Page:The Story of Mexico.djvu/248

216 In 1571 the Inquisition was fully established, the period marked, by the way, with a formidable eruption of Popocatepetl, and the next year the Jesuits arrived.

The matter of the Inquisition had been under discussion for many years, a council, as early as the year 1529, having solemnly declared it to be "most necessary that the Holy Office of the Inquisition shall be extended to this land, because of the commerce with strangers here carried on, and because of the many corsairs abounding upon our coasts, which strangers may bring their evil customs among both natives and Castilians, who, by the grace of God, should be kept free from heresy."

The full fruit of the declaration ripened only in 1570, when Don Pedro Moya de Contreras was appointed Inquisitor-General, with head-quarters in the city of Mexico. The Indians were especially exempted from its jurisdiction, only heretics from other nations falling under the ban.

The Quemadero, a burning place in the city of Mexico, upon land since included in the Alameda, was a square platform in a large open space, where the spectacle could be witnessed by the population. The first auto-da-fé was celebrated in the year 1574, when, as its chronicler mentions cheerfully, "there perished twenty-one pestilent Lutherans."

From this time such ceremonies were of frequent occurrence, but the Inquisition never reached the point it did in Old Spain. Although large numbers undoubtedly perished in these, autos-da-fé, the