The inquisition in the Spanish dependencies / Sicily—Naples—Sardinia—Milan—the Canaries—Mexico—Peru—New Granada

by Henry Charles Lea

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]