of the various stations, while the Government defrayed the expenses and furnished guards of soldiers, which entailed heavy outlays with little result. They had all been established for at least a century but had failed to advance the propagation of the faith, for the Indians, when apparently converted and brought into _pueblos_ or villages, would run away and take to the mountains. This Moreno explains by the absence of the apostolic spirit on the part of the missionaries, who undertook the career only to enjoy a life of ease and sloth.[850] The spirit of the secular clergy was even more reprehensible, if we may believe the relation drawn up by Viceroy Manuel de Guirior, in 1776, for the guidance of his successor. The deplorable condition of the Church he ascribes to its subordinating its spiritual duties to the exaction of taxes and tithes, in illustration of which he states that the parish priests omitted from their registers the records of marriages, baptisms and interments, in order to evade payment of the excessive fees levied by the bishops on their official functions.[851] To appreciate the full import of this we must bear in mind that on the completeness and accuracy of the parish registers depended the position in the community of every individual.

This degrading secularization of the Church was not confined to New Granada. When, in 1735, Don Jorje Juan and Don Antonio de Ulloa were sent to Quito, in company of the French men of science, to measure an equatorial degree of the earth’s surface, they were commissioned to investigate and report as to the condition of the colony in all its various aspects. The voluminous and detailed report which they presented, some ten years later, to the Marquis of la Ensenada, under Fernando VI, gives a vivid picture of the disorders of clerical life. Public prostitutes were scarce known in the cities, for licence and concubinage were so universal that there was no call for professionals. Dissolute as were the laity the clergy were worse, and of the clergy the regular Orders bore the palm for the effrontery of their scandalous mode of life--excepting, indeed, the Jesuits who are highly praised for their assiduity in their duties and the strictness with which the regulations of the Society were enforced, by the expulsion of all unworthy members. The disorders of the others are attributed to their wealth and idleness. The position of a provincial of any of the larger Orders, for the regular term of three years, was worth from 300,000 to 400,000 pesos, derived from the patronage of guardianships, priories, parish churches and plantations, which were distributed to those of his faction who would pay proportionately for them--payments for which they recouped themselves by grinding exactions on their parishioners and subjects. The convents were dens of prostitution, occupied only by those who could not afford separate establishments. The wealthier ones lived in their own houses with the concubines whom they changed at will and the children in whom they took no shame, and these houses were the scenes of gambling, dancing and drinking, causing frequent scandalous disorders which the police were unable to check, as the civil power had no jurisdiction over the clergy. Notwithstanding this extravagance, their revenues were so large that all the best lands in the colony were rapidly passing into their possession, and this was especially the case with the Jesuits, who husbanded their resources and managed their extensive properties with businesslike precision. What plantations were left to the laity were mostly burdened with heavy ground-rents and there was danger, if the process were not checked, that eventually the whole land would pass into _mainmorte_. As regards the missions, the report bears the same testimony as we have seen in New Granada. With the exceptions of the Jesuits, the Religious Orders, whose presence in the colony was based on the pretext of spreading the faith, were too worldly and indolent to devote themselves to that duty and the Jesuits were apt to find that when they sought to civilize their converts, these interesting neophytes would murder them and take to the mountains.[852]

All this frightful demoralization was beneath the attention of the Inquisition. Its business was the salvation of souls by enforcing unity of faith, and its duties as to morals were confined to destroying such works of art as it considered to be improper. Yet Ensenada, if he took the trouble to read the report so laboriously prepared, might reasonably ask himself whether a system which led to such results was fitted either for the spiritual or the material benefit of the populations subjected to the Spanish monarchy.