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Hernando Alonso: The First Jew on the North-American Continent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2018

Seymour B. Liebman
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Extract

A history of the Jews in Mexico from 1521 to the present has never been written in any language. Few have written on any aspect of the life of the Mexican Jews during the colonial period. What little has been written has concentrated upon the life and family of the conquistador and Gobernador, don Luis Carvajal y de la Cueva (1539-1590) and one other Jew, Tomas Treviño de Sobremonte, who was burned alive in the Grand Auto de Fé of April 11, 1649.

The focusing of attention on the Carvajals has obscured the fact that Jews had preceded them into Mexico by 60 years and that Jews have inhabited Mexico uninterruptedly since 1521. Little note has been made of the fact that Jews had been victims of the Inquisition prior to 1590. The historian's task of gleaning information from documents and people usually results in an interpretation colored by his own background, scholarship, economic status, conviction and even religion. We submit the following as a clear example of the foregoing.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , April 1963 , pp. 291 - 296
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1963

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References

1 The following is not intended to be an exhaustive bibliography on the Carvajals and most should be read critically. Many of the works contain errors. Even the noted Henry C. Lea, in his History of the Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies (New York, 1922) at page 208, confuses the Governor with his nephew of the same name. The Mexican General and historian, Vicente Riva Palacio, from whom Lea borrowed many manuscripts, makes the same error in his El libro rojo, (Mexico, 1905). A study of the complete proceso of Luis de Carvajal, el gobernador, reveals that this gentleman was not a Jew nor were his parents. It is unquestioned that his maternal grandmother and his wife were Jewesses. Absent any proof that his mother was a Jewess, el Gobernador must be regarded as a Catholic, which religion he professed and practiced. It is often overlooked that the Inquisitors found him guilty of not reporting to them that his nephews and niece observed Jewish rites. Their Judaism stemmed from their father. It is obvious that their mother adopted or was converted to Judaism by her husband, Francisco Rodríguez de Matos. Under Jewish law and the Talmud, only the children of a Jewish mother are Jews by birth. The Inquisition never found the governor guilty of being a Jew or following Jewish practices.

Books or publications in subsequent footnotes will bear only the name of the author unless not included herein.

Alessio Robles, Vito, Coahuila y Texas en la Epoca Colonial, (Mexico, 1938).Google Scholar

Archives of the G. R. G. Conway Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.

Archivo General de la Nación, Document Volume 126, Riva Palacio Collection, Volumes 11, 14.

Archivo General de la Nación — Publicaciones, Los judíos en la Nueva España (Mexico, 1932) and Vol. XXVIII Procesos (2) of Luis de Carvajal, el mozo Mexico, 1935).

Carreño, Alberto María, “Luis de Carvajal, El Mozo,” in Memorias de la Academia de la Historia de México, Tomo XV, No. 1 (Jan.-Mar. 1956).

Conway, G. R. G. “Hernando Alonso, a Jewish Conquistador, with Cortez in Mexico,” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, Vol. XXI (1928).Google Scholar

Enciclopedia Judaica Castellana, Mexico, 1948.

García, Genaro, Documentos inéditos o muy raros de la historia mexicana (Mexico, 1910).Google Scholar

García Icazbalceta, Joaquín, Bibliografía mexicana de Siglo XVI (Mexico, 1886).Google Scholar

González Obregón, Luis, México viejo (Mexico, 1959).Google Scholar

Ibáñez, Muriel Yolanda, La Inquisición en México durante el Siglo XVI (Mexico, 1946).

Lewis, Baleslao, Mártires y conquistadores judíos en la América Hispana (Buenos Aires, no date).

Libro primero de votos de la Inquisición de México (Mexico, 1949).

Martínez del Río, Pablo, Alumbrado (Mexico, 1937).

Medina, José Toribio, Historia del Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición en México, ampliada por Julio Jiménez Rueda (Mexico, 1952).Google Scholar

Riva Palacio, Vicente, México a Través de los Siglos, vol. II (Mexico, no date).Google Scholar

Roth, Cecil, A History of the Marranos (New York and Philadelphia, 1959).Google Scholar

Simpson, Lesley Byrd, Many Mexicos (Berkeley, 1957).Google Scholar

Toro, Alfonso, La familia Carvajal, 2 vols. (Mexico, 1944).Google Scholar

2 José Toribio Medina, op. cit.

3 The facts of the life of Hernando Alonso are gleaned from Tomo XX of the 1'ublicaciones of the Archivo General, Baleslao Lewin, and Conway's article in Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society. The minor discrepancies are indicated in the body of the article.

4 The entry into Mexico of Jews, Moors, or other heretics and even “nuevo cristianos” unless they could prove Christian ancestry for the four preceding generations on their maternal and paternal sides, was prohibited by the Edict of 152S — (Document Volume 1, document No. 2, Archivo General de la Nación). Through bribery of ship's captains, forged papers and change of names, however, many entered the New World. Many members of the same family of “heretical Jews” thus bore different names.

5 Buenos Aires, no date (c. 1945).

6 Bernal Díaz de Castillo, The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico (New York, 1956).

7 Lesley Byrd Simpson, op. cit., Chapter 4.

8 Barron, Alexander, The Golden Princess (London, 1956).Google Scholar

9 Tomo XX, Publicaciones of the Archivo General de la Nación.

10 Indice del Ramo de Inquisición del Archivo General de la Nación, Tomos 1 to 5 inclusive.

11 See footnote 4.