In spite of these apprehensions he gathered evidence, confirmatory of Real’s charges and of subsequent misdeeds and, under pressing orders to betake himself to Mexico, towards the summer of 1650 he drew up accusations against the inquisitors and the chief officials. Those against Pereira were virtually the same as Martin Real’s. Villadiego he accused of friendship with Jews who had been penanced, of receiving gifts and loans from them and using them as agents to sell goods for him; he was continually exacting gifts and abused those who refused them and there was also his general licentiousness with women. The fiscal, Bernardo de Eyzaguirre, was charged with embezzling the money of the prisoners. Secretary Uriarte he accused of selling his influence to the kindred of those on trial, giving them information and advice and arranging to bribe the consultors and episcopal Ordinary; of encompassing the death of his accomplice Rodrigo de Oviedo, who threatened to denounce him; of falsifying the accounts and robbing the tribunal to the amount of 200,000 pesos; after the death of Cortázar, he had a secret door made by which he entered the secreto to commit these thefts and he embezzled the property of the accused by bribing those in charge of it, in addition to all which his life was scandalously incontinent. Against Juan Ortiz he reproduced the sixty general charges made by Real and added seventy-nine special ones of the same character—bribery, receiving presents, appropriating the property of prisoners, falsified accounts, subornation and violence—when a butcher did not give him the best meat, he summoned him to the tribunal and struck him a blow on the head that left him senseless.[814]
In July, 1650, there arrived a new fiscal, Juan de Mesa, who wasto be associated with Medina Rico, in case Uriarte recused him, as in fact he did. Pereira had become so apprehensive as to the results of the visitation that Mesa, on August 4th, in handing him the charges, told him that they would kill him. It so turned out. Pereira took them and pondered over them until midnight. In the morning he sent for a physician who at once told him that his case was hopeless and, on the 13th, he was dead. Uriarte followed him to the grave, on February 1, 1651, and Medina Rico’s task was accomplished. He was under orders to start for Mexico, but was detained by prolonged illness and did not leave Cartagena until June 8, 1654.[815]
The perennial quarrels with the authorities continued, of which the Council of Indies complained in a consulta to Philip IV, May 14, 1652.[816]Matters were not improved when, about this time, there came a new inquisitor, Diego del Corro Carrascal, followed shortly by Pedro de Salas y Pedroso as fiscal, who was soon promoted to the inquisitorship. He was so completely dominated by his senior that the Suprema took him to task, after which he manifested his independence by perpetualdiscordias, which left the accused perishing in the prison, awaiting the slow decisions in Spain. Corro Carrascal moreover was rebuked by the Suprema for cruelty and for speculating on the operations of the tribunal by having the confiscations bought in for him at the auctions at low prices. His dissolute life was so notorious that Governor Zapata said that his going out at night in disguise and having amours with married women passed into a proverb.[817]The dissension between the inquisitors grew bitterer until, in 1658, they had a common object of dislike in a new fiscal, Guerra de Latrás, a man who had had a somewhat distinguished career as doctor of laws, professor and author, and who had served in various important positions. The Suprema had often reproved the tribunal for its disregard of established procedure and Guerra soughtto reduce it to order, bringing upon himself the hostility of the inquisitors, who characterized his representations as childish. Early in 1660 he had a fall from his mule and broke his arm, which incapacitated him from writing; the inquisitors refused to allow him to employ an assistant and the business of the tribunal was paralyzed. In 1665 Corro Carrascal was made President of New Granada, Salas fell sick and was absent for weeks at a time and, in this atrophy, the Inquisition ceased to inspire awe or even respect. The opportunity was propitious for the secular power to reassert itself, and the Governor, Benito de Figueroa y Barrantes, availed himself of it. August 23, 1666, meeting the executioner who was scourging two penitents through the accustomed streets, he sent three of his soldiers to release them. The tribunal prosecuted the soldiers and, on the 29th, had two of them arrested by its secretary, Gonzalo de Carvajal, who, in the process, fired a shot and had a struggle with one of the soldiers. Figueroa thereupon surrounded the Inquisition with guards to starve out the inmates; Guerra sought an interview and agreed to surrender the prisoners but, four days later, the governor arrested Carvajal, threw him fettered into the public prison, sequestrating his property and taking his confession in the torture-chamber. Guerra and Salas proceeded to prosecute the governor and proclaimed acessatio a divinis. The bishop intervened and Carvajal was relieved of his chains, but remained in prison. The affair completely discredited the Inquisition; as the new fiscal, Montoyo y Angulo, reported, April 16, 1669, there was no petty official who did not think himself able to give orders to those of the tribunal.[818]
It had not, however, as yet reached the depth of its degradation. Salas had died, December 28, 1667; Guerra had been promoted some months earlier to the inquisitorship and he too died March 21, 1671, leaving the fiscal Luis de Bruna Rico alone. Then, August 19, 1673, there came a new inquisitor, Juan Gómez de Mier, followed, in 1674, by a colleague, Alvaro Bernardo de Quirós, and a new fiscal, José de Padilla, Bruna Rico having been transferredto Lima. The colleagues speedily quarrelled and Padilla joined Mier to oppose Quirós. The latter, on his arrival, had observed the abuses current in the importation of merchandise and slaves and wrote on the subject to the Council of Indies. The governor, who was compromised, succeeded in winning him over, so that he spent most of his time in the governor’s house card-playing and wrote to the Council, withdrawing his charges. It was too late, however, for Juan de Mier y Salinas, a judge at Santa Fe, was commissioned to investigate and came to Cartagena, where he lodged in the house of his uncle, the Inquisitor Mier. The two commenced making arrests and the inculpated took asylum in the churches. Among them was a friend of Quirós, who exerted himself in vain to protect him, and in failing to do so broke definitely with his colleague. He allied himself closely with the governor, for whom he drew up edicts, notably one in 1678 which, under pretext of a threatened attack by the French, discharged all the prisoners and put an end to the prosecutions. He is described as wandering around at all hours of the day and night, mingling with every body, even dancing in public and universally despised. Mier’s association with his nephew the judge brought upon him a shower of denunciations; he held relations with the English of Jamaica, who sent him negroes; these he entered at night as prisoners of the Inquisition, guarded by the alguazil mayor, through whom, moreover, he sold positions—commissionerships and the like—to all who would pay for them. The fiscal Padilla shut himself up in his house and would see no one. The master spirit of the tribunal was the secretary, Miguel de Echarri, to whom were attributed all the evil deeds of Mier. Every one went to him for the distribution of favors; his anteroom was like that of a viceroy and presents were showered upon him; he was assiduous in the gambling-houses and, as Fray Juan Cabeza de Vaca had written, January 30, 1670, “while he is in this city there will neither be peace in the tribunal nor will the people be without a demon to disturb everybody and keep them in open war.”[819]
This state of affairs continued for years. Mier was transferred to Mexico and Quirós to Lima in December, 1681, leaving as sole inquisitor Padilla, who died March 31, 1682, appointing as successor ad interim the Archdeacon Andrés de Torres. Matters took a new aspect with the arrival, March 27, 1683, of a new inquisitor, Francisco Valera, who had filled important offices in Lima. He dismissed Torres and made Echarri fiscal; he gave five hours a day, in the tribunal, to cases of faith and three hours in his house to affairs of property. He pushed the pending trials to conclusion and in five months, August 29th, he celebrated an auto de fe.[820]Under such a man the tribunal was speedily lifted from its degradation, but he had the defects of his qualities, and his imperious temper speedily involved him in a struggle of which the scandal was greater than that of any previous one.[821]
In 1681, two years before Valera’s arrival, there had come to Cartagena a new bishop, Manuel de Benavides y Piedrola, who seems to have been impulsive and inconsiderate. Almost at once he fell into trouble by listening to the prayer of the nuns of Santa Clara, who desired to transfer their obedience from the Franciscans to the episcopal provisor, leading to a contest which was envenomed by the bishop’s endeavor to restrain the disorderly intercourse between friars and nuns. Castillo de la Concha, the President of New Granada, ranged himself against the bishop, on whom a sentence of banishment was pronounced, to which he replied by casting an interdict on the city and leaving it. The populace took sides with a vehemence which led to frequent riots and almost to civil war, during which the nuns sustained a siege of six months.
Valera, on seeing the condition of affairs, endeavored to make peace and sought the bishop in his retreat, but was unsuccessful and his disappointment was aggravated by the bishop’s refusalto allow him to celebrate mass in his own house during the interdict. On his return to Cartagena he boldly celebrated mass, which greatly encouraged the anti-episcopal faction. Matters however seemed to be settling down, when, by order of President Castillo, Diego de Baños, Bishop of Santa Marta, came to Cartagena and removed the interdict. The two bishops exchanged excommunications and the quarrel became fiercer and more intricate than ever. Castillo ordered Benavides to leave the diocese, but he refused and excommunicated the governor and all the authorities; in fact, his enemies said that he had a mania for such censures and once excommunicated an object which he saw through the blinds of a balcony, without knowing whether it was a bag of cocoa or a sack of wool.
Valera was not long in being involved in the conflict. The authorities had armed the citizens and broke by force into the cathedral, seizing three ecclesiastics, whom the governor threw into the fort of Bocachica; one of them, Baltasar de la Fuente, was a commissioner of the tribunal and claimed the fuero, but Valera refused to come to his assistance. When, however, the governor ordered Benavides to withdraw the censures, the latter excommunicated Gerónimo Isabal, the advocate who signed the letter, and it chanced that he was also acting advocate of prisoners in the tribunal, though without a commission, and Valera sprang to his assistance and demanded the papers. Benavides retorted with an edict declaring that Isabal was not entitled to the fuero for defect of title, that Valera had incurred censures for not protecting la Fuente and that he, as episcopal inquisitor, would supply any deficiencies in the tribunal. One account states that as Valera kept himself housed, the bishop went there personally and affixed the edict to his door; another asserts that he led a mob of negroes and mulattos to seize the inquisitor, who barely escaped by a back door and took refuge in the tribunal.
The edict was printed and posted throughout the town, when the alguazil mayor of the Inquisition tore it down and arrested the ecclesiastics who were concerned in it. Benavides went tothe tribunal to rescue them and was contumeliously refused admittance; the governor came and a scene ensued, the accounts of which are irreconcileable, but which served still further to scandalize the people and inflame the passions of both sides. The unlucky clerics, after two years of prison, were fined and exiled. Benavides meanwhile had the cathedral bells tolled for an interdict, when all the other bells in the city were rung to drown them—a brazen warfare to which the people had become accustomed. Then he ordered acessatio a divinis, but the convents refused to observe it; the Bishop of Santa Marta pronounced it null and Valera posted a declaration that he raised it. The Audiencia of Santa Fe had ordered the expulsion of Benavides and now it fined him 4000 pesos for delay in executing the decree. The cathedral was surrounded with guards; the chapter fortified it, but the Bishop of Santa Marta had the doors broken open and ordered the chapter, to declare the see vacant. On their refusal, the provisor, treasurer andmaestre-escuelawere arrested and the cathedral was handed over to priests of his faction. A certain Don Gómez de Atienza declared that he wished Benavides had come forward to resist this desecration, for he would have finished him. The vengeance of heaven was not long delayed, for that night a tempest of unexampled violence burst over Cartagena; the lightning sought out Atienza in the midst of his family and slew him, while another bolt struck his farm in the country, burnt his granaries and killed his mules. He was buried with much pomp by the Bishop of Santa Marta and his dead mules were hidden, to keep the people in ignorance.
A new governor, Juan Martínez Pando, on his arrival was ordered by the Audiencia to remove Benavides, but it was impossible to ship him away, for the buccaneers commanded the sea. He was confined in his house under strict guard and his temporalities were seized. The clergy and people who were faithful to him were arrested, banished and their properties confiscated. The nuns of Santa Clara refused to recognize the confessors appointed for them, when the convent was broken open and in spiteof their resistance they were beaten and confined on bread and water, while some of them were put in irons. The Archbishop of Santa Fe had ordered the Bishop of Santa Marta to retire and leave Benavides in possession, but the mandate was taken from the messenger, was pronounced to be forged, and prosecutions were brought against all who professed obedience to it.
Matters took a sudden turn when there came a royal cédula of May 16, 1683, addressed to Valera ordering him to replace Benavides in his see, which he accordingly did with extraordinary pomp. That he was master of the situation was generally recognized and peace for a time was restored, although he refused the bishop’s demand for the return of the clergy and domestics whom he had exiled. Then Benavides’ position was further strengthened by a papal brief of November 3, 1683, based wholly on the adverse representations of the Audiencia, ordering the nuns of Santa Clara to be remitted to his care. Thus the original cause of quarrel was settled and the troubles which followed were a simple trial of strength between the episcopacy and the Inquisition.
Passions had not yet exhausted themselves and the struggle for supremacy had not been decided. A new element of discord came with the arrival in November, 1684, of another inquisitor, Juan Ortiz de Zárate, who regarded Valera as having been timid and irresolute in the quarrel and boasted of his own unyielding firmness. Causes of dissension were not lacking and open war broke out when Benavides removed, perhaps with unnecessary violence, seats which the inquisitors had placed in the church, giving as a reason the “tertulia” or talkative crowd thus attracted. Thereupon they excommunicated the bishop and ordered his name to be omitted from the mass, to enforce which they excommunicated, fined and banished the dean and the Prior of San Agustin for including it. The bishop had torn down the edicts of his excommunication, had ostentatiously celebrated mass and had ordered the arrest of the clergy who would not assist him, which led the tribunal to order him to keep his house as a prison, an order enforced by obtaining from the governor a guard whichrendered him practically a prisoner. During this turmoil it is easy to imagine the condition of the community, terrorized by the Inquisition. The majority of the people, we are told, favored the bishop, but were afraid of the absolute power exercised by the tribunal, with the support of the governor. The better part of the clergy saved themselves by flight and there was general demoralization. To render their victory complete the inquisitors assembled the chapter in order to have the see declared vacant. All but two voted in the negative and left the room, when the remaining two declared the vacancy and elected provisors to govern the diocese.
Then three vessels arrived from Spain which it was hoped would bring despatches putting an end to the troubles. Nothing was given out as to their nature, but it was observed that each night the guard at the bishop’s palace was reduced until it was entirely withdrawn and Benavides was released after a confinement that had lasted from April 13 to August 22, 1687. At the same time there arrived Gómez Suárez de Figueroa as inquisitor to replace Valera, who had been transferred to Lima early in 1685 but who had awaited the arrival of his successor; he sailed September 2, 1687, reaching Panamá on the 23d and Lima in June, 1688.
Suárez at first seemed inclined to deprecate the excesses of his predecessor, but the traditions and interest of the Inquisition were too strong and he soon yielded to them. The tribunal still held the bishop to be excommunicated. The news of the terrible earthquake of Lima, March 9, 1687, improved by the preachers, caused a wave of religious fervor in which many persons abandoned their scandalous lives and applied to Benavides for licences to marry but, when the banns were published, the inquisitors excommunicated the officiating priests. They also gave notice that all who communicated with the bishop must seek absolution at their hands—an absolution which they ostentatiously administered. Seeing them thus determined to carry on war to the knife, he resolved to publish a papal brief of January 15, 1687, which hehad received. This treated the matter as exclusively a quarrel between him and Valera; it recognized fully the justice of his side and stated that the nuncio at Madrid had been ordered to prevail with the king that all his rights should be restored to him and that he should have public satisfaction for injuries endured. Although this brief had passed the Royal Council, when he applied to the civil authorities for aid in its publication this was refused and when he circulated copies the inquisitors stigmatized it as a forgery. They filled their prison with the bishop’s supporters and they garrotted in the plaza a Franciscan named Francisco Ramírez, without observing any formalities or even degrading him from holy orders—a tragedy in which the governor, Francisco de Castro, acted the part of executioner.
A new governor, Don Martin de Ceballos y la Cerda, brought with him a royal cédula, ordering the restitution of the bishop to his full rights and jurisdiction. This was received with rejoicings, which showed how few had been really opposed to him, although terrorism had forced men to dissemble. One article of the cédula, however, commanding the restitution of all fines and confiscated property, was not obeyed, because the judge commissioned to enforce it belonged to the inquisitorial faction and had the support of Ceballos, with whom the bishop had speedily quarrelled. This encouraged the tribunal to a renewal of molestation. When the bishop ordered the prosecution of Doctor Francisco Javier de Cárdenas, for abuses committed in a visitation, the inquisitors threatened the provisor that, if he did not release Cárdenas, he should be imprisoned as the bishop had been. During the troubles the tribunal had been conducted without the necessary concurrence of an episcopal Ordinary. To remedy this, Benavides appointed Don José Pedro Medrano to act, but the inquisitors took away his commission and refused to allow him to serve. Seeing that the contest was endless, the bishop resolved to present himself at the court and embarked in an English vessel for London, but hearing in Jamaica of the expulsion of James II, he returned to Cartagena to await thearrival of the Spanish galleons. When they came, they brought a despatch calling him to Madrid and he accompanied them on their return.
At this point the narrative in both Groot and Medina fails us and we know nothing of his reception at court, except that it was not wholly to his satisfaction. We learn from a consulta of the Council of Indies, in 1696, that Innocent XI had rendered a decision invalidating the excommunications uttered by the inquisitors and affirming those proclaimed by the bishop and that all comprised under the latter must obtain absolution. To do this would be so unexampled a humiliation that the Suprema had not enforced it, and Benavides had, without asking the royal permission, gone to Rome to accomplish its execution. This placed him in antagonism with all Spanish traditions and, in 1695, the ambassador was endeavoring to obtain papal authority to carry him back to Spain, but apparently without success, for in 1696 he was still there. The indomitable old man died in Cádiz, but in what year is not known and the see remained vacant until 1713.[822]
However the Suprema may have interposed to prevent the humiliation of the inquisitors, it set its seal of disapprobation on Valera. His transfer to Lima indicates that it considered, early in the quarrel, that his usefulness in Cartagena was ended. His action during the interval between 1685 and 1688 evidently confirmed the unfavorable impression and, as we have seen, he was met, on his arrival at Lima, with orders from the Suprema to return to Spain—orders which he evaded—and in 1691 the Viceroy Moncada was instructed by the king to ship him home. As this was merely a royal command, it received no attention, and he continued to exercise his functions; apparently he had profited by experience for we hear of no controversies with either the spiritual or temporal power. With the advent of the Bourbon dynasty, however, there came a determination to curb inquisitorial exuberance and his Cartagena performances were not forgotten. In 1703 there came orders from both the king and inquisitor-general to jubilate him on half his salary, the other half being applied to the Church of Cartagena, in consideration of the controversy which he had with it, thus condemning him to make to it such reparation as he could. The sentence came too late, however, as he had died on August 2, 1702.[823]
Governor Ceballos had no reason to congratulate himself on siding with the tribunal against Bishop Benavides. Its excesses had convinced the court that some thorough change was necessary if peace and harmony were to be restored in the colony and a Junta of two members each, of the Suprema and of the Council of Indies, was ordered to carry it into effect, but these intentions were balked by the members of the Suprema never meeting their colleagues.[824]Nothing was done and the absence of the bishop left the tribunal in absolute command of the city. How despotically it exercised its authority is shown in a plaintive despatch of Governor Ceballos, January, 1693, reciting how the butcher of the public shambles having refused to give the preference to a negro of Inquisitor Suárez, the latter sent the gaoler of the secret prison to bring the butcher bound to the prison or, if he could not be found, then one of the regidores of the city in his place. The butcher was found and thrown into the prison, where he was still lying. The governor says that he was afraid to take the proper steps and contented himself with addressing a civil request to Suárez, which was disregarded. He found it impossible to get legal evidence as to the affair, for witnesses were in such terror that they would make no formal depositions. On January 13th, after drawing up a despatch on the subject, he went to his residence, whither came Secretary Luna of the tribunal, accompanied by a mob of followers and, with much disturbance, required him under threat of major excommunication and other censures to sign letters declaring that the case belonged to the jurisdictionof the Inquisition and that he abandoned it; also that all references to the matter be erased from the books of the municipality and all the papers be delivered to the tribunal. In this strait he consulted with Don Francisco Gorrechategui, President of the Royal Audiencia of Santa Fe, and Don Fernando de la Riva Aguero, Judge of the Audiencia of Panamá, but they could render him no assistance; he was helpless and, for the sake of peace, he submitted to the demands of the Inquisition.[825]When such was the condition to which the tribunal had reduced the civil and military power in Cartagena, we need no further explanation of the ease with which the French adventurers captured it in 1697.
That catastrophe, as we have seen, was the turning-point in the history of the tribunal, which thenceforth rapidly declined. In 1705, Pablo de Ozaeta took possession as fiscal and found himself alone, in consequence of the severe illness of Inquisitor Lazaeta, until the arrival of Manuel de Verdeja y Cosio as his colleague. There was a lively quarrel on foot with the governor, Juan Díaz Pimienta, to whom the tribunal had imputed the concealment of the property of a person deceased. The two secretaries, Echarri and Ventura de Urtecho, took his part and were excommunicated and arrested, Urtecho being banished for eight years and Echarri ordered to leave the city within twenty-four hours, while his son was thrown into the secret prison. On the other hand, Pimienta seized Luis de Cabrera, the notary of sequestrations, and threw him into the fort of Bocachica, where he died in the course of eight months, and, on another occasion, acting on a royal order, he took, from Lazaeta’s house, Julian Antonio de Tejada, who had been sent out to report on the capture. To avenge these insults, the tribunal commenced twenty-four prosecutions against the governor, but it was in no position to assert itself. In a letter of February 27, 1706, it exhaled its griefs. Ozaeta and Verdeja were ailing—one wanted to go to Spain and the other to be transferred to Mexico. Everything was in ruin; the money coffer was empty; for ten years no galleonshad arrived; Pimienta slighted Lazaeta at every turn, so that for eighteen months he had been obliged to shut himself up in his house. As for Ozaeta, Verdeja, in a letter of September 13th, accused him of devoting himself wholly to trade. He had brought merchandise with him and was the agent of foreign merchants, whose goods he introduced without paying duties, and there was no business of this kind, throughout the extensive district of the tribunal, that was not under his control. He was allowed to enjoy this profitable commerce until 1716, when he returned to Spain and was rewarded with an appointment to the tribunal of Llerena.[826]
He was replaced in Cartagena by Tomás Gutiérrez Escalante who did as little honor as his predecessor to the Holy Office, though he retained his position until his death, in 1738. He was involved in bitter quarrels with the governor, Francisco Baloco, of which the details are lacking, though we may assume that he was in fault, for constant complaints of him were sent to the Suprema, and the Bishop Molleda y Clerque (1734-41) accused him of interfering in matters beyond his jurisdiction and that in his house there was nothing but banquets and gambling. One of these feasts was given in honor of the saint’s day of a young mulatto girl whom he kept and whom his guests had to honor.[827]After this we cease to hear of troubles with the civil authorities, but the dissensions between the officials of the tribunal continued to the end of the century and the exhortations and commands of the Suprema were fruitless in maintaining harmony.[828]
The financial history of the tribunal, at least during the seventeenth century, is similar to that which we have already traced in Mexico and Peru. As we have seen, when Philip III established it in 1610 he was careful to specify that the royal subvention of 8400 ducats was to continue only as long as the confiscations and fines and penalties were insufficient; the receiver was ordered to furnish a yearly statement of his receipts which were to bededucted from the payments to be made by the treasury. Clearly as this program was laid out, it is perhaps needless to say that it never received the slightest attention from the tribunal. It had not been long in operation when the fruits of its industry began to pour in. A letter of July 22, 1621, conveyed the pleasing information that it had secured the handsome sum of 149,000 pesos from the confiscated estate of the Judaizer Francisco Gómez de Leon.[829]Windfalls such as this were of course exceptional, but a more or less steady stream of smaller amounts can scarce have failed to reward its activity. Still this brought no relief to the royal treasury, which was regularly called upon for the subvention and, in 1630, we chance to hear of the complaints of the treasury officials, who were summoned before the tribunal and scolded when they had not funds wherewith to meet the demands promptly.[830]In 1633 there duly came the suppression of a canonry in every cathedral of the district for the benefit of the tribunal—a measure designed for the relief of the royal treasury—but the revenues of the prebends were quietly absorbed without relaxing hold on the subvention.
Wealth flowed in with the discovery of Judaizers in 1636, whose confiscations were announced in the auto de fe of March 25, 1638. That of Juan Rodriguez Mesa amounted to 65,000 pesos; that of Blas de Paz Pinto to 50,000; of Francisco Rodríguez Pinto to 40,000, while the smaller ones brought the aggregate up to 200,000, as reported, June, 1638, by Andrés de Castro the receiver who assuredly did not exaggerate, and besides this there were confiscations in Havana amounting to 150,000.[831]In 1639 there came orders to sell at auction threevarasof alguaziles, one each in Santa Fe, Caracas and Popayan, but competition was not eager and we do not know the amount realized.[832]The tribunal was evidently accumulating abundant capital, although it was obliged to contribute a part of its gains to the Suprema. In 1644 the latter alludes to a remittance shortly expected from Cartagenaof about 10,000 ducats; by a letter of September 24, 1650, it appears that the tribunal admitted to having on hand 187,677 pesos; according to a certificate of June 30, 1659, there had been deposited in the money coffer 430,414 pesos and, although there had been more than 100,000 remitted to the Suprema, there was ample left. In addition there were houses and lands; there were 95,332 invested in censos, yielding about 4000 a year but the royal subvention was still regularly collected, the 8400 ducats being reckoned at 11,500 pesos.[833]
The subvention continued to be paid though, with the increasing penury of the Spanish treasury, it was apt to be in arrears. In 1670 we find the Suprema ordering the tribunal to use gentle methods; it learns that the garrison is unpaid and therefore the fault may be with the governor; the last payment collected was for thetercio(four months) of November, 1668, and the annual amount alluded to is 8400 ducats. The tribunal was not satisfied and, in its replies of May 6 and October 8, 1671, it asks for permission to apply pressure; the governor excuses himself by the expenditures necessary to provide for the safety of the place, but these pretexts will never be lacking, the civil salaries are regularly paid and the garrison is partially so. Yet the arrearage to the tribunal had been diminished and was reduced to only three tercios, showing that at least two years’ subvention had been collected during the past twelvemonth.[834]Then the arrearage increased and on April 17, 1674, the tribunal reported it at nearly eighteen months, whereupon the Suprema, February 3, 1675, addressed a strong remonstrance to the queen-regent, threatening that if the officials were not paid regularly they would be obliged to desert their posts; it recapitulated the financial history of the tribunal; the royal grant, in 1610, of 8400 ducats per annum, until the confiscations and fines and penances should suffice, followed by the suppression of the prebends in 1633, and it had the effrontery to assert that since then the prebends and fines andpenances had been deducted from the subvention; the royal officials asserted that there were no moneys appropriated for the purpose, and that they could not pay without special orders, wherefore the queen was asked to make the subvention a first charge on the treasury. Against this the Council of Indies protested vigorously on March 9th, going over the whole history of the matter and pointing out that whatever was paid to the Inquisition must be withdrawn from the protection of the coasts, ravaged constantly by the buccaneers, and especially of Cartagena, which was the object of their special cupidity. In fact, large expenditures were made on the defences of the city, which was the entrepôt of the shipments of the precious metals to Spain; as the Council stated, the royal treasuries of Santa Fe and Quito had already been drawn upon to the amount of 17,390,300 mrs. for that purpose.[835]
The debate went on, without either side abandoning its position. The Suprema, on May 11, 1676, insisted that the subvention was a necessity for the tribunal. Five of the canonries produced a total of only 2535 pesos and the sixth, of Puerto Rico, only about 100; the revenues from investments were 5491 pesos while the expenses were 18,770, so that even with the subvention there was a deficit. It is evident that not much faith was felt in these figures, for the Count of Peñaranda, in a consulta of December 10, 1677, pointed out that there never had been any statement furnished as to the amount of the confiscations and fines and penances, nor had any effort been made to obtain from Cartagena and Peru, as there had been from Mexico, restitution of the sums improperly obtained from the treasury, to which they were evidently large enough to afford sensible relief.[836]
In some Cartagena documents of 1684 we find the first evidence that the treasury had the benefit of other receipts of the tribunal. On June 2d the receiver presented to Inquisitor Valera a dolorous complaint as to the financial condition. In thefailure to collect the royal subvention it had been impossible to pay the salaries and other expenses without drawing upon the funds held for creditors of confiscated estates awaiting settlement. The buildings of the Inquisition and its houses were out of repair and threatening ruin; the last payment obtained from the treasury was up to the end of October, 1678, since when there had accrued 61,764 pesos, 5 reales, 22 mrs. from which was to be deducted, of collections from the canonries, 8221 pesos, 3 quartellos, leaving a balance due of 53,543 pesos, 4 reales, 31 mrs., which Valera was urged to collect in order that the fund held for creditors might be reimbursed and the necessary repairs made to the buildings. Thereupon Valera addressed to the governor, Don Juan Pando de Estrada, a vigorous appeal, embodying the receiver’s statement of the account and asking at least for a partial payment. The governor submitted this to the treasury officials, who admitted the correctness of the statement, and from their figures it appears that in the settlements from November 1, 1675, to October 31, 1678, due allowance had been made for receipts from the canonries—but they add that in 1680 a royal cédula had ordered the archbishop and bishops to report to them all payments to the tribunal on account of the canonries, an order which had been obeyed only by the Bishop of Cartagena. They professed the utmost desire to pay the Inquisition and deplored their inability, in view of the demands of the home government for remittances and the indispensable outlays for the maintenance and safety of the city.
This the governor transmitted to the tribunal with the assurance of his deep regret and a request for a statement of its other receipts, in order that an accurate balance could be reached. Valera met this last demand by procuring from the receiver and his predecessor sworn statements that nothing had been received from confiscations, fines and penances, the truth of which may be doubted in view of the receiver’s previous complaint as to the use made of the sums in litigation with creditors of confiscated penitents—but he added that, if there had been receipts from these sources, they were especially appropriated to the secret and necessaryexpenses of the Inquisition, which was a manifest falsehood. Moreover, as the tribunal was a creditor of the treasury, and it appeared that there were no funds applicable to the discharge of the debt, it had a right to have a detailed statement of receipts and expenditures, to lay before the king, with a request for relief. What reply the governor made to this impudent demand, we have no means of knowing, but we may assume that the tribunal fared no better in the future. It had appealed, October 1, 1683, to the Suprema, setting forth its deplorable condition; as it was forbidden to use pressure, it was at the mercy of the officials and it asked that the treasurers of Santa Fe and Quito be instructed to remit directly to its receiver. For some reason this appeal was not considered by the Suprema until April 10, 1685, and then it was simply ordered to be filed away with the other papers.[837]
We may reasonably assume that much of the distress, thus movingly represented, was fictitious, to parry the demands of the Suprema for the contributions which it was accustomed to exact. Notwithstanding the recalcitrancy of the royal officials, the tribunal by diligent siege managed to extract an occasional payment and, though it unquestionably suffered heavily at the capture of Cartagena, in 1697, what with the prebends and the occasional fortunate capture of a wealthy penitent, it would seem not to have suffered from the lack of means. At least so the Suprema thought when, in a letter of June 15, 1705, it ordered the tribunal to be prompt in remitting the contribution demanded of it. Thus spurred, on February 27, 1706, it sent 6000 pesos, which it stated it had been obliged to borrow, as it had no resources save to pledge repayment out of the first moneys it should receive, and it expected to do this out of the estate of Don Juan de Zavaleta, the settlement of which was hourly expected. It went on to give a dolorous account of its condition. The capture of the city had left it in a miserable state—all the money in its coffers was taken and all its buildings and houses were damaged. Itschief means of support, it says, is the royal subvention, but for six years it had failed to receive any important assistance from this; arrearages due amount to more than 140,000 pesos and its applications to the treasury are met with enmity and ill-will. The suppressed canonries produce less than 5000 pesos a year; as for the houses, they have declined greatly in value; for more than ten years the galleons have ceased to visit the port and commerce has so decreased that the houses are generally untenanted and repairs consume most of the rentals received.[838]
In this sombre description there is doubtless a large element of truth. The kingdom of New Granada, though less than two centuries old, was already decaying and the Inquisition necessarily suffered with the rest of the community. Its poverty became so pressing that, in 1739, the houses held by it were sold on ground-rents. To add to its misfortunes, as we have seen, in 1741, during the bombardment by Admiral Vernon, a bomb dismantled the Inquisition so that it had to be torn down and it was not rebuilt until 1766. Still the tribunal managed to exist and when, in 1811, it was expelled from Cartagena, it had 4000 pesos in its coffer.[839]
When came the Revolution the Inquisition evidently had lost all claim on the respect of the people and was one of the early objects against which popular detestation was directed, rendering its career in those turbulent times different from that of its sister tribunals. Before Hidalgo raised the banner of revolt, in September, 1810, already in July insurrection had broken out in Santa Fe and, on August 13th, a revolutionary Junta was established in Cartagena, although complete independence of the Spanish crown was not yet contemplated. Matters remained for a year in this uncertain condition, during which the tribunal sought to ingratiate itself with the rising forces of Revolution by acquitting and discharging a patriotic priest, Juan A. Estévezsent to it by the Santa Fe Government to be imprisoned and punished for a sermon characterized as seditious; and it furthermore dismissed its commissioner, Doctor Lasso, who had started the prosecution—a service warmly recognized by the Supreme Junta in a manifesto of September 25, 1810.[840]
As in Spain, the Liberals were careful to proclaim their adhesion to the principle of intolerance. The Constitution of Cádiz in 1812 declared that the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman faith was the religion of the State and that no other worship, public or private, would be permitted, while the Articles of Federation of the Provinces of New Granada enumerated among their duties that of maintaining the Catholic religion in its purity and integrity.[841]Yet when the Revolution culminated for the time in Cartagena, November 11, 1811, by an armed rising of the people, one of the demands made on the Junta was that the Inquisition be suppressed and the inquisitors be handed their passports. The Junta was prompt in executing the popular wishes. The same day it issued a decree that all who did not favor independence should leave the country within eight days, and it summoned the various corporations to come forward and take the oath of independence.[842]The next day, notice was sent to the tribunal that its existence was incompatible with the new order of affairs, and that the inquisitors, with such officials as desired to follow them, must sail for Spain within fifteen days, while those who remained must forthwith take the oath; all papers were to be transferred to the bishops of the dioceses to which they referred and the property was to be made over to the public treasury. To this the inquisitors replied, on the following day, that the decision had been extorted by an armed mob and, as soon as popular agitation should subside, they expected to resume the august functions confided to them by Divine Providence. Insistence, however, brought compliance and, on November 28th, they announced their readiness to go, though not to Spain; the authorities took possession of all their property and the papers connectedtherewith, but it was not until December 17th that their passports were sent, and further delays postponed their departure until January 1, 1812, when they sailed for Santa Marta. There they erected their tribunal and remained for about a year, when the occupation of the place by the revolutionary forces caused their transfer to Puertobelo. When Santa Marta was regained by the royalists they returned there and soon afterwards they received news of the suppression of the Inquisition by the Córtes of Cádiz in February, 1813. This rendered their condition more precarious than ever. In a report of July 8, 1815, they state that on their ejection from Cartagena, they notified the various chapters to preserve the fruits of their prebends for them; those of Santiago de Cuba, Havana and Panamá came regularly, but were paid into the royal treasury; those of Puertobelo and Santo Domingo were held back through fear of pirates; that of Caracas by the revolution, so that they were in arrears of their salaries by five tercios and had been living on borrowed money.[843]If their salaries were but twenty months in arrears, in July, 1815, it indicates that the previous complaints of poverty had been exaggerated and it suggests that, in spite of the seizure of property, they had succeeded in carrying from Cartagena a fair supply of funds.
The triumph of the Spanish War of Independence and the restoration of Fernando VII in the Spring of 1814 changed the face of affairs. The whole power of the monarchy could be directed to the subjugation of the revolted colonies and, in 1815, a heavy force was sent, under Don Pablo Morillo, to effect that of New Granada. Although the Inquisition had been revived in Spain by royal decree of July 21, 1814, it was not until March 31, 1815, that the joyful news reached Santa Marta, where the inquisitors celebrated it with a solemn mass and Te Deum and the announcement that they resumed their duties, although, to keep up the semblance of a tribunal, they had appointed as fiscal the alcaide of the secret prison and as secretary the alcaide of thepenitential prison. Morillo reached Santa Marta on July 24th and on August 15th he advanced to reduce Cartagena, accompanied by the senior inquisitor, José Oderiz, whom he appointed asteniente vicario generalof his army. After a siege of a hundred days, in which the inhabitants were almost destroyed by famine and pestilence, Cartagena fell on December 6th and Oderiz at once took measures to seize prohibited books and resume his authority. The other inquisitor, Prudencio de Castro, deferred the transfer of the tribunal until May, 1816, awaiting the restoration of sanitary conditions in the unhappy city, and it could not fully commence operations until January 21, 1817, the date at which the two secretaries, who had remained behind, were reinstated in office, after undergoing the process of “purification,” to remove all taint of liberalism. Morillo himself had accepted the position of honorary alguazil.[844]
On April 29, 1818, there was a solemn publication of the Edict of Faith and of the Edict of Grace of the Suprema for heresies occasioned by the war. This was followed in the afternoon by a procession through the streets carrying the banner of the Inquisition; the standard-bearer was Colonel Jiminez, accompanied by the principal officers of the army, to whom the ceremonial was a farce, for we are told that they were nearly all Free-Masons.[845]It was not until near the end of the year, however, that the organization of the tribunal was completed, by the arrival of the new fiscal, José Antonio de Aguirrezabal. Although thus ready for business, it had little to do, in the disturbed condition of the land, and it was in no condition to render active service. As it reported, September 25, 1819, it was suffering acutely from poverty, without means to repair its building which threatened ruin; it was unable to imprison offenders because they could not be fed; the salaries were unpaid and the officials had no means of livelihood, for there were no charitable hands to solace their misery. In fact, its last case was that of Don Rafael Barragan of Santa Fe, for propositions.His accusation dated back to 1813; after infinite trouble he was thrown into the secret prison and, in September, 1818, his sentence was read in the audience chamber with closed doors; he abjuredde leviand was absolvedad cautelam.[846]
The Revolution of 1820 in Spain revived the energies of the patriots who felt that they had little to fear from further efforts of subjugation. The suppression of the Inquisition by the royal decree of March 9, 1820, seems to have attracted little attention in New Granada and, if the tribunal continued to exist, it must have disappeared when Cartagena was captured by the revolutionists in October, 1821. Still, on September 3d of that year the Vice-president of the United States of Colombia, Doctor José María Castillo, deemed it necessary to issue a decree declaring the Inquisition abolished. No traces of it should be allowed to exist and therefore the authorities of Cundinamarca were ordered not to permit the commissioner in Santa Fe to exercise his office. In future no inquisitorial edicts should be published, no books should be suppressed except by the Government and no ecclesiastical authority should supervise their importation. As the commissioner at Santa Fe, Doctor Santiago Torres, had previously died in exile, the zeal of the vice-president was somewhat superfluous except in so far as the edict deprived the bishops of censorship.[847]
Shortly after this the Congress of the United States of Colombia adopted a law declaring the Inquisition extinguished forever and never to be re-established. All its properties were appropriated to the State. The bishops were restored to their ancient jurisdiction over matters of faith, but appeal from their decisions lay to the civil courts. This however applied exclusively to Catholics. Foreigners of other faiths were assured against molestation on account of religion, so long as they observed due respect to the national one, and finally the civil power assumed to regulate the external discipline of the Church, such as the prohibition of books and similar matters.[848]As the United States of Colombia thenembraced the whole of the Spanish South American possessions, north of Peru, these liberal principles were effective over a wide expanse of territory and, when the victory of Ayacucho, December 10, 1824, finally destroyed the Spanish power in Peru and liberated the colonies, the last chance disappeared that the reactionary government of Spain might attempt to revive the Inquisition.
Many causes contributed to the decay of the Spanish colonies, but among them not the least was the impossibility of settled and orderly administration occasioned by the multiplicity of rival jurisdictions, inherited from the medieval conceptions of the relations of Church and State. There were the military represented by the viceroy, and the civil by the Audiencia; the spiritual, exercised by the bishops over the secular clergy; the numerous Regular Orders, exempt from the bishops and subjected each to its own provincial; the Cruzada, whose numerous officials owed obedience only to the Commissioner General or his representative, and finally the Inquisition which claimed supremacy over all, in a sphere of action the limits of which it defined practically at its pleasure. Of these the most disturbing element was the Inquisition, armed with the irresistible weapon of excommunication, by which it could paralyze its antagonists at will, and the arbitrary power of arrest, which inspired general terror. We have seen what manner of men it was that Spain habitually sent to the colonies to wield this irresponsible authority, the use which they made of it and, when their abuse of it became unbearable, how they were rewarded by transfer to better tribunals or to episcopal seats. The commissioners whom they distributed through the provinces aped their masters and carried oppression and discord to every corner of the land, while the ægis of protection was extended over every criminal who could claim any connection, however illusory or fraudulent, with the tribunals.
Complaints to the Council of Indies came pouring in by everyfleet from bishops, governors, officials and individuals. These were duly laid before the king, who referred them to the Suprema; it would promise to call for a report from the tribunals and this would be the last of the matter, for however severely it might berate its subordinates in secret, it steadfastly defended them in public. In 1696 the Council submitted an elaborate consulta to Carlos II, recapitulating a number of flagrant cases, occurring from Mexico to Cumaná, and its fruitless efforts to obtain redress; it pointed out how completely the tribunals disregarded the provisions of the Concordias and the impossibility of securing their observance; it suggested various reforms, the most radical of which was depriving the Inquisition of its temporal jurisdiction; it declared the matter to be of greater importance than any other that could arise in the monarchy, and it concluded with an earnest and eloquent appeal for immediate action. The Inquisition, it said, was founding a supreme monarchy, superior to all others in the State. It was regarded with universal hatred in all the regions of the Indies and with servile fear by all, from the lowest to the greatest.[849]
Of course nothing was done and the condition of the colonies went on steadily deteriorating. To this the Inquisition contributed not only as a leading factor in internal misgovernment, but also by its hideous system under which the affluence of the tribunals depended upon the confiscations which they could levy. We have seen how large a part this played in their financial vicissitudes and how it was regarded on all hands with eager expectation, and it is doing no injustice to the kind of men sent out as inquisitors to assume that it was a motive far more potent than the desire to maintain the faith with exact justice. To say nothing of the cruel wrongs inflicted on countless victims, commerce could not flourish when the gains of the trader only served to render him a tempting prey to such men, armed with irresponsible power exercised through the inquisitorial process and shielded from criticism by the secrecy of procedure and the sternpunishment administered for complaint. The Suprema was constantly calling for remittances and, to satisfy its exigencies and their own wants, there could be small hesitation in prosecuting any merchant whose success might excite cupidity, especially when trade was so largely in the hands of descendants of New Christians. The benumbing effect of this on the withering prosperity of the colonies is self-evident.
How it fared with New Granada, under all the various depressing influences of Spanish policy, is described in a report, made in 1772, by Francisco Antonio Moreno y Escandon. The condition of the colony is represented as most deplorable and the tone of the report is that of utter hopelessness, in view of the universal decay and dilapidation. The local officials everywhere were indifferent and neglectful of duty; the people steeped in poverty; trade almost extinct; capital lacking and no opportunities of its employment, for the only source of support was the cultivation of little patches of land and the mining of the precious metals. There were no manufactures and no means of retaining money in the country, for, though it was bountiful in products, it was unable to cultivate for export in consequence of the restrictions imposed by the home Government; if freedom of export could be had for its cocoa, tobacco, precious woods, etc., it would flourish. The mines were still as rich as ever, but their product was greatly decreased; the province of Chico, which had large mineral wealth, was approachable by the river Atrato but, since 1730, the navigation of that stream was forbidden under pain of death. It is true that, in 1772, Viceroy Mexia obtained permission to send two vessels a year up the river, but the permits for this were held at a prohibitory price. The commerce with Spain consisted in one or two ships, with registered cargoes, annually from Cádiz to Cartagena, whence the goods were conveyed into the interior, but so burdened with duties and expenses that there was no profit in the trade. In the consequent absence of all industry every one sought to obtain support from the Government by procuring some little office. Thefrontier territories were “Missions,” under charge of frailes, the different Orders having charge of the various stations, while the Government defrayed the expenses and furnished guards of soldiers, which entailed heavy outlays with little result. They had all been established for at least a century but had failed to advance the propagation of the faith, for the Indians, when apparently converted and brought intopueblosor villages, would run away and take to the mountains. This Moreno explains by the absence of the apostolic spirit on the part of the missionaries, who undertook the career only to enjoy a life of ease and sloth.[850]The spirit of the secular clergy was even more reprehensible, if we may believe the relation drawn up by Viceroy Manuel de Guirior, in 1776, for the guidance of his successor. The deplorable condition of the Church he ascribes to its subordinating its spiritual duties to the exaction of taxes and tithes, in illustration of which he states that the parish priests omitted from their registers the records of marriages, baptisms and interments, in order to evade payment of the excessive fees levied by the bishops on their official functions.[851]To appreciate the full import of this we must bear in mind that on the completeness and accuracy of the parish registers depended the position in the community of every individual.
This degrading secularization of the Church was not confined to New Granada. When, in 1735, Don Jorje Juan and Don Antonio de Ulloa were sent to Quito, in company of the French men of science, to measure an equatorial degree of the earth’s surface, they were commissioned to investigate and report as to the condition of the colony in all its various aspects. The voluminous and detailed report which they presented, some ten years later, to the Marquis of la Ensenada, under Fernando VI, gives a vivid picture of the disorders of clerical life. Public prostitutes were scarce known in the cities, for licence and concubinage were so universal that there was no call for professionals. Dissolute as were the laity the clergy were worse, and of the clergy the regular Orders bore the palm for the effrontery of their scandalous mode of life—excepting, indeed, the Jesuits who are highly praised for their assiduity in their duties and the strictness with which the regulations of the Society were enforced, by the expulsion of all unworthy members. The disorders of the others are attributed to their wealth and idleness. The position of a provincial of any of the larger Orders, for the regular term of three years, was worth from 300,000 to 400,000 pesos, derived from the patronage of guardianships, priories, parish churches and plantations, which were distributed to those of his faction who would pay proportionately for them—payments for which they recouped themselves by grinding exactions on their parishioners and subjects. The convents were dens of prostitution, occupied only by those who could not afford separate establishments. The wealthier ones lived in their own houses with the concubines whom they changed at will and the children in whom they took no shame, and these houses were the scenes of gambling, dancing and drinking, causing frequent scandalous disorders which the police were unable to check, as the civil power had no jurisdiction over the clergy. Notwithstanding this extravagance, their revenues were so large that all the best lands in the colony were rapidly passing into their possession, and this was especially the case with the Jesuits, who husbanded their resources and managed their extensive properties with businesslike precision. What plantations were left to the laity were mostly burdened with heavy ground-rents and there was danger, if the process were not checked, that eventually the whole land would pass intomainmorte. As regards the missions, the report bears the same testimony as we have seen in New Granada. With the exceptions of the Jesuits, the Religious Orders, whose presence in the colony was based on the pretext of spreading the faith, were too worldly and indolent to devote themselves to that duty and the Jesuits were apt to find that when they sought to civilize theirconverts, these interesting neophytes would murder them and take to the mountains.[852]
All this frightful demoralization was beneath the attention of the Inquisition. Its business was the salvation of souls by enforcing unity of faith, and its duties as to morals were confined to destroying such works of art as it considered to be improper. Yet Ensenada, if he took the trouble to read the report so laboriously prepared, might reasonably ask himself whether a system which led to such results was fitted either for the spiritual or the material benefit of the populations subjected to the Spanish monarchy.