THE MARTYRDOM OF THE CARABAJAL FAMILY IN MEXICO, 1590-1601
No Place [Portland, OR?]: No Publisher [The Jewish Tribune?], 1904? Item #43512
No Date (1904?). 1st Separate Edition. Original printed paper wrappers, Large 8vo, [8] pages.
"Revised reprint from the First Annual Special Number of the Jewish Tribune, Portalnd, Oregon, March 25, 1904."
The Carvajal [Caravajal, Carabjal] family were prominent 16th-century crypto-Jews in colonial Mexico. Led by the conquistador and governor Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva and his nephew Luis de Carvajal the Younger, the family was ultimately prosecuted, tortured, and executed by the Mexican Inquisition.
Luis de Carvajal the Elder (c. 1540–1590) was a Portuguese-born explorer and conquistador appointed governor of the vast frontier province of Nuevo Reino de León in northern Mexico. He brought numerous family members over from Iberia, many of whom secretly kept Jewish traditions despite outward conversion to Catholicism.
Luis de Carvajal the Younger (c. 1566–1596) was the governor’s nephew and a crypto-Jewish writer. He left behind memoirs, a spiritual autobiography (written under the name Joseph Lumbroso), and a book of psalms (Lex Adonai), which represent the earliest known Jewish writings in the Americas.
Denounced to the Holy Office of the Inquisition, the family was first arrested in 1589. Under intense interrogation and torture, family members implicated one another, leading to a public penance (auto-da-fé).
Arrested a second time for relapsing into secret Jewish practices, Luis the Younger, along with his mother (Francisca) and several sisters (including Isabel and Catalina), were condemned as heretics
On December 8, 1596, they were burned at the stake in a massive auto-da-fé in Mexico City.
Luis the Younger's surviving trial records and personal manuscripts vanished from the Mexican National Archives in 1932. After decades of being lost, the stolen documents surfaced in the United States and were officially repatriated to the National Archives of Mexico in 2017.
For more, see,
www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/crypto-jewish-diaries-mexico-city
SUBJECT(S): Jews -- Mexico -- Genealogy. OCLC: 10706617. OCLC Locates 8 copies worldwide (HUC, Princeton, Gratz, UPenn, JTS, Yale, Balch, Harvard), None south or west of Cincinnati. Rust stains at staples, light wear, Good+ Condition. Attractive Copy. (PBERL-1-3-XX).
Price: $150.00