This all appears definite enough, but it was easily evaded. At first there seems to have been a disposition to conform to itsintent. In 1575 a familiar named Rodrigo de Yepes, who had given the lie to, and repeatedly struck in the face, the alcalde of Valladola, was arrested by the civil magistrate and claimed by the tribunal but, after a competencia, or discussion of the case by the civil and inquisitorial authorities, the latter admitted that it was excepted and surrendered him. On the other hand, in 1615, Diego de Carmona Jamariz, a familiar of Puebla, was arrested for the murder of his enemy, Joan de Olivárez, and was surrendered to the Inquisition without a competencia, although murder would seem to be a greater crime than highway robbery or burglary. The widow prosecuted him before the tribunal, but it was useless and the case was dropped. In Spain, the Inquisition had devised the ingenious argument that, until a crime was proved, it could not be classed as excepted and therefore the affair was under its jurisdiction until conviction, which enabled it to protect its familiars, and this plea was used, in 1616, in the case of Gonzalo Antúnez Yáñez, a familiar, prosecuted by order of the viceroy.[484]
It was not only the familiars who gave trouble, but the numerous other unsalaried officials. The commissioners with their notaries and alguazils formed little groups in the provincial towns, of which the members supported each other and set the magistrates and courts at defiance. In the original instructions issued to the inquisitors they were admonished to be careful in the selection of commissioners, who were not to interfere with the constituted authorities or to provoke quarrels, but were merely to execute the mandates of the tribunal and to report on such matters as should present themselves.[485]Distance and the difficulty of communication, however, rendered them prone to abuse their position, and in this they were emboldened by the unwavering support of the tribunal. Throughout all theSpanish Colonies the commissioner was an object of dread and the subject of perpetual complaint on the part of the secular and ecclesiastical powers. The general sentiment is expressed, as late as 1777, by Santiago Joseph, Bishop of Cuba, in a letter to Inquisitor-general Bertran. All the commissioners whom he had known, he said, had been ignorant persons, with the exception of one whose term of service was brief. There was no salary to attract competent men and the place was taken only to serve as an excuse for neglecting all clerical functions and duties. The commerce of Havana brought numerous heretics who scattered their poison and he dared not interpose for fear of the consequences of invading inquisitorial jurisdiction. The existing incumbent paid no attention to this and, when not absent, was wholly occupied in stirring up quarrels with the civil authorities.[486]
The commissioners of Mexico fully justified this characterization by the good bishop. In the great majority of cases the hopelessness of resistance to their arbitrary acts caused submission, but occasionally one emerges to light which illustrates the spirit animating the Inquisition and its officials. In 1699, Father Pistoya, S. J., the ecclesiastical judge of Sinaloa, prosecuted Martin de Verastegui for incestuous adultery with Maria García. Thereupon his intimate friend, Pérez de Ribera, the commissioner, to protect him, promptly appointed him notary, an act for which he had no authority. Pistoya sent the evidence in the case to the royal court of Guadalajara (Jalisco), which ordered the Governor of Sinaloa, Don Jacinto de Fuensaldaña, to arrest the guilty pair, embargo their property and send them to the royal prison of Guadalajara. Ribera claimed him as an official of the Inquisition and, on refusal, excommunicated the governor and the military officers who had executed his orders and posted them as such on the tablillas of the church. Thetribunal sustained its commissioner; the governor was obliged to appear before it and beg for absolution; the commissioner was empowered to take testimony in the case and report it to the tribunal, which naturally found the parties innocent and Verastegui was rewarded with a genuine notary’s commission in lieu of the fictitious one which had protected him from justice. It is no wonder that, in replying to their report of another outrageous case in 1695, the Suprema had sharply rebuked the inquisitors, ordering them to act with justice and moderation and prevent the complaints of their proceedings, which came daily to the king from the Council of Indies, but the case of Verastegui shows how little respect they paid to the admonition.[487]
Yet, with all this, there were comparatively few of the bitter struggles, so frequent in Spain during this period, between the royal and inquisitorial jurisdictions. It was not that the inquisitors were less arbitrary and audacious than at home, for their distance from the court rendered them even more independent, but that the secular magistracy felt its weakness and offered less resolute resistance. Spain was far off and the viceroy, though representing the royal autocracy, was under strict orders to show every favor to the Inquisition. There was kept in the royal chancellery the formula of a letter to all viceroys, emphasizing the great services of the Inquisition to religion and to the king and ordering it to be favored and guarded in all its privileges, exemptions and liberties, including those of its officials and familiars. Adherence to this would be regarded as most acceptable service and the contrary would not be permitted.[488]This portentous document was sent to the Viceroys of Mexico and Peru in 1603 and was doubtless repeated to them whenever necessary, as it was to other royal representatives at subsequent periods. As a rule however the viceroys and the tribunal were at odds and their quarrels were not conducive to popular tranquillity or edification. More than once we find viceroys likeMancera, Cerralbo and Gelvez threatening the inquisitors with banishment.[489]
As a matter of course, under such auspices, colonial inquisitors could never be restrained within the limit of their rightful prerogatives, great as these were. A royal cédula of January 20, 1587, scolds those of Lima for illegal protection of their familiars and for vexing the local magistrates by summoning them from long distances before the tribunal. Another of March 8, 1589, rebukes them for creating too many familiars and other officials. Another of August 23, 1595, reprimands those of Mexico for supporting a familiar in refusing to render an account to the royal chancery of his functions as custom-house officer at Vera Cruz.[490]These complaints were of almost daily occurrence until at length Philip III sought to cut them off at the root by forming a junta of two members from each of the Councils of the Inquisition and of Indies to advise him. After mature deliberation they did so and the result is what is known as the Concordia of 1610. The prohibitions embodied in this are eloquent of the audacity of the inquisitors in exceeding their functions, abusing their authority in matters wholly outside of their jurisdiction and exercising an insufferably vexatious petty tyranny, the exasperating effect of which was intensified by the immunity enjoyed by the servants and slaves of the officials. These were justiciable only by the tribunal, which invariably protected them, so that the community was exposed without redress to the insolence of a class peculiarly apt to abuse its privileges.
Under pain of forfeiture of office the inquisitors were forbidden, directly or indirectly, by themselves or their kindred, to farm the public revenues or to prevent their being farmed to the highest bidder. Neither they nor the salaried officials were to engage in any kind of trade, under the same penalty. They were not to claim the right of seizing articles at an appraised price, except under urgent necessity for the support of the prisoners or buildingsof the Inquisition. Their negroes were not to carry arms except when accompanying their masters. They were not to defend commissioners or familiars in frauds on the revenue nor in refusing to render an account of deposits made with them by order of court. They were not to detain the couriers and messengers who served as a rudimentary post-office and were to remove the prohibition against vessels leaving port or passengers departing without their licence. They were not to arrest the royal alguazils except for grave and notorious excess against the Inquisition. They were to be allowed one alguazil in Vera Cruz and were to dismiss all those appointed elsewhere.[491]They were not to protect familiars, who held public office, when prosecuted for official malfeasance, nor commissioners who held benefices for offences committed in their character of incumbents. They were not to order universities to grant degrees in contravention of their statutes, nor were they to interfere in matters of government apart from their functions. They were not to excommunicate a viceroy in cases of competencia, nor was the viceroy to evoke to himself a case that might lead to a competencia. A provision was also made for the settlement of competencias without the tedious resort to the councils in Spain. If the senior judge and senior inquisitor could not agree in their conference, the inquisitors were to name three ecclesiastical dignitaries to the viceroy, who was to select one; he was to be adjoined to the judge and inquisitor and the majority was to decide or, if there were three discordant opinions, the viceroy was to choose between them.[492]
This project for the settlement of competencias was ineffective. A cédula of February 7, 1569, had extended to the colonies the system in force at home, and under it there had been in Mexico,during the remainder of the century, seven cases; there was one in 1601 and another in 1602, after which they ceased.[493]Solorzano tells us that they were not revived by the new regulations, which omitted to specify the place where the conferences were to be held, and the judges and inquisitors each summoned the others to come to them. The judges had old custom and royal cédulas on their side, but the inquisitors refused compliance because the orders had not been transmitted to them through the Suprema which they claimed was requisite to their validity, and thus important cases, both civil and criminal, remained undecided, to the great injury of individuals and the public. Moved by the complaints thus occasioned, Philip III, in a cédula of November 19, 1618, ordered that the conferences be held in the vice-regal palace, where the senior judge was to have precedence over the inquisitor, and this was repeated in a cédula to the court of Lima, May 28, 1621, but again the inquisitors of both Mexico and Peru refused obedience on the same pretext as before. Thus cases continued undecided until the urgency of the Council of Indies led Philip IV to consult both councils and, in 1636, he ordered that the judge and inquisitor should meet before the viceroy, the one who was senior in office taking the right hand.[494]This compromise did not suit the pretensions of the Holy Office for precedence and it gained the victory in a cédula of May 30, 1640, which recites that, after many conferences, it was determined that the senior judge must go to the Inquisition, where the senior inquisitor was to have precedence, when the competencia was to be settled under the provisions of the Concordia of 1610.[495]Apparently this assumption of their inferiority was insufferable to the judges, for no formal competencia occurred between 1602 and 1711. Matters in dispute were occasionally referred to the councils in Spain, but this was of little benefitfor it was usually the last heard of the case.[496]To appreciate fully the cruelty of all this, we must reflect that perhaps some accused person or unlucky alguazil, arrested for executing the orders of his superiors, might be languishing in gaol for a life-time, awaiting the settlement of a conflict of jurisdiction which could never be settled.
Whether or not the other prescriptions of the Concordia of 1610 were better observed than those concerning competencias it would be difficult to determine, but the presumption is adverse. At all events, inquisitorial ingenuity was constantly devising new methods of aggression and further complaints led Philip IV to assemble a junta of two members of each council, whose conferences resulted in the enactment of another Concordia, published April 11, 1633. Many of its clauses relate to the ever-present question of precedence, which need not detain us here, except the suggestive one that, at bull-fights in the plaza, the first courses are to be performed before the secular authorities, unless the latter, of their own accord, desire that honor to be paid to the inquisitors. Equally suggestive in another way are the prescriptions that commissioners shall treat the public courteously and that inquisitors shall treat the judges with respect and shall cease molesting the officers of the royal courts with censures and summoning and detaining them. They are again forbidden to engage in trade and are told not to interfere with the elections of secular officials nor, in times of scarcity, are they to persecute with excommunications the guards in charge of boats bringing grain, but are to apply to the viceroy, who will promptly supply their wants. The prohibition of detaining ships is repeated, but they are allowed to grant licences for sailing and for individuals to depart, which practically amounted to the same thing. The inquisitors seem to have gained their point as to the right of seizing goods and materials at a “just price,” for this is allowed, subject to some limitations. The inviolability of the domicile of inquisitors is admitted in the provision that it is not to be abusedby secreting goods to the prejudice of third parties; and, in the case of salaried officials, it is limited by a clause that when it is necessary for officers of justice to enter the house of such official, or of the widow of one during her widowhood, notice shall first be given to the tribunal, which shall appoint one of its ministers to be present, with an appointee of the viceroy or court and, if such an appointment is not made within two or three hours, the entry can be made without longer waiting. One of the petty privileges which gave rise to constant exacerbation is indicated in the provision that, of the cattle slaughtered in the public shambles, there shall be given weekly the chine and chitterlings of ten oxen—two to each of the inquisitors, one to the alguazil and secretaries, one to the receiver and notary of sequestrations, and the rest to the poor prisoners; this is said to be all that the tribunal is entitled to and anything more must be paid for, nor shall its servants take the chitterlings and sell them.[497]
Concordias were only attempts to restrain existing abuses and they could not provide for the perpetual new aggressions suggested by the facile weapon of excommunication through which the Inquisition could overcome the resistance of the secular authorities. The distribution of quicksilver, for instance, to the miners was a matter jealously reserved to the viceroy and the junta of the treasury but, when the Inquisition wanted it for some mines belonging to it in Zacatecas, it forced, by threats of excommunication, the royal officials to supply its demands. Viceroy Mancera, in a letter of December 8, 1666, complains of this and of a case in which the royal treasurer of Guadalajara owed a personal debt to the tribunal of 980 pesos and the commissioner there, by order of the acting inquisitor and visitador, Medina Rico, forced the auditor of the treasury to pay it out of the royal funds, by threats of excommunication and of a fine of 500 pesos. Mancera endeavored by courteous remonstrance to obtain restitution but, after the inquisitors had insulted him, he only succeeded in getting 600 pesos returned. In reportingthese matters to the king, the Council of Indies pointed out forcibly how incompatible with subordination and good government were these arbitrary extensions of inquisitorial jurisdiction over matters wholly foreign to the objects of its institution.[498]
Indeed, the existence of so uncontrollable and disturbing an element goes far to explain the ill-success of Spanish colonial administration. In 1615, Fray Isidro Ordoñez, commissioner in San Francisco del Nuevo Mexico, under pretext of a fictitious order from the tribunal, gathered a band of soldiers and citizens, to whom inquisitorial orders were supreme, and seized Don Pedro de Peralta, Governor of New Mexico, and held him in irons for nine months. Peralta managed to complain to the tribunal, which summoned Ordoñez to the capital and assigned to him his convent for a prison, but Peralta obtained no satisfaction beyond a declaration that there had been no cause for his arrest, while Ordoñez, in place of the severe punishment which he merited, was permitted to attend the general chapter of his Order in Rome, as procurator of the province of Mexico.[499]Another Governor of New Mexico, Diego de Peñalosa, fared even worse when, for indiscreet words about priests and inquisitors and expressions verging on blasphemy, he was exposed to the humiliation of appearing as a penitent in the auto de fe of February 3, 1668—thus virtually incapacitating him for further service.[500]It was not without grounds that the Council of Indies, in 1696, addressed a formal remonstrance to Carlos II, recapitulating a long array of abuses and violences, showing the impossibility of enforcing observance of the Concordias or obedience to the royal commands. Prelates and governors were alike sufferers from the irrepressible audacity which admitted no responsibility to any one, so long as it was upheld and justified by the Suprema at home, and the council supplicated the king, if not for the total extinction ofthe tribunal, at least for the dismissal of the officials. Without some thorough change the retention of the colonies could scarce be hoped for, as all the population was inspired with a common hatred arising from its violence.[501]
As the council says, prelates were as liable as royal officials to be subjected to the lawless action of the tribunal. There never were lacking pretexts for quarrel. In 1617 Archbishop Pedro de Villareal fared badly in a rupture caused by his inserting in an edict some matters which the tribunal claimed to belong to its jurisdiction. In 1623 Bishop Bohorques of Oaxaca had the same experience because he styled himself Inquisidor Ordinario. The episcopate of Archbishop Matheo Sagade Bugueiro, from 1655 to 1662, was a succession of bitter dissensions, during which Bernardino de Amezaga, chief notary of the court of testaments, was arrested by the tribunal, deprived of his office and banished, while Francisco de Bermeo, contador of the Santa Cruzada, was kept long in prison, fined 200 pesos and a negro slave of his was sold to defray it. In 1658 the archbishop made a demand that all edicts read in his cathedral must first be shown to him in order to satisfy him that they contained nothing that invaded his jurisdiction, and his action in enforcing this claim led the tribunal to publish a manifesto declaring that, under the bullSi de protegendis, he had incurred degradation and relaxation to the secular arm.[502]
There was one case, however, in which the tribunal and the Archbishop of Mexico combined for the persecution of a bishop, for Juan de Mañozca, the archbishop from 1643 to 1653, was cousin of the inquisitor of the same name. The saintly Bishop Juan de Palafox of Puebla, in his capacity of visitador and protector of the Indians, incurred the enmity of the archbishop and of the Viceroy Salvatierra, and an occasion of gratifying it occurredwhen he undertook to guard his episcopal jurisdiction against the encroachments of the Jesuits. They appointedjueces conservadoresto protect their interests and the tribunal rushed eagerly into the fray, with which it had absolutely no right to intervene.[503]It ordered the suppression of the writings and edicts of Palafox and forbade any interference with those of the conservators; it sent a commissioner to Puebla who terrorized the community by arresting prominent priests and citizens of the bishop’s party, parading them through the streets in chains and sending them to Mexico, where they were thrown into the secret prison, thus inflicting indelible disgrace on them and their posterity. In spite of the exemption of Indians from inquisitorial jurisdiction, he flogged nearly to death, with four hundred lashes, an unfortunate Indian who, at the command of a citizen, had taken down one of the conservators’ edicts. Palafox was advised that he too would be arrested and fled to the mountains, where he lay concealed for several months.[504]When, in 1647, he appealed to the Suprema, powers were sent to the Bishop of Oaxaca to investigate and report, but Archbishop Mañozca threw every impediment in his way and, in his capacity of visitador of theInquisition, assumed to annul his commission. He appealed to the Bishop of Yucatan, then Governor of New Spain, and to the Audiencia for support, but the archbishop threatened to excommunicate them all and they prudently declined the conflict. Palafox represents to the Suprema that his life was in danger and he begs to be allowed to return to Spain.[505]The combination of the archbishopric and Inquisition, under the two Mañozcas, evidently held the whole land in its grasp, and no one was hardy enough to oppose it. Palafox was obliged to abandon Mexico, but he eventually secured a decision in his favor on an appeal to Rome.
An episode of this case is worth recounting in some detail, not only as illustrating inquisitorial methods but as a rare instance of a victim obtaining a measure of satisfaction. Doctor Juan de la Camara, a canon of the cathedral, was a man of noble birth, proud of his unblemishedlimpieza, and his appointment as visitador of the see of Guadalajara indicates the estimation in which he was held by his superiors. Unfortunately he was a friend and correspondent of Palafox. When, in 1646, a bitter libel was circulated against the latter, one of the judges of the Audiencia, Alonso González de Villalba, was included in it. Palafox endured the attack in silence and endeavored to make Villalba follow his example, but the latter was so incensed that he wrote a reply in which he handled roughly the inquisitor Mañozca. He showed it to his neighbor Camara, who returned it without comment and said nothing about it except to Don Antonio Urrutía de Vergara, to whom he mentioned it in order that he might tell the archbishop, and to a Doña Catalina de Diosdado, to whom he merely said that he had seen two scandalous papers and that, if the author confessed to him, he would not absolve him.
There was a chance that among his papers something might befound to compromise Palafox, so an order of arrest with sequestration of property was made out, February 7, 1647. At eight o’clock in the morning Camara was roused from his bed and taken in his own carriage to the secret prison, where he was confined in a cell of which the window had been blocked up, so that the single candle to which he was restricted was his only light by day and night. Here he was keptincomunicadofor twenty days. After the tenth day, however, on which he was examined, the obstructions were removed from the window and, after the twentieth, his brother, Fray Diego, and some other friends were permitted to see him on obtaining a special licence for each visit. Meanwhile his papers had been carried off to the tribunal, without being inventoried as required by the Instructions; on the day after his arrest his household effects were inventoried and placed in the hands of the receiver, Juan González de Castro, as depository, but they were not removed from the house and no care was taken to ensure their safety.
At nightfall of March 15th he was taken back to his house and told that it was henceforth to be his prison, under pain of excommunication and a thousand ducats. On April 1st his prison was enlarged to the city, under the same penalties, and he was enabled to resume his duties at the cathedral. Of course the immurement in the secret prison, with sequestration of property, of so prominent an ecclesiastic, caused a general sensation; it was at the height of the prosecution of the Judaizers and the inevitable conclusion was that they had implicated him, so that a stain was cast upon his honor which no subsequent exculpation could wholly efface. His papers were withheld from him; his house had been richly furnished, with abundance of silver plate and linen, much of which had disappeared, and he seems to have deplored especially the loss of eighteen ounces of amber. His trial remained unconcluded and his repeated applications for a decision and for the restoration of missing property were filed away without action. His only hope of escape from prolonged and intolerable suspense lay in appealing to theSuprema. The inquisitors had already sought to prejudice it against him for, in a letter of May 20th, they spoke of the incredible efforts and diabolical means employed to intimidate them from the performance of their duty in the matter of Palafox; Camara was an accomplice of Villalba in publishing the libel; he had perjured himself in his confessions and might be assumed to be the author of the worst passages in it. In spite of this the Suprema, by a decree of September 28, 1647, ordered his release, on the security of his oath, and the sequestration of his property to be removed.
Camara succeeded in secretly obtaining from the king an order, November 16, 1647, permitting him to go to Spain, but he was impoverished and sent his brother, Fray Diego, to act for him. The mission occupied Diego for several years, but he finally procured from the Suprema a commission to the Inquisitor Higuera to try the case promptly for, during all this time, it had been held suspended over Camara’s head. This was presented, February 15, 1650, and, on the following July 12th, Higuera, who was at odds with Mañozca, rendered a sentence acquitting him and restoring him to his previous good fame, so that his arrest should work no prejudice to him or to his kindred and their descendants; also that the chapter should pay him all the accrued fruits of his prebend and that his papers and property should be returned to him. From this Camara appealed to the Suprema, which confirmed it, July 7, 1651; then the fiscal of the Suprema appealed and it was again confirmed, July 31st. The whole prosecution was thus stamped as being malicious and groundless, but nevertheless Camara in vain endeavored to regain possession of his papers and of his missing effects.
Archbishop Mañozca died in 1653; the affair of Palafox had created no little scandal in Spain and, in 1654, a new visitador, Pedro de Medina Rico, was sent out with instructions especially to investigate it. Camara promptly set forth his grievances, in September, in a complaint against Estrada and Higuera—for apparently Mañozca, as the subject of the libel, had not sat inthe trial. On December 1st he made his formal charges in a criminal action against them, laying his damages at 12,000 pesos, which he claimed to be the amount which the affair had cost him in losses and expenses. It was a bold undertaking and probably unexampled, and he found it impossible to secure the necessary legal assistance for, on January 20, 1655, he represented that none of the procurators of the Audiencia would serve him, wherefore he prayed for an order on Juan de Escobar to appear for him. It was granted and enforced with a penalty of fifty pesos, under pressure of which Escobar took charge of the case. In the same way his witnesses refused to appear until he procured orders on them, with censures for disobedience. The action went slowly on through its various stages; the inquisitors made no effort to justify what they had done and confined their defence to alleging that the affair was acosa juzgada, which could not be reopened, and to interjecting appeals to the Suprema at every adverse interlocutory decree. It was not until May 31, 1656, that Medina Rico pronounced sentence to the effect that Camara had proved his case completely and that Estrada and Higuera had alleged nothing to palliate their grave offence, the punishment of which he reserved for future decision. As to what affected the interest of the plaintiff, he condemned them jointly and severally to pay him two thousand pesos. The receiver, or depository, was ordered to restore to him everything shown in the inventory and, if it appeared that articles were not deposited with him, the inquisitors must make them good under penalty of a thousand pesos. From this the inquisitors appealed and, after protracted argument, Rico suspended the order to pay the two thousand pesos until the Suprema should decide the appeal, but that the rest of the sentence should be executed without awaiting its action. Then followed a long and confused litigation with the executor of the receiver de Castro, who had been dead for many years and his estate distributed. The documents preserved end with November 14, 1657, at which time they were made up for transmission to the Suprema and what was its final decisioncannot be told.[506]It is evident that Camara obtained little compensation for his sufferings, but at least he had the satisfaction of seeing his persecutors punished, although inadequately, for official offenders were always treated tenderly by the Inquisition. Medina Rico, as the result of his visitation, formulated hundreds of charges against them, collectively and individually, and rendered sentence, May 17, 1662, in the audience-chamber, where all the officials were assembled. Estrada was condemned to severe reprimand, to a fine of 1500 pesos and to four years’ suspension, though, as he had died October 26, 1661, the penalty fell only on his heirs. Higuera was sentenced to a fine of a hundred pesos and two years’ suspension, which he endured until May 16, 1664. Mañozca was visited more heavily with a fine of 1300 pesos and nine years of suspension.[507]This he could afford to disregard for, in the autumn of 1661, he had been provided with the bishopric of Santiago de Cuba whence, in 1666, he was transferred to that of Guatemala and finally, in 1675, he obtained the wealthy see of Puebla, from which he had driven Palafox. Retributive justice, however, at last overtook him, for he died before he could take possession.[508]Such were the men who largely filled the tribunals and episcopates of the Colonies.
Among the privileges claimed by the Inquisition was exemption from military service. This was strictly limited by the Concordia of 1633. Officials holding commissions from the inquisitor-general were exempted from appearing in the general musters, but familiars were not, unless actually on duty for the tribunal and, if the enemy was in sight, all were liable to service, save those necessary to guard the papers and records of the tribunal, to whom certificates were to be given. As might be expected, however, little respect was paid to these provisions. In 1685, the alcalde of Puebla called a muster of the citizens to marchto the succor of Campeachy. Hipolito del Castillo, alguazil and familiar, claimed exemption, to which he was clearly not entitled. The alcalde threatened to send him on a mule to Campeachy and in effect threw him into prison, placed his head in the pillory and made him pay a fine of 120 pesos. The commissioner at Puebla defended Castillo and, on appeal to the Inquisition, it ordered the money to be returned. Again, in 1718, when eight companies of merchants were formed in Puebla, by order of the viceroy, to make the rounds of the city and drive out malefactors, Martínez de Castro, a familiar and trader, was enrolled; he protested and appealed to the Inquisition, which ordered his discharge, in which the authorities immediately acquiesced.[509]
The inquisitorial function of censorship was by no means neglected. Even before the establishment of the tribunal, it was felt necessary to guard the faithful from the infection of heretical books and, in 1561, Inquisitor-general Valdés sent to Archbishop Montufar a commission empowering him to examine the book-shops for that purpose.[510]This conveyed no censorial power, but Páramo proudly asserts that, almost at the inception of the Holy Office, calificadores were appointed who exercised a most vigilant supervision over all books introduced into the colony, even over those which had passed the examination of the Suprema itself, and who occasionally had the satisfaction of showing that books widely circulated in Spain required expurgation. In fact, a letter of the Suprema respecting the Index then in preparation shows that, as early as 1573, censures of books were received from Mexico. The position of calificador, like that of inquisitor, seems to have been a stepping-stone to the bishop’s chair, for the first one was Domingo de Salazar, promoted, in 1581, to the archiepiscopate of the Philippines; the second was Bartolomé de Ledesma, who in 1581 became Bishop of Oaxaca, and the third was Pedro de Ribera, who in1594 was elected Bishop of Panama, but died on the road to take possession.[511]Apparently the office was one not always easy to fill. In a letter of September 1, 1655, the tribunal informed the Suprema that it was in need of correctors of books and calificadores and it sent the genealogy of Padre Juan Hortiz, Rector of the Jesuit College, as a fit person, though he had not studied theology; the tribunal of Logroño thereupon reported favorably as to hislimpiezaand, on November 11, 1659, after four years of delay, the commission for him was sent.[512]It will be seen from all this that the Mexican Inquisition exercised an independent function of censorship; the earliest printing-press in the New World was established in the city of Mexico and its products were supervised by the tribunal, which condemned them, when necessary, without awaiting a reference to distant Spain. Prohibitory edicts, moreover, emanating from the home censorship, were duly published from every parish pulpit between the Caribbean and the Pacific.[513]
As was the case in Spain, censorship was not confined to literature but extended to works of art which might offend sensitiveness either of modesty or of veneration. The degree to which this might interfere with affairs of daily life depended upon the discretion of the tribunal, as was instanced by an edict of March 2, 1600. This prohibited all crosses, heads of Christ, the Virgin and the saints and scenes from sacred history carved or engraved or painted or embroidered on furniture, bed-clothing, napery, utensils of all kinds, or other places where these sacred symbols might be exposed to disrespect, and everything of the kind was to be surrendered for the erasure of the images. As Spanishpiety had luxuriated in the use of such emblems wherever possible, this raised a cloud of questions, which Fray Diego Múñoz, commissioner at Mechoacan, endeavored to settle in instructions issued to his delegate at Querétaro. Thus branding-irons for cattle and horses, that had a cross on them, were to be surrendered; as for beasts already so branded, the marks were to be erased where possible. Men tattooed with crosses or the name of Jesus were to efface them within fifteen days. Thimbles so adorned, if of gold or silver, were to be returned after filing off the symbols. Moulds for pastry with sacred heads were allowable, because the pastry was eaten and not treated with indecency, and it was the same with tapestries and wall-hangings. That the opportunities afforded by this decree were not neglected is indicated in a complaint to the tribunal from Juan Rodríguez of Querétaro, who relates that Fray Francisco de Parra, Guardian of the Franciscan convent, under orders from Múñoz, had seized and carried off to the convent a bedstead of gilt wood, costing 500 pesos, because it had some carved heads, which were not of Christ or angels; also counterpanes, pillows, curtains, towels, etc., because they had crosses or the word Jesus embroidered on them, and finger-rings with five stones set as a cross. Others had suffered in the same way, and Rodríguez prayed for the restoration of the articles.[514]
Incident to the censorship was thevisita de navíos, or search of all vessels on their arrival, regarded as an indispensable duty to prevent the importation of forbidden books and the immigration of suspected heretics and Judaizers, as well as to ascertain whether, during the voyage, any one on board had committed acts subjecting him to inquisitorial jurisdiction. As in Spain, this performance inevitably led to friction with the secular authorities of the sea-ports. As early as 1584 there is a prosecution of Hernando de Moxica, alcalde mayor, and of Diego de Yepes, regidor of Vera Cruz, for impeding the commissioner inthis work and speaking disrespectfully of it, resulting in a fine of five hundred pieces each, with excommunication until they should withdraw their opposition.[515]Of course it was difficult to control the officials of the tribunal in the matter of fees and to keep the peace between them and the royal representatives as to questions of precedence, points which the Concordia of 1633 endeavored to regulate by fixing the fee at four pesos, of which two accrued to the commissioner and one each to the alguazil and notary, an amount never to be exceeded, no matter how many assistants might be employed, while existing orders were to be strictly observed as to their concurrence with the royal officials.[516]Of course it was not easy for the Inquisition to maintain supervision over so extended a coast. In a consulta of February 15, 1620, the Suprema informed Philip III that there had recently been printed in Holland large numbers of Spanish Bibles to be sent to the colonies and, as the Inquisition was unable to prevent their introduction unaided, the king was asked to instruct the royal officials to exercise greater vigilance. To this he assented and the request was renewed, June 28, 1629. It was probably to meet this that, in 1633, an agreement between the Suprema and the Council of Indies permitted the appointment of an alguazil in Yucatan to aid in searching the ships arriving at the ports.[517]
With the advent of the Bourbon dynasty, there occurs, in Mexico as in Spain, a disposition on the part of the secular authorities to restrain the overbearing petulance and audacity of the Holy Office. It is true that the tribunal obtained a victory in 1712, in a quarrel with the Royal Audiencia which had prosecuted its notary, and it was so overjoyed that it hastened to communicate the fact to the tribunal of Lima so that it might serve as a precedent. It related how the royal cédula of 1640, repeated in1667 and 1701, had been strictly observed, when the senior judge came to the competencia and occupied the lowest seat and the decision was that the notary was entitled to thefueroof the Holy Office.[518]Though competencias thus commenced to reappear they did not always end so satisfactorily. In 1722, Joseph Freire de Somorostro, commissioner in Zacatapan, was fined 500 pesos and suspended for six years from his functions as an advocate by the royal court, for an offence against its authority. He appealed to the tribunal which, in its customary threatening methods, demanded that the papers in the case be delivered to it within fifteen days, but they were withheld. It succeeded better in the case of Alonso Diaz de la Vega, alguazil of Goamantla who, in 1723, was concerned with his son in a quarrel, in which a man was killed. They were arrested and prosecuted, but the tribunal interfered vigorously, obtained possession of both father and son, gave notice that prosecutors must present themselves within eight days and, as none appeared, discharged the accused—thus affording convincing proof of the advantage of the fuero to criminals. It showed, however, a juster sense of the limitations of its jurisdiction in another case of the same year which illustrates the tendency of its officials to obstruct the secular authorities. The Castellan of Vera Cruz complained to the viceroy of the commissioner, Gregorio de Salinas, who had assisted the mutineers of the fleet in demanding their pay and had defended the asylum of the convent of San Francisco, in which they had taken refuge. The viceroy forwarded the statement to the tribunal, which forthwith ordered the commissioner to desist; the Inquisition had nothing to do with the matter; if he had assembled the officials of the Inquisition with their badges and had taken them to the convent to defend its right of asylum, he had done very wrong and must instruct each of them, before a notary, to keep aloof and he must, in the same way, withdraw the delegated power given to the superior of the convent. It does not appear however that the peccant commissioner was punished in any wayfor this inexcusable prostitution of the authority of the Holy Office. Another case, in the same year, illustrates the multifarious ways in which these petty local officials abused the mysterious attributes with which they were invested. Valdés la Vandera, commissioner of Valle de Santa Barbara, claimed fees for all interments to which he was invited, even when he did not wear surplice and cap as ordered by the Constitucion Sinodal and, not content with this, charged double fees; he also demanded that, in the assemblies of Corpus, San Pedro and other feasts of obligation, he should have the highest place, in virtue of being commissioner. The clergy complained to the tribunal, which condemned his pretensions and ordered him to desist.[519]
The enlightened despotism of Carlos III brought increased tendency to curtail the privileges of the Inquisition and to curb its audacity. A cédula of February 29, 1760, declares that the titular and salaried officials shall enjoy the fuero only as defendants, in both civil and criminal matters, and wholly withdraws that of the familiars. Also that in clear and notorious cases there shall be no competencia, but that the viceroy, as the personal representative of the sovereign, shall decide what is fitting to prevent invasion of the royal jurisdiction.[520]The transitory liberalism of the period greatly diminished the traditional awe inspired by the Inquisition. About the year 1767, it had a serious conflict with the Audiencia, over the case of a Doctor Bechi, in which the royal fiscal, during his argument, treated it with scant respect, reciting how Charles V had been obliged to limit its jurisdiction in Sicily, how the reigning monarch had exiled from court the Inquisitor-general Quintano Bonifaz, and hinting not obscurely that, if it was abolished, substitutes for it could be found—all of which was made the subject of bitter, and apparently fruitless, remonstrance to the king by the Suprema, in a consulta of February 29, 1768. This unprecedented freedomof speech reveals the existence of a belief in some impending change, and this was stimulated by the startling expulsion of the Jesuits, skilfully managed by the viceroy, the Marquis de Croix, June 25, 1767. The foundations of the ecclesiastical structure seemed to be crumbling and there arose a universally accredited rumor that the Inquisition would be the next to suffer. So definite did this become that the day was fixed for September 3d and the precaution taken by the viceroy, in anticipation of disturbance, by keeping troops under arms all that night, especially in the quarter where the Inquisition was situated, only strengthened the delusion. So firmly rooted was this that, when the night passed away without the expected event, the archbishop called upon the viceroy to learn for himself the truth of the belief that the suppression had only been postponed until certain pending trials should be completed.[521]
During this period of decadence the functions of the tribunal, in its proper sphere of action, amounted to little more than punishing a few bigamists, so-called sorcerers and soliciting confessors. In 1702 it reported only four cases pending—three forbigamy and a Jesuit, Padre Francisco de Figueroa, for what was known as flagellation, or stripping female penitents and using the discipline on them, an offence akin to solicitation.[522]Yet in an auto of 1704 it exhibited eight bigamists and two sorcerers and, in one of 1708, it had thirteen penitents of whom five were bigamists. There was an exception in 1712 when it had the fortune to present a Judaizer who had denounced himself and begged for mercy, notwithstanding which he was condemned to appear in an auto with a gag and to irremissible prison and sanbenito for life. In 1712-13 there were eleven convictions for solicitation and in 1722 an auto with twelve penitents, of whom nine were bigamists, followed soon afterwards with five cases of solicitation. So it went on, gradually diminishing and affording less and less justification for the existence of the tribunal with its large revenues, though when it had an opportunity it demonstrated that it retained its capacity for evil, as in the case of a naval lieutenant, Manuel Germa de Bahamonde, arrested February 24, 1735, for heretical propositions and, after nine years of incarceration, pronounced insane in 1744, when he was sent to the castle of San Juan de Ulua pending transmission to Spain.[523]
After 1750 there was some increase in business, arising from the prevalence of blasphemy and irreligion in the army, especially in the regiments of foreigners, and cases became more numerous among foreign residents accused of heresy and free-thinking. It was doubtless owing to this that Fernando VI, in a decree of December 31, 1756, imposed the death penalty on recruits who pretended Catholicism in order to enlistment—a severity modified in 1765 by Carlos III to expulsion from the kingdom.[524]In spite of these measures, the tribunal, in a letter of April 28, 1766, complained of the number of foreigners sent to Mexico among the troops—their disseminating the heresies of Luther and Calvin and of total irreligion, and their justification of England, thus diminishing the horror and detestation felt by the natives forthe English, which it was so desirable to maintain. The Suprema represented this to Carlos, who thereupon ordered that no soldiers should be sent to the Indies who were not assuredly Catholics.[525]
The increasing discredit into which the tribunal had fallen and the widely spread rumors, as we have seen, of its approaching suppression, seem to have stimulated it to a recrudescence of activity in an effort to assert its continued existence. It celebrated an auto, September 6, 1767, with four culprits—one of them, María Josefa Pineda Morales, for bigamy, who had been arrested as long before as in 1760. Then on March 13, 1768, it held another with seventeen penitents. Cases of solicitation also became more frequent as the century drew to its close.[526]A new field of activity, moreover, was opened to it by the outbreak of the French Revolution, when the propaganda of the rights of man increased the importance of the Inquisition as an agency of repression. Already, in 1770, an edict ordered the denunciation within six days of confessors who should use the confessional to encourage ideas contrary to the submission due to the sovereign. The accession of the reactionary Carlos IV and the dread of revolutionary principles began to afford a harvest of cases in which politics had more to do than religion. There were many Frenchmen in Mexico following their trades; they were naturally partizans of the new order of things; their influence was dreaded for they spread their opinions among the people and the organization and methods of the Inquisition rendered it the most efficient instrument for the detection and punishment of liberalism.[527]
A typical example was that of two Frenchmen, the Capitan Jean Marie Murgier and Doctor Joseph François Morel, accused of a conspiracy to cause a revolution and arrested in 1794. Murgier feigned sickness and, when visited by Dr. José Francisco Rada, he asked the gaoler for a glass of water and during his absence blocked the door with his trunk. Then he seized Rada’s sword and declared that he would kill both him and himself unless the tribunal would liberate him with a full acquittal and furnish him with a pair of loaded pistols. The confusion of the tribunal was great; parleying went on from 10.15A.M.to 4.30P.M., when it was decided to break down the door. Guards with hatchets attacked it and Murgier ran himself through with the sword. His comrade Morel cut his throat with a pair of snuffers February 11, 1795. They were prosecuted after death and furnished occasion for the last public auto, August 9th of that year, where their effigies and bones were burnt as those of heretics, deists and materialists. At the same auto there figured the first Judaizer for many years—Rafael Gil Rodríguez, a cleric in the lower orders, who had been arrested October 9, 1788. He proved exceedingly obstinate and was sentenced to relaxation on February 9, 1792, after which he was held awaiting an auto. His resolution failed on the morning of the fatal day, he professed repentance, was reconciled, and thus saved the Inquisition the shame of burning a fellow-creature alive at the close of the eighteenth century. The other penitents were Jean Langouran of Bordeaux, who was reconciled for Lutheranism and atheism, and Jean Lausel of Montpellier who abjured de levi for suspicion of Free-Masonry.[528]
It was not however Frenchmen alone who suffered for their political opinions. José Antonio Rojas was denounced by two ladies, in correspondence with whom he had expressed his liberalism too freely. In September, 1804, he was condemned, as a formal heretic and materialist, to reclusion in the College of the Propaganda Fide at Pachuca, but he escaped to the United States where he relieved his feelings in a tremendous pamphlet against the Holy Office, which was duly prohibited in an edict of March 6, 1807. The distinguished publicists, Juan Wenceslao Bosquera and José Joaquin Fernández de Lizardi, known asEl Pensador Mexicano, were also prosecuted for writings that evinced too ardent a spirit of patriotism. It was also doubtlessfor offences of the same nature that Fray Juan Antonio de Olabarrieta was reconciled for atheism in 1803, and his sanbenito was suspended in the cathedral, for the charge of atheism or any kindred form of speculation was, as we have seen, a convenient one to bring political liberalism under inquisitorial jurisdiction.[529]
Under the pressure of the time the censorship was sharpened with special rigor and severity. A curious instance of the strictness with which the laws against prohibited books were enforced is afforded by an episode, in 1806, of the Louisiana Purchase. As this rendered necessary a delimitation of the boundary between Mexico and the United States, Carlos IV ordered an investigation and report from the viceroy, who employed Fray Melchor de Talamantes to make it. He found it necessary to consult the works of Robertson and Raynal, but these were in the Index and he applied to the Inquisition, through the viceroy, for the requisite licence, saying that, although the books were detestable, the information they contained, and especially their maps, were important for the public service. The request was refused and, as a compromise, a formal commission was given to twocalificadores, Fray José Paredo and Fray José Pichardo, to examine the dangerous books and report to Talamantes such information on the subject as they might find.[530]When Spanish diplomacy was thus hampered by such scruples it is no cause of surprise that the eminent historian of Mexico, Lucas Alaman, was prosecuted for reading prohibited books and even the episcopal dignityof Manuel Abad y Queipo, Bishop-elect of Valladolid (Mechoacan) did not save him from trouble for the same offence.[531]
Yet this reactionary tendency was accompanied with an increasing disposition to enforce the subordination of the Inquisition and to render it an instrument of the Government. A royal cédula of December 12, 1807, takes additional precautions to prevent illegal increase in the number of familiars and officials and to give the secular authority a closer supervision over them. When secular assistance, moreover, was called for, it could no longer be commanded as a right, except in matters of faith; if the temporal jurisdiction was concerned, the Inquisition was put on a level with other ecclesiastical courts, and the magistrate was instructed to examine the merits of the case and to give or withhold his aid accordingly.[532]As agitation in Mexico increased with the news of the abdication of Carlos IV and the Napoleonic usurpation, foreshadowing the Revolution, the political importance of the Inquisition, as an agency of repression, became greater and its so-called sacred functions were more and more subordinated. Successive edicts of August 27, 1808, and April 28, June 16 and September 28, 1809, were directed against all proclamations and emissaries seeking to pervert the loyalty of the colonists in favor of the ambitious schemes of the French, and the doctrine of popular sovereignty was denounced as manifest heresy[533]—a doctrinal definition which was effectively used during the debate on the suppression of the Holy Office, in the Córtes of Cádiz, which had affirmed that sovereignty. Even in a matter so foreign to politics as solicitation in the confessional, it is suggestive to observe that, in the trial for that offence of Dr. Pedro Mendizabal, cura of the parish of Santa Ana (1809-1819) his correct political conduct is urged upon the inquisitors as a matter for their favorable consideration—which may possibly have conduced to his escape in the face of convincing evidence.[534]
The political functions assumed by the Inquisition become especially manifest in its trials of the two chief martyrs of the war of independence—Hidalgo and Morelos. The former of these, Miguel Hidalgo y Castilla, the parish priest of los Dolores, who first raised the standard of revolt, in conjunction with Allende, Aldama and Abasolo, and who was elected generalissimo of the insurgent army, was a singularly interesting character.[535]Born in 1753, he received his education at the royal university of San Nicolás at Mechoacan, where he became rector and theological professor. In the formal accusation during his trial it is asserted that he was known while there asel zorro, or the fox, on account of his cunning, and that he was finally expelled because of a scandalous adventure, in the course of which he was obliged to escape at night through a window of the chapel. Taking orders, he finally settled ascuraat los Dolores where, in spite of a large revenue, he encumbered himself with debts. He loved music and dancing and gaming and his relations with women were of a character common enough with the clergy of the period. His abounding energy led him to establish potteries and to introduce silk-culture, which may doubtless account for his indebtedness. He was regarded as a prodigy of learning and kept up his intellectual pursuits, translating tragedies of Racine and comedies of Molière, the latter of which he caused to be acted in his house, his favorite being Tartufe. The priest, García de Carrasqueda, who enjoyed his intimacy for twelve or thirteen years, when on trial by the Inquisition, deposed that they used to read together Cicero, Serri, Fleury’s Ecclesiastical History, Rollings Ancient History and an Italian work on commerce by Genovesi and that he praised highly the orations of Æschines and Demosthenes, Bossuet, Buffon’s Natural History, Pitavak’s Causes Célèbres and various historical works. He was fond of debating questionable points in theology, emitting opinions not wholly orthodox onsuch subjects as the stigmata of St. Francis, the House of Loreto, the Veronica, whether St. Didymas or Gestas was the penitent thief, the inheritance of original sin, the identity of the three kings and the like, while his high reputation for learning caused him to be regarded as an authority. Altogether he presents himself to us as a man of unusual physical and intellectual energy, not over nice as to the employment of those energies, of wide culture, of vigorous and enquiring mind and of small reverence for formulas or for authority.
Such a character was not likely to escape the attention of the Holy Office. On July 16, 1800, Fray Joaquin Huesca, a teacher of philosophy in the Order of Merced, denounced him to the commissioner of Mechoacan for various unorthodox utterances, at which Fray Manuel Estrada, of the same Order, had been present, and Estrada, on being summoned, confirmed and amplified the accusation. In transmitting these depositions to the tribunal, July 19th, the commissioner reported that Hidalgo was a most learned man, who had ruined himself with gambling and women, that he read prohibited books and, while professor of theology, had taught from Jansenist works. The tribunal necessarily started an investigation, which lasted for more than a year and included the testimony of some thirteen witnesses, resulting in proof of a wide variety of most heretical utterances, any one of which, if pertinaciously maintained, would have sufficed to consign him to the stake. Moreover, he was described as revolutionary in his tendencies, speaking of monarchs as tyrants and cherishing aspirations for liberty; he was well-read in current French literature and had little respect for the censorship—in short he was what was subsequently termed anafrancesado. The commissioner of San Miguel el Grande reported, March 11, 1801, much about Hidalgo’s disorderly life and that he carried about with him an Alcoran but, in a second report of April 13th, he stated that in the recent Easter, Hidalgo had reformed, a matter which was widely discussed and seems to have aroused general attention. In due time, on October 2,1801, the fiscal reported on this accumulated testimony that, if Hidalgo had uttered the propositions ascribed to him, he should be arrested with sequestration of property, but the witnesses were contradictory and Estrada had the reputation of an habitual liar. He therefore recommended that the case be suspended and the papers be filed for future reference, to which the tribunal assented.
The case rested until July 22, 1807, when a priest named José María Castilblane came forward to say that, in 1801, Estrada had told him scandalous and heretical things about Hidalgo. More serious was a denunciation made, May 4, 1808, by María Manuela Herrera, described as a woman of good character who frequented the sacraments. By command of her confessor she deposed that she had once lived with Hidalgo as his concubine, when he told her that Christ had not died on the cross, but that it was another man; also that there was no hell—this latter she supposed being to quiet her conscience, as they had an agreement that she was to provide him with women and he was to provide her with men. This was again laid before the fiscal who reported, June 8th, in favor of awaiting further proof. Then, on March 15, 1809, Fray Diego Manuel Bringas deposed that he had found Hidalgo in possession of prohibited books, such as Serry’s History of the CongregationsDe Auxiliis, under his own name and that of Augustin Leblanc, also his Dissertations on Christ and the Virgin, in which he speaks without measure of María de Agreda; that Hidalgo praised this work and called María a deluded old woman.[536]Still, with singular moderation, no action was taken to restrain Hidalgo’s audacity and, had he been content to let politics alone, it is safe to say that the Inquisition would nothave troubled him, so inert had it become in the exercise of its ostensible functions.
When, however, he started the revolution, September 16, 1810, this lethargy gave place to the utmost activity. The official Gazette of September 28th asserted that he was disseminating among the people the doctrine that there is neither hell, purgatory nor glory; an extract from this was sent to the commissioner at Querétaro, with instructions to obtain its verification, which he had no trouble in doing, although the evidence was hearsay. Without awaiting this, however, the testimony which had been so long slumbering in thesecretowas laid beforecalificadores, October 9th, with orders to report at once. This they did the next day, to the effect that, as he was a sectary of French liberty, they pronounced him a libertine, seditious, schismatic, a formal heretic, a Judaizer, a Lutheran, a Calvinist, and strongly suspect of atheism and materialism. The same day the tribunal resolved that, as he was surrounded by his army of insurgents and could not be arrested, he should be summoned by edict to appear within thirty days. On the 13th the edict was printed, on the 14th it was posted in the churches and was circulated as rapidly as possible throughout the land.
The edict is a singular medley of politics and religion, illustrating the dual character of the Inquisition of the period and the enormous advantage to the Government of possessing control over the ecclesiastical establishment, whereby an attack on the civil power could be made to assume the appearance of an assault on the faith. All the heretical utterances, discredited nine years before by the action of the tribunal, are put forward as absolute facts. It is impiety that has led him to raise the standard of revolt and to seduce numbers of unhappy dupes to follow him. In the inability to reach him personally, he is summoned, under pain of excommunication, to appear for trial within thirty days, in default of which he will be prosecutedin rebeldíato definitive sentence and burning in effigy if necessary. All who support him or have converse with him and all those who do not denouncethose who favor his revolutionary projects are declared guilty of the crime of fautorship of heresy and subject to the penalties decreed for it by the canons. When to this are added the proclamations of excommunication issued against the insurgents by the Archbishop of Mexico and the bishops of the disturbed districts, it will be seen how powerful was the restraining influence exercised by the Church over a population trained to submission, and how intense were the passions that braved its anathema.[537]
In fact, the hatred of the creoles and the Indians for theGachupines, or Spaniards, was so bitter that four-fifths of the native clergy espoused the cause of the insurgents, in spite of the censures of the Church, and questions of faith became inextricably involved in the contest between the factions. To the loyalists, Hidalgo became a heretic or indeed a heresiarch, and the confessional was so largely used by them that the insurgents became guilty of a new heresy, by asserting that confession to a Gachupin priest was invalid. They found great comfort, moreover, through their belief in the protection of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who was universally revered, and especially by the Indians, as the sovereign patroness of Mexico. On the fateful 16th of September, when Hidalgo was marching on San Miguel el Grande at the head of his little band of insurgents, in passing through Atolonila, he chanced to take an image on linen of the Guadalupe Virgin and give it to one of his men to carry as a banner. It was adopted by the other bands as they rose and it became the standard of the insurrection, usually accompanied with an image of Fernando VII and of the eagle of Mexico, and the inscription “Viva nuestra Señora de Guadalupe! Viva Fernando VII! Viva la America y muere el mal gobierno!” Second in rank as a tutelary power of the insurrection was Our Lady of Puebla and against these theloyalists pitted a new-comer, Our Lady of los Remedios, who was denounced as a Gachupina by the natives. There is a subject of study for the student of mythology in this modernization of the triform Hecate and in the revival of Homeric divinities presiding over the two sides of the battlefield.
The Inquisition labored earnestly to get evidence of sacrilegious acts on the part of the insurgents and, as they were beaten back, it had its emissaries in the territory from which they had been driven, collecting testimony as to individuals who had sympathized with them or had opposed the posting of its edict. The most active of these was Fray Simon de la Mora, who accompanied the royal army in its advance. He reported that it was useless to attempt to enumerate the common people, but he sent the names of fifty-nine persons of standing, many of them ecclesiastics, with the evidence against them, and the notes on the margin of the MS. show that they were forthwith entered for prosecution.
The edict was duly posted in the towns occupied by the army but, in the course of a night or two, it was generally torn down or defaced with paint, in spite of the heavy penalties incurred for thus impeding the Inquisition. Hidalgo felt it necessary to issue a manifesto in defence, protesting that he had never departed from the faith and pointing out the contradictory character of the heresies imputed to him. To this the Inquisition replied with another edict, January 26, 1811, reiterating its charges, stigmatizing him as a cruel atheist and prohibiting certain proclamations issued by the insurgents.[538]
Meanwhile his trial,in absentia, was proceeding through its several stages as deliberately as though he were an ordinary heretic in time of peace. On November 24, 1810, the tribunal declared that, having evidence that, on October 27th, he had knowledge of the edict, the thirty days’ term should run from October 28th. On November 28th, therefore, the fiscal demanded that he should be treated asrebelde, or contumacious, and that ten days, as usual, should be allowed him to appear in person. The prescribed three terms of ten days each, with two days additional, were scrupulously observed. Then further delay followed and it was not until February 7, 1811, that the formal trial began with the presentation by the fiscal of the accusation. This was in the ordinary form, reciting that Hidalgo was a Christian, baptized and confirmed, and as such enjoying the privileges and exemptions accorded to good Catholics, “yet had he left the bosom of holy Church for the filthy, impure and abominable faith of the heretic Gnostics, Sergius, Berengar, Cerinthus, Carpocrates, Nestorius, Marcion, Socinus, the Ebionites, Lutherans, Calvinists and other pestilential writers, Deists, Materialists and Atheists, whose works he has read and endeavored to revive and to persuade his sect to adopt their errors and heresies, believing wrongly, like them, as to various articles and dogmas of our holy religion and revolutionizing the whole bishoprics of Mechoacan and Guadalajara and great part of the arch-diocese of Mexico, being moreover the chief cause of the great abominations and sins, which have been and still are committed. All this and more, which I shall set forth, constitute him a formal heretic, apostate from our holy religion, an atheist, materialist and deist, a libertine, seditious, schismatic, Judaizer, Lutheran and Calvinist, guilty of divine and human high treason, a blasphemer, an implacable enemy of Christianity and the State, a wicked seducer, lascivious, hypocrite, a cunning traitor to king and country, pertinacious, contumacious and rebellious to the Holy Office, of all of which I accuse him in general and in particular.” The fiscal then proceeds to recite the evidence taken since 1800, followed by a longstatement of Hidalgo’s share in the insurrection and winding up with the customary petition that, without requiring further proof, the accused shall be condemned to confiscation and relaxation, in person if he can be had and, if not, in effigy; or, if the evidence be deemed insufficient, he shall be tortured if attainable.