Sep 26, 2019 - Sale 2517

Sale 2517 - Lot 296

Price Realized: $ 3,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
(MEXICAN MANUSCRIPTS.) Inquisition case against a slave accused of blasphemy. [8] manuscript pages, 12 1/2 x 8 3/4 inches, stitched; dampstaining and wear with occasional loss of text. Mexico, 1599
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Proceedings brought before the Inquisition against Francisco, an enslaved man of African descent belonging to Mexico City treasurer Luis Núñez Pérez. According to witnesses, Francisco had committed some thefts, and, as punishment, Núñez ordered another slave to whip him. Francisco then purportedly denounced God and the saints while receiving his lashes. This so disturbed Núñez that he promptly got out of his chair and began to beat Francisco himself with his staff. Unsure of what to do after witnessing such shocking blasphemy, Núñez informed the Inquisition, who told him to keep Francisco in chains and under arrest until further notice. One witness claimed that Francisco somehow escaped from his shackles and murdered a black man in the streets selling reeds (zacate). The Inquisition seems to have shown little concern for this alleged crime, instead focusing exclusively on the blasphemy. Francisco claimed sanctuary at the Franciscan monastery Santa Maria la Redonda. Martos de Bohórquez, a prosecutor of the Mexican Inquisition, soon initiated the proceedings contained in this lot. The document begins with a brief summary of Francisco's alleged crimes and a petition to have Francisco removed, arrested, and taken to the secret prisons of the Inquisition, so that he might be better interrogated and tried. To secure approval for his petition, Bohórquez included the testimony of two witnesses who claimed to have been at Núñez' residence when the putative blasphemy was said to have occurred. Both witnesses, a neighbor named Diego de Arce and Juan Martínez, a servant, alleged that Francisco only denounced God and the Saints once, was not whipped very hard and was of sound mind at the time, and was otherwise a good person; Martínez even stated that he had once seen Francisco with a rosary in his hands. Regardless, the infamous inquisitors Alonso de Peralta and Gutierre Bernardo de Quirós who oversaw the case were convinced and approved Bohórquez' petition to move further with the case against Francisco. The later phase of the trial and Francisco's eventual fate are not included here. Still, this file demonstrates how an accusation of a single forbidden utterance could catch the attention of the inquisition and metamorphose into a serious legal affair.