Relacion del auto de fe … en la muy noble, y leal ciudad de Lima. Lima, 1733
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition was created in Spain in the fifteenth century, to police Jewish and Muslim converts to Catholicism who were suspected of returning secretly to their old faith, to censor books, and to punish a variety of other religious and moral offences. It is famous for its use of torture to extract confessions - common in other criminal proceedings of the era, as well - and for burning some of its victims at the stake in its autos de fe. In the Inquisition in Peru, capital punishment was rare, though not unknown. More typical was the auto described in this 1733 book dwelling on the theatrical glory with which the city’s potentates marched into the plaza for the ceremony, and the twelve convicts (of Spanish, African, and Indian descent) wearing special robes and conical hats, who publically confessed crimes such as bigamy and sorcery. They were punished not with death but with beatings, confiscation of property, and / or exile from the city of Lima, as well as the shame and dishonor of the auto de fe itself, which (in the eyes of society) was a cause of dishonor to their descendents as well as themselves.