The Edict of Faith was ordered to be published regularly in all parish and conventual churches, a command which was doubtless obeyed with reasonable regularity, but there was a curious ignorance displayed of the vastness of South America and its lack of means of intercommunication, when the inquisitors were required to perform an annual visitation of their district. Of course this instruction received no attention; indeed the only attempt recorded is that of Inquisitor Ulloa, who found it convenient, in 1594, to be absent from Lima and employed his time, until his death in 1597, in wandering over the land and harassing the people.[596]
As in Mexico, Indians were excepted from inquisitorial jurisdiction and, in matters of faith, were subject to the bishops. This was not relished. Fray Juan de Vivero wrote to Philip that the Inquisition should punish them, though not as severely as Spaniards. The notary Arrieta advised Cerezuela to disregard the instructions and to prosecute them, just as he had seen in Seville unbaptized slaves punished for perverting their Christian comrades. Cerezuela reported that baptized Indians publicly persuaded their fellows that what the missionaries told them was false, but the Suprema was firm and ordered him not to interfere even with dogmatizers who told their people not to believe the missionaries.[597]
Cerezuela’s zeal was also rebuked when he represented that foreigners who came to Peru usually sought at once to penetrate into the interior, wherefore he proposed that the commissioners at Cartagena and Panamá should turn them back and not permit them to enter, but the Suprema replied that their entrance was not to be impeded nor were they to be prosecuted unless they committed offences coming within the jurisdiction of the Holy Office, or were detected in bringing prohibited books. At the same time it ordered a careful inquest as to all strangers scattered through the land and, when this should be verified with due secrecy, the commissioners were to be instructed to admit to reconciliation those found transgressing and, if they refused conversion, they were to be prosecuted with the full severity of the canons.[598] If the tribunal thus was prevented from regulating ingress, it assumed full control over egress, for in June, 1584, it issued a proclamation that no one should leave the kingdom without its licence, under pain of excommunication and fines, and shipmasters were ordered to take no passengers without it—an assumption of power which won the approbation of the Suprema, with the suggestive warning that the licences must be issued without charge. This arbitrary exercise of authority was even extended to prohibiting any vessel from leaving port without a licence, and the abuse became so intolerable that, as we have seen (Mexico, p. 252), its removal formed part of the Concordia of 1610. The tribunal chafed under this and, when it was busy in arresting nearly all the Portuguese merchants in 1636, it complained to the Suprema that its hands had been tied; to prevent the escape of those who might be guilty it had applied to the Viceroy Chinchon who, as a governmental act, ordered that for a year no one should be given passage without a licence from the Inquisition; he would willingly have done more, but he had to pay some regard to the Concordia. The Suprema was impressively asked to see that this matter should be corrected, as otherwise the faith and the fisc would suffer. It was probably on this occasion that occurred a detention of the fleet when ready to sail, to which I have met with an allusion, because licences had not been procured for the passengers.[599]
The chief obstacle to the thorough organization of the Inquisition was the immense extent of the territory subjected to a single tribunal. Until the kingdom of New Granada was cut off, in 1610, by the establishment of a tribunal at Cartagena, this comprised the West India Islands and the whole of South America, save the undefined limits of Portuguese Brazil.[600] The three centres of Lima, Santiago de Chile and Buenos Ayres were far apart in distance and still farther in the character of the intervening territory, much of as yet scarce explored, the Indians but partially subdued and the Spanish settlements few and far between. Chile, indeed, could be reached by sea, in a voyage usually of two or three weeks, but the difficulties of communication with the interior provinces and those of the River Plate were embarrassing. When the tribunal consulted the Suprema about them it could only reply that cases arising in Paraguay and la Plata must be dealt with as best they could; the accused at a distance should be ordered to present themselves to the tribunal and not be arrested unless there were manifest heresy or evidence justifying sequestration[601]—a suggestion dictated rather by thrift than mercy.
The device which was effective in Spain, of commissioners in all centres of population and familiars scattered everywhere, was only a partial remedy for the difficulty. The power of the commissioner, as we have seen, was jealously limited; he could execute orders, take testimony and report, but he was forbidden to arrest unless there was imminent danger that a culprit might fly; in no case could he conduct a trial; his functions were purely executive and in no sense judicial. A vast proportion of the cases tried by the Inquisition were for offences comparatively trivial—blasphemy, careless or irreverent remarks, or the more or less harmful superstitions classed as sorcery—and the transmission of denunciations for such matters, over hundreds of leagues of forest and mountain, and awaiting a reply with instructions, was manifestly too cumbrous a process to be practical; the half-breed crone, the vagrant soldier or the wandering pedlar, who were the usual culprits in such cases, would be dead or vanished before an order of arrest could be received.
Peru was no more exempt than Mexico from the troubles caused by these outlying officials who felt themselves virtually independent and became intolerable pests in their districts. The object of acquiring the position was to obtain exemption from justice. They were answerable only to the tribunal, hundreds of leagues away; if laymen, the secular courts, and if ecclesiastics, the spiritual judges, could not touch them. They were above all local law; they could indulge with impunity all evil passions, they could tyrannize at will over their neighbors, and even in civil matters they could set justice at defiance. It was idle for the Suprema to urge great care in their selection and strict investigation into their conduct when visitations were made, with rigorous punishment for their excesses. The material to select from was not abundant and was mostly evil; visitations never took place as planned, and punishment was rare. The repeated orders not to appoint frailes except in case of necessity and, when it was obligatory, to prefer Dominicans, is not to be regarded as a reflection on the regular Orders, but as arising from the desire to maintain discipline in the Orders, because, when a fraile obtained a position in the Inquisition, he threw off subjection to his prelate, and the injunction not to support them in disobedience was rarely observed.[602]
A memorial presented, in 1592, to the inquisitor-general, in the name of the clergy of Peru, complains of the appointment as commissioners of vicious, dishonest and turbulent persons, and confirms it by statements in detail concerning those of Cuzco, Potosí, Popayan, Camana, Arequipa, Guaymanga and Payta, while the familiars were no better. Successive inquisitors, from Cerezuela to Juan de Mañozca, admitted the fact but justified themselves by the argument that they had to take what they could get; the material to select from was too scarce to admit of selection, with the result that the officials abused their power in innumerable ways.[603] The only serious effort made to repress these evils was when Juan Ruiz de Prado was sent, in 1587, to Lima as visitador, clothed with full power to correct the abuses which had excited general complaint. He reported that much of his time was occupied in prosecuting commissioners and their notaries, who had committed the gravest excesses; the tribunal, while cognizant of their evil ways, had only taken action in so far as to deprive two of them of their commissions, giving as an excuse that if it punished them it could find no others to take their places. Among those whom Prado disciplined was the priest Martin Barco de Centinera, commissioner of Cochachamba, well known as the author of La Argentina. The charges against him were grave but Prado did not wish to bring him three hundred leagues to answer them, so they were sent to him with orders to return them with his defence. It was proved that he treated the people of his district like Jews and Moors, that he revenged himself on all who offended him, and that he usurped the royal jurisdiction. At public banquets he drank to intoxication, he talked openly of his successful amours, he kept a married woman as a mistress and was generally scandalous in conversation and mode of life. Prado fined him in two hundred and fifty pesos and incapacitated him from holding office in the Inquisition.[604]
A single spasmodic effort such as that of Prado could effect no permanent result and, if it was difficult for the people, oppressed by these petty local despots, to make their wrongs known, it was equally difficult for the Lima tribunal to exercise its authority over such vast distances. The cruelty and injustice to which this exposed the accused were also extreme. On a simple denunciation, possibly for a trivial offence, and without proper preliminary investigation, he might be sent, perhaps in chains, from Buenos Ayres to Lima, exhausting in expenses whatever fortune he possessed. A practical illustration is furnished by the case of Francisco de Benavente, denounced in 1582, to the Commissioner of Tucuman because, when some one remarked that the Church was permanent, he had replied that it was not well said. The commissioner commenced to take testimony which so alarmed Benavente that he travelled six hundred leagues to present himself to the tribunal in Lima, which suspended the case and he travelled home again.[605] To a great extent this explains the inordinate procrastination in many of the trials, while the victim languished in his cell, for the evidence might have to be sent back for ratification, or fresh testimony might be sought and when, after years had been consumed in these preliminaries, he put in his defence, the interrogatories for his witnesses would be despatched over the same distance and their return would be awaited. These causes of delay were aggravated by the habitual negligence and indifference of all the officials concerned, so that a large portion of a man’s life was often consumed in prison for an offence which ultimately might only merit a reprimand, or for which he might be acquitted.
Some relief was afforded when, in 1611, the tribunal of Cartagena was founded for the northern coastal territory and the islands. This was probably intended as the commencement of a systematic subdivision of the vast district for, a few years later, in anticipation of the erection of the bishopric of Buenos Ayres in 1620, the Suprema presented to Philip III an elaborate consulta strongly urging the establishment there of a tribunal. It pointed out that the arrests made in Lima showed the country to be full of Portuguese Judaizers, who had every facility of entrance and departure at Buenos Ayres. From there to Lima there were seven hundred leagues; the roads were good, the country populous and the Portuguese drove a thriving trade, enriching themselves and perverting the Indian converts. A commissioner would not answer, for he had to send seven hundred leagues to Lima, with as many in return, before he could act, while a tribunal could take note of every passenger landing or departing, and not only defend the faith but avert the political dangers threatened by the correspondence of these foreigners with the enemy. Besides, it was a great hardship when a man, for a slight offence such as blasphemy, had to be taken under guard for seven hundred leagues, at great cost, to be sentenced perhaps to abjure de levi and to hear a mass. If the projected cathedral were founded a prebend could be taken to diminish the expense and a single inquisitor would suffice, as in Majorca.[606]
Given the necessity for the Inquisition, the arguments were unanswerable, but they elicited no response for the crown was impoverished and shrank from having to support another tribunal. About 1620 another effort was made by the procurator of the Atlantic provinces, in a memorial repeating the same arguments and suggesting that a district be formed of Rio de la Plata, Paraguay and Tucuman up to the boundaries of los Charcas, thus extending some three hundred leagues and leaving four hundred for the Lima tribunal.[607] This was referred to the Suprema which presented a consulta urging favorable action February 1, 1621, but the illness and speedy death of Philip III intervened and on March 31, 1623, it applied again to Philip IV, supporting its arguments with letters from the tribunal of Lima and the commissioner at Buenos Ayres, but to no effect. The next move came from the king, who, on April 12, 1630, communicated to the Suprema a paper describing how the Dutch lost no opportunity of introducing heretical books and perverting the natives of those regions. He thought it would be well to found an Inquisition in Buenos Ayres and, if the expenses were too great, there might be an inquisitor and a fiscal, while the other offices could be filled by wealthy men who would gladly serve gratuitously. Or, if this were too costly, a Dominican fraile could fill the post of inquisitor as in Naples and other parts of Italy, and he ordered the Suprema to arrange the matter accordingly. We shall see that in Peru, as in Mexico, the tribunal and Suprema evaded all efforts to relieve the royal treasury of the burden and can scarce wonder that Philip, with all his fanaticism, was economically disposed, but this did not suit the ideas of the Suprema. It replied in a consulta of April 17th, insisting that an inquisitor, fiscal, notary, alcaide and portero, with salaries and expenses aggregating at least six thousand ducats a year, were indispensable. The other officials, whose time would not be exclusively occupied, might be selected from among opulent persons, and that by aiding to suppress the contraband trade of the Dutch the royal revenues could be correspondingly increased. The prospect of this outlay refrigerated Philip’s zeal, and he returned the consulta with the endorsement that the disadvantages prevented the execution of the project; the Lima tribunal must appoint a commissioner of special ability and the governor would be ordered to assist him.[608]