Almost two centuries after the final demise of the Spanish Inquisition, its effects may still be present. Fear of the Inquisition may have affected endogamy patterns and other cultural attitudes of Catholic families in Chiloe Island in Southern Chile. More generally, the same fear may have eventually influenced the development of Chilean national culture. The article looks at several groups of people with Spanish surnames, from different historical periods. In particular, it explores colonial family trees, partly formed by Chiloe encomenderos and Catholic namesakes of Inquisition victims. Incidences of possibly Jewish Spanish surnames, and the different “crimes” investigated by the Inquisition tribunal in Lima, are examined. A new, short list of those most exposed to harassment and intimidation by the Inquisition in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is put together. In its light, the article discusses the evolution of family trees, generation after generation.
Solomon Usque
,
1553, quoted by David Gitlitz, “Inquisition Confessions and Lazarillo de Tormes
,” Hispanic Review68 (2000):
53—74
(60).
2.
Pamela Constable
and
Arturo Valenzuela
, A Nation of Enemies: Chile under Pinochet (
New York
, 1993),141.
3.
Gabriel Guarda, Los Colmeneros de Andrade (Santiago, 1995); Gabriel Guarda, Los Encomenderos de Chiloe (Santiago, 2002).
4.
The terms “New Christian” and “converso” refer to those Spanish and Portuguese Jews forced to convert to Catholicism, from the late fourteenth century onwards, some of whom continued practicing Judaism in secret (the “crypto-Jews”), and to their Hispanic American descendants. See
Henry Kamen
,
The Spanish Inquisition
(
New York
, 1965);
Julio Caro Baroja
,
Los Judios en la Espana Moderna y Contemporanea
(
Madrid
, 1978);
Cecil Roth
,
Los Judios Secretos: Historia de los Marranos
(
Madrid
, 1979);
Rene Millar Carvacho
,
Inquisicion y Sociedad en el Virreinato Peruano
(
Santiago
, 1998);
Irene Silverblatt
,
Modern Inquisitions
(
Durham
, 2004). Other useful references are Juan Friede, “
The Catalogo de Pasajeros and Spanish Emigration to America to 1550
,” Hispanic American Historical Review31 (1951):
333—48
;
Eva Alexandra Uchmany
, “
The Periodization of the History of the New Christians and Crypto-Jews in Spanish America
,” in
New Horizons in Sephardic Studies
, ed. Yedida K. Stillman and George K. Zucker (
Albany
, 1993),
109—136
;
Teodoro Hampe-Martinez
, “
Recent Works on the Inquisition and Peruvian Colonial Society, 1570-1820
,” Latin American Research Review31 ( 1996):
43—65
.
5.
David E. Hojman
, “
The Political Economy of Chile's Fast Economic Growth: An Olsonian Interpretation
,” Public Choice111 (2002):
155—78
;
David E. Hojman
, “
Economic Development and the Evolution of National Culture: The Case of Chile
,” in
Developing Cultures: Case Studies
, ed. Lawrence Harrison and Peter Berger (
London
, 2006),
267—86
.
6.
Los Encomenderos.
7.
The encomienda consisted of the right to exploit Indian labor, see
Rodolfo Urbina Burgos
, “
La Rebelion Indigena de 1712: Los Tributarios de Chiloe contra la Encomienda
,” Tiempo y Espacio1 (1990):
73—86
, www.memoriachilena.cl;
Brian Loveman
,
Chile: The Legacy of Hispanic Capitalism
(
Oxford
, 2001). In theory, the Indians were free but had to pay taxes. The encomendero collected these taxes in the king's name and made sure that the Indians converted to and persevered in the Catholic faith. In return he or she was entitled to a share of the tax revenue. If they wished to do so, Indians could pay in labor services. Often this arrangement was extremely profitable for the encomendero.
8.
Although this article is sympathetic to some Chiloe encomendero families, it must be remembered that, regardless of how humane some individual encomenderos may have been, the system deprived the Indians of their freedom, income, traditional culture and religion, health, families, and sometimes lives (Urbina Burgos, “La Rebelion”). The Indian population in Chiloe encomiendas fell from 12,000 to 1,500 between the late-sixteenth and the late-eighteenth century (Guarda, Los Encomenderos, 12).
9.
For example, the word “consanguinidad,” marrying a relative so close that a special church dispensation was needed, is used eleven times in three pages by Guarda (Los Colmeneros, 82—4).
10.
In this particular context, “excess endogamy” may be defined as that amount of endogamy over and above either: (a) inevitable endogamy resulting from the fact that simply there is physically no one else to marry; or (b) any endogamy that may result from choosing partners randomly (whichever is the largest).
11.
Because samples are small and exhaustive census material is not available, standard demographic and statistical techniques to look at endogamy are ruled out. See
David J. Strauss
, “
Measuring Endogamy
,” Social Science Research6 (1977 ):
225—45
;
J.F. Crow
, “
The Estimation of Inbreeding from Isonymy
,” Human Biology52 (1980):
1—14
.
12.
Los Encomenderos, 499—504. The entorno social included, for example, the governor of Chiloe, who was often appointed among candidates from continental Chile or directly from Lima or Madrid, and the Corregidor (Lord Mayor and Police Chief) of Castro, typically a member of a local family.
13.
Encomendero families and their social milieu represented only a small minority of the total population. By 1590, the “white” mestizo population (children of Spanish fathers and Indian mothers) in continental Chile was already twice the size of the ethnically European population (Loveman, Chile, 76). By 1712, Indians in Chiloe Island amounted to half the total population, with the other half being Europeans and mestizos (Urbina Burgos, “La Rebelion”, 74). 14.
Antonio Gonzalez-Martin
,
Clara Garcia-Moro
,
Miguel Hernandez
and
Pedro Moral
, “
Inbreeding and Surnames: A Projection into Easter Island's Past
,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology129 (2006):
435—45
(
439—40
).
14.
Maximiano Trapero, Romancero General de Chiloe (
Frankfurt
, 1998);
Lorena Gonzalez
, “Tales, Myths and Legends from Chiloe,” (no date), www.chatham.edu.
15.
Baltasar Porcel
, Los Chuetas Mallorquines (
Barcelona
, 1977);
Eva Laub
and
Juan F. Laub
, El Mito Triunfante (
Palma
, 1987).
16.
Janet Liebman Jacobs
, “
The Spiritual Self-in-Relation: Empathy and the Construction of Spirituality among Modern Descendants of the Spanish Crypto-Jews
,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion39 (2000):
53—63
;
Seth D. Kunin
, “
Juggling Identities Among the Crypto-Jews of the American Southwest
,” Religion31 (2001):
41—61
.
17.
Pere Bonnin
, Sangre Judia (
Barcelona
, 2001), 353—74.
18.
Jose Toribio Medina
, Historia del Tribunal de la Inquisicion de Lima, 1569-1820 (
Santiago
, 1956).
19.
Although there were exceptions (see
Miriam Bodian
, “
`Men of the Nation': The Shaping of Converso Identity in Early Modern Europe
,” Past and Present143 (1994):
48—86
;
Irene Silverblatt
, “
New Christians and New World Fears in Seventeenth-Century Peru
,” Comparative Studies in Society and History42 (2000):
524—46
(537—8)),
the evidence presented in the rest of this article suggests that the most ordinary surnames were overwhelmingly chosen
.
20.
Seymour B. Liebman
, “
The Jews of Colonial Mexico
,” Hispanic American Historical Review43 (1963):
95—108
;
Hampe-Martinez
, “
Recent Works
”;
Rene Millar Carvacho
, “
El Archivo del Santo Oficio de Lima y la Documentacion Inquisitorial Existente en Chile
,” Revista de la Inquisicion6 (1997):
101—116
.
21.
Los Encomenderos, 499—500.
22.
Eduardo R. Saguier
, “
The Social Impact of a Middleman Minority in a Divided Host Society: The Case of the Portuguese in Early Seventeenth-Century Buenos Aires
,” Hispanic American Historical Review65 (1985):
467—91
(482—3). However, there are some interesting differences. The Saguier lists are from the early colonial period, whereas the ancestors of Jose Bloguez are taken from ten generations, going all the way to the twentieth century (about 350 years). The proportion of “Bonnin surnames” among the Bloguez ancestors is as large in the first half of this extended period of time, as in the second half. The Portuguese in Buenos Aires were merchants. In contrast, the first generations of Bloguez and Verdejo ancestors (in about the same period, early-seventeenth century) were conquistadores, soldiers, and encomenderos. Another key difference is that the Portuguese merchants in Buenos Aires were pushed inland every time there was a danger of enemy invasion (
Peter T. Bradley
, “
The Portuguese Peril in Peru
,” Bulletin of Spanish Studies79 ( 2002):
591—613
). In sharp contrast, in Chiloe the earlier members of the Bloguez and Verdejo family trees were relied upon as the first (or the only) line of defenders against enemy, usually Dutch, invasion.
23.
Diego Barros Arana
, Historia General de Chile, Volume III (
Santiago
, 2000).
24.
Marti Lamar
, “ Doing Business in the Age of Revolution,” in State and Society in Spanish America during the Age of Revolution, ed.
Victor M. Uribe-Uran
(
Wilmington
, 2001), 89—117 (91).
25.
Diccionario Biografico de Chile (Santiago, 1965).
26.
Saguier, “The Social Impact.”
27.
Stuart B. Schwartz
, “
The Voyage of the Vassals: Royal Power, Noble Obligations, and Merchant Capital before the Portuguese Restoration of Independence, 1624-1640
,” American Historical Review96 (1991):
735—62
(754).
28.
A. Rodriguez-Larralde
,
A. Gonzales-Martin
,
G. Scapoli
and
I. Barrai
, “
The Names of Spain: A Study of the Isonymy Structure of Spain
,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology121 (2003):
280—92
.
29.
Los Encomenderos.
30.
Los Encomenderos, 359, 404.
31.
Della M. Flusche
, Two Families in Colonial Chile (
Lewiston
, 1989).
32.
David Grant Smith
, “
Old Christian Merchants and the Foundation of the Brazil Company, 1649
,” Hispanic American Historical Review54 (1974):
233—59
.
33.
An additional difficulty to getting married in Chiloe was a serious scarcity of Spanish women (
Peter Boyd-Bowman
, “
Patterns of Spanish Emigration to the Indies until 1600
,” Hispanic American Historical Review56 (1976):
580—604
).
34.
Medina
, Historia del Tribunal de la Inquisicion, vol. 2, 427—42.
35.
Jose Toribio Medina
,
Historia del Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisicion en Chile
(
Santiago
, 1952), www.cervantesvirtual.com; Medina, Historia del Tribunal de la Inquisicion; Hampe-Martinez, “Recent Works”; Millar-Carvacho, Inquisicion; Stafford Poole,
“The Politics of Limpieza de Sangre: Juan de Ovando and His Circle in the Reign of Philip II
,” The Americas55 (1999):
359—89
:
Jerry M. Williams
, “
A New Text in the Case of Ana de Castro: Lima's Inquisition on Trial
,” Dieciocho24 (2001):
7—32
, www.congreso.gob.pe/museo/inquisicion/ana-de-castro.pdf .
36.
Silverblatt, “New Christians”; Bradley, “The Portuguese Peril.”
37.
See the sources previously mentioned in Notes 4, 16, 18, 19, 21, 36 and 37.
38.
Los Encomenderos, 404.
39.
Schwartz, “The Voyage.”
40.
It would be wrong to think of all the Portuguese in South America during this period as New Christians (Smith, “Old Christian Merchants”). This misleading identification may be the result of propaganda by seventeenth-century Lima merchants trying to get rid of the competition, and Inquisition officials.
41.
Los Encomenderos, 295.
42.
Moreover, the Lima Inquisition tribunal and its local representatives in Chile were often in conflict with the Santiago authorities (Medina, Historia del Tribunal del Santo Oficio).
43.
Respectively, Historia del Tribunal del Santo Oficio, Inquisicion, and Los Encomenderos.
44.
The new “1639 plus” list will be used to compile Table 3. However, the list is not published here, precisely in order to avoid creating a new weapon for harassment and intimidation in the twenty-first century.
45.
Los Encomenderos.
46.
Basque immigrants were extremely successful in Chile for about a century or more before and after Independence, and made substantial contributions to national life and institutions (Hojman, “The Political Economy”; Hojman, “Economic Development”). Maybe one of the reasons why they became so successful, in addition to their own formidable qualities, is that they may also have been more acceptable as marriage partners, precisely because they were not in the “1639 plus” list, and they were deemed less likely to have New Christian ancestors.
47.
Urbina Burgos, “La Rebelion.”
48.
Hojman, “The Political Economy.”
49.
Ronald Inglehart
,
Modernisation and Postmodernisation
(
Princeton
, 1997),
359
;
Carla Lehmann
, “
Cuan Religiosos Somos los Chilenos?
,” Estudios Publicos85 (2002):
21—40
(
39
);
Alan Angell
,
Elecciones Presidenciales, Democracia y Partidos Politicos en el Chile Post Pinochet
(
Santiago
, 2005),
172
.
50.
Transparency International
, Corruption Perceptions Index (2005), www.transparency.org.
51.
Hojman, “Economic Development.”
52.
Bradley
, “ The Portuguese Peril,” 606, 612.
53.
Robert McCaa
,
Stuart B. Schwartz
and
Arturo Grubessich
, “
Race and Class in Colonial Latin America: A Critique
,” Comparative Studies in Society and History21 ( 1979):
421—33
.
