Jailed Judaizers And Their Jailers' Servants

Chapter Summary

One of the phenomena frequently reported by inquisitional authorities was the way Afroiberian slaves helped imprisoned judaizers. The jails of two local Inquisitions, Mexico City and Lima, generated many accounts of such perceived collaborative subversion of Inquisition operations. The interactions between Judeoconverso prisoners, their friends and relatives outside, and Afroiberian slaves were fraught with dangers of all sorts, and not only from the inquisitional authorities. The incidents and activities discussed in this chapter reveal the ambivalence and ambiguity of motivation, desire and manipulation on both sides. Recurring violations of the Inquisition jails' secrecy terrified authorities in the context of Spanish worries regarding national security leading up to and following the Portuguese rebellion of 1640 against Castile, which generated a war lasting some 28 years. When Spain swallowed Portugal in 1580, the extreme cruelty of the Portuguese Inquisition generated an exodus of New Christians back to Spain, irony of ironies.

Keywords: Afroiberian slaves; imprisoned judaizers; Inquisition jails; Judeoconverso prisoners; Portugal; Spain