{"id":572334,"date":"2026-01-20T10:52:52","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T13:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=572334"},"modified":"2026-01-20T10:52:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T13:52:52","slug":"spanish-inquisitions-second-visit-to-bahia-resulted-in-five-times-more-accusations-than-previously-known","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/spanish-inquisitions-second-visit-to-bahia-resulted-in-five-times-more-accusations-than-previously-known\/","title":{"rendered":"Spanish Inquisition’s second visit to Bahia resulted in five times more accusations than previously known"},"content":{"rendered":"

On February 19, 1619, a young Portuguese man named Ant\u00f4nio Raposo Tavares (1598\u20131659) stepped into the Jesuit College in Salvador, Bahia, to lodge a denunciation with the Inquisition. He accused New Christian Manoel Soares\u2014a Jew converted to Catholicism\u2014of fleeing Portugal to Brazil after aiding another convert, a woman, in escaping the Tribunal of the Holy Office. Years later, Raposo Tavares would migrate to southeastern Brazil and gain notoriety for enslaving Indigenous people to labor on sugar plantations, becoming one of the most prominent bandeirantes<\/em>\u2014frontier settlers who played a central role in expanding Portuguese colonial rule.<\/p>\n

This addendum to Tavares\u2019s biography came to light thanks to the discovery of long-lost documents from the Inquisition\u2019s second visitation to Brazil, unearthed by historians Angelo Adriano Faria de Assis and Ronaldo Vainfas, professors at the Federal University of Vi\u00e7osa (UFV) and Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ). Their findings were published in the book, Segunda visita\u00e7\u00e3o da Inquisi\u00e7\u00e3o \u00e0 Bahia <\/em>(Second visitation of the Inquisition to Bahia [1618\u20131620]), published by Cosac.<\/p>\n

In 2021, the pair traveled to Lisbon\u2019s National Archive of Torre do Tombo while preparing a new edition of the book Denuncia\u00e7\u00f5es da segunda visita\u00e7\u00e3o do Santo Of\u00edcio \u00e0 Bahia \u2013 S\u00e9culo XVII<\/em>, (Denunciations from the second visitation of the Holy Office to Bahia \u2013 Seventeenth century), originally compiled by historian Rodolpho Garcia (1873\u20131949). First published in 1927, Garcia\u2019s book documented 52 cases recorded by inquisitors during that second mission. Assis and Vainfas, however, uncovered an archival dossier containing 239 denunciations\u2014nearly quintuple the number previously known.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found the complete file, including names of both accusers and accused that had never surfaced before,\u201d Vainfas explains. The researchers determined that the 52 cases published in 1927\u2014and later expanded to 84 in the volume Denuncia\u00e7\u00f5es da Bahia: Den\u00fancias feitas ao Santo Of\u00edcio em Salvador em 1618<\/em> (Denunciations in Bahia: Reports to the Holy Office in Salvador in 1618), compiled by independent historian Ant\u00f4nio Fontoura and self-published in 2020\u2014were drawn from just two record books from that visitation. \u201cInquisitors typically sent records to Lisbon in batches, spread across multiple ships, since they feared shipwrecks and pirate attacks. That\u2019s why so many dossiers survive only in fragments,\u201d Vainfas explains.<\/p>\n

Beyond the complete file, the new book also features essays by Assis and Vainfas that describe the period, explain the procedures of the Inquisition, and analyze how the Holy Office shaped life in colonial Bahia. \u201cUp until now, the second visitation was regarded as a minor episode because of the limited number of cases,\u201d notes Assis. \u201cBut the testimonies uncover striking details\u2014marital intimacies, same-sex relationships, and the practice of syncretic religions that blended Catholicism with Indigenous mythologies and African deities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Death at the stake<\/strong>
\nThe Inquisition was founded in the thirteenth century by Pope Gregory IX to try and punish those who deviated from Catholic doctrine. It reached Portugal in 1536, where its main targets were New Christians suspected of secretly practicing Judaism. Inquisitors conducted interrogations that often involved physical torture, gathering denunciations, confessions, and witness statements. These could culminate in full trials and even capital sentences, most commonly execution by burning at the stake.<\/p>\n

Within the Portuguese Empire, permanent Holy Office tribunals were established in Lisbon, Coimbra, and \u00c9vora in Portugal, and in Goa, India\u2014then a Portuguese colony. In Brazil, by contrast, the Inquisition functioned through sporadic visitations and a network of local deputies over the course of its 285-year presence. Altogether, roughly 45,000 people across Portuguese territories were prosecuted.<\/p>\n

Many in Brazil applied to serve as Inquisition bailiffs, known as familiares<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to historian Al\u00e9cio Nunes Fernandes of the University of Bras\u00edlia (UnB), there were four inquisitorial visitations to Brazil. The first took place between 1591 and 1595 in Bahia, Pernambuco, Itamarac\u00e1, and Para\u00edba. The second, between 1618 and 1620, was followed by another mission in 1627\u20131628 to the southern captaincies, primarily S\u00e3o Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Little is known about that third visitation, however, since its records are thought to have been lost in a shipwreck. The fourth and final visitation occurred between 1763 and 1769 in the former state of Gr\u00e3o-Par\u00e1, in northern Brazil.<\/p>\n

The Inquisition relied on the Catholic Church\u2019s deep roots in Brazil, notes historian Aldair Rodrigues of the University of Campinas (UNICAMP). \u201cThe Church had a far greater presence across the territory than the Crown itself. When the monarchy needed to announce something\u2014say, a new tax edict\u2014it used parishes and dioceses to spread the word,\u201d he explains. \u201cThe Inquisition tapped into that ecclesiastical infrastructure to extend its reach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodrigues adds that the Inquisition found eager support within Brazil\u2019s colonial society. \u201cMany people applied to serve as Inquisition bailiffs, known as familiares<\/em>,\u201d he says. \u201cApplicants had to undergo a costly vetting process to prove their \u2018purity of blood\u2019\u2014that they were Old Christians [Catholics by birth] with no relatives previously condemned by the Inquisition. Once approved, they were sworn into the service of the Holy Office.\u201d<\/p>\n

For these familiares<\/em>, their alignment with the Inquisition brought prestige. \u201cThey enjoyed privileges such as immunity from local courts, along with special clothing and insignia,\u201d Rodrigues notes. \u201cThis obsession with blood purity and intolerance became embedded in the making of Brazil\u2019s elite, where power increasingly concentrated in the hands of white Old Christians.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2023, Rodrigues and historian Moacir Maia of UFV published the book Sacerdotisas voduns e rainhas do Ros\u00e1rio: Mulheres africanas e Inquisi\u00e7\u00e3o em Minas Gerais (s\u00e9culo XVIII)<\/em> (Vodum priestesses and Queens of the Rosary: African women and the Inquisition in Minas Gerais [eighteenth century]), with publisher Ch\u00e3o Editora. The book is a collection of documents the two uncovered in Lisbon\u2019s National Archive of Torre do Tombo and in local archives across Minas Gerais.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of these women came from Benin, part of the African region the Portuguese called Costa da Mina, and practiced the vodum religion. In Brazil, they gained prominence as merchants,\u201d Rodrigues explains. \u201cThey sought upward mobility and were often crowned Queens of the Rosary, in honor of the Virgin Mary. Yet even as they embraced that Catholic facet, they preserved their African rituals\u2014a duality that made them targets of the Inquisition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Universal History Archive \/ UIG \/ Fotoarena<\/span>Grand procession of the auto-da-fe of criminals sentenced by the Inquisition at Lisbon<\/em>, an 18th<\/sup> century engravingUniversal History Archive \/ UIG \/ Fotoarena<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Two documents highlighted in the book, dated 1760 and 1772, focus on \u00c2ngela Maria Gomes, a freedwoman who worked as a baker in what is now the city of Itabirito. She was denounced as \u201cthe greatest sorceress of the village\u201d because she practiced both vodum and Catholicism. The tribunal never formally prosecuted her, but people like her endured persecution, imprisonment, and the destruction of their shrines and ritual objects. \u201cThis shows why we cannot measure the impact of inquisitorial religious violence solely by the number of trials and sentences,\u201d the authors write.<\/p>\n

Another recent contribution on this subject is the book As feiticeiras do Imp\u00e9rio portugu\u00eas \u2013 G\u00eanero, rela\u00e7\u00f5es de poder e Inquisi\u00e7\u00e3o (1541\u20131595)<\/em> (The witches of the Portuguese Empire: Gender, power relations, and the Inquisition [1541\u20131595]), by historian Marcus Vin\u00edcius Reis. Just released by Paco Editorial, the book is based on his 2018 doctoral dissertation at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). Reis examines sixteenth-century trials of women accused of witchcraft. \u201cMost of these women weren\u2019t trying to break with the Catholic Church or with God,\u201d he explains. \u201cPracticing witchcraft was often a strategy for social and financial survival.\u201d Now a professor at the Federal University of Southern and Southeastern Par\u00e1 (UNIFESSPA), Reis notes that the women were frequently betrayed by their own clients.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorried they might be denounced by others, some clients preemptively denounced the witch. By confessing their own \u2018sins,\u2019 they hoped for lighter sentences\u2014or even absolution,\u201d he says. \u201cAt the same time, many of these women were targeted simply for living their sexuality openly: they refused to marry and had multiple partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Assis of UFV, such episodes reveal how the Inquisition frayed the fabric of community life in colonial Brazil. A case in point is the very first denunciation recorded during the second visitation to Bahia, on September 11, 1618, when Melchior de Bragan\u00e7a, a Jewish physician who had converted to Catholicism, denounced fellow New Christians. \u201cOld Christians and converted Jews coexisted peacefully until the Inquisition arrived and actively encouraged such denunciations,\u201d Vainfas concludes.<\/p>\n

In the second visitation, the most frequent accusations were the practice of Judaism (87 cases), followed by sodomy (30), heresy (21), dealings with the devil (18), and blasphemy (7). Even though the rediscovered dossier multiplied the known cases nearly fivefold, the total still fell short of the first visitation, carried out about 20 years earlier, which logged roughly 900 denunciations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile New Christians are often assumed to have been the main target of the Inquisition, that was not the case during the first visitation,\u201d notes Fernandes of UnB. Of the 240 trials that came out of those denunciations, only 17 dealt with Jewish practices. \u201cSo while Judaism topped the list of accusations, this wasn\u2019t reflected in prosecutions. If the goal was to persecute New Christians, in practice it was Old Christians who were tried in greater numbers,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

Fernandes explores this further in his book A defesa dos r\u00e9us \u2013 Processos judiciais e pr\u00e1ticas de justi\u00e7a da primeira visita\u00e7\u00e3o do Santo Of\u00edcio ao Brasil (1591-1595)<\/em> (The defense of the accused: Judicial proceedings in the first visitation of the Holy Office to Brazil [1591\u20131595]), published in 2022 by Fino Tra\u00e7o. Based on his 2020 doctoral dissertation at UnB, the study shows that the largest share of cases involved heretical propositions (68), followed by blasphemy (29), sodomy (24), and so-called \u201cgentile\u201d practices, such as pagan festivals and Indigenous and African rituals (18).<\/p>\n

About 28% of defendants, he finds, received only light penalties\u2014prayers, fines, or no conviction at all. Many were acquitted for lack of evidence, what the tribunal termed \u201cdefects of proof.\u201d One such \u201cdefect\u201d was proof of personal enmity between accuser and accused. \u201cConfession also weighed heavily: admitting to the charges could lead to acquittal or reduced sentences,\u201d Fernandes explains. \u201cBefore hearings began, inquisitors would declare a \u2018period of grace\u2019 during which people could voluntarily confess their sins.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second visitation, in contrast, produced only nine trials\u2014far fewer than the 240 of the first. Assis and Vainfas offer a potential explanation: the second visitation may not have been solely about punishing heresies or crypto-Judaism. Instead, it also seems to have sought intelligence on the ties between Brazil\u2019s New Christians and those who had resettled in the Netherlands, which had become a refuge for Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second visitation unfolded during the Iberian Union, when the Portuguese and Spanish crowns were joined under the Philippine dynasty. At the time, Spain was at war with the Netherlands, and there were suspicions that the Dutch were planning an invasion of Brazil,\u201d Assis explains. \u201cThose fears proved justified: the Dutch invaded Bahia in 1624 and Pernambuco in 1630. In that sense, the Inquisition\u2019s anxieties about Dutch designs on Brazil\u2019s sugar-rich Northeast were not unfounded.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story above was published with the title “Bahia of all sins<\/strong>” in issue 354 of August\/2025.<\/p>\n

Books<\/strong>
\nASSIS, A. A. F. de & VAINFAS, R. (ed.). Segunda visita\u00e7\u00e3o da Inquisi\u00e7\u00e3o \u00e0 Bahia (1618-1620): Den\u00fancias completas e in\u00e9ditas com ortografia atualizada<\/strong>. S\u00e3o Paulo: Cosac, 2025.
\nFERNANDES, A. N. A defesa dos r\u00e9us: Processos judiciais e pr\u00e1ticas de justi\u00e7a da Primeira Visita\u00e7\u00e3o do Santo Of\u00edcio ao Brasil (1591-1595)<\/strong>. Belo Horizonte: Fino Tra\u00e7o, 2022.
\nMAIA, M. & RODRIGUES, A. (ed.). Sacerdotisas voduns e rainhas do ros\u00e1rio: Mulheres africanas e Inquisi\u00e7\u00e3o em Minas Gerais (s\u00e9culo XVIII)<\/strong>. S\u00e3o Paulo: Ch\u00e3o Editora, 2023.
\nREIS, M. V. As feiticeiras do Imp\u00e9rio portugu\u00eas: G\u00eanero, rela\u00e7\u00f5es de poder e Inquisi\u00e7\u00e3o (1541-1595)<\/strong>. S\u00e3o Paulo: Paco Editorial, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recently found documents about the visit and others by the Tribunal of the Holy Office reveal details of life in the colony","protected":false},"author":784,"featured_media":572341,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[241],"coauthors":[5509],"class_list":["post-572334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanities","tag-history"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/784"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":572349,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572334\/revisions\/572349"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572334"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=572334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}