MEYER KAYSERLING WAS A JEWISH HISTORIAN AND

GERMAN RABBI (Hanover, June 17, 1829 - Budapest, 21

April 1905) Studied history and philosophy in Halberstadt,
Nikolsburg (Moravia), Prague, Wurzburg and Berlin. Animated to the
historical investigations by Leopold von Ranke, Kayserling focused his
Attention to the literature and history of the Jews in Spain, Meyer
Kayserling was the brother of the writer and educator Simon Kayserling.

In 1861, the government of Argovia appointed him as rabbi for the Swiss Jews.
position that he held until 1870. During his stay in Switzerland, he worked for
the civil equality of the Jews. In 1870 he moved to Budapest, where he
he required him as the rabbi of the Jewish community.

Among other positions and dignities, he was a member of the Royal Academy.
Spanish1 and from the Trinity Historical Society.

• Moses Mendelssohn's Philosophical and Religious Principles

with regard to Lessing, Leipzig, 1856.
• Sephardim. Romance Poetry of the Jews in Spain. A Contribution

on the literature and history of the Spanish-Portuguese Jews,

Leipsig, 1859; Hebrew translation in "Ha-Asif," iv., v.
• A holiday in Madrid. Regarding the History of the Spanish-Portuguese

Jews, Berlin, 1859.

• History of the Jews in Navarre, the Basque Country, and on the

Balearic Islands, or History of the Jews in Spain, I., Berlin, 1861.

• Menasse ben Israel. His life and work. At the same time a contribution

On the History of the Jews in England, Berlin, 1861; English translation by

F. de Sola Mendes, London, 1877.
• Moses Mendelssohn. His Life and His Works

a second edition of this work, enlarged and revised, bears the title
Moses Mendelssohn. His Life and Work,
• The poet Ephraim Kuh. A contribution to the history of the Germans
Literature, Berlin, 1864.
• For the Victory Celebration. Thanksgiving Sermon and Songs of Praise by Moses

Mendelssohn, Berlin, 1866.

• History of the Jews in Portugal, Berlin, 1867.

• The ritual battle question, or Is kosher slaughter animal cruelty?

Aargau, 1867.
• Library of Jewish Pulpit Orators. A Chronological
Collection of sermons, biographies, and characteristics of
Most Excellent Jewish Preacher. Along with a Homiletic
and literary companion, 2 vols., Berlin, 1870-72.
• The Island of the Jews and the Shipwreck near Koblenz, Baden, 1871.
• The Jewish Women in History, Literature, and Art,
Leipzig, 1879; translated into Hungarian by M. Reismann,
Budapest, 1883.
• The moral law of Judaism in relation to family, state

and Society, published anonymously, Vienna, 1882.

• The blood accusation of Tisza-Eszlár sheds light on; also in

Hungarian, Budapest, 1882.

• Usury and Judaism; also in Hungarian, Budapest,

1882.
• Moses Mendelssohn. Unpublished and Unknown Works by Him and

About Him, Leipzig, 1883.

• Proverbs and Sayings of Spanish Jews, Budapest, 1889.

• Library Spanish-Portuguese-Jewish. Dictionary

Bibliographic, Strasbourg, 1890.
• Dr. W. A. Meisel. A Life and Picture of the Times, Leipzig, 1891.
• Days of Death from Old and New Times, Prague, 1891.
• Commemorative sheets. Outstanding Jewish personalities of

Nineteenth Century. In Short Characteristics, Leipzig,

1892.
 • CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AND THE PARTICIPATION
OF THE JEWS IN THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE
DISCOVERIES, TRANSLATED FROM THE AUTHOR'S
MANUSCRIPT BY CHARLES GROSS, NEW YORK, 1894;
GERMAN ED., BERLIN, 1894; HEBREW TRANSL.,
WARSAW, 1895. [CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AND THE]
PARTICIPATION OF THE JEWS IN THE
SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES,
TRANSLATED FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF THE AUTHOR BY
CHARLES GROSS, NEW YORK, 1894; EDITION
GERMAN, BERLIN, 1894; HEBREW TRANSLATION,
WARSAW, 1895
• The Jewish literature from Moses Mendelssohn to the

Present, reprinted from Winter and Wishes, "The Jewish

Literature since the completion of the canon," Treves, 1896.
• Ludwig Philippson. A Biography
• The Jews as Patriots, a lecture, Berlin, 1898.

• The Jews of Toledo, a lecture, Leipzig, 1901.

• Isaak Aboab III. His Life and His Poems, in Hebrew,

Berdychev, 1902.

In addition to all these books, Meyer Kayserling produced a large number of

of sermons published in different media, Kayserling also
he collaborated in numerous Jewish publications in Hebrew, German,
English and French, however, in the work that concerns us
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AND THE PARTICIPATION OF
THE JEWS IN THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE
DISCOVERIES, TRANSLATED FROM THE AUTHOR'S
MANUSCRIPT BY CHARLES GROSS, NEW YORK, 1894;
GERMAN ED., BERLIN, 1894; HEBREW TRANSL., WARSAW,
1895. [CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AND THE PARTICIPATION OF THE
Jews in the Spanish Discoveries and
PORTUGUESE, TRANSLATED FROM THE AUTHOR'S MANUSCRIPT
BY CHARLES GROSS, NEW YORK, 1894; EDITION
GERMAN, BERLIN, 1894; HEBREW TRANSLATION, WARSAW,
1895] and which we present in three parts in the blog and now in PDF is
a key work due to the amount of data, is the result of a
research in Spanish archives, which shows that the
"MARRANOS" OR "CRYPTOJews" SECRET JEWS, who in
those times suffered the onslaught of the Spanish Inquisition (and
naturally empathizing with them the author), were an essential part of the
European colonization of the Americas, however, the PDF is only a
summary of the extensive work, therefore some of its details are omitted
numerous notes.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AND THE PARTICIPATION OF THE

JEWS IN THE SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND
PORTUGUESE BY MEYER KAYSERLING 1894

CHAPTER II

Columbus in Lisbon and his Relations with the Jews of that City
His Scientific Equipment—His Negotiations with King João—
Joseph Vecinho—The Portuguese Expedition to India; Abraham of Beja
by Joseph Zapateiro-Colón in Spain.

In 1472, a young Genoese, twenty-six years old, headed to the

capital of Portugal, hoping to find there the best way out for his eagerness
nautical and the fastest progress in a maritime career. It was about
Christopher Columbus, or, to use the Latin form, Christophorus
Columbus, who, after settling in Spain, called himself
Colón.

Born in 1446, Columbus was the son of a poor weaver from Genoa. He
he spent his youth in Savona, a small maritime city, where,
as in Genoa, several Jewish families lived in isolation
medieval. He and his brothers helped their father with his work, but
Soon Columbus followed his natural inclination and devoted himself to navigation.
We have little information about his childhood and education.
authentic; there is no historical evidence that he had
enjoyed the benefits of higher education or that he attended
to the University of Pavia.

In 1472 we find him in Lisbon. There, a few years later, he got married.
with Felipa Moñiz, whose grandfather was not, as some claim, of origin
Jewish. Columbus was a skilled cartographer and drafter. He made a living
drawing maps, which he also traded, just as later, in
Andalusia traded in printed books. He was no stranger.
for the Jews of Lisbon. If he had close business relations with
they, or if in his frequent financial problems he obtained help from
Some of them is difficult to determine. But we know that in his will
he requested to be given to 'a Jew who lived at the gate of the Jewish quarter
in Lisbon, or to whom I will send a priest, the value of half a mark of
silver". Long before Columbus wrote his will, the Jews
they had disappeared from Lisbon.

I have had constant relationships,

cultured men, clerics and laymen, Jews and Moors, and many others
He had a personal relationship with Martin Behaim, which was almost that of the
same age as Columbus, and also with Joseph Vecinho (the mathematician and)
Royal doctor), and with other learned Jews from Lisbon. Vecinho prepared a
translation of the astronomical tables of Zacuto, and gave a copy to Columbus,
who, as we will see, took it on his travels and found it to be very great
service [2].

Christopher Columbus, Book of Prophecies, fol. IV.

It was later found in her library. Colombina Library with
notes from Doctor D. Simón de la Rosa y López, Seville, 1888, I, 3.

During his several years stay in Lisbon, which was interrupted by

trips to the coast of Guinea, Colón worked very industriously and
persevering to increase their limited knowledge of mathematics and
geography. In order to carry out the ambitious plans he had made,
he dedicated his attention to cosmography, philosophy, history, and topics
similar; several of his biographers say that he studied Aristotle and
Duns Scotus, Pliny and Strabo, Josephus and the biblical book of Chronicles, to
the Fathers of the Church and the Arab scriptures of the Jews. We are
naturally led to ask ourselves what their favorite works were, and
Which books were really in his possession?

The treaties that he studied with the greatest zeal were History of Things.
Everywhere of Aeneas Sylvius, from the Image of the World of Bishop Pierre
d'Ailly. This last work, it can be observed in passing, had already been
translated into Hebrew in the 14th century. The knowledge that Columbus had
from Aristotle, Strabo, Seneca, and other classical Latin and Greek writers was
taken from the book of Pierre d'Ailly; the Imago Mundi was his constant
travel companion, and their copy of that book is full of their own
marginal notes. In addition to Zacuto's astronomical tables, he
he possessed some works written by or attributed to Abraham ibn Ezra;
for example, the little book about the "critical days", Liber of
Luminaries and Critical Days, and the On Nativities (Venice, 1485).
 Ibn Esra was an eminent man of knowledge; his name was
honored by both Christians and Jews. Zacuto undoubtedly called the
Colón's attention towards De Nativitatibus during his residency.
in Salamanca; he bought a copy of that book in that city, according to
a note in your own handwriting, for forty-one maravedíes. Later, in
Spain, he read with religious zeal the treatise on the Messiah, which was
written (originally in Arabic) by the proselyte Samuel ibn-Abbas of
Morocco with the purpose of converting Rabbi Isaac of Sujurmente;
it had been translated into Spanish in 1339, and into Latin a hundred years later.
That book interested Columbus so much that he copied three whole chapters. He was
also very fond of reading the Bible and the [apocryphal] Fourth
Book of Ezra, which was probably written by a Jew who lived
outside of Palestine. According to his own assertion, the incentive that led him
the motivation to plan their discoveries was not a love for science but rather
his interpretation of the prophecies of Isaiah.

In Portugal, Columbus seriously conceived the idea of making

maritime discoveries via the West. He wished to find a
new ocean route to the regions of Cathay and Cipango, which were
renowned for being rich in gold and spices, and also towards the kingdom of
priest-king John, whose letter to Pope Eugene IV, or to the Emperor
Frederick III, it is said that a Jew had published it first in the middle.
from the 15th century. Henry the Navigator had already conceived a similar plan,
and the Portuguese kings never lost sight of it. That daring
the conception took firm root in Columbus's mind, primarily
thanks to a letter from the great physician and astrologer from Florence, Toscanelli
sent to King John [Juan II of Portugal] through the monk Fernando
Martínez. Colón requested a copy of that letter from Toscanelli, and received it.
through Girardi, a Genoese, who was then living in Lisbon.
 Columbus proceeded in an orderly manner to carry out his project. He did
before King João a proposal to lead a squad along
from the African coast, and from there across the ocean to the land whose wealth
Marco Polo had described in such a disorienting way. The
sullen and distrustful monarch considered Columbus as a
talkative visionary, and, above all due to the enormous demands of
navigator, saw in his plan more pride than truth. But João proposed
said matter before your nautical board, composed of Diogo Ortiz, bishop
from Ceuta, and the court doctors Joseph and Rodrigo. They considered
the project as chimerical, and they said that the whole plan was based on the
visionary conception of Columbus of the island of Cipango by Marco Polo.

However, the king considered this matter to be of such importance that he

presented for further consideration to its State Council, in the
which Pedro de Meneses, Count of Villa-Real, exercised a dominant
influence. Meneses thought that the exploration of the African coast would be
more conducive to the interests of Portugal, and hence he advised
that the king not be deceived by Columbus's visions. In a long
The count elaborated on his reasons to give that advice. His
the arguments were based mainly on the opinions of Joseph
Vecinho, who was his doctor as well as the king's, and whom he considered
as the highest authority in nautical matters.

The ruler of Portugal finally rejected supporting Columbus in his

exploration projects, or, as Columbus expressed it in May 1505,
in a letter to Ferdinand of Aragon, God had struck the king so much with
blindness that for fourteen years he could not perceive what was desired
about him. The explorer was extremely exasperated by the negative response.
of João, and his anger was particularly directed against "the Jew Joseph"
whom he attributed the main fault in the abortion of his plans. His notes
handwritten in the Colombina Library in Seville mention Vecinho
twice. In those passages Columbus states that the king of Portugal sent to
his "doctor and astrologer" Joseph to measure the altitude of the Sun throughout
from Guinea, and that "the Jew Joseph" explained to the king the reason for that mission in
presence of Columbus' brother, Bartolomé, and many others;
probably Columbus himself was also present.

Portugal, however, did not abandon the hope of finding a

ocean route to India, even without external help. The cunning and stingy
the king wanted to test Columbus's plans without granting any of
the demands of this. Hence, in May 1487 he sent to the Levant
to two gentlemen of his court, Alfonso de Payva and Pedro de Covilhão.
They departed from Lisbon with orders to seek information about
India and the kingdom of Prester John, and they were given letters for that
monarch on behalf of the Portuguese ruler. Alfonso de Payva took the
route to Ethiopia, and sailed along the African coast to Sambaya,
in the company of a Jewish merchant he met on the road. The
soon they became close friends, and Payva confided in his companion
the purpose of his journey. Shortly after his arrival in Ormuz he was hit
with a fatal illness, to the great sorrow of his Jewish friend, who
he solemnly promised the dying man to return to Lisbon and give to the
made an exact description of everything they had found out in
his journey. The Jew faithfully kept his word.

Pedro de Covilhão, for whom, by order of the king, Vecinho and Rodrigo
they had prepared a globe, visited Goa, Calicut, and Aden, and continued
forward as far as Sofala, on the East coast of South Africa. He
then he returned to Cairo, where he and Payva had agreed
to meet. There he found two Jews from Portugal who were waiting for him.
the scholar Abraham de Beja and Joseph Zapateiro de Lamego. They
They were bringing letters and orders from the king for the knight. Zapateiro had
visited Baghdad before, and when he returned to Portugal, he informed King João
of what he had learned about Ormuz, the main emporium for
the spices of India. João requested that he and the linguist Abraham go
in search of the wandering Covilhão, and they will inform him that he should send to Lisbon,
through Zapateiro, news about the success of his expedition; and to
from then on, in the company of Abraham of Beja, ensure
exact information about the matters of Ormuz. Consequently,
Joseph Zapateiro joined a caravan whose destination was Aleppo, and he brought
all the information that Covilhão had gathered about sailors in Portugal
Indians and Arabs. The knight informed the king that, sailing along
the West coast, the Portuguese could easily reach the end
South of Africa. But before Joseph reached his destination, it was already known
in Lisbon that Bartolomé Díaz had not simply discovered but
who had also circumnavigated the Cape of Storms, the Cape of Good Hope
Hope.

After his offers had been rejected by the king, Columbus

decided to leave Portugal, hoping to secure help elsewhere
for the execution of their projects, in Genoa, in Venice, or of the king
France. His situation was indeed very unfortunate. He had lost
his wife; he was poor, and was daily pressured by his
creditors, so he had to leave Lisbon in secret, because
the night, with her little son Diego. He left Portugal in 1484, and
he headed towards Huelva, where he intended to leave his child in charge
from the married sister of his wife. After trying in vain to induce
to Enrique de Guzmán, the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, to cooperate
with him in his discovery projects, he put himself at the service of Luis
de la Cerda, the first duke of Medina-Celi, one of the most princes
rich people of Andalusia. He received him hospitably, accommodated him in his
palace for a long time [3], and it seemed inclined to embark on the
expedition at their own cost, especially since Columbus only demanded
three thousand or four thousand ducats to equip two caravels. To equip
ships were necessary, however, to obtain consent from the
corona, but the permission was denied. Then the duke wrote from
Turn to the queen, and by his recommendation, Columbus, after a long
wait, access to the Spanish sovereigns, Ferdinand was secured
Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

There is no evidence that Columbus was the guest of the duke.

for two years, as his biographers claim. In the duke's letter to
Cardinal of Spain, he says: "I had C. at my house for a long time.
Colón.

CHAPTER III

Columbus in Spain —Political Condition of Aragon and Castile —

Fernando and Isabel—Abraham Senior—Status and Political Influence of
Jews and Marranos—The Inquisition and Its Victims.

Colón sought his fortune at the Spanish court during a period of

violent political revolutions. That was not an opportune time to
that he would secure the help for his company from the rulers of Spain.
Discord prevailed in Castile and Aragon, in Catalonia and Navarre, and
the war was intensifying along the southern border of the Iberian Peninsula.

Under the affable but impotent King Henry IV, Castile had been
in a condition of anarchy. On each side, plots were forming by
the turbulent Great Lords, dissatisfied with the king and with his
government. The crown was impoverished; even in the Royal Palace the
most urgent needs often remained unmet. The
the conduct of the pleasure-loving queen evoked all kinds of rumors.
Beltrán de la Cueva was her favorite, and people called her daughter La
Beltraneja. The king, who had been a constant for a long time
a subject of ridicule, was dethroned after a long time, and his brother
Alfonso was proclaimed as his successor (1465).

The situation was not much better in the lands over which
Juan II of Aragon was governing. Catalonia was in arms; Aragon was
threatened with the onset of a rebellion; Navarra was the scene of
bloody conflicts caused by the king's own son, Carlos of
Viana, who claimed the right to govern because he was the
heir of his mother. After the death of his first wife, which
she was a French princess, King John, at the age of fifty, he
he married Juana Enríquez, the daughter of Fadrique Enríquez, the Admiral of
Castilla. She was the granddaughter of the beautiful Paloma, a Jewish woman from Toledo, and she
he gave the king a son, Fernando, whom historians call the
Catholic [1].

On the Life and Writings of Elias Kapsali... with excerpts concerning the Jews
history relevant from MS, Kapsalii History, Padua, 1869, p. 58. The
the manuscript of the Kapsali chronicle is in the Ambrosian Library
Milan.

To secure her son the succession to the throne, Queen Juana, a woman
with manly strength and intrepid spirit, he did everything in his power
to influence the king against Carlos de Viana, whom the people were very
enthusiast. Indeed, Juan, in accordance with the wishes of the Catalan courts,
he tried to declare Don Carlos as his successor, but Juana persuaded the
king that the prince was conspiring against his life and his crown, and
that, by marrying Isabel of Castile, he intended to form a coalition
with her brother, Enrique IV. They got rid of Don Carlos
soon through poison, and then an open rebellion broke out
against the crown.
Prince Don Carlos of Viana

The most loyal supporters of King John were the Jews, and they
they provided important services. For example, Abiatar's skill
Aben-Crescas, his physician and court astrologer, restored his sight. The king
he showed such generosity and goodwill towards the Jews that his death
caused them deep sorrow. Several Jewish communities of the kingdom
gathered in Cervera to hold a memorial service; they
they sang Hebrew psalms and Spanish funeral songs, and Aben
Crescas delivered a praise of the character of the good monarch.

Balaguer, History of Catalonia, book 17, chapter 27.

The dearly cherished hope of Juan to unite Aragon and Castile was
practically completed before he died. In 1469 his son
Fernando married Isabel of Castile, the sister of Henry IV, the
which, after the death of her brother Alfonso, had been acknowledged
as her successor, and she had been proclaimed ruler of Castile,
although she really did not ascend to the throne until after the
death of Henry IV in 1474. The realization of that marriage was
materially promoted by Jews and Marranos, as it was supposed that
Fernando, just like his father, would be friendly towards the Jews.
especially since he himself had inherited Jewish blood from his mother.
Abraham Senior was particularly prominent in those negotiations.
marital. He was a rich Jew from Segovia, who, due to his
sagacity, its eminent services, and its position as the leading
the king's tax collector, exerted great influence. He urged the
great lords of Castile to support the proposed marriage between the
Princess Isabel, who had many suitors, and the distinguished
Ferdinand of Aragon, who was already king of Sicily, and who even in his
early youth had shown a lot of courage.

Although Abraham Senior encountered violent opposition from a

part of the Castilian nobility, he urged the prince to take a journey
secret to Toledo. Isabel, who was favorably inclined towards her
Aragón's cousin easily agreed to a meeting.
Fernando began the journey without delay. Lacking resources, he
secured a loan of twenty thousand salaries from his "beloved servant" Jaime
Ram, son of a rabbi and one of the most distinguished jurists of his
time.

Fernando then crossed the border of Castilla in disguise, and

he found refuge in the house of Abraham Senior, who took him in
silently at night where the expectant princess [3]. To Pedro
from the Cavalry, a very rich and distinguished young pig from Zaragoza,
a member of a family with many branches, he was then entrusted with the task
to persuade people of rank who opposed the project of
marriage: to Alfonso Carrillo, the fickle archbishop of Toledo; to Peter
González de Mendoza, bishop of Sigüenza, who later became
cardinal of Spain; and others. Thanks to his power of persuasion, and for
the extensive resources that were at his disposal, he, in fact, succeeded
that Fernando was preferred over the king of Portugal, the Duke of Berry, the king
from England, and all the other suitors of Isabel. Pedro de la
Cavalry also had the distinguished honor of presenting the bride.
Real, like Fernando's wedding gift, an expensive necklace valued at
forty thousand ducats, and to pay all or a large part of its price.
The Crown of Aragon was, in fact, so impoverished at that time.
that, in the death of King John, in 1479, the jewels of the treasury had
to be taken and sold, in order to bury him with rites such as
they were suitable for royalty [4].
[3] Kapsali, op. cit., 60 seq.; Mariana, On the Affairs of Spain, book 24, chapter.
I.
[4] Zurita, Annals of Aragon, IV, 165.

Abraham Senior, the close friend of the influential Andrés de Cabrera,

from Segovia, remained as Isabel's most loyal supporter. He and
Cabrera succeeded in achieving a reconciliation between her and her king.
Brother Enrique. Abraham was held in such high esteem by the queen and
the great lords who, in 1480, the courts in Toledo, in
recognition for his eminent services to the State, granted him a
annual stipend of ten thousand maravedís from tax revenues
Reals.

In Castile, as well as in Aragon, certain Jews, and especially many

Marranos had considerable influence. The name "marrano"
was applied to people of Jewish descent whose parents or grandparents
they had been driven by desperation and extreme persecution to accept
Christianity. The conversion was, however, only external or feigned;
deep down they faithfully adhered to their ancestral religion. Although in
Christian appearance, they secretly observed the principles of the faith
Jewish; this was quite often true even in the case of
those who had come to be dignitaries of the Church. They
they celebrated the Sabbath and Jewish festivals, gathered in secret synagogues
underground or others, and practiced Jewish rites in their homes. They thus
they continued to be Jews, and ultimately suffered torture and torment for
his adherence to Judaism. The people and the rulers knew all that,
but for a long time the pigs were not disturbed, because,
although they generally married among themselves, their family alliances
extended to the highest strata of society. Their services were,
Moreover, considered indispensable. Because of their wealth, intelligence
and ability, they obtained the most important positions and roles
trusted; they were employed in the cabinets of the
rulers, in the management of finances, in the courts
supreme courts of justice, and in the courts.

Although Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile were united

through marriage, each had the direction of a separate kingdom, of
so they lived as two allied monarchs. They did not have
simply separate kingdoms, but also separate administrations
and separate Royal councils. The most important positions in those
advice was in charge of pigs, members of the De la families
Cavalry, Sánchez, Santángel, and others. Just like Luis de la Caballería,
the son of Don Bonafós, had been the confidant of King John of
Aragon, in the same way Jaime from the Caballería, Luis's brother,
He was Fernando's trusted friend. Jaime accompanied him on his first.
trip to Naples, and constantly assisted him with the air and pomp of a
prince. Alfonso, another brother of Luis, held the high position of
Deputy Chancellor of Aragon, and Martín de la Caballería was the commander of
the fleet in Mallorca. Luis Sánchez, a son of the rich Eleasar Usuf of
Zaragoza was appointed president of the highest court of Aragon;
Gabriel Sánchez was the chief treasurer, and his brother Alfonso was the
sub-treasurer. Guillén Sánchez, cupbearer of Fernando, was promoted more
late to the position of Royal Treasurer, and his brother Francisco was made
administrator of the Royal House. Fernando also appointed Francisco
Gurrea, son-in-law of Gabriel Sánchez, as governor of Aragon.
Whenever Fernando needed money, he asked the Santángels for it.
which had trading houses in Calatayud, Zaragoza, and Valencia; of
that family will be said later. The pigs Miguel de Almazán and
Gaspar de Barrachina, the son of Abiatar Xamós, was the secretaries.
privates of the king.
Bonafós de la Caballería was an anti-Jewish writer, son of Solomon.
Ibn-Labi of the Cavalry, from Zaragoza, who took the name of 'Micer
"Pedro" after converting to Christianity. He dedicated himself early on.
to the study of Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin, and of civil and canonical law.
He obtained the favor of Queen Maria, who appointed him as commissioner to
the courts of Monzón and Alcañiz (1436–1437). He married twice, first
(before his conversion) with the ex-wife of Luis de Santángel, and then
with Violante, a daughter of the rich Alfonso Ruiz de Daroca, who, like
that he was a convert to Christianity. In the year 1450 Master Peter
he began his Zelus Christi against Jews and Saracens, a book full of
malevolence against his former co-religionists, which was published
later in Bologna in 1592. Shortly after completing his work,
in which he accused the Jews of all imaginable vices,
labeling them as a hypocritical, pestilential, and abandoned race,
Bonafós was murdered in 1464, believed to have been instigated by the
Marranos. All the children of Bonafós held high positions in
Aragon: Alfonso was vice-chancellor, Luis was confidential advisor of
King Juan, and Jaime was a confidential advisor to Don Fernando
(Wikipedia) [NdelT].

In the cities, in the management of public revenues, in the

army, in the judiciary and in the courts, the Marranos, as has been given
to understand already, they had important and influential positions. They were
particularly prominent in Zaragoza; it was the richest city
from Aragon, due to its extensive industries, which were largely
led by Jews and Marranos. In Zaragoza, the Marrano Pedro
Monfort was the vicar general of the archbishopric; Juan Cabrero was the
arcadian; and the provosts of the cathedral were Doctor López, grandson of
Mayer Pazagón de Calatayud, and Juan Artal, grandson of Pedro de Almazan.
One of the main marshals of Zaragoza was Pedro de la Cabra, a
son of the Jew Nadassan Malmerca. No less influential than in Aragón
and in the Aragonese court, it was the marranos who enjoyed the trust
from Queen Isabel. Her State counselors and private secretaries were
children and grandchildren of Jews; even their confessor, Hernando de Talavera, was
grandson of a Jewess.

The fact that the pigs, whose number in all of Spain was very...
great, they possessed great wealth and were esteemed everywhere for
his intelligence awakened envy and hatred. The fact that they
also loyally adhered to their ancestral religion and had a
active relationship with the Jews, bothered the fanatical part of the clergy
spanish.

In 1478, the same year in which Muley Abul Hasan received the
Spanish ambassador for the last time, in the most magnificent chamber of the
Alhambra, and renounced the Spanish tribute, several gathered in Seville.
clergymen, most of them Dominicans. Isabel was residing.
temporarily in that city, and chaired the meeting. His objective was
determine what could be done to strengthen and invigorate faith
Christianity, especially among the pigs. The clergy tried to convince the
queen of the ordinary means of conversion, recommended by
they were ineffective in the case of the new Christians, who did not believe
in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, but rather tenaciously
they clung to Judaism. Hence, the assembly recommended the
introduction of the Inquisition in the form that already existed in Sicily.
Fernando, who in his limitless greed and insatiable desire was always
guided by self-interest and selfishness, he/she accepted gladly
win the proposal.

It has been known for a long time, and historians

present-day Spaniards freely admit it, that the introduction of
The Inquisition was not so much due to religious zeal as to considerations
materials; she was used as an instrument of greed and
political absolutism. One goal of the power-loving king was to humiliate
and subject the Castilian nobility, which held great privileges, and among
there were a lot of pigs. Its main objective was, however,
appropriating the wealth of the pigs. A conflict with the Moors was
inevitable; the signal for war had already been given. The Royal Treasury was
empty. People were already overloaded with taxes, and even the clergy
they were charged taxes, something that had never happened before in
Spain. The king considered the introduction of the Inquisition, and the
confiscation of the property of their victims, as the only method
available to improve the desperate financial situation.

Already in the courts of 1465, certain extremists had proposed

to persecute secret Jews, and use their properties to undertake
a war of extermination against the Moors. That project was executed
fifteen years later by Fernando. As soon as the first court
The Inquisition was established, for Fernando Yaños de Lobon (with the
the position of adelantado of the court) ordered him to transfer to the Royal treasury
the property of all condemned Jews. The Inquisition allowed the
king to satisfy his ambition completely. Just like Fernando, who was a
more of a hidden intolerant than a devoted Christian, always
he spoke of religion, in the same way he always praised peace, although
he truly desired to conquer the Moors, and declare war against
France after the death of Louis XI. He, the ruler of a
small kingdom, desired to become the head of a great State; the grandson
of a Toledo Jewish woman, she wrapped herself with the cloak of piety in order to
to rise to the position of the most Catholic king.

The pious Isabel, who disliked glorifying religion at the expense

of compassion, for a long time opposed the introduction of the
Inquisition, but she finally yielded to the exhortations of her
exalted prelates and to the urgent pleas of her husband. She was
the docile instrument of spiritual advisers, who exercised a dominion
without restriction over her, and that practically made her their slave.
When, for example, she requested her confessor, Hernando de Talavera,
who later became the archbishop of Granada, that he
he rejected both options of confessing either standing or sitting.
alternatives, and insisted that she, the queen, should kneel at his feet.
She yielded to his demand without a word of protest. She was completely
it was because of her that the Inquisition did not begin its horrible work until
until two years after the permit for its establishment in
Castile had been granted by the Pope.

It is not our goal to consider the history of that in detail.

institution with its cruel tortures, its scandalous procedure, and its
thousands of victims. When composing such a story, the pen must immerse itself in
blood and tears, and the writer should take advantage of the great mass
of unprinted material preserved in the state archives in Alcalá
from Henares, most of which has never been used. We have
to simply examine the early actions of the Inquisition,
and briefly draw attention to the victims who belonged to
those families whose members are prominently featured in the
later chapters of this book.

The first court was established in Seville. The first

inquisitors entered that city at the beginning of January 1481, and
A few days later, the first victims died in the fire. Several
of the richest and most respected men in Seville were delivered
ready to the flames: Diego Susón, who possessed a fortune of ten
millions of salaries, and had some reputation as a Talmudist;
Juan Fernández de Albolasya, who had been for several years at
cargo of the Royal Customs [as landlord]; Manuel Saulí, and others.
Several thousand people, primarily rich pig farmers, perished in
the bonfire in Seville and Cádiz in 1481. Even the bones of those
who had died long before were exhumed and burned, and the
the property of their heirs was ruthlessly confiscated by the
State. The courts were soon established in Córdoba, Jaén and
Ciudad Real. The bull published by Pope Sixtus IV on October 17
in 1483 appointed [the priest Tomás de] Torquemada [confessor of the
Queen Isabel as Inquisitor General, and allowed Fernando
would extend the Inquisition to the hereditary lands of his house: Aragon,
Catalonia and Valencia. In this last province, a began to be started.
year before, by special order of the king, to confiscate the property of the
Marranos.

In the cities, the introduction of the Holy Office met with a

violent opposition. The citizens of Teruel would not allow that the
inquisitors will carry out their harmful work. When they approached
In Plasencia, the members of the municipal council left the city.
Barcelona feared that the new tribunal would be harmful to trade.
The Aragonese, jealous of their established ancient rights,
they observed with deep dismay that the Inquisition was
making their country dependent on Castile; they understood that this
institution would cause the destruction of its ancient freedom.

In Aragon, an arrangement was reached with the courts for its introduction.
[legislative body], whose consent was necessary. The agreement
that organism was secured by the direct influence of Fernando
and Isabel, both of whom had gone to Zaragoza for that
objective. But barely the two inquisitors, the canon Pedro de Arbués
and the Dominican Gaspar Juglar had begun their work, they
they encountered strong resistance. The opposition increased after
of the first Auto de Fe and after they had begun
procedures against Leonardo or Samuel of Eli, one of the men
the wealthiest of Zaragoza. Hence, the assembly of the general states
of the kingdom, which had been summoned by Alfonso of the Cavalry,
resolved to send a delegation to the king, which, in the name of the
Marranos offered him and the Pope a considerable sum of money to
condition that the work of pursuit and confiscation was
abandoned. But Fernando persisted in his determination, and the
Inquisition continued its work with renewed zeal.

In their desperation, the pigs resorted to extreme measures.

They decided to murder one of the inquisitors. A plan of action.
He was raised in the house of Luis de Santángel, a house that still exists [1894].
he is standing in the market of Zaragoza. The conspirators were Sancho
de Paternoy, the chief treasurer of Aragón, who had his own seat
in the synagogue of Zaragoza; Alfonso de la Caballería, chancellor of
Aragón; Juan Pedro Sánchez, brother of Gabriel and Francisco Sánchez;
Pedro de Almazán, Pedro Monfort, Juan de la Abadía, Mateo Ram
García de Moros, Pedro de Vera, and other companions of misfortune of
Zaragoza, Calatayud and Barbastro. The plot was executed in time.
designated: during the night of September 15, 1485 Pedro de
Arbués was mortally wounded in the cathedral of La Seo, in Zaragoza,
by Juan de Esperandeu and Vidal Durango, the latter a Frenchman
employee as a tanner by Esperandeu. Two days later Arbués
died [5]. When the queen, who happened to be in Córdoba at the time,
he heard of the murder of the inquisitor, ordered that rigorous measures
were established mercilessly against all the pigs, not simply
in Zaragoza but in every city of the kingdom, and that their immense
possessions were confiscated by the State [6].

Henry C. Lea, The Martyrdom of S. Pedro Arbués, Papers of the

American Hist. Assoc., vol. III. New York, 1889. The true murderer
it was Vidal Durango, as is evident from a handwritten receipt
preserved in the archives of the cathedral of Zaragoza.
[6] Pulgar, Catholic Monarchs, Zaragoza, 1567, fol. 184a.

A terrible punishment was given to the conspirators. Juan de Esperandeu,

a wealthy leatherworker, who owned many houses on Calle del Coso (where the
old Jewish women's bathroom still exists), was forced to look
while his father, the tanner Salvador de Esperandeu, was being burned in
the bonfire. Juan himself, after his hands had been
cut, was dragged to the market on June 30, 1486, along with
Vidal Durango, and dismembered and burned. Juan de la Abadía, who
he had attempted to commit suicide in prison, was taken out, dismembered and
delivered to the flames. Mateo Ram's hands were cut off, and he
also died at the stake. Three months later, Juan's sisters
from the Abbey, the knight Pedro Muñoz, and Pedro Monfort, vicar
general of the Archdiocese of Zaragoza, were burned as adherents
from Judaism. Peter Monfort's brother, Jaime, vice-treasurer of
Catalonia, along with his wife, were burned in effigy in Barcelona.
The sentence of the chief treasurer, Sancho de Paternoy, was commuted by
life imprisonment, at the request of his relative Gabriel Sánchez. In March and
August 1487 the notary García de Moros, Juan Ram, son-in-law of Juan
Pedro Sánchez, Juan de Santángel, and the knight Luis de Santángel
they died in the flames. The banker Juan Pedro Sánchez, the real
head of the conspiracy, who had succeeded in escaping to Toulouse,
he was recognized there by the Aragonese students and detained, but
he again assured his freedom. Gaspar de Santa Cruz, who had fled
with him from Spain, died in Toulouse. Both were burned in effigy.
in Zaragoza, besides the other members of the Sánchez family: the
merchant Bernardo Sánchez, his wife Brianda, and Alfonso Sánchez,
a literate; likewise the merchant Anton Pérez, and García López. The
López's wife remained in Spain and died in the bonfire.
Green Book of Aragon, in Colombina Library, fol. 78 sq.; in
part printed in Revista de España, XVIII, 547-578, and in Amador de
the Rivers, History of the Jews, III, 616 sq. See also Revue des
Jewish Studies, XI, 84 sq.

The Inquisition spread terror and alarm everywhere. Thousands

the Marranos suffered martyrdom for their religion. The more
they were terribly persecuted, their love for their faith grew stronger
ancestral. Dalman de Tolosa openly declared that he, his mother, his
brothers Gabriel and Luis, and their wives, despite all the obstacles,
they observed the Jewish law. A member of that family lived in Naples at
early 16th century, and was known as the 'famous merchant
"Catalan." The wealthy Jacob of Casafranca, who had been the vice-treasurer of
Catalonia, and whose mother died as a Jewess in the prison of the
Inquisition, frankly admitted that the rabbi of Gerona had him.
provided with meat and everything he needed for the celebration of the
Jewish festivals, and that in their house, in the Plaza de la Trinidad of Barcelona,
he had lived according to the precepts of the Jewish religion and had
read the law of Moses. The councilors of the Inquisition declared that
All of his descendants were Judaizers.

Among those who were brought to the great Auto-da-Fé in

Tarragona on July 18, 1489, dressed in the traditional costume of
penitents, there were Andreu Colom, his wife Blanca, and his mother-in-law
Francisca Colom. All of them admitted that they had observed the rites,
ceremonies and festivals of the Jews. What must have been the
sentiments of Christopher Columbus, or Colón (he was also called
Colom) when he heard that members of the Jewish race were carrying his surname
and had been condemned by the Inquisition?
CHAPTER IV

The First Appearance of Columbus at the Spanish Court—The Board of

Córdoba and the Conference in Salamanca—Abraham Zacuto—Isaac
Abravanel.

The ambitious plan that Fernando and Isabel worked on energetically

to establish a great kingdom, reinforced by political unity
and religious. They desired, above all, to end the dominance of the
Moors in Spain, and to expel the Muhammadans from the Peninsula.

When Columbus went to Spain, the war with the Moors had already
begun. The systematic confiscation of Jewish property
"secrets" that had been condemned by the Inquisition carried enormous
money sums to the state treasury, and provided to Fernando and Isabel
the means to continue the war. The victorious Spanish troops already
they had advanced and captured Zahara, Ronda, which had been during
a long time called "the city of the Jews", Setenil, and several others
fortified cities.

It was after the end of the campaign of 1485 that the king and the queen
They were first informed of Columbus's presence in Spain, and of his
project. They received that information from Luis de la Cerda, the
brave duke of Medina-Celi. Towards the end of that year he wrote
from Rota to Isabel that he was hosting in his palace a Genovese
called Christopher Columbus, who had arrived from Portugal, and who
he claimed that he could undoubtedly find a new route
oceanic to India. The duke also wrote that he would have placed of
the required ships ready at Columbus's disposal for the trip
proposed, and would have provided the expedition at his own cost, if it were not
against the law, and against the will of the queen. The duke was given
she requested that I induce the foreign planner to come before her.

With letters of introduction from the duke for the queen and for Alonso of
Quintanilla, chief supervisor of the finances of Castilla, Colón addressed.
to Córdoba in January 1486, and there, in May, he was granted a
audience with the Spanish rulers. In order to win the favor of the
pious queen, he wrapped himself in the cloak of religious fanaticism. He
he stated that his task was primarily for the interest of the Church, that he
he wished to spread Christianity in the newly discovered lands, and
that, with the gold found in the ancient and very renowned land
[biblical] from Ophir, the Holy Sepulchre could be torn from the hands of the
unfaithful.

The confident and fanatical Isabel listened to him with enthusiasm, and her soul
He was filled with joy in advance for converting others to Christianity. The
the king was motivated by completely different reasons. He was
thinking about the acquisition of territory rather than the spread of
the religion. He also took into account the cost of the company and the
dangers of failure, as well as the possible advantages. By nature
suspicious, calculating and distrustful, Fernando was very reserved towards
Colón, who, with his worn-out clothes, had given the king the impression that
he was an opportunist. Fernando thought that he must be so much more
cautious because the Genoese had been rejected by the king of Portugal,
the ruler of a State renowned mainly for its
maritime discoveries. Ferdinand and Isabella were soon in
agreement that this was not an opportune time to accept the
proposal made by Columbus. Just like the king of Portugal, they
they decided to send the plan to be examined by a
expert commission. They appointed the prior of Prado as their president,
the noble Hernando de Talavera, who as the queen's confessor enjoyed
of his full trust, and that, as archbishop of Granada, he was
later pursued so scandalously by the Inquisition.

That commission, which was made up of cosmographers and others

eminent scholars, held several meetings, and before her Columbus presented
an exact plan of his company, which he explained and interpreted. But he or not
it managed to be explicit or the commissioners did not want to understand it, since
they came to the same conclusions as the Lisbon Board three years
First, namely, that Columbus's assertions could not be
possibly true, and that there was no unknown land
to be discovered.

They strongly advised that the king and queen not take risks.
in such a lazy company, as this would not bring any advantage but rather
just a loss of money and prestige. Fernando, who in the midst of the
war could not find time to carefully examine the
arguments of Columbus, managed to persuade the queen to disillusion the
navigator with friendly words. Columbus was informed that while
the war was pending, such an important subject could not be
resolved, but should be considered as soon as peace is achieved
. That amounted to a rejection of the project. Columbus found himself
obliged, moreover, to endure the hatred and bitter mockery of the
courtiers and all those who had heard about their plans.
They all considered him an intriguer and an adventurer, and in
In Córdoba, they mockingly called him 'the man with the cap full of
holes.

The unfavorable response from Ferdinand and Isabella was a blow.

crushing not only for Colón but also for his friends and patrons,
for Alonso de Quintanilla, who had hosted him compassionately
for some time under his roof, and especially for Diego de Deza,
a wise theologian of Jewish descent, whom Columbus himself recounts
among its most influential patrons and supporters. Diego de Deza had
a good reputation and was very respected. He was in charge of education.
of the forced heir, Prince Don Juan, and he was the bishop of Salamanca,
as a professor of theology at the university of that city, in that
then the most famous learning center in the whole world. For
to diminish the strength of the Board's verdict, he wanted to send the plan of
Columbus of the discovery to prominent cosmographers and mathematicians for
an additional exam. He really did it without delay. He made that
Columbus went to Salamanca and called a conference with the professors
most distinguished of the university, mathematicians, astrologers and
cosmologists.

In its sessions, which were held in Valcuevo, near

Salamanca, Colón presented and defended his project. Among others, there.
the astrologer Friar Antonio de Marchena participated in that conference,
who always defended Columbus's cause, and the Jewish astrologer [and rabbi]
Abraham Zacuto, who, through his important contributions to
to your field of knowledge, materially promoted the project of
Colón.

Abraham Zacuto was born in Salamanca around the year 1440,

and he was commonly called Zacuto of Salamanca. His ancestors
they had arrived from the south of France, and, as he himself informs us
in their famous chronicle, they remained utterly loyal to their
religion despite all the persecutions. He devoted himself to the study of the
mathematics, and above all of astronomy, and won the favor of the bishop
from Salamanca, who allowed him to attend the university of that
city. There he became a professor of astronomy, and many disciples
Christians and Mohammedans revered him as their teacher. His
the main astronomical work was the Almanach Perpetuum with tables of the
Sun, the Moon, and the stars, which, as informed by his student Augustin
Ricci was prepared between 1473 and 1478 at the request of his patron, the
bishop, to whom this work was dedicated. It was translated from Hebrew to
Latin and in Spanish by his student Joseph Vecinho, or Vizino, and was
company at the printing house of Samuel d'Ortas in Leiria. Due to its wide
circulation was edited several times during the author's lifetime.

Columbus fully recognized the importance of the contributions of

Zacuto to science. He particularly valued the Almanach of Zacuto and its
Tables, with the improved quadrennial calculation, the use of which was much
simpler than any known until then, including the
Ephemerides of the German astronomer Johannes Müller, commonly
called Regiomontanus. The Tables of Zacuto always accompanied
Columbus on his voyages, and they provided an invaluable service. To them, of
Indeed, he and his crew once owed their lives to him.

On his last voyage, Columbus had visited the coast of Veragua, whose
name is still perpetuated in the title of its current descendant, the
Duke of Veragua. In his rich mines he found a lot of gold and stones.
precious. After leaving Veragua, a terrible hurricane caused damage
enormously their two surviving caravels, leaving them
unable to navigate. After he arrived in Jamaica he was in a
desperate serious situation. The ungrateful Francisco de Porras had
instigated a conspiracy against him; Columbus himself was bedridden
due to an illness; the natives were hostile to him and threatened his
life; and the few sailors who remained loyal to him were
discouraged and exhausted by hunger. The admiral and his followers
They awaited certain death.
 Therefore, he resorted to a tactic that is characteristic of him and
from his time. Through the Tables of Zacuto he discovered that there would be
a lunar eclipse on February 29, 1504. He then summoned
certain chiefs, or native leaders, and told them that the god of the Spaniards
he was very angry with them because they did not give him and his
sailors enough food, and that God would punish them by depriving them of the
moonlight, and ruthlessly subjecting them to the most influences
harmful. When night came, and the Moon became invisible, the
chiefs and their followers gave sad moans, and, throwing themselves at the feet
from the admiral, they promised to supply him with many provisions, and
they implored him to turn away the imminent evil from them. Columbus then
left, giving the pretext of going to talk with the Deity. When the thick
darkness began to disappear, and the Moon began to appear, he
again appeared, and announced to the expectant chieftains that their
contrition had appeased divine wrath. All the light of the Moon soon
it shone, and Columbus's goal was achieved; he found no more
hostility, and obtained abundant food.

On Thursday, February 29, 1504,

Indians, in the island of Jamaica, in the port that is said to be Sancta Gloria,
that is almost in the middle of the island, in the northern part, there was an eclipse
from the Moon, and because the beginning was before the Sun set, no
I could notice except for the term of when the Moon finished returning in its
clarity, and this was very certified two and a half hours ago from the
night. The difference of the middle of the island of Jamaica in the Indies with the
Calis Island in Spain is seven hours and fifteen minutes, so that
In Calis, the sun set earlier than in Jamaica by seven hours and fifteen.
"minutes of the hour" (Book of Prophecies, 59 seq.). Columbus then refers to...
the Almanach of Zacuto, the declaration of which regarding the eclipse of
the Moon exactly matches Columbus's observation.
 There can be no doubt that Zacuto, who established a relationship
personal with Columbus in Salamanca, drew his attention to his
treaties, and that he also orally conveyed to Columbus his theory about
of the storms in the equatorial regions, a theory that was
value for navigators. Zacuto, like Columbus's protector,
Diego de Deza was one of those who declared in favor of the Genoese.
and his company, and stated that 'the distant Indies, separated from us
through vast seas and huge stretches of land, they can be
achieved, even if the company is risky.

The Salamanca conference, in which the resolute behavior

Colón won the admiration of many and the sympathy of all,
he determined the fate of that one, even though his action was not of a character
official, like that of the Córdoba Board. The presentations made by
Diego de Deza and other knowledgeable men induced Ferdinand and Isabella
to take Columbus into their service, and on May 5, 1487, they ordered
that the Royal treasurer would give three thousand maravedís to the poor Genoese.
Toward the end of August, another sum of four thousand maravedíes was given to him.
assigned, with the express order to go to Málaga, which had been captured
by the Spanish army a few weeks earlier. There he established a relationship with the
two of the most distinguished Jews from Spain, who were then at the court
the king: the main tax collector, Abraham Senior, of
who we have already talked about, and his friend Isaac Abravanel. They were at
task of supplying the Royal armies, and making great sacrifices
they had done that for the special satisfaction of Queen Isabel. They
they performed an extraordinary service to the kingdom, since not simply
they dedicated their enormous personal fortunes to the purchase of weapons and
provisions but also led other rich Jews to follow their
example [1].
Amador de los Ríos, History of the Jews of Spain and Portugal, III,
296 sq.

Isaac Abravanel belonged to an ancient and distinguished family. His

grandfather, the "great" Samuel Abravanel, the richest and most influential Jew
in Valencia, temporarily changed their religion as a consequence of the
great persecution of 1391, and he took the name Alfonso Fernández of
Vilanova, from the name of one of its lands. The son of Samuel,
Judá Abravanel settled in Lisbon and became the treasurer of the
Prince Ferdinand, who, before his campaign against the Moors of
Tangier arranged for the payment of more than half a million reis without fail.
I had borrowed from Judah. Isaac Abravanel enjoyed the complete
trust of King Alfonso V of Portugal, and was in the most terms
friendly with the members of the House of Braganza. But after the
death of Alfonso he was forced to flee, since he was a friend of the
powerful duke of Braganza, whom King João II had condemned to
death. He went to Castile and soon gained the favor of the king and queen.

[2] About the life of Isaac Abravanel and his works, see Kayserling,
History of the Jews in Portugal, 72 sq.

It is likely that Columbus, during his residence in the capital of

Portugal would have already established a relationship with that honorable man and
competent. Isaac Abravanel was one of the first to provide
financial aid for Columbus's mission.

CHAPTER V
Columbus in Santa Fe—The Fall of Granada—The Position of the
Santángel; His Persecution by the Inquisition—Intercession of Luis de
Santángel in Favor of Columbus—The Queen's Jewels, and the Loan of
Santángel for the Equipment of the Expedition.

We do not know why Columbus was called to Málaga or for how long.
time stayed there. He soon returned to Córdoba, where he became close
with Beatriz Enríquez, a poor girl, who has been called
erroneously the daughter of a Jew. He was soon after ignored.
again by the king and the queen, who gradually stopped
grant him subsidies. He lived in the greatest poverty with his lover
Beatriz, who had given him a son. Tired of prolonged delays,
he resumed negotiations with the king of Portugal that had been
discontinued several years earlier; but those new proposals neither
were successful, and he then decided to present his project before the
King of France.

He first went to the monastery of La Rábida near Palos, to see

your son Diego before leaving Spain, or, more probably, to
inform his protector, Prior Juan Pérez de Marchena, about his
plans and farewells. Some time before, Columbus had knocked on the door of
that monastery when I was a poor pilgrim upon my arrival in Spain, and
He had asked for bread and water for his little son. The prior, who was interested
considerably in the projects of Colón, did everything that was in
his power to prevent the now proposed departure of Columbus from Spain, and
he was supported in his efforts by García Fernández, the doctor of
Sticks.

Pérez de Marchena, who had been the queen's confessor, and was very
dear to her as a good astrologer, wrote an urgent letter to
Isabel, recommending the Genoese and his company in the strongest terms.
friendlies. That letter was taken to the queen, who was then in Santa
Faith, by Sebastián Rodríguez, a sailor from Lepe. The neighboring city of
Granada had already been forced to surrender. In that splendid city
There had just been a rebellion among the Muslims, but they
they had somehow been pacified by Fernando's promise of
that all Moors and Jews would enjoy religious freedom, and that they
they could leave without any impediment

The original manuscript of the capitulation of Granada (in El Escorial,

MS 7 of the 15th century) contains the following: "Furthermore, we request from your
Majesties order to give their insurance letters to the Jews, and a license to
to take what belongs to them, and that without fault of anyone for not having any ship
they will stay on the coast where there is a term to leave." On the margin are
That there is

After deliberating with the king, Isabel immediately wrote to the

first telling him that he had to go as soon as possible to the Royal camp, and
take with him Columbus, who was still at the monastery, waiting
a response. She also sent two thousand maravedís so that the
the navigator could appear before their majesties decently dressed.
In the company of Prior Colón, he then set out for Santa Fe, and arrived there,
in the midst of the turmoil of war, in December 1491, shortly before
that the crescent moon disappeared from the western tower of the Alhambra.
In Santa Fe, he found his most influential sponsor, Pedro.
González de Mendoza, the primate cardinal, or, as he is called by
Pedro Martir de Angleria, 'the third king of Spain' (Epistles, book 8,
epist. 159), who presided over a meeting of distinguished men
summoned to examine the project of the discovery. Columbus advocated
confidently in favor of his plan, and soon convinced the primate of
that his assertions were true. It was not difficult for him to induce
the queen to give her approval to the exploration plan.
 After a seven-year conflict, comparable only to the war
From Troy, Granada fell into the hands of Spain. On Friday, January 2nd
In 1492, the Spanish banner flew on the highest tower of the old palace.
moro, and the two sovereigns ceremoniously entered the conquered
capital mora. On the same day, Fernando announced to everyone the
cities of his kingdom that, after many great conflicts that
they had cost a lot of noble blood, it had pleased God to allow
that the Christian armies defeated the Moors. Since the conquest of
Grateful papal approval has allowed the ruler of Spain to carry the
title of Her Most Catholic Majesty.

In all the cities of Spain, the fall of Moorish rule and the
the triumph of the Christian religion was celebrated with songs of
joy. The Jews were saddened and with their heads down,
that the conquest of the Muslims also decided their destiny, despite
of the important role they had played in ensuring the
Victoria; from the palace of the Alhambra the Catholic monarchs soon
they published the cruel edict for the expulsion of the Jews. In the pompous
the spectacle of the entry of the Christian armies into Granada was
presents two men of extraordinary importance, two men
totally dissimilar, with whose actions the subsequent greatness of Spain
just like its fall, all its conflicting destiny, were closely
related: a proud priest and a gloomy beggar.

The priest was Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros, the very learned Grand
Inquisitor, who wanted to convert all the Moors and Jews into
Christians, who pursued the conversos with utmost rigor. The beggar
was Christopher Columbus, with whom the two sovereigns now began to
negotiate seriously. Within reach of the object of your long appreciated
hopes and wishes, Columbus was driven by his ambition and greed
insatiable in making huge demands; he wished to be appointed
admiral, viceroy and governor for life over all the lands that he
could discover. Fernando was not inclined to grant such
demands or to grant such far-reaching privileges. Thus, the
negotiations with Columbus were suspended, and in January 1492 he
He left Granada with the definite purpose of going to the French court.

So, when their cause seemed lost, several people...

they resolutely involved in their favor; they were Juan Cabrero, Luis de
Santángel, Gabriel Sánchez and Alfonso de la Caballería, all men
of Jewish extraction. When Luis de Santángel heard that the
negotiations with Colón had been definitively broken, he felt
much sadness and anguish as if he himself had suffered with some
great misfortune (Las Casas, History of the Indies, chap. 32).

Let's take a break to investigate who Luis de Santángel was. In the

In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Santángel or Sancto Angelo family was one of the
richer, more influential and more powerful in Aragón. When, to
consequence of great persecutions and of the anti-Jewish sermons of
Vicente Ferrer, many Jews in Calatayud, Daroca, Fraga, Barbastro and
other cities changed their religion in order to save their lives, the
Santángel also adopted Christianity. Just like the
Villanueva, whose ancestor was Moisés Patagón, and the Clemente,
those who descended from Moisés Chamorro, the Santángel had also
coming from Calatayud, the ancient Calat-al-yehud, which in the 14th century had
one of the richest Jewish communities in Aragon.

Also called Pazagón. The members of that family also

They resided in Portugal. Isaac Pazagón was the president of the community.
Jewish in Coimbra around the year 1360. See Kayserling, History of
Jews in Portugal, 24.
 It is said that the ancestor of the Santángel was the wise Azariah.
Ginillo, whose wife could not be induced to abandon Judaism, nor
at least in appearance. A few years later, however, she got married
with Bonafós from the Cavalry, and, along with her husband, she continued the
example of Azarias and became a Christian. Azarías Ginillo, or Luis de
Santángel, as he called himself, was a prominent jurist. He had several children.
, and daughters. One of them, together with his lover, a certain Marzilla, was
murdered by her husband. The other daughter married Pedro Gurrea,
a secret Jew, and his son Gaspar married Ana de la Caballería, a
secret Jew. The children of Azarias, Alfonso—who, like his father,
studied law—, Juan Martín and Pedro Martín lived in Daroca, and
they ensured the protection and privileges of King Ferdinand I of Aragon.

Azarías-Luis de Santángel was not only educated but also

prosperous, though not rich. In the year 1459, his grandsons, the jurist Luis de
Santángel and Leonardo de Santángel, from Calatayud, presented a
request to King John of Aragon to allow them to dig in
search for gold and silver coins and other treasures that had been
buried by their parents and grandparents. They suggested digging under the
houses that, like minors orphans, they had inherited from
his parents but had later sold to the Jew Abraham Patagon
or his brother Raimundo López. The property bordered on the
properties of Fernando Lupo and Luis Sánchez in the neighborhood of
Villanueva in Calatayud. Luis de Santángel offered to give to the treasury
a fifth of everything he could find. The king granted him.
your request on October 24, 1459 on the condition that they
they would undertake the excavations at their own cost, and with the
consent of Abraham Patagón, the then owner of the houses, and
that those houses be restored to the condition in which they were
found.
 As a result of their brilliant intellects, their activity, and their wealth,
the Santángel ensured great influence and high positions of trust;
they were prominent jurists and law professors, and held
important positions in the courts, in the municipalities, in the
administration of the State and in the Church.

Azarías-Luis de Santángel, who had the reputation of being a

excellent lawyer, reached the position of Zalmedina, or Zavalmedina,
a name given to a judge with jurisdiction in the capital, which was
designated by the king. To avoid persecution and demonstrate his faith
Christian, he dedicated his son Pedro Martín to the religious ministry, and he
he became the bishop of Mallorca as well as advisor to King John II.
Pedro Martín left an inheritance to secure the marriage of
poor orphan girls from their family, and according to the terms
from his will, said fund was to be administered by the city of
Barbastro. Another Martín de Santángel, the nephew of the bishop, became
provincial of Aragón, and lived in Zaragoza. Another Luis de Santángel,
acting as ambassador of King Alfonso V of Aragon, negotiated with the
Sultan of Babylon regarding a trade agreement. The influence of
the greatest achievement was attained by those family members who
they had houses and properties in Daroca, Barbastro, Teruel, Alcafliz and in
other cities in Aragón and Valencia, especially in Calatayud, Valencia
and Zaragoza.

The lawyer Luis de Santángel, the one who had sought the treasures
buried by their parents in Calatayud, he held the high position of lawyer
of the treasury (fiscal attorney). The names of Luis de Santángel and Luis
from the Cavalry, the general treasurer, are subscribed to a patent
of nobility and grant of privileges published on December 4th
1461, in Calatayud, by King John of Aragon, for his 'well-loved'
soldier Juan Gilbert and his descendants. At a meeting of the courts
of Aragon in the year 1473, this Luis de Santángel represented the
gentlemen and the nobles, while that same year Antonio de
Santángel, from Calatayud, represented that city. The latter
intervened on behalf of the Jewish community of Hijar a few days after
the expulsion of the Jews from Spain.

In the mid-15th century, the Santángel family from Valencia and Zaragoza were
the Rothschild of their time. At the head of the Valencian house was the
merchant Luis de Santángel the elder. In the year 1450, Luis had already
gained the favor of King Alfonso V of Aragon; he also had a
uninterrupted relationship with King John II. He was the collector of the
salt works of La Mata near Valencia, for which, according to a
contract of July 9, 1472, he had to pay an annual rent of
21,100 salaries to the pig Juan de Ribasaltas; he was also the
collector of domains and Royal customs. After the death of
Luis the old in 1476, his wife Brianda took over the management of his
business, and his son Luis de Santángel the younger, who was a Royal counselor
in Valencia, he became the collector of the Royal domains,
while the collection of salt work, after the term
from the contract of Luis the old, passed to his relative and partner Jaime of
Santángel. Jaime's chests were always open for King John.
II, who appointed him royal cupbearer, and they were also open to
Fernando, his son and successor. Jaime lent large sums to the latter.
money to subdue the Catalan rebels, to recover the
county of Roussillon of the king of France, to whom it had been promised,
and to conquer Granada. Whenever Ferdinand needed money he
he appealed to his friends the Santángels of Valencia, and never in vain.

For that family that had such a high reputation throughout Aragon,
Catalonia and Valencia, the Inquisition turned out to be fatal. As we have already
Seen, the converts opposed the introduction of the Holy Office the most.
the wealthy and more distinguished of Zaragoza. The Santángel were among
those who, deep down faithful to their ancient faith, led the
conspiracy against the Inquisitor Pedro de Arbués. Just like the point
where Arbués received his mortal blow is still indicated in the church
subway of La Seo, one can still see in the large
and beautiful market-square of Zaragoza the majestic houses that in the
flourishing days of the Aragonese capital belonged to Luis and Juan of
Santángel. The Santángel were also among the first heretics.
Jews who ascended to the funeral pyre.

The first victim of the Inquisition in Zaragoza was Martín de

Santángel, who was burned on July 28, 1486; eleven months more
In the afternoon, on August 18, 1487, Monsignor Luis de Santángel, father-in-law of
treasurer Gabriel Sánchez found the same fate. On July 10,
1489 the mother of Gabriel Gonzalo de Santángel, and six years later
Gabriel himself, died in the fire. The lawyer Juan de Santángel.
and his brother Luis, both of whom resorted to a timely escape and
they arrived in Bordeaux safe, one was burned in effigy on the 17th of
March 1487, and the other on June 1, 1492; all his properties,
real estate and personal belongings were confiscated by the State. Juan was
exiled forever from Spain, and his three daughters, Luisa, Inés, and Laura,
who had been raised in wealth found themselves reduced to poverty
extreme. Even Fernando, hard-hearted, was moved by that
show; as a special sign of Royal grace and in
recognition of his father's services, he granted them, on the 19th of
January 1488, an annual pension of 1,500 salaries from taxes of
the Jewish community in Jaca. We don't know if that annual payment ended with
the expulsion of the Jews and the cessation of their taxes.
Mosén is a treatment of medieval origin that was used in the kingdom
of Aragon, which was reserved for the knights and the citizens
honorable, whose use was later allowed to the rest of the people
prominent members of society, except for doctors and lawyers, to the
those who were given the treatment of misser [NdelT.].

The Holy Office constantly set traps to catch the

members of the Santángel family and secure their property. Jaime Martín
he was burned on March 20, 1488; Donosa de Santángel, six months
later; Simón de Santángel and his wife Clara Lunel, betrayed by
his own son, were burned in Lérida on July 30, 1490. In order to
to have a quasi-legal pretext to confiscate your property for use of the
State, Violante de Santángel, the wife of Alfonso Gómez de Huesca,
and Gabriel de Santángel, from Barbastro, were posthumously sentenced.
and his remains were exhumed and publicly burned. The
Gabriel's properties were sold by the king to Miguel Vivo, abbot.
from Aljoro, for 18,000 wages. All family members who
They saved their lives, they were at least mocked like Jews or heretics.
Jews. Thus, the lawyer Pedro de Santángel, Juan Tomás, and Miguel de
Santángel (who was a councilman in Zaragoza), the wife of López-Patagón, and
Lucrecia de Santángel, everyone had to parade in a public procession
dressed as penitents and had to solemnly swear never
to practice Jewish rites again. The Inquisition actually carried out a
true war of destruction against all members of that
family; regardless of age, gender or position, they were handed over to
the flames are obliged to do public penance, and that, too, so much
later as in the sixteenth century [3].

The following were burned: Isabel de Santángel, on October 4

from 1495; Fernando de Santángel, from Barbastro, on October 19, 1496;
Juana de Santángel, wife of Pedro de Santa Fe, on September 13
In 1499, Luis de Santángel, from Calatayud, did public penance on the 10th.
of June 1493, and another Luis de Santángel on October 19, 1496.
See The Green Book, in Revista de España, vol. XVIII.

On July 17, 1491, Luis de Santángel also appeared dressed

with a garish label as an adherent of Judaism. He is at
in front of the event of that time that stands out so prominently
in the annals of the world; impartial historians must assign it
decisively an important role in the discovery of America.

He was the son of the rich Luis de Santángel, who was the tax collector of the
royal taxes and customs in Valencia, a charge that he himself
subsequently he served; he was the nephew of Luis de Santángel who
he died in the bonfire in Zaragoza. King Ferdinand appointed him as a scribe
of ration, chancellor of the court in Aragon. He also had in Aragon the
same influential position of chief accountant, or general controller, that
was occupied by Alonso de Quintanilla in Castile. He was a favorite of the
King Fernando enjoyed the complete trust of him, he knew everything
his secrets, and handled all kinds of business for him. The king had him in
high esteem for your loyalty, your sagacity, your extraordinary diligence and
administrative talent, his genuine integrity and his complete loyalty to the
corona; whenever Fernando wrote to him, he called him 'good Aragonese,'
"excellent and well-loved counselor". On the other hand, Luis de Santángel
he owed to his friend Real not only his eminent position but also his
life; if it hadn't been for the direct intervention of the king, he and his sons
they would have shared the fate of their uncle and many of their relatives.

Luis de Santángel was the Beaconsfield of Spain [Benjamin Disraeli,

Conde de Beaconsfield, 1804-1881. Like that English statesman
—who was of Jewish descent and whose ancestors were also
persecuted by the Inquisition and expelled from Spain —Luis
was characterized at the same time by its particularism and universalism, its
enthusiasm and his sagacity, his subjective patriotism and his objective loyalty
to other nationalities. He was a good Aragonese, and yet he worked
for the unity of Spain; he was ardently devoted to his country, and
carefully considered the advantages that would arise from
maritime discoveries. As the head of a large trading house in
Valencia and as the collector of the Royal customs, had relations
with Genoese merchants long before Columbus arrived in Spain.
In 1479 he was commissioned by Ferdinand to resolve a dispute over
which some Genoese sailors in Valencia were worried about,
that had to do with certain customs rights. At the same time
he was also ordered to pay for the imported fabrics from Lombardy for
the use of the Royal House. Columbus was probably introduced to
merchant from Valencia by some of his fellow citizens, and can
having become known early by Santángel.

Luis de Santángel became the leader of the Aragonese who to

last moment intervened successfully in support of Colón. He was
actively assisted by Juan Cabrero, the Royal waiter, by the son of
Martín Cabrero and Isabel de Paternoy, who were both of Jewish lineage
and whose relatives were victims of the Inquisition. Juan was the friend
confidential and the constant companion of Fernando the Catholic; he fought
next to the king in the Moorish wars, and was his faithful advisor in all the
state matters; enjoyed the trust of Fernando to such an extent
that he was made the executor of the king's will.

As soon as Santángel heard about Columbus's expedition and of the

end of your negotiations, was where the queen—if not at the request of
Fernando, at least with his consent—, and seriously expressed his
surprised that such a magnanimous sponsor of large companies
she wouldn't have the courage to take on a task from which she could expect
reasonably a huge wealth, a great increase of territory, and the
immortal glory both for the crown and for the Church. He represented her
that the amount of money required by the company was
relatively small, and that the compensation that the explorer
he demanded for discoveries such as those he could make, not
it should cause a lot of hesitation. Columbus himself—he continued saying
Santángel accepted to take on part of the expense, and risked his honor, and
even his life. Most likely, the Genoese was a wise man.
and wise, well qualified to achieve success. Many scholars
prominent figures to whom the queen had presented such a project for their
they had passed the exam, and the opponents of Colón could not offer
no valid argument against his opinions.

If, as Columbus predicted, some other European power were to have the good
fortunate to act as your sponsor and reap the fruits of that
discoveries, the Kingdom of Spain, its rulers, and the entire nation
they would suffer a lot of embarrassment and harm. If the queen did not take advantage of that
opportunity, she would hold it against him for the rest of her life, her enemies would
they would speak ill of her, and her descendants would blame her; she would harm her
honor and the renown of his royal name; she would harm his states and
the welfare of his subjects (Las Casas, History of the Indies, chap. 32).

Those arguments from Santángel made a deep impression.

about the queen. She thanked him for his advice, and promised him her
consent for that purpose; but she wanted to wait for a
time until the kingdom regains its strength, since its resources
financiers had been exhausted by the recent and long-standing
war. It is said that she even promised to pawn her jewels to
secure the money for the navy's equipment, if Columbus does not
could tolerate more the delay in the execution of your company [4].

But lending Luis de Santángel sixteen thousand ducats.

his jewels". Pizarro and Orellano, Illustrious Men of the New World,
Madrid, 1639, p. 10. This assertion is accepted by Prescott in his
History of Fernando and Isabel, by Washington Irving in his excellent
Life of Columbus.

Santángel, continue the story, was very happy with the resolution.
of the queen, and declared that it was not necessary for her to pawn her jewels;
he would be pleased, he said, to advance the necessary money for the
expedition, and would be glad for the opportunity to perform such a service
small for her and for her lord the king [5]. This story, invented for
to glorify Queen Isabel has recently been relegated to the kingdom of the
fable [6].

Las Casas, History of the Indies, chap. 32; Muñoz, History of the New
World, volume II, chapter 31.
See the excellent essay by the academic scholar Cesáreo Fernández
Hard, The Jewels of Isabel the Catholic, in her Unfounded Traditions,
Madrid, 1888.

The sale of crowns and jewelry by the Spanish rulers

it was, however, not a rare event. Doña Sancha, the wife of
Fernando I the Great of Castile sold his jewels in order to pay for the
soldiers for their services in the war against the Moors. When
Alfonso X the Wise of Castile wished to end the rebellion of the Infante.
Don Sancho borrowed a large sum of money from the Moor Jacob.
abd-el-Azer, and he gave him the crown jewels as a guarantee. In order to carry out
After the siege of Algeciras in 1344, Alfonso XI was forced to
pledge his crown; and in the expedition against Naples, Alfonso V of
Aragon pawned its crown and its silver table for two hundred and eighty
seven ducats.

At that time neither Aragon nor Castile, neither Ferdinand nor Isabel, had
at your disposal enough money to equip a fleet. Santángel, who
he was always ready to serve the crown
seventeen thousand florins, almost five million maravedís. The jewels
were not required as a guarantee from the queen; in fact, none of them
they were in her possession then, as she had promised her necklace
during the last war.

And because there was a need for money for his expedition, due to
the war, lent them to make the first fleet of the Indies and its
discovery the scribe of ration Luys de Sant Angel; Gonzalo
Fernández de Oviedo, Chronicle of the Indies, 1547, p. 5. "While being
Kings in need of money for this company lent them ten and six.
"a thousand ducats Luys de Sant Angel, his ration scribe"; Garibay,
Summary History of the Chronicles of All the Kingdoms of Spain,
And because the Kings did not have
money to send to Colón was lent by Luys de Sant Angel, his
scribe of ration, six tales of maravedís, which are in account more
thick 16,000 ducats"; López de Gómara, History of the Indies, cap.
15, p. 167. "And for the expenses of the Armada, Luis de Santángel lent
"scribe of rations of Aragon seventeen thousand florins"; Bart.
Leonardo de Argensola, Annals, book I, chapter 10.

Due to the jealousy that still exists today between Castile and
Aragon, Aragonese writers have recently discussed the issue.
whether Luis de Santángel lent that money out of his own pocket or if he
indirectly secured by the state treasury through Gabriel
Sánchez, the general treasurer of Aragón. Apart from the fact that the
the treasury of Aragon, as well as that of Castile, was empty as a result of
from the prolonged war with the Moors [8], the extraordinary services
de Santángel in that matter is clearly demonstrated by the praise
excessive that Fernando granted to his "beloved" Luis de Santángel, and
for the many tests of gratitude that the king gave him. Of these we will have
more to say later.

Felipe de la Caballería, from Zaragoza, had lent 9,022 sueldos to

father of Fernando, King John of Aragon, who died in January 1479.
It was not until 1493 that King ordered Gabriel Sánchez to pay that.
debt. Document closed in Barcelona on August 30, 1493.
Archive of the Crown of Aragon, Reg. 3616, fol. 182.

That he advanced that money from his own pocket is undoubtedly proven.
for the original accounting books, which were previously in the files of
Simancas and that are still preserved in the Archive of the Indies in Seville.
In the account book of Luis de Santángel and the treasurer Francisco
Pinelo, which extends from 1491 to 1493, Santángel is credited
with a sum of 1,140,000 maravedís that he gave to the bishop of Ávila
for Columbus's expedition (this bishop would later become the
archbishop of Granada). In another ledger, that of García Martínez
and Pedro de Montemayor, the following item is: Alonso de las Cabezas,
war treasurer in the diocese of Badajoz, by order of the archbishop
from Granada, dated May 5, 1492, paid Alonso de Angulo to
Luis de Santángel, royal secretary, whose authorization was
presented with the aforementioned order, 2,640,000 maravedís, namely,
1,500,000 payment to Isaac Abravanel for the money he had
loaned to their majesties in the war against the Moors, and the remaining
1,140,000 maravedíes in payment for the scribe of the ration now
mentioned for the money he advanced to equip the caravels
ordered by Their Majesties for the expedition to the Indies and for payment
to Christopher Columbus, the admiral of that fleet. On May 20, 1493,
day on which Fernando was particularly busy with Columbus and his
expedition, the king ordered that his general treasurer Gabriel Sánchez
pay 30,000 florins in gold to "his beloved counselor and scribe of
"the ration of Luis de Santángel". That sum certainly included the rest of
loan.

Recent Spanish writers maintain that Santángel received 17,000.

maravedis as interests, but that assertion is totally
unsustainable. Luis de Santángel and also his relative Gabriel Sánchez
They were the most enthusiastic sponsors of Columbus. Both acted
selflessly and solely for the well-being of their country. Through
Through their energetic efforts, they succeeded in making Columbus
call again to the Royal Palace. In the end, the long-awaited plan
from Columbus' voyage of discovery became a fact
completed.

Gabriel's relatives, like all those who bore the surname

Santángel was pursued by the Inquisition. His father, Pedro
Sánchez was burned in effigy in Zaragoza in 1493, 'for being a heretic.'
"Judaizing apostate," and his brothers and sisters died in the fire.
as Jewish heretics.

CHAPTER VI

Expulsion of the Jews from Spain—Treaty of Santa Fe—Exodus of

the Jews—Preparations and Departure of Columbus—Participation of the
Jews in the Expedition—Guanahani—Luis de Torres—Indians and
Israelites.
 "So after having expelled all the Jews from all
your kingdoms and lordships, in the same month of January sent your
Highnesses, let me go to the mentioned matches with sufficient troops.
India. These are the words with which Columbus begins his diary.
Without a word of disapproval, he thus mentions the tragic
event that affected the well-being of hundreds of thousands, and that must
have made a deep impression on the naturally lively
Explorer. His apathetic words are indicative of his fanaticism. That
trait, however, he did not import it from Italy, which at that time was
a predominantly republican and commercial country. A very spirit
different was shown by his compatriot Agostino Giustiniani, the wise one
bishop of Nebbio, who speaks of the Jews expelled from Spain with a
felt sympathy [1]. He was the first to write a brief outline
biographical sketch of the explorer; this outline, which praises Columbus, is given of
incidental manner in the polyglot psalter of the bishop, in the comments
To Psalm XIX. Columbus's religious enthusiasm soon degenerated into
fanaticism as a consequence of their contact with ecclesiastics— their most
faithful and helpful friends—and as a consequence of their close relationship with
men like the bachelor Andres Bernáldez [2], and Pedro Martir of
Anglería, who boasts of the special friendship he had with Columbus. That
fanaticism was also fueled by sordid greed and desire for
promote their own material interests. In order to seem
particularly pious, he even wore the brown hood
dark of the Franciscans.

Annals of the Republic of Genoa Illustrated with Notes by Cav. G. B.

Spotorno, II, 566.
Bernáldez, the fanatical author of the History of the Catholic Monarchs, was
the parish priest of the small town of Los Palacios. Columbus was his guest
for a while.

The expulsion of the Jews from Spain is closely related

with Columbus's expedition and the discovery of America, it does not
simply externally at the point in time but also
intrinsically. Not in January, as Columbus states in his journal, but the
March 31, 1492, the Catholic monarchs published from the palace
from the Alhambra the edict that all Jews and Jewish women of every age,
under the penalty of death, they should abandon all the kingdoms and the lands of
Spain in four months. The edict, which was signed by Fernando
and Isabel is of a completely religious character, especially regarding
the main reason given for that law. The reason given is that, despite
of the relentless and more vigorous efforts of the Inquisition, the
Marranos were deceived by those who adhered to Judaism to
that they would return to their old faith, and that this put them in great danger
the Catholic religion. The Jews were generously allowed to take
their properties with them "by land and water", except gold, silver, currency
minted and goods subject to laws that prohibit export; they
they could only carry with them items like those that could be
freely exported [3].

And likewise we give

license is granted to said Jews and Jewish women that they may take out of
all the sayings of our kingdoms and lordships, their goods and possessions by
but it is by land, as long as it is not gold, nor silver, nor currency
monetized, nor the other things prohibited by the laws of our kingdoms,
except for goods that are not prohibited or concealed.
 The king and the queen acted in full agreement, but Fernando
played the main role in the expulsion of the Jews. Hence,
the decree was not signed by the Castilian Secretary of State Gaspar
Gricio but by the secretary of state of Aragon Juan de Coloma, a
ancient confidant of the king. Recent Spanish historians admit
without difficulty, Fernando was led to adopt that measure more out of
economic and political reasons, more by the desire to promote their
own material interests, than by the religious zeal with which he acted
Isabel [4].

The expulsion of the Jews was driven less by religious causes than
economic and political issues," says Abdón de Paz in the Revista de España,
vol. 109, p. 377. See also by Adolfo de Castro, History of the
Jews in Spain, 136, and Bofarull and Broca, Critical History of Catalonia,
Barcelona, 1877, pp. 377 sq.

The king needed a lot of money to carry out his plan to establish
the new territory under his dominion. He took it from the Jews, who were
rich, especially in Castile; some of them had as much as one or
two million maravedís, or more. The Inquisition, to which he had
brought into existence, and the expulsion of the Jews, which he had decreed,
they had one and the same objective: the first aimed to ensure the
property of the Jews secrets for the state treasury, and the second,
the layer of religion aimed to confiscate the property of those who
they openly professed to be Jews.

The Jews knew the miser Fernando and his secret plans. As
in the case of the pigs when the Inquisition was introduced, thus
now those over whose heads hung the sword of Damocles of the
they made an attempt to buy the king's consent for expulsion
the withdrawal of the edict. Isaac Abravanel —whose services filled with
self-denial in favor of the State was recognized, and to whom the king and the
queen still owed a large sum of money, borrowed during
the war with the Moors—offered Fernando 30,000 ducats if he
he averted the evil that threatened the Jews. If Luis de Santángel—
this then in friendly relation with Abravanel— or Juan Cabrero or
other pigs interceded with the king, it is very doubtful. They were,
on one hand, more or less worried about the subject, and feared losing
their lives if they interfered; on the other hand, they knew too much
well the stubbornness and greed of the king. In fact, nothing could persuade him
to be merciful enough to revoke the edict.

On April 30, 1492, the trumpets sounded in unison and the mayors
they announced publicly at the same time in Santa Fe and everywhere
throughout the kingdom that by the end of July all the Jews and Jewish women
with their possessions they should leave Spain, under penalty of death and
confiscation of their properties by the State. After that date
no Spaniard should house a Jew in his home or lend him any
help.

On April 30th, the same day it was announced everywhere and

publicly the expulsion of the Jews, Columbus was ordered to
he equips a fleet for his journey to the Indies, and at the same time he received
the contract that had been agreed upon on April 17 in Santa Fe between
he and Juan de Coloma, the latter acting on behalf of the sovereigns
Spaniards [5].

That agreement was printed by Las Casas, History of the Indies, chapter.
33.
 Fernando, who had strongly opposed for a long time
to the expedition, he was forced to give in thanks to the persistence of
Columbus, and forced to accept the excessive demands of the explorer, which
twice they had caused the negotiations to be discontinued. He
he granted him the title of admiral, with all its privileges, and he did so
viceroy and governor general of all the lands that he could discover
or acquiring. Columbus was not content only with dignities and honors for
he and his descendants, but he also wanted to make a considerable
material gain from their travels. The main objective of their
explorations were, in fact, to find gold, and in a letter to the queen he
he frankly declared that this gold could even be the means to
purify the souls of men and ensure their entry into Paradise.
Thus, he stipulated that he should have a tenth of all the pearls, stones
precious items, gold, silver, spices, and other articles; in summary, a tenth
of everything found, bought, exchanged or otherwise
obtained in the newly discovered lands; he should also have a
eighth additional of the profits of the current company and of all the
similar companies started in the future, provided that he
should contribute one eighth of the expense.

Columbus then made preparations for his journey. He went from Granada.
directly to the small port of Palos, where it had been ordered by
Fernando and his partner that some criminals equate two
caravels within ten days. There he soon recruited in the name of his
company the services of the rich Pinzón brothers, who enjoyed
a very high reputation among sailors. In Palos he also
he obtained his sailors and travel companions.
 The Jews, under the expulsion decree, made preparations to
to leave the beautiful land that for centuries had been the beloved home of
their ancestors, and to which they were passionately attached.
They fixed their public and private affairs, tried to sell their
personal properties and ensure that debts were paid
they had pending matters with them; but only in very few cases they
they were successful in getting rid of their properties or in obtaining the
money from their debtors. As the day of their departure approached,
their sorrows increased. They spent whole nights in the graves of their
ancestors, and they were particularly worried that the
cemeteries, where they had the most beloved of all their possessions
abandoned, were protected from desecration.

On August 2, 1492, which coincided with the day of mourning for the double
destruction of Jerusalem, 300,000 Jews (according to some writers, the
number was much larger) [6] left Spain to settle
in Africa, Turkey, Portugal, Italy, and France. During that time
memorable day they set off from the ports of Cartagena,
Valencia, Cádiz, Laredo, Barcelona, and Tarragona.

A rabbi, whose sagacity is praised, "who was called Zentolla and to the
that I named him Tristán Bogado," he informed Bemaldez that
There were more than 1,160,000 Jews in Spain at the time of their expulsion.
Andres Bernáldez, History of the Catholic Monarchs, I, 338.

On August 2, the Spanish Jews began their wandering, and to

the next day, Friday, August 3, Columbus with his fleet of three ships, the
Santa María, the Pinta, and the Niña sailed to find a route through the
ocean towards India, and discover a new world. He was accompanied in
his first journey with no more than one hundred and twenty men (according to some
writers, for only ninety), almost all Castilian and Aragonese;
many of them were from Palos, and some from Guadalajara, Ávila, Segovia,
Cáceres, Castrojeriz, Ledesma, Villar and Talavera, all cities in the
Which large Jewish communities existed before the expulsion?
small.

Was there any person of Jewish descent in that armada who under the
Did Columbus's guide lead his course toward a new world? It was not easy for
he finds men willing to accompany him on his adventurous journey;
even people guilty of crimes were released from prison to
condition that they enlisted among the recruits. What should
prevent Jews, under the expulsion decree, persecuted and without
home, will they participate in the trip? Among the companions of the explorer
whose names have reached us—the complete list has
lost - there were several men of Jewish descent; for example, Luis
de Torres, a Jew who had held a position under the governor
from Murcia and who was baptized shortly before Columbus sailed. As
Torres understood Hebrew, Chaldean, and some Arabic, Columbus used him as
interpreter [*]. Alonso de la Calle was also of Jewish lineage; his surname
he was referring to the street and neighborhood of the Jews, from where he came; he died
on the island of Hispaniola on May 23, 1503. Rodrigo Sánchez de Segovia
he was a relative of the treasurer Gabriel Sánchez, and participated in the first
journey due to a special request from Queen Isabel. The ship's doctor,
Master Bernal and the surgeon Marco were also of Jewish blood.
Bernal had lived before in Tortosa, and as an adherent of Judaism,
"por la Ley de Moysen", había sido sometido a la penitencia pública en
Valencia in October 1490, at the same time when Solomon Adret
and his wife Isabel were burned.

The discovery by Keyserling of the evidence that Luis de

Torres was a pig is remembered in the synagogue of the Bahamas that
he bears the name Luis de Torres (Wikipedia).
 When the fleet, whose crew was a very diverse group of
men —Spaniards, Moors, and Jews, as well as an Irishman and a
Genoese—, had traveled more than two thousand miles, the sailors
they began to murmur loudly about the intolerable length of the journey.
Colón calmed them as well as he could. On October 11, after the...
accustomed evening hymn, he urged his crew to
they maintained a sharp vigilance in search of land. In addition to the
ten thousand maravedíes tip offered by the king, he promised a
silk jerkin for the one who first sighted land. Finally, early in the
On the morning of Friday, October 12, the shout "Land, Land!" arose from the
Paint.

In his diary, Columbus admits that the land was first seen by one of
his sailors; but the greedy explorer could not resist the temptation of
claim the tip of ten thousand maravedíes, and the poor sailor
lost that just like the promised vest. Who was the lucky one?
sailor whose hopes were thus shattered? Gonzalo
Fernández de Oviedo, who saw the Jews leave Spain and heard
his sad laments, he was informed (so he tells us) by Vicente
Pinzón, the commander of the Niña, and by the sailor Hernán Pérez
Mateos, who was a man from Lepe, was the first to see a distant light.
and he shouted 'Land!'. According to Fernández de Oviedo, when that man
found that he had been cheated with the tip, he got his
licensing, he went to Africa, and there he discarded Christianity in exchange for
his ancient faith. The chronicler does not inform us if the ancient faith was Judaism
According to others, it was Rodrigo de Triana, a sailor from the Pinta, who
first he shouted.

because the congratulations were not given to him... he spent time in Africa and renounced
the faith"; Fernández de Oviedo, Chronicle of the Indies, 1547, cap. 5, page 7.
And thus the sailor from Lepe ended up in Berberia and there he renounced the faith; López
de Gómara, History of the Indies, 168; Fernández de Oviedo, History
General and Natural of the Indies, Madrid, 1851, I, 24.

The land was Watling Island or perhaps Acklin Island; the natives it
They called it Guanahani. Columbus took possession of that island for the
rulers of Castile, and then, sailing towards the Southwest to
Fernandina discovered the island that he called Isabel in honor of the queen.
Still searching for the island of Cipango with its fabulous wealth of gold and
spices, he arrived in Cuba around the end of October. He thought he was in
the immediate vicinity of the kingdom of the Great Khan, and determined to send
sent inside to find out, as he expressed it in a letter
to Luis de Santángel, if there was a king or great cities there. That mission
he entrusted her to Luis de Torres, who was accompanied by Rodrigo de Jerez
from Ayamonte.

Columbus gave them specific instructions, he ordered them to

They will prepare the way for a peace treaty between the ruler of the country.
and the Castilian crown, and gave them a letter and gifts for the first one. They
they also brought with them samples of pepper and other spices, in order to
show them to the natives and find out where such things grew. On Friday
November 2nd, Luis de Torres and his companion began their journey in
the unknown land, and returned to Columbus on the 6th. They reported
that, after sixty miles of travel, they arrived at a place with fifty
huts and with a population of approximately one thousand people; there they
they found men and women with fire in their hands with which they
they lit the end of a small roll held in the mouth that
it seemed to be made of dry leaves and was called tobacco; they inhaled it
the other end of the small roll, and they were exhaling large clouds of smoke through
the mouth and the nose. The two envoys received a very friendly
welcome of the natives and their chief; the women kissed their hands and
pies, and when they left they were escorted by the ruler,
your son, and more than five hundred people.

Luis de Torres, the first European to discover the use of tobacco,

was also the first person of Jewish descent to settle in
Cuba. He won the favor of the ruler, the chieftain, and received from him as
gifts not just land but also slaves, five adults and a
child. The king and queen of Spain awarded him an annual grant of
8.645 maravedíes, and Torres died in the newly discovered land.

In Cuba, Hispaniola, and the other islands that he discovered, Columbus

he found natives who had their chiefs and their own language and
traditions. What race did those aborigines of America belong to?
Various writers have claimed, and have displayed much
knowledge in the attempt to prove that the aborigines were
descendants of the Jews [8]. That result was achieved already in the
16th century by a Spanish cleric [a certain Doctor] Roldán; his arguments
derived from an unpublished manuscript that he discovered in the Library
of St. Paul in Seville.

[8] Among other writers, see Gaffarel, History of the Discovery of

America, Paris, 1892, I, 89 sq.

[Fernando de] Montesinos [9], who possessed the manuscripts of Luis

López, the learned bishop of Quito, was convinced that the Peruvians
they were of Jewish origin. The opinion of Roldán and Gregorio García [10],
that the aboriginal people of America were descendants of the Jews, was
sustained with many arguments that same year, 1650, in such a way
independent by the English Thomas Thorowgood [11] and by the Jew
Portuguese Menasseh ben-Israel, a renowned rabbi from Amsterdam
What led Cromwell to allow the Jews to return to England.
A Portuguese pig from Villaflor, which, strangely enough, also
last name Montesinos [Antonio] and later took the name of
Aaron Levi informed Menasseh that he had been in contact with
South America with Jews from the Ten Tribes. The book of Menasseh
it attracted a lot of attention and was translated into Latin, Spanish, Dutch,
English, Italian, and Hebrew [12]. The interest in this book has not ceased.
until today; that treaty 'on the origin of the Americans' was
reprinted twelve years ago by the Spanish Santiago Pérez Junquera.

He was a spirited and intrepid cleric, who for a long time

lived in Lima at the beginning of the 16th century. [NdelT: Kayserling here
it mistakenly refers to the friar Antonio de Montesinos, from the 16th century,
who was never in Peru but in Hispaniola and of whom it is known that
he was spirited and intrepid in his defense of the indigenous people against abuse.
Fernando de Montesinos, from the 17th century, also a priest and who yes
he was in Peru, it is known that he wrote attributing to the Peruvian Indians
a Semitic origin and identifying Peru with the biblical land of Ophir.
Kayserling in fact only gives his surname.
Gregorio Garcia, Origin of the Indians of the New World, Valencia,
1607.
Thomas Thorowgood, Jews in America; or Probabilities that the
Americans Are of that Race, London, 1650.
Menasseh ben Israel, Hope of Israel, Amsterdam, 1650; 2nd
edition, Smyrna, 1659. The Latin translation is titled Spes Israelis, year
1650.
Santiago Pérez Junquera, Hope of Israel. Reprint in full
and a line from the book of Menasseh ben Israel, Hebrew theologian and philosopher,
On the Origin of the Americans, Madrid, 1881. Rabbi Louis
Grossmann from Detroit, Michigan, translated part of the work into English,
in the American Jews' Annual for the year 5649, that is, 1889, under the
title of The Origin of the American Indians and the Lost Ten Tribes.
 The origin of Americans is, in fact, a question that often
it has been discussed from the discovery of America to the present day
present. Even in recent times, the English Lord Kingsborough
dedicated his time, his skills, and most of his great fortune to
the publication of a collection of American documents, in order to
demonstrate the Jewish origin of the Indians of America [14]. It is not
improbable that the Jews who were expelled from Nineveh by
Salmanassar wandered until uninhabited regions. According to [the chronicler
Antonio de Herrera, the Indians valued the tradition that Yucatán
had been colonized by tribes coming from the East. Several writers
give the exact route by which the Jews traveled until they
established in Cuba. Lord Kingsborough even claims that they
they crossed the Bering Strait, and then headed to Mexico and Peru.

Antiquities of Mexico, London, 1830-1848, vol. VI.

Of more interest than the manner of migration is the question of whether

some analogy in language, in traditions, in concepts
religious or in religious ceremonies justifies the acceptance of that theory
ethnological. The main argument of Doctor Roldán in support of his
opinion is the language of the Indians in Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica and the
contiguous islands. He claims that it is very similar to Hebrew; of
In fact, he even calls it corrupted Hebrew. He claims that names
such as Cuba and Haiti are Hebrews, and that they were first
applied by the oldest chiefs, the leaders or heads (kasin), who
they discovered and populated the islands. The names of rivers and people in
uses among the natives derive from Hebrew: for example, Haina from
Hebrew Ain, current; Yones of Jonah, Yaque of Jacob, Ures of Uriah,
Siba's Siabao, Moysi's Maisi. The names of their tools, of
their small canoes or cangas, the name axi for pepper, the name
from the warehouse for corn and grain, and other designations, everything points to
to the Hebrew language.

Their rituals and ceremonies, as well as their language, form one of the
main arguments in favor of that theory of its origin. The
circumcision was prevalent among the Indians; they often bathed in
rivers and currents; they refrained from touching the dead and from tasting the
blood; they had defined days of fasting; marriage with sisters-in-law
it was allowed if they became widows without children; women were
discarded in exchange for new companions. They also sacrificed
the first fruits in high mountains and under shaded trees; they
they had temples and carried a sacred ark that preceded them in time of
war; they were also, like the Ten Tribes, inclined to the
idol worship. All writers and travelers agree,
Moreover, there were many types of Jewish faces among the Indians.
Native Americans.

The question of whether Amerindians are descendants of the Jews, if

they are descendants of the 'Ten Lost Tribes', it has often been
answered both affirmatively and negatively [15], but that
The issue has not yet been definitively established.

See, among other writers, Garrick Mallery, Israelite and Indian;

a Parallel in Planes of Culture, Salem, 1889. For other works on
this topic, see Narrative and Critical History of America, edited by
Justin Winsor, Boston, 1889, I, 115-116.

CHAPTER VII
Return of Columbus—His Letters to Santángel and Sánchez—Preparations
for the Second Expedition; the Money of the Jews Used—The
Second Voyage—Portuguese Discoveries—Vasco da Gama and
Abraham Zacuto—Gaspar da Gama—Francisco de Albuquerque and
Hucefe, O Alexander of Atayde.

Delighted by the success of his expedition and with the great treasures of
gold, silver, and spices that he had found, Columbus began his journey of
returned in January 1493. He gratefully remembered that Luis de
Santángel had provided him with the means to undertake his journey, and
hence he considered it his duty to send Santángel the first
good news of your success, a detailed account of your journey and
discoveries. That letter was written in Spanish near the Azores
or the Canaries on February 15, 1493. In it, Columbus speaks of the great
triumph that God had granted him, and declared that he and the fleet that he
Spanish monarch had placed at their disposal had reached the
India in twenty-three days, and that he had discovered many islands there.
inhabited. He made a report similar to the treasurer Gabriel Sánchez.
Santángel and Sánchez immediately delivered those letters to the king and
to the queen, who were then residing in Barcelona, and little
Then Their Majesties received the explorer with great ceremony.

The news of the discoveries spread quickly.

most of Europe. Gabriel Sánchez gave a copy of the letter
from Colón to a bookseller in Barcelona, who had it printed in letters
Gothic; within a year, two editions were published. Leandro of
Cosco prepared a Latin translation, of which four editions were
printed in the first year, 1493. In recent years various translations
English and Italian letters have been published. They always
they will form the most notable commemorative monument in history
American.

Columbus and the early Spanish discoveries called the

attention of Jewish writers. The first of them to mention the issue
It's Abraham Farisol from Avignon, who, when he was nineteen years old,
age, he settled in Mantua, and from there he emigrated to Ferrara. The stories of the
discoveries of Columbus that were first published in Vicenza,
In 1507, in a collection of travels to the New World, they served as the
base of the work by Farisol titled Letter about Lifestyles,
written in Hebrew in November 1524, and first published in
Venice in 1587. That work, which is a kind of general treatise on
geography, gives some brief news about America, and calls for
discoverer "Christopher Columbus, a Genoese".

This topic was studied more in depth by Joseph Cohen, a son of

Spanish exiles, who was born in Avignon in 1495. He was educated in
Genoa, where he practiced as a doctor until 1550, when he and his
co-religionists were exiled from that city. He went to
Voltaggio, and then settled in Castelletto Monferrato. He had
eighty years when he died. He translated the General History of the
Indias by Francisco López de Gómara, which appeared in 1535, the second
part of which contains The Conquest of Mexico and New Spain.
The Hebrew translation in two books, which was completed in 1557, exists.
only in manuscript. Cohen also talks about the discoveries.
Portuguese and Spaniards in their Hebrew treatise titled Book of the Chronicle
of the Kings of France and the Grand Dukes of Ottoman, that
first appeared in Venice in 1553 or 1554. Cohen attributes the
discovery of America to Amerigo Vespucci.
 In order to protect itself against the jealousy of Portugal, and to ensure for
Spain the lands discovered by Columbus as well as those that he
Could discover in the future, the cunning Fernando appealed to the Pope for
help. At that time, the papal throne was occupied by the Aragonese
Alexander VI. The only good thing that can be said about him is that he tried
to the Jews magnanimously; he was, in fact, commonly called
"the pig" or "the Jew". Although he was not a friend of Fernando,
published his famous Bull of Demarcation on May 3, 1493, which
intended to prevent future fights between Spain and Portugal regarding the
possession of the newly discovered territory. That grant was awarded
to Spain for all future time, provided that its rulers are
They will strive to spread the Catholic faith in the newly discovered lands.
[2].

This concession was later modified by the Treaty of

Tordesillas of 1494.

While Columbus was still in Barcelona, quick preparations were made.

preparations for his second trip. Fernando was no longer lacking now in
means. According to his own statement, he had found out that the Jews,
expelled from their kingdom "for the honor and glory of God," they had left
money or its equivalent in personal and real estate properties, as well as
many debts that they had been unable to collect. According to a
Royal order of November 23, 1492, the authorities had to
confiscate all property that existed for the state treasury
belonged to the Jews, including that which the Christians had taken from
they or from which they had illegally appropriated or through the
violence.

On May 23, 1493, to the admiral of the newly discovered islands and
to Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca, the archdeacon of Seville, who oversaw
the equipment of the fleet from the crown ordered them to go to
Seville and Cádiz to secure such ships, sailors, and provisions
that were necessary for the second expedition. That same day
Fernando and Isabel signed a large number of orders for officials
Reales in Soria, Zamora, Burgos, and many other cities,
instructing them to ensure the immediate possession of everything
money, precious metals, gold and silver utensils, jewelry, stones
precious and everything else that had been taken from the Jews that
they had been expelled from Spain or had emigrated to Portugal, and
everything those Jews had entrusted for their deposit to relatives
Marranos or friends, and all the Jewish possessions that the Christians
they had found or those that had been illegally appropriated. To the
Royal officials were also ordered to convert all that property.
in cash and deliver it to the treasurer Francisco Pinelo in Seville,
to cover the expenses of Columbus's second expedition.

The crown, in that way, appropriated large sums of money.

that had been taken from the exiled Jews. For example, several
bills of exchange that Juan Bran, a Jew who had fled to Portugal,
I had to pay Antonio de Castro from Toledo, Julián Catanes, and Bernaldo.
Pine nuts were found in the possession of several merchants, and they were
confiscated by the crown. The profits, 4,120 ducats in gold, were
deposited in the monastery of Las Cuevas by De la Torre, a
Treasury official. On May 23, 1493, the king and the queen
they requested that the Count of Cifuentes take the money from the monastery
immediately and have it safely transferred to Treasurer Pinelo, in order to
that he could use it for the equipment of the fleet that was to be
sent to the Indies. Juan de Ocampo, the warden of Orueña, had in his
possession of gold, ornaments, clothing, and other items left by a Jew
that had fled to Portugal. A detailed inventory of that property,
prepared by Secretary Royal Fernando Álvarez de Toledo and signed
by other royal officials, was sent to Count Alonso, a relative
from Ferdinand and Isabella; he was instructed to take charge of the
articles, would sell them, and deliver the profits, by the end of June or
at the latest by July 10th, to Pinelo, to help pay the expenses of
the fleet that was to be equipped "for the discovery of the islands and
continents in the ocean.

Similarly and for the same purpose as Bernaldino de Lerma

they ordered to transfer to Pinelo the cash equivalent of the money,
valuable objects, clothing, and other items that belonged to the Jews
exiles that the king's administrator, Juan de Soria, the wife of
Diego Guiral, Antonio Gómez de Sevilla, Álvaro de Ledesma and others
I had received from the goldsmith Diego de Medina, from Zamora. Bernaldino
received an order to deal similarly with all the gold, silver,
jewels and several other things (specified in an inventory sent with the
order) that Rabbi Ephraim, the richest Jew in Burgos, before
to emigrate from Spain, had left with Isabel Osorio, the wife of Luis
Núñez Coronel, from Zamora.

Not just the clothing, the ornaments, and the valuables that
they had been taken from the fleeing Jews were turned into
money, but also the debts that they had been unable to
charges were declared by royal order confiscated for the
state treasury, and strict measures were taken to collect them. Several
merchants in Calahorra, Burgos, and other cities, namely, Alonso de
Lerma, Juan de Torres, Alonso de Salamanca, Juan Alonso de Sahagund
and others owed large sums of money to the wealthy Efraim and Benveniste
from Calahorra, who at the time of the expulsion was a resident of
Burgos. To García de Herrera, an official of the Royal House,
they ordered to collect those debts immediately, as well as all the others
debts receivable that the Jews had left within the territory of
Burgos, or at least such claims that had not been
already paid to the corregidor García Cortés. In a similar manner, it was ordered
that Luis Núñez Coronel will pay Bernaldino de Lerma, without opposition or
delay, the 4,850 ducats that his wife owed for purchased houses
what had become of the Jews.

The mentioned inventories of the confiscated items

found in the hands of Christians or in the hands of converso relatives
from the exiled Jews allows us to estimate approximately the
wealth of the Jews, as well as the greed of the Spanish rulers.
Among the possessions of the Jews, we find spoons, cups,
bowls, teapots, pots, candlesticks, staffs, all made of silver, and also
silver and gold rings, pearls and corals, and a number
surprisingly large collection of silver bracelets, brooches, belts,
chains, buckles, buttons and hair ribbons [3]. In its unlimited
greed the king and queen not only ordered that all the
confiscated valuables and the clothing of the Jews were sold, but instead
also the worn damask, velvets, silks, and coverings of
linen and wrappers of the Torah scrolls, and the silk tablecloths used
in the synagogues; all of that was used for the equipment of the
Columbus's expedition.

The law prohibited Jewish women from wearing ornaments made of gold.
See Kayserling, The Castilian Community Statute, in Yearbook for
the history of the Jews, IV, 278, 331.

It is completely true that the measures adopted by Fernando and

Isabel for Soria, Zamora and Burgos were also applied to all the
other cities and provinces where the Jews had lived. Of the
inventories that still exist we can deduce that only in
cash money—in the form of ducats, doubloons, reales, Castilian coins,
florins, justs [4] and crossed—at least two million maravedís
were taken from the exiled Jews. If we add to that the
benefits of the confiscated promissory notes that came from Portugal,
the large debts owed to the Jews only in Burgos that the
corona claimed, and the profits from the many gold and silver articles,
jewels and gems, specified as requisitioned, the sum that the treasury
the state won by the expulsion of the Jews—calculated simply
based on the existing inventories —amounted to
approximately six million maravedis. That was more than four
sometimes what was spent by Columbus's first expedition. To that sum
the two million that the Inquisition in Seville delivered must be added
to the Florentine merchant Juonato Beradi, who lived in Seville and whom
he had been entrusted with the navy's equipment.

A justo is a Portuguese gold coin that was worth 600 reis; half
just was called a sword.
In the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, 1 silver mark = 2.210
maravedís; 1 ducat = 383 maravedís; 1 doubloon = 490 maravedís.

It is impossible to calculate the enormous sums that the Inquisition seized.

to Jews and Moors, or those that the state treasury won by the expulsion of
the Jews. Poor Spain! According to an order from May 23, 1493, it was
of the money from the Jews that was paid to Columbus, the ten thousand.
maravedís that the Spanish monarchs had promised as a
reward for the first one to spot land; and on May 24 he
received an additional gift of a thousand doubloons from the same source. As
As we have already indicated, it was also with Jewish gold that they were paid.
expenses of your second expedition.

On May 28, 1493, Columbus left Barcelona to make the

necessary preparations for his second great trip, and he sailed from
Cádiz for America on September 25. He was accompanied by a thousand.
two hundred men, among whom there were, as in the case of the first
trip, several people of Jewish lineage. The crew list has not
arrived to us.

Columbus discovered the islands of Dominica, Marigalante, Guadeloupe and

Puerto Rico, and he finally arrived in Jamaica; but he soon fell from the
pinnacle of renown to which he had ascended so laboriously. The
the hidalgos who accompanied him were disappointed in their expectations;
the success achieved was not proportional to the great cost of the journey that
they had done. The rulers of Spain, the distrustful Fernando and the
talkative Isabel withdrew her favor from Columbus, until finally he fell.
in disgrace. That was partly due to the discoveries that the
Portuguese did at that time.

Columbus's success had encouraged the Portuguese to continue their

own explorations along the southern coast of Africa, in search of
from the land of precious stones and spices and a route across the ocean to
India. The plan that João II had formed to undertake a new journey.
of discovery, but whose death prevented him from carrying out, was assumed
by his nephew and successor, Dom Manuel, shortly after his ascension to
throne. The commander he appointed to take charge of the
squad equipped for that purpose was Vasco da Gama, a man of great
determination, well-versed in cosmography and nautical science.

Before sending the fleet, however, the king summoned his astrologer.
confidential to Beja, the Royal residence, in order to consult with him once
more about the exploration plan. That astrologer was Abraham Zacuto,
mentioned in a previous chapter, who, as a consequence of the edict
expulsion of March 31, 1492, had followed his
elder professor, the pious rabbi Isaac Aboab, to Portugal, and had
installed in Lisbon. From then on he dedicated his services to the land
that, at least for a while, welcomed him and his
Spanish co-religionists. Due to their extensive knowledge of
astronomy and mathematics, he was highly esteemed both by the king
John as by Dom Manuel. In 1494 John made a gift to him.
honorific of ten gold swords, or three thousand reis; Manuel designated it
as his astrologer, and had frequent conferences with him about
astronomical and maritime affairs. At the request of King Manuel, Zacuto
dedicated with great care to the development of a theory about the
storms, and indicated how the ships could make the journey safely to
Cape of Good Hope and back in a comparatively short time.
brief.

King Manuel showed his gratitude to Zacuto and sought his advice.
about the proposal for the expedition to India. The astrologer did not hide from the king
the great dangers that would have to be encountered on a journey to a
land so distant, but he said that, in his opinion, that would result in the
submission of a large part of India to the Portuguese crown. The
Zacuto's works materially facilitated the execution of the great ones.
plans of Vasco da Gama and other explorers. Da Gama had Zacuto
in high esteem, and before sailing from Lisbon on July 8, 1497,
conference with him and received information from him in the presence of all his
crew [6].

Before 1502, Zacuto went to Tunis, where he wrote his valuable chronicle.
Jochasin. He died in Izmir around the year 1515.

During Da Gama's return journey to Europe, while he was in

the small island of Anchediva, sixty miles from Goa, a tall European
with a long white beard he approached his boat, in a small boat with a
small crew. He had been sent by his lord Sabayo, the
Muslim ruler of Goa, to negotiate with the navigator
foreigner. The said visitor was a Jew, who, according to some chroniclers,
he had arrived from Posen [in Poland], and according to others from Granada.
Expelled from their homes due to their religion, their parents had
emigrated to Turkey and Palestine. From Alexandria, which according to some
journalists had been his place of birth, he made his way across the Sea
Red to Mecca and from there to India. There he was in captivity for
a long time, and later he was made admiral (captain mór) by
Sabayo [7].

According to Damião de Goes, Chron. de D. Manuel, part I, cap. 44, 'it was
Jew from the Kingdom of Poland of the City of Posna. According to Barros, Asia,
Dec. I, lib. 4, cap. II, he was born in Alexandria. Correa, I, 125, calls him
jew of Granada... this Jew in the capture of Granada being a man
exiled youth"; this, however, does not agree with the own
declaration of the Jew that before the arrival of the Portuguese in Goa,
In 1498, he had spent forty years in prison. His name is
unknown.

When the Jew arrived at the Portuguese ships with their flaming
flags, he greeted the fleet in Spanish with the nautical salute
God bless the ships, the captains, and all the sailors.
Great was the joy of the Portuguese to hear so far from home a
language closely related to their mother tongue. Great was
also the Jew's desire to obtain news from his homeland, that
she was still loved. Relying on the promise of complete security
that the Portuguese gave him, he boarded one of their ships. There
he was received with signs of respect, and the sailors listened with
place their memories. Their desire to prolong the conference led to
Vasco da Gama began to suspect that he was a spy. At a signal from
Commander, the Jew, to his great surprise, was suddenly
grabbed and tied hand and foot. After being stripped, he was
mercilessly beaten by two ship's servants. Da Gama swore by
the life of his king that he would have him whipped until he confessed the truth
enters. To avoid the torments of torture, he finally submitted to
the Portuguese, and in order to save his life, promised to allow him to be
baptized. He was named Gaspar da Gama, based on the name of the
admiral, who acted as his godfather.

The Jewish sailor Gaspar, or as he is sometimes called, Gaspar of the

India was brought to Lisbon by Vasco da Gama. King Manuel, who
he liked the newcomer a lot and enjoyed talking to him, he gave him
rich gifts in clothing, horses, and servants, and also granted him a
letter of privileges. As Peschel truly states, Gaspar provided
invaluable services to Vasco da Gama and several commanders
posteriors of the Portuguese fleet. He was an experienced sailor,
well versed in languages and fully informed on all matters
regarding India.

In the year 1500 he accompanied Pedro Álvares Cabral on his expedition

to the East. He did this at the express wish of the king, who instructed Álvares
Cabral to consult with Gaspar on all important matters.
Álvares mainly used him as an interpreter. Splendidly
Gaspar negotiated with the king of Melinde, with whom he had already
related when he was employed by Sabayo. Assuming the
Muslim dress as a costume and simulating to pray like a
Muslim, he discovered a rebel plot by the natives of Calicut.
to massacre the Portuguese.
 From Calicut, Álvares Cabral navigated south to Cochin. Gaspar
he had advised him to do that. The Jew had expressed the opinion
that, with favorable winds, Cochin could be reached in a single
day. He had also informed the admiral that he would be there.
a better port and much more pepper and other spices than in Calicut
[8].

According to Gaspar Correa, Legends of India, it was by following the advice of

Gaspar de Álvarez Cabral discovered the coast of Brazil.

In Cape Verde, on his way home, Álvares came across the boats that
They had been sent from Portugal expressly to discover Brazil.
Amerigo Vespucci, who was in that fleet, hurried to
take advantage of the knowledge and experience of Gaspar da Gama, the
the best-informed man among the followers of Álvares Cabral. Gaspar
gave him the desired information about the situation and condition, the
wealth and trade, from the distant lands that Vespucci had the
intention to visit. The latter can be observed incidentally,
never mentions Columbus and his discoveries; he ignores it as if
it would never have existed. But he talks about Gaspar in terms of high
praise. In one of his letters, Vespucci refers to him as "a man
worthy of faith, who had traveled from Cairo to a province that
named Malacca [in Malaysia], which is located on the coast of the Sea
Indico... the said Gaspar, who knew many languages and the names of
many provinces and cities. As I say, he is a high-minded man,
because he has made the trip from Portugal to the Indian Ocean twice. He
he also visited the island of Sumatra, and he told me that he knew of a great kingdom
in the interior of India that was rich in gold, pearls, and other stones
precious
F. A. de Varnhagen, Amerigo Vespucci; His Character, His Writings,
In Life, Lima, 1865; Humboldt, Critical Examination of the History of the
Geography, V, 82.

In the year 1502, Gaspar made another trip to India with a fleet that was
commanded by Vasco da Gama. He negotiated with the king of Quiloa, who
he was known for being cunning and clever. In Cochin, a few days later,
he found his wife again. That woman, who was notorious for her
knowledge, had resisted all the incentives to abandon the
Judaism. When the first Viceroy of India, Francisco de Almeida, was
upon taking office in 1505, he was accompanied by Gaspar and,
among others, by the son of Doctor Martín Pinheiro, the judge of the Court
Supreme in Lisbon. The young Pinheiro took a log with him.
completely filled with rolls of the Torah, that had belonged to the
recently destroyed synagogues in Portugal. He intended to
selling them in Cochin, where there were many Jews and synagogues [10]. The
Gaspar's wife negotiated the sale; for thirteen rolls of the Torah Pinheiro
he obtained four thousand pardaos. When the viceroy heard about that transaction,
he reproached Pinheiro with violent language, and then, after
confiscate the profits from the sale for the state treasury,
He immediately sent a report about the whole matter to Lisbon.

In 1504, when Isaac Abravanel wrote his comments on the

Book of Jeremiah, he saw a letter, written by Portuguese merchants
that they were coming from India with spices. In that letter he indicated that they
they had found many Jews in that land. Abravanel,
Comments on Jeremiah, chapter 3.

Gaspar returned to Lisbon with Vasco da Gama in 1503. King Manuel,

who still held him in high esteem, conferred upon him the rank of knight of
your house in recognition of your services.
 A relationship similar to the one Gaspar had with Vasco da Gama, another
Jew had it with Alfonso de Albuquerque, the commander of the fleet.
Portuguese and governor of India. In 1510, when Diogo Mendes de
Vascogoncellos was sent by the King of Portugal to help the
pressured Albuquerque to reconquer Goa, he found a ship in the
There were two very wealthy Castilian Jews. Their destination was Cananor, and there
Albuquerque was informed by them. In response to their questions, they
they were given detailed information about the kingdom of Prester John (the
which, they said, had a Jewish admiral in their service), and about the
Arab Gulf, the trade of those regions, and various other matters.
Albuquerque gave the two Spanish Jews many signs of his esteem,
and led them to abandon Judaism, at least for a short time.
One of them called himself Francisco de Albuquerque, in honor of
his master, to whom he faithfully served as an interpreter [11]. The other, whose
his true name was Cufo or Hucefe, but he was called Alexander of
Atayde was a very experienced and reliable man who knew
many languages, and that's why Albuquerque designated it as his
secretary. He became an advisor to Albuquerque, his constant
companion, and his very close friend; and in the surrender of the fortress of
Ormuz provided important services to his employer. He enjoyed the
complete trust of the admiral, and when the latter, defamed by
his enemies and discredited by his sovereign, died in Goa overwhelmed
of pain, Hucefe at the request of King Manuel made a trip to Lisbon. He
he managed to give the king a better opinion of the great hero and statesman that he had
has been defamed in the Royal court.

Albuquerque employed other Jews who had worked as interpreters.

they were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula; for example, a certain Samuel
from Cairo. Barros, Asia, Dec. 2, book 7, chapter 8.
 In Lisbon, Hucefe was in danger of being stripped of his
property, which he always carried with him in the form of gold and stones
precious; but he found refuge in the house of García de Noronha, the
nephew of Albuquerque, with whom he had connected in India.
García welcomed him hospitably and expressed his esteem for him in
presence of the nobility of Lisbon. He soon left Lisbon and began to
his trip back to India. He headed to Cairo, where again
openly professed Judaism.

CHAPTER VIII

Fall of Columbus—Royal Favours Granted to Luis de Santángel—

Death of Santángel and Gabriel Sánchez; Their Descendants —
First Establishments of Marranos in La Española and in the
Portuguese Colonies—The Inquisition and Its Victims in the Colonies.

The reception that Columbus encountered upon his return to Spain

after his second trip, it was very different from what had been given to him
in Barcelona three years earlier. The constant complaints about his greed,
arrogance and cruelty had ruined her reputation. Queen Isabel,
that he had ruthlessly ordered that Jews and Moors be
burned, he had instructed him to be kind and lenient towards
the Indians. But he treated the natives cruelly; he harassed them with fire
and sword. Due to his dominant behavior, he also aroused enmity.
of Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca, mentioned in the previous chapter,
who later became the bishop of Plasencia. In an explosion of
Rabia kicked and violently attacked the pig Ximeno from Briviesca.
accountant of Rodríguez de Fonseca.
 From there Rodríguez became the greatest enemy of
explorer. For his arrogant and ruthless behavior, he also earned
the enmity of the ship's doctor, the pig Master Bernal.
Porras' conspiracy in Jamaica instigated by Bernal and by a certain
Camacho seriously affected the admiral's fate. Until his death,
What happened on May 20, 1506, in Valladolid, the discoverer of
New World had to endure considerable misfortune.
While he was in that distressing situation, he frequently asked for
his former benefactor Gabriel Sánchez who interceded with Fernando and
Isabel in her name; he also frequently asked for help from Luis of
Santángel, who had been his fervent supporter in the past.

Due to Santángel's altruism, King Ferdinand always

he remained as his loyal friend, and gave him many distinguished tokens
of gratitude, for his great services to the crown and the State. It was for
regarding Santángel who was granted equality of rights to
Aragonians and Castilians in the New World. From their marriage with
Juana, who belonged to the distinguished and extensively branched family
marrana De la Caballeria, Santángel had several sons and a daughter,
Luisa. In the spring of 1493, Luisa married Ángel de Villanueva,
who was later appointed governor of the county of Sardinia.
the king gave a wedding gift of thirty thousand wages, "in
recognition of the many services that his father, the beloved
counselor and scribe of the ration of his house, had lent to him and that
still did it." The envy caused by that sign of distinction bothered the
treasurer Gabriel Sánchez. He hinted to the king that his services to the crown
and to the State were as great as those of Santángel. Hence, their son
Pedro, in his marriage to María del Ijar, also received thirty thousand.
salaries as wedding gifts.
He was a nephew of Moisés Pazagón from Calatayud.

The highest signal of distinction granted to Luis de Santángel, "in

reward for the many great and notable services he had
loaned to the king with tireless zeal and with great promptness and diligence,
a privilege granted by Ferdinand on May 30, 1497. Said
the privilege exempted him as well as his children Fernando, Gerónimo and
Alfonso, and his daughter Luisa, along with the children and heirs of those,
of all allegations of apostasy. In that document, the crown also them
granted absolute possession of all personal property and assets
roots that belong to them, to their children, or to their heirs during
his life or after his death, and that could be confiscated by the
Church or State on the occasion of any accusation of apostasy.
Finally, the servants of the Inquisition in Valencia and other parts
they were warned, under the penalty of paying a large fine, not to
to harass them, neither their children nor their descendants.

Luis de Santángel and Gabriel Sánchez died a year before

Colón. After the death of Sánchez, which occurred on the 15th of
September 1505, the position of treasurer passed to his son Luis, who held it.
until his death on December 4, 1530. On January 30, 1506 the
King Ferdinand designated his son as the successor of Luis de Santángel.
Fernando and his relative Jaime de Santángel; each was supposed to have a
salary of 8,000 wages and the customary perks and allowances. The
designations were confirmed on July 24, 1512. Soon after
after the death of the king, however, Fernando was stripped of his position, and
Pedro Celdrán was appointed as ration clerk. For that reason
Fernando de Santángel felt compelled to defend his rights before
the Justitia, the Supreme Court of Aragon.
 At that time, the jurist Luis de Santángel, who had been
Designated deputy of Zalmedina for the year 1492, with all the
honors and rights attached to that position, he was the representative of the
Justitia of Aragon, and Salvador de Santángel, from Zaragoza, was the
councilman. In 1517, the Aragonese court decided in favor of Fernando. With
Miguel Luis de Santángel, who in 1586 was a distinguished professor of
laws and a councilman from Zaragoza, the Santángel disappear from history
from Spain. That country will always appreciate and honor the memory of Luis.
de Santángel, the pride of that family and the prominent promoter of
discovery of America.

From the beginning, Columbus gave the newly discovered lands a

decidedly religious or ecclesiastical color. They had been
discovered for the glory of Christianity and for the propagation of
catholicism, and hence he wished that they should be inhabited
exclusively for Catholics. Moors and Jews should not be allowed.
to settle there; even the pigs, including those who had
they were pursued and punished by the Inquisition, they were forbidden
to emigrate to the New World. However, the first person who obtained
the king's permission to conduct trade with the newly acquired lands
discovered was Juan Sánchez de Zaragoza, a secret Jew, the loyalty
whose father had paid with his life for his ancestral faith. He lived in
Seville, and he was a nephew of the treasurer Gabriel Sánchez; hence also
who was often called "Juan Sánchez de la Tesorería". In the
In the year 1502, he received permission from Isabel to take five caravels.
loaded with wheat, barley, horses, and other items to Hispaniola without
pay taxes. Two years later, on November 17, 1504,
when the queen was very ill in Medina del Campo [she would die the
day 26], Fernando allowed him to export goods and items to La
Spanish, and that she would sell or exchange them for the products of that.
earth. That favor was granted in exchange for certain 'good services'
that he had lent to the crown, and with the understanding that such services
they should continue in the future.

Despite the strict laws that prohibited emigration, many

quantities of Spanish and Portuguese fugitives from the hellish flames
of the Autos de Fe—nobles, men of knowledge, doctors and
prosperous merchants—soon they established themselves in Hispaniola and in the
other islands of the Indies. They cultivated the land, practiced the
commerce, promoted the industry [2], and filled public positions.
Hence, already in 1511, Queen Joanna I of Spain found herself forced to
adopt measures against the secret Jews, 'the children and grandchildren of the
burned
crown's permission, if in possession of such office, should lose it,
and should also be punished with the confiscation of his property
[see annex at the end]. That decree also introduced the Inquisition.
Spanish in the newly discovered lands, and she was given a wide
area of competence for its impious activity. One of the first victims
the Holy Office in La Española was Diego Caballero de Barrameda,
whose mother and also his father (Juan Caballero), according to the statement
two witnesses, had been pursued and condemned by the Inquisition
in Spain.

The Jews expelled from Portugal first introduced in America

the cultivation of sugar from the island of Madeira. Antonio de Capmany and of
Montpalau, Historical Memories about the Navy, Trade, and Arts of
Barcelona, Madrid, 1779, II, 43.

Many secret Jews from Spain and Portugal will also soon
they were installed in the Portuguese Indies, especially in Brazil. They
spread along the entire coast of the Portuguese colonies, and
they carried out an extensive trade of precious stones with Venice,
Turkey and other countries. As soon as they felt safe, they
they took off the mask of disguise and openly professed the
Judaism. Hence it is not surprising that, just as in the mother country—
in Lisbon, Évora, and Coimbra —, also in Goa, the metropolis of
Portuguese dominion in India, once the Inquisition was established, with
jurisdiction over the Portuguese possessions in Asia and Africa until
Cape of Good Hope.

To prevent the emigration of pig-like people to the Indies, the king, or rather
said the regent, Cardinal Enrique [King Enrique I], issued an edict
on June 30, 1567, which severely prohibited them from leaving Portugal
without the special permission of the crown; any pig, however,
he could leave the kingdom on the condition that he left a guarantee of
for at least five hundred crusaders, which were to pass to the State if he did not
I would return within a year. As that law did not prevent the secret Jews
emigrate to the Indies to avoid the oppressions of the Holy Office, an edict
similar but more rigorous on March 15, 1568 decreed that the
people who violated that law should lose all their property; one
half should be given to the informant, and the other half to the state treasury.

The ship captains received strict orders to imprison

all the pigs found on any ship that set out towards the
Indians, and deliver them to the governor general. Such prohibition of
emigration was not rescinded until the Jews and Marranos in the
colonies offered to pay the State the enormous sum of 1,700,000
crusaders, with the new law of May 21, 1577. That law allowed them to
freedom of residence and of commerce; in the future, no one should call them
Jews, new Christians or Marranos.

Nevertheless, the large sums of money they paid for the

right to reside in the colonies, the persecutions of the Inquisition
they continued, and hence the Jews in the Indies soon became
a source of serious disturbance for the Portuguese government. They
they allied with the Dutch, who were at that time
fighting for their freedom, and they were given financial and other assistance
type. In their enthusiastic love for freedom, the Jews even equipped
ships expressly for the Dutch. A letter from King Philip II to
Martin Alfonso de Castro, the viceroy of the Indies, declares that two
new Christians in Colombo [in Ceylon] were active
correspondence with the Dutch, and that four or five Jews in
Malacca [in Malaysia] was providing defined information to those
about the military plans of the Portuguese. The Marranos of the
Indians sent considerable supplies to the Spanish Jews and
Portuguese people who were in Hamburg and Aleppo [in Syria], which,
for their part, they sent them to Holland and Zeeland [in the Netherlands].

As soon as the Portuguese government heard about those transactions, to

The viceroy of the East Indies was ordered to adopt strict measures.
against the new Christians who were allied in that way with the
Dutch. The law of March 15, 1568 was renewed, and the captains
of ships received urgent instructions to confiscate for the
state treasury all the property of the new Christians that were
found on their ships, and send them back to Portugal. If none
the ship will be ready to return to Portugal, those new Christians
they were to be taken to Goa, and they were to be held there in prison by the
Inquisition until some ship was ready to leave for home.
homeland. The Inquisition was to deal with the Jews in a similar manner.
and new Christians who had already settled in the colonies; several
they were to be returned annually to Portugal, and thus to the Indies
they were to be gradually purged.
 After the death of King-Cardinal Henry I in 1580, Philip II of
Spain, in its greed for new territorial acquisitions, also
put Portugal under his control. Not simply was Portugal added to
Spain, but also the East Indies were joined to the Indies
Western countries; Asia as well as America fell under the dominion of Philip
Spain was then at the zenith of its power.

Philip II was the son of a daughter of the Portuguese king Don Manuel, and he was
a grandson of that beautiful Felipe whose infidelity caused the madness of his
wife Juana, a daughter of Isabella the Catholic. Under that melancholic and
Tyrannical monarch, the Inquisition renewed its nefarious activity in America.
The tribunals of the Holy Office were established in Peru, in Lima, and
Jews and conversos were handed over to the flames.

Among the first victims of the Inquisition in Lima was the

doctor Juan Álvarez de Zafra; he was publicly burned as a
adherent of Judaism, along with his wife, his children, and his nephew
Alonso Álvarez. A few years later Manuel López, from Yelves in
Portugal, also called Luis Coronado, found the same destiny.
He frankly confessed that he was a Jew, and made no attempt.
to hide the fact that he and his coreligionists had observed the
Mosaic law and they had conducted religious services in his house. Duarte
Núñez de Cea, a merchant of forty-one years of age, also
he died for his religion. Before ascending to the funeral pyre he admitted that
I had lived as a Jew, observing the precepts of Judaism, and
his simple desire was to die like a Jew, like his ancestors did
They had done. His example of religious loyalty was followed by the learned.
doctor Álvaro Núñez de Braganza, who lived in La Plata, and by Diego
Núñez de Silva and Diego Rodríguez de Silveyra, from Peru. The newcomers
Those who arrived from Portugal were pursued with particular rigor. During a
day, fourteen such immigrants were arrested by order of the king, and
his property was confiscated [3]. In the case of King Philip and his successors
on the Spanish throne—as in the case of his ancestors Fernando and
Isabel—the fanaticism had its roots in the material interests of the State.

José Toribio Medina, History of the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition
Inquisition in Lima, Santiago, 1887.

Despite such persecutions, thousands of secret Jews fled,

during the 16th and 17th centuries, from the Iberian Peninsula to the Indies, and
especially America, the New World, which was not simply a
land rich in gold and silver mines but also the land where the light
The freedom first shone over the adherents of Judaism.

ANNEX

QUEEN JUANA AND THE PIGS OF SPANISH

(1511)

[Archivo de Indias, book I, folio I20; Collection of Unpublished Documents.]

Series segment (Madrid, 1890), V. 307 sq.

Lady Juana by the grace of God Queen of Castile, [of Toledo, of

Lion, from Galicia, from Seville, from Córdoba, from Murcia, from Jaén, from
Algarve, from Algeciras, from Gibraltar, from the Canary Islands, from the Indies
islands and mainland of the ocean sea [and Lady of Biscay and Molina].

For I have been informed that in the Spanish island and the others
the islands of the Indies and the mainland of the Ocean Sea have passed [and] are passing
from these parts many sons and daughters have been burned because of being
provided and endowed by laws and practices of these Kingdoms that cannot
to have or use any royal or public offices by the power to have
to use there saying not to extend in those said islands and the mainland
that pragmatic saying and provision of sight, and because of great mercy and
will is for what concerns me and pertains to me, how well they extend and
understand what was said there and that now and from here onward as much as
If my mercy and will were a son, I cannot be burned.
the said Indies and the mainland should not use any royal office
public seen by some of the saying my advice was agreed that it should
send another letter of said Reason which I want to be valid for
pragmatics as if it were a date and promulgated in letters for which
explicitly defends that now and from here on as much as I
mercy and will be for what concerns me that no one nor any
the burned tires cannot have or use
they do not exercise themselves directly or indirectly in any trade
Real public funds and councilors and others that are related to them
provided and prohibited by laws and practices of these Kingdoms in that said
spanish island and in the other islands and the mainland of the Ocean Sea under penalty
that those who have and use without having our authorization for it by the
the first time they fall and incur the penalty of perdition of such ones
trades, and for the second, he loses the said trades that he may have, and moreover the
he will lose his said offices as well due to the third party.
to take all his goods for the chamber and treasury of my lord the King and
father and mya, and that we can do mercy of such offices and goods to
whoever our mercy and will may be, and by this my letter I command the
our governor viceroy and captains and other justices whatever
that now are or were of those said Indians that execute and make execute
the said penalties on such persons and offices and their goods that were
fixed and tied of burned ones after they came to their knowledge and took.
information enough for those who desire such royal offices
Public councils are fixed or burned out ones, as it is said.
because what has been said is notorious and no one can pretend otherwise
Ignorance, I command that this decree be proclaimed in the squares and
markets and other places and parts accustomed to those said islands
call by town crier and before a public notary.

Given in Burgos five days into the month of October, year of birth
from our lord of a thousand five hundred and eleven years.

I the King.