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The Inquisition and the “Extirpation of Idolatry

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The Inquisition and the “Extirpation of Idolatry CHAPTER SEVEN THE INQUISITION AND THE “EXTIRPATION OF IDOLATRY”: DEFENDING THE IBERIAN COLONIZATION AND COMMERCE MONOPOLY AND THE CATHOLIC CONFESSIONAL MONOPOLY AGAINST THE PROTESTANT SEABORNE POWERS AND THE PERSISTENCE OF TRADITIONAL INDIGENOUS RELIGIONS From the very beginning, Spain and Portugal, aided by the tradition of royal church patronage, used church and mission to domesticate and sta- bilize colonial rule. They also made use of the Inquisition for this purpose, implementing it additionally for the fight against Protestant corsairs, con- trabandists, and other Protestant intruders. In the sixteenth century, they managed to prevent the Protestant sea powers from permanently appro- priating Iberian colonial territory, as in the futile French attempt – with Huguenot participation – to set foot permanently in Brazil and in Florida (Fort Caroline on the St. Johns River, destroyed in 1565). Guiana, where the Dutch succeeded in establishing themselves towards the end of the six- teenth century, remained the only exception. However, in the seventeenth century, the age of religious wars, England, the Netherlands, Denmark and France (where the Huguenots, in the wake of the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of 1572 and after the assassination of Henry IV in 1610 and long before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 no longer played a decisive role)1 finally succeed in gaining a foothold in the Caribbean region. 7.1. The Inquisition The Inquisition, created at the behest of the Catholic Monarchs and active from 1480 onward,2 must be understood as part of the process of church reform undertaken by the Reyes Católicos to improve the spiritual and theological level of the secular and regular clergy. The Inquisition’s goal 1 See Strasser-Bertrand, Die Evangelische Kirche (1975), 160 ff. 2 Sixtus IV authorized the establishment of the Inquisition in Castile in 1478 with the bull Exigit sincerae devotionis. In Aragón, the medieval Inquisition was brought to life again by King Ferdinand. 200 chapter seven was to foster the unity of the empire on the foundation of Christianity. However, Ferdinand and Isabella acted on false premises, neglecting to distinguish between the spiritual and the secular arm. In order to fight against the destabilizing effects of heresy, they fell back on the medieval tradition of letting the Inquisition have recourse to secular authorities. And they failed to see that “the only way which can lead minds to faith is the preaching that respects the freedom of consciences that are seeking truth.”3 Because of this, they adopted secular criteria for the punishment of heretics, perceiving them as disturbing the social order and endanger- ing public welfare. “Only this explains – but does not justify – why it was deemed permissible to impose the death penalty on those who professed to being heretics.”4 These are the reasons why the Inquisition perceived religion and politics as an indivisible unity in the Americas and why it hardly distinguished between religious and political heresy. “The Holy Office charged heretics with treason and it charged traitors with heresy.”5 From 1522 to 1535, the duties of the Inquisition in New Spain were per- formed by the religious orders. In a province like Yucatán, in which there was no bishop, the Franciscan provincial Diego de Landa would be active as an Inquisitor as late as 1562, winning notoriety for his auto-da-fé6 in Maní.7 The bishops were in charge of the Inquisition from 1535 to 1571.8 For instance, Juan de Zumárraga, the bishop of México, assumed the title of an 3 Alcaide, “La Inquisición” (1992), 300 f. 4 Hanke, History I (1967), section VII, where sources and interpretations relating to the Inquisition in the Americas could be found. 5 See Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisition (1971), 174, with regard to New Spain and, anal- ogously Montenegro, Evolução do catolicismo (1972), 20 ff., with regard to Brazil. Of course, this conforms with the Catholic Church of the Fifth Lateran Council (1512–17), in whose provisions concerning Inquisition and the crusade against heretics one encounters “in undisguised fashion the unforgiving rigor of a superannuated institution” which “responded to any criticism mit condemnation and excommunication, making it impossible for a tra- dition of legitimate resistance to emerge” (Adam, Dogmengeschichte II [1986], 171). 6 “Act of faith” in Portuguese, the execution of a verdict issued by the Inquisition or by a religious court, often staged as a show trial with an almost carnivalesque note. 7 The ethnologist Westpahl observes: “The true dimensions of the misery and destruc- tion brought about by the Autodafé of Maní” cannot be adequately inferred from Landa’s report (see Landa, Bericht): “In the year 1562, 157 Maya Indians died in Yucatán as a conse- quence of the torture which Landa and his henchmen inflicted upon them to make them confess. “According to a later tradition, some 5,000 images of Mayan deities and 27 picto- graphic manuscripts” were destroyed by the Inquisition in Yucatán, the major part them doubtlessly by Landa (Die Maya [1986], 254). See also Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests (1987). 8 The Episcopal Inquisition can be traced back to the Council of Verona of 1185; see Jiménez, Herejías (1946), XI..
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