Chapter V The Canaries258
In 1402 Jean de Bethencourt, an adventurer from Normandy, discovered or rediscovered the Canaries and made himself master of the islands of Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Gomera and Hierro. After various changes of ownership, they fell to the crown of Castile, and Isabella undertook the conquest of the remainder of the group, the Grand Canary, Tenerife and la Palma. The sturdy resistance of the native Guanches rendered the enterprise an arduous one, consuming eighteen years, and it was not until 1496 that it was finally accomplished. That Columbus, on his first voyage, took his departure from Gomera indicates the importance assumed by the Canaries in the development of trade with the New World and this, conjoined with their productiveness, as they became settled and cultivated, rendered them a centre of commerce frequented by the ships of all maritime nations, as well as an object of buccaneering raids, in an age when trade and piracy were sometimes indistinguishable. Their proximity to Morocco and the Guinea coast moreover exposed them to attacks from the Moors and gave them an opportunity of accumulating Moorish and negro slaves, whom the piety of the age sought to convert into Christians by the water of baptism. In various ways, therefore, there came to be abundant material for inquisitorial activity, although the Judaizing New Christians, who furnished the Spanish tribunals with their principal business, appear to have been singularly few.
There was no haste in extending the Spanish Inquisition to the Canaries. As early as 1406 a bishopric had been founded in Lanzarote, subsequently transferred to Las Palmas in the Grand Canary, which was regarded as the capital of the group. If the successive bishops, who, with more or less regularity, filled the see, exercised their episcopal jurisdiction over heresy, their labors have left no trace. It is not until the time of Diego de Muros, who was consecrated in 1496, that we have any evidence of such action. That stirring prelate, who held a diocesan synod in 1497, announced, April 25, 1499, that, as inquisitor by his ordinary authority, he would have inquest made in some of the islands into heresy and Judaism and other crimes against the faith. What was the result, we have no means of knowing except a confession made, on May 22d, by Isabel Ramírez, of having taught a superstitious prayer which was regarded as sorcery. It is probable that Bishop Muros was warned that he was invading the jurisdiction of the Holy Office, for he sent the papers in the case to the tribunal of Seville.259 It is noteworthy that, after the establishment of the Canary tribunal, the bishops and their provisors long continued to use the title of “ordinary” inquisitor, to which no exception seems to have been taken, although elsewhere it was contested and forbidden. The latest occasion of its employment with which I have met occurs in 1672.260
It was not until 1505 that the Suprema bethought itself of establishing a tribunal in the Canaries, when Inquisitor-general Deza appointed as inquisitor Bartolomé López Tribaldos. The first entry in his register is dated Tuesday, October 28, 1505, and the earliest record that we have of his activity is in 1507, when there were two reconciliations, one of Juan de Ler, a Portuguese, for Judaism, and the other of Ana Rodríguez, a native, for sorceries, whose sanbenitos were duly hung in the cathedral.261 What were the exact powers conferred on Tribaldos we have no means of knowing, but they must have been exceedingly limited, and for a long time the tribunal continued to be in close dependence on that of Seville. When, about 1520, Martin Ximenes, fiscal of the Seville tribunal, came to Las Palmas in the combined capacity of precentor of the Cathedral, provisor and inquisitor, he left as his deputy fiscal in Seville Doctor Fernando de Zamora, thus not abandoning that office. Even as late as 1548 we chance to have the record of a consulta de fe held by the Seville tribunal, January 13th, to decide on certain informations and cases sent to it by the Canary inquisitor Padilla. In the affair of Juan Alonso, a Morisco, it was ordered that he should be arrested and tried, when the result was to be reported for action. In that of Juan Fernández, he was to be summoned and examined as to his blasphemy and then be penanced at the discretion of Padilla and the Ordinary. Leonor de Lera was to be arrested and tried and the result be submitted. The case of Diego Martínez had apparently been concluded under Padilla, for the Seville consulta sentenced him to twelve years of galley service.262 Thus every act, from the preliminary arrest to the final decision, was regulated from Seville. To render the position still more anomalous we hear of an inquisidor ordinario, Alonso Vivas, Prior of the cathedral, commissioned, in October, 1523, to try cases of faith throughout the Grand Canary as he had already done in Telde and Agüimes.263
Irregular and imperfect as may have been the organization of the tribunal, it yet managed to accomplish some convictions. In 1510 there was held an auto de fe in which there were three reconciliations for Judaism and one, of a Moorish slave, for reincidence in Mahometan error, while a fifth culprit was penanced for Judaism.264 Then in 1513 occurred the first relaxation, that of Alonso Fátima, a native Morisco, who had fled to Barbary. This was always deemed sufficient evidence of relapse to former errors, and he was duly burned in effigy. It was probably also to 1516 that may be attributed the first relaxation in person—that of Juan de Xeres of Seville, for Judaism. It shows that the tribunal was indifferently equipped that, when he was sentenced to torture, the physician whose presence was obligatory on such occasions, Doctor Juan Meneses de Gallegas, was required personally to administer it. It was exceedingly severe, extending to eleven jars of water; the accused was unable to endure it; he confessed his faith, was sentenced to relaxation as a relapsed and for fictitious confession, and was executed on Wednesday, June 4th.265
Martin Ximenes seems to have performed his duties with commendable energy. He commenced by making an alphabetical register of all the parties denounced under his predecessor, comprising 139 individuals, besides various groups, such as “the Confesos and Moriscos of Lanzarote,” “other Confesos, their kindred,” “certain persons of Hierro” etc., which indicate how slovenly had been the procedure.266 He made a visitation of Tenerife and la Palma, from which he returned with ample store of fresh denunciations.267 May 29, 1524, all the dignitaries, civil and ecclesiastical, and all the people were assembled in the church of Santa Ana, where an edict was read commanding them to render aid and favor to the Inquisition, and an oath to that effect was administered. There was also an Edict of Grace, promising relief from confiscation to all who would come forward and confess as to themselves and others; also an Edict of Faith requiring denunciation of errors and specifying the various kinds of blasphemies and sorceries and the distinctive Jewish and Moorish rites; and finally an edict reciting that the Conversos were emigrating and forbidding their leaving the islands and all ship-masters from carrying away suspected persons without licence from him, under the penalties of fautorship and of forfeiting their vessels.268
The terror inspired by the activity of Ximenes may be estimated from a single instance. On May 21st, Ynes de Tarifa came before him to confess that when, a couple of months before, she had heard of the burning in Seville of her son-in-law Alonso Hernández and of his brother Francisco, she recalled that after meals Alonso used to read to Francisco out of a book in an unknown tongue and, if she had erred in not denouncing this to the Seville tribunal, she begged to be treated mercifully.269 The publication of the edicts throughout the islands brought in an abundant store of denunciations, the record for eight months, from September 13, 1524, to May 15, 1526, amounting to 167. They were nearly all of petty sorceries by women, in sickness or love affairs, but with an occasional blasphemy or suspicion of Judaism, and persons of station were not exempted, for the list comprises the Adelantado Don Pedro de Lugo and his wife Elvira Diaz, the Dean Juan de Alarcon, the Prior Alonso Bivas and others of position. The adelantado, in fact, was dead, but the accusation against his memory is sufficiently significant of the prevailing temper to be worth relating. The Bachiller Diego de Funes came forward, by command of his confessor, to state that when Diego de San Martin was holding for ransom a Judío de señal (one obliged to wear a distinctive mark) who had been caught on his way to Portugal, the captive was starving to death because he could not eat meat slaughtered by Christians: de Lugo charitably gave him a sheep to kill according to his rites and even himself ate some of the mutton. These petty cases kept Ximenes busy and he despatched them with promptness; the punishments as a rule were not severe—in one or two cases scourging or vergüenza, but mostly small fines, exile and occasionally spiritual penances.270
There were, however, cases in which the faith demanded more exemplary vindication. The island of Grand Canary, from 1523 to 1532, was ravaged with pestilence creating great misery. Among other causes of divine wrath the people included the secret apostasy of the Portuguese New Christians and of the Moorish slaves, and demanded severe measures for its repression. It may have been with an idea of placating God that Ximenes, on February 24, 1526, celebrated the first auto publico general de fe with great solemnity, in which all the nobles of the island assisted as familiars. The occasion was impressive, for there were seven Judaizers relaxed in person and burnt, there were ten reconciliations, of which five were of Moorish baptized slaves, four were for Judaism and one of a Genoese heretic, in addition to which there were two blasphemers penanced.271
This is the last that we hear of Ximenes, whose place, in 1527, was filled by Luis de Padilla, treasurer of the cathedral. For awhile he imitated his predecessor’s activity and, on June 4, 1530, another oblation was offered to God, in an auto celebrated with the same ostentation as the previous one. This time there were no relaxations in person, but there were six effigies burnt of as many Moorish slaves, who had escaped and were drowned in their infidelity while on their way to Africa and liberty. There were also the effigy and bones of Juan de Tarifa, the husband of the Ynes de Tarifa who had denounced herself in 1524; he was of Converso descent and had committed suicide in prison, which was equivalent to self-condemnation. There were three reconciliations, of which two were for Judaism and one for Islam and five penitents for minor offences.272 The next auto was held on May 23, 1534, in which there were two relaxations of effigies for Judaism and twenty-five reconciliations—twenty-four of Moriscos and one of a Judaizer. One of the relaxations carries with it a warning, for it was of Costanza Garza, who had died in 1533 during her trial. When too late her innocence was discovered and the Suprema humanely rehabilitated her memory and her children, and ordered the restoration of her confiscated estate.273
Whether this aggressive vindication of the faith put an end to heresy or whether Padilla had exhausted his energies, it would be impossible now to say, but after this auto the tribunal sank into lethargy so complete that on February 8, 1538, the chapter notified Padilla and the secretary, Canon Alonso de San Juan, that the revenues of their prebends were stopped, for they did not assist in the choir and it was notorious that the Holy Office had nothing to do.274 Possibly this may have stimulated action, but we have seen that in 1548 the tribunal was merely collecting evidence and obeying the instructions of the Seville Inquisition. Under this there was an accumulation of culprits for an auto held in 1557, where there were seventeen effigies burnt of fugitives—all Moriscos, except a Fleming, Julian Cornelis Vandyk. There were also four Moriscos reconciled, one of them, curiously enough, for so-called Calvinism.275 This seems to have exhausted whatever remains of energy Padilla possessed for we hear of no further action by him, except a quarrel with the royal Audiencia in 1562, but nevertheless the tribunal shared in the suppression of prebends, and a papal brief assigning one to it was presented to the chapter, August 27, 1563, thus adding another efficient cause of dissension between them.276 Soon after this the tribunal virtually ceased to exist. In 1565 there was a curious case, of which more hereafter, of John Sanders, an English sailor. It was carried on wholly by the episcopal provisor, during the absence of the bishop Diego Deza. There were arrest, sequestration and the collection of voluminous testimony, which was carefully sealed and despatched to Bishop Deza, to be handed to the Seville tribunal. Throughout it all, there is no trace of participation by the local Inquisition, which, in the consuming jealousy of episcopal encroachments, could not possibly have been the case had there been a tribunal in the Canaries.277
The policy followed thus far had evidently proved a failure, and Inquisitor-general Espinosa resolved to reorganize the tribunal and render it independent of Seville. The fiscal of Toledo, Diego Ortiz de Fúnez, was selected and was sent out as a full inquisitor, with the unusual powers of selecting and removing his subordinates, while subjected only to the requirement of reporting his acts to the Suprema. The royal letters commanding obedience to him are dated October 10, 1567, and he left Madrid in the Spring of 1568, landing at Las Isletas on April 17th. Four days later he started for Las Palmas, accompanied in procession by all the dignitaries, secular and ecclesiastical, of the island. On May 1st all the population was summoned, under pain of fine and excommunication, to assemble the next day in the cathedral, at the reading of the Edict of Faith and to take the oath to obey and favor the Holy Office, all of which was performed with due solemnity.278
Fúnez carried instructions to appoint twenty familiars and no more in Las Palmas, and such as were found necessary in the other cities and islands. This was his first care, and he soon had a formidable body, recruited from the old nobility, to support his authority. Thus far the Inquisition had had no special habitation, not even a prison, and those under trial on the most serious charges were confined in their own houses or in the public gaol, where there was no provision for their segregation. Fúnez demanded a competent building, with the necessary conveniences, a demand not easily complied with in so small a place, and he finally was installed in the episcopal palace, then vacant through the absence of the bishop.279 This of course could be but temporary and some other provision must have been made, for we are told that, when the Dutch under Pieter Vandervoez, in 1599, took possession of Las Palmas, they burnt both the episcopal palace and the building of the Inquisition. The former was not rebuilt until thirty years later by Bishop Murga and the latter, as we shall see, was reconstructed in due time on a large scale by the tribunal.280
A matter not easily understood is the bestowal, May 25, 1568, on Fúnez, by the dean and chapter, sede vacante, of cognizance of superstitions and sorcery, because these crimes should not remain unpunished and his powers as inquisitor were deficient in this respect.281 These offences in Spain were recognized as subject to inquisitorial jurisdiction when savoring, as they always were assumed to do, of heresy and pact with the demon; they formed by far the larger part of the cases coming before the Canary tribunal and the previous inquisitors had not hesitated to deal with them. They formed however a kind of debatable ground, claimed by both the secular and spiritual as well as the inquisitorial jurisdiction and Fúnez may have taken advantage of the impression produced by his reception to obtain from the chapter, in the absence of a bishop, a transfer of its powers.
Fúnez was zealous and energetic in restoring the tribunal to usefulness and, in about eighteen months, he had accumulated material for an auto de fe, celebrated November 5, 1569. For this he sent out his proclamation through all the islands so that, as he boasted to the Suprema, although the Grand Canary had only fifteen hundred inhabitants, there were fully three thousand spectators assembled. The new bishop, Juan de Azólares, took so warm an interest in the affairs of the Inquisition that he voted personally in all the cases, he walked in the procession and he preached the sermon. There were twenty-seven penitents for minor offences, involving fines, scourging, galleys and other penalties, and there were three effigies of Moriscos relaxed. One of these represented Juan Felipe, a rich merchant of Lanzarote who, on learning that a warrant had been issued for his arrest, chartered a vessel under pretext of going to Tenerife, on which he embarked with his wife and children and some thirty of his compatriots, finding a safe refuge in Morocco and furnishing material for heightening the interest of several more autos.282
The activity of Fúnez was not confined to the Gran Canaria for he made repeated visitations to the several islands, gathering in denunciations from all quarters, so that, between May 2, 1568, and January 4, 1571, the list of accused amounts to 544 besides a number of collective entries, such as “bruxas,” “the Frenchmen who took the caravel of the Espinosas,” “renegades,” “Moriscos of Lanzarote,” “fugitive negroes” etc. The names of Englishmen and of an occasional Fleming also begin to appear. Yet the denunciations consist largely of the veriest trifles of careless speech, indicating how acute was the watchfulness excited to observe and report whatever might seem to savor of heresy. There was no safety in lapse of time, for matters were treasured up to be brought out long afterwards, when there was no possibility of disproving them. In Gomera, October 23, 1570, María Machin denounced Catalina Rodríguez for telling her of a love-charm some thirty years before; in Garachico, December 21, 1570, Marina Ferrera informs on Vicente Martin, a cleric who had gone to the Indies, who told her more than twenty-seven years before of an unnamed woman who had tried on him a conjuration to stop nose-bleeding. More serious was the accusation brought in Laguna, January 14, 1571, by Barbolagusta, wife of the Regidor Francisco de Coronado, against the physician Reynaldos, because, twelve or thirteen years before, when the husband of a patient told her to seek the intercession of the saints, he said that God alone was to be prayed to and there was no need of saints.283
Complaints of Fúnez must have reached the Suprema for, after a short interval, probably in 1570, Doctor Bravo de Zayas was sent out as visitador or inspector. He seems to have associated himself companionably with Fúnez as a colleague and, in August, 1571, he made a visitation of the islands, bringing back an abundant store of denunciations. The two held together an auto on December 12, 1574, in which there was but one relaxation—the effigy of a fugitive Morisco. Four slaves were reconciled, including a case which is suggestive—that of a negro of whom it is recorded that he was tortured for an hour, when the infliction was stopped because he was so ignorant and stupid. Pious zeal for the salvation of these poor savages led to their baptism after capture; they could not be intelligent converts or throw off their native superstitions, and no one seemed able to realize the grim absurdity of adding the terrors of the Inquisition to the horrors of their enslaved existence. When a negro slave-girl was bemoaning her condition, she was kindly consoled with the assurance that baptism preserved her and her children from hell, to which she innocently replied that doing evil and not lack of baptism led to hell. This was heresy, for which she was duly prosecuted.284
Under the inquisitorial code the attempt to escape from slavery thus was apostasy, punishable as such if unsuccessful, and expiated if successful by concremation in effigy. This is illustrated in an auto, held by Zayas and Fúnez, June 24, 1576, in which among sixteen effigies of absentees were those of eight slaves, seven negroes and one Moor. They had undergone baptism, had been bought by Doña Catalina de la Cuevas and were worked on her sugar plantation. They seized a boat at Orotava and escaped to Morocco, for which they were duly prosecuted as apostates and their effigies were delivered to the flames—a ghastly mockery which does not seem to have produced the desired impression in preventing other misguided beings from flying from their salvation.285
While Zayas thus coöperated with Fúnez, he did not neglect the special mission entrusted to him. Charges piled up against Fúnez, which he condensed into a series of thirty articles, embracing all manner of misdeeds—favoritism, injustice, improper financial transactions, illicit trading with the Moors of Barbary, ill-treatment of prisoners, lack of discipline in the tribunal, etc. Zayas and Fúnez seem to have returned to Spain towards the close of 1576, for the latter’s defence against the charges is dated at Madrid, February 12, 1577. In this he answered all the points in full detail, with citation of documents; the people of the islands, he asserts, are given to perjury and, when offended, bring false accusations to revenge themselves—a habit which, it may be hoped, he bore in mind when sitting as a judge. Doubtless he had given them provocation enough to induce them to exercise their talents in this line against him and the numerous charges indicate a wide-spread feeling of hostility towards the tribunal. His defence was skilfully drawn and, on its face, seems to be sufficient.286
The Canary tribunal was thus placed upon the same footing as those of Spain, though perhaps it was subjected to a somewhat closer supervision by the Suprema than was as yet exercised at home, for we happen to have a letter of October 11, 1572, ordering that Antonio Lorenzo be released from the secret prison and be given his house as a prison. Perhaps it felt that assertion of its authority was necessary, in view of the delay and uncertainty of communication, for commercial intercourse was not frequent; as Fúnez says, about this time, it was notorious that there were no vessels sailing for two or three or even more months.287 Be this as it may, there was another visitor sent to the Canaries in 1582, and a third about 1590. The latter was Claudio de la Cueva, whose visitation lasted until 1597 and was useful in exposing the iniquities of Joseph de Armas, who had served as fiscal for more than twenty years. A quarrel between him and the secretary, Francisco Ibañez, led to mutual accusations and the unveiling of secrets which show how the terror inspired by the Inquisition and the immunity of its officials enabled them to abuse their positions. There was a rich and respected Fleming named Jan Aventrot, married to a native widow, who was accused by a stepdaughter of eating meat on Fridays and saying that meat left no stain on the soul; also of eating meat in Lent and speaking Flemish. Aventrot was secretly a Protestant, which could readily have been developed by the ordinary inquisitorial methods, but he escaped with a reprimand and a fine of 200 ducats.288 How this happened finds its explanation in the fact that, while he was in prison, Armas obtained from him, without payment, a bill of exchange on Seville.289 He also defrauded the revenue by receiving goods imported by an Englishman named John Gache (Gatchell?) and selling them through his brother Baltasar. Hernan Peraza, alguazil of the tribunal, complained that Armas would not pay his debts and so did Daniel Vandama, a Flemish merchant. A harder case was that of a chaplaincy in the Inquisition founded by Andrés de Moron for the benefit of Juan de Cervantes, son of Gaspar Fullana, auditor of accounts in the cathedral. Armas induced Inquisitor Francisco Madaleno to take the chaplaincy from Cervantes and give it to him. When Claudio de la Cueva came, Fullana complained to him and he ordered the chaplaincy restored and the income accrued during four years, amounting to 190 doblas, to be refunded. Armas delayed payment for some months and then insisted on compromising it for 120 doblas, which Fullana agreed to, fearing that Armas, who was a canon, would induce the chapter to deprive him of his auditorship, but in place of getting money he received orders on parties at a distance. In stating this under examination by la Cueva, May 4, 1596, Fullana begged him not to insist on the restitution of the remaining 70 doblas, for Armas was a dangerous man.290
He proved so to the convent of la Concepcion, founded by Doña Isabel de Garfias, a Cistercian nun, whom Cardinal Rodrigo de Castro, Archbishop of Seville, had sent to Las Palmas for the purpose. Armas persuaded the bishop, Fernando de Figueroa, to appoint him as visitor of the convent and used his authority to cultivate a suspicious intimacy with some of the younger inmates, to the destruction of discipline and rules of the Order. When the abbess endeavored to enforce them, he deposed her and replaced her with Francisca Ramírez, a Dominican, who had accompanied her from Spain, and who was of near kin to Doña Laura Ramírez, his mistress, by whom he was said to have a child. The abbess appealed to the archbishop, who addressed, December 19, 1595, a forcible letter to the bishop, recapitulating the misdeeds of Armas and ordering him to investigate and apply the appropriate remedies, but to no purpose, and the abbess turned to la Cueva, February 28, 1596, with an earnest memorial, imploring his interposition. Armas, she said, desired her death, for when she was sick he would not allow the physician to visit her, so that she nearly died.291 A more prominent ecclesiastic who experienced the risk of provoking him was the prior of the cathedral, Doctor Luis Rúiz de Salazar, who was also a consultor of the tribunal. They had a quarrel in the chapter; Salazar called him the son of a clockmaker and, when Armas gave him the lie, Salazar seized his cap and beat him with it. Inquisitor Madaleno promptly threw Salazar into prison and prosecuted him, but, as the affair concerned a church dignitary, he was obliged to submit the papers to the Suprema for the sentence. With unexpected moderation the latter replied, April 2, 1591 that, as the affair took place in the chapter and in the capacity of canons, the tribunal must abandon the case and allow it to be decided by whatever judges had jurisdiction—but it did not prescribe any satisfaction to Salazar for the infamy inflicted by his imprisonment.292
Meanwhile the tribunal had been actively performing such duties as came in its way, strengthened by the addition of another inquisitor, for, in 1581, we find Fúnez replaced with Diego Osorio de Seijas and Juan Lorenzo, who celebrated a public auto on March 12th of that year. It will be remembered that, in the auto of 1569, there appeared the effigy of Juan Felipe, who had escaped from Lanzarote, carrying with him some thirty other fugitives. The tribunal had not forgotten them and now, after duly trying them it burnt their effigies, to the number of thirty-one, including Felipe’s wife and sister and three children, fifteen slaves, mostly negroes and a miscellaneous group of others. In addition there were fifteen reconciled penitents, with the usual penalties.293
Six years elapsed before there was another auto, celebrated July 22, 1587, in which there were burnt three effigies of a remnant of the Lanzarote fugitives. There was also the more impressive relaxation of a living man—the first since that of the Judaizers in 1526. This was an Englishman named George Gaspar who, in the royal prison of Tenerife, had been seen praying with his back to a crucifix and, on being questioned, had said that prayer was to be addressed to God and not to images. He was transferred to the tribunal, where he freely confessed to having been brought up as a Protestant. Torture did not shake his faith and he was condemned, a confessor as usual being sent to his cell the night before the auto to effect his conversion. He asked to be alone for awhile and the confessor, on his return, found him lying on the floor, having thrust into his stomach a knife which he had picked up in the prison and concealed for the purpose. The official account piously tells us that it pleased God that the wound was not immediately mortal and that he survived until evening, so that the sentence could be executed; the dying man was carted to the quemadero and ended his misery in the flames. Another Englishman was Edward Francis, who had been found wounded and abandoned on the shore of Tenerife. He saved his life, while under torture, by professing himself a fervent Catholic, who had been obliged to dissemble his religion, a fault which he expiated with two hundred lashes and six years of galley service. Still another Englishman was John Reman (Raymond?) a sailor of the ship Falcon; he had asked for penance and, as there was nothing on which to support him in the prison, he was transferred to the public gaol. The governor released him and, in wandering around he fell into conversation with some women, in which he expressed Protestant opinions. A second trial ensued in which, under torture, he professed contrition and begged for mercy, which he obtained in the disguise of two hundred lashes and ten years of galleys. In addition there were the crew of the bark Prima Rosa, twelve in number, all English but one Fleming. One of them, John Smith, had died in prison, and was reconciled in effigy; the rest, with or without torture, had professed conversion and were sent to the galleys, some of them with a hundred lashes in addition. Besides these, this notable auto presented twenty-two penitents, penanced or reconciled, for the ordinary offences and with the usual penalties.294
Another auto was celebrated December 21, 1597, with a large number of penitents, but no relaxations either in person or in effigy. It was the last of these solemnities held in public, for the next one, December 20, 1608, was an auto particular, in the cathedral, when three effigies were relaxed.295 In fact, while the Inquisition in Spain was consolidating its power and threatening to dominate the monarchy, in the Canaries there seems to have been an unconscious combination of opposing forces which crippled its energies and gradually rendered it inert. Yet during the early years of the seventeenth century it had vigor enough to burn two unfortunates alive. Gaspar Nicholas Claysen (Claessens?) a Hollander, had been condemned to a year of prison, in the auto of 1597, when he must have professed conversion. He seems to have imagined that he would escape recognition and, in 1611, he tempted his fate again and sought the Canaries as the captain of a merchant vessel. He was arrested April 19th and tried again. In spite of torture he maintained his faith to the last and, on January 27, 1612, he was sentenced to relaxation, as an impenitent, by the inquisitors Juan Francisco de Monroy and Pedro Espino de Brito. Then a delay of two years occurred, possibly occupied with efforts for his salvation, and it was not until February 22, 1614, that the governor, Francisco de la Rua, was summoned to hear his sentence and receive him for execution. There was a Dutch ship in the harbor and many of his compatriots in the town, so that his rescue seems to have been feared, for such is the reason given for loading him with chains and guarding him with four soldiers carrying arquebuses with lighted matches. At the appointed hour he was paraded through the streets, under a guard of soldiers, to the plaza de Santo Domingo, where he was duly burnt alive. The next year, on June 2, 1615, Tobias Lorenzo, a Hollander settled in Garachico (Tenerife), who had been arrested in 1611, was burnt as a relapsed Protestant.296
This was the last relaxation in person, making, according to Millares, a total of only eleven since the foundation of the tribunal, but, as he omits the earliest one, Juan de Xeres, the count amounts to twelve.297 After this a long interval occurs before there was even an effigy burnt. Duarte Henríquez Alvarez was a Portuguese New Christian, who was a collector of the royal revenues and a rich merchant in Tenerife. In his frequent voyages to Europe he fell in love with the daughter of an Amsterdam correspondent and resolved to marry her and return to the faith of his ancestors. He remitted to Holland as much money as he could without exciting suspicion, he abandoned to the Inquisition the rest of his considerable property and departed, never to return. He was duly prosecuted in absentia and condemned to relaxation in effigy. Permission to execute the sentence in an auto particular was asked of the Suprema and its assent was received, May 29, 1659. No time was lost; on June 1st the auto was held in the cathedral; the effigy was delivered to the corregidor and was solemnly burnt in the quemadero, being the last execution in the Canaries.298 From this time to the end of the century the work of the tribunal was almost nothing, the records of the prison showing that there were rarely more than one or two prisoners.299
Before following the history of the tribunal to its decadence and extinction, we may pause to consider its condition and the various directions in which its activity was developed.
Its financial resources presumably were limited. During the earlier term of its career, when it had no buildings of its own and no prison to maintain, when its officials for the most part were drawn from the chapter and other beneficed incumbents, an occasional confiscation and levying of fines probably met the moderate necessary expenses. In 1563 it had the benefit of a suppressed prebend and when, in 1568, Fúnez was sent to organize it, the energy of his administration doubtless supplied the funds necessary for the establishment which he founded. Imposing fines, however, probably was easier than collecting them, for when, in 1570, he was about to depart on a visitation of the islands he impressed upon the fiscal, Juan de Cervantes, that there were many persons who owed the fines to which they had been condemned and he was especially empowered to use all the rigor of law in compelling payment.300 This seems to have been the only source thus far of funds, for when one of the charges against Fúnez, in the visitation, was that he kept no book for recording confiscations, his reply, in 1577, was that there had been none since that of the Felipes (in 1569) and this was so involved that he waited till he could visit Lanzarote and straighten it out.301
A more promising field, however, as we shall see, was now developing in the prosecution of heretic merchants and shipmasters who were seeking the trade of the Canaries, when a latitudinarian construction of the law permitted the seizure of vessels and cargoes, on which the grip of the Inquisition was not easily relaxed. Either from this or some other source the tribunal was emerging from its poverty, for a stray document shows us that, in 1602, it was investing 5000 ducats in a ground-rent, from which it was still receiving the income in 1755.302 We also catch a glimpse of its affairs in 1654, when the Seville Contratacion sent its fiscal to the Canaries to put a stop to the exportation of wine to the Indies, the commerce of which was confined to Seville. On June 15th the tribunal addressed to Philip IV a memorial, arguing that to cut off this trade would be the total destruction of the islands, which now pay the king 60,000 ducats a year over the expenses of the garrison and judiciary, for the English took only the malmsey of Tenerife and the rest of the vintage, amounting to 16,000 pipes per annum, went to the Indies. The bishopric, now worth 30,000, would not be worth 10,000; as for the Inquisition, it held ground-rents on the vineyards paying 22,232 reales and 28 maravedís, which it would lose, and, as its only other source, the prebend, was worth only 300 ducats a year, its support would fall on the king.303 The only relief obtained from the king was permission to ship 1000 tuns a year to various American ports. Whether the tribunal suffered or not we have no means of knowing, but in 1660 we find it gathering in the estate of Duarte Henríquez, burnt in effigy in 1658, and applying 1942 reales from it to the renewal of 212 sanbenitos, hung in the churches, which had become worm-eaten and indistinct with age.304
This does not look as if the tribunal were oppressed with poverty; in fact it must have enjoyed abundant means for about this time it completed what is described as an imposing palace for its habitation. This had a spacious patio, covered with an awning in hot weather, which led into a handsome garden, opening upon a street in the rear. To these the public was freely admitted and they formed a thoroughfare from one street to another, the object of which was to enable witnesses and informers to come without attracting attention. In the building were lodged the senior inquisitor, the gaoler and the subordinate officials, the prison and the torture-chamber being in the rear.305 Later financial data are missing, but the tribunal probably managed to meet its expenses to the end, with no greater difficulty than those of the Peninsula. From first to last it was not burdened with a punitive prison or casa de la misericordia, and its sentences to confinement are always to convents or to the houses of the culprits or to hold the city as a prison. The detentive or secret prison was economically administered, the ration, as we learn in 1577, being only 24 maravedís a day. The visitor, Bravo y Zayas, was assailed with many complaints by the inmates of insufficient food, which they ascribed to the knavery of the officials, but Fúnez explained it by saying that, while in the Canaries there were usually one or two months of scarcity in a year, there had been a famine lasting through 1571, 1572 and 1573, when the price of bread went up to a cuarto of six maravedís for two or three ounces and the people were reduced to eating chestnuts; meat was correspondingly scarce and the supply of fish was very uncertain. Rich and poor suffered alike and, as the prisoners’ allowance was in money, their food was unavoidably diminished.306
Judaizing New Christians, who furnished, in the Peninsula, so abundant a source of exploitation, formed a comparatively insignificant feature in the activity of the Canary tribunal. At first there was better promise, as we have seen in the statistics of the earlier autos, but these energetic proceedings seem either to have driven them away or to have thoroughly converted them and, in the subsequent period, the cases of Judaism are singularly few, in so far as we can learn from existing documents. In 1635 there is a denunciation of a Dutchman named Rojel, who had been in Tenerife and who subsequently was seen in Holland, dressed and living as a Jew. In 1636, a man named Mardocheo, aged 80, resident of La Laguna in Tenerife, was accused of talking Judaism by a man who had been a fellow-prisoner with him in the public gaol. In 1638 the Licenciado Diego de Arteaga was suspected of being de casta de Judío, in consequence of irregular conduct in a procession. In 1653, Francisco Vicente, a West Indian, who had accompanied his master Diego Rodrigo Arias from Havana to London and thence to Tenerife, denounced him for taking a crucifix every night from his chest and flogging it for half an hour. In 1659 we have seen the relaxation in effigy of Duarte Henríquez Alvarez. In 1660 Fray Matias Pinto accused Antonio Fernández Carvajal of saying that he was a Jew since Protector Cromwell had broken peace with Spain. In 1662 Gaspar Pereyra, alias de Vitoria, was convicted of Judaism and sent to Seville to serve out his term of imprisonment. His grandmother had been burnt and his business as a merchant had carried him to Brazil, Angola, Lisbon, Madrid, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Middelburg and many other places, so that he had a comprehensive acquaintance with the communities of Jewish refugees everywhere, and the care with which the minute evidence that he gave concerning them was collected and ratified, although they were all out of reach, shows that the paucity of cases in the records is not the result of any lack of desire to persecute. It was natural however that the inquisitors should enquire about Gerónimo Gómez Pesoa, a rich Lisbon merchant who disappeared just in time to avoid arrest and, as an English vessel sailed that night without a licence, he was supposed to have escaped in it—a supposition fortified by learning that he had joined the colony of Conversos in Rouen and had thence gone to Amsterdam.307 Doubtless there were more cases than these, but the records available do not furnish them.
During the sixteenth century baptized Moorish and negro slaves furnished a certain amount of business, especially when they escaped and added to the impressiveness of the autos with their effigies, but subsequently we hear little of them. When prosecuted in person it would seem that the owner was obliged to pay for their maintenance, for a warrant of arrest, in 1575, of Pedro Morisco manco, slave of Pedro d’Escalona, requires eight ducats to be brought with him, to be furnished by his master.308 There is one case of a free Morisco which is not easy to understand. About 1590, Sancho de Herrera Leon, with his wife and children, was carried off in a Moorish raid. After a short time he returned and, although he asserted that he had come back to preserve his faith, he was made to abjure de levi, was fined in forty doblas and was exiled perpetually from Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, under pain of scourging and galleys.309 In the seventeenth century we hear little of such cases, but in 1619 there occurs one which throws some light on the fate of the Moriscos expelled from Spain in 1610. Juan de Soto, born in Valladolid and brought up as a Christian, was seven years old at the time of the expulsion. The family passed into France; at Toulouse his parents and brothers died, but a kinsman took charge of him and carried him to Barbary, where he was circumcised and made to utter certain words in Arabic. For seven years he served various masters, who carried him twice to Constantinople, Alexandria and other places. In 1618 a fleet sailed from Algiers to the Canaries, in which he served a Turkish captain named Hamet. Sent ashore on Lanzarote with a foraging party and attacked by the natives, three were killed and he was wounded and captured. The Inquisition claimed him, which was probably fortunate for him, for, as a renegade he escaped with reconciliation and four years of sanbenito and reclusion in a convent.310
Renegades, in fact, were quite numerous, and the facility is noteworthy with which Christians when captured abandoned their faith. The tribunal kept a close watch on them and all who escaped from Barbary were closely questioned as to fellow-prisoners who had renegaded, when these could be prosecuted in absentia, or record be kept to confront them in case of their return.311
The vast number of denunciations which kept pouring in upon the tribunal shows how sedulously the population was trained as spies and informers upon their neighbors. Many of the alleged offences were of the most trivial character, yet they have their interest as an index of the hypersensitiveness of orthodoxy with which the Spanish mind was imbued. Among the cases which Doctor Bravo y Zayas brought home with him for trial, from his visitation of the islands in 1571, was that of a man who, while dressing himself, was annoyed by the glare of the sun and pettishly exclaimed “Devil take the sun,” which was gravely qualified as blasphemy. Another who, in a procession, had aided in carrying the frame on which was seated an image of the Virgin, remarked that it was a load for a camel, which was decided to be ill-sounding and offensive to pious ears. Even absence of intention did not excuse. In 1591, Gaspar López of Tenerife, when on guard one night, went through the exercise of arms with his partizan, in the course of which he happened to strike a wooden cross that was behind him, and for this he was sentenced to the indelible disgrace of appearing in an auto, followed by vergüenza—parading on an ass through the streets, naked from the waist up, while the town-crier proclaimed his misdeed.312 This hyperæsthesia did not diminish with time. In 1665 the tribunal entertained and investigated an accusation that a certain person when praying allowed his rosary to hang down his back, which was regarded as irreverence.313
How readily such a system could be abused to gratify malevolence is indicated in the case of the Dominican Fray Alonso de las Roelas. In March, 1568, he made an utterance about purgatory which excited remark, and some of his brother frailes discussed it with him, when Fray Blas Merino, a prominent member of the Order, said that Roelas was simple and did not know what he said and that it was not for them to denounce him. Some years later, however, Blas Merino, in the hope of being made Provincial, was engaged in a sort of plot to get the Canaries separated from the Province of Andalusia and erected into a province of the Order. The Dominican authorities heard of this and Roelas was commissioned to seize all the papers connected with it and to notify Merino to abandon the project. To revenge himself Merino hunted up all the witnesses to Roela’s utterance and persuaded them to denounce him in 1572. Bishop Azólares, whose zeal for the Inquisition we have seen, said that the matter was not worth prosecuting, because Roelas did not deny purgatory, which was a matter of faith, while its place and the character of its torment were matters of debate with theologians. Nevertheless Roelas was arrested and tried, and, as usual during trial, he was recluded in the convent of his Order in Las Palmas. One midnight he came knocking at the door of the Inquisition; Fúnez was awakened and sent him word that it was no time for him to call and that he could come the next day. He did so and stated that his brethren so maltreated him, because he had once served as inspector of the house, that he asked to be placed in the secret prisons, a request which was granted, and he stayed there until sentenced. The sentence punished him with reclusion and he was delivered to the prior of the convent, when they at once commenced snarling and growling at each other like quarrelsome dogs. Fúnez rebuked the prior, telling him to avoid such public scandals and that he would send Roelas to the convent in Tenerife until the Provincial should decide as to his place of reclusion. Fúnez probably spoke from experience when he said that among frailes there was no restraint nor truth, but only envy.314
The Canaries enjoyed an ample supply of beatas revelanderas, but, as a rule, the tribunal did not follow the example of the Peninsula in molesting them. One of the most renowned of these was Catalina de San Mateo, a nun of the house of Santa Clara in Las Palmas, who had ecstasies and revelations and was reverenced as a saint. God spoke with her familiarly through the medium of a painted Ecce Homo, which hung in her cell, giving her counsels and spiritual comfort and prophecies. On her death, May 26, 1695, the body lay for three days emitting the odor of sanctity and was viewed by a vast concourse, eager to touch it with rosaries and other objects, and all her clothes and effects were treasured as relics. All this is described in a letter of July 5th, to the Suprema, by the inquisitors Lugo and Romero, who express no doubts as to her holiness. Commencement was made to collect testimony for her canonization, but enthusiasm evaporated and the effort was abandoned. She was succeeded in popular veneration by Sor Petronila de San Esteban, of the convent of San Bernardo in Las Palmas, which she had entered in 1680, at the age of four. She was a bride of God; the child Jesus came to nestle in her arms; the man Christ came to soothe her with sweet words; legions of angels, headed by David, came to rejoice her with the music of heaven. She had terrible conflicts with demons, whom she overcame, and a little wooden image of St. John, with which she held discourse, was the medium through which she enjoyed revelations and prophecies. The Inquisition took no action to interfere with her and almost the only case in which it instituted proceedings, in such matters, was one, in 1695, against Don Miguel de Araus, confessor of two beatas in La Laguna, Francisca Machado de San José and Margarita de Santa Teresa, the former of whom boasted of the stigmata.315
In the later period a very considerable share of the labors of the tribunal was devoted to cases of “solicitation”—the seduction of women by their confessors. It was not until 1561 that this crime was subjected to inquisitorial jurisdiction, under the pretext that it implied erroneous belief as to the sacrament of penitence, and some time was required to settle the question of including it in the Edict of Faith calling for denunciations. The earliest case I have met occurs in 1574, when María Ramos accused her confessor, Fray Pedro Gallego.316 After this they occur with increasing frequency and offenders appear to be treated with even more sympathetic leniency than in Spain. There was moderate rigor in the sentence of Fray Pedro de Hinojosa, denounced in 1579 by numerous maids, wives and widows, for he was deprived of the faculty of hearing confessions, he received a circular discipline in his convent and he was recluded for three years in a convent with the customary disabilities.317 Much less severity was shown, in 1584, to Manuel Gómez Pacheco, priest of Garachico, accused by a number of women, for he was only sentenced to abjuration de levi, deprivation of administering the sacrament of penitence, two months reclusion in a convent and some spiritual exercises.318 The penalties varied with the discretion of the tribunal. About 1590 Fray Antonio Pacheco Sampayo, against whom there were many accusers, was deprived of confessing, had three years of reclusion and fifty lashes in his convent, while Andrés de Ortega, parish priest of Telde, likewise accused by several women, was deprived merely of confessing women, fined in twenty ducats and severely reprimanded.319
Cases grow more frequent with time and, with their increasing frequency, the penalties seem to grow less. In 1694 Fray Domingo Mireles was accused by four women, with details of foul obscenity. He was sentenced to deprivation of confession and reclusion for four years, but was allowed to choose his place of retreat. He served out the term, went to Spain, and returned with a rehabilitation charitably granted by the inquisitor-general. In 1698 Fray Cipriano de Armas was prosecuted on the evidence of two women; the case was carried to the end and remitted for decision to the Suprema, which ordered its suspension. In two cases in 1742 the sentence was merely deprivation of confessing, six months’ reclusion and five years’ exile from certain places. In 1747 Fray Bartolomé Bello had not only seduced Maria Cabral González, but had strangled in his cell a child born to them, after piously baptizing it, but when the case reached the Suprema it was suspended. In 1750 Francisco Rodriguez del Castillo was prosecuted on very serious charges but was only suspended for two years from confessing and given some spiritual exercises. In 1755 there were nine complainants against Fray Francisco García Encinoso, who was deprived of confessing and sentenced to six months’ reclusion, when he was sent to the convent of N. Señora de Miraflor, with instructions to the superior to keep the matter profoundly secret and to treat him well. In 1769 Fray Domingo Matos was sentenced only to six months’ reclusion and the denial of certain privileges, which was subsequently remitted. The sympathy of the tribunal apparently was exhaustless and frequently resulted in practical immunity. In 1785, Fray Joseph Estrada, Franciscan difinidor, was accused by several women with full details, but the tribunal, on December 7, 1793, suspended the case. Then, in 1804, he was again accused by a nun in the convent of la Purisima Concepcion of Garachico. Finally, after twelve years’ delay, on February 28, 1805, the tribunal ordered its commissioner to give him audiencias de cargos, or private examinations, on report of which the case would be voted on, bearing in mind the advanced age of the accused and the difficulty of communicating with the Suprema, in consequence of the war. This was the last of the matter for, on April 9, 1806, the commissioner at Ycod reported the death of the culprit.320 When so serious an offence was visited so lightly, we can scarce be surprised that its subjection to inquisitorial jurisdiction failed to check it. There naturally was much difficulty in inducing women to come forward as accusers, yet the number of denunciations was large and steady. Thus, from July 26, 1706, to February 15, 1708, the total denunciations of all kinds to the tribunal was 75; of these only 22 were of men, out of which 7, or practically one-third, were for solicitation.321
The bulk of the business of the tribunal consisted in trials for sorcery, under which term were included all the superstitions, more or less innocent, employed to cure or to inflict disease, to provoke love or hatred, to discover theft and to pry into the future, for theological ingenuity inferred pact, express or implicit, with the demon in everything which could be construed as transcending the powers of nature, except the ministrations of the priest or exorcist. Such a community as that of the Canaries, in which the primitive magic arts of the natives were added to those of their conquerors, and on these were superimposed the beliefs of Moorish and negro slaves, could not fail to accumulate an incongruous mass of superstitions affecting all the acts of daily life, and the summaries of cases printed by Mr. Birch afford to the student of folk-lore an inexhaustible treasury of curious details. No matter what might be the industry of the tribunal in prosecuting and punishing the practitioners of these arts, it could effect nothing in repressing them, or in disabusing popular credulity, for its very jurisdiction was based on the assumption that the powers attributed to the sorcerer were real, and he was punished not as an impostor but as an ally or instrument of the demon.
It would carry us too far to attempt even a summary of the multitudinous superstitions embalmed in the records, but a couple of cases may be mentioned which illustrate the popular tendency to ascribe to sorcery whatever excited wonder, and also the good sense which sometimes intervened to protect the innocent. In 1624, Diego de Santa Marta of Garachico was denounced as a sorcerer to the tribunal in consequence of his performance of some tricks with cards. The accusation was entertained and Fray Juan de Saavedra was ordered to investigate and report. He invited Diego to exhibit his skill and the performance took place in the cell of the Provincial, Fray Bernardo de Herrera, who was a consultor of the Inquisition, with whom were associated Padre Luzena, regent of the schools, several theological professors and Don Francisco Sarmiento, alguazil of the tribunal. Diego was not aware that he was practically on trial before this imposing assemblage, and he performed some surprising card tricks as well as sundry other juggleries. Fortunately for him the spectators were clear-sighted and Fray Saavedra reported that it was all a matter of sleight of hand, which could be detected by careful observation.322 More serious was the denunciation, in 1803, of any one of four women named (apparently the individual was not identified) who had, twelve years before, administered to María Salome some snuff which caused her to bark like a dog. Luckily Doctor Elchantor, the inquisitor-fiscal, had a touch of the rationalism of the age. He reported that the vomiting and extraordinary movements alleged might have been produced by natural causes; that among timid and ignorant women there was a habit of attributing all disease to sorcery; that it could not be said that the snuff had been prepared with diabolic arts and that there were no other suspicions against the parties accused. He therefore advised that the papers be simply filed away, and in this Inquisitor Borbujo concurred.323
Although the term bruja, or witch, occasionally appears in the records, there would not appear to be any cases of specific witchcraft. The nearest allusions to the Sabbat occur in 1674, when Doña Isabel Ybarra testified that, a year before, Doña Ana de Ascanio told her that Don Juan de Vargas, now dead, told her that once, in returning home about midnight; he encountered a dance of women with timbrels and lighted candles. In the same year Fray Pablo Guillen deposed that at midnight he saw Guillerma Peré naked; she anointed herself and flew through the air with another woman. Connected with this was the statement that a son of Juan Hernandez, at midnight, found in the street Doña Ana María, widow of Captain Juan de Molina, entirely naked. He took her to her house, when she gave him a garment and begged him to keep silence.324
For a comparatively brief period the most important work of the tribunal concerned the foreign heretics—mostly Englishmen and Flemings, or rather Hollanders—who frequented the islands, whether for peaceful commerce or for piracy. As the port of call in the trade with America, the islands were the favorite resort of the sea-rovers of all the nations at enmity with Spain, that is of nearly all Europe, in hopes of capturing some rich galleon or of ravaging some unprotected spot. In 1570, a Norman Huguenot, cruising off Gomera, seized a vessel starting for Brazil with forty Jesuit missionaries; he put them all to death and landed his other prisoners at San Sebastian, a port of Gomera, which next year was sacked by another French corsair.325 To some extent, doubtless, the Inquisition was regarded as a safeguard against such marauders. In 1589, an Englishman, captured at Garachico from the ship of Vincent Pieter the Fleming, was said to have been a pirate who had pillaged in company with other Englishmen, and was brought before the tribunal, although nothing else was alleged against him. About the same time certain French “pirates,” taken on the islet of Graciosa, off Lanzarote, were delivered to the tribunal, when they proved themselves to be good Catholics by their familiarity with the prayers and other observances.326
Much more serious was the interference of the Inquisition with those who came to trade, and it is difficult to understand how Spain could carry on any commerce with foreign nations under the impediments which it interposed. The earliest case in the records is one to which allusion has already been made, that of John Sanders who, in 1565, came as a sailor in a vessel from Plymouth, of which the master was James Anthony, the cargo consisting of 28 casks of sardines, 20 dozen of calf-skins and a lot of woollen goods, the property of the master and his brother Thomas. On arrival at Las Isletas, as Sanders could speak and write Spanish, Anthony got him to enter the goods as his own and installed him in a shop to sell them. After two or three months, one day the public scrivener, Melchor de Solis, came and demanded three reales, which Sanders refused. While they were talking he placed his hand on the wall, where there was hanging a paper print of Christ, which he had not recognized, as its face was turned to the wall and it was partly torn. Passing his hand over it, a piece fell off, when Solis charged him with tearing an image of Christ; he picked it up, reverently kissed it and replaced it. The story spread and caused scandal; in the abeyance of the tribunal, the provisor took up the matter, arresting Sanders March 29th and sequestrating the property, which consisted of 2492 reales in money, 3½ casks of sardines and 2½ dozen of calf-skins, all of which was duly placed in the hands of the secrestador, and, in addition, Leónez Alvarez testified that he had bought and paid for goods to the amount of 340 ducats. Under examination Sanders professed himself a Catholic; he could recite the Pater Noster and Credo and the Ave Maria without the final clause imploring the prayers of the Virgin, which he said he had never been taught; he could cross himself but did not know the peculiar Spanish form; he reverenced images of saints although the Queen of England had banished from the churches all but those of Christ and the Virgin, and he had attended mass since he came. Then James Anthony came forward and claimed the property, confirming the story of Sanders, and it was delivered to him, but not until he had furnished satisfactory security to abide the result. What was the outcome we have no means of knowing, as the papers were sent to the tribunal of Seville for its action, but the least that could happen to Sanders and Anthony was interminable delay.327
Trading with the Canaries evidently was a hazardous business and the danger increased as time went on, for it sufficed that the crew were heretics to justify their trial and punishment, with the accompaniment of sequestration and confiscation. Thus on April 24, 1593, a single vote ordered the arrest with sequestration of the pilot and other officers, the sailors and boys and passengers of the ship named El Leon Colorado and of all who came in the ship named San Lorenzo, both now at anchor in the port of Las Isletas.328 The case of the Leon Colorado is suggestive. She was an English ship which, until 1587, had been employed in the Lisbon trade under a licence from the Marquis of Santa Cruz, but after his death she seems to have been transferred to Flanders. On this voyage she had sailed from Antwerp, a Spanish port, under a licence from Alexander of Parma, the nephew of Philip II and the governor of the Low Countries. The escrivano or purser of the ship, Franz Vandenbosch, while on trial, procured a certificate from the municipal authorities of Antwerp setting forth that his parents were good Catholics and so were their children, and that Franz had sailed for the Canaries with the licence and passport of the Duke of Parma. The only effect of this was a vote to torture him, on learning which he confessed that in Mecklenburg he had embraced Calvinism, and his sentence was reconciliation and confiscation, prison and sanbenito for three years and perpetual prohibition to visit heretic lands or to approach within ten leagues of the sea, for which reason he was to be sent to Spain. Another member of the crew Georg Van Hoflaquen asserted his Catholicism and adhered to it through four successive inflictions, each of three turns of the cordeles. Then he was ordered to be placed on the burro or rack, when he declared that he could no longer endure the agony and that he was a heretic. He was sentenced to reconciliation and confiscation, and three years of prison and sanbenito, with the corresponding disabilities.329
In these cases the adverse evidence is almost wholly derived from other members of the crews, who had no hesitation in testifying to their comrades’ Protestantism. There was usually no concealment attempted but, when orthodoxy was asserted, torture was unsparingly employed. Conversion did not obtain much alleviation of punishment. Another of the crew of the Leon Colorado was Jacob Banqueresme, a Hollander, who freely admitted his Calvinism. He knew nothing of Catholicism but was ready to embrace it if it seemed to him good. Theologians were set to work and, in due time, he announced his conversion and was formally admitted to the Church, but he was sentenced to be sent to Spain and confined in a convent for two years, in order to be thoroughly instructed, and he was prohibited to go to heretic lands or to approach the sea within ten leagues.330
The result of these labors was seen in the auto of 1597, in which there were seventeen Englishmen and Flemings reconciled, with imprisonment ranging from two to eight years, and twenty-six penanced, with from one to four years of prison, the ships to which they belonged being La Rosa, San Pedro, La Posta, San Lorenzo, Leon Colorado, Margarita and María Fortuna.331 There were no obstinate heretics and no martyrs. When this active proselytism was carried on for twenty years or more with its consequent confiscation of ships and cargoes, it is easy to understand the financial ease of the tribunal and to conjecture its influence on the commerce and prosperity of the islands.
This flourishing industry was interfered with by the treaty with England ratified by James I on August 29/19, 1604, and by Philip III on June 16, 1605. It provided that English subjects visiting or resident in the Spanish dominions were not to be molested on account of their religion, so long as they gave no occasion for scandal, and this was extended to the United Provinces in the twelve years’ truce, concluded in 1609.332 The caution induced by the treaty, even before its ratification by Spain, is exemplified in the case of Edward Monox, an English captain and merchant, charged September 10, 1604, with offences in the matter of images and with following the doctrines of Luther and Calvin. The consulta de fe, September 11th, unanimously voted his arrest with sequestration but that, before action, the papers be sent to the Suprema for its decision, in view of the considerations of state arising from the peace with England, and from the fact that he was a rich merchant who, since the death of Queen Elizabeth, had twice come with highly commendatory passports from the Spanish ambassador in London.333
While thus some wholesome restraint was imposed on the Inquisition and the vexations inflicted on merchants and seamen became much less frequent, they did not wholly cease, for the Suprema construed the treaties arbitrarily in such wise as to limit the privileges of foreign heretics as far as possible. How it still continued to throw obstacles in the way of trade may be seen in the petition of Jacob and Conrad de Brier and Pieter Nansen, merchants of Tenerife, presented May 3, 1611. The ship Los Tres Reyes arrived at Las Isletas with some goods for them; for some reason, not stated, it had been seized by the tribunal and its cargo had been sequestrated and they sought release of their property. Their prayer was granted and, on May 25th, an order was given to deliver to their agent the packages specified and their letters, subject however to the payment of the cost of disembarking the goods, the carriage to Las Palmas, the fees of the secrestador for keeping them, 24 reales to the interpreter of the tribunal for his trouble, 18 ducats 4 reales for the freight and 10 reales average to the ship, at the rate of one real per package.334
When war broke out with England, lasting from 1624 to 1630, of course the treaty of 1604-5 became dormant, but it was not until April 22, 1626, that a royal proclamation of non-intercourse with England appeared, confiscating all English goods imported in contravention of it, and this was followed, May 29th, by a carta acordada of the Suprema ordering the prosecution, in the regular way, of all Englishmen who had been delinquent as regards the faith.335 This led to a discussion between the three inquisitors. Francisco de Santalis presented a long opinion to the effect that in Tenerife there were very many of them who, in spite of the war, remained, in place of departing as enemies. The orders of the Suprema were therefore applicable to them; Catholics incurred the risk of excommunication in supplying them with food and were exposed to the danger of infection; they were delinquents in not hearing mass or confessing and communing, and in eating meat on fast days. This was not only a great scandal, but it afforded opportunity of flight and of concealing their property, which was large. He therefore voted that secret information be taken as to their delinquencies and, when this was sufficient, that they should all be arrested and their property be sequestrated, after which the orders of the Suprema could be awaited as to their prosecution. The other two inquisitors, Alonso Rincon and Gabriel Martínez, referred to a consultation had on September 2d with the Ordinary, the consultors, and the calificadores, when it was resolved that the matter be referred to the Suprema and no action be taken till its orders were received; the royal proclamation had said nothing about residents; to seize them and their property would be a great hardship; the commissioners at La Laguna, Orotava and Garachico had been instructed to be vigilant and no denunciations had been received. It is creditable to the tribunal that it resisted the temptation of seizing the large amount of property involved, and the English appear not to have been molested.336
Yet the position of the foreign merchants was exceedingly precarious, as is shown by the case of John Tanner, prior to these deliberations. He was arrested and brought to the prison, November 12, 1624. On examination he stated his age as 22; he was a baptized Christian, who kept feast-days and Sundays, but did not hear mass or confess, for in his country there was no mass or confession; he knew nothing of the Catholic faith and had never been instructed in it. When asked as usual if he knew the cause of his arrest he said that he did not, unless it was because Juan Jánez, the commissioner at Garachico, had asked him for some linens and a pair of wool stockings which he refused, when Jánez called him a heretic dog and they came to blows, and then he was thrown into the public gaol. On being told, as usual, to search his memory, he added that once he went with some other Englishmen to La Laguna to see Don Rodrigo de Bohórquez, then governor of Tenerife; he asked Bohórquez to pay him 400 pesos owing to him and 2800 reales due to Robert Spencer for goods taken, when Bohórquez grew angry and said that Henry Ysan was the cause of all the English making demands upon him; if he had hanged him while in his power there would be none of this and he was a heretic dog, for no one could be a Christian who was not a Roman. Tanner replied that one could be a Christian without being a Roman, when Bohórquez called for witnesses and swore that he should suffer for it. Tanner was then asked what he meant by saying that one could be a Christian without being a Roman, when he fell on his knees and begged mercy if he had erred. He was a poor youth and had a ship lying at Garachico, on which he had to pay demurrage of 120 reales a day, while the embargo on his property prevented his despatching her. At a second audience on November 19th he again begged mercy on his knees; his credit was being ruined by the demurrage on his ship, and the loss fell on his principal. Then, on the 23d, he asked for an audience in which he represented that the ships were loading and preparing to sail, while his was idle; his whole career was being wrecked; he begged them for the love of God to have mercy on him and tell him what he had done; he had lived in the religion of his fathers and must continue to do so, or he could not return to England; he had engaged to serve his master for seven years and his parents were under bonds for him. The pleadings of the poor wretch were fruitless; the case dragged on through the customary formalities and, on February 11, 1625, the consulta de fe voted that he be absolved ad cautelam and be recluded for two years in a convent for instruction, at the expiration of which he must bring a certificate of improvement. In accordance with this, on February 18th, he was placed in the Franciscan convent, his maintenance being paid for as a pauper.337 Proselytism after this fashion can scarce have conduced to the salvation of souls, however much it may have replenished the treasury of the Holy Office.
With the peace of 1630 the provisions of 1604 were revived but hardly a year passed in which some Englishman was not thrown in prison and prosecuted on one pretext or another, as Roderick Jones, in 1640, for saying that God alone is to be prayed to, and Edward Bland, in 1642, for having a Bible in his house.338 In spite of this the flourishing wine-trade of the islands brought many English and Hollanders as residents, and there was even an English company established at Tenerife, where, in 1654, the tribunal reported that there were more than fifteen hundred Protestants domiciled, who were prevented from infecting the people by its incessant vigilance. The captains-general usually sought to protect them, and the influence of their ambassadors in Madrid was invoked on occasion, but, when one fell sick, the Inquisition sought to isolate him from his family and friends and put him in charge of theologians to convert him, giving rise to unseemly contests in which it was not always successful. To remedy this the tribunal, September 18, 1654, asked of the Suprema power to insist that when one of the rich Protestant residents fell sick, his compatriots should be excluded and entrance should alone be permitted to learned Catholics who might wean him from his errors.339 We should probably do no injustice to the motives of the tribunal in assuming that this was dictated rather by the expectation of pious bequests than by zeal for death-bed conversions.
Foreigners sometimes sought to avert trouble by pretending Catholicism and thus placed themselves in the power of the tribunal, which was constantly on the watch for them. In 1654, for instance, Fray Luis de Betancor was summoned and interrogated as to his knowledge of such cases, to which he replied that, some twelve years before, Evan Pugh, an English surgeon, had come to Adeje to cure Doña Isabel de Ponte, and sometimes went out to hunt with her brother Juan Bautista de Ponte. He remembered that one day, when he had finished celebrating mass, he was told that Pugh had stood at the church-door with his hat in his hand, and it was currently said that he confessed to Fray Juan de Medina. Similarly, in 1674, we find the Hollander Pieter Groney testifying that when he sailed from the Texel in 1671 Juan de Rada was a fellow-passenger, who told him he was a Protestant and as such joined in the services during the voyage, but, when the ship was visited on arrival he swore that he was a Catholic and had since then acted exteriorly as a Catholic, though, when they lived together for a couple of months, he ate meat freely on fast days and he regarded him as a Protestant rather than as a Catholic.340 What was the outcome in these cases cannot be told, but the investigations illustrate the careful watchfulness of the tribunal and the dangers incurred by residence within its jurisdiction. Even his official position did not protect from prosecution Edmund Smith, the British consul at Tenerife, when he was accused, in 1699, of maltreating converts to Catholicism and of persuading and threatening those inclined to it, even, it was said, shipping them away when other measures failed.341
In the 18th century, while foreign vessels were closely watched and a vigilant eye was kept on resident Protestants, they were no longer molested with investigations and denunciations. If, in 1728, Philip V ordered the expulsion of all foreigners, it was not on religious grounds, but to put an end to frauds on the revenue. None, however, were expelled, although some professed conversion to save themselves from annoyance.342 A similar impulse seems to have impelled Dr. James Brown, a physician of Tenerife, who wrote, in March, 1770, to the tribunal, from the Augustinian convent of La Laguna, in which he had sought asylum from the captain-general, who was seeking to seize him and send him to England. To secure its protection he asserted his desire to abjure his errors and to be received into the Catholic Church, but in this he failed for, on July 14, he was ordered to leave the islands within forty days.343
The intellectual activity of the Canaries was not such as to call for much vigilance of censorship, at least during the earlier period. The visitas de navíos, or examination of ships arriving, for heretics and heretic books, was performed after a fashion, but the tribunal was inadequately equipped for the duty. One of the charges against Inquisitor Fúnez, in 1577, was his sending the gaoler to perform it, to which he replied that he had done so but once and that on occasions he had sent the fiscal or the secretary; it was not his business and he had no one to whom to depute it.344
Towards the middle of the seventeenth century there was some little activity with regard to the foreign Protestants, who were assumed to be subject to the rules of the Index. The prosecution of Edward Bland, in 1642, for possessing a Bible, seems to have attracted attention to this and, on July 5, 1645, the tribunal ordered its commissioner at Orotava to take the alguazil, notary and two familiars and visit the houses of the English heretics, secretly, without disturbance and with much discretion, asking them to exhibit all the books they possessed, examining all their chests and packages, making an inventory of all books and their authors, and making them swear before the notary as to their having licences to hold them; also whether they had been examined by the Inquisition and, if so, at what time and by what officials. If there were works by prohibited authors, or such as had not been seen by the Inquisition, they were to be deposited with a suitable person, sending a report to the tribunal, with lists of the books, and awaiting its action. If portraits or busts of heresiarchs were found they were to be seized and deposited with the books.
Under these elaborate instructions the search was duly made and the reports, if truthful, would indicate that literature and art were not extensively cultivated by the English traders. Nothing dangerous was found, though of course, as regards English books, the investigators had to accept the word of the owners. In one house they describe, as hanging on the walls of a room, very ugly half-length portraits of a strange collection of worthies—Homer, Apelles, Philo Judæus, Aristotle, Seneca, Pliny, two of Gustavus Adolphus and one without a name. It is perhaps significant that nowhere was there a Bible, a prayer-book or a work of devotion. The houses of two Portuguese traders were similarly inspected, where were found pictures of saints and of damsels with exuberant charms; also of Barbarossa and of some other pirates.345 Possibly supervision of this kind may have continued for, on June 7, 1663, Richard Guild was summoned to the tribunal to describe six English books and four pamphlets, found in possession of Edward Baker, when among them there proved to be several controversial works as to Presbyterianism and the Independents. So, in 1670, Captain Joseph Pinero, a Portuguese, who was building a ship, was denounced for the more dangerous offence of having some Jewish books, but diligent search failed to discover them.346
Books, however, were not the only objects of censorial animadversion. In 1671 some plates and jars with figures of Christ, the Virgin and the saints, sold by Juan Martin Salazar of Ycod, were apparently deemed irreverent, as subordinating the divine to the commonplace of daily life, and Fray Lucas Estebes was ordered to go to his shop, with alguazil and notary, and break the stock on hand, at the same time ascertaining the name of the seller and of all purchasers. Soon after this, in 1677, an edict was issued ordering the surrender of some snuff-boxes, brought by an English vessel, which were adorned with two heads—one with a tiara and the legend Æcclesia perversa tenet jaciem diaboli, and the other of a philosopher and the motto Stulti sapientes aliquando.347
In the latter half of the eighteenth century there seems to be more intellectual activity and desire to seek forbidden sources of knowledge, for we begin to hear of licences to read prohibited books. A register of them, commencing in 1766, shows that when obtained from the inquisitor-general they had to be submitted to the tribunal for its endorsement, but it could exercise the discretion of suspending and protesting, as in the case of one granted, in 1786, by Pius VI and endorsed by Inquisitor-general Rubin de Cevallos, to Fray Antonio Ramond, on which the tribunal reports that he ought not to have it, as he is of a turbulent spirit and disorderly life. Licences generally made exception of certain specified books and authors, but sometimes they were granted without limitation. When the holder of a licence died, it was, as a rule, to be returned to the tribunal.348
At this period the main activity of the tribunal was in its function of censorship. It did not content itself with awaiting orders but assumed to investigate for itself; nothing escaped its vigilance, and we are told that the monthly lists which it forwarded to the Suprema of the books denounced or suppressed are surprising as coming from a province so small and so uncultured. In fact, in 1781 it expressed its grief that great and small, men and women, were abandoning themselves to reading, especially French books.349 To do it justice it labored strenuously to discourage culture and to perpetuate obscurantism.
Yet the visitas de navíos, as described in a letter of August 23, 1787, were less obstructive to commerce than the practice in Spain. When a vessel cast anchor, after the visit of the health officer, the captain landed and, in company with the consul of his nation, went to the military governor, and then to the Inquisition where, under oath, he declared his nationality, his port of departure and what passengers and cargo he brought. When the vessel was discharging, the secretary of the tribunal superintended the process and noted whatever he deemed objectionable, whence it often happened that matters adverse to religion were seized.350
Notwithstanding all vigilance, however, the dangerous stuff found entrance. The works of Voltaire and Rousseau were widely read among the educated class and the hands of the tribunal were practically tied. It would laboriously gather testimony and compile a sumaria against one who read prohibited books, only to be told, when submitting it to the Suprema, to suspend action for the present. In a letter of May 24, 1788, it complained bitterly of this and of the consequent diminution of respect for the Inquisition. Chief among the offenders were the Commandant-general and the Regent of the Audiencia, whose cases had been sent on April 26th. Their openly expressed contempt for the tribunal perverted the whole people, who laughed at censures and read prohibited books. An object of especial aversion was the distinguished historian of the Canaries, José de Viera y Clavijo, Archdeacon of Fuerteventura. His sermons had caused him to be reprimanded repeatedly and, when his history appeared with its explanation of the apparition of the Virgen de Candelaria and other miracles of the Conquest, and its account of the controversies between the chapter and the tribunal, the indignation of the latter was unbounded. A virulent report was made to the Suprema, September 18, 1784, which remained unanswered. Another was sent, February 7, 1792, complaining of the evil effect of allowing the circulation of such writings, but this failed to elicit action, for the work was never placed on the Index.351
Whatever may have been its deficiencies in other respects, the tribunal seems never to have lost sight of its functions in fomenting discord with the authorities, secular and ecclesiastical. In 1521 we hear of Inquisitor Ximenes excommunicating some of the canons, in consequence of which the chapter withdrew the revenue of his prebend and sent a special envoy to the court, but he appealed to Rome and a royal cédula of July 8, 1523, ordered the chapter to make the payments.352 Even during the inertness of Padilla’s later inquisitorship, he had sufficient energy to carry on a desperate quarrel with the Audiencia. He ordered the deputy governor, Juan Arias de la Mota, to arrest Alonso de Lemos, who had been denounced to the tribunal and, on his obeying, the Audiencia arrested and prosecuted him, which led to an envenomed controversy in which excommunications and interdict were freely employed, until Philip II, February 16, 1562, ordered the liberation of Arias, adding an emphatic command in future to give to the inquisitor and his officials all the favor and aid that they might require in the discharge of their duties and to honor them as was done everywhere throughout his dominions. It was doubtless in the hope of putting an end to these unseemly disturbances that Philip, by a cédula of October 10, 1567, prescribed rules for settling competencias, or conflicts over jurisdiction. The inquisitor and the Regent of the Audiencia were required to confer, when, if they could not come to an agreement, the bishop was to be called in, when the majority should decide.353
No regulations were of avail to prevent the dissensions for which all parties were eager and which were rendered especially bitter by the domineering assumption of superiority by the Inquisition. It was not long after Fúnez had reorganized the tribunal that he became involved in an angry controversy with Bishop Cristóbal Vera. Alonso de Valdés, a canon, incurred the episcopal displeasure by removing his name from an order addressed to the chapter for the reason that he was not present. Vera thereupon imprisoned him incomunicado so strictly that his food was handed in to him through a window. It chanced that Valdés was also notary of the tribunal and Fúnez claimed jurisdiction, but the bishop refused to surrender him, in spite of the fact that the absence of its notary impeded the Inquisition. The tribunal complained to the Suprema which came to its aid in a fashion showing how complete was the ascendancy claimed over the episcopal order, and how little chance a bishop had in a contest with such an antagonist. Inquisitor-general Quiroga wrote to Vera that, if the fault of Valdés was such that he should punish it, this should have been done in such wise as not to impede the operation of the tribunal. He hoped that already the case would have been handed over to the tribunal to which it belonged and that in future Vera would not give occasion for such troubles. This was enclosed in a letter of instructions from the Suprema prescribing the utmost courtesy and the most vigorous action. Fúnez is to call, with a witness, on the bishop and demand the person of Valdés and the papers in the case, as being his rightful judge, at the same time promising his punishment to the bishop’s satisfaction. If Vera refuses, Quiróga’s letter is to be handed to him, and if he still refuses he is to be told that he obliges the tribunal to proceed according to law.
This so-called law is that the fiscal shall commence prosecution against the bishop and his officials for impeding the Inquisition. Then the inquisitor is to issue his formal mandate against the provisor, officials, gaolers, etc., ordering them, under pain of major excommunication and 200 ducats without further-notice, to surrender Valdés within three days to the tribunal for punishment, so that he can resume his office of notary. If this does not suffice, a similar mandate is to be issued against the bishop, under pain of privation of entering his church. If the provisor and officials persist in disobedience through three rebeldias (contumacies of ten days each), the inquisitor shall proclaim them excommunicated. If the bishop is stubborn he is to be prohibited from entering his church and to be admonished that if he does not comply he will be suspended from his orders and fined. If he perseveres through three rebeldias, letters shall be issued declaring him to have incurred these penalties and admonishing him to obey within three days under pain of major excommunication. If still contumacious, letters shall be issued declaring him publicly excommunicated and subject to the fine, which shall be collected by levy and execution. In all this he is not to be inhibited from cognizance of the case, but only that he must not impede the Inquisition by detaining its notary, and, as it is very possible that he may seek the aid of the Audiencia, if it intervenes it is to be notified of the royal cédula (of 1553) prohibiting all interference in cases concerning the Inquisition.354
This portentous document was received in the tribunal, April 11, 1577. It was impossible to contend with adversaries armed with such weapons and Bishop Vera was obliged to submit. Not content with its triumph the tribunal undertook to humiliate him still further. Doña Ana de Sobranis was a mystic who believed herself illuminated and gifted with miraculous powers. In 1572 she had denounced herself because a Franciscan, Fray Antonio del Jesús, had given her, as he said by command of God, nine consecrated hosts, which she carried always with her and worshipped. The tribunal took the hosts and dismissed the case but, as the bishop was her warm admirer and extolled her virtues, to mortify him, in 1580, the fiscal presented a furious accusation against her, as a receiver and fautor of heretics and heresies. She was arrested and imprisoned, but the tribunal had overreached itself. She had friends who appealed to the Suprema and, in May, 1581, there came from it a decision ordering a public demonstration that she was innocent and that there had been no cause for her arrest.355
Undeterred by the fate of Bishop Vera, his successor Fernando de Figueroa, about 1590, had a lively struggle with the tribunal. He excommunicated Doctor Alonso Pacheco, regidor of the Grand Canary and deputy governor of Tenerife, because he would not abandon illicit relations with a married woman. The tribunal intervened and evoked the case, giving rise to a prolonged competencia, which remained undecided in consequence of the death of the culprit.356 Causes of such strife were never lacking and the first half of the seventeenth century was largely occupied by them and by an endless struggle to compel the chapter to allow to the inquisitors cushioned chairs in the cathedral.357 On one occasion, in 1619, the chapter offended the tribunal by obeying a royal cédula and disregarding a threat which enjoined disobedience. The canons were thereupon excommunicated and appealed to the king, who found himself obliged to withdraw the cédula.358 The overbearing conduct of the tribunal produced a chronic feeling of exasperation and the veriest trifle was sufficient to cause an outbreak. One custom provocative of much bad blood was that of selecting in Lent a fishing-boat and ordering it to bring its catch to the Inquisition, when, after supplying the officials and prisoners, if there was anything left it might be sold to the people. In 1629 the municipality fruitlessly complained of this to the visitor Juan de Escobar, and in 1631 there was an explosion. The Audiencia rudely intervened by throwing in prison Bartolomé Alonso, the luckless master of a boat selected, and threatening to scourge him through the streets. He managed to convey word to the tribunal, which at once sent its secretary Aguilera to the Audiencia, with a message asking the release of Alonso, but the Audiencia refused to receive anything but a written communication and Aguilera came back with a mandate requiring obedience under pain of two hundred ducats, but he was received with insults and Alonso was publicly sentenced to a hundred lashes. Then the tribunal declared the judges excommunicate, displayed their names as such in the churches and had the bells rung. The Audiencia disregarded the censures and arrested Aguilera, while the Alcaide Salazar, who had accompanied him, hid himself, but the Audiencia ordered a female slave of his to be seized and his house to be torn down, in response to which the tribunal published heavier censures and fines, demanding the release of the prisoners. Then Bishop Murga intervened and asked the tribunal to accept an honorable compromise, but it refused; he returned to the charge, urging the affliction of the people, who dreaded an interdict at a time when there was so much need of rain and when Holy Week was approaching; if reference were made to the Suprema there would be a delay of six months and meanwhile the prisoners under trial by the Audiencia would languish in gaol, for the judges would be incapacitated by the excommunication. The inquisitors, in their report to the Suprema, explained that, seeing that the people were ready for a disastrous outbreak, and as the bishop promised that the prisoners should be released at once (as they were, after a confinement of five hours) they ordered the excommunicates to be absolved and abstained from proceeding against the guilty. Then, when peace seemed restored, the quarrel broke out fiercely again, for the inquisitors demanded the surrender of the warrant of arrest, which Bartolomé Ponce, the official charged with it, refused to give up. He was arrested and as, after two days, he appealed to the Audiencia, they manacled him and ordered the arrest of the advocate and procurator who had drawn up the appeal. This secured the surrender of the document and the inquisitors felicitated themselves to the Suprema on the vigor with which they had impressed on every one the power of the Inquisition. Whether the innocent cause of the disturbance, the fisherman Bartolomé Alonso, received his lashes, seems to have been an incident too unimportant to be recorded.359
Rodrigo Gutiérrez de la Rosa, who was bishop from 1652 to 1658, was a man of violent temper, not as easily subdued as Bishop Vera, and his episcopate was a prolonged quarrel with his chapter and with the tribunal. In 1654, Doctor Guirola, the commissioner at Santa Cruz de Tenerife, was denounced, for his oppression, to the bishop, who ordered an investigation and his arrest if cause were found. This proved to be the case and the arrest was made, against which the tribunal protested in terms so irritating that Gutiérrez excommunicated all its officials, ringing the bells and placing their names on the tablillas, besides imposing a fine of 2000 ducats on each of the inquisitors. They met this by calling on the civil and military authorities for forcible aid and summoned all the bishop’s dependents to assist them. Miguel de Collado, the secretary, went to the cathedral to serve these notices, on hearing which Gutiérrez hastened thither with his followers and, not finding Collado, proceeded to the house of Inquisitor José Badaran, which he searched from bottom to top for pledges to secure the payment of the fine. Word was carried to the tribunal, when the inquisitors, with a guard of soldiers, went to Badaran’s house, which they found barred against them, broke open the door and a stormy interview ensued. The bishop in the cathedral, published Badaran and the fiscal as excommunicates; the inquisitors ordered the notices of excommunication removed and fined the bishop in 4000 ducats. To collect this, they embargoed his revenues in Tenerife and he in turn embargoed the fruits of their prebends. They obtained guards of soldiers posted in their houses and in that of the fiscal, fearing attack from the satellites of the bishop, such as he had made in 1552 in the cathedral and in 1554 at the house of the dean. In reporting all this to the Suprema, they promise to send the fiscal with all the documents by the next vessel, for the authority and power of the Inquisition depend upon the result.360
While this was pending a quarrel arose between the tribunal and the chapter, because the latter refused to pay to the fiscal the fruits of his prebend. Inquisitor-general Arce y Reynoso ordered the chapter to make the payment, which led the canon Matheo de Cassares and the racionero Cristóbal Vandama to commit certain acts of disrespect. To punish this the inquisitors, on November 16, 1655, arrested them, in conformity with the rules prescribed by the Suprema, in its letter of September 6, 1644, respecting the arrest of prebendaries, but, at the prayer of the chapter, they were released on the third day. They were friends of Bishop Gutiérrez, who nursed his wrath until December 26th, when there was a solemn celebration in the cathedral, at which Inquisitor Frias celebrated mass. When Inquisitor Badaran entered and took his seat in the choir, Gutiérrez in a loud voice commanded him to leave the church, as he was under excommunication for arresting clerics without jurisdiction. To avoid creating a tumult he did so; Frias celebrated mass and then joined him in the tribunal, where they drew up the necessary papers. The affair of course created an immense scandal and led to prolonged correspondence with the Suprema, which ordered it suspended April 12, 1657.361 They were not much more successful in the outcome of the previous quarrel, although they succeeded, at the end of 1656, in procuring a royal order summoning Gutiérrez to the court. In communicating this to the bishop, December 13, 1656, the Licenciate Blas Canales advises him, if he has any money to spare, to invest it in a jewel for presentation to the king, through the hands of the minister Louis de Haro. He probably followed the judicious counsel, for the matter ended with a decree relieving him from the fine imposed on him by the inquisitors.362
The next encounter was with the Audiencia, in 1661. For eight years there had been no physician in the island, when the tribunal, needing one for the torture-chamber, induced, in 1659, Dr. Domingo Rodríguez Ramos to come. He became a frequent visitor at the house of Doña Beatriz de Herrera, the amiga of the judge Alvaro Gil de la Sierpe, to whom she had borne several children. Sierpe became jealous and, on some pretext, Dr. Ramos was arrested, January 28, 1661, and imprisoned in chains. The tribunal asserted its jurisdiction by inhibiting the Audiencia from prosecuting the case and, on this being disregarded, the judges were excommunicated with all the solemnities. They impassively continued their functions; the tribunal then excommunicated the officials of the court, who were more easily frightened; for several months there was much popular excitement but, in October, the competencia was decided in favor of the Audiencia—doubtless because the physician was not an official of the tribunal—and a royal letter sharply rebuked the inquisitors.363
The tribunal was evidently losing its prestige and matters did not improve with the advent of the Bourbon dynasty. The enmity between it and the chapter continued undiminished and when, on the death of the Marquis of Celada, in 1707, his son, the Inquisitor Bartolomé Benítez de Lugo, asked that his exequies should be performed in the cathedral, the request was refused. This led to a violent rupture, in the course of which the tribunal voted the arrest of the canons, with sequestration. The chapter appealed to Philip V, who condemned the tribunal in a cédula of November 7, 1707. This did not arrive until the following year, when the chapter kept it secret until Easter; in the crowded solemnity of the feast-day, when Inquisitor Benítez was present, a secretary mounted the pulpit and read the royal decree, to his great mortification.364 Even worse befell the tribunal in 1714, when its inexcusable violence, in another quarrel with the chapter, led Philip V to demand the recall of the inquisitors and to enforce his commands in spite of the repeated tergiversations of the Suprema.365
As the eighteenth century advanced, the hostility of ecclesiastics and laymen towards the tribunal continued unabated, while respect for it rapidly decreased and its functions dwindled, except in the matter of censorship. A curious manifestation of the feeling entertained for it is to be found in the attitude of the parish priests with regard to the sanbenitos of the heretics hung in their churches. A report on the subject called for by the Suprema, in 1788, elicited the statement that for many years there had been no culprits of the class requiring sanbenitos. In 1756, when the walls of the parish church of Los Remedios de La Laguna were whitened, the incumbents resisted the replacement of the sanbenitos, or at least wished to hang them where they should not be seen, but the tribunal ordered them to be renovated and hung conspicuously. In the Dominican church of Las Palmas, there used to be sanbenitos, but they had disappeared and the inquisitors could not explain the cause of their removal. Eight years ago the parish church of Telde was whitened and the incumbents would not replace them; Inquisitor Padilla was informed of this, but he took no action. The only ones then to be seen in Las Palmas were in the cathedral; the building was undergoing alterations and the walls would be whitened, which the inquisitors expected would be alleged as a reason for removing them.366 Equally suggestive of the feeling of the laity is the fact that, when the position of alguazil mayor fell vacant, it was offered in vain to representatives of the principal families, who all declined under various pretexts.367
The sentiment of the population was duly represented by the eloquent priest Ruiz de Padron in the debates of the Córtes of Cádiz, in 1813, and the suppression of the Inquisition was greeted by the ecclesiastics of the Canaries in a temper very different from that manifested in the Peninsula. The bishop, Manuel Verdugo, a native of Las Palmas, was an enlightened man, who had had frequent differences with the tribunal. The decree of suppression was received by him March 31st; it was his duty to take charge of the archives and to close the building, and he lost no time in communicating it to the inquisitors, José Francisco Borbujo y Riba and Antonio Fernando de Echanove. The chapter was overjoyed and, at a session on April 3d, it addressed the Córtes, characterizing the decree as manifestly the work of God and as removing from the Church of Christ a blemish which rendered religion odious. The same afternoon the sanbenitos in the cathedral were solemnly burnt in the patio. The bishop also reported to the Córtes that their manifesto, which had excited the canons of Cádiz to such extremity of opposition, had been duly read that morning, and that he had been greatly pleased to see that the acts of the Córtes had been received throughout his diocese with universal satisfaction. He lost no time in taking possession of the archives, but the inquisitors had already taken the precaution to remove, from the volume of their correspondence with the Suprema, two leaves in which they had spoken ill of him. The financial officials at the same time assumed charge of the landed property and censos, or ground-rents, of the tribunal, which we are told were large and numerous. Inquisitor Borbujo remained at his post, awaiting the reaction. The poets of the island were prompt in expressing the exuberance of their joy in verses, for which action was subsequently taken against the priest, Mariano Romero, Don Rafael Bento and Don Francisco Guerra y Bethencourt.368
When the Restoration swiftly followed, Inquisitor Borbujo received, on August 17, 1814, the decree re-establishing the Inquisition and called on the bishop to surrender the building, but the latter declared that he must await orders from competent authority. On September 29th there came an order for the re-installation of the tribunal and Borbujo made another effort to gain possession of the building and property, but it was not until a royal mandate of November 28th was received that he succeeded in doing so. The tribunal was thus fairly put on its feet again, but such was the abhorrence in which it was held that its edicts were torn down, its jurisdiction was everywhere contested, and its offices of alguazil and familiars could not be filled.369
Thus resuscitated, it diligently collected the pamphlets and periodicals and verses of the revolutionary period, and molested their authors as far as it could. In fact, under the Restoration, except the occasional prosecution of a wise-woman, its functions, as in Spain, were mainly political, liberalism being equivalent to heresy and, except when it had some political end in view, its efforts were ridiculed by both the civil and military authorities, which regarded it with no respect and encroached upon it from all sides. When the Revolution of 1820 broke out, news of Fernando VII’s oath to the Constitution and decree of March 9th suppressing the Holy Office reached Santa Cruz de Tenerife April 29th and Las Palmas some days later. Amid popular rejoicings, the Inquisition closed its doors, delivered up its archives and the inquisitors sailed for Spain. No care was taken of the archives, which were pillaged by curiosity hunters and those whose interests led them to acquire documents concerning limpieza or old law-suits. What remained were stored in a damp, unventilated place; when removed, they were carried off by cartloads, without keeping them in any order and, in 1874, Millares describes them as forming a pile of chaotic, mutilated and illegible papers in a room of the City Hall.370
The reader may reasonably ask what, in its labor of three centuries, the tribunal of the Canaries accomplished to justify its existence.