January 25: The Inquisition in the Western Hemisphere

On this date in 1569, King Philip II of Spain decreed the importation of the Spanish Inquisition into the New World, where Spain had established two viceroyalties: New Spain, comprising what is now the Southwestern U.S., Mexico, Central America, and much of the Caribbean; and New Castile, with Peru as its center, comprising almost all of South America except Brazil and the Guineas. Several thousand “new Christians” -- that is, forcibly converted Jews from both Spain and Portugal -- lived in the Western Hemisphere at the time, and now began to suffer investigation, imprisonment, torture, confiscation of their wealth, and burning at the stake. Native people descended from the vanquished Aztec and Mayan Indians were also prosecuted by the Inquisition for religious “backsliding” to their pagan roots, and in 1658, 123 people were arrested on suspicion of homosexuality in Mexico, fourteen of whom were publicly burned. The Inquisition endured in the New World until 1820.

“O how small a portion of earth will hold us when we are dead, who ambitiously seek after the whole world while we are living.” —King Philip II