Forbidden Passages. Karoline P. Cook

faith. In 1550 Charles V addressed a royal provision to the judges of the audiencias in the Americas. Drawing from a previous cédula that he issued in 1543 following a meeting of the Council of the Indies to discuss the subject of Muslim presence in the Spanish territories, Charles V further emphasized the need to expel North African slaves from the Americas: “We are informed that there have passed and pass daily to these parts some North African slave men and women as well as free persons newly converted from Islam and their children, although it is prohibited by us. They should in no way pass because of the many inconveniences that have followed … [and] because in such a new land as this in which the faith is freshly planted it is expedient that all opportunity [to pass] should be removed so that there cannot be sown or made public in it the sect of Muhammad or any other … that undermines our holy Catholic faith.”²² By the mid-sixteenth century, shortly after the adoption of the purity of blood statutes, religious restrictions on emigration were increasingly enforced. Ordinances for the Casa de Contratación issued in 1552 specified that no new converts from Judaism or Islam could travel to the Americas without a royal license. Furthermore, anyone convicted by the Inquisition was also barred from emigrating.²³ These new regulations required prospective emigrants like the shoemaker Diego Herrador to provide documentation proving their limpieza de sangre or old Christian status in order to obtain a license.

      Subsequent royal decrees reveal that the clandestine movement of people continued. In 1559, a new cédula addressed to the bishops and archbishops in the Spanish American dioceses further emphasized the Crown’s need to restrict emigration to the Americas: “Because … the Devil is so solicitous to sow heresies in Christendom, some Lutherans and others who are of the caste of Muslims and Jews who want to live in observance of their law and ceremonies have come to these parts. It is expedient that where our Catholic faith is now newly planted there be great vigilance so that no heresy can be sown…. If any is found it should be extirpated, undone and punished with rigor.”²⁴ In this decree Philip II urged the bishops and archbishops to investigate whether any suspected Muslims, Jews, Protestants, or heretics had settled in their dioceses, and to mete out exemplary punishment to those they found. He also ordered the viceroys, governors, and judges of the audiencias to aid the bishops and archbishops in their search for heretics. Because this decree was issued before the establishment of the Holy Office’s tribunals in the Indies, the king ordered that any Muslims, Jews, or Protestants who were found be sent for trial to the Supreme Council of the Inquisition in Spain.²⁵

      In 1565, Philip II reissued to the judges of New Spain and the governor of Guatemala a 1511 decree of Queen Juana, that children and grandchildren of quemados and reconciliados could not hold offices in the Americas.²⁶ The 1511 cédula extended the restrictions on officeholding that were current in the Spanish kingdoms to the newly claimed territories in the Caribbean. Philip II did not refer to local specificities—he only reissued the cédula—but Juana’s decree stated that she was informed of new Christians on Hispaniola, and the Crown wanted to ensure that the laws restricting officeholding in the Spanish kingdoms also applied to them. During the early sixteenth century, some conversos and Moriscos had gained positions of authority in the Caribbean islands and in New Spain, as recorded in the earlier cases of the Morisco interpreters.²⁷ By the time of Philip II’s decree, conversos and Moriscos continued to represent competition for those without prestigious public offices, and officials moved forcefully to condemn their presence.